Watsonville City Council passes new budget

Vote comes after community members spoke out about increases to the police budget

The Watsonville City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to adopt a city budget despite calls from community members to not move forward with increasing police department funds.

Residents did voice their happiness with the large investment into the City Parks and Recreation Department the 2021-2023 biennial budget set aside. The budget allocates $7 million to improve Ramsay Park.

In total, the Watsonville PD will see an 8% increase in its budget, to about $23 million. The majority of public commenters Tuesday night said they wanted to see those funds reinvested into other public programs, or put toward funding mental health support models, such as CAHOOTS, that do not involve traditional policing.

“As a community member I am urging you all at the city council to take direct action and pivot our city budget towards one that prioritizes the community’s needs,” life long Watsonville resident Elias Gonzales said Tuesday.

“We are currently aligning our budget with harmful tough on crime models that continue to create harm to young people of color and black and brown communities in general,” Gonzales said.

Many others echoed Gonzales, and requested investment go toward other tactics that could facilitate community healing.

“We have to take action now to start a long term plan shifting away from criminalization and towards community care,” District 2 resident Anissa Balderas said, referring an open letter some 330 people signed, which urged the City Council to divest $4.3 million from the police budget allocation.

“Why fund a police and mental health liaison team when we can fund liaisons and EMTs directly like a CAHOOTS model?” Balderas said.

Finance Department Director Cindy Czerwin contended that many of the costs were fixed, and the increase represented funds required to keep the police department as-is. Much of the department funds also go into CalPERS, California’s public employee retirement system, as well as other costs such as operating the county animal shelter, and services residents may not associate with policing, Czerwin said.

According to Tom Sims, assistant chief of police, if the divestment were to take place, the department would have to slash what he estimated to be 25 positions.

The city’s general fund — largely drawn by income generated by residents, such as property tax, sales tax, and other fees, accounts for 28% of the Watsonville budget allocation — according to Czerwin.

Of that fund, 40% goes toward the police department, 16% toward fire department services, roughly 11% to parks and rec, 9% into capital projects, and just 1% toward the public library.

The allocation to parks and rec, Czerwin said, was the largest amount of funds put up for the department in recent history.

Criticism that the budget didn’t reflect equity was a common theme throughout the hearing.

According to the budget, 32% of Watsonville residents are 19 and younger, a statistic residents cited during the meeting, while asking for funds to be put into establishing youth employment programs.

Watsonville community members also voiced their desire for more funds to be put toward arts and entertainment, the public library, and mental health programs.

“I’d just like to emphasize the importance of equity in budget decision making ... I celebrate increases in parks and recs, but there’s more conversations to be had,” MariaElena de la Garza, executive director of Community Action Board of Santa Cruz said Tuesday. “How do we ensure accessibility, how do we ensure connection to parts of the community that have no idea and no relationship to parks and recs?”

Councilmembers Francisco Estrada and Lowell Hurst spoke out that while the budget wasn’t ideal, it reflected some progress, motivating their yes vote.

Councilwoman Garcia stated that while she agreed with the petition on policing, like Mayor Jimmy Dutra, she wanted to wait to move on changing finances for the department until the Watsonville’s Policing and Social Equity Ad Hoc Committee had finalized its recommendations.

“I’m not saying this is a perfect budget but I’m committed to a long long process even a generational process if it needs to be,” District 4’s Estrada said. “This may not be impressive, but after five budget processes, after a decade, everything adds up, and that’s how we start supporting community.”