5j) Discussion and Possible Action Regarding the Operation, Staffing, and Fiscal Plan for Additional Ten (10) Deputies to the Sheriff's Operations to Address Organized Crime and Illegal Marijuana Grows in Mendocino County
(Sponsor: Sheriff-Coroner)
The image in this presentation is racist and deeply disturbing.
The “statistics” presented are misrepresented, they are raw data lacking context. “Coroner” and “mental health” are also labeled as categories of crime.
Citing covid and wildfires, which are state wide concern at minimum, is insufficient for justifying a county sheriff’s office increase in funding by the requested amount of $4million. Why should the county fund the sherif as middlemen, rather than directly providing $4mil to fire and covid impacted residents?
Thank you for reading my comment. Under Prop. 64, there is a grants program that provides localities with amounts up to $1M to address public safety around cannabis. Last year, Trinity and Humboldt both received grant money. Mendocino did not apply. The cycle is open again and grant applications are due at the end of January. Here is a link to the announcement https://www.bscc.ca.gov/proposition-64-public-health-safety-grant-program/. It seems to me that rather than ask the county to fund enforcement 100%, the MCSO could and should apply for these funds as not to overburden the county. Thank you.
1) I would like to know who made the Presentation submitted by MSCO and why it was okay to submit a presentation with no citing information to provide proof to the facts, statements and statistics provided in said presentation?
2) Did the BOS find this presentation and it’s lack of context, facts and proof as an acceptable submission for why MSCO deserves 4 million dollars added to their budget?
I oppose this proposal 5j for which the MSCO asks for 4 million dollars to add 10 deputies. My reasoning is solely based on the lazy and at this point demeaning effort put into MSCO’s presentation. Not only did said presentation lack any actual citing information and proof towards their claims but it also had no explanation or descriptions of the graphs and statistics provided. Not forgetting to mention the pictures of a Person of color hogtied on the ground without any explanation other than “Imminent Threat- Appropriate Response”. I am very disappointed that our Sheriffs office found this presentation appropriate and suitable to share with the BOS, perhaps we need to go over the BOS standard for presentations?
Dennis Slota regarding Sheriff's proposal for 10 additional deputies.
I concur with many others that the Sheriff's Office presentation is poorly done, unprofessional and should not include the image of a hog-tied black man. Moreover, the data are weak in supporting the request.
However, it's clear that we have a non-functional Cannabis Code-Enforcement Department, primarily due to lack of staffing. It's also clear that our neighbor complaint-based enforcement system is non-functional due to neighbor fear of retaliation or no close neighbors to complain.
I support the request if these new deputies are directly assigned to work with the Cannabis Code Enforcement Department, are part of a change to an Active Enforcement policy, and work solely on illegal Cannabis grows by cartels and locals.
Thank you for your consideration of these comments.
MCSO has consistently promoted a warped vision of freedom on social media that encourages people to resist laws and regulations they don't like. Their statements have encouraged mask resistance and have made the pandemic worse in our county. And in their current proposal, their choice of supporting image was a deliberate aligning of the department with the maintenance of white supremacy and systemic racism. No new deputies should be hired without racial sensitivity training(not in the proposal). In addition any new staffing should be conditioned on an additional layer of community oversight, with teeth. Finally,the MCSO proposal is not detailed enough to justify the additional cost in what will be a tough budgetary stretch.
My name is Miquette Thompson and I am a District 5 resident. I strongly oppose approving this funding. There has not been sufficient transparency around spending and management of Public Protection funds generally to warrant an increase of this amount and for this purpose, especially during a pandemic when critical community needs remain unmet and unfunded.
Many scientific sociological studies have shown that safer communities are communities that reinvest in social services, and specifically NOT law enforcement. I implore the county to look at any budget opportunities as opportunities to invest in resources for residents, not MCSO. Also, I suggest sensitivity training for MCSO as the deflection of the department’s response to the use of the photo of vigilantism that has caused predictable public outcry also shows lack of awareness on their behalf. LEOs should understand the origin of their positions and how to NOT perpetuate racism and oppression through their positions in law enforcement. Hence, why I suggest sensitivity training and education. Thank you for your time.
I have been a resident of Round Valley for over 47 years, and in previous meetings, I have requested that you not extend permits for growing Cannabis on rangeland in Mendocino County as there has been so much difficulty with environmental protection and human safety around oversight of illegal grows in our area. However, as you can see from the Sheriff Kendall’s request for additional deputies, he appears to want more staff to provide for the safely and well being of the citizens of our county..
I do have, however, a specific request for you. I believe we need at least one deputy sheriff stationed here in Covelo who would be able to practice community based policing which encourages and supports community based justice. The response time for all emergencies, assaults, robberies or altercations here is too long!. With a sheriff in residence, as we have had in the past, the community members come to know, trust, and understand the way the sheriff’s deputies are part of the whole community. He or she
can then support our youth, our elders and our families when troubling situations arise and where and when healthy programs bring us together.
