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City Council Meeting Minutes April 21, 2020 outsource our inmates to unfamiliar facilities when the infractions they've committed should be default citable offenses. It shows that we will take direct action in addressing the racial disparities in our police department's use of cite and release. It shows that San Marcos City Council is leading the way for other cities and counties towards a more just criminal legal system in Texas. *That* is the message that this ordinance sends. I'd also like to urge the implementation of the word "only" back into the ordinance. The guidance of officer discretion is the backbone of this policy; without this ordinance guiding officer discretion, I am certain that we will continue seeing racial disparities in San Marcos Police Department's use of cite and release. To those of you who have been supportive of this ordinance since July, thank you for your leadership. Myself, MOVE Texas, and our ally community members and organizations urge the passage of this ordinance. It's imperative to avoid disturbing and disrupting lives with punitive and unnecessary incarceration. If we fail to enact this reform, this is what we are maintaining, a system that if left unchanged will ruin lives. Stand with young people and avoid this harm by voting yes. Kama Davis: To the Mayor and City Council Members of the City of San Marcos: Thank you for your service to our community, especially now, during the Covid-19 pandemic. I strongly support a city ordinance of cite and release. Many people more eloquent than I have expressed many reasons why a cite and release ordinance is necessary, where a resolution would not be enough. I am particularly concerned that our jail is overcrowded as it is. Covid-19 is here, in Hays County, and if it gets into our jail, it will be devastating to the staff, the police force, and of course, the inmates. We are responsible for all of these members of our community, everyone. Cite and release would help keep the population in the jail down, and this would lower the risk of infection to all involved. Please implement a cite and release ordinance. Thank you. Kristy Money: Dear City Council, I am a resident of San Marcos, where I live with my husband and our five children. My husband and I both work here in town, and our school-age children attend San Marcos CISD. We are proud to have made San Marcos our home. I support the Cite & Release Ordinance and urge you all to vote in favor. As a licensed psychologist who previously worked directly for incarcerated youth in Texas prisons, I have seen too many promising young lives that have been derailed beginning with an arrest for a minor offense that, under this proposed ordinance, would not have to happen. Under the original City of San Marcos Page 14