#phxpd

I'm encouraging all of my friends in Arizona to follow the link below to send an email to Mayor Gallego and our Council members who are on the Public Safety and Justice subcommittees regarding the proposed 2020-2021 budget. There is going to be a city council meeting regarding it tomorrow, and last week there were so many comments and people speaking against the budget proposals that they postponed the discussion again for tomorrow. We are asking that they revise their proposed budget of over $900million for ‘public safety’ in favor of reallocating funds for community development and community enrichment (which only have proposed funds of around $25million each). It’s really important now more than ever that we defund the police and take care of people instead. This link below will take you to your email and it will autofill the people it needs to get sent to, and fill out the letter in the email body, all you have to do is sign your name at the end and hit send. If you do so, please also send this to your friends, and encourage them to send it to their friends so we can get as many sent as we can. Pouring more money into our police force is only going to hurt queer communities and communities of color. We need to invest in our community instead. We need to demand something new.

Email:

https://tinyurl.com/yckj9lpm

The local organization Poder in Action also has some helpful resources up in the interest of defunding the police. Please send your message via this link:

https://www.poderinaction.org/defund-the-police

I am also asking that everyone leave a comment on the City Council Formal Meeting agendas for the proposed budget, as these comments will go on public record. If you haven’t already, you can sign up and then leave your comment on these four pages (just copy and paste the same comment) It only has to be 500 characters or less, and should say something to the effect of this:

“I strongly oppose the proposed $944,680,555 for our public safety department for the 2020-21 fiscal year. Our community is asking that you instead increase the proposed $24,760,742 and $26,837,014 budgets for community development and community enrichment. We must prioritize healing and growth in our community over further militarization of our police force. It's time to focus on sustainable communities, justice, and dismantling systematic oppression and police brutality.”

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