No New Police Station, Ever!
Recently, the Winona County and City governments split ways after two years of a joint city and county task force to explore options for housing the Winona Police Department (WPD) and the Winona County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO). The county remains interested in housing both WPD and WCSO at the county-owned Law Enforcement Center (LEC), even as the city moves forward to explore the costs of a joint police-fire station. Winona’s city manager said the city would consider that if plans for a new station fall through.
Despite little evidence of community support for a new WPD station, the city maintains interest in building a larger police station, which will cost local taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. It is consistently presented as an inevitable outcome, rather than a political choice, a commitment to the racism, sexism, classism, and violence of carceral priorities. No one asked for a police station; they have asked for housing. Where is the urgency to address the housing crisis?
The following is a timeline of the city’s police station priorities and community resistance:
March 2021: City of Winona announces plans to explore a new joint police and fire station. Community Not Cages has argued for the Winona Police Department stay at the LEC with the Winona County Sheriff’s Office
January 2022: The city commissioned Engage Winona to conduct and publish a Comprehensive Plan Engagement Report which showed that housing was the most common and pressing community concern, a police station and gun range are not community interests.
January 2022: City announces proposal to demolish the Rec Center and replace it with a police-fire training facility complex.
July 2022: More than 200 community members packed the public hearing, almost entirely in opposition to the plan. In addition, community voices weren’t simply opposed to demolishing the rec center. Many explained their fear of police presence, and called for true investment in the basic needs of the city – housing, non-coercive mental health and addiction services, an alternative response team, affordable child care, and more community gardens.
September 2022: After huge resistance to the police-fire training facility complex the city announces they will no longer seek to demolish the Rec Center. Grassroots community organizing WINS!
January 2023: The city council voted to request $21 million in state bonding for a new police-fire complex and renewed their contract with BKV, despite already spending more than $17,000 on the failed plans to demolish the Rec Center. In January, the Winona Post shared: “although the largely vacant old jail at the LEC offers enough space to potentially double the WPD’s current facilities to nearly 20,000 square feet, city staff and consultants said that 39,000 square feet is needed…” Their plans have included a cop gym, gun range, and heated garage for the city/county military tank.
March 2023: Mayor Sherman said, “There are potential training opportunities for the region as well” (Salazar, Winona Post). This is a sales tactic, since the first two bonding bills have not included funding for a new facility in Winona. Expanding and further militarizing regional law enforcement should not be an argument for an unwanted and flawed plan.
October 2023: The majority of the Winona County Board voted against a new police station and in favor of remodeling and staying in the LEC, and City Manager Chad Ubl backtracks on two years of stating that the city cannot remain in the LEC. The City and County agree to engage in a joint task force to explore options.
2023-2025: In May 2024, 21 people spoke against the creation of a new police station at the Winona County Board meeting. And again, in January 2025, 20 people spoke against the building of a new police station in front of the joint task force. In both instances, the community spoke out well beyond the time allotted for public comment — a sign of community dissent to bloated police budgets.
August 2025: Winona county and city split after two years of meetings and pre-design, the main reason being the city’s desire to include things that county commissioners find unnecessary, like the possibility of indoor parking and a gun range. The County Administrator Maureen Holte recommended the county continue to pursue the Winona Police Department (WPD) remaining in the Law Enforcement Center (LEC) with a partial remodel. The county’s aims regarding a police station are more fiscally responsible than the city.
How does this impact our community?
The disagreement between our city and county governments impacts the people of Winona. In April 2025, the Winona City Council approved $3.1 million for the design of a new downtown police station to be shared by the city and Winona County. That money should serve the interests and the needs of Winona, not police. City and county officials were contacted for the most recent amount spent on pre-design, but no response has been provided.
According to the August 6, 2025 Winona Post, “County officials have also favored paring back the project to minimize costs, while city officials have stressed the importance of building for the future that will meet public safety needs 30-50 years from now.” Policing is not public safety; we are witnessing the long history of unchecked police funding via the simultaneous occupation of Washington D.C. under militarization, the racist terrorism of ICE attacks across the country, and attacks on freedoms of speech and assembly. The city of Winona’s commitment to an estimated $45-$52 million police-fire station (BKV’s 2023 estimate) is not politically neutral. It is within a political moment of racist state violence, criminalization of unhoused community members, and unfettered funding to police and militaries.
No Cop City Anywhere: Winona to Atlanta
The fight to stop the building of a new police station has always been inseparable from our fight to ensure funding for true public safety measures through meeting community needs. Community Not Cages believes that our actions to distribute water and food in the community are refusals to abandon each other, even as our leaders do.
All struggles against state violence, policing, jails, and militarism are interconnected. Stopping a police station with a gun range in our rural location will have huge political implications. It means stopping funding to police as we are witnessing the evergrowing terrorism of ICE’s kidnappings and deportations of community members. Training facilities nationally have followed a Cop City model, a national trend towards militarizing police and training them in urban warfare that has its roots in imperialist violence. For instance, Atlanta has invested in police training with Israeli Offense Forces (GILEE). Jewish Voice for Peace calls this the “deadly exchange.” As we bear witness to Israel’s genocidal attack on Palestine, we acknowledge the struggle for abolition and anti-imperialism are connected.
Budgets are moral documents. Militarism, policing, and prisons are apparatuses of state violence, which eat up most of our resources locally and nationally, neglecting the needs of our community. Winona is failing to ensure our collective safety. The healthiest communities have the most resources, not the most cops.
What can you do?
- Talk to your neighbors and co-workers; knowing each other makes us all safer
- Learn about and discuss with folks the connection between policing, ICE, and the Israeli Offense Forces
- Get the 2025 “Don’t Call the Police” list, and get educated on your rights
- Contact the city council and county board about funding concerns; demand safety for unhoused neighbors as the winter arrives
The Housing Crisis in Winona
What should we do about it?
Winona is facing a housing crisis decades in the making, but this crisis is not inevitable nor is it irresolvable. Housing is a basic necessity, but the leadership of Winona has failed to make it a priority.
First, we must understand what has happened, and then we can work through possible solutions. There is no quick fix, but change is possible and necessary. As a community, we can take action to address this crisis.
The Problem
The housing crisis in Winona is set to a national backdrop of criminalizing unhoused folks. Last summer, the Supreme Court ruled that cities can arrest or issue tickets to people who are unhoused, even in cases where there are no housing resources available. Locally, immediately following the completion of a huge county jail, our city is planning to spend $23-26 million on a new police station. The carceral spending is out of control in our community, funneling millions in funding that should actually make us safer by providing housing.
At the same time that the county and city invest millions in criminalization, affordable housing is disappearing. Despite the urgent need for affordable housing, pet projects that line the pockets of the wealthy are overwhelming downtown, rapidly intensifying the gentrification of Winona and abandoning the people who call this town home.
Rent is going up, tenant protections are lackluster at best, and affordable housing options are scarce. Many in our community are faced with this painful reality.
Just look at the numbers:
(According to U.S. Census & Comprehensive Housing Needs Analysis for Winona County, 2023)
Winona’s housing vacancy is 1.7%, A healthy vacancy rate should be between 5-6%. New York City’s is 1.4%!! Additionally 20% of our community lives below the poverty line, and 44% of Winona residents are rent burdened. Rent Burdened- meaning rent costs more than 30% of their monthly income, and 17% are severely rent burdened, meaning rent costs more 50% of their income.
Solutions: What we can do
Winona’s elected officials need to do multiple things at once. Our community needs housing and rent control, and tenants need protections that will help them from being displaced. We can look to the organizing of other communities to provide a more just vision for our community’s elected officials.
The following steps could aid in creating more safe and liveable housing
- Social housing: City officials have claimed that Winona’s housing crisis reflects the “shortage” of housing nationwide. However, recent national housing data has clarified what organizers have known for decades: there are more than enough homes, but nowhere near enough of them are affordable for low-income individuals and their families. The supposed shortage is manufactured to destabilize the poor, working class and protect the exclusive distribution of wealth. Addressing housing prices and low incomes is essential for moving forward.
- A Community Land Trust (CLT) model is a type of social housing run by a board, staff, residents, community members, and noncommunity members. Winona’s government could buy land and property throughout the city and give it to the democratically elected board for the CLT to then rent out apartments, houses, and duplexes at affordable rates indefinitely.
- Ban landlord use of algorithms to calculate rent: Minnesota is one of eight states suing real estate company RealPage for engaging in an algorithmic price-fixing scheme to drive up rent. Winona should join other communities and ban landlord use of algorithms to calculate rent.
- Ban on short-term rentals (STRs) not occupied by the owner: Ordinances that discourage the expansion of short-term rentals by adding specific taxes and capping the number of STRs downtown would strengthen housing access. Weehawken, New Jersey also banned STRs, since they take away affordable, long-term housing. Cities of various sizes and locations are experiencing the same issue and coming up with smart, doable, and critical policies to help ensure that their citizens are not displaced. If this can be done in different states and throughout the country, there is no reason Winona can not join the choir.
- Ban private equity groups from purchasing single-family housing (SFH): According to the commercial real estate data analysis company Yardi Matrix, if trends continue, private equity groups will own over 40% of single-family housing in America in the next five years. Winona must act now and ban private equity groups from buying single-family housing and displacing community members.
- Rent Caps: Limit rent raises by percentages. In 2021, voters in St. Paul, Minnesota voted to cap rent raises to 3% citywide in a 12-month period. Tenants need to have consistent rent in the places they live.
- Tenant Protections: St. Louis Park passed an ordinance that requires landlords to pay the moving expenses of low-income tenants if they decide to raise rents, not renew leases, or re-screen tenants within the first three months, or if landlords don’t renew leases without reason. Landlords should have to include their inspection records with prospective renters. Last year, the St. Louis Park city council passed an ordinance that requires landlords give tenants more notice before eviction, from what was only 7 days to 30.
Conclusion
In 2020, Community Not Cages warned “if they build it, they will fill it” in regards to the new county jail. If we fail to address our local issue of housing insecurity and continue to see unhoused people criminalized, we fear that they will fill that jail, the rich will have unlimited access to downtown, and Winona will become less habitable for us all.
Building a transformative world of collective care demands a paradigm shift from this nightmare, one that is long overdue. Other cities have made headway toward affordable housing. Winona must follow suit with social housing and supportive measures.
Would you be interested in joining the fight for housing justice? Message us on Facebook, Instagram, or email at winonacommunitynotcages@gmail.com
Claims/Rebuttals
Taking on Winona’s policing rhetoric.