I believe that Sheriff Kendall has great respect for and attachment to this community and understands our strengths and also our challenges. I think a first priority is providing assistance in this northern part of the county and I request that you specifically provide for a deputy sheriff to be sited here. That is a direct appeal to you today; that any action you take includes the siting of one or two deputy sheriffs in our community.
There has, further, been no resolution of the terrible disappearance of Khadijah Biritton, a young Covelo Native woman who was taken at gun point and has never been seen again. Perhaps having a deputy here would help solve this case and bring much needed closure and justice to the family, to friends, and to the community in general.
I am also deeply disturbed that one of the two slides which accompanied the Sheriff’s proposal included the image of a black man lying on the ground, his hands tied behind his back. Including that photograph with the request for more deputies, is bewildering and dismaying to the public. There are so few black men in our county and this image of a black victim of violence suggests racist fear mongering. I am dismayed that this kind of photograph was attached to any request for more police personnel, no matter what the reason. Using an image of a black man hog tied on the ground is incendiary and unnecessary. I urge whomever chose ti to apologize for its publication. Racism must be called out wherever it is manifested.
Thank you for reading and considering my comments.
I submitted a comment earlier; however, it does not appear below, so I submitting a second comment.
I am strongly opposed to adding 10 additional deputies to the Sheriff's operations. I believe that Mendocino County would benefit more by the addition of mental health professionals and social workers who are trained in crisis de-escalation. More funding is needed in many prevention programs and social service related areas. Support for these services could reduce the crimes related to them.
I must say that I am appalled at the use of the photo of the hog-tied black man. It is inexcusable and only serves to inflame anti-Black, racist fears in some white people and horror in many people of all races. It is inappropriate and no explanation will help. Our Sheriff’s department must do better.
We strongly oppose approving this funding for the Sheriff’s Office.
The Sheriff’s Office has not adequately demonstrated the need for additional staffing, nor that additional staffing will decrease crime. The Sheriff’s Office did not respond to the Supervisors’ request from the October 6 meeting that asked them to provide a historical review of staffing trends and overview of current staffing allocations. The Board of Supervisors requested a detailed report and the Sheriff’s Office completely failed to do what was requested of them and instead provided a powerpoint presentation that was tailored towards an emotional response about crime. There is not adequate staffing data provided by the Sheriff’s Office to justify any increase in budget to that department.
To the Sheriff’s Office, please explain the photo (the Black man in zip-ties on the ground) at the end of your presentation. How does that photo add anything to this discussion? The photo was extremely insensitive, racist, incredibly unprofessional, and is inexcusable by anyone let alone someone who serves at the highest position of law enforcement in the county.
There has not been a ‘dramatic’ increase in crime as the Sheriff states. Per the Sheriff Office’s own statistics, the crime rates have been relatively stable over the past years.
This County cannot afford such a substantial increase in budget. Covid is going to significantly hit the tax revenue for the county in the coming fiscal year. This county already has issues funding basic things as infrastructure improvements, social services, etc. The roads are notoriously bad and are far below average in pavement condition index. Furthermore, The sheriff leaves the funding source as TBD. If the County can afford spending this much money on 10 more sheriff officers, I would much rather have those funds be spent on investing in the community. Those dollars could go so much further if spent elsewhere and have a far greater benefit. The $4 million dollars should be spent on hiring social workers, paving roads, mitigating homelessness, fighting climate change,.. the list is endless.
The Sheriff/Coroner expenditures for 20/21 is approximately $36.7 million. The total county budget for 2021 as adopted was $335.1 million. This means that the Sheriff/Coroner Office takes up approximately 11% of the entire budget. Eleven cents out of every dollar spent goes to the Sheriff. That is a substantial chunk of taxpayer dollars and now they are requesting additional funding. For comparison, the county adopted 10 million for public works for road maintenance/admin work (~3% of the budget), and 10.5 million for public health in the midst of a pandemic (~3%).
Dear Board of Supervisors,
This request for funds from the Sheriff's Department is wholly inadequate, it is unprofessionally calculated and is an insult to your intelligence and that of the public. A category of "Major Crime"on slide 5 cannot be "Coroner" or "Mental Health," this presentation is vague and does not warrant a dime of our money from you on Tuesday or later. The presentation states the new officers are needed to address crimes in the illegal marijuana industry, so why is that not a category of crime they are showing statistics for? The two top forms of crime on their own slideshow, domestic violence and child abuse, are real problems in our community and the evidence is clear around the nation that preventing these and addressing these is better done by agencies that are not law enforcement. You should direct the $4 million dollars requested by the Sheriff's office to social service agencies to deal with these two top tragedies in our county, not allocate the funds to the Sheriff.
