For those of you who missed the Neighborhood Association Council candidate forum last week, a quiet bombshell was dropped with hardly anyone noticing. Like a slight of hand, a mere one liner, introducing a thought into your subconscious without you taking particular notice.

One of the candidates mentioned Santa Monica should move the funds "sequestered" for the hiring of additional police officers to other programs. Well what sequestered funds are we talking about? Let me explain.

Last July, Council responded to several high profile and shocking incidents that occurred in Santa Monica over a span of a few months. These included a woman who was out on a morning jog when she was attacked and dragged towards the public restrooms; two tourists who were stabbed, one so seriously he was on the brink of death; a 17-year-old female who was attacked on the beach sunbathing, and the the list goes on.

In a rare move, Council voted 7-0 to fund 4 additional police officers for the Police Department. At last, an issue we could all agree on! ("Council Adds 4 Officers to Proposed Budget," May 31, 2024).

The discussion from the dais was long, priorities were challenged, questions arose about how funding would be possible, but universally, it appeared as though everyone agreed this was the best way forward.

There was no discussion about sequestering funds or "non-departmental" accounts, no conditions mentioned about how the funds would be accessed, no unattainable bar mentioned. It appeared as if the funds would be allocated as they had always been.

As many things are in Santa Monica, it was not what it first seemed. It appears someone slipped language into the police funding item, without discussion in public, that the funds could only be accessed once the Police Department was at full staffing.

Why is that one liner about sequestered police funds important? Well leading to my third decade of policing in Santa Monica the Police Department has been fully staffed all of one time, for about 3 months.

This one liner appeared to be slipped in so no matter what the vote on the dais was, the net affect would be zero. Zero additional officers hired and zero additional funds going to the Police Department to combat and prevent these incidents.

Not one officer will be gained from those funds, not one officer hour will be worked, not one crime prevented, not one unhoused person referred to services, not one store owner offered assurance that crime will abate.

Nothing Santa Monica! That's what you'll get in terms of additional police service. There will be no increase in the number of officers, of course under the guise of, "Why increase funding for hiring if the Police Department can't hire for the number they are already allotted"

Don't be fooled. When the Department is short staffed the work doesn't disappear. During the covid shutdowns your Police Department was downsized by over 100 employees! Of those, over 20 were full time employees and over 40 were as-needed employees, all contributing to the work. Some of those positions came back, but many have not.

The reason it was important that the candidate mentioned it in the forum is there is now an attempt to paper over what was done in the dark. To normalize the disenfranchisement of safety in Santa Monica.

With the stroke of a pen or the click of a keyboard, what the community thought would be increased safety, poof -- disappeared. By slowly bleeding this out in public, without the public knowing the background, no one will understand the full nature of what was referenced.

The reason it was so easy to suggest the funds be diverted to other areas was because it appears that was the plan from the start. What better way to divert funds away from the Police Department than to veil it to look like additional funding, then design it in a way that the Police Department could never access the funds, genius really.

Give the appearance of supporting the Police Department but never actually have to fund it, let's call it a "Non-Departmental Account."

Instead of the money being moved over to the Police budget, the money was moved to a "Non-Departmental Account." Now they can say the funds are available for use when, through bureaucracy, they are not.

For the most part, no one has ever heard of a non-departmental account and I would be fairly surprised if there is currently another such account in operation in the City at this time. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it. The devil is always in the details.

There's been lots of discussion on policing and safety in Santa Monica. The POA respects all the opinions, even when we disagree we always recognize one's right to express their view. The troubling part for us is that when the public attends and watches the discourse on the dais they should be able to trust that what is discussed, debated and voted on, actually happens.

Since that 7-0 vote we have had a kidnapping of a child, two attempt kidnappings of other children, two sexual assaults on the beach (one very violent), a stand off with a guy wielding a large construction hammer, a murder, a shooting where the victim will most likely have life long health complications, and a woman who was awoken in her home in the middle of the night to a man touching her, just to name a few. Seriously, there are many other newsworthy crimes but to list them all here would only eat up space.

The officers have arrested most of the suspects in these crimes; you have a excellent Police Department, you really do. The officers pride themselves on doing the right thing and apprehending the suspects but they also need enough officers to prevent crime, not just respond to it. Some have said not to worry because the funding for the four officers will be in next year's budget, but will it?

In order to keep the Department on the forefront of policing it needs to be funded that way. In the afterword of his book, Talking to Strangers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about policing and it being a hard job. He states the thing he was most disappointed about to come out of 2020, was the idea and term, "Defund the Police."

Recognizing that the police are vital to a functioning society he wrote, "we have asked for trouble by creating a job where superhuman levels of competence is necessary for success." He goes on to say, "I have never known any hard thing that was easier to do on the cheap."

What we are doing here in Santa Monica is depressing at times, it truly challenges logic. I love Santa Monica and want to see it thrive but I also know that with a head in the sand policy related to policing it's an uphill battle.

The Chief recently put out a message calling for "the active participation of every resident to help create a safer environment." Knowing now that Santa Monica will not be getting any additional officers, even after a 7-0 vote, I would heed his advice. At this point, what else can we do?