Claim: “This is not Atlanta” – City council member Jeff Hyma
Rebuttal: Atlanta’s elected officials want to build a $90 million police training facility dubbed by community organizers as “Cop City.” It would be one of the largest militarized police training centers in the country. Racial justice movements have organized in opposition both in Atlanta and nationally. The police state is expanding nationally, and our communities are connecting in solidarity to oppose police militarization, increased surveillance, and state violence. While the scale of Cop City in Atlanta is expansive, the harms of further investing in Winona’s police is the same. In 2023, Mayor Scott Sherman stated that the new police station could provide training opportunities for the region, connecting us to 80 other cities that have seen similar proposals since the 2020 uprisings. Hyma fails to understand that the Stop Cop City movement’s goal is to end police state expansion EVERYWHERE. Stop Cop City from Atlanta to Winona.
Claim: The Current Police Station is soooo outdated.
Rebuttal: The Law Enforcement Center is actually one of the newer municipal buildings, other than the jail, for which the community was never provided a public hearing. Rather, this is a serious issue of priorities. Police are not more important than our schools, kids, seniors, ambulance service or fire department.
- The Law Enforcement Center was built in the 1970s.
- Winona Central Fire Station built in the 1950s.
- W-K Elementary school was built in 1934; Winona Senior High was built in 1925.
- The building the Senior Friendship Center calls home was built in 1909
- Winona County Courthouse was built in 1889 and restored from 1970-2000 for $2.5 million.
Claim: The $7.5 million in grant money the city got from the state has to be used for the police station.
Rebuttal: No, the language in this grant says the funding can be used for a joint public safety building. This grant could instead be used for a joint facility for the fire/ambulance services in Winona. As we watched the devastating fires out in California and the result of LA’s decision to defund their fire department while simultaneously bolstering their police department, we can see in real time what prioritizing funding to the police state will do – steal support from actual public safety services.
Claim: The Mobile Crisis Response Team (formerly Alternative Response Team) can be housed in a new station.
Rebuttal: The Mobile Crisis Response Team (MCRT) is a position at Hiawatha Valley Mental Health and is housed at their facility along with county responders. There has been no ask for the position to be housed within the Law Enforcement Center from the agency itself or city staff and elected officials that created the position. Furthermore, members of the working group that created the position in the first place, worked hard to define the position as a first responder model, separate from police, and confidential. Commissioner Voegeli has repeatedly made claims that he’d like to see this position housed within the police station. He clearly doesn’t understand the history or intent of the responder and if this is his attempt to prioritize non-coercive mental health services the community is desperately lacking, he’s missing the mark completely.
Claim: It would cost more to renovate the current police station.
Rebuttal: The entire process has been flawed. According to council member Hyma, the city went to the cops and asked what they wanted and began the building plans based on their wants (including a gun range and heated garage). This has dictated the decision-making process and conversation since the beginning. Building new has a larger environmental impact. Where is the research on environmental impact? Why doesn’t this matter?
Reach out to all county commissioners today! Tell them what you think about the plan to invest millions more in policing.
Dwayne Voegeli
507-961-3178
Chris Meyer
507-701-1228
Greg Olson
507-429-9529
Dwayne Voegeli
507-961-3178
Chris Meyer
507-701-1228
Greg Olson
507-429-9529
Continued Organizing Toward the Abolitionist Horizon
In 2024 we continued our commitment to educate, build, and care. As a horizontal collective, we spent the year refocusing energy on skill shares for harm reduction and deescalation, political education, and solidarity actions for Palestine. We believe that building community through mutual aid is central to our organizing power. As we have moved into the colder months, we have partnered with the Winona Community Warming Center and shifted our efforts to regular food support.
We know we have to protect each other, as the state has moved to criminalize unhoused community members and push further to invest in carceral violence. Following the 2020 uprisings more than 80 cop cities have been proposed, including one here in Winona, MN.
Political Education: Film Screenings & Discussion Panels
We committed to collaborative efforts in providing political education on mutual aid, transformative justice, creating a world without prisons, and the struggle against settler colonial greenwashing and pinkwashing. In January 2024, we hosted Working Films and the Institute for Aspiring Abolitionists for five films on abolition and more than 80 community members joined us! In October, we showed Humanize My Hoodie and Mariame Kaba’s One Million Experiments to learn about survivor-led responses to state and interpersonal harm. As Kaba states “We need a million experiments…a bunch will fail. That’s good because we’ll have learned a lot that we can apply to the next ones.” We are still learning to show up in the world for each other in new horizontal ways!
Winona for a Free Palestine
After the Winona City Council failed to acknowledge their constituents and afford the people’s ceasefire resolution an opportunity to be heard, we turned to each other. It meant building deeper networks to organizers beyond Winona. Our May Day celebration in the spirit of radical resistance provided space to collect funds for Gaza, fly kites with the Cedar Tree Project in honor of martyr Refaat Alareer, and share radical signs from the Turtle Island Student Organization and Students for Reproductive Justice.
This summer we connected with Anti-war Committee MN in opposition to the State Board of Investment (SBI) investment in approximately $5.4 billion dollars in entities complicit in Israel’s genocide in Palestine. In August, Community Not Cages’ words were read at the State Capitol:
“Often, rural areas are invisible or misunderstood as monolithic, yet as working class rural folks, we know that our communities experience great exploitation and loss amidst US imperial and military fervor. It drains our community of critical life-affirming resources, enables racism, and harms working class and marginalized youth. From our local government’s investments in bigger jails and police training facilities, to the global investment in war and death, the state violence of policing and bombs are weapons that we are too familiar with in rural Minnesota. We are grateful to join you in a coalition of consciousness today, to say no to genocide in the fight for freedom for Palestinians and all colonized peoples, and to demand divestment from apartheid Israel and the web of carceral and militaristic violence.”
In solidarity with activists across Minnesota, we participated in a December statewide week of action demanding the SBI divest from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and settler colonization. With friends involved in The Cedar Tree Project we collaborated to create art, a community keffiyeh inspired by Suhaib Tantoush’s piece.
We NEED housing, health care, healthy environmental ecosystems, schools, NOT JAILS, POLICE, and BOMBS.
We are here, we are queer, and we are organized!
It isn’t a secret, mutual aid networks are the center of queer safety. Community Not Cages folks recognize our safety and liberation as queer folks as linked to the demand for a future free of police, jails, prisons, and bombs. This year we refused to show pride in genocide, showing the film Pinkwashing Exposed and centering the voices of queer Palestinian activists. Abolition IS racial justice, queer liberation, and anti-colonial commitments from Turtle Island to Palestine.
Commitment to Growing a Radical Library
We are committed to making knowledge accessible to all, from the public library to the jail. LIke Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes: “We urge organizers to spend more time with books and other modes of learning, not as an admonition (after all, you are reading right now) but to encourage you to claim an inheritance of knowledge your oppressors hope you never discover, embrace, or build from—the stories, wisdom, hope, and imaginings of organizers who came before us.” Stop by the library and check out radical works for all ages!
Mutual Aid: Solidarity Not Charity
Mutual aid buckets are possible through a network of helpers–Mask Bloc, Steve Rummler Hope Network, RIPple Drug Education & Awareness, Planned Humanity, and individuals.
Community Potlucks & Organizing with our Neighbors
This year, we continued outdoor community dinners. These are reminders of Winona’s radical history and commitment to Food Not Bombs! Celebrating summer, local foods, and music! Our favorite potluck included learning American Sign Language for Afflatus’ song addressing local carceral harm, hearing from the Day Center of Winona, and Ripple Drug Education.
Study and Struggle: Harm Reduction and Community Safety
We came together for a backyard skillshare on community harm reduction to learn how to use Naloxone and keep our community safe with training from Serpentine Farms. Anyone wanting access to this life saving drug or fentanyl test strips can get it free from @rummlerhope
Contact us:
Winonacommunitynotcages@gmail.com
Community Not Cages is shifting focus!
Dismantle-Change-Build:
Following Critical Resistance’s abolitionist framework, “Dismantle-Change-Build,” in the past five years, Community Not Cages has organized in coalitions to: DISMANTLE — remove cops from schools, stop a juvenile detention center, stop a police training facility at the site of community gardens and a free recreation center, challenge and expose surveillance investments, stop a large portion of ARPA funds from inflating local police budgets by demanding a first-responder model to crisis response; CHANGE — kept up the pressure on the city and county to shift economic priorities from carceral projects to life-affirming resources, shifting our community’s imagination on what is possible with reallocated funds; and BUILD — by continuing to research, advocate and educate around the new, local mobile crisis response team. We have also consistently prioritized mutual aid projects that provide radical political education, harm reduction support, feeding our community, and working globally with others who are taking an unwavering stance against the ongoing genocide in Palestine. The military and prison industrial complex locally to globally is set to devastate our communities. Taxes are increasing for police and jails, and we know that our federal taxes make us complicit in the genocide we are watching daily.
We continue to be disheartened by the priorities of our local leaders. The August 28th Winona Post covers stories outlining plans to increase taxes to cover carceral priorities. Winona City Council reviewed the city’s proposed $92.8 million 2025 budget which included a $13.6 million property tax levy, an increase of a $1.2 million or 10.16% increase compared to last year (Winona Post, Winona eyes 10% tax levy increase). On top of that, the November 5th ballot will include a referendum to raise sales taxes to cover the cost of the newly built $28 million jail. Utilizing a quarter cent on every dollar model, the county’s stated goal is to lessen the property tax burden on homeowners. According to the Winona Post, county board members and business owners are supportive of this, yet they do not make up the majority of the community and do not reflect the views of working class and low income folks. The burden of a jail this size in a community with little to no tangible social support resources cannot be lessened, financially or socially. Our community members feel and hold the burden, regardless of the way county officials try to frame it.
Decenter/Recenter:
As a horizontal collective, we have spent the summer refocusing energy on skill shares for harm reduction and deescalation, political education, and raising mutual aid for Gaza. As we move into the colder months, we continue these commitments but will also shift our efforts to provide more regular food support for community members. We might be less present online as we take a slow down. This is the creative building that affirms us all and makes us collectively safer. This is a lesson we take from Damon Williams of Let Us Breathe Collective: “We need to move at the pace of our own excitement and creativity. We are a decentralized movement of decentralized movements -we need to make space for keeping it dynamic…to decenter and recenter.”
