Patrick Conant presented Code for Asheville’s Petition for Police Accountability Through Data Transparency to the Asheville Public Safety Committee on Monday, March 26th, formally requesting that the proposal be considered by City Council. Patrick described the community-led process that created the petition, and the wide support it has received so far – we have gathered over 600 signatures on Change.org and paper versions of the petition, and we are building an impressive list of endorsements from organizations and groups in Asheville and beyond.
In response to the presentation, the three Council members of the Public Safety Committee indicated their support for the proposal, and granted Code for Asheville’s request to present before a meeting of City Council, most likely at the April 10th meeting. They also instructed City staff to provide feedback and an estimate of any costs to implement these proposals.
Several members of the public spoke in support of the petition, including Carmen Ramos-Kennedy, who provided an official endorsement on behalf of the Asheville Buncombe NAACP.
We want to thank those in Code for Asheville and other members of the community who helped create the “Petition for Police Accountability Through Data Transparency,” and everyone who has signed, shared, and supported this important effort.
We’ve made it through the first step of our City’s policy-making process, but there is more work to be done. As we head towards our presentation before Council, we need to continue our efforts to gather signatures and endorsements. If you have signed the petition, please consider sharing it again within your networks as we make the final push to make these common-sense proposals a reality in our City.
Homeless Voice also presented a set of policy recommendations designed to push our City to better serve the basic needs of all residents. Several members of Code for Asheville have supported the work and BeLoved Asheville and Homeless Voice in their efforts to analyze homelessness in Asheville, and like our petition, their proposal is a great example of community-driven policy solutions. You can learn more about their proposal here.
Check out the video of the meeting here. Patrick’s presentation starts about 14 minutes in. Read the full text of the presentation here. You can find the Change.org petition here, and the full request here.