LYNN — Several city councilors met Monday afternoon to discuss what would happen if the city council chose to table its scheduled vote on the Fiscal Year 2021 budget Tuesday.
The closed session was held after several community groups announced their intention to hold a budget-focused protest outside City Hall during Tuesday’s city council meeting.
The city’s proposed $375 million FY 2021 budget is expected to pass as submitted. Some of the councilors and the mayor met with representatives of the community groups Monday to listen to their concerns.
Protest organizers have been calling for the budget to be tabled to allow more time for public input and for a 10-percent reduction in police department spending. Their aim is for that spending to be reallocated to fund an unarmed crisis-response team.
The proposed budget includes a $2 million increase in funding for the Lynn Police Department.
“They were planning to pass a budget that we did not know about, that the public had no input into,” said Rev. Bernadette Hickman-Maynard, the pastor at Bethel AME Church and a racial-justice organizer with the Essex County Community Organization (ECCO).
“We want them to table that so we can discuss how to have the budget reflect racial justice in the form of a crisis-response team. I think Lynn is ready for this.”
Hickman-Maynard said the team would consist of non-police first responders, such as social workers, medics and EMTs, who would be dispatched to non-violent 911 calls. She said team members would not be armed and would be trained on how to resolve conflicts peacefully, which she asserts they would be better equipped to do than police.
“We want ultimately to fund peace and not force,” said Hickman-Maynard. “This is an opportunity for the mayor and City Council to say ‘Black Lives Matter’ in the budget, to do something about systemic racism — not just talk about it, but do something — so I think we will be successful.”
Community groups expected to participate in Tuesday’s protest, dubbed “Fund Peace Not Force: A Rally to Table the Lynn City Budget,” include ECCO, the North Shore Juneteenth Association, Inc., Prevent the Cycle, Lynn United for Change, the New Lynn Coalition, and Neighbor to Neighbor.
The city council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the city budget Tuesday at 5 p.m.
