City Council Should Approve Application for Federal Grant

On March 4 the Minneapolis City Council Public Safety Committee voted to not apply for a Federal Grant to fund a possible future increase in the number of sworn officers in the Minneapolis Police Department. The full Council should revisit this decision.

By Editorial Board Mill City Times

How We Got Here. Last year Minneapolis saw a major increase in violent crime AND 6,000+ 911 calls that were not responded to in a timely fashion, or at all, due to an understaffed police department AND a heated debate at City Hall over the need to add more officers.

The Police staffing issue was easily the most contentious topic in the annual City budgeting process. As part of a compromise, the City Council agreed to commission an independent, third party study (due later this year) to determine the proper number of sworn officers in the MPD. The intent was was admirable, especially in the political climate of today: let’s use a fact-based approach to setting our police budget.

An Increased Need for Police Officers? Over a twelve month period from mid-2018 to mid-2019, Police Chief Medaria Arradondo reported over 6000 instances in which no police were immediately available to respond to a Priority 1 call, such as a shooting, rape, missing person, assault, or a drug overdose. When a Minneapolitan is in life threatening danger, they have an understandable expectation that the police will show up.

The Vision Zero initiative in Minneapolis aims to eliminate traffic deaths and severe injuries on city streets by 2027.  An average of 95 people are killed or severely injured in traffic crashes on streets in Minneapolis each year. Minneapolis has four traffic investigators to handle follow-up on the most serious accidents and ZERO traffic enforcement officers. These facts should be of interest to any person who lives or works or owns a business, rides a bike, busses or light rail, or crosses city streets as a pedestrian. How will we reach the goal of zero deaths each year without someone to enforce existing, and new Vision Zero laws & rules?

An Opportunity for Outside Funding Should We need More Officers. For the 1^st time in 3 years, the Federal Government is offering Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants meant to help law enforcement agencies to hire more community policing officers, to acquire new technologies and equipment, to hire civilians for administrative tasks, and to promote innovative approaches to solving crime. City staff worked to prepare the grant proposal so as to be prepared.

An Opportunity Squandered? Minneapolis has the opportunity to apply for a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services that could pay for hiring, training and deploying 10 new traffic officers over three years. The city’s contribution would be about $4.6 million to match the grant and cover other expenses. If the grant was awarded, Minneapolis could assign the 10 new police officers to handle traffic matters (moving us toward our Vision Zero goals) and potentially free up police officers to handle more of the unanswered Priority 1 calls.

2 facts to keep in mind when it comes to this grant:

- The grant, if awarded this fall, can be rejected by the City Council when the successful applicants are notified later this fall - Should the result of the aforementioned staffing study conclude that the police are currently staffed at the right level, the grant can be rejected by the City Council with no penalty.

- The City can decide to go back to previous staffing levels at the end of the grant period (3 years) should the need for the additional officers decline.

The 4-2 vote to not apply for the grant – was on a motion by Council member Steve Fletcher and backed by Public Safety and Emergency Management Committee members  Alondra Cano, Phillipe Cunningham and Jeremiah Ellison. The vote sends the matter back to city staff — effectively killing the proposal, since the grant application deadline is later this month.

Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Medaria Arradondo are in favor of applying for the grant. Downtown business leaders have also expressed dismay at the Council’s decision to not pursue the grant. Chief Arradondo describes the level of police officer staffing as ‘hemorrhaging and broken’.

Right now, the City of Minneapolis is conducting a large study to review police staffing. Results of the study are not expected until September. Mayor Frey has indicated that he’ll follow the recommendations of the study.

“If that study says that we should be adding additional officers, it’s common sense that we should allow for assistance in paying for those officers," said Frey. "Why would we turn down money that we could use to both benefit public safety and not add burden to taxpayers?"

Minneapolis needs to pursue whatever avenues of crime prevention and increased public safety are available to the community. Commission studies, study the results, look at alternative means of crime prevention, investigate police procedures, recruit diverse community voices in seeking solutions, review crime and traffic data and yes, apply for grants that would fund additional officers on the street. Minneapolis can always staff at lower levels if that is the recommendation of the police staffing study. We can’t reject grant money that we didn’t seek.

Mill City Times recommends recommend reaching out to your City Council member to urge them to support applying for the Community Oriented Policing Services federal grant.  It’s a risk-free move that could save the City a significant chunk of tax dollars.