“Let this radicalize you.”— Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba
We have all been a part of the ecosystem of Community Not Cages, building the world we want to live in — one beyond electoral politics and grounded in our mutual aid and solidarity. We must all keep organizing our neighbors, faith communities, and elected leaders about shifting our needs. We NEED housing, health care, healthy environmental ecosystems, schools, NOT JAILS, POLICE, and BOMBS.
We know that the work of abolition is to build, and that narrative building in the past five years shows up in our community via art, music, and communities sharing space. We hope that you, our community, will continue to remain loud in the face of carceral budget priorities, lack of life-affirming resources, and the exclusion of community voices in decision making. If you and a collective are interested in taking on some political education via meme creation, etc., please reach out to Community Not Cages on Facebook, Instagram, or email at winonacommunitynotcages@gmail.com .
NO NEW LEC!
City staff and elected officials are asking the county board to invest $23-26 million dollars to build a brand new regional police/sheriff’s station! City staff and elected officials are asking the county board to invest $23-26 million dollars to build a brand new regional police/sheriff’s station! Investing millions more tax dollars on policing is not what our community needs! Winona City residents would see an increase in their city AND county taxes to fund this. In order to stop this plan, the county board needs to hear from residents ASAP! Here’s what you need to know:
•The police and sheriff’s departments already have a station that they share. It is located right next to the county’s new $28 million dollar jail that taxpayers are already funding.
•Officials are trying to sell this idea by claiming it would be a “regional training facility” that could be rented out to police throughout MN. Winonan’s are NOT responsible for providing other counties with training space and it is doubtful constituents are interested in paying for it.
•There is no state support for the plan. City Manager Chad Ubl stated it is unlikely that Winona will receive that funding this year. County board member Marcia Ward questioned the necessity of the project, saying “Is it a new office building… it doesn’t make us safer.”
What can you do? If you are against this plan, county board members need to hear from you ASAP!
In person: The next board meeting takes place on Tuesday, May 14th at 9am at County Office Building at 202 west 3rd, room 138A. Public comment is at the beginning of the meeting so you do not need to stay for the entire meeting. You also do not need to sign up ahead of time but comments are limited to 2 minutes so come prepared.
Virtual: You can join the next county board meeting virtually to make a public comment. Download the RingCentral app beforehand and join at https://v.ringcentral.com/join/402543488 or dial: 12679304000 Meeting ID: 402543488
Email: Chris Meyer cmeyer@co.winona.mn.us
Greg Olson golson@co.winona.mn.us
Marcia Ward mward@co.winona.mn.us
Josh Elsing JElsing@co.winona.mn.us
Dwayne Voegeli DVoegeli@co.winona.mn.us
Call: Chris Meyer 507-701-1228
Greg Olson 507-452-4454
Marcia Ward 507-459-6086
Josh Elsing 507-479-1474
Dwayne Voegeli 507-961-3178
What you missed at the joint county/city meeting Monday, April 15:
On Monday, April 15, the Winona City Council and County Board met in council chambers. They heard from the working group tasked with exploring options for a continued partnership between the sheriff/police station. Back up, how’d we get here? After the city’s original plans to tear down the East End Rec to build a brand new multi-million police complex were thwarted by the community, the city pivoted. Fast forward, City Manager, Chad Ubl showed up to a county board meeting to inform commissioners that, despite previous claims that the Winona Police Department could not fit at the current Law Enforcement Center, they would consider it. Since then, city staff have pushed the county board to join them in building a new joint police station for $23-26 million.
All this speculation on a continued partnership at a new facility continues even though there is an option to stay and continue use of the current LEC, located next to the jail. The building is recommended to have $4 million in renovations and improvements but the county will have to invest that amount regardless. A regional training facility keeps coming up in the narrative from elected officials as a way to offer space to surrounding counties to train and use the gun range. We argue that Winonans are NOT responsible for providing other counties with training space and it is doubtful constituents are interested in paying taxes TWICE on such a facility. Now there is talk that this space could be used for the “community,” but who’s asking to go to a police station as a community space? Didn’t Winona make it clear in the summer of 2022 that a police station isn’t a community site?
As Marcia Ward pointed out at the meeting, she has not heard any constituents asking for a new public safety facility, and she added that planning to spend millions on a new facility before a sales tax referendum this fall for the county’s new jail is problematic. It’s interesting to hear county board members suggest a police station could be used for public hearing for 300+ people, as public hearings are not a common event and there is already a state university and technical college available for these suggested community functions. Furthermore, who would feel comfortable attending a public hearing located in a police facility and why is that even considered a “community” plan? Community Not Cages has been successful at shifting the narrative to expose Winona’s overt commitment to carceral spending: jails, drones, automatic assault rifles, and a police training facility with a gun range. Community Not Cages continues to point out national trends to build police training facilities amidst the largest national call to defund the police. Council member Jeff Hyma has repeatedly minimized this connection and stated in Monday’s meeting, “this is not Atlanta.” Let’s see how the numbers play out… Atlanta, GA population: 499,127 Winona, MN population: 25, 842 Cop City proposed cost: $109.65 million Winona Regional Training Facility proposed cost: $23-26 million Atlanta, which is 20 times larger than Winona, is proposing a fascist regional training facility that costs only four times more than Winona’s proposal. NO COP CITY ANYWHERE. Furthermore, there is no state support for the plan. City Manager, Chad Ubl stated it is unlikely that Winona will receive that funding this year (Winona Post, “New city-county police station advances” April 17 2024). So, where do things stand? The county has to decide if it is interested in partnering with the city to build a new joint facility and if so, choose an option and move to “pre-design.” If the county rejects the plan for a new joint police training facility, the $7.5 million the city has from the state would be available to fund a joint fire department and ambulance services facility. What can you do? Contact ALL elected officials today and let them know what you think about it!
City Council contacts: Mayor Scott Sherman 507-313-0676 ssherman@ci.winona.mn.us Steve Young, 1st Ward 507-312-4491 syoung@ci.winona.mn.us Jeff Hyma, 2nd Ward 507-313-1202 jhyma@ci.winona.mn.us Pam Eyden, 3rd Ward 507-454-6758 peyden@ci.winona.mn.us George Borzyskowski, 4th Ward 507-454-4463 gborzyskowski@ci.winona.mn.us Aaron Repinski, At-Large 507-458-7485 arepinski@ci.winona.mn.us Jerome Christenson, At-Large 507-246-6482 jchristenson@ci.winona.mn.us County Board contacts: Chris Meyer cmeyer@co.winona.mn.us Greg Olson golson@co.winona.mn.us Marcia Ward mward@co.winona.mn.us Josh Elsing jelsing@co.winona.mn.us Dwayne Voegeli dvoegeli@co.winona.mn.us Here’s how the elected officials responded to further investments in a new regional police training complex: Marcia Ward: Marcia was the only one present and openly opposed unchecked cash flows to a decked-out police station. She states “The priorities for local money … what are our priorities? Is it a new office building?” Furthermore, she has not heard anyone asking for a new public safety facility. “It doesn’t make us safer…It doesn’t make us, you know, mental health facilities. It doesn’t expand the housing and the needs of the community. It’s an office building.” Dwayne Voegeli: Claimed we need to go to pre-design; however, despite seeming innocuous, the City Manager made it clear that pre-design is a commitment to the acquisition of land for the project (as in picking a site, therefore legitimizing the project). Also, despite the repeated asks for non-coercive mental health support and Alternative Response Team (ART) being designed outside of policing, Dwayne Voegeli continues to pull it into the conversation about the police station. He said, ”Mental health partnerships are something we brought up in almost every discussion in the working group and that’s something that can be worked out in the next stage as well… to create a building a space that will make even more partnerships… possible in terms of crisis response teams and other work like that.” The vision for the ART, beginning in 2020, is OUTSIDE of policing… We don’t want mental health resources used to window dress a cop shop. Chris Meyer: Chris Meyer has professed a desire to fund more community resources and this mirrors the desire of the community. However, she seems open to spending millions more in policing and has unrealistic concepts of “including the community” in these plans by claiming space is needed for public hearings in the new Law Enforcement Center, if it’s built. On the other hand, she contested that a gun range and private gym are maybe a bit much. Jerome Christenson: Jerome said regarding the creation of a new police station and training facility, “This is no time for us to be worried about nickels and dimes.” Those are taxpayers’ nickels and dimes, not his to be so careless with. He also supports profiting off a larger LEC when he stated that building “…a joint facility for all types of emergency services for training. We can expand that on a regional basis. Our small-town fire fighters emergency management, and ambulances also need training. To have a facility here that we can provide that at a charge at a regional basis here..” Jeff Hyma: Hyma was quick to backtrack from previous claims made by officials that this new facility would be used to militarize and train police from around the state, saying explicitly “This is not like Atlanta.” Hyma’s personal intent to keep the training facilities for just the “basic” mandatory training for police does not match up with previous claims made by Winona City Manager Chad Ubl that “training facilities could add more regional significance to the project and improve the city’s chances at winning additional state funding for the project (Winona Post, “Police station remodel estimate: $29-36 million,” January 31, 2024) .” Or Deputy Chief of police Jay Rasmussen “Our idea is that we would try to bring in other people to use our facilities, too … We can bring people in from all over Southeast Minnesota to come train here (Winona Post, “Police Explain Training Needs for New Station,” February 21, 2024).”
No New Cop Shop Anywhere
The city and county are still considering options for a new police station. All options for a new station will require tens of millions of dollars in investment from taxpayers. According to a recent article in the Winona Post, “Leaders lean toward new police station,” city and county leaders are clear; there is no money coming from the state for the project. Commenting on the option for a joint facility with the police and sheriffs departments, council member George Borzyskowski stated, “…it will be pretty hard to slap all this on the local taxpayers because that’s gonna be a hefty tax increase.” Yes, it is. After a historic tax rate increase this past year and no new funding for vital services, their current proposal for a new cop shop still lacks public support.
City staff and police officials are pushing elected representatives to invest in a new police station, not the community. Chief Williams has publicly stated many times that the location at the current LEC does not encourage new recruits to join the WPD. There is a shortage of applicants for police departments nationwide, because people see the harm in the institution of policing. A shiny new station with a private gym isn’t going to change that. Police officials have encouraged elected officials to consider the needs of police for the next 50 years. Why would there be a need for police to be better trained at using violence against our community in the next 50 years? Instead, imagine if right now local budgets prioritized funding for noncoercive mental health and addiction services and affordable and crisis housing. In 50 years, one might ask – Why did they ever rely on police to respond to the lack of public health infrastructure? We are failing future generations by not investing in public health and environmental infrastructure, the issues that we know we need to prepare for.
