Seattle’s incoming mayor shared his disapproval of a plan to remove funding to the city’s police on Tuesday, citing the election results to back him up.
Bruce Harrell, a Democrat, criticized the Seattle City Council’s plan to cut $10 million to the Seattle Police Department, saying his vision for a safer city could not be achieved if the city went through with it. The cut was included in a proposed balanced budget bill and was suggested to offset decreasing revenue, according to the Seattle Times.
“Last Tuesday, the voters of Seattle resoundingly and unambiguously rejected defunding the police,” Harrell said. “Our campaign expressed a clear message and commitment: We must deliver true community safety, ensure unbiased policing, and decrease length of response times by improving training, hiring more and better officers, creating unarmed and alternative responses, and changing the culture within SPD.”
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Harrell won the mayoral election on Nov. 2 against Lorena Gonzales. Collecting nearly two-thirds of the votes, Harrell called the desire for safety a “unifying element” among residents across the city, according to the outlet.
Seattle’s projected revenue for 2022 fell by $15 million in September due to employers deciding they would continue with work remotely through early 2022 , exempting employees from the city’s JumpStart payroll tax. To offset the decline, Budget Committee Chairwoman Teresa Mosqueda focused on cutting the police budget to preserve the council’s other priorities, the outlet reported.
Harrell was not the only Seattle politician to criticize the proposal, as the city’s current mayor, Jenny Durkan, said it failed to prioritize public safety. She also blamed recent staffing problems in the city’s police department on the council, according to the outlet.
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“Continued cuts to SPD and underfunding the 911 center are not a plan for true public safety,” Durkan said.
A final budget vote for the proposal is expected on Nov. 22.