The final slide of this presentation is a tragedy. It is the most base, disgusting, subconscious appeal to the fear inside white people in this country. It is the only slide with pictures in this presentation and clearly shows that our Sheriff's Department is linking crime and the phrase "appropriate response" to hog-tying a Black man. The Sheriff has stated that the slide can be misinterpreted and needs his explanation, but there is no justification for this racist presentation slide. The fact that no one in the Department thought twice or questioned including this deplorable choice of photos and that it made it into an official presentation to our Board of Supervisors shows that the Sheriff's Department has no consciousness about racism. It seems obvious they could have chosen a photo of a large, illegal marijuana grow for this presentation. The use of this racist image instead is reason alone to start an investigation into the racist ideas that exist in our Sheriff's Department, either conscious or unconscious, and you should pass a resolution immediately mandating the department use some of their already-allocated budget to hire trainers to support their current deputies and office staff, not new deputies, in understanding racial bias and the harm it causes our community.
Would the elected officials in a major city accept this presentation and request for funds? Without any longitudinal data on the type of crime the Sheriff states is the purpose for 10 new deputies? No. The people of Mendocino County deserve the same as people in all places, accurate data and detailed plans that are culturally sensitive and effective. And the fact that this is the presentation delivered for said funds proves that the Sheriff's Department does not need the deputies, or they would have had a compelling presentation with relevant data. Therefore, once they revise their slideshow to reflect all the knowledge shared in these public comments against their proposal, you must still vote No, do not approve the requested funds because they clearly do not need them, and in fact you must investigate how they are spending their current funds and mandate them to spend some becoming culturally competent and rooting out racism from the department.
Thank you,
Andy Wellspring
I strongly oppose the additional hire of 10 deputies by the sheriff's department. In addition, in a county where less than 2% of the population is Black, the depiction of a black man being detained as the final photo is racist and out of touch. What our county needs is more social services, more mental health support, not more money poured into the sheriff's department. All across the country, people are saying very clearly that it is time to reimagine how we handle conflict within our communities, and more deputies and more money in the sheriff's department just isn't it.
I am writing today to urge you not to approve the Mendocino County Sheriff Office proposal for an increase in funding of 4 million dollars over the next 3 years in order to hire 10 additional deputies. Based on the presentation given by Sheriff Matt Kendall to the BoS, there is not justification for this amount of money, nor its ask of additional deputies. According to the Crime Calls for Service graph, both received calls and dispatched deputies is lower than it has been in previous years. If there was an increase in crime, as the Sheriff claims there has been, why is this not reflected in this data of an increase in calls and dispatches?
The Sheriff has included a graph that is labeled, “Major Crime per Year” with 13 subcategories. In addition to some of these subcategories not being accurately labeled as crimes, including, “Coroner” and “Mental Health” (the inclusion of which adds to the stigma against neurodiverse and mentally ill people), there is no mention of organized crime or illegal marijuana grows. Increase in organized crime and illegal marijuana grows are the sole reason listed by Sheriff Kendall in the opening slide as the reason for this funding increase. Where is the data that supports this request? Instead, what is shown in the graph is that domestic violence and child abuse are historically and currently the number one “crime” per year, and that sexual assaults in Mendocino County are on the rise, where non-sexual assault is dropping. Numerous studies have shown that an increase in police officers does not reduce incidences of domestic violence and child abuse, nor sexual assault. What does? Housing and food security, employment opportunities, access to medical and reproductive health care and preventative programming for youth. If the County wants to reduce the crime that is making up the bulk of its incidences per year, then it needs to invest in the community, and the people, not in paying for ten additional deputies. This four million dollars could be reinvested in so many ways, but especially into youth and into providing education, recreation, skill-building, employment opportunities at a living wage to keep bright people here, and prevention in the form of healthy relationship education for the next generation. There are so many intelligent, eager, innovative and committed people working in social service agencies throughout the county that can organize and rally around this issue, with the support of our County’s funding resources. I urge you to envision a future that solves the problem of crime by addressing it at its root, and to put funding toward this endeavor. Ideally, the Sheriff would also understand that preventing crime is our truest goal as a community, and the aim to make this County safer for everyone.
I cannot comment on this proposal without also addressing the final slide, which pictures a hog-tied Black man, lying on the ground in the dirt, with his face censored. This is juxtaposed next to a blurry image of a person walking through the woods with an assault rifle and the caption, “Imminent Threat - Appropriate Response.” As a member of the community, I am aware of the origin of this photo and the controversy surrounding both the photo and the situation where it evolved. I have read Sheriff Kendall’s explanation of the inclusion of this slide, and I reject it. The year is 2021. We have just lived through a national uprising against extrajudicial violence and murder of Black people by law enforcement and white vigilantes. There is no excuse for the use of this slide, which both stokes age-old anti-Black, racist fears in white people, and encourages this action as an “appropriate response.” The inclusion of this slide is not a mistake, it is not an accident, and it is not in order “to have honest straight forward conversations regarding crime and the affects on our communities,'' as stated by the Sheriff. Its inclusion is evidence and example of anti-Blackness, systemic racism, and unconscious bias in law enforcement, in this case specifically, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. Please do not allow this image, and what the inclusion of this particular image in this presentation indicates, to be justified to you. This image speaks loudly of the need for anti-racism training for the MCSO, and increased community oversight. We cannot stand for the racism that allowed this image to be used with this caption in a presentation for the public. It demeans us, as a community, and it asks serious questions about the institution that approved this presentation.
