City to hold workshop on race, policing this week

After last summer’s nationwide movement against police brutality and racism spilled onto Petaluma city streets and mobilized scores of community groups to investigate local policing practices, the city of Petaluma has committed to hosting a devoted workshop on the issue next week.

The special City Council meeting, entitled “Community Race Relations and Policing Policies,” is slated for 6 p.m.on Thursday, Jan. 21. It’s the continuation of a process started last year, when a consortium of community groups held listening forum to collect the experiences and opinions of Petaluma’s BIPOC community – referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color.

The July forum drew roughly 150 participants, overseen by facilitators from North Bay Organizing Project, Petaluma Blacks for Community Development, Sonoma County Black Coalition and Petaluma Community Relations Council, among others.

“This is our first workshop to really listen to the community,” said City Manager Peggy Flynn. “We want to address some of the things we’ve been hearing in the community and reaffirm our commitment for zero tolerance of any hate speech, harassment or anything that affects our community members of color.”

Next week’s discussion also follows a June 16 Town Hall meeting and a highly-publicized TV show that saw Petaluma police officers talk with former NFL athlete Emmanuel Acho on “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.”

Petaluma resident and community activist Zahyra Garcia is vice president of the North Bay Organizing Project’s executive board, and displayed cautious optimism that the new council will address racist incidents in the city and heed calls for greater police transparency.

“This is a step toward accountability, and that’s a big deal, especially for Petaluma,” Garcia said. “There’s no unity without accountability. I’m not 100% certain things are going to change because of this, but it is a first step toward that goal.”

In the weeks following the election, activists and community members demanded the new City Council formally delve into the 29-page report developed after the listening session, and publicly discuss its list of recommendations.

Detailed recommendations included the formation and funding of an independent committee to oversee new police training and hiring practices, ensure greater public transparency and encourage more community conversations about policing.

Additionally, the report called for an expansion of de-escalation procedures and revisions to the department’s use of force tactics. More controversially, participants expressed support for defunding the police, language that led the Petaluma Community Relations Council to withhold their endorsement of the written report.

The establishment of the forum itself was a hurdle for local organizers, who pressed the city to cancel its own “listening sessions” that were to be led by police, and to instead allow the community to collect input from Petaluma’s Black, Latino and other residents of color.

The event was met with much excitement at the time, seen as forward momentum in the city’s new promise to review police practices and procedures. But after its October report was submitted to council for review, discontent began to brew over a perceived slow-walking of the process. Thursday’s meeting comes more than six months after the community-led listening forums, and approximately four months after its report was submitted to council for public consideration.

Flynn pushed back on the criticisms that the City hasn’t responded fast enough, arguing staff has spent “a lot of earnest time to listen and meet people where they are,” as well as hire a diversity consultant and create an online survey for residents to share their thoughts.

“We’ve had a lot of things to contend with, close to the end of the year. We had fires and have been dealing with a change in our business climate, then an election,” she said. “We wanted to make sure we could talk to as many folks as we could. We wanted to do it right, and I just don’t think we were there yet by the end of last year.”

Claudia De La Pena helped lead last summer’s forum, which was held virtually over the course of two days. As a Black resident, she says she is hopeful that the city will take residents’ concerns over equity and personal safety seriously.

“You have racism in Petaluma. Things are not equal,” she said. “We do not have the type of equity Petalumans think we have, and the first piece is to educate people about that.”

De La Pena, a longtime resident of the city, struck the same chord of reluctant optimism as Garcia, warning that the issue will take more than a meeting.

Petaluma Blacks for Community Development co-founder Faith Ross said she hopes the council will spend less time looking at the report and more time listening to what community members have to say.

“I hope what they do is spend a little bit of time looking at the report, but it’s old now,” Ross said. “I want them to be listening to the community during this meeting. If they listen, then the community will tell them what the next steps should be.”

(Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.)