Crystal Huff (they/them)Good afternoon to everyone, but especially those who are also gonna zoom into the fuckin' #SomervilleMA Finance Committee meeting and watch our local electeds talk about how maybe they want to become even more enmeshed with Dept of Homeland Security, maybe now with SWAT trainings and AI surveillance software to go with the camera "upgrades" they accepted last week. Yes, I'm angry. This meeting starts up in 7 minutes.
(I do not promise to live-toot this meeting. I have two huge deadlines this week. But I am listening, and I think everyone else in the area should be, too.)
Item 26-0271 is "Requesting approval to accept and expend a $22,800.08 grant that requires a match, from the Metropolitan Mayors Coalition Community Safety Initiative to the Police Department for youth violence prevention."
This is a Shannon Grant. It is associated with legislation that we should discourage rap music because rap = gang violence. ISYN. Defund SPD did a whole thing about Shannon Grants a few years ago. They are copaganda and bullshit, far as I've seen.
Also, Shannon Grants require matching funds! It's actually NOT free money! We would have to commit to funds in our budget to contribute to this effort. :P
Item 26-0169 is "Requesting approval to accept and expend a $43,000 grant with no new match required, from the Boston Office of Emergency Management to the Police Department for software."
This is Dept of Homeland Security and UASI trying to get us to buy and use GreyKey, aka AI software for surveillance. So fun. So great. Sigh.
Item 25-0849 is "Requesting approval to accept and expend a $127,000 grant with no new match required, from the Boston Office of Emergency Management to the Police Department for Special Response Team equipment and training."
THIS IS FROM LAST YEAR. We refused to move on this last year, so now Mayor Jake is re-submitting it. Because ... we want to use UASI (aka DHS) funds to do SWAT training! Apparently!
Meeting is now starting. Councilor JT Scott is not yet in attendance. The 4 others are there, and the clerk's office.
They're taking items in order, starting with the upgrades to hazardous waste processing.
Money for hazardous waste processing grant is laid on the table for approval at the end of the meeting. Notably, access to the Franey Road building is inaccessible. The staff's solution is to find a phone outside the building (which I have never seen) to call the staff who work up the stairs, and have them come down and outside to ground level. Sooooo accessible and equality. Sigh.
See, the cool kids are watching this meeting. @somershade.bsky.social is also here: https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xkngkuljerb2mnflvfdolyro/post/3mgqeqzkis22r
Chris Dwan (he/him) (@somershade.bsky.social)
Good evening everybody, I'm logged into tonight's meeting of the Somerville City Council's Finance Committee from the comfort of my porch - which is an absolute delight. There's more cop money on this evening's agenda ... $127k for "Special Response Team equipment and training." I'm curious. 1/?
Note: Defund the Somerville Police Dept (DSPD) has a great zine explainer on grants related to the police. Covers the UASI grants, Shannon Grants, and a couple of other things of interest.
https://www.defundsomervillepd.org/zine-library/mapping-the-money
Sorry, they want to have the committee accept a grant "to help the youths," and it requires a matching fund, but they don't yet have a plan for how they'd be "engaging the youths" exactly? Maybe a trip to the aquarium. Well. I know I super want to buy into this copaganda, for sure.
Always on point, @somershade.bsky.social!
We could use this grant and matching funds to pay the cops overtime!!
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xkngkuljerb2mnflvfdolyro/post/3mgqfh5owlc2r
Chris Dwan (he/him) (@somershade.bsky.social)
The funds are for, to nobody's great surprise, police overtime. Why staff up when you can get paid OT, right? Historically the time has been used for hotspot patrols, youth / police outreach, and basketball games. Sounds like a sweet gig - shooting hoops at time and a half. 10/?
Jon Link helpfully asks the cops if we would be uploading data to ICE in order to be in compliance with this grant.
Oh, the chief says that everything that Jon Link is concerned about is already a public record.
I imagine that's not actually the info I would get if I made a public records request, though!
So glad Councilor Strezo supports the copaganda of the marginalized kids playing basketball with the cops at overtime (1.5x) prices.
She is arguing that this is a grant we've always accepted, but that's not true. It's a thing we've occasionally managed to refuse.
Note that Dwan is relaying the details much more than I am: https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xkngkuljerb2mnflvfdolyro/post/3mgqfun2u622r
"Thank you for the question, but I think you're asking a question that I can't answer," says the police chief, while being asked by Jon Link if he was sure that we wouldn't be uploading info to ICE that they wouldn't otherwise have easy access to. So, uh, the reassurance from the police that our values "stand out front" seems kinda ... not aligned with how they're treating this.
I'm really annoyed that Strezo says we care about the marginalized communities targeted by ICE, while also arguing that we should continue doing programs with the cops like the Shannon grants. Because to refuse this money would be harming our kids, says Strezo!
Sorry, "the information is pretty cut and dried, pretty clear" says the chief about records uploaded to ICE, but also he legit said earlier that he couldn't be sure.
Which is it?
Maybe we could get a memo demonstrating the process by which this info would be made available, and to whom. They could do the homework.
Chief says he wants the safeguards for members of our community, but he doesn't think it's worth doing the laborious work of assessing this issue.
This dude should be a politician.
So, looking at the votes on this committee, Strezo is an obvious yes to anything with the cops. She's very pro-cop.
Link is a likely no. Wheeler seems to be leaning no.
Hardt asks what the practical implications on the budget would be.
Chief indicates we're not budgeted to make up for it if we don't get this funding. So, uh, they do budget assuming that they'll take this money and it's a rubber stamp? Cooooool.
