Public Comment

The piece published in the linked article is inaccurate. The writer did not either read or understand the proposal being presented to the City Council on Tuesday (linked). I noticed that he published a similar post on Nextdoor. The Council item does not propose that we hire a private contractor for traffic and parking enforcement. Rather the item asks that Berkeley explore taking those functions out of the Police Department and put them in a new Department of Transportation, that would also include the engineering and transportation planning functions already in the Department of Public Works. They would be city staff. Moving Parking Enforcement out of Police should be non-controversial. Moving traffic enforcement is a new idea that should be explored as part of the larger conversation of reimaging public safety. The preliminary idea is that they would be non-Police personnel with enforcement powers (like code enforcement officers) who can issue citations. Obviously, there are many factors to consider, this item is simply asking that we start the conversation. We would not be giving final approval to creating a new department. This issue would be explored over the next year in consultation with Police, Public Works and the community. Thanks for agreeing to post this clarification on the Planet site.