VOICES: River City, Episode 155: Old habits die hard

[Editor’s note: sljiva is made from plums, and not pears!!!]

Cities and counties throughout the US are listening to their constituencies and moving funding away from their police departments and toward programs that actually serve the community. Sacramento? Not so much. Next year the city is set to fund the equivalent of five new cops. Per Mayor Darrell Steinberg:

“I’m not for ‘defunding,'” Steinberg said. “There are some things that are part of running a city, like collective bargaining and binding arbitration, and genuine needs for the police department.”

 Lovely.

 For what it’s worth, the city is finally taking a look at police use of force, voting on Tuesday on whether it will be acceptable only as a “last resort.” The level of pushback from city bureaucrats on this has been absurd, but electeds are pushing through. This one might have a chance. Contact your council member to make sure they land on the right side of history.

 We also discuss with Dr Flo the shift from vaccine scarcity toward vaccine abundance, and what that means for California in terms of public health.

Oh, and remember when that awful Junipero Serra statue that was torn down by black bloc last summer in Capitol Park? It’s likely gonna be replaced by something that pays respect to our indigenous neighbors. Who said direct action didn’t ever accomplish anything? 

Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:

Twitter: @youknowkempa@guillotine4you@ShanNDSTevens@Flojaune

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/voicesrivercity

Sacramentans can hear us on 103.1 KUTZ Tuesdays at 5 pm and again Wednesdays at 8 am.

Also, if you require a transcript of our episodes, please reach out to info@voicesrivercity.com and we’ll make it happen.

And thank you to Be Brave Bold Robot for the tunes.

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VOICES: the podcast
Independent. Weird. Audio. The VOICES: River City podcast is here to talk all things Sacramento with the region's activists, artists and aardvarks.