Vallejo police seek Measure P sales tax revenue to fund reforms

VALLEJO – The Vallejo Police Department is asking for $500,000 in revenue from Measure P, a sales tax hike passed by Vallejo voters in 2022, to fund reform work required by the California Department of Justice.

The Measure P Oversight Committee voted not to recommend the police department’s request at a special meeting on Wednesday because they felt that it did not fall under the “crime prevention” category of the City Council's Measure P spending priorities. However, whether to approve the request will ultimately be up to the City Council.

The police department’s current request is to use $500,000 in Measure P funds for the reform training which they estimate will cost $595,000. But this is only for the first year of a multi-year process and Deputy Chief Robert Knight said during the committee’s March 21 meeting that the department may come back to request more funding for the following years.

Assistant City Manager Terrance Davis said that the reform training will likely cost $3 million over time. 

Knight expects that the five-year court supervised agreement with the Department of Justice, which is not yet finalized, will involve 75 to 100 hours of additional training per year beyond the annual training that is already required. The training will cover, use of force, bias free policing, stops, seizures and searches and other topics intended to facilitate reforms.

Knight said he believes police reform falls under the council’s crime prevention priority.

“When you commit to those reform efforts, you improve police outcomes, you reduce fatal incidents, you reduce use of force and you respond more safely and you have better quality police services that have better oversight,” Knight said. “This whole process is intended to increase the confidence of the public in us that allows us to bridge the gap and build trust and legitimacy.”

But Measure P committee member Brien Farrell, a former Santa Rosa city attorney, disagreed. “I think you made an argument that was stretched as far as possible, that more trust results in crime prevention but that is not what crime prevention is about,” he said.

“The council needs to go back to their nine priorities and add police reform because I don't think that we should be playing with words and stretching something into what it isn’t,” Farrell added.

The  Measure P sales tax was approved by voters in 2022 as a means to fund critical city services such as street repair, homeless services and public safety. But the funds can be used for any municipal purpose and the City Council has full discretion on Measure P funding decisions. 

The council passed a separate resolution in conjunction with Measure P that establishes spending priorities, which includes keeping public spaces healthy, safe and clean, maintaining fire protection, emergency medical response and crime prevention services, addressing homelessness, blight and dumping, repairing streets roads and sidewalks and supporting the needs of Vallejo youth. 

According to city attorney Veronica Nebb, the resolution does not limit Measure P spending to the list of priorities. Changes to the resolution would require a supermajority vote of five out of seven councilmembers. 

At their  meeting Wednesday, Measure P committee members said that they were willing to recommend funding police reform but they did not feel comfortable voting to recommend a project outside of the council’s priorities.

“I agree that it’s not crime prevention,” at-large committee member Jackie Jones said. “Unless we are talking about preventing crime by the police.”

Commission chair Jasmine Salmeron said that the crime prevention that the council priorities refer to are not the kinds of crimes that would be addressed by the police reform training. “There are a lot of ways that we can reinvest in our city and help fund nonprofits to contribute to a culture that supports youth to be crime averse,” she said.

The committee included a caveat in their rejection of the police proposal stating that they would be willing to recommend funding the training if the council amends their Measure P priorities to include police reform.

The council has been swiftly allocating Measure P funds to other projects. On Tuesday, the Vallejo city council voted to approve $2 million in Measure P funds to pay for the next phase of the design process for a new police headquarters. The construction costs of that project are expected to be $121 million. 

The city also dedicated $5 million in Measure P funds for initial repairs and engineering costs in preparation for a $120 million street repair program that the city plans to finance through municipal bonds. Davis estimated that the debt service on the bonds for the street repair project will cost $8 to $9 million per year.

Measure P is expected to generate approximately $18 million in sales tax revenue per year. Debt service on the police headquarters and street repair could amount to the total annual Measure P revenue.

The city has received $13.3 million in revenue from the new sales tax from April 2023, when Measure P went into effect, through December. With $7 million already dedicated to street repair and the new police headquarters there is $6.3 million that is currently available in the fund.

The Measure P committee recommended eight projects on Wednesday for a total of $4.15 million. 

Three of the eight recommended projects cover equipment needed for ongoing city projects or services, including $150,000 a sandblaster and pressure washers to remove graffiti, $500,000 for solar lights to replace lighting damaged by copper theft or to address poorly lit areas and $500,000 for new cardiac defibrillators for fire department emergency vehicles. 

The remaining five recommended projects will establish or augment city services: $500,000 to fund abatement services for illegal dumping and litter, $500,000 to hire additional security guards to patrol areas impacted by crime or other safety concerns, $500,000 to contract with a nonprofit to staff the city’s extreme weather center, $1.1 million to fill gaps in funding for the city’s homeless navigation center, and $400,000 for grants to support youth programs.