AMHERST — Responding to residents’ demands to launch a public safety alternative with adequate staffing by early 2022, the Town Council is pledging to bolster the town manager’s initial proposal to fund the Community Response for Equity, Safety and Service program.
After several hours of discussion Monday night, with more than 90 minutes of input from residents asking for full funding of the CRESS program and suggesting that the entire $69.7 million fiscal year 2022 town operating budget be rejected if this couldn’t happen, the Town Council advised Town Manager Paul Bockelman to find the money for eight full-time responders.
In advance of voting in favor of the operating budget, approved in an 11-2 vote, with District 1 Councilor Sarah Swartz and District 5 Councilor Darcy DuMont voting against the spending plan, the council voted 7-5 with one abstention to direct Bockelman “to fund, at a minimum, eight community responder positions to begin no later than Feb. 1, 2022.”
In addition to doubling the number of full-time responders supported in his budget, this directive calls for Bockelman, by the end of January, to develop a multi-year plan for funding and growing the program, with the unarmed responders handling nonviolent calls that police have typically gone to, evaluating its success after 12 months and ensuring that funding is intact for fiscal year 2023.
“We’re trying to get the program up and successful,” said District 2 Councilor Pat DeAngelis, who joined At-Large Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke in drafting a resolution supporting the CRESS program and making a commitment to having eight responders.
DeAngelis said she feels strongly that the council needs to support the Community Safety Working Group, which made a recommendation for a much larger CRESS program. DeAngelis said four positions would be setting the program up for failure, while eight positions is a risk worth taking.
Under Bockelman’s proposal, the budget includes town spending and grants totaling $475,000 to begin a CRESS program with a program director, four responders and an administrative assistant. The program would start between December 2021 and February 2022.
This plan, though, would be far less than a draft budget for the CRESS program of $2.82 million, with seven additional responders and nine dedicated dispatchers.
Council President Lynn Griesemer, who voted in favor of the directive and the resolution, said the actions should be seen as a statement of the council’s intent to have a robust community responder program. “This is what we meant and this is how we felt about it,” Griesemer said.
Hanneke, who voted against the directive to the town manager, said specifying the number of responders is a way to get around the state law that the council can’t add to the budget, but can only approve or reject it. Still, she said Bockelman has leeway to move money around and is confident that he will find a way to get the eight positions fully funded.
While he would normally be against micro-managing the budget, District 4 Councilor Evan Ross said, in this case, there was no good option, as he would have voted against the entirety of the budget proposal if just four responders were included.
District 5 Councilor Shalini Bahl-Milne said the proposal stretches the town’s comfort zone, but she feels that members of the community can’t continue to live in fear of police actions.
“We have to make it work,” Bahl-Milne said. “There is no other way out.”
Bahl-Milne said the working group’s proposal is the end goal and she has confidence in it, appreciating that the council is also hearing from Black, Indigenous and people of color, residents, or the BIPOC community. “We are already starting off on a solid foundation,” Bahl-Milne said.
At-Large Councilor Andy Steinberg, though, said he worried that the program could be difficult to start under any circumstance since many other communities are also pursuing these police alternatives. In Northampton, for instance, the Department of Community Care will have similar unarmed responders going to calls police have handled.
Steinberg was joined by Hanneke, District 3 Councilors Dorothy Pam and George Ryan and District 4 Councilor Steve Schreiber in voting against the directive.
District 1 Councilor Cathy Schien abstained from the vote, while DuMont, Swartz and At-Large Councilor Alisa Brewer were the others voting for the directive.
Bockelman has warned that there could be difficulties in keeping CRESS positions in the budget for the following fiscal year.
The council’s decision came after both co-chairwomen of the Community Safety Working Group, Ellisha Walker and Brianna Owen, said Bockelman’s budget was insufficient for the CRESS program.
Walker said the working group took a holistic approach so public safety would become anti-racist and equitable. Walker said the $475,000 is not enough of a commitment and that, while Bockelman is including a diversity, equity and inclusion officer, the budget has no funding for a BIPOC youth empowerment center and multicultural center.
Though some residents advised councilors to make a 45% cut in the police budget to fund the working group’s proposals, that concept was not broached by any of the councilors.
Still, Nancy Sardeson of State Street said a concern is that a lot of the working group’s advice seems to have been dismissed and that its members were shown disrespect during the process.
Ashwin Ravikumar of East Pleasant Street said CRESS can lead to true community safety and that many in town will feel safer if they no longer have to call police for help.
Caroline Murray, who has lived in Amherst for 40 years, said the working group brought a beautiful vision for the town and that any community would benefit from ending the criminalization of behaviors that don’t require a police presence.
“I am urging all of you to be your best selves,” Murray said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
