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City Council Meeting Minutes April 21, 2020 <br />disqualifying circumstance. According to former SMPD Chief Chase Stapp, the <br />list of disqualifying circumstances is "fairly exhaustive," and the `only' allows <br />for the gathering of data that's accurate & more easily understood. I ask the <br />City Council to include an amendment that says yes to an objective standard <br />of reasonableness based in constitutional law. This means restoring the draft <br />ordinance to its original language by changing "the arresting officer believes" <br />to "there is reason to believe." This will ensure that officers who would <br />otherwise be free to ignore the ordinance will not have that option. I ask the <br />City Council to vote yes on the Clean -Up Amendments that would fix typos <br />and other minor changes, as wished by the ordinance's original author, Anita <br />Gupta of Immigrant legal Resource Center. I ask the City Council to include <br />an amendment providing authentic community participation in the working <br />group, and not `token citizen comment.' I am convinced that authentic <br />community involvement is crucial to a democracy's health, meaning <br />180 -second sound bites do not suffice for public input as valued discourse. <br />I ask the City Council to vote no on any amendment that offers a more <br />limiting interpretation of acceptable forms of ID for the Cite and Release <br />program. Not only do these policies disproportionately affect the poor and, <br />residents are still affirmatively ID'd when they arrive in court for their citation. <br />Finally, I ask the city council to vote no on any other amendments that are <br />proposed. Seeing that this draft ordinance was given to the Council in July <br />with plenty of time for input, it is entirely inappropriate to be bringing changes <br />before its final vote. <br />Thank you for doing your part in reducing jail time in San Marcos. Living in <br />the richest country in the history of the world, that also has the highest <br />incarceration rate, the only country tailing us being Russia, I feel like the least <br />we can do is issue citations for non-violent offenses. <br />Samantha Benavides: <br />Hi, my name is Samantha, & I'm an issue advocacy fellow with MOVE Texas. <br />MOVE Texas is a nonpartisan non-profit, building youth power across the <br />state through civic engagement, issue advocacy, and leadership development. <br />I'd like to once again express my support for a cite and release ordinance and <br />express my gratitude for those who stood by, spoke directly to, and legislated <br />with young people in mind throughout this process. As Dr. Joca Marquez put <br />it, this ordinance does not send a message to the local business community that <br />we do not prioritize their well being; instead, the message this ordinance sends <br />is that we are compassionate towards our community. It shows that we trust <br />them to return for a court hearing. It shows that we do not believe our pre-trial <br />jail system is just, and that our community deserves better. It shows that we do <br />not believe it to be dignified that we are willing to spend millions of dollars to <br />City of San Marcos Page 13 <br />