COPS grant

San Leandro City Council To Vote Tonight to Spy on School Children

 San Leandro City Council To Vote Tonight to Spy on School Children  Police, Schools  No Responses »
Dec 152014
 

SAFE Asks City Council to Vote Against COPS Grant

Update: The City Council voted to accept the COPS grant.  All but one of the speakers spoke against having SROs in Schools.

prisonpipeline
Last week, Students And Families for Education (SAFE) helped defeat the proposal to spend $1.7 of the San Leandro School District’s education fund on police in schools. Tonight, the San Leandro City Council votes on accepting the COPS Grant.

In addition to requiring the city spend money on new police positions, the grant proposal lays out Police Chief Sandra Spagnoli‘s plan to use the grant money to start a program of identifying and monitoring children labeled as “at risk” by the SLPD, beginning in elementary school. SLPD also proposes to track children through social media and private messaging systems.

The money requirement of the COPS Grant will spend much of the Measure HH funds on a few police, without public transparency. This is not how the tax measure was sold to San Leandro citizens.

SAFE invites all concerned parents, students and community member to come out tonight to the City Council meeting at 7pm to express opposition to this surveillance plan and misuse of funds in San Leandro.

The following is the SLPD’s planned used for the COPS grant funds, as stated in page 10, item 14 of the COPS grant application (emphasis added):

The San Leandro Police Department is committed to improving its technology capabilities, both as it relates to monitoring and public communications. We feel strongly that it is essential to understand and use technology that our youth are reliant on in today’s expanding technological world. The four additional SRO officers would be tasked with working with the city’s technology experts to create an online system that can monitor youth from first signs of risk through the school system. As school administration and officers change, this would enable our SROs to know when to check-in with youth, engage them in positive opportunities and connect them to necessary preventive services. Our goal is to build relationships in elementary school years that last through graduation. It is essential for information to be readily available to SROs and to be able to save and monitor data/changes to enable the SRO time to interact with students and develop positive trust-based relationships. The additional SROs will the SLPD time to be actively involved in the community, identifying and discovering how to best work with and engage youth as well as the community and establishing a positive rapport. With funding, the SLPD also plans to increase its use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat) to monitor youth activities as well as communicate with students and our community. We plan to utilize posts on these sites to alert the public about available activities and warn them of threats.

San Leandro Candidates Position on COPS Grant

 San Leandro Candidates Position on COPS Grant  Police, Politics, Schools  No Responses »
Oct 302014
 

sroThe San Leandro Police Department applied for a $500,000 COPS grant to fund a total of four school resource officers (SRO’s). The SLPD, however, neglected to let the City Council and the School Board know that they would be on the hook for $1.69 million in matching funds. Any money spent on the SROs would have to be diverted from other uses. In the case of the school district, it might mean further cutting educational programs and not being able to restore counselors and nurses.

I contacted candidates for Mayor, City Council and School Board to ascertain how they would vote on this grant.

SCHOOL BOARD

At-Large Seat

Candidates Jeanne Kinkella and Peter Oshinski are both in favor of accepting the COPS grant and having the school district pay the whole $1.69 million.

Candidate Evelyn Gonzalez believes that the the City should continue to pay for the two current SROs, and that the District should not spend money on the officers.

Candidate Monique Tate did not respond to my request for her position on this issue.

Area 4 Seat

Candidate Leo Sheridan said he did not support the District paying the full $1.69 million but he did not specify how it should be split. He does support keeping just two SROs at the district.

Candidates Chike Udemezue and Latrina Dumas did not respond to my request for their positions on this issue.

 MAYOR

Diana Souza favors accepting the grant and splitting he $1.69 million costs between the City and the school district. She did not specify on what ratio. She is endorsed by the Police union.

Dan Dillman opposes the school district accepting the grant, but believes that if it does, it should pay the full amount.

Pauline Cutter supports maintaining the status quo, with the City funding two SROs.  If the School District wants more than two, Cutter believes the District should pay for the additional officers.

Gregg Daly opposes accepting the grant.

CITY COUNCIL

District 1

David Anderson favors accepting the grant and splitting the costs between the City Council and the School District.

Mike Katz-Lacabe opposes accepting the grant and notes that research has found SROs do not make schools safer

Deborah Cox and Ken Pon would not take a public stance on this issue. Cox is endorsed by the Police union.