Wheeler suggests the committee could decide to send this item to the full council without a recommendation.
Strezo hates that idea, and says to think of the children. The poor children. City councilors chose to be councilors to support our community, and should vote now.
FUCK YEAH. Jon Link points out that there's no bigger disenfranchisement than losing your liberty or your life.
Strezo hates that, and feels disrespected.
And now Strezo feels accused and is talking over the chair of the meeting. She says Link was insulting her, and that's against the rules! (Link, point of order, was not insulting anyone.)
This is definitely a thing people should review when the video comes out. Good lord.
Hardt would like to speak on the motion, and says that she "wouldn't mind discharging without a recommendation." She also says this program "obviously has a lot of benefits." But says she "wouldn't mind more time."
So that's 3 likely votes to discharge without a recommendation. But we are debating procedure with the clerk, as well.
Oh, and Strezo would now like to debate the motion. "We all signed up to be city councilors to make sometimes difficult decisions." O.o
Chief Benson is concerned that we're approaching the warm season and we wouldn't want to deprive children of basketball games with the police.
Officer Wisdom (in the SPD) says they have until Nov 30th to expend the grant if it's accepted.
Seems like that's not time-urgent on the scale of days. C'mon.
Strezo argues that everyone on this committee signed up to make decisions and they should decide things.
Wheeler says they're also in charge of assessing the situation, when there are tradeoffs.
Oh, and Chief Bedford says there are cops watching this meeting "on their personal time" and are concerned. Cool? It's my personal time, too, and I live here.
Oh, and now we are getting some responses to questions that were asked earlier, which now Chief Benford is really certain of? But he wasn't sure 30 minutes ago.
It's now our belief that there's no data sharing with the federal government. Even though the grant specifically requires that sharing. So good to get the update, even though this question was asked 30 minutes ago and the answer was "we don't know!"
Link says he'd love to see that answer in writing. SAME.
Strezo suggests that we take a quick recess while the cops email everything in writing, and then come back to committee to be able to vote.
UH. COOL.
Jon Link says that wouldn't satisfy him, and he'd like the writing to be in the public record so that the public can also review the documents.
Strezo now says that emails to the council are public record, so that should satisfy people.
COME ON. Getting emails from the city council to my inbox is hard, actually. WTF.
Strezo is also attempting to drive the committee despite not being the chair. Good lord. She wants them to take a vote NOW.
Hahahaha, and now the clerk of the meeting says that she was reading from an email exchange that wasn't public, and she doesn't want to trample on the councilor's privacy by sharing the email with the committee (and the public). So Strezo's suggestion to forward the emails and then vote, because then it'd be public info, doesn't work, actually.
COOL.
We are in recess. As several people have texted me, this meeting is a HOT MESS. I blame Strezo, personally.
I would just like to see our city willing to put our money where our mouth is.
Last month, every city councilor signed onto an item saying that the 4th amendment is super important. That civil liberties are super important. This item was originally written by Councilor Hardt: https://somervillema.granicus.com/player/clip/2779?view_id=1&meta_id=154008&redirect=true
Last week, all but one city councilor voted to take grant money from DHS and use it to install surveillance cameras at the fire dept: https://somervillema.granicus.com/player/clip/2783?view_id=1&meta_id=154744&redirect=true
I would just like to see people VOTE as though they have to align their vote with their values on this. I think that'd be great.
Coming back from recess now. The clerk is gonna redact the email thread and then forward it to the committee members (which does not actually provide these documents to the public on the public record, to be clear!). Laying this item on the table for picking back up later in this meeting. Because that's totally helpful.
Cool, and now we're moving on to the item about GreyKey, Somerville PD's proposal to pay for (continue paying for??) DHS software to unlock digital evidence in phones.
Detective Schneider, now speaking, says they've been doing this over the past 2 years? This is NOT something I've seen submitted in the surveillance tech reports to city council? Have we been using this for 2 years and not reporting on it...?
"We primarily use GreyKey to access locked mobile phones. We've had GreyKey for 2 years, and we've used it 58 times."
I feel like I remember councilors assuring me last week that city council gets official reports when surveillance tech is used! @somershade.bsky.social am I somehow misremembering?
The most recent surveillance tech report on GreyKey that I can find to city council is from 2021, submitted by Mayor Curtatone.
This detective is saying they have been using GreyKey extensively in the past 2 years.
This is the most recent one I can find in search. https://somervillema.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=6766276&GUID=6B0E7DEF-387E-41F2-8E03-4037B0C3D028&Options=&Search=
Again, Dwan has more of the details on this meeting. (I am really supposed to be getting my homework done tonight, god dammit, although that's not going well right now.)
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xkngkuljerb2mnflvfdolyro/post/3mgqj7p3uys2r
Chris Dwan (he/him) (@somershade.bsky.social)
The cops have had GrayKey for two years and have done 58 digital examinations in that time. Most of those were violent offenses - 16 were sexual assaults or rapes. I don't type fast enough to catch the other numbers that he rattled off. 43/?
The councilors have gotten some written responses to questions they submitted to the cops about GreyKey and AI software in the police dept. Sure wish they were public records, easily downloaded from the city website. I'm not finding them.
Strezo is talking about rape victims now. So fun, to see my experiences leveraged for an argument I fundamentally, vehemently disagree with.
Alexandra ThornI'd probably be willing to play a basketball game or two for free.
Good that Strezo understands how bad it is to conflate things [\s]