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City Council Meeting Minutes March 3, 2020 school with an invalid license. We lived in fear with him and for him. Today y'all will decide whether or not everyone who has a citation -eligible, non-violent offense deserves to have their freedom, or if these people deserve to be incarcerated and locked in a cage, taken from their family, friends, loved ones, and community over merely petty offenses. An ordinance would ensure 100% of people are treated fairly and a resolution would only deny and delay justice. So it is that I humbly ask, you support what is written, as it's written, and delay justice no longer." Khimaira Garza, spoke in favor of item #29, made the following comments: "In November of 2019 my life was at its lowest. My home life was abusive, and because I was afraid to go home I spent a large amount of time in Austin. I was seeing a woman twice my age, who was abusive and dangerous in ways that were much harder to escape from. In November of 2019, she was going onto a plane, and handed me a vial with a small amount of methamphetamine in it. I held onto it for her, afraid that if I lost it my fears would turn into realities. I was terrified of her, and to this day I'm unwrapping everything that I dealt with as a result of her entering my life. She was not the first dangerous addict in my life. The first was my father, a sociopath who's now in prison because he, like her, was in the dope game, and he, like every other addict, had time run out on him. In October of 2019, I started letting my own time run out. I found that the sands of time looked just like crushed crystals, and my time almost ended as quickly as it started. In November, I did not come home for thanksgiving. The only stretch of my waistband came in the form of her gun, and the only knives I held were the ones I sharpened for her. There was no home to go to, no grace to say with my cousins. I didn't even talk to my family on that day. On the 28th of that month, we were pulled over. I was unable to tell the police who the vial belonged to. I knew the consequences of being honest. So I lied. The officers were kind, and the amount of drugs was small enough to be considered residue. I know that the police could have arrested me. I could have been in prison like my father. Instead, they handed me a ticket. Instead, they gave me a chance to get sober. They gave me a chance at life. And I know, that for so many Latinos like my father, citations do not come often enough. I know that if I came out less blanquito and had the dark hair of my family, the caramel skin, that I could have been arrested that night. We need to pass an ordinance to ensure that every low level offender is able to get the same level of understanding as I received. We need to pass an ordinance because I know that if my father, my cousin, my friends, had been in the truck that night, that they might not have been given that chance. When black and Latino citizens are disproportionately arrested, when black and Latino citizens continue to have their lives split apart while white citizens who City of San Marcos Page 4