23 Apr San Pablo ‘Cop Campus’ Gets Another Budget Increase Ahead of Opening

(Screenshot by Samantha Kennedy / The CC Pulse)

By Samantha Kennedy

Call it what you want — San Pablo Headquarters Project, the Regional Training Facility or Cop Campus — but it’s happening. And it comes with a price tag of now $47.25 million.

After opponents suggested ousting officials supportive of the project last year, City Council members on Monday upped the project’s budget by $1.9 million months before it’s expected to open.

The increase, which comes from interest earned from lease revenue bonds, was approved in a 4-0 vote alongside 18 other items on the consent agenda. It’s the largest allocation for the project since 2023.

No one spoke against this increase, but another $76,000 increase using American Rescue Plan Act funds at a special meeting last year drew criticism from a single resident and council member Abel Pineda for its placement on the consent agenda.

Consent items are considered routine, non-controversial and approved in a single vote without discussion unless otherwise removed.

That’s why, Pineda said then, it should’ve also been discussed at a separate meeting. The special meeting was billed as a housing policy workshop and required a 24-hour notice to the public instead of the 72 hours for regular meetings.

Monday’s allocation, which comes from an April 9 recommendation by Vice Mayor Elizabeth Pabon-Alvarado and council member Patricia Ponce on the Budget, Fiscal & Legislative Standing Committee, used a total of $2,390,325 from 2022 interest, but a $470,000 decrease in the budget meant a $1.9 million net increase. Ponce was absent at Monday’s meeting.

Privately, officials have pushed back against the critics as out-of-town “criminals” who don’t accurately represent San Pablo residents.

In a 2021 community survey, 78% of the 300 residents polled supported a police facility being built. Another 2023 survey showed an increase in those “definitely” supporting the project.

Opponents say those numbers don’t accurately represent residents’ wants. The surveys overrepresent residents over the age of 65, the 2021 survey accounting for 36% of respondents, and underrepresent Latinos, who make up 28% of those polled in 2021.

In a city of 31,249 residents, over 60% are Hispanic or Latino, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2023, residents over the age of 65 made up just over 11% of the population.

Correspondence between officials, absent any comments from Pineda, showed then-Mayor Patricia Ponce questioning criticism of community surveys and City Manager Matt Rodriguez saying opponents were “outsiders with an extremist agenda.”

Residents in the 2021 poll mostly opposed the Defund the Police movement, which was some of the basis for opposition to San Pablo’s facility. The movement looks to reallocate funds from law enforcement to other services.

As the facility’s opening nears, opposition has grown quieter, but it doesn’t seem opponents have given up.

“Our campaign must choose its next move,” the East Bay Democratic Socialists of America wrote for an April 12 “Block Cop City Strategy Gathering.” 

“What should be our new goals (since cop city was built?),” one of the discussion prompts for that meeting reads. Another meeting was planned an hour after Monday’s San Pablo meeting.

The facility is scheduled to be finished this summer, Rodriguez said ahead of the December meeting.

Vice Mayor Opposes San Pablo’s Pride Flag

Continued opposition from one of the city’s longest-tenured council members won’t stop San Pablo from raising the Pride flag again this June in support of the LGBTQ+ community.

Vice Mayor Elizabeth Pabon-Alvarado was the lone vote on Monday against raising the flag in recognition of LGBTQ+ Pride Month.

“There’s certainly no secret about how I feel about flying the Pride flag,” she said ahead of her vote. “I feel that flying the Pride flag doesn’t honor everyone, only a specific group of people. That’s not equality.”

Pabon-Alvarado noted she loves her family, including her gay granddaughter and her niece who “claims to be trans,” but said they should be treated equally.

The vice mayor’s opposition has been consistent since the council took its first vote on the issue. In 2020, then-Mayor Rich Kinney joined Pabon-Alvarado in opposition to the flag being raised.

Council members passed a policy allowing commemorative flags to be flown by the city in 2019, which Pabon-Alvarado and Kinney opposed. That move allowed council members to raise the Pride flag, but Kinney wondered about others, such as the Christian flag.

Mayor Arturo Cruz pushed back against Pabon-Alvarado’s criticism of raising the Pride flag.

“San Pablo celebrates all of our diverse communities,” he said. “I vote yes.”

Separately, Pabon-Alvarado requested that a proclamation for the National Day of Prayer be brought back for “people of all faiths.” Council members Rita Xavier and Pineda have previously voted against that proclamation, but voted in favor of considering it at the next meeting.

The next San Pablo City Council meeting is May 5.