Synopsis of City Council Meeting today on Santa Rosa as Sanctuary City
Today was extraordinary at the City Council Meeting in Santa Rosa. Around 300 people turned out in support of putting the issue of Santa Rosa as a sanctuary city on the agenda. Comments by both councilpeople and the public were clear and strong. The Council was clearly influenced by the strong turnout.
The council asked that questions be researched as to the definition of "Sanctuary" or Safe City - what it is and what it is not, and information as to the risks and dangers, especially related to withdrawal of federal funding of the city.
The issue will be debated at the Council next Tuesday, Feb 7th at 4 p.m. Join in helping to make this very concrete proposal come to pass in Santa Rosa. Though the council seems to be in favor in general, there is much grey area about how narrow or road an interpretation will be adopted.
I believe that now and in coming years there are and will be VERY limited opportunities to stop illegal damage to our civil rights and those of our citizens. Let us take every possible opportunity where we can make a difference toward preserving those rights - let us not miss an opportunity.
The benefits far outweigh the risks, and if those risks include loss of real and needed loss of funding to our community, we have to trust that our legal teams will be able to defend the funding and/or our community will pick up the slack, and that we may have to suffer some real consequences to much needed programs in order to preserve our civil liberties first and foremost.
Please come to the City Council next week in support of the broadest possible interpretation of Sanctuary City, and help Santa Rosa join the 200 cities in the nation who have already done so. 100 Santa Rosa Ave. Room #10.
This group has done a terrific job of organizing this event and more: Visit their facebook page
[ The Press Democrat's article on the meeting is here]
Re: Synopsis of City Council Meeting today on Santa Rosa as Sanctuary City
The PD article at the link at the bottom concurs with what the post below says. This is an important step forward, which I hope that other City Councils follow, especially here in Sebastopol, where we have been encouraging them to declare out small town a sanctuary city.
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Posted in reply to the post by smonday:
