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City Council Meeting Minutes May 18, 2021 <br />Mr. Lumbreras stated our Chief can speak on his own and he is in support of the <br />ordinance. He expressed concern with some opinions expressed by Council without <br />knowing the Chiefs vision and plan. Mr. Lumbreras has full confidence in the Chief. <br />Mr. Lumbreras stated the Chief is working on the business plan and he will share this <br />with the Council and the community. <br />Council Member Baker suggested due diligence should be done prior to placing items <br />on an agenda and would like to see the ordinance remain as it is currently written. <br />Council Member Gleason stated his reasoning of why he wanted to see this as a <br />Resolution instead of an Ordinance because it would hold staff accountable. He <br />expressed concern with the word "must" in the Ordinance and would have liked a <br />phased approach and more of a compromise when creating this Ordinance. He is in <br />support of an Ordinance that mandates cite and release for marijuana possession <br />because he knows a lot of the support was for this. He is concerned that crimes that <br />some may consider petty are not when petty to the victims. There is damage to <br />businesses and homeowners because of theft, damage and vandalism as those are not <br />victimless crimes. He would like to see this brought back to Council in order to form a <br />compromise that benefits all sides. <br />Chief Standridge provided a response related to a comment made earlier related to <br />targeting. He stated this term was only used in relation to a false narrative that was <br />made by a Council Member at a previous meeting claiming the San Marcos Police <br />Department were murdering black and brown neighbors, and he wanted to speak <br />against that false narrative. Statements such as that are not moving us forward and are <br />not related to cite and release. He also noted that he is not hearing much on victim - <br />centric focus issues at the Criminal Justice Reform committee. He said the only focus of <br />the CJR has been on perceived social justice concerns thus far and there has been no <br />talk about crime reduction plans. He does welcome the topic of crime reduction as he <br />confirmed violent crime and property crime numbers are equal to one another in this <br />community and that is a concern as that is not usual in a community. He also stated that <br />violent crime is not being driven by cite and release. He provided statistics related to <br />criminal activities. He believes the ordinance has been successful but COVID has <br />skewed some facts and it has changed the number of crimes occurring. He supports the <br />ordinance and believes this is a good remedy to keep the officers working towards <br />reactive and proactive crime. He is supportive as long as we introduce a focus on <br />City of San Marcos page 23 <br />