For these reasons, I ask that you reject the Sheriff’s proposal, and negate any vote on this issue until the horrendous COVID-19 outbreak at the jail is addressed and mitigated.
Thank you,
Vicki Wellspring
Fort Bragg
I strongly oppose the sheriffs request for 10 more officers. That is the absolute last thing this county needs. What the money needs to be put towards is prevention programs. Affordable housing, rehabs, after school programs and other social support programs are what is needed. These will prevent the issues that happen because of..these issues which then end up in law enforcement getting involved.
These types of things are incredibly underfunded compared to law enforcement in this county. Their jobs will be easier if that money is put towards the actual issues instead of a not so great “band aid” that is more law enforcement.
Along with all that, the sheriffs choice to use an image of a hogtied Black man as an excuse to ask for more officers is incredibly out of touch and honestly? Racist. Their office should know better in this climate. Doesn’t matter if he was a robber. Shows a severe lack of understanding on their part.
I strongly oppose the Sheriff's request to hire 10 additional deputies. I propose that any re-allocated or additional funds to address the issues mentioned by the sheriff go to service providers outside of the criminal justice system, like mental health and social service providers trained in de-escalation. I also propose there is money and time devoted to understanding how the department allowed such a large COVID-19 outbreak to happen.
Like many of the others providing comment, I am actually quite shocked that the Sheriff's Dept would be making this type of request in this manner in the current political climate.
First, the data as presented just doesn't adequately support the position that the Sheriff's Dept requires such an expansion. Second, the racist imagery on the last slide is clearly not in keeping with the standards of a fair and equitable law enforcement department. In short, a 7 slide presentation would not be sufficient for any other organization to request $4 million from the County, especially where one of the slides appears to be a racist fear tactic. As we are learning in this moment of history, we must begin to hold our law enforcement to the same standard that the rest of us are held to.
More specifically, from the limited glimpse into their operations that we receive, we see that across most of the classifications, crime has been holding steady or decreasing. As others have mentioned in these public comments, it would seem that with appropriate funding to mental health and other social services those types of crimes could be dealt with by someone other than law enforcement, freeing up resources to tackle the organized crime situation. In light of these other options, key pieces of data relevant to an informed decision are left out, such as:
- What strategy is the sheriff's department using to address the organized crime issues, and what evidence suggests that this strategy is the best solution?
- How many officers are currently employed by the Sheriff, in what capacity, and how does this compare with other similar organizations?
- What constitutes crimes that fall under the Coroner Cases category and what amount is specifically attributable to organized crime and illegal marijuana growing?
- Has the Sheriff's office considered reallocation of personnel since overall crime appears to be decreasing?
- What kind of transparency measures are in place to allow the public to understand how the office's services are rendered and how we would recognize if they are successful?
I encourage the Board of Supervisors to deny this request, and to instead ask the following question to the Sheriff: Are the difficulties in the department really due to a lack of resources, or a lack of strategic thinking about resource allocation?
I strongly oppose adding 10 additional deputies to the sheriff's operations based on the 2020 sheriff’s crime report for 2 reasons.
1) The presentation opens with a claim that more deputies are needed because there is more organized crime and more illegal marijuana grows, but the data included does not show an increase in these crime categories, nor a great increase in crime overall.
◦ Of the 13 categories shown on slide 5, only 4 out of 13 increased compared to 2019. The only significant increase was for the “coroner” category, and no further details are provided on what type of crimes these were, so the public is unable to judge if more funding to the police would help prevent them, or if funding to social services would be more appropriate. Further details are needed before the funds to hire additional officers can be justified.
◦ The data on marijuana grows (slide 6) is only provided for 2020, so there is no way to tell if this is an increase over previous years. To justify further funding for law enforcement in this area, an increase needs to be demonstrated. In addition, the data on SWAT activities for the last 12 months (slide 8) show only 6 marijuana related activities out of the 17 total.
2) The image on the final slides call into question the integrity of the current police department to operate in a manner that treats all citizens equally. At the very least, it demonstrates a lack of empathy and understanding for the community the department is supposed to serve and protect. This suggests that further training of the current officers is needed to ensure that they can provide equal protection under the law before additional hiring can take place in this department.
I strongly oppose the Sheriff's request to hire 10 additional deputies. Now more than ever we need to be prioritizing restorative justice initiatives rather than punitive, and giving more funding/resources/staffing to mental health and social services. We should be focused on preventing crime rather than responding to crime, and to matters more pressing such as the COVID outbreak at the jail-- to which the Sheriff failed to take appropriate action on (despite many community members urging in advance-- before there was an issue) and has failed to be transparent with specific actions being taken to reduce cases/risk of spread. We need to keep our communities safe and healthy, especially now, and I don't think funneling more resources towards the Sheriff is an appropriate or strategic use of resources to accomplish this.
I am strongly against increasing the sheriff's budget. We need funding for mental health services, housing, child services not more police.
The Sheriff choice of imagery in the report was racist and shows a serious lack of racial understanding.