The safest communities don’t have the most police, they have the most resources. We must say enough to shortchanging vital services, such as mental health and addiction services and affordable and crisis housing, in exchange for a large police budget! The largest slice of the pie goes to the police, year after year. A regional police training facility isn’t going to keep our community safe; equal access to basic needs is what makes communities safe.
Tell your representatives that you don’t support further funding for the police!
Copy and paste:
Dear City Council and County Board members,
I DO NOT support the options being considered to build a new police station, a joint facility, nor a standalone facility for WPD. I demand a city and county public hearing where the people can be heard! The police having a bigger police station will not make us more safe; investing in public health infrastructure, such as noncoercive mental health and addiction services, and affordable housing will better meet the goal of improving the health and safety of our community. [Insert personal narrative, why would an alternative response team be helpful for you? How will increased taxes impact you? etc.]
Sincerely, (your name)
City contacts:
County contacts:
Chris Meyer cmeyer@co.winona.mn.us
Greg Olson golson@co.winona.mn.us
Marcia Ward mward@co.winona.mn.us
Josh Elsing JElsing@co.winona.mn.us
Dwayne Voegeli DVoegeli@co.winona.mn.us
Stop Cop City Everywhere
The city and county have continued conversations regarding the building of a new combined police/sheriff building or renovating the current Law Enforcement Center (LEC). The new proposals by architectural firm BKV suggest that the LEC could be remodeled to include a gun range and use of force simulation training areas and a gym, for over $30 million. Police officials say this could open up opportunities to create a “regional training hub” in which officers from around southeast Minnesota would come to Winona for training. Training for what? While Police officials continue to request that Winona city and county plan for the next 50 years, we are told that the population is declining, why is there an assumption that there will be more of a need for police?
Efforts to build training facilities coincide with the goal of further police militarization. Locally and nationally, we have been told these are ‘needs’ for the police, often naming these as ways to keep us safe. Encouraging police to use violent tactics does not keep us safe. Safe communities are built on access to resources and collective care.
Throughout the proposals for a new police building, city officials have suggested that millions of dollars of state funds (our tax dollars) will be available to offset the $30 million cost of a new facility. However, all indications suggest that the $7 million received by the city will be the end of the line for state support. This same fantasy of state support was used in proposals for the $28 million county jail, which the taxpayers will now be paying the debt on for the next 20 years. Similar to the jail, if they build a regional training facility, they will use it. If they build a gun range, they will use it. In a February 21st Winona Post article Deputy Chief of Police Rasmussen says it on his own: “…I think there is a market for [a regional training facility]. We think that there’s a ‘if you build it, they will come’ type of mentality.” Rasmussen’s comments are tied to a pattern of police investment at the expense of desperately needed resources. The local and national goal of these proposals are to broaden the scope of policing, not reduce them. Simply put, Winona will become a place where police learn to do harm throughout our state. Our community will be funding pain for other Minnesotans.
The Winona Post article states that the training facility will include “firearms training, defensive tactics, first aid, active killer training, with elements of mental health, de-escalation, and conflict management training incorporated.” Police reforms are dangerous as they expand the reach of policing. The claim that we “need” a training facility is dangerous as it furthers the belief that better training means we can rely on police for safety. Attaching the training to de-escalation and conflict management suggests police can do the work of mental health advocates and supporters. We have demanded an alternative response team outside of policing; increasing the funding and scope of police undermines this work.
While this proposal is smaller in size and scope than Atlanta’s Cop City proposal, the project is mirrored on a rural level, an alarming trend. Recently published data in “Cop City, USA” by Renee Johnston has shown, an alarming 69 police training facilities have been proposed across the United States, many of them similar to Winona’s proposed training facility, following the uprisings of 2020.
Efforts to invest in large carceral structures despite public opposition are not new in Winona. When will our elected officials prioritize a budget for housing, an alternative response team, and access to non-coercive mental health and addiction services?
Invest in our community, not in cops. No Cop City Anywhere.
Actions:
- Show up to the city council on Monday, March 4. Public comment starts at 6:10 p.m.. Speakers can sign up ahead of time via the city’s website or by calling the city clerk’s office at 507-457-8200. You do not need to sign up to speak.
- Contact the “public safety” facility task force, make it clear you don’t accept the cop city USA model:
- Dwayne Voegli DVoegeli@co.winona.mn.us
- Marcia Ward mward@co.winona.mn.us
- Jeff Hyma jhyma@ci.winona.mn.us
- George Borzyskowski gborzyskowski@ci.winona.mn.us
- Share this post, tell a friend.
Email Zap for Ceasefire Resolution at Winona City Council
& Register to Speak at the Monday, December 18th Meeting
Last week over 60 citizens showed up to the Human Rights Commission in hopes to hear the discussion and adoption of a Ceasefire Resolution in solidarity with the people of Palestine. City staff thwarted discussion claiming this initiative was outside of the council’s purview and the specifications of the Minnesota Human Rights Act. So….let’s bring the resolution to City Council!
If you believe in a Free Palestine and want the City of Winona to pass a Ceasefire Resolution, we ask that you put pressure on City Council today!
Contact council members ahead of their regular meeting on December 18th by phone or email. You can also register to speak in support of the resolution during the public comment period directly before Monday’s meeting. Directions for both are below.
CALL COUNCIL TODAY!
Mayor Scott Sherman 507-313-0676
Steve Young, 1st Ward 507-312-4491
Jeff Hyma, 2nd Ward 507-313-1202
Pam Eyden, 3rd Ward 507-454-6758
George Borzyskowski, 4th Ward 507-454-4463
Aaron Repinski, At-Large 507-458-7485
Jerome Christenson, At-Large 507-246-6482
Chad Ubl, City Manager 507-457-8258
EMAIL COUNCIL IMMEDIATELY!
COPY AND PASTE THE ZAP BELOW:
Hello, my name is ___, and I am a resident of Winona, MN. I am reaching out to vocalize my support for the ceasefire resolution written by Community Not Cages and Residents Organizing Against Racism in support of the Palestinian people.
As is noted in the drafted ceasefire resolution, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the United Nations Human Rights Commission have acknowledged Israel as an apartheid state. The Washington Post reported that in less than five days of the siege on Gaza, Israel dropped the same amount of bombs on Gaza that the U.S. deployed in Afghanistan in a year, but on a much smaller area. In addition, Human Rights Watch has verified videos that appear to show Israel’s use of white phosphorus against the Palestinians of Gaza. Israel is now engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign by explicitly requiring two million Palestinians to leave Gaza immediately or risk being bombed in their homes by the Israeli army. The UN says approximately two million people in Gaza are running out of drinking water and all medical care.
I am asking for you to stand strong on the commitment to our global community and demand a ceasefire now in support of the Palestinian people. Winona must join other cities around the nation who are leading on this issue and adopt the ceasefire resolution immediately.
Email council members:
REGISTER TO SPEAK:
Follow the link below; click on the highlighted section that states “Signup to speak during the Public Comment Session” and follow the prompts. You cannot sign up until the Friday before the meeting.
Public comment is from 6:10-6:45pm and speakers are limited to 2 minutes.
https://www.cityofwinona.com/719/Open-Public-Comment-Session
Winona, it’s time to show up for Palestine!
Join Community Not Cages and Residents Organizing Against Racism (ROAR) on Wednesday, December 6th to show support for a Ceasefire Resolution.
Who: Members of Winona’s Human Rights Commission are bringing forward a Ceasefire Resolution to their next meeting.
What: A Ceasefire Resolution demanding the immediate end to Israeli apartheid, violence against the people of Palestine, occupation and blockade of Palestinian land, US weapons shipment and aid to Israel with a call upon the Biden administration to promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
Where: Winona City Hall, 3rd floor.
When: Wednesday, December 6th. Meet outside City Hall for a short demo at 4pm before heading into meeting at 4:30pm to show solidarity with the Resolution.
Why: Say no to genocide! Show solidarity with Palestinians everywhere!
How: Bring your own signs and wear your keffiyehs if you’ve got them. Signs will be available at the rally. Share event with anyone you know who believes in a Free Palestine!
Email the Human Rights Commission today!
Copy and paste the following sample email and send to: Mhitz1313@gmail.com & cityclerk@ci.winona.mn.us
Dear Commissioners,
I am [state affiliation to the city of Winona], and I am urging you to pass a formal resolution in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza who are being subject to ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Israeli state backed by the United States. I support the full resolution written by area racial justice groups Community Not Cages and Residents Organizing Against Racism (ROAR) and brought forward by several commissioners. I call upon all commissioners to review the resolution and send it to the city council for consideration immediately as a time-critical and urgent matter. It is understood that the next city council meeting is scheduled for December 18th, but I ask that you encourage the council to schedule a special meeting sooner to pass this Resolution since it is a URGENT MATTER.
The following cities have also passed Resolutions for Ceasefire and Solidarity with Palestine as of November 28, 2023: Richmond, CA; Providence, RI; Cudahy, CA; Oakland, CA; and Easton, PA. I hope the City of Winona will follow suit in this moral leadership.
Thank you for your attention and commitment to doing what is right for our community and the world.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
CEASEFIRE RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, Winona mourns the loss of innocent life in occupied Palestine and Israel; and
WHEREAS, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the United Nations Human Rights Commission have acknowledged Israel as an apartheid state. The Washington Post reported that in less than five days of the siege on Gaza, Israel dropped the same amount of bombs on Gaza that the U.S. deployed in Afghanistan in a year, but on a much smaller and more concentrated area. In addition, Human Rights Watch has verified videos that appear to show Israel’s use of white phosphorus against the Palestinians of Gaza; and
WHEREAS, Israeli historian Raz Segal, associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University, argues that Israel’s attack on Gaza is “A Textbook Case of Genocide,” stating: “Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by ‘the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,’ as noted in the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant declared it in no uncertain terms on October 9th: ‘We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.’”; and
WHEREAS, ethnic cleansing refers to the elimination of unwanted ethnic groups by deportation, forcible displacement, or genocide in order to achieve ethnic homogeneity and geographic control; and
WHEREAS, Israel is now engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign by explicitly requiring two million Palestinians to leave Gaza immediately or risk being bombed in their homes by the Israeli army; and
WHEREAS, the UN says approximately two million people in Gaza are running out of drinking water and all medical care; and
WHEREAS, Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, has categorized Gaza as “the world’s largest open-air prison,” due to an ongoing blockade imposed by the state of Israel, including a full air, land, and sea blockade with enclosure of its borders by concrete walls and barbed wire fences; and
WHEREAS, Other cities in the United States have passed ceasefire resolutions to call on the federal government to stop this genocide as a matter of human rights; for this reason, racial justice organizers in Community Not Cages and Residents Organizing Against Racism in Winona endorse this resolution; and
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Winona Human Rights Commission recommends that the Winona City Council support the following as a matter of human rights:
- (1) Urges the Biden administration to immediately call for and facilitate de-escalation and a ceasefire to urgently end the current violence; and
- (2) Calls upon the Biden administration to promptly send and facilitate the entry of humanitarian assistance to Gaza; and
- (3) the City of Winona calls for an end to Israeli apartheid, an end to the occupation and blockade of Palestinian land by Israel, and an end to U.S. weapons shipments and military aid to Israel.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That upon passage, a copy of this Resolution be sent to U.S. President Joe Biden, Governor Tim Walz, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, U.S. Representative Brad Finstad, U.S. Senator Tina Smith, and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar.
