You forgot this from the article... abortion access

Are you serious Clark? The point is defunding the police. That’s the problem. They’re going back to 2014 budget levels. Austin has certainly grown quite a bit in the last six years no?

I'm gonna laugh my butt off when the social workers start dying trying to "fix" the problem.

This is exactly what criminals want.

Of the programs you listed, only 2 seem to be possibly capable of helping to lower crime rates (mental health response and violence prevention)...the others are reactionary, after the fact...I believe there have been programs like this around for quite some time, funded at various levels over the years. I also believe there has been little to no impact on crime. Why? I believe its like most government programs...inefficient, fraught with waste and little to no real effort made to actually deliver the intended result. So, throwing more money at those seems futile without addressing why they're not working in the first place. To think taking money away from law enforcement is the answer to correcting those inefficiencies, doesn't make much sense

All the homeless nut jobs will eat each other

Everywhere the police have been put upon with budget cuts, reductions in certain type special units, threats to remove immunity, decreased overtime etc etc have had remarkable increases in crime and it is disingenuous to think otherwise if one can read.

Austin has been weird for a long time. Maybe this will help attract all the incoming liberals to move there. I would rather keep them focused in one area than have them keep moving up here.

What gets me is they say they want more training and education for police, and at the same time want to cut the budget.

If you've ever worked at a PD, you know very well there is NEVER enough budget money for training. Never.

In my department fiscal year started Sept 1 and all training budget was gone by Christmas. For the rest of the year we walked by the "training opportunities" bulletin board without even looking at it. They would post new flyers, classes, etc. constantly. If you bothered to fill out a request form, it came back the next day marked DENIED - No Budget.

You can't have both well-trained officers and massive budget cuts, it simply isn't possible.

Seems obvious. We need police. In every group, about 10% are bad apples. It's the same with military and police. You don't get rid of the whole becasue of the bad apples.

I dont think this will end well for Austin who are you going to call when you need the Police.

So tall grass are you saying that putting criminals in prison doesn’t lower crime?!.. What are you trying to say, that they were only gonna commit one crime then retire? Fool

We will see what the quiet majority says at election time. If we go back the wild west then I guess we'll see how that plays out.

Read OldCrow's post, then read mine, then test your reading comprehension.