What does Vallejo's public safety emergency mean?
(Screen grab from City of Vallejo council meeting)
The Vallejo City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted to declare a public safety emergency, a move that the city says will allow officials to appoint personnel more quickly while still adhering to the tenets of a memorandum of understanding with the city’s police union.
The action was needed because of a spike in violent crimes within Vallejo this year coupled with a litany of federal lawsuits and public tort claims, some of which accuse Vallejo police officers of excessive force and other misconduct while carrying out their official duties.
“The issues need to be addressed — it cannot be ignored,” City Manager Greg Nyhoff said at Tuesday’s council meeting.
Prior to the vote, the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported there had been 358 shooting victims from September 30, 2019 to September 30, 2020 — a 40 percent increase compared to the same time period from 2018 to 2019. Other crimes, including rape and homicide, also increased within the same time period, the newspaper reported.
To make matters worse, the Vallejo police department has seen a drop in the number of sworn officers on its force — from just over 160 officers last year to just under 80 this year.
Earlier this week, the City of Vallejo said it would be requesting an emergency declaration through the city council that would help it deal with those problems and others. The request came as the city faced more than two dozen federal lawsuits and a dozen other tort claims related to allegations of police misconduct and other issues.
“With liability insurance providers substantially increasing premiums and deductibles for agencies across the State of California, Vallejo cannot afford additional penalties or cost increases, especially during this pandemic-induced recession,” a city official wrote in a press release on Monday.
One day later, the Vallejo city council unanimously approved the emergency declaration, which paves the way for Nyhoff and other key city officials to take faster action in reforming certain police matters.
After the declaration was approved, city officials said they would work immediately to form a task force — one that will include a new assistant chief and other law enforcement officials — to examine issues plaguing the police department.
The move does not have the support of the Vallejo Police Officers’ Association, the bargaining labor union that represents all sworn officers within the agency except the chief of police.
“The city does not need to declare an emergency to hire more police officers to protect citizens and businesses — it just needs to hire more cops,” the union said in a statement published before Tuesday’s vote.
Vallejo has been unable to hire more officers because it “refuses to provide competitive wages and benefits to attract candidates - either entry level or laterals,” the union claimed. It also said giving the city manager and other officials power to appoint individuals to a task force amounted to it creating “a dictatorship in response to its own administrative failures.”
But city officials say they are following the law, noting that the move is in line with a memorandum of understanding between it and the police union. The emergency declaration doesn’t allow it to bypass the union’s right to bargain or represent officers in disciplinary actions, officials said.
The proclamation is effective for two months, and any extension will have to be approved again by the city council.
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