By Joe Creason

The Finance Committee convened for a public hearing with regards to the FY-22 Budget on June 9. Ward 2 City Councilor J.T Scott, Chair of the Finance Committee, led the hearing proceeding in the third night of the Committee’s budget review process. The Council did not answer questions or deliberate on comments from the public, in order to allow as many individuals to speak as possible.

Members of the public were called upon by their arrival time and given two minutes to speak.

“This is a special night as it is our opportunity to have any residents from the public provide their feedback and comment the Fiscal Year 22 Budget. It is my goal here to give everyone the chance to be heard,” Councilor Scott said.

Prior to the meeting, the City Clerk had received and forwarded 107 written comments to the City Council regarding the public hearing.

Some of the comments were written by the over 35 individual speakers who voiced their opinion at the public hearing. The overwhelming majority of speakers were present to represent the advocacy group Defund SPD.

“I want to encourage you to reject the proposed $1.5 million increase to the police budget and use the power of your voices as City Councilors to advocate for a 10% decrease in funding to SPD,” said Somerville resident Ryan Lemaire.

Lemaire was one among many from Defund SPD who expressed outrage at the $1.5 million police budget increase in the proposed to FY-22 Budget.

“I don’t believe the city has kept its promises about reimagining community policing,” said Ward 1 resident Krystal Turner, “We respectfully disagree with the memo proposing shared coordinator position for the Office of Racial and Social Justice and Human Commission.”

Turner says that more work needs to be done to make this action compliant with the City Ordinance pertaining to the Office of Racial and Social Justice, and that the Ordinance calls for an Executive Director as opposed to a coordinator. The distinction between the positions concerns powers and authority.

“This council has the power to set police staffing by ordinance and is much better equipped to ensure that the transparent, impartial study the public deserves is done and that this isn’t just further delay to the urgent, and yet unstarted process of reimagining community policing,” said Somerville resident Sam Alderman.

According to Defund SPD’s recent “People’s Budget” survey, an average of 65% of Somerville residents surveyed were in favor of defunding the Police Department

“Democracy always works best when we all participate, it is a tremendous responsibility to decide what to do with this budget as a Council, I feel this responsibility as the only person of color on the Council,” said City Councilor At-Large Wilfred N. Mbah. “Instead of police, why aren’t we increasing the funding for alternative response measures and non-violent methods? Why aren’t we addressing the school to prison pipeline? Why aren’t we making our city more ADA compliant? This are things we must look at to improve the community.”

Ward 5 Councilor Mark Niedergang, for whom it was his last Fiscal Year Budget public hearing as he is not running for reelection, had this message to share at the conclusion of the meeting:

“I agree with much of what critics of traditional policing have said, but I do think it’s important to see that the people who work at the Police Department, with few exceptions, are honorable decent public servants who risk their lives every day.”