Public Safety?

We just happened to check this week to ensure that the November 23 Asheville Public Safety Committee meeting was still on the calendar for the 4^th Tuesday of this month.  We learned from their website that the meeting was rescheduled for November 17.  It is easy for some working citizens to participate in this meeting because it is usually held remotely and is often completed in about an hour.

The first order of new business was for the APD Financial Business Manager to offer a presentation on grants that the city could apply to receive in support of the police department.  The Public Safety Committee is tasked with reviewing the proposal and recommending that the full City Council either agree or decline to pursue these grants.  None of the three grants appear to be at all controversial or unusual.  They did not require any unbudgeted matching funds from the city, and they did not appear to promote any police over-reach or expansion.  They addressed:

• APD participation in a statewide program to reduce motorcycle fatalities ($5,000 grant from the state).
• A grant from the DOJ to help pay $60,000 of overtime pay to police officers.
• Another DOJ grant to assist in the purchase of 84 bullet-proof vests over two years. The city must match this $31,000 grant, and that match is already included in the budget).  

After the presentation, APD answered questions from the councilwomen.  Vice-Mayor Sheneika Smith (who chairs this committee) then asked for a motion to recommend to City Council whether to agree or decline to pursue these grants.  Councilwoman Kim Rony wondered whether the committee could vote separately on each grant.  She then voted against the grant to help pay for officer overtime.  This doesn’t surprise us since many regard Rony to be a “defund the police” advocate.  In the end, the committee will propose to the whole city council that they approve proceeding to apply for the grants.  You can expect Rony to showboat a bit at the next City Council Meeting to display her disagreement on pursuing approval to apply for funds to help cover officer overtime.  She is likely to line up some citizens to make public comment in support of her disagreement.  That’s just how they play this “game.”

The next agenda item was for Chief Zack to review a presentation on APD traffic enforcement.  Much of the material included in the presentation was meaningful and informative.  Then there were the five slides that compared different types of traffic stops by the race of the stopped drivers.  It was clear from the questions asked by the councilwomen that they were not pleased with those slides. 

The slides showed that white drivers were the ones stopped most often in each category.  Of course, there are many more whites living in Asheville than blacks.  However, the councilwomen kept looking for a way to make the slides support the narrative that APD profiles drivers by race and tickets a more significant percentage of black drivers than white drivers (who presumably receive warnings instead of citations).

Councilwoman Sandra Kilgore wondered aloud why she was ticketed instead of receiving a warning when she was once stopped.  She then asked Chief Zack if it’s true that Christmas bonuses are calculated for officers based on the number of citations they issue.  Thinking that was funny, she then laughed and asked her peers if they hadn’t heard the same “joke.”

The agenda then went to public comment. After that, the committee members decided to cancel next month’s meeting (which had been scheduled for December 28) and then adjourned. The next meeting is scheduled for January 25.

If you doubt this meeting recap, please watch the meeting recording and make up your own mind about whether these people are serving us properly.

Please, people, participate in some of these government meetings to observe for yourselves that the Marxists, Socialists, and Anarchists in local government are just as bad as you had feared.  Do not let them remain unopposed in their efforts to turn this into a welfare state.  This particular committee calls for citizens’ comments at the beginning and end of each meeting.  You don’t have to prepare a speech containing well-researched facts. Tell them what you think about what they are doing to our home.  It is easy enough to do.  It really is essential that we do it!