City of Oakland | Kaplan thanks the heads of state for including it …

Governor Gavin Newsom approved the 2021 budget bill. The budget includes $ 10 million for the Oakland Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (“MACRO”) program – funding requested by Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan – to allow in Oakland to provide a strong civilian crisis response program. . Kaplan thanks Governor Newsom, the state legislature, and in particular Senator Nancy Skinner, for her amendments to the 2021 Budget Act.

Kaplan has consistently advocated for the creation of a formed civilian emergency response program in the city of Oakland. It successfully included funding for the MACRO study in its budget changes for the 2019-2020 fiscal year. In March, she called on the city to launch MACRO as an internal program through the Oakland Fire Department (“OFD”). Now, thanks to OFD, civilian responders will respond to non-violent 9-1-1 calls, providing access to mental health, conflict mediation and social resources. Thus, allowing the police to focus on responding to and investigating violent crime

On May 4, 2021, Deputy Mayor Kaplan wrote a letter to the chairmen of the Senate and Assembly budget committees pleading for funding for MACRO. It is said:

“In Oakland, we understand the urgent need to improve access to mental health services for non-violent crisis calls, rather than criminalizing community members who are already in a vulnerable state…

… We respectfully ask that you continue to support our city by funding our Unarmed Crisis Response Team – Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (“MACRO”). In coordination with several grassroots communities and with a wave of community support, the city of Oakland is launching MACRO to respond to non-violent crisis calls …

We are working hard to ensure that this program is put in place to improve life in our city. MACRO is started as an internal program within the Oakland Fire Department, staff would be unsworn and preferably from the worst affected communities in our city.

Letter of 05/21/2015 from Vice-Mayor Kaplan: https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:38b8e016-7147-4baa-9078-0df221b2079e

On behalf of the City of Oakland, Kaplan expresses his gratitude to Governor Newsom for approving $ 10 million in funding for MACRO, Senator Skinner for supporting Oakland through its state budget amendments, and to the state for prioritizing the needs of our communities, Kaplan has provided a budget resolution to allocate this new state funding to the special Oakland City Council meeting on July 26, 2021.

Screenshots of budget extracts:

Finance law SB-129 of 2021:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB129

Links for more information on MACRO:

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/7/1/20677523/mental-health-police-cahoots-oregon-oakland-sweden

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997542990/oakland-becomes-latest-city-looking-to-take-police-out-of-nonviolent-911-calls