Santa Clara County Proposes Declaring Racism As A Public Health Crisis
SAN JOSE (CBS SF) -- Santa Clara County is taking up a proposal to declare racism a public health crisis. It's an effort to refocus public policy that could affect everything from schools to law enforcement.
"This is one movement, our movement. It's time for change," said Board of Supervisors President Cindy Chavez.
Chavez joined with Supervisor Dave Cortese to announce two joint resolutions: to officially support Black Lives Matter, and to declare racism a public health crisis.
"This commits the county to work with Black communities to eliminate systemic and institutional racism," Cortese said.
Black community leaders said they will hold the supervisors to their word.
"We don't just want promises in the future. We want to be compensated for everything that's been taken from us," said LaToya Fernandez of Youth Hype.
"When Breonna Taylor can be gunned down in her own home and none of the officers responsible have been charged with anything, racism is still a public crisis," said Jahmal Williams, Co-Chair of the Black Leadership Kitchen Cabinet.
And they demanded immediate action on several fronts.
"We want an African American oversight council to monitor the well being of African American children established today! Not tomorrow," said Rev. Jethro Moore, President of the NAACP of Silicon Valley.
Moore also said the community wants to remove all police officers off school campuses, and all Santa Clara County law enforcement agencies to adopt community oversight.
"We are defined by the battles we dare fight, the challenge before is to keep hope alive, despite our enemies and the magnitude of barriers," said Moore.
They also demanded defunding the sheriff, the jails and the district attorney's office. Supervisors say cuts to those departments are now likely, partially because of the pandemic.
"I think by August, you'll see tens of millions of dollars in cuts to the justice system here and redirect those funds to safety net services to try to help people," Cortese said.
The resolutions will go before the full five-member Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.