Hey, Santa Fe, What About the Cops?

A task force created almost a year and a half ago to examine police practices in Santa Fe will get another year to continue its work after a unanimous vote by the City Council Wednesday evening.

City officials announced the creation of the task force in response to the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer and national protests over police brutality. An urgent response from City Hall to respond to the collective anger and look inward at the city’s own public safety issues was spearheaded by Mayor Alan Webber and councilors Renee Villarreal and Chris Rivera.

The Community Health and Safety Task Force, originally slated to expire at the end of this month, aims to examine how public safety—fire and police—communicate with each other and interact with the public. While the group will have another year to identify root causes of problems and imagine solutions in the city’s public safety and health services, the group needs money to make that happen.

A memo attached to the resolution passed Wednesday requested $205,000 for the year’s extension, in part, to hire the University of New Mexico’s Center for Social Policy to collect community feedback about policing in Santa Fe. Councilors did not take up the request for funding on Wednesday.

Since the group’s inception in August 2021, it has adopted a set of guiding principles and developed focus groups to inspect various aspects of the city’s public safety services.

According to the memo, the UNM center has prior experience conducting similar surveys and requested $120,000 of the group’s budget to conduct the research.

The task force will provide quarterly reports to the governing body, documenting an overview of the group’s work and eventually proposing recommendations on how public safety services can better serve Santa Feans.

Despite the reason for the task force’s advent—police brutality against Black Americans—the group that will continue the work does not include any Black members.

At the task force’s inception, a diverse group of community members joined the ranks, including three Black New Mexicans. But as of this fall, those three had parted ways with the group.

Naja Druva, one former member who cited a bureaucratic, toxic environment, says that because of the task force’s inherently flawed structure, she has little hope for progress.

“The change won’t happen in a space that is designed to maintain the status quo,” she told SFR in an interview last month.

Last month the task force’s proposed extension came before the City Council after a presentation from the group. Instead of granting a prolonged term, the governing body decided to return the proposal to committees for further discussion about a plan to hear for community engagement.

Wednesday’s council meeting marked the last for councilors Roman “Tiger” Abeyta and JoAnne Vigil Coppler. Lee Garcia and Amanda Chavez will take over in January 2022 for their respective districts, 3 and 4.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of the headline for this story incorrectly stated that funding was allocated to the task force.