The Winona Circus: Where Up is Down and Down is Up
Art by Brown Bart Baby
Winona: A place where we have no money to expand resources for housing, transit benches, food, childcare, or health care, but we have endless streams of money for JAILS AND POLICE.
As the county “celebrates” the opening of their new jail, Community Not Cages reminds you that this investment does nothing to respond to the requests of the community nor is it a cause for celebration. We continue to demand investments in real public safety.
Think of the support nearly $30 million could have provided for people…
- Affordable housing
- Food security
- Alternative Response Team-confidential and separate from the police department with properly trained dispatch
- Accessible, non-coercive mental health services
- Accessible, non-coercive addiction services with a focus on harm reduction
- Childcare
- Sustainable energy
- Support for Victims and survivors
- Public utilities-bathrooms, drinking fountains, weather safe shelters and clean parks
- Schools
Winona’s Plans for Continued Carceral Investments
The discussion regarding the proposed $33-38 million for a new multi-million dollar sheriff and police complex continues. We maintain that this is a FALSE choice. No one asked for a new police station! We didn’t ask for a militarized regional training facility complete with a gun range. Taxpayers are already paying millions for the new jail, which we had little input in building!
WE NEED TO TAKE COLLECTIVE ACTION NOW!
1. Write to county commissioners and city council members.
https://www.co.winona.mn.us/371/Winona-County-Board
https://www.cityofwinona.com/319/City-Council-Mayor
2. Talk to your friends and neighbors, ask them to write too!
3. Show up at a county board or city council meeting.
4. Write a letter to the editor.
Community Not Cages means community not cops!
NO COP CITY ANYWHERE. Follow us at: https://winonacommunitynotcages.org/
Benches Not Bullies: Claims/Rebuttals
On June 1, Community Not Cages issued a call to action to return the benches to the main public transportation stop on 3rd and Center. The removal of the benches was intentionally hostile harassment amidst extreme weather conditions. On June 2, the following message came from city staff. We continue to demand that the benches be returned to downtown (and not a bench with dividers that deters access to rest), as well as public drinking fountains and public restrooms that are ADA-accessible.
Here are our responses to these claims; we encourage you to continue contacting city council members and staff.
Claim: There is still a bench outside of the shelter.
Rebuttal: The bench outside the shelter is just that — outside. No shade or coverage from rain or snow is provided. This also leaves just one single bench at the main transport station downtown.
Claim: The city had to increase spending to remove garbage and sanitize the shelter.
Rebuttal: The city should prioritize spending on the maintenance and sanitation of the main public transport station downtown. How is money not already in the budget for this?
Claim: The city had to do this. Rebuttal: No. They didn’t. The claim that this was justified in order to maintain cleanliness in public spaces obscures the underlying intention to exclude and displace unhoused community members. Genuine public safety would include safe public transportation and access to public restrooms and water. A safe community is one that does not allow anyone to live without safe, decent, accessible and affordable housing.
We need to remain vigilant to protect community members against the implementation of anti-homeless architecture. Anti-homeless actions are embedded in the city’s comprehensive plan:
- “10.3.2 Increase residential densities in the downtown to encourage businesses to serve customers for longer hours to encourage activity and “eyes on the street”.
- This normalizes weaponizing the business class against the poor.
- “10.4.3. Support Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) training or full certification for at least one city staff member.”
- The CPTED model does not address structural oppression and rather stigmatizes people. CPTED is also tied to the rise of hostile architecture; for instance, anti-homeless spikes, the metal or concrete studs that seek to deter loitering and sleeping. Who is this an aim for?
- “10.5.2.Consider a downtown ambassador program”
- Rochester, MN is the closest such program, it is intended to deputize community members as forms of surveillance for the police, described in their own aims: “Serving as an extra set of “eyes and ears” to the Rochester Police and Fire departments.” Why not fund and put energy toward the alternative response team that supports our community rather than increased surveillance?
- 10.5.4. Encourage foot patrolling of the downtown area so that public safety officers are integrated into the downtown community and are a visual presence.
- Again, this is to police marginalized community members and protect private property. Foot patrol is intentionally intimidating. It has NOTHING to do with our public safety, that would be more housing and services.
We Demand Winona Divest from Policing and Invest in our Collective Care
The Winona comprehensive plan conducted by the city and Engage Winona does not offer evidence that our community wants a new police station. We want non-coercive mental health services and housing.
The city refuses to listen. We’ve made it clear over and over; we don’t need a new police station. Yet, it is presented as an inevitable outcome and more recently presented as a “regional training facility,” enhancing the size of its scope rather than reducing it, as Winona has asked.
July 2022: More than 200 community members packed the public hearing, almost entirely in opposition to the plan. In addition, community voices weren’t simply opposed to demolishing the rec center. Many explained their fear of police presence. And we called for true investment in the basic needs of the city – housing, non-coercive mental health and addiction services, an alternative response team, affordable child care, and more community gardens.
January 2023: The city council voted to request $21 million in state bonding for a new police-fire complex and renewed their contract with BKV, despite already spending more than $17,000 on the failed plans to demolish the rec center. In January, the Winona Post shared: “although the largely vacant old jail at the LEC offers enough space to potentially double the WPD’s current facilities to nearly 20,000 square feet, city staff and consultants said that 39,000 square feet is needed…” Their plans have already included a cop gym, gun range, and heated garage for the city/county military tank.
March 2023: Mayor Sherman said “There are potential training opportunities for the region as well” (Salazar, Winona Post). This is a sales tactic, since the first two bonding bills have not included funding for a new facility in Winona. Expanding and further militarizing regional law enforcement should not be an argument for an unwanted and flawed plan.
Community members have made it clear — We don’t want a new police station. Why does the city refuse to listen?
We demand funding for the community, not cops.
People’s Public Comment: No Copy City Anywhere
Join Community Not Cages on Monday, April 17th on the steps of City Hall for a “People’s Public Comment” starting at 5:30pm. Council must hear the demands that we DO NOT want a regional training facility for cops in our town or further militarization of the police on our budget!
Divest from carceral systems! Invest in the Alternative Response Team!
We encourage you to bring signs, speak at the rally, and join us inside council chambers for the city council’s public comment period starting at 6:10pm.
City Council has designed their public comment to be extremely restrictive, so Community Not Cages will record comments ahead of time at the rally.
*Council limits public comment to 2 minutes per speaker with a total of 15 minutes for comments. Speakers can sign up ahead of time or step to the podium if time allows. See procedures here: https://www.cityofwinona.com/DocumentCenter/View/3824/Public-comment-policy-adopted-09-06-2022?bidId=
The Path to Local Abolition
Let’s work together towards abolition!
Challenge the claim that police keep us safe. The safest communities don’t have the most cops. they have the most resources.
Terminate police officer and child abuser Josh Squires immediately. And remove the position from the budget. This will reduce police funding. This can reduce policing.
Demand that the original vision of the Alternative Response Team, separate from police, be reinstated. NO SOFT POLICE! A non-police Alternative Response Team can increase genuine public safety.
Stop the city from building a multimillion dollar police station; invest those funds in our community, NOT COPS.
Invest in housing, child care, non-coersive mental health and addiction services, and our collective care.
Community Not Cages means Community Not Cops
Divest/Invest: Restart the ART!
Abolition is our future.
To get there, we must take critical steps to divest from institutions that are harming us and invest in our safety. The Alternative Response Team is a starting point.
What is the conversation about the ART? Why isn’t it public?
In 2020, Engage Winona was hired by the city to facilitate a steering committee and formulate a plan for what became known as the Alternative Response Team (ART). Community members, representatives from the Advocacy Center, Hiawatha Valley Mental Health, the Family and Children’s Center, city council, and the police comprised this committee. Over the course of several months, they developed a promising program. The final vision, formed through consensus, was a completely alternative response, separate from police and dispatched from 9-1-1, to help with crisis calls. The ART aimed to create a trusted, confidential, community-based resource available to all city residents.
This program was approved unanimously by city council in 2020 and was given its own separate funding category and the opportunity to prove its efficacy. A few months later, it was cut when the city council claimed a budget crisis. Council has not publicly discussed it since that time. Furthermore, City Manager Chad Ubl continues to have private meetings about new “mental health initiatives” without informing the public or working for the vision that community stakeholders had already approved. If the city council truly cut the fledgling program due to a budget crisis, then they can certainly pick that conversation back up now that $180,000 is available from American Rescue Plan funding. Budgets are moral documents, and funding our community, not the police, needs to be a priority for social change. Investing in policing is harmful to our entire community, as it interferes with the ability to invest in our collective safety through education, health care, housing, child care, and community green spaces. Winona has not prioritized such public safety needs. Economic development, the site of Winona’s investment in housing, is only 3.8% of the 2022 budget, contrasted with the police budget which is 32.4% of the city’s budget.
Take action!
Speak at public comment!
Write a letter to the editor!
Contact City Council!
Mayor Scott Sherman 507-313-0676 ssherman@ci.winona.mn.us
Steve Young, 1st Ward 507-312-4491 syoung@ci.winona.mn.us
Jeff Hyma, 2nd Ward 507-313-1202 jhyma@ci.winona.mn.us
Pam Eyden, 3rd Ward 507-454-6758 peyden@ci.winona.mn.us
George Borzyskowski, 4th Ward 507-454-4463 gborzyskowski@ci.winona.mn.us
Aaron Repinski, At-Large 507-458-7485 arepinski@ci.winona.mn.us
Jerome Christenson, At-Large 507-246-6482 jchristenson@ci.winona.mn.us
They’re doing what?!
