Boston needs a nonpolice community-based mental health crisis response
On June 16, Mayor Michelle Wu vetoed the Boston City Council’s budget proposal to invest in a nonpolice, community-based mental health crisis response (“Wu rejects council budget plan cutting police funds,” Page A1, June 17). The council can now override the mayor’s veto with a two-thirds vote. Contrary to the view of your June 17 editorial (“Want to cut the police budget? This isn’t how.”), we believe they should do so.
Following the murder of George Floyd and the killing of Breonna Taylor by police in 2020, communities across the country brought the mass movement of abolitionist, non-carceral approaches to public safety to the forefront of local and national politics. Three years later, the need for such a movement and the movement itself persist, as evidenced by the three police killings in the Boston area this year and the powerful movement to stop “Cop City,” a police and fire department training center, in Atlanta.
Community organizers across the country have turned their attention to nonpolice responses to mental health crises as one area of community-driven public safety. Since 2015, more than 6,000 people have been fatally shot by police, and of that number, 23 percent were experiencing or perceived to be experiencing a mental health crisis.
Nonpolice crisis response models are being implemented in cities across the country, including Oakland, Denver, and New York. It is time for Boston to move toward genuine public health and safety through investing in this approach.
Emy Takinami
Brookline
Husain Rizvi
Boston
Takinami is affiliated with Boston Liberation Health and Rizvi with The City School.
Councilors’ clash with mayor is a downside of participatory budgeting
Although I was a strong supporter of participatory budgeting, my deepest concern was the possibility that the process could be taken over and manipulated in a way to advance a political agenda rather than providing that local perspective so critical to achieving an inclusive and equitable budget process for the city.
I envisioned a process that provided a local checks-and-balances approach to the mayor’s budget proposal, given its citywide perspective, to ensure that we were building stronger communities.
The amended fiscal 2024 budget passed by the City Council (“Council passes $4.2b budget: Heads to Wu with $31m cut to police,” Metro, June 15) was punitive, vindictive, and divisive. It was a proposal that could only come from a dysfunctional council.
Restoring trust among council members and people who live and work in the city should be the council’s number one priority. What the residents of Boston want is high-energy individuals of integrity who are authentic, likable, accountable, and fair-minded; who embrace civility; and most important, who grasp that it takes collaboration and understanding with others to get things done.
On Wednesday I hope the councilors approve Mayor Wu’s amended Annual Appropriation and Tax Order for the fiscal year and recommit themselves to a Boston we all can call home.
Anthony D’Isidoro
Allston
Focus on issue of police spending overlooks painful cuts eyed for library system
Coverage of the Boston City Council’s amendments to the 2024 budget has centered on the Boston Police Department’s funding. Little has been said, however, about the effect of proposed cuts of more than $800,000 to the Boston Public Library.
The BPL has a significant impact across Boston. In 2022, more than 2 million people visited a library in person; 15,707 people came to our children’s programs; 7,500 came to learn English; and 19,278 teenagers spent time in a library. The BPL provides assistance to start new businesses, research family history, review resumes, learn to use computers, and much more. That’s not even counting the free access to books and other resources — we lent more than 660,000 books and 3.8 million electronic resources in 2022 alone.
The library provides vital services and needs more support and staffing, not less. In all 26 branches, we hear from our patrons daily that our services are needed, our skills and expertise are valued, and our role is essential.
The people of Boston deserve a rich, full set of social services, including a library that is funded sufficiently to meet its mission, help build social equity, and increase the city’s cultural wealth.
This proposed budget threatens the library’s ability to adequately serve the people of Boston. As library workers, we cannot do more with less; we can only do less with less. We know the needs of our city, we care passionately about our mission and our patrons, and we want to do more. We ask our city leaders: Give us the resources to rise to the current challenges in front of us.
Chris Strunk
President
Boston Public Library Professional Staff Association/MLSA 4928 Executive Board
Boston
Councilors are fighting for city’s underfunded communities
The Boston City Council’s proposed budget champions critical investments in Boston’s underfunded working-class, BIPOC communities.
The council’s budget includes $10 million for participatory budgeting, which empowers residents to directly decide how to make deeply needed improvements in their neighborhoods.
It funds a nonpolice, community-based mental health crisis response program with trained responders. This would help thousands of Bostonians (a similar program in Oregon responds to as many as 21,000 calls a year).
The council’s budget boosts housing production by another 500 affordable homes by 2030 and provides housing vouchers for 100 additional families in the Boston Public Schools. It also provides $500,000 in funding for the city’s new Task Force on Reparations to start its long-awaited racial justice work.
The council’s budget funds, for young people, 1,500 full-year jobs and 6,000 better-paying summer jobs.
And let’s clear the air about the police budget: The BPD underspends its regular payroll by $24.5 million, yet the mayor still proposed to increase payroll by $5.2 million. There’s no reason to protect unused police spending, or “ghost funds,” in a bloated budget of hundreds of millions. Instead, it’s time to fund real community investments.
Eliza Parad
Better Budget Alliance
Boston