The Ann Arbor City Council will vote on the proposed city budget for fiscal year 2022 at the council meeting on Monday night. A meeting was held on May 3 for residents to express thoughts and concerns about the roughly $470 million proposed budget. Covering issues ranging from policing to deer population control, the proposed budget contains many hotly contested items. Police The budget includes $155,000 for the Ann Arbor Independent Community Police Oversight Commission (ICPOC), which serves as a bridge between residents and the Police Department. The ICPOC was established in 2019, partly in response to the fatal shooting of Aura Rosser, a Black woman with mental illness, by Ann Arbor police. At the May 3 meeting, Ward 5 resident Ralph McKee urged the council to follow recommendations from the ICPOC as well as Dr. Lisa Jackson, chair of the ICPOC, who also spoke at the beginning of the council meeting. “I would really urge you to really engage (Dr. Jackson) in depth on (police funding),” McKee said. “She has really studied that. Many of the rest of us are what I would call part- timers on that issue. We’re interested in it, but we really haven’t studied it to the level she and other activists have.” Many Ann Arbor residents want to see mental health professionals, not police, respond to emergency calls when appropriate. City Council passed a resolution in April asking the City Administrator to create plans for an unarmed first responder program for mental health crises in Ann Arbor. At the meeting, Ward 2 resident Jeremiah Simon said he wants to see police funding redirected to mental health professionals. “The current budget proposal increases the police budget from $30.7 million to $31.4 million from 2021 to 2022,” Simon said. “The city should shift responsibility for mental health and substance use crisis response away from the police, and therefore should shift money to a new, autonomous, unarmed crisis response program.” City Councilmember Kathy Griswold, D-Ward 2, told The Michigan Daily she supports having unarmed mental health professionals with proper oversight and training respond to appropriate emergency calls. “The county is responsible for the 911 Dispatch… (if we) say we want to be treated differently you have to have the dispatcher know when to send out a police officer and when to send out an unarmed mental health professional,” Griswold said. “That’s going to be difficult, but it’s going to be possible. We have to have a lot of training and a very clearly defined implementation plan.” Ann Arbor resident Michelle Hughes called in to the Council meeting to show her support of increasing the amount of money for unarmed responders which is currently at $234,000. “We should have more money spent on unarmed responders this year, shifting the enforcement of traffic things away from the police,” Hughes said. “The amount that we have on our budget for the new unarmed response program is not zero, and I very much 2 Thursday, May 20, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com NEWS A preview of the 2022 Ann Arbor City Budget Leaders of the University of Michigan Central Student Government (CSG), including its president and vice president, issued a statement via the CSG Instagram page on Monday condemning Israel’s recent actions in the ongoing Palestine-Israel conflict. The statement was released after reports of the deaths of over 30 Palestinians, including ten children, due to Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City. The attack came after rockets launched from the Gaza Strip reached the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. The statement was signed by CSG President Nithya Arun, CSG Vice President Carla Voigt, CSG DEI Coordinator Zaynab Elkolaly, CSG Cabinet Member Eman Naga, LSA Student Government Vice President Zackariah Farah, SAFE, the Arab Student Association (ASA) and the Muslim Student Association (MSA). It was not approved as a resolution by the CSG Assembly. In the statement, the CSG leaders said Israel is responsible for the death and destruction of the Palestinian people and property since the state of Israel was established by the United Nations in 1948. “For the past 73 years, this violence has displaced, harmed, and killed indigenous Palestinians,” the statement reads. “This is not a ‘conflict,’ but emblematic of Israeli settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid.” The CSG leaders went on to claim that anti-Palestinian and pro- Israel sentiments were rampant in our campus community. The statement acknowledges that CSG has participated in pro-Israel events, such as funding yearly trips to Israel for Jewish students. “We also must recognize CSG’s prior complicity with Israel’s violence through participation in events such as yearly trips to Israel that supported the settler-state in its apartheid and occupation,” the statement reads. The CSG leaders ended their statement by calling on the University to divest from Israeli companies and by vowing to use their platform to uplift and represent Palestinian voices and work with Palestinian student groups, such as Students Allied For Freedom and Equality (SAFE). “The University of Michigan remains complicit by choosing not to divest from Israeli companies profiting off the settler state’s occupation,” the statement reads. “As such, CSG is determined to correct these wrongs by working with SAFE and other organizations advocating for Palestinian liberation to curate actionable steps that will be released at a later date.” The statement comes less than five years after CSG voted against calling on the University to divest their investments from Israeli companies in 2016. CSG passed a resolution in 2017 calling on the University to form a committee to look into divesting from said Israeli companies, but that resolution was ultimately rejected by the Board of Regents. Student reactions The statement drew mixed reactions from the campus community, with some believing that the statement was biased and one- sided, and others believing that CSG did what was necessary to support CSG response to the Israel-Palestine conflict draws mixed reactions from U-M community JUSTIN O’BEIRNE Daily Staff Reporter GEORGE WEYKAMP Summer News Editor 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com CALDER LEWIS Editor in Chief eic@michigandaily.com KATIE LYNGKLIP Business Manager business@michigandaily.com EDITORIAL STAFF Madison Gagne Managing Editor mbgagne@umich.edu Allison Engkvist Digital Managing Editor engkvist@umich.edu Christian Juliano and Shannon Stocking Managing News Editors news@michigandaily.com Josh Taubman and Max Wadley Managing Sports Editors sports@michigandaily.com Rosa Sofia Kaminski and Julian Wray Managing Arts Editors arts@michigandaily.com Becca Mahon and Dominick Sokotoff Managing Photo Editors photo@michigandaily.com Sarah Chung and Allison Yih Managing Design Editors design@michigandaily.com Ethan Patrick and Caroline Atkinson Managing Copy Editors copydesk@michigandaily.com Eliya Imtiaz and Lola Yang Managing Michigan in Color Editors michiganincolor@michigandaily.com Amelia Duffy and Zoe Storer Managing Social Media Editors socialmedia@michigandaily.com Mary Rolfes Editorial Page Editor opinion@michigandaily.com Margaret Rudnick Managing Video Editor video@michigandaily.com Samantha Cole Managing Statement Editor statement@michigandaily.com CONTACT INFORMATION News Tips tipline@michigandaily.com Corrections corrections@michigandaily.com Letters to the Editor tothedaily@michigandaily.com News section news@michigandaily.com Photo Department photo@michigandaily.com Arts Section arts@michigandaily.com Editorial Page opinion@michigandaily.com Sports Section sports@michigandaily.com Advertising wmg-contact@umich.edu The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University of Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2 per issue. Subscriptions for September - April are $250, and year-long subscriptions are $275. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. Subscriptions must be prepaid. Read more at michigandaily.com DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily The Ann Arbor City Council is set to vote on a proposed $470 million budget Monday night. applaud that, (but it) is much closer to zero than I would like it to be.” Pedestrian Safety Ann Arbor’s Healthy Streets program which aims to provide safe options for pedestrians and bikers in the city was of particular concern to residents. The program, which was designed to allow for proper social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, was first passed by City Council in July of 2020. The city employed several methods to increase outdoor recreational space for pedestrians, including street closures, sidewalk space expansion, new bike lanes and reducing vehicle lanes. At the Council meeting, Ann Arbor resident Shannon Hautamaki said paying for the Healthy Streets initiative is vital for the wellbeing of children in Ann Arbor. “For families with young children, I don’t see a return to normalcy happening that quickly. Vaccines for young children are still several months, if not a year away,” Houtamaki said. “Children will have to do most of their socializing outside where transmission of COVID is Read more at michigandaily.com