NORTHAMPTON — After hours of public comment spread over multiple meetings — much of it urging cuts to the city’s Police Department — city councilors took a first vote and passed the proposed $100 million city budget at a special meeting Wednesday evening.
Much of the discussion Wednesday and over the past several budget meetings has been about the police budget.
In Mayor David Narkewicz’s initial proposal, the Police Department’s budget would have been increased by $193,579, or 2.88%. Roughly $140,000 of that was for contractual salary increases, $8,000 was for training and around $45,000 would have gone toward replacing five gasoline-only police cruisers with hybrid vehicles.
But after an outcry from residents at public meetings last week calling for a significant cut to the department’s budget, Narkewicz submitted a new proposal to cut the $8,000 that Chief Jody Kasper had sought for training and reduce one line item from $350,825 to $146,262 by purchasing two hybrid replacement vehicles instead of five. The new proposed budget for police is about $19,000, or 0.28%, less than the current fiscal year.
At Wednesday’s meeting, councilors agreed there need to be changes in how the city handles public safety. They spoke about the possibility of creating a select committee to look at alternatives to policing and potentially working with the mayor’s office on the issue.
“There is not a single doubt in my mind there is a demand — not just a request, a demand — for a structural redesign and an approach to what public safety is and what that means, and for whom,” Councilor William Dwight said.
Councilor Rachel Maiore said she has been hearing from residents “that proposed cuts to the PD in front of us are not enough, and I agree. I agree that to make fundamental change in Northampton to our public safety system, so much more is needed. The change does need to be thoughtful, but it does not need to be gradual.”
Councilor Marianne LaBarge said she has received more than 2,600 emails about this issue. “I’m just saying, mayor, that I feel we should hire social workers. When we have a police man or police woman retire, fill those positions with educated social workers,” LaBarge said.
“I’m a strong supporter of alternatives of policing,” said Councilor Alex Jarrett. “I don’t think we will have the best outcomes if we rush this process. I want to reduce the police budget, but I want to know what we are replacing it with and have a plan in place.”
Narkewicz pledged that over the next week he will “sit down with the leadership of the City Council and … discuss a framework that we can potentially agree to as to how we will advance this critical community conversation … and coming up with some kind of a framework for how we move it forward.”
Councilors voted to pass the budget at the end of the meeting, but the budget requires two votes from City Council to pass. The council’s second vote will be at its meeting next week, council President Gina-Louise Sciarra said. By charter rules, if the council does not pass a budget within 45 days of the mayor proposing it, which Narkewicz did on May 18, the mayor’s proposal will automatically go into effect.
During the public comment period, which came first in the meeting, many spoke about making further cuts to the Police Department and reallocating resources to social services. The mayor’s 0.28% cut to the police budget was not enough for many.
“The mayor offering to buy two instead of five police cars is a performative act,” one resident said during public comment Wednesday. “We are asking for more than that. We need you to take a really hard look at the police budget and defund it.”
“Vote no and encourage the city and the mayor to find creative solutions,” resident Daniel Cannity told the council. “Every time we go through this, as a nation or as a city, I’ve had to reflect on the times I’ve experienced racism directly,” said Cannity, who is black. “It’s calling up every time I’ve been followed by the police, had officers call me ‘boy,’ ask me where I’m headed, had cops ask me who really owned my car, thought that I am only one wrong word or action from being a corpse in the news.”
Robert Eastman, a Ward 3 resident, urged the city to form a community oversight board with legal power. Eastman noted that Capt. Robert Powers — who was named in a 2014 lawsuit alleging that he engaged in demeaning behavior and made racist comments while he was an instructor at the Western Massachusetts Police Academy — leads the department’s internal investigations.
“Does this sound like someone fit to oversee the citizen complaint process?” Eastman asked. “In case I am unclear, the answer is no.”
One Florence resident spoke in favor of funding the police. “Would we defund schools because they need to do a better job educating our children?” asked Catherine Kay. “Of course not … We need to maintain our exceptional department.”
The council’s June 18 meeting starts at 7 p.m.