Union County, NJ

[rawtilapia]

Edward Oatman, County Manager 10 Elizabethtown Plaza Elizabeth, NJ 07202 Phone: 908-527-4200 info@ucnj.org

Dear Mr Oatman,

My name is [YOUR NAME], resident of Union County. In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, I am writing to request that your budget for next year prioritizes community well-being and redirects funding away from law enforcement and corrections facilities to continue to disproportionately target Black Americans and other minorities. The 2020 budget allocated more than $33 million towards the police and sheriff departments and a further $38.5 million for juvenile and adult corrections facilities. Rather than spending over $70 million annually for punishing criminals, please consider cutting some of this budget to address some of the issues that cause criminality.

For instance, this year’s budget left room for only $887,232 to Youth Services, £1.3 million to Family Support services, £313,373 for Employment & Training, and only £190,000 for a Scholarship Program. This is only $2.7 million total, less than 4% of the budget spent towards policing and corrections. Furthermore, the $1.7 million that was available for Social Services to the Homeless in 2019 seems to be completely taken out of the budget for 2020, a year where it was likely very much needed due to unprecedented unemployment rates.

I, as your constituent, urge you to take a closer look at what Union County can do to mitigate the harm that has been caused by the over policing of minorities throughout the years and become a leader in creating a community where residents have resources available to them to break the systemic cycle of poverty and criminality that has been the norm for so many years.

Thank you for your time, [YOUR NAME] [YOUR ADDRESS] [YOUR EMAIL] [YOUR PHONE NUMBER]

[rawtilapia]

Figures from https://ucnj.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2020-Adopted-Budget.pdf

[mahrer]

Thank you for submitting your city to defund12.org! Your request is now in the queue for review and publishing. We’ll reply here if we have any questions.

[aurendisson]

Editing notes: I added city council members' and mayor's emails, formatted accordingly, and updated a couple of figures (thank you for providing a link!). I was more specific with phrasing around minority groups. This was well-written and compelling! Thank you for contributing.

To: info@ucnj.org, Webmaster@ElizabethNJ.org, councilmantorres@gmail.com, ngonzalez@elizabethnj.org, councilmancedeno@gmail.com, cwgallman@yahoo.com, francomazza2004@yahoo.com, elzorro@optonline.net, mgrova@msgld.com, ppauguste@yahoo.com

Subject: [ INSERT UNIQUE SUBJECT LINE ]

Message: (Don't forget to replace the [x]'s with your information!)

Dear Mayor Bollwage and City Council,

My name is [YOUR NAME], resident of Union County. In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, I am writing to request that your budget for next year prioritizes community well-being and redirects funding away from law enforcement and corrections facilities that continue to disproportionately target Black, Brown, and Indigenous Americans and other minorities.

The 2020 budget allocated more than $33 million towards the police and sheriff departments and a further $39.2 million for juvenile and adult corrections facilities. Rather than spending over $70 million annually for punishing criminals, please consider cutting some of this budget to address some of the issues that cause criminality.

For instance, this year’s budget left room for only $887,323 to youth services, $1.3 million to family support services, $313,373 for employment and training, and only $190,000 for a scholarship program. This is only $2.7 million in total, less than 4% of the budget spent on policing and corrections. Furthermore, the $1.7 million that was available for social services to the homeless in 2019 seems to be completely taken out of the budget for 2020, a year where it was likely very much needed due to unprecedented unemployment rates.

I, as your constituent, urge you to take a closer look at what Union County can do to mitigate the harm that has been caused by the over-policing of minorities throughout the years, and become a leader in creating a community where residents have resources available to them to break the systemic cycle of poverty and oppression that has been the norm for so many years.

Thank you for your time, [YOUR NAME] [YOUR ADDRESS] [YOUR EMAIL] [YOUR PHONE NUMBER]

[emilyhuntsman]

on it

[Ceshion]

I am unsure about the phrasing of "Rather than spending over $70 million annually for punishing criminals, please consider cutting some of this budget to address some of the issues that cause criminality." as it still uses language that to me seems rooted in the context of policing, is there another way we could put this?