The image in this presentation is racist and deeply disturbing.
The “statistics” presented are misrepresented, they are raw data lacking context. “Coroner” and “mental health” are also labeled as categories of crime.
Citing covid and wildfires, which are state wide concern at minimum, is insufficient for justifying a county sheriff’s office increase in funding by the requested amount of $4million. Why should the county fund the sherif as middlemen, rather than directly providing $4mil to fire and covid impacted residents?
Thank you for reading my comment. Under Prop. 64, there is a grants program that provides localities with amounts up to $1M to address public safety around cannabis. Last year, Trinity and Humboldt both received grant money. Mendocino did not apply. The cycle is open again and grant applications are due at the end of January. Here is a link to the announcement https://www.bscc.ca.gov/proposition-64-public-health-safety-grant-program/. It seems to me that rather than ask the county to fund enforcement 100%, the MCSO could and should apply for these funds as not to overburden the county. Thank you.
I have 2 questions for the BOS:
1) I would like to know who made the Presentation submitted by MSCO and why it was okay to submit a presentation with no citing information to provide proof to the facts, statements and statistics provided in said presentation?
2) Did the BOS find this presentation and it’s lack of context, facts and proof as an acceptable submission for why MSCO deserves 4 million dollars added to their budget?
I oppose this proposal 5j for which the MSCO asks for 4 million dollars to add 10 deputies. My reasoning is solely based on the lazy and at this point demeaning effort put into MSCO’s presentation. Not only did said presentation lack any actual citing information and proof towards their claims but it also had no explanation or descriptions of the graphs and statistics provided. Not forgetting to mention the pictures of a Person of color hogtied on the ground without any explanation other than “Imminent Threat- Appropriate Response”. I am very disappointed that our Sheriffs office found this presentation appropriate and suitable to share with the BOS, perhaps we need to go over the BOS standard for presentations?
Dennis Slota regarding Sheriff's proposal for 10 additional deputies.
I concur with many others that the Sheriff's Office presentation is poorly done, unprofessional and should not include the image of a hog-tied black man. Moreover, the data are weak in supporting the request.
However, it's clear that we have a non-functional Cannabis Code-Enforcement Department, primarily due to lack of staffing. It's also clear that our neighbor complaint-based enforcement system is non-functional due to neighbor fear of retaliation or no close neighbors to complain.
I support the request if these new deputies are directly assigned to work with the Cannabis Code Enforcement Department, are part of a change to an Active Enforcement policy, and work solely on illegal Cannabis grows by cartels and locals.
Thank you for your consideration of these comments.
MCSO has consistently promoted a warped vision of freedom on social media that encourages people to resist laws and regulations they don't like. Their statements have encouraged mask resistance and have made the pandemic worse in our county. And in their current proposal, their choice of supporting image was a deliberate aligning of the department with the maintenance of white supremacy and systemic racism. No new deputies should be hired without racial sensitivity training(not in the proposal). In addition any new staffing should be conditioned on an additional layer of community oversight, with teeth. Finally,the MCSO proposal is not detailed enough to justify the additional cost in what will be a tough budgetary stretch.
My name is Miquette Thompson and I am a District 5 resident. I strongly oppose approving this funding. There has not been sufficient transparency around spending and management of Public Protection funds generally to warrant an increase of this amount and for this purpose, especially during a pandemic when critical community needs remain unmet and unfunded.
My name is Stef Welch
Many scientific sociological studies have shown that safer communities are communities that reinvest in social services, and specifically NOT law enforcement. I implore the county to look at any budget opportunities as opportunities to invest in resources for residents, not MCSO. Also, I suggest sensitivity training for MCSO as the deflection of the department’s response to the use of the photo of vigilantism that has caused predictable public outcry also shows lack of awareness on their behalf. LEOs should understand the origin of their positions and how to NOT perpetuate racism and oppression through their positions in law enforcement. Hence, why I suggest sensitivity training and education. Thank you for your time.
Dear Board of Supervisors,
I have been a resident of Round Valley for over 47 years, and in previous meetings, I have requested that you not extend permits for growing Cannabis on rangeland in Mendocino County as there has been so much difficulty with environmental protection and human safety around oversight of illegal grows in our area. However, as you can see from the Sheriff Kendall’s request for additional deputies, he appears to want more staff to provide for the safely and well being of the citizens of our county..
I do have, however, a specific request for you. I believe we need at least one deputy sheriff stationed here in Covelo who would be able to practice community based policing which encourages and supports community based justice. The response time for all emergencies, assaults, robberies or altercations here is too long!. With a sheriff in residence, as we have had in the past, the community members come to know, trust, and understand the way the sheriff’s deputies are part of the whole community. He or she
can then support our youth, our elders and our families when troubling situations arise and where and when healthy programs bring us together.
I believe that Sheriff Kendall has great respect for and attachment to this community and understands our strengths and also our challenges. I think a first priority is providing assistance in this northern part of the county and I request that you specifically provide for a deputy sheriff to be sited here. That is a direct appeal to you today; that any action you take includes the siting of one or two deputy sheriffs in our community.
There has, further, been no resolution of the terrible disappearance of Khadijah Biritton, a young Covelo Native woman who was taken at gun point and has never been seen again. Perhaps having a deputy here would help solve this case and bring much needed closure and justice to the family, to friends, and to the community in general.
I am also deeply disturbed that one of the two slides which accompanied the Sheriff’s proposal included the image of a black man lying on the ground, his hands tied behind his back. Including that photograph with the request for more deputies, is bewildering and dismaying to the public. There are so few black men in our county and this image of a black victim of violence suggests racist fear mongering. I am dismayed that this kind of photograph was attached to any request for more police personnel, no matter what the reason. Using an image of a black man hog tied on the ground is incendiary and unnecessary. I urge whomever chose ti to apologize for its publication. Racism must be called out wherever it is manifested.
Thank you for reading and considering my comments.
Respectfully,
Paula Fugman
71500 Hill Road
Covelo Ca 95428
I submitted a comment earlier; however, it does not appear below, so I submitting a second comment.
I am strongly opposed to adding 10 additional deputies to the Sheriff's operations. I believe that Mendocino County would benefit more by the addition of mental health professionals and social workers who are trained in crisis de-escalation. More funding is needed in many prevention programs and social service related areas. Support for these services could reduce the crimes related to them.
I must say that I am appalled at the use of the photo of the hog-tied black man. It is inexcusable and only serves to inflame anti-Black, racist fears in some white people and horror in many people of all races. It is inappropriate and no explanation will help. Our Sheriff’s department must do better.
We strongly oppose approving this funding for the Sheriff’s Office.
The Sheriff’s Office has not adequately demonstrated the need for additional staffing, nor that additional staffing will decrease crime. The Sheriff’s Office did not respond to the Supervisors’ request from the October 6 meeting that asked them to provide a historical review of staffing trends and overview of current staffing allocations. The Board of Supervisors requested a detailed report and the Sheriff’s Office completely failed to do what was requested of them and instead provided a powerpoint presentation that was tailored towards an emotional response about crime. There is not adequate staffing data provided by the Sheriff’s Office to justify any increase in budget to that department.
To the Sheriff’s Office, please explain the photo (the Black man in zip-ties on the ground) at the end of your presentation. How does that photo add anything to this discussion? The photo was extremely insensitive, racist, incredibly unprofessional, and is inexcusable by anyone let alone someone who serves at the highest position of law enforcement in the county.
There has not been a ‘dramatic’ increase in crime as the Sheriff states. Per the Sheriff Office’s own statistics, the crime rates have been relatively stable over the past years.
This County cannot afford such a substantial increase in budget. Covid is going to significantly hit the tax revenue for the county in the coming fiscal year. This county already has issues funding basic things as infrastructure improvements, social services, etc. The roads are notoriously bad and are far below average in pavement condition index. Furthermore, The sheriff leaves the funding source as TBD. If the County can afford spending this much money on 10 more sheriff officers, I would much rather have those funds be spent on investing in the community. Those dollars could go so much further if spent elsewhere and have a far greater benefit. The $4 million dollars should be spent on hiring social workers, paving roads, mitigating homelessness, fighting climate change,.. the list is endless.
The Sheriff/Coroner expenditures for 20/21 is approximately $36.7 million. The total county budget for 2021 as adopted was $335.1 million. This means that the Sheriff/Coroner Office takes up approximately 11% of the entire budget. Eleven cents out of every dollar spent goes to the Sheriff. That is a substantial chunk of taxpayer dollars and now they are requesting additional funding. For comparison, the county adopted 10 million for public works for road maintenance/admin work (~3% of the budget), and 10.5 million for public health in the midst of a pandemic (~3%).
Karen and Chet Jamgochian
5th District
Dear Board of Supervisors,
This request for funds from the Sheriff's Department is wholly inadequate, it is unprofessionally calculated and is an insult to your intelligence and that of the public. A category of "Major Crime"on slide 5 cannot be "Coroner" or "Mental Health," this presentation is vague and does not warrant a dime of our money from you on Tuesday or later. The presentation states the new officers are needed to address crimes in the illegal marijuana industry, so why is that not a category of crime they are showing statistics for? The two top forms of crime on their own slideshow, domestic violence and child abuse, are real problems in our community and the evidence is clear around the nation that preventing these and addressing these is better done by agencies that are not law enforcement. You should direct the $4 million dollars requested by the Sheriff's office to social service agencies to deal with these two top tragedies in our county, not allocate the funds to the Sheriff.
The final slide of this presentation is a tragedy. It is the most base, disgusting, subconscious appeal to the fear inside white people in this country. It is the only slide with pictures in this presentation and clearly shows that our Sheriff's Department is linking crime and the phrase "appropriate response" to hog-tying a Black man. The Sheriff has stated that the slide can be misinterpreted and needs his explanation, but there is no justification for this racist presentation slide. The fact that no one in the Department thought twice or questioned including this deplorable choice of photos and that it made it into an official presentation to our Board of Supervisors shows that the Sheriff's Department has no consciousness about racism. It seems obvious they could have chosen a photo of a large, illegal marijuana grow for this presentation. The use of this racist image instead is reason alone to start an investigation into the racist ideas that exist in our Sheriff's Department, either conscious or unconscious, and you should pass a resolution immediately mandating the department use some of their already-allocated budget to hire trainers to support their current deputies and office staff, not new deputies, in understanding racial bias and the harm it causes our community.