District 3

Lee Thomas favors accepting the grant and splitting the costs between the City Council and the School District. He is endorsed by the Police union.

Allen Schoenfeld and Victor Aguilar favor maintaining the status quo, with the City continuing to pay for the two existing SROs.

District 5

Corina Lopez believes it’s the responsibility of the City, not the school district, to pay for law enforcement. She did not specify whether the City should continue paying for the two existing SROs or accept the grant and pay the whole $1.69 million to bring them up to four.

Mia Ousley opposes accepting the grant.

Leah Hall would not take a public stance on this issue.

 

San Leandro City Council Meeting Notes: Homelessness & COPS Grant

 San Leandro City Council Meeting Notes: Homelessness & COPS Grant  City Hall, Police, Schools  No Responses »
Oct 302014
 

NotesThe San Leandro City Council eliminated full minutes of Council meetings several years ago.  To make up for this, and keep San Leandrans informed of what the Council is up to, Mike Katz-Lacabe tweets from the meetings. I’ve started compiling his tweets on this blog.  You can follow Mike’s tweets at @slbytes. 

These are the meetings from the 10/20/14 meeting. The Council voted on whether to accept the COPS grant. This provides $500K to fund four school resource officers, but requires the San Leandro School district to pay $1.7 million in matching funds. The following day, the School Board tabled the vote on whether to accept the grant until November 18th. Mike Katz-Lacabe spoke both at the City Council and School Board meeting against accepting the grant.  

According to presentation at San Leandro City Council, San Leandro Hospital had positive revenue in June and July 2014.

Cleophus Quealy joins the San Leandro brewery cluster (soft opening Nov. 1)

Proposed updates to San Leandro’s Casa Peralta: $75k for interior and $225k for exterior – inc. broken tile repair at front wall/fountain
The proposal for the kitchen was along the lines of authentic for the era – not a modern restaurant-grade kitchen

San Leandro History Walk videos now available at http://www.sanleandro.org/about/hwv/default.asp Videos done by Arroyo High student Jordan Schultz.

Homeless

San Leandro’s Homeless Task Force has met 4 times so far. Liz Varela (Bldg Futures) & Rose Johnson (Davis Street) are co-chairs.

San Leandro Homeless Task Force recommends $62k to homeless services from $150k allocated to Building Futures, which got state funding.

Liz Varela of Building Futures estimates that there are 50 chronically homeless people in San Leandro.

COPS Grant

Item 10B on COPS grant for 4 additional school resource officers has been moved up the schedule for the San Leandro City Council meeting.

San Leandro’s COPS grant calls for experienced officer for the positions – this means non-entry-level officers.

Current school resource officers assigned to San Leandro Unified are Cathy Pickard and Tom Rogers.

The proposal is for four total officers – not six. As for why four? Haven’t heard the reasoning about that yet.

SLUSD Deputy Sup. Rosanna Mucetti note that paying for San Leandro police officers takes money away from classroom.

San Leandro Teachers Association President Jon Sherr says COPS grant subsidizes police department & could be spent in students.

San Leandro Board member Corina Lopez asks City Council to table vote on COPS grant until School Board considers the matter.

Parent of San Leandro kindergarten student doesn’t want funds vital to schools being spent on police officers.

Mayor Cassidy notes that the staff report on COPS grant isn’t quite accurate – but still results in zero net cost to San Leandro.

Mayor Cassidy recommends that City Council conditionally accept the COPS grant, but consider a more fair division of costs.

In response to City Council member Ursula Reed, San Leandro PD notes that previous grant for 5 officers expires Dec. 2014. City has to pay full cost for 4th year.

San Leandro City Council member Cutter expresses concern that school resource officers would be eliminated. SLPD Chief says yes, because of grant expiration.

San Leandro City Manager Zapata says there are currently 90 officers – grant would add 4. Says no officers cut when budgets previously cut.

San Leandro City Council member Prola will vote in favor of the resolution and let City Manager Zapata figure out the financial terms.

SLPD Chief says there are 90,000 calls annually. Says 40% of crime is related to juveniles.

San Leandro City Council member Souza says school district has received more money while City has not. Asks if school district has previously paid for police

San Leandro Mayor Cassidy making strong case for City paying most of cost of officers and suddenly ending city paying for school officers.