My name is Kim Isaacs and I live in South Redondo Beach. I would like to address the board regarding the police budget. It's my impression that the budget is 44 million and the chief makes 400K. This seems excessive, it's more than the LA police chief makes, and we are a MUCH smaller city. Why is his salary so high, and our 44 million budget so high for such a small city? The budget should be reduced and given to social programs that Redondo Beach residents need, especially in light of Covid. People are suffering and the police have such an inflated budget. What the city could do is take away non violent calls away from the police which would reduce their budget and allow the appropriate professionals to handle non violent calls such as medical professionals. This is what LA city is doing, which in addition to reducing their LAPD budget. Why don't we do the same? Also, what is the City doing to combat white supremacy in our community? This community is extremely diverse but our city council is not. Do we operate this City through an anti racist lens? During a town hall meeting the Chief of police said that the lower income areas of Redondo need more policing. This is an extremely biased viewpoint. Especially given that those areas have more Black and brown residents. What lower income areas need is not more policing, it's more services, jobs, child care, mental health services. Again, especially given this pandemic, and given that the essential workers are usually Black and brown. They need help, not police.
My name is Kim Isaacs and I live in South Redondo Beach. I would like to address the board regarding the police budget. It's my impression that the budget is 44 million and the chief makes 400K. This seems excessive, it's more than the LA police chief makes, and we are a MUCH smaller city. Why is his salary so high, and our 44 million budget so high for such a small city? The budget should be reduced and given to social programs that Redondo Beach residents need, especially in light of Covid. People are suffering and the police have such an inflated budget. What the city could do is take away non violent calls away from the police which would reduce their budget and allow the appropriate professionals to handle non violent calls such as medical professionals. This is what LA city is doing, which in addition to reducing their LAPD budget. Why don't we do the same? Also, what is the City doing to combat white supremacy in our community? This community is extremely diverse but our city council is not. Do we operate this City through an anti racist lens? During a town hall meeting the Chief of police said that the lower income areas of Redondo need more policing. This is an extremely biased viewpoint. Especially given that those areas have more Black and brown residents. What lower income areas need is not more policing, it's more services, jobs, child care, mental health services. Again, especially given this pandemic, and given that the essential workers are usually Black and brown. They need help, not police.