Explanation
BACKGROUND: The City of Columbus, Department of Public Safety, was awarded funding in the amount of $175,000 from the Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Fy23 Micro-grant. The Department of Public Safety, Division of Police, will use these grant funds to upscale and embed its pilot program of using specialist Dialogue Police as a primary crowd management tactic. These specialist officers are charged with the strategic goal of building relationships with protesters before, during and after events to facilitate peaceful demonstrations. These grant funds will be used to bring the leading academic expert behind these worldwide innovations in dialogue policing to the United States to partner with this agency to build, formalize and evaluate the concept. Specifically, the project will allow the CDP to expand beyond its pilot work and embed the dialogue police approach within our organization through developing policy, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and delivering training programs in how to use the new method.
In parallel, the project will develop an evaluation methodology that will be used to measure the effectiveness of the new dialogue led approach and provide a ‘cost-benefit’ analysis for the organization. The evaluation program will be developed using a Participant Action Research framework to draw in a) other police agencies interested in innovating their own crowd management practices and b) other US based Institutes of Higher Education to train new academics in the use of the methodology c) representatives of community organizations, police oversight bodies and other stakeholders. The ambition will be to create a network of experts and police agencies throughout the country to support, advise, innovate, and evaluate crowd management methodologies involving Police Departments nationally and regionally. Additionally, the data gathered from the observations will be used to create and deliver a train the trainer program to facilitate the capacity of other Police Departments to take up the Dialogue led community policing approach.
The official city program contact authorized to act in connection with this $175,000 grant is Sgt. Kolin Straub. The grant award start date was October 1, 2023 and ends September 30, 2024.
Emergency Designation: Emergency legislation is necessary to make the funds available as soon as possible so the procurement and implementation of services can be completed and reimbursed by the grant deadline.
FISCAL IMPACT: This ordinance authorizes an acceptance of the $175,000 grant award and the appropriation of those funds from the Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services program. This is a new grant award for 2023 but funds were just awarded to the City of Columbus per the attached agreement. All funds appropriated are reimbursable from the grant award.
Title
To authorize and direct the Mayor of the City of Columbus to accept a grant award from the Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services; to authorize Sgt. Straub, as the official city representative to act in connection with this grant; to authorize an appropriation of $175,000.00 from the unappropriated balance of the General Government Grant Fund to the Department of Public Safety, Division of Police, to cover the cost of this grant activities and expenditures; and to declare an emergency. ($175,000.00)
Body
WHEREAS, the city of Columbus, Department of Public Safety, has been awarded funding through the Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services to bring the leading academic expert behind these worldwide innovations in dialogue policing to the United States to partner with this agency to build, formalize and evaluate the concept; and
WHEREAS, the city of Columbus, Department of Public Safety, Division of Police, needs to expand beyond its pilot work and embed the Dialogue police approach within our organization through developing policy, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and delivering training programs in how to use the new method; and
WHEREAS, Sgt. Straub has been identified as the official city representative to act in connection with this grant and to provide information as required; and
WHEREAS, the grant award period began on October 1, 2023 and ends September 30, 2024; and
WHEREAS, an emergency exists in the usual daily operations of the Department of Public Safety, in that it is immediately necessary to authorize the Mayor to accept and appropriate the award in order to make funds available so the efforts to bring in the leading academic expert and complete the appropriate procurement processes can be completed and reimbursed by the grant deadline, for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, property, and safety; NOW, THEREFORE,
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS:
SECTION 1. That the Mayor of the City of Columbus is hereby authorized and directed to accept an award from the Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing program.
SECTION 2. That Sgt. Straub is designated as the official city program contact, authorized to act in connection with the Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services Fy23 Micro-grant, and is to provide any additional information required.
SECTION 3.That from the unappropriated monies in the General Government Grant Fund and from all monies estimated to come into said fund from any and all sources and unappropriated for any other purposes during the grant period, the sum of $175,000 is appropriated based upon the executed grant agreement signed November 16, 2023, Fund 2220 General Government Grants in Object Class 03 Contractual Services, per the account codes in the attachment to this ordinance.
SECTION 4. That the funds necessary to carry out the purpose of this ordinance are hereby deemed appropriated in an amount not to exceed the available cash balance in the fund.
SECTION 5. That the monies appropriated in the foregoing Section 3 shall be paid upon order of the Director of Public Safety; and that no order shall be drawn or money paid except by voucher, the form of which shall be approved by the City Auditor.
SECTION 6. That, at the end of the grant period, any repayment of unencumbered balances required by the grantor is hereby authorized and any unused City match monies may be transferred back to the City fund from which they originated in accordance with all applicable grant agreements.
SECTION 7. That for the reasons stated in the preamble hereto, which is hereby made a part hereof, this ordinance is hereby declared to be an emergency measure and shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage and approval by the Mayor, or ten days after passage if the Mayor neither approves nor vetoes the same.