Public safety is a whole of community effort and requires a collaborative and coordinated approach. Our City needs stronger leadership to elevate our response to crisis situations. Increased funding as a sole response will not create safer communities. We need a community of care and collective responsibility for keeping us safe, implementing and evaluating preventive measures, reducing recidivism rates, and responding when problems occur. Accountability and trust cannot be compromised.

There are some immediate changes, which would improve our City’s public safety plan and increase accountability. Mental health professionals should play a larger role in the public safety workstream. Our jails have too many individuals living with mental illness, substance use disorders, and/or homelessness. We need to recognize this reality and meet this need with the appropriate action. Our police force should feel supported with an understanding that they are not facing our city’s crises alone.

Establishing a strong community policing relationship, street outreach programs, violence reduction fellowship programs, safe passage programs, and developing intentional environmental design activities are all actionable items that make a difference. Such long-term prevention and intervention programs build trust, promote healthy dialogue, strengthen collaboration, establish accountability, and create safer environments for residents and visitors alike.

As Mayor, I will:

• Create an Office of Nightlife and Public Safety that can be proactive and responsive to our growing needs

• Establish the Mayor’s Community Oversight Office to improve public safety and accountability

• Ensure that the mental health department is fully staffed to diversify the responses the city has at its disposal to resolve issues

• Adjust city hiring practices to remove barriers to allow ex-offenders to enter the workforce, and promote pathways to education, housing and jobs to maintain low recidivism rates

• Implement a secure storage education program to promote gun safety and model good behavior as being responsible gun owners

• Increase efforts to remove illegal guns from the streets and in homes where domestic violence occurs

• Explore intervention initiatives in addition to background checks that identify people who are at risk of hurting themselves and others