Context:
Last week, city manager Chad Ubl presented a proposal to the county board regarding potential collaboration on the city’s proposed plan to create an unnecessary additional police station, four times larger than the current WPD space. We appreciate the county board members who stated they did not want to invest further in carceral systems, as the county is already $28.5 million in debt for the new jail, and who have recognized the community needs other investments outside of law enforcement. County board chair Chris Meyer stated, “I don’t think I would ask them to invest in law enforcement again, given that we are just in the process of making this big investment in the jail. So from that standpoint, I don’t think I am interested as a commissioner in advancing an agenda to make a big investment in law enforcement.” Meyer said she saw preventative social services and mental health care as more urgent needs.
Claim:
If the city and county build a new facility, they could provide more space for other services.
Rebuttal:
The county’s exploration into uses for the space in the LEC, which would be left vacant if the WPD relocates, are troubling as the discussions continue on a combined police and sheriff’s department. Our community must demand to remove health and other public services from the discussion. According to the Winona Post, County Administrator Holte “raised the possibility of renting a smaller portion of a new city facility. Since the county downsized its buildings in 2018, it has been renting space: at the Winona Mall for the License Center and at Winona Health for public health offices, for example. At Meyer’s suggestion, staff has been studying the county’s overall space needs with an eye toward possibly relocating rented offices to the LEC, where the new jail project has freed up excess space.” We must prevent local government from further extending its carceral reach into necessary and life-affirming resources.
Claim:
The Winona Police Department needs a new police station.
Rebuttal:
The city of Winona’s plans for a new police station, or potential combined “public safety” building (see Community Not Cages previous statements regarding the harm in housing the police with fire or ambulance services), seem out of step with other communities in the state in regards to size, scale, and cost. For example, four other communities requested state bonding for fire, ambulance, and community centers for a total of $26 million in state bonding, yet Winona has requested $21 million for a standalone police station (including a gun range and covered parking garage for the city/county’s tank/MRAP). This enormous request was not included in the governor’s initial bonding proposal. BKV’s proposals for large police complexes are not in line with our community’s interests and needs. The city must return to the drawing board and present proposals which do not see us in massive debt for large scale police complexes that do not serve us.
Claim:
The city of Winona is more likely to receive bonding for a combined facility.
Rebuttal:
When the city was considering tearing down our East End Rec Center for the proposed police/fire complex, city manager Chad Ubl repeatedly told the public that a combined facility was more likely to get state bonding. Yet the governor’s current bonding proposal seeks to support various communities’ proposals to build standalone fire and ambulance services, as well as standalone community centers. Did the city follow through with its promises to apply for state funding to invest in the East End Rec and Friendship Center? Or was that not considered further when we refused to let them put a police station on that site? There must be accountability for those commitments; we must continue to demand investment in our community, not cops.
City Council
ssherman@ci.winona.mn.us, syoung@ci.winona.mn.us, jhyma@ci.winona.mn.us, peyden@ci.winona.mn.us, gborzyskowski@ci.winona.mn.us, arepinski@ci.winona.mn.us, jchristenson@ci.winona.mn.us
County Board
Email all: CountyBoard@co.winona.mn.us
Or individually: CMeyer@co.winona.mn.us, DVoegeli@co.winona.mn.us, GOlson@co.winona.mn.us, MWard@co.winona.mn.us
Email Zap: ART Letter to City Council
Hello Council Members Hyma and Christenson,
I am writing to congratulate you on your new position as a representative for the city of Winona and also ask that you consider advocating for the reinstatement of the Alternative Response Team (ART).
Some backstory:
In 2020, a steering committee was formed with Engage Winona, who were hired to facilitate discussions and formulate a plan for what became known as the Alternative Response Team (ART). Community members, representatives from the Advocacy Center, Hiawatha Valley Mental Health, the Family and Children’s Center, city council, and the police comprised this committee, and over the course of several months, they developed a promising program. Community members fought for a completely alternative response, separate from police and dispatched from 911, to deal with various nonviolent situations. The ART aimed to create a trusted, confidential, community-based resource available to all city residents.
City council initially approved funding for the program, but claiming a budget shortfall for 2022, it cut the funding before the ART had a chance to begin. Now, with $180,000 worth of funds available from the American Rescue Plan Act, the community has a chance to see the ART reinstated. To make this happen, city council members have to bring it back to the table. Recently at council, City Manager Chad Ubl announced he was in discussion with HVMH and Winona Health to consider what to do with the $180,000 set aside for “Mental Health Initiatives.” This dollar amount happens to be roughly the amount needed to start and staff the ART program.
The city had already worked with HVMH to create an implementation plan and begin the hiring process for the ART when the program was initially approved for funding in 2020. To now include Winona Health in the conversation, creating new mental health initiatives, is a pattern of consistently reinventing the wheel and stalling progress. Furthermore, city officials have continually conflated the Alternative Response Team to the Winona County crisis response team. The existing crisis response team is admittedly understaffed and has a large service area, with up to 50-minute response times. This is not adequate. Again, I am asking that you support the needs of Winona by bringing the ART discussion back to council. Our community needs these resources now.
Thank you for considering,
{insert name}
Contact:
Jeff Hyma, 2nd Ward 507-313-1202 jhyma@ci.winona.mn.us
Jerome Christenson, At-Large 507-246-6482 jchristenson@winona.mn.us
Mayor Scott Sherman 507-313-0676 ssherman@ci.winona.mn.us
Steve Young, 1st Ward 507-312-4491 syoung@ci.winona.mn.us
Pam Eyden, 3rd Ward 507-454-6758 peyden@ci.winona.mn.us
George Borzyskowski, 4th Ward 507-454-4463 gborzyskowski@ci.winona.mn.us
Aaron Repinski, At-Large 507-458-7485 arepinski@ci.winona.mn.uS
Chad Ubl, City Manager 507-457-8258 cubl@ci.winona.mn.us
Keep Cops Out of Schools
In 2020, the School Board unanimously voted to end WAPS’ contract with the Winona Police Department for a school resource officer (SRO) stationed mainly at Winona Senior High School. This decision followed Minnesota Department of Human Rights findings of racial discrimination, including students being followed home by the SRO. Community members demanded cops be removed from schools to address the systemic racism, classism, and ableism of WAPS.
Currently, there are safety positions at the middle and high school level and safety-related behavioral positions at the elementary level. These positions play the role of soft policing, which is the illusion of a nonpunitive position that perpetuates surveillance without a badge or oversight. This was not the community demand in 2020, and we do not accept these roles as a safer alternative. We maintain that investing in counseling and curricular resources is the best way to create safety in our schools.
As covered in the October 28th Winona Post, school board member Denzer said, “And I wouldn’t be opposed to addressing having security officers. I think we have to be open-minded and readdress things, if they come up in the future.” We can’t go backwards; the decision to remove the SRO in 2020 must remain. And further investments for students’ health and safety are needed.
TAKE ACTION: Residents Organizing Against Racism (ROAR), Our Voices, and Community Not Cages ask that you join them in protecting this 2020 win by writing to ALL school board members and demanding that they keep cops out of schools, invest in counselors, and fully implement compassionate schools with restorative practices, a commitment already made in 2017 by the school board with no material action.
Furthermore, according to the recent Winona Post article, “How WAPS used COVID funds; what’s next,” over the past two years, WAPS used ESSER, federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, to fund programs such as more counseling services, English learning, as well as student success coaches. All of those programs were reduced in funding this year compared to last year, as ESSER funds are depleted. We demand that all the student support services that were created or received more funding since 2020 remain in place and receive their own funding in the WAPS general budget to invest in genuine school safety.
Addresses:
nancy.denzer@winona.k12.mn.us
michael.hanratty@winona.k12.mn.us
tina.lehnertz@winona.k12.mn.us
pete.watkins@winona.k12.mn.us
jim.schul@winona.k12.mn.us
stephanie.smith@winona.k12.mn.us
karl.sonneman@winona.k12.mn.us
annette.freiheit@winona.k12.mn.us
2022 Year in Review
IN 2022, WE COLLECTIVELY STOPPED COP BLOCK! TOGETHER, WE CAN WIN SO MUCH MORE!
We ended 2021 on a high note, we had stopped the county from building a regional juvenile detention center and reduced the size of the new jail. In November 2021, we came together in the freezing rain with Twin Cities abolitionist Jason Sole, founder of Humanize My Hoodie and Institute of Aspiring Abolitionists, to envision the horizon of a safer and more just community. He reminded us all of the importance of staying “grounded in the work.” For this reason, Community Not Cages (CNC) slowed down for our collective care, committed to political education, and cooked and shared food together to begin 2022.
In February, after the city council unveiled a horrific plan to use public space to build a ridiculously overpriced new police station, Community Not Cages hosted a “People’s Public Comment” event on the steps of city hall with more than sixty community members in attendance. This direct action was necessary, because public comment was not allowed at city council meetings yet.
The key demands at the “People’s Public Comment” were:
- Use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to reinstate the Alternative Response Team (ART);
- Affordable housing NOW;
- Allow public comment at council;
- Collective care through empowering people;
- Keep cops out of community centers.
In honor of May Day, CNC hosted a community art installment at the site of the county’s new $28 million jail. It offered us space to remember past struggles, scatter wildflower seeds, and demonstrate our hope for a better future. A day to remember that an injury to one is an injury to all. We asked local kids to create a picture of what they would have created in the space in which the new jail was being built. Some of the responses were a hospital, community gardens, a park, an LGBTQ+ center, a cat cafe, a food forest, a pool, a children’s museum, a vet clinic, or somebody’s loving comfy home. What would you have liked to see in the space?
Winter/Spring Radical Library Building at the WPL
Community Not Cages organized support to provide abolitionist knowledge for children and adults for the Winona Public Library, ensuring that abolition is accessible to the entire community! Some titles included A is for Activist, Water Protectors, and Abolition. Feminism. Now. Check them out at the library today!
Mutual Aid: Solidarity, Not Charity
Throughout the year, we hosted multiple pop-up community events. Members of our community shared food and educated community members about the campaign to stop cop block and save the rec. Nearly 150 community members were fed this summer, and together we dreamed up a people’s budget!
Juneteenth was a three-day celebration led by Our Voices and in coalition with Residents Organizing Against Racism (ROAR) and Community Not Cages. Our Voices hosted a book drive and public lecture, and on June 19th, they offered space for political education about the campaign to stop cop block, awesome food, and incredible performances.
