The Seattle City Council said the bill was a “down-payment” toward its goal to defund the police department by up to 50%.
Seattle will reduce the SPD budget and reallocate money to community programs after the City Council voted 7-2 Tuesday evening to override Mayor Jenny Durkan’s vetoes of adjustments to this year’s budget. The goal is to cut out at least $3 million.
The proposals approved last month were supported by demonstrators who have marched in the city for months. The city council’s budget cuts were opposed by Mayor Durkan and former police Chief Carmen Best.
“Divestment from a broken policing model is not only the right thing to do … I believe it is the needed course of action,” Council President M. Lorena González said. “We cannot look away from this and we can no longer accept the status quo if we truly believe that Black lives matter.”
The mayor vetoed the city council and has said she did not agree with losing officers, she also said she has a plan to take officers off a team that removes camps of people experiencing homelessness.
She complained that the council had not discussed their plans with her or the police chief before taking action although at least one council member said Tuesday that the police chief had been consulted.
Chief Best officially retired earlier this month amid the controversy over proposed police cuts and the department’s response to protests.
The council will just under $4 million of the department’s $400 million annual budget this year. At the time of this article the exact number of officers to be cut wasn’t clear but city council members suggest it will amount to several dozen.
Seattle currently has 1,400 police officers, and the proposed reductions are far short of the demands from many Black Lives Matter protesters, often calling for a 50% cut to the department.
Some members of the council had described the cuts as a “down payment” on future reductions.
A majority of the people who spoke during the public comment period Tuesday urged the city council to reverse Durkan’s vetoes. Many told the council, “If Black lives matter, prove it.”
Members of business groups were among those who spoke in favor of upholding the veto.
“The changes proposed in the 2020 rebalanced budget are not radical or earth shattering,” Dan Strauss, city council member, said. “They are reasonable and responsible first steps in a long process to re-envision the way we handle public safety.”
Strauss said “excessive and indiscriminate use of force” by the police department against Seattle residents asserting their First Amendment rights led the city council to make the budget cuts.
