Council votes to increase salaries of top officials

Under a proposed budget, the police will see a $2.8 million increase

REDWOOD CITY >> Amid a local outcry to defund police and to divert more money to popular community services, the City Council is raising the pay of two top city officials and considering an increase in police spending.

The Redwood City Council has unanimously decided to give a 3% costof-living pay raise to City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz and City Attorney Veronica Ramirez on the same day council members received the proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

Although both officials declined to receive an additional 3% merit increase and a 1% internal equity adjustment, the city manager will make just over $316,000 a year and the city attorney about $267,000 annually after the councilapproved pay bump.

The increase in pay comes as the city faces a $10.1 million revenue shortfall and considers cutbacks citywide to balance the budget.

Instead of diverting money from the Police Department to other city services — as the nearly 2,000 people who gathered outside California Square in Redwood City demanded last week — the proposed budget for fiscal 2021 includes a $2.3 million increase in police spending and a $520,000 decrease in overall funding of parks, recreation and community services.

City staffers said Monday that the increase in police spending already had been negotiated with the city’s Police Department. Mayor Diane Howard said in an interview Wednesday that there will be no cuts to parks, recreation and community services as those budget items will be decided on later this year.

But for the residents who have written the city and spoken publicly against the council’s decision, an increase in police spending is not the way to go.

“I’m assuming the reason is to ensure the safety of the community, and I want to assume good intentions,” said Redwood City resident Emily Gough. “But it’s been shown that increases in education and giving resources to the youth have a higher impact on public safety. While we’re taking away money for public services that people use, we’re going to use that money to increase police spending?”

Gough went on to say that the police’s budget is already two times higher than for parks and recreation services as well as the spending the city has proposed for affordable housing.

Not only is the city’s police budget much higher than any other department — public safety takes up 60% of the city’s spending — but the $2.3 million increase is part of an overall steady increase of about $8.6 million since 2018.

Most of that money pays for patrol services, which has seen its budget increase by nearly $7.1 million since 2018.

There are 130 police officers in the Redwood City Police Department.

At the same time the council is proposing a budget increase for the Police Department, the budget for training officers has gone down from about $908,000 in 2018, down to $692,000 in 2019 and up again to a proposed $722,000 for the coming fiscal year.

The department’s $10.1 million proposed administrative budget has increased by about $1.3 million since 2018.

Defending the proposed increase in police spending, Howard said the money won’t simply be used to hire more officers or increase pay.

She added that Mulholland will decide how to use the police’s new money.

Howard also rejected the idea that the calls to defund police are coming from a majority of people in her city and highly doubted that Redwood City residents believe their city could do without a Police Department.

“If anyone were to be asked, ‘Do you really believe we shouldn’t have a Police Department that can maintain the health and safety of the public?’ I dare say there wouldn’t be anyone who really believes that’s what they should be doing,” Howard said. “There are some departments where maybe they are spending money in different fashions. What we’re doing is closely looking at the budget and certain areas where the money could be better spent.”

Howard said the city’s Police Department has been receiving more calls for service, not less, since the start of the pandemic, though she agreed that a conversation is needed to address the “best use” of police resources. Still, she said that armed police officers are necessary.

“What I would suggest is that people realize that even though you could send someone who doesn’t have a weapon, in some of these calls you wouldn’t want that to be the only person to go on the call,” Howard said. “Maybe that can be the primary person, but in public safety you have to remember that, for example, domestic violence incidents can turn at any time and you have to be careful. Not all cases are alike.”