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City Council Meeting Minutes April 21, 2020 <br />Release Ordinance: A Better Way <br />Our City Council has the opportunity on Tuesday to pioneer a better way <br />forward toward ending needless arrests. <br />In 2007, the Texas Legislature identified a host of minor offenses for which <br />they deemed a citation would be sufficient as opposed to an arrest. Governor <br />Rick Perry signed it with bi-partisan support. Last summer, Mano Amiga and <br />other interested residents of San Marcos, urged the City Council to form the <br />Criminal Justice Reform Committee and presented a draft ordinance that <br />would make citations the default option for San Marcos police officers except <br />in certain specified scenarios such as: the subject does not provide satisfactory <br />identification or the subject has an outstanding arrest warrant, etc. At this <br />point I think there are several other scenarios being suggested. In October of <br />last year, official county data on SMPD's arrest rate for citation -eligible <br />offenses was made available to the press and public. Regional media noted the <br />high rate of needless arresting of residents as well as the special attention that <br />African American residents got from our officers. A story on the Fox News <br />affiliate, titled "Report shows San Marcos police didn't cite -and release any <br />Black people in 2018," revealed a remarkable inequality of enforcement. With <br />what appears to be a very high rate of arrests for citation -eligible offenses in <br />2019, I stand with those who believe that now is a prudent opportunity for our <br />City Council to provide guidance on officer discretion and elucidate our <br />priority of keeping people out of jail who do not need to be there. Let me be <br />clear. I appreciate the vital work of our police officers. On several occasions I <br />have been the beneficiary of their work. As a former city councilman for three <br />terms, I learned about the danger and complexity of their service to our <br />community. On a few occasions I rode with police officers to better <br />understand the many challenges that they face each day. It is a tough job, <br />requiring much professionalism and courage. It is my opinion that this <br />ordinance will go a long way toward strengthening and building trust between <br />the police department and the general public, including those who see <br />themselves as more vulnerable to unnecessary arrests. This ordinance will <br />provide a clearer set of boundaries and guidelines that will assist police officers <br />as they make discretionary decisions in critical moments of enforcement. his <br />ordinance will require more transparency about the way discretionary <br />judgments are made and the reasoning behind them. Finally, this ordinance <br />will likely help us move from our excessive dependence on incarceration as a <br />way of holding minor offenders accountable to a better way known as <br />restorative justice. (Comments were limited to three minutes, time expired) <br />Karen Munoz: <br />Dear Mayor Hughson & Council: <br />City of San Marcos Page 10 <br />