Juneteenth Demands Mayor Barlow

OFFICE OF THE SA PRESIDENT
June 10, 2020
Dear Mayor Barlow, Oswego Common Council, Oswego DA and Oswego County Legislators:
Defunding the police means re-funding social services.
As SUNY Oswego grows its diverse student population every year, we are experiencing
heightened, uneven, and disproportionate policing of students of colour, as well as racial and
cultural tension and intolerance between the campus and the community.
At a community town hall in 2018, hosted to address these tensions, Mayor Barlow stated: “I
truly believe the more diverse a community is the better it is.” However, the community has not
become accommodating to our diverse student body and the police have become increasingly
hostile- as seen across our nation with the heightened tension. While the Oswego Police
Department and county police have a lack of records indicating excessive force or lethal police
brutality, we believe it is imperative to address the shortcoming of the department before an
incident were to happen. The time is ripe for change, the time is now. At the same town hall
Mayor Barlow further called for “any ideas you have on that [inclusivity in Oswego], I need to
know… I’m a white guy, so you need to tell me.”1
While we vehemently believe that you do not need a certain skin tone to enforce diversity and
inclusion, we are taking the opportunity now- to call you to action and offer our assistance. We
would like to partner with you to bring students and residents to the table for the betterment of
the community. This starts with both expanding and empowering the very important CCRC
committee to oversee our demands and enforcement of them. We believe this to be the first step
in starting the conversation of dismantling institutional racism and finding new ways of social
services investment.
In addition, the residents of Oswego suffer the most. Through the past years the city of Oswego
has increased the Police Department’s budget, comprising approximately ¼ (or 25%) of the
city’s budget, while decreasing social service funding. We must do better.
1
http://www.oswegocountynewsnow.com/news/city-college-town-hall-packs-mccrobie-building/article_5e5
95950-e7ae-11e8-a7a8-7b3d9a4bb544.html
Instead of investing in community spending to handle the social problems of mental health and
opioid, drug addiction and abuse, the police have become an overfunded militarized tool to
address these same social issues in which they are ill-equipped.
We urge the Mayor and Common Council to prioritize funding for programs and community
organizations to work in crisis intervention and prevention. Our police force responds mostly to
mental health and domestic violence calls in a city with inadequate addiction services and an
under-resourced hospital budget, or serve an impoverished population that cannot access these
health services. The youth of Oswego can profoundly benefit from better lunch programs,
after-school programs and a well-funded school district. However, the police force budget’s keep
increasing and now stands at more than $4.4 million.
One thing is clear: poverty, addiction and mental health have become criminalized in the city. By
moving resources away from police and towards social services, all residents of Oswego and
Oswego County will profoundly benefit. The police no longer have to manage a myriad of social
problems, as those in need receive the appropriate care focused on compassion and not
criminalization. Defunding the police is simply moving resources to where the needs of our
community are required.
To achieve safety and inclusivity of a diverse population you do not put more cops on the street
and militarize them. Instead to achieve safe and healthy communities, we urge you to put more
resources into public education, affordable housing and home ownership, into access to
affordable and quality daycare for low-income residents, into accessible transportation services,
into access to capital for small businesses, and access to health care regardless of how much
money people have. Our jails have become mental health treatment centers, and our students of
colour have been overly policed, and face hostile policing in conjunctions with some residents
with racial biases.
Thus, the Student Association Executive Branch of SUNY Oswego, along with the support of
Accept Oswego, vehemently endorses the following demands for divesting from police and
investing in our community, and call on your attention to their swift implementation:
OSWEGO COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT
Address inadequate community policing, end policing for profit:
● Explicitly ban chokeholds and neck restraints

● Ban no-knock warrants regardless of exigency based on cops
● Make police disciplinary/conduct records transparent, public and accessible, we urge the
city to support the repeal of 50-A
● Establish an independent Citizen Review Board in result of lethal shootings and to review
excessive force complaints
● Implement response policy to racially charged 911 calls and prohibit false race-based
calls
CITY OF OSWEGO
Invest in non-violence, community spending vs police spending:
● Fly the BLM/Pan-African Flag to commemorate Juneteenth and stand in solidarity

against institutional racism and police brutality
● Expand and empower the CCRC committee to include more students and disenfranchised
residents, tasking them to oversee the implementation of reform in city
● Mandate OPD and City Officials actively engage with Anti-Bias/ Anti-Racism education
● Defund the police and re-fund social services; place more resources into public
education, quality mental health centers, affordable housing, wide-ranging transport,
low-cost/subsidized child care, access to capital for small business and healthcare for all
regardless of income.
● Invest in mental health professionals for mental health/opioid calls
● Increase funding for non-profit community programs in crisis intervention/prevention
● Move resources where community needs it most; through funding for mental health
services, youth programs, food banks, and impoverished residents
Lizeth Ortega Brandon Gonzalez
Student Association President Interim Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Eusebio Omar van Reenen

Student Association President Emeritus 2019
Endorsed by:
Accept Oswego

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OFFICE OF THE SA PRESIDENT

June 10, 2020

Defunding the police means re-funding social services.

● Explicitly ban chokeholds and neck restraints

● Fly the BLM/Pan-African Flag to commemorate Juneteenth and stand in solidarity

Eusebio Omar van Reenen

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