Would the elected officials in a major city accept this presentation and request for funds? Without any longitudinal data on the type of crime the Sheriff states is the purpose for 10 new deputies? No. The people of Mendocino County deserve the same as people in all places, accurate data and detailed plans that are culturally sensitive and effective. And the fact that this is the presentation delivered for said funds proves that the Sheriff's Department does not need the deputies, or they would have had a compelling presentation with relevant data. Therefore, once they revise their slideshow to reflect all the knowledge shared in these public comments against their proposal, you must still vote No, do not approve the requested funds because they clearly do not need them, and in fact you must investigate how they are spending their current funds and mandate them to spend some becoming culturally competent and rooting out racism from the department.
Thank you,
Andy Wellspring
I strongly oppose the additional hire of 10 deputies by the sheriff's department. In addition, in a county where less than 2% of the population is Black, the depiction of a black man being detained as the final photo is racist and out of touch. What our county needs is more social services, more mental health support, not more money poured into the sheriff's department. All across the country, people are saying very clearly that it is time to reimagine how we handle conflict within our communities, and more deputies and more money in the sheriff's department just isn't it.
I am writing today to urge you not to approve the Mendocino County Sheriff Office proposal for an increase in funding of 4 million dollars over the next 3 years in order to hire 10 additional deputies. Based on the presentation given by Sheriff Matt Kendall to the BoS, there is not justification for this amount of money, nor its ask of additional deputies. According to the Crime Calls for Service graph, both received calls and dispatched deputies is lower than it has been in previous years. If there was an increase in crime, as the Sheriff claims there has been, why is this not reflected in this data of an increase in calls and dispatches?
The Sheriff has included a graph that is labeled, “Major Crime per Year” with 13 subcategories. In addition to some of these subcategories not being accurately labeled as crimes, including, “Coroner” and “Mental Health” (the inclusion of which adds to the stigma against neurodiverse and mentally ill people), there is no mention of organized crime or illegal marijuana grows. Increase in organized crime and illegal marijuana grows are the sole reason listed by Sheriff Kendall in the opening slide as the reason for this funding increase. Where is the data that supports this request? Instead, what is shown in the graph is that domestic violence and child abuse are historically and currently the number one “crime” per year, and that sexual assaults in Mendocino County are on the rise, where non-sexual assault is dropping. Numerous studies have shown that an increase in police officers does not reduce incidences of domestic violence and child abuse, nor sexual assault. What does? Housing and food security, employment opportunities, access to medical and reproductive health care and preventative programming for youth. If the County wants to reduce the crime that is making up the bulk of its incidences per year, then it needs to invest in the community, and the people, not in paying for ten additional deputies. This four million dollars could be reinvested in so many ways, but especially into youth and into providing education, recreation, skill-building, employment opportunities at a living wage to keep bright people here, and prevention in the form of healthy relationship education for the next generation. There are so many intelligent, eager, innovative and committed people working in social service agencies throughout the county that can organize and rally around this issue, with the support of our County’s funding resources. I urge you to envision a future that solves the problem of crime by addressing it at its root, and to put funding toward this endeavor. Ideally, the Sheriff would also understand that preventing crime is our truest goal as a community, and the aim to make this County safer for everyone.
I cannot comment on this proposal without also addressing the final slide, which pictures a hog-tied Black man, lying on the ground in the dirt, with his face censored. This is juxtaposed next to a blurry image of a person walking through the woods with an assault rifle and the caption, “Imminent Threat - Appropriate Response.” As a member of the community, I am aware of the origin of this photo and the controversy surrounding both the photo and the situation where it evolved. I have read Sheriff Kendall’s explanation of the inclusion of this slide, and I reject it. The year is 2021. We have just lived through a national uprising against extrajudicial violence and murder of Black people by law enforcement and white vigilantes. There is no excuse for the use of this slide, which both stokes age-old anti-Black, racist fears in white people, and encourages this action as an “appropriate response.” The inclusion of this slide is not a mistake, it is not an accident, and it is not in order “to have honest straight forward conversations regarding crime and the affects on our communities,'' as stated by the Sheriff. Its inclusion is evidence and example of anti-Blackness, systemic racism, and unconscious bias in law enforcement, in this case specifically, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. Please do not allow this image, and what the inclusion of this particular image in this presentation indicates, to be justified to you. This image speaks loudly of the need for anti-racism training for the MCSO, and increased community oversight. We cannot stand for the racism that allowed this image to be used with this caption in a presentation for the public. It demeans us, as a community, and it asks serious questions about the institution that approved this presentation.
For these reasons, I ask that you reject the Sheriff’s proposal, and negate any vote on this issue until the horrendous COVID-19 outbreak at the jail is addressed and mitigated.
Thank you,
Vicki Wellspring
Fort Bragg
I strongly oppose the sheriffs request for 10 more officers. That is the absolute last thing this county needs. What the money needs to be put towards is prevention programs. Affordable housing, rehabs, after school programs and other social support programs are what is needed. These will prevent the issues that happen because of..these issues which then end up in law enforcement getting involved.
These types of things are incredibly underfunded compared to law enforcement in this county. Their jobs will be easier if that money is put towards the actual issues instead of a not so great “band aid” that is more law enforcement.
Along with all that, the sheriffs choice to use an image of a hogtied Black man as an excuse to ask for more officers is incredibly out of touch and honestly? Racist. Their office should know better in this climate. Doesn’t matter if he was a robber. Shows a severe lack of understanding on their part.
I strongly oppose the Sheriff's request to hire 10 additional deputies. I propose that any re-allocated or additional funds to address the issues mentioned by the sheriff go to service providers outside of the criminal justice system, like mental health and social service providers trained in de-escalation. I also propose there is money and time devoted to understanding how the department allowed such a large COVID-19 outbreak to happen.
Please use evidence based solutions to preventing crime.
Like many of the others providing comment, I am actually quite shocked that the Sheriff's Dept would be making this type of request in this manner in the current political climate.
First, the data as presented just doesn't adequately support the position that the Sheriff's Dept requires such an expansion. Second, the racist imagery on the last slide is clearly not in keeping with the standards of a fair and equitable law enforcement department. In short, a 7 slide presentation would not be sufficient for any other organization to request $4 million from the County, especially where one of the slides appears to be a racist fear tactic. As we are learning in this moment of history, we must begin to hold our law enforcement to the same standard that the rest of us are held to.
More specifically, from the limited glimpse into their operations that we receive, we see that across most of the classifications, crime has been holding steady or decreasing. As others have mentioned in these public comments, it would seem that with appropriate funding to mental health and other social services those types of crimes could be dealt with by someone other than law enforcement, freeing up resources to tackle the organized crime situation. In light of these other options, key pieces of data relevant to an informed decision are left out, such as:
- What strategy is the sheriff's department using to address the organized crime issues, and what evidence suggests that this strategy is the best solution?
- How many officers are currently employed by the Sheriff, in what capacity, and how does this compare with other similar organizations?
- What constitutes crimes that fall under the Coroner Cases category and what amount is specifically attributable to organized crime and illegal marijuana growing?
- Has the Sheriff's office considered reallocation of personnel since overall crime appears to be decreasing?
- What kind of transparency measures are in place to allow the public to understand how the office's services are rendered and how we would recognize if they are successful?
I encourage the Board of Supervisors to deny this request, and to instead ask the following question to the Sheriff: Are the difficulties in the department really due to a lack of resources, or a lack of strategic thinking about resource allocation?
I strongly oppose adding 10 additional deputies to the sheriff's operations based on the 2020 sheriff’s crime report for 2 reasons.
1) The presentation opens with a claim that more deputies are needed because there is more organized crime and more illegal marijuana grows, but the data included does not show an increase in these crime categories, nor a great increase in crime overall.
◦ Of the 13 categories shown on slide 5, only 4 out of 13 increased compared to 2019. The only significant increase was for the “coroner” category, and no further details are provided on what type of crimes these were, so the public is unable to judge if more funding to the police would help prevent them, or if funding to social services would be more appropriate. Further details are needed before the funds to hire additional officers can be justified.
◦ The data on marijuana grows (slide 6) is only provided for 2020, so there is no way to tell if this is an increase over previous years. To justify further funding for law enforcement in this area, an increase needs to be demonstrated. In addition, the data on SWAT activities for the last 12 months (slide 8) show only 6 marijuana related activities out of the 17 total.
2) The image on the final slides call into question the integrity of the current police department to operate in a manner that treats all citizens equally. At the very least, it demonstrates a lack of empathy and understanding for the community the department is supposed to serve and protect. This suggests that further training of the current officers is needed to ensure that they can provide equal protection under the law before additional hiring can take place in this department.
Claire Stedden
Fort Bragg
I strongly oppose the Sheriff's request to hire 10 additional deputies. Now more than ever we need to be prioritizing restorative justice initiatives rather than punitive, and giving more funding/resources/staffing to mental health and social services. We should be focused on preventing crime rather than responding to crime, and to matters more pressing such as the COVID outbreak at the jail-- to which the Sheriff failed to take appropriate action on (despite many community members urging in advance-- before there was an issue) and has failed to be transparent with specific actions being taken to reduce cases/risk of spread. We need to keep our communities safe and healthy, especially now, and I don't think funneling more resources towards the Sheriff is an appropriate or strategic use of resources to accomplish this.
I am strongly against increasing the sheriff's budget. We need funding for mental health services, housing, child services not more police.
The Sheriff choice of imagery in the report was racist and shows a serious lack of racial understanding.