On BerkDOT, Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett Says George Floyd Community Safety Act Curbs Racism
ONN – On BerkDOT, Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett Says George Floyd Community Safety Act Curbs Racism
BerkDOT, a proposal to off-load parking citations work from the Berkeley Police Department to a new Berkeley Department of Transportation, is up for consideration by the Berkeley City Council this Tuesday.
The structure of BerkDOT is very similar to OakDOT, the Oakland Department of Transportation installed by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and the Oakland City Council. That written, Councilmember Bartlett sees a potential problem: the BerkDOT design may not necessarily remove racism as a problem.
Ben Bartlett, via email to Zennie62Media, said that his own George Floyd Community Safety Act, also being considered by the council Tuesday, will help bridge that divide.
The proposed legislation, named after George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police, sparked the resurgence of Black Lives Matter nationwide protests — proposes reallocating most police work to unarmed crisis responders, who can then escalate violent situations and criminal investigations to the Police Department.
Tasking civilians with traffic enforcement may curb the risk of violence, Bartlett wrote, but it won’t eliminate the potential for racial bias in their work. Bartlett said this is why BerkDOT will need a traffic enforcement system that issues speeding tickets and parking citations “devoid of discretion.”
Stay tuned. This post a sponsored part of “The Bartlett Files”.
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