Later in the summer, we assisted with a back-to-school event that provided free haircuts, backpacks, and lunch; many thanks to Uncle Gills Cutz for this collaboration.
Win to STOP COP BLOCK
We stopped cop block: The multi-million dollar project that would have demolished a cherished rec center in Winona’s east end neighborhood, and replace it with a three-story police/fire complex, which would include a gun range, a gym, and parking for the Winona Sheriff and WPD’s Mine Resistant Armored Vehicle (MRAP). Cop block was branded by the city as a “public safety” building. Community Not Cages reminded our community that the rec center is already a place of public safety. The rec is the only free, indoor space for children to use regularly with an adult attendant, making it an integral resource for working families. It also hosts the winter’s farmer market, vaccine clinics, youth and adult sports, and other programming, it acts as an emergency shelter, and it maintains a space for community gardens. Preserving this space is a huge collective win for our community!
Most historic was the July 5th, 2022 public hearing! After months of demands for a public hearing on the proposal a date was set for the hearing, despite an attempt by some city council members to hold the hearing directly after a holiday, more than 200 people showed up at city hall, filling the council chambers and spilling out into the hall. During the almost three hours of public comment, 68 testimonies were made to save the rec, while only three supported the proposal. Children, moms, grandmas, farmers, teachers, artists — WE spoke truth to power.
Community Not Cages is committed to ongoing political education, as the best praxis is grounded in the strategies, wins, and pitfalls of other movements. We learned from the campaign to Stop Cop City in Atlanta, GA, which provided an analysis of the prison industrial complex’s interconnected state violence via policing, militarism, and settler colonial environmental injustices. Our campaign to “stop cop block” was created using lessons learned from Atlanta’s struggle. Our rural organizing win wouldn’t be possible without this network of brilliance. Stop cop city! Save the forest!
On December 15, 2022, our organizing labor was acknowledged by the Advocacy Center of Winona, who awarded CNC with their new “Creating a Safer Community” Award!
In 2023, we must continue to fight to fund our collective care. Demand the city and county governments DEFUND THE POLICE and INVEST IN:
- Affordable housing and child care
- Fund parks, green space, and community gardens
- Continue to invest in and improve the Rec and the Friendship Center
- Non-coercive mental health and addiction services
- Fund the Alternative Response Team, as envisioned in 2020
- Restorative practices available for repair in our community
- Clean air, clean water, food security, and unapologetic abortion access.
To join us in 2023, find us on Facebook/Instagram: communitynotcages OR check out our website: winonacommunitynotcages.org
New Email Zap
City council members,
I am reaching out regarding the proposed ordinance to consider eviction and rental license revocation for nuisances on a property. This proposed ordinance seems ill conceived, the proposed solution for minor nuisances on rental properties is to remove people from their homes, this is hardly a solution and leads to much bigger problems for our community to hold. For people who are living on a fine financial line eviction can be the start of a spiral of homelessness. The lack of affordable housing in Winona is well known. Many people cannot produce the necessary funds to pay required rental deposits with short notice, the ability to find a new rental will further be compromised if they have an eviction on their rental record. This ordinance has the potential to increase the individuals and families that will experience homelessness in our community. I’m not sure that the full ramifications of this ordinance have been considered. I urge you to vote against this proposal and work with the broader community, including housing advocates, to determine a more reasonable solution for managing complicated issues on rental properties. Thank you for your consideration of the matter.
Mayor Scott Sherman 507-313-0676 ssherman@ci.winona.mn.us
Steve Young, 1st Ward 507-312-4491 syoung@ci.winona.mn.us
Eileen Moeller, 2nd Ward 847-890-5478 emoeller@ci.winona.mn.us
Pam Eyden, 3rd Ward 507-454-6758 peyden@ci.winona.mn.us
George Borzyskowski, 4th Ward 507-454-4463 gborzyskowski@ci.winona.mn.us
Aaron Repinski, At-Large 507-458-7485 arepinski@ci.winona.mn.us
Michelle Alexander, At-Large 507-474-9179 malexander@ci.winona.mn.us
Chad Ubl, City Manager 507-457-8258 cubl@ci.winona.mn.us
A Response to the Comprehensive Plan and ARPA Funds
This year, the city of Winona began updates to the Comprehensive Plan, which was last completed in 2007. The Twin Cities-based firm HKGi is the primary consultant, and Engage Winona has lead engagement and public input.
Imagine the shock to find out that the vision of the Comprehensive Plan actually takes us backwards from years of “engagement.” The Winona Post reported on October 7, 2022: “One idea considered to coordinate mental health resources was to add a social worker to the 911 emergency dispatch center staff to better help direct calls, somewhat similar to the proposed Alternative Response Team (ART), which was cut from the city’s budget last year.” This proposal is separate from the original ART, which was cut in December 2021.
Rewind….
In good faith, individual members of Community Not Cages (CNC) joined the 2020 committee which created the ART and was facilitated by Engage Winona. CNC members advocated for the program to be located separate from the carceral apparatuses of the police and Department of Human Services. It is important to note that despite Community Not Cages organizing efforts to remove police from the process, there was a police representative. Furthermore, there were no harm reduction advocates (those supporting non-coercive addiction services) and very little effort on the part of facilitation to include impacted communities, those that have experienced racist, sexist, and ableist state violence, despite it being framed locally as a “diverse committee.”
The Engage process was billed as consensus, and on November 20, 2020, the committee agreed on some of the following terms:
- Provide an alternate first response to police in appropriate cases
- Assist and support the police department with crisis intervention, follow up with individuals and families after incidents involving police
- Create a trusted, confidential, community-based resource available to all city residents with minimum interaction from the government
- Emergency Response—The ART will have the capability to provide an alternative response to nonviolent 911 calls with existing caseload, mental health crisis assistance, as well as assist with crisis intervention planning both in person and remotely. The ART will be dispatched through the county dispatch center and tasked with providing emergency-level response time. The ART will provide confidential services, support, and follow-up.
As Community Not Cages argued, the original 2020 plan to place social workers in the police department was to “soften” the image of policing. The Alternative Response was given its own separate funding and the opportunity to prove its efficacy, with potential to divest from the police budget in the future and invest in public safety outside of carceral institutions. Then it was cut.
Fast Forward….
On October 26, 2022, the Winona Post reported that the city aims to partner with Winona Health and Hiawatha Valley Mental Health Center to discuss how exactly the city could spend the $180,000 earmarked COVID relief funds for mental health initiatives, the exact amount that was needed to fund the ART. The ARPA funds make the original plan possible without the city’s budget crisis affecting the launch of the program. The city council and city planner, Chad Ubl, seem determined to not fund the ART, despite original city council approval and widespread community support.
Before subcommittees started reworking Winona’s comprehensive plan, Engage Winona was hired to seek input from residents, and their work was included in introductory materials to the groups. We shared our visions, where is the accountability that those visions were compiled accurately, presented and considered by the various subcommittees shaping the new comp plan? Why are we reinventing the wheel? Fund the already crafted model of the Alternative Response Team, which is NOT a co-responder model!
Furthermore, the Downtown and Riverfront Subcommittee include in their “Goals, Objectives, and Strategies”: “encourage foot patrolling of the downtown area so that public safety officers are integrated into the downtown community and are a visual presence.” According to the Comprehensive Plan Engagement Report, over 2,000 people were spoken to. A large percentage of the comments asked for increased access to affordable and safe housing and mental health resources, not increased surveillance and policing.
We continue to demand that the city fund the ART, community recreation resources for all ages, and not invest funds into a new building for police. Fund our community, not cops.
To learn more about Community Not Cages history of demanding a legitimate alternative response team:
- September 2020
- August 2021 (Check Instagram @communitynotcages)
- January 2022 (Check Instagram @communitynotcages)
What can you do?
- Contact the city planner (cubl@ci.winona.mn.us), mayor, and all city council members (https://winonacommunitynotcages.org/contact/), and request the city council reinstate the ART, as envisioned by community members.
- Ask the city council and county officials to engage in dialogue and not invest money into a new building for police (https://winonacommunitynotcages.org/contact/).
- Contact Engage Winona (engage@engagewinona.org), and ask them to reiterate the interests vocalized by community members in both the ART organizing sessions and the comprehensive plan to the city leaders; the stated visions didn’t include increased policing.
City Council voted to drop the plans to demolish the Rec!
At the September 19th city council meeting it was unanimously voted to drop the plans to demolish the East End Rec to build a police/fire station.
This is a huge win for our community!
Thank you to everyone who showed up, sent an email, made a call, provided food and resources for our community dinners, or spoke at the public hearing. Our collective action made this possible.
EMAIL ZAP TO CITY COUNCIL:
“I would like to thank you for unanimously voting to end the plans to tear down the rec center. Over the past year, there has been much discussion from council about improving the rec and its offerings. Now that the plans are dropped to build the police/fire complex in that lot, I hope those promises of revitalization are not forgotten. Renovation of the building and upkeep of the playground, basketball courts, and community garden space are just as important now as they were when discussing a new rec. Continued programming at the rec is so valuable to our community. I look forward to the council’s commitment to this much loved community hub.
As discussion about what to do for the police and fire departments moves forward, I’d like to urge the council to keep the two departments separate and at the locations where they currently stand. We have yet to hear the county and city discuss the importance of collaboration, to ensure city and county resources, and funding, are best used for the people. As evidenced by public comment, not all citizens are comfortable with the two departments being housed together. Listening to public sentiment before developing new plans can help stave off another setback in city planning.
Thank you for hearing the demands of the people you serve,
{Your name}
Winona City Council Contacts:
ssherman@ci.winona.mn.us
malexander@ci.winona.mn.us
syoung@ci.winona.mn.us
emoeller@ci.winona.mn.us
peyden@ci.winona.mn.us
gborzyskowski@ci.winona.mn.us
arepinski@ci.winona.mn.us
New Claims/Rebuttal (posted 7/20/22)
Context: The Winona City Council has plans to tear down the East End Rec and replace it with a combined police/fire complex. Despite the fact that it is more economically, environmentally and morally responsible for each department to stay where they are, they aim to build a 3-story police/fire complex with a gun range. That doesn’t belong in a neighborhood! This plan includes building a new rec across the street, which will increase surveillance of kids and will increase criminalization of youth. Winona has a documented history of youth criminalization and complicity in the school-to-prison pipeline. Community Not Cages continues to reject the branding of this plan as a “public safety building.” The current rec is already a site of public safety! It supports the social, emotional, and physical needs of children and families and is a community meeting space that facilitates relationships.
On July 5th, more than 200 community members packed city hall for a public hearing. The public hearing occurred after six months of community organizing and demands to be heard. The city council still does not allow a public comment period during their regular meetings. Public records show there have been 139 comments in opposition to this plan, and only six in support. And yet, the city council continues to push forward with this unpopular plan.
Claim: According to WEAU’s reporting on July 13, 2022, without any evidence, Sherman stated that “there are also a large number of people in Winona who support the proposal, [and] it’s the most feasible path for upgrading the East End Rec while simultaneously improving public safety.”
Rebuttal: In response to Mayor Scott Sherman’s claim, there is little to no evidence that even a significant minority of the community support the current “public safety” building proposal. The July 5th public hearing clearly showed an overwhelming community presence in opposition to the plan, with very little support. When the tallies were in from the combined comments made in person and online there were 139 comments in opposition to the proposal, and only 6 in support. We support the vision that City Councilperson Pam Eyden expressed in the July 20th Winona Post, “in retrospect, given the strength of the community’s response to that and their good arguments, I think we should return and look at alternative sites,” Eyden also argued these three projects should not be combined and the most valuable city improvement would be an enhanced Rec Center and Friendship Center.
Claim: According to the July 20th Winona Post, City Councilperson Michlle Alexander stated: “we heard from the group that requested the public hearing, and now it’s just going out and meeting with different groups…” There will be additional public input sessions.
Rebuttal: Why? A public hearing is not designated to a group of people, and July 5th was one of the largest attended council meetings of the whole community. Despite public outcry, more than 200 folks in attendance, and 139 statements of opposition, city staff continue to plan for this proposal amid growing community dissent. The hours worked by staff to investigate funding and land purchases are paid by Winona residents, who don’t support this plan! They have refused to afford us a public comment at regular meetings, despite saying they are working on a procedure for public comment months ago. Why spend energy planning more sessions when they won’t even let us democratically speak in city council meetings?
Claim: The new rec will be bigger and better. Also according to WEAU’s reporting, Mayor Scott Sherman stated, “While we would remove the current East End Rec facility, we would build it bigger and also improve upon what is currently there.”
Rebuttal: A “new rec” is uncertain as the proposed site for the construction of a “new rec” does not currently belong to the city, and funding for the plan is unknown. Furthermore, there will be less space overall for the new “community center” being proposed, with the intention of combining the Friendship Center and the East End Rec. The outdoor space would be smaller with no community gardens or basketball courts.
Indeed, we NEED more spaces like the rec center and Friendship Center. These services deserve to be economic priorities of transformative development; however, visions for a new Rec and Friendship Center HAVE NOT been the priority in this proposal; they are a mere afterthought to prioritizing a new police station. Interestingly, the “new community center” is proposed to have 29,000 sq ft for the entire community, while the new police/fire complex is proposed to have 69,888 sq ft (Winona Post May 4, 2022).
Winona’s population is not likely to increase, according to estimates by state and local demographers (as cited in the city’s Comprehensive Plan introductory sessions). Most recently, population has declined by over 2,000 residents, and any increase would simply return the city size back to its 2010 numbers. Funding police further and building a new, larger police station does not line up with the future needs of Winona.
Claim: Community Not Cages wants to “defund the police.”
Response: That is correct. Policing is a continuation of racist, colonial, classist, and sexist harm. Investing in policing is harmful to our entire community, as it interferes with the ability to invest in our collective safety through education, health care, housing, childcare, and community green spaces. Winona has not prioritized such public safety needs. Economic development, the site of Winona’s investment in housing, only increased by $190K from 2018-2020, contrasted with the police budget which increased by nearly $1 million over the same period of time. The $38-42 million dollar plan prioritizes the interests of police and includes: the removal of the community gardens and green spaces, a private gym for police and fire department, a parking garage for the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected US military vehicle the city owns, and a below surface gun range.
Budgets are moral documents, funding our community, not the police, needs to be a priority for social change. As scholar and historian Robin DG Kelley has argued, defunding the police and abolishing carceral systems is about “attacking the systems and symbols of racism and white supremacy.”
Claim/Rebuttal for Proposed Police/Fire Complex
Claim: If the city were to use the current site of the East End Rec to build a new police/fire complex, then a new combined rec center and friendship center will be built at the site of St. Stans.
Rebuttal: The city has had plans to renovate the current East End Rec to make space for the Friendship Center long before the talk of a police/fire complex was proposed at the site (Aug 26, 2020). The cost of the updates to the proposed combined Rec at that time was approximately $5 million. The city does not own the property at St. Stans, and there are no guarantees they can purchase the property or for funding renovations to that property. If the St. Stans property was purchased and used to build a newer rec center, the footprint would be smaller, creating less outdoor space, with no room for basketball courts or community gardens.
Claim: The Winona police department needs a new police station.
Rebuttal: There is space to expand and opportunities for remodeling at the current Law Enforcement Center (LEC). According to the Winona Post article, “Extra Space at the Law Enforcement Center” (Feb 2022), there is room for the Winona police department and the sheriff’s office to expand at the LEC, now that the new jail is being built, at a cost of $28 Million. Old cell blocks have already been remodeled for the new dispatch center, and there are more that can be remodeled. City officials have stated the cost of expansion for the WPD at the current LEC location would cost approximately $4 million. Interestingly, the city’s WPD contract with the county expires in 2024. We have been silenced without the ability to speak for 6 months now. Make no mistake, the proposal to begin building in 2024 clearly means the city has been planning this project without community feedback for a very long time.
Claim: The Winona fire department needs a new station
Rebuttal: The city of Winona bought the properties behind the current fire station with the intention of expanding the station at its current location in 2006, at a cost of $536,000 (Winona Post April 27,2022). The estimated cost of renovations to update the current fire department was $2.3 million in 2019 (Winona Post April 20, 2022).
Claim: The city is likely to receive state bonding to cover the costs of the police/fire complex.
Rebuttal: Bonding funds are not guaranteed. The estimated cost for the new combined police/fire complex and new rec center is currently at $38-$42 million. Renovations of the current buildings are estimated at $11.3 million, $26.7-30.7 million dollars less! The city has proposed that they would help to cover the cost of the project by applying for state bonding. Even if this controversial project were to be awarded funding through state bonding, a competitive process, the bonding would only cover up to 50% of the cost. The rest of the funding would put taxpayers on the hook for $19-21 million, almost twice the cost of keeping the departments where they are at and our Rec whole as a site of true public safety. We already have a huge $28 million county jail being built with no plans in place for how to pay for it. Why is there always money for jails and police?
Claim: BKV Group and ISG (the architects of this proposal) have our community’s best interests in mind.
Rebuttal: They are an outside firm that proposed to demolish our rec center and previously Sinclair Park (purple dinosaur park). ISG architects profit from structural racism and settler colonialism, as they have profited off of prison designs and the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Claim: The county will gouge prices on rent, so renovating the current police station isn’t an option.
Rebuttal: The conversation between the city and county to explore these options has not happened. Chief Williams’ conjecture that the city’s rent will go up and that the city will have to pay for all renovations is unproven. According to Sheriff Ganrude, “he offered the Winona police department the entire basement of the LEC, but said the conversation didn’t go any further.” (Winona Post Feb 23, 2022)
The city will be holding a public hearing session during the City Council meeting on July 5 at 6:30 p.m. on the third floor of city hall and will also gather public input online now through June 29 at tinyurl.com/453fn8ez
Stop Cop Block by organizing your neighbors!
Context:
The Winona City Council has announced potential plans to demolish the East End Recreation Center and replace it with a $26 million “public safety” building. On May 16th, officials presented a plan to buy the neighboring St. Stan’s school and make it a community center, with a new police-fire station demolishing the East End Rec Center, parks, and community gardens. Public safety is grounded in a healthy community, in which people are housed, fed, and our collective needs are met. The East End Rec Center is currently a site of safety; it provides a safe space for youth and adults alike. It is a place for kids to play and is the location of our community gardens. It houses the winter farmer’s market and vaccine clinics, and it acts as a polling place. It offers adults a space for community education and sports, and it has been a warm and welcoming space for the free lunch program. The city of Winona claims that “public safety” is defined by policing and the fire department, hence their plans to build a new combined facility which they are framing as a “public safety” building. White supremacy and oppression dictate current carceral definitions of “public safety.” Criminalization, containment, and surveillance are core components of carceral apparatuses; as such, for whom are they “safe?”
Talking to your neighbors builds community safety!
- According to Winona City Council agenda packets:
- “Public facing reception counter does not have ballistic-resistant assemblies leaving a potential risk to staff.” What about the neighborhood!?!
- “Training spaces are not provided to support the department’s current goals such as situational and defensive tactical training.” According to City Manager Chad Ubl, Cop Block will be three stories tall and house a gun range. Next to children!? Is this what we want to invest in?
- The commitment to a community rec center and the friendship center has come AFTER public pressure. The January 31st drawings of the plan presented parking lots at the sites of the now proposed rec center. Even if they tell the public that they WILL build a new rec center after the “public safety” building is done, there is no guarantee they actually will. Police interests have been the guiding vision for this plan, not the safety of children and the community.
- The most recent proposal eliminates the existing basketball courts, playground, and community garden at the ERC. Yet we are to believe the city is going to give us a new shiny community center? Council Person Michelle Alexander claimed May 16 they would break up the community gardens and disperse them in neighborhoods. This dispersal defeats the community building and learning opportunity community gardens provide! Furthermore, the current community gardens became a reality due to organizing efforts by citizens and outside grants, they were not originally planned or funded by the city. The city has historically not invested in community gardens, why would we believe that they will in the future?
- Prioritizing the police station (equipped with a gun range) over kids and the rec center will continue a dangerous pattern of police surveillance, violence, and attempts to invest in youth incarceration in Winona; it mirrors the racist, ableist, classist, and patriarchal youth control complex. Victor Rios defines this as a “ubiquitous system that functions to monitor, stigmatize, criminalize, and collectively punish young people of color.” Winona has a documented pattern of the youth control complex, which is interlocking to the school-to-prison pipeline:
- From 2017-2018: Black students were 8.5 times more likely than white students to experience suspensions at WAPS, linked to the racial discrimination and policing in schools.
- July 2020: Minnesota Department of Human Rights investigation documents police harassment in