SCPD Grant Proposal

A Local Bike Story

Comment period now closed

This email from Rick Hyman was how the public (i.e. the bike community) found out . . .

. . . that the SCPD was planning to submit a half-million dollar grant for bicycle and pedestrian safety "enforcement". This grant was first mentioned to a City bike subcommittee on Friday, January 19. Approval (for the SCPD to submit the proposal to Cal OTS) was on the City Council agenda for the following Tuesday, Jan 23rd. The subcom was asked to write a letter of support to City Council though they had been given no opportunity to read and consider the text of the proposal. No other bike or pedestrian advocacy group or individual had heard of this proposal or reviewed any of its content.

To make things even better, on Saturday the 20th there was a painful incident in town

A cyclist was struck by a driver who showed (according to eyewitnesses) classic signs of road rage. Despite minor injury to the cyclist and damage to the bike, and despite eyewitness testimony that the driver was at fault, local police let the driver go and assigned fault to the cyclist. This did not fill local cyclists with enthusiasm for the notion of giving an extra half million dollars to the police for "bike safety," as you might imagine. Cyclists showed up at the City Council meeting and submitted oral comment to criticize police (mis)handling of the road rage incident -- and to oppose the rubberstamping of a grant proposal which no cycle or pedestrian advocate, nor any member of the public, had even seen. The City council, caught between an irate public and a "fast track" grant proposal (deadline Jan 31) granted three days for public comment. 1.5 days of that period elapsed before the City got the proposal text up on a web site for the public to read.

Grant Proposal Text

Full text of the current draft of the SCPD Bike/Pedestrian Safety Enforcement grant.

Separate, minor DPW grant proposal

Separate DPW grant for $67K for sidewalk and other pedestrian facility maintenance: not controversial.

Letter to City Council from David Leach

A number of cyclists appeared at the Jan 23rd CC meeting to speak on this issue and against proceeding with the SCPD proposal unless there was public review. Though David could not stay and speak, he hand-delivered 8 paper copies of this letter.

Letter to City Council from De Clarke

I submitted a letter in advance, and spoke briefly at the meeting. My point was and is that we need to examine the grant proposal carefully in light of the unsatisfactory handling of the incident last Saturday in which SCPD let go without citation a driver who had struck a cyclist -- despite eyewitnesses who said it was deliberate aggressive driving. Other letters were submitted of which I will try to obtain copies.

Shawn's account of what happened

Shawn is not happy with the cursory police response to the wrecking of his bike.

Written Comments from De Clarke on the proposal

submitted to the Mayor, City Clerk, and Sgt Bailey on the afternoon of Fri Jan 26th. This is HTML and fairly nice to read. Plaintext version also available, exactly as emailed to Mayor and SCPD, City Clerk.

Written Comments from Kevin Karplus emailed to SCPD and City Clerk.

Written Comments from David Leach emailed to SCPD, Mayor, City Clerk

Written Comments from Richard Stover emailed to SCPD, City Clerk

Written Comments from Vicki Winters emailed to SCPD, City Clerk

Mayor's Meeting

Some rough notes from De Clarke; please send corrections/expansions if you were there.

Final Text of Grant as Submitted

This is what actually went out to OTS after public comment.

Final Cover Letter as Submitted

This is the cover letter that went with it.

I wrote an article for the local newsletter of "The Hub" community bicycle center.

It should be in the February 2001 issue. The article started out a bit longer at about 2000 words, but it's a small newsletter and my signature verbosity had to be trimmed down :-) The longer version is here just for historical interest.