MB Budget Survey 2021
The City of MB is running a budget survey asking residents what their budget priorities are for the coming year. Please CLICK HERE to take it! Here's what our budget priorities are at MB For Justice: spending less on punishment and policing and spending more on community services that help everyone to thrive.
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To help, we're providing answers to a few of the most critical questions on the survey. You can use this as a guide, or you're welcome to copy and paste these answers.
Question 1
Rank police services at the bottom. These rankings will probably be presented to City Council as an average of all responses, so this is especially important.
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We ranked police community affairs last (as this is entirely a public relations stunt with no evidence at all that it accomplishes anything to prevent crime), followed by police patrol, police investigations, police traffic safety and parking enforcement, police technical support services, and code enforcement officers. We are not offering recommendations on how to rank other, non-policing services listed at this time.
Question 10
Call for grants, not loans that have to be repaid, and call for that money to come out of the bloated police department budget.
Question 11
This is the one chance for a written response, and our priorities (again) are reducing funding to harmful systems of punishment and redirecting it towards community support. Here’s what we wrote, which you can copy and paste:
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It's time to stop wasting money on policing—not only does it not address the root causes of violence, but also it actively harms our communities. Last year, City Council chose to increase the police department's budget by $150,000 while cutting funding to other departments, citing Covid-related deficits. City Council must not make the same mistake again this year. Instead, we need to:
1. Invest in community safety and programs that address the root causes of crime—invest in the things that make our communities stronger and safer, like schools, social services, etc.
2. Provide long-term shelter and support for unhoused neighbors.
3. Provide financial relief—NOT loans—to small businesses and individuals struggling because of Covid. This includes rent relief, grants programs, etc.
4. Invest in affordable housing. MB is one of the least affordable cities in LA County and is participant in LA County's skyrocketing unhoused population. MB must provide affordable housing and ensure that, especially at a moment that we're all being asked to shelter in place, everyone has a place to shelter.
5. Redirect money from policing to other departments instead of slashing needed and beloved community services due to budget shortfalls.
These suggestions are only a start—it's time to reimagine how we spend our money and what our priorities are. Divest from policing and invest in our South Bay community.
Filling out this survey is a crucial way to make your voice heard. Please CLICK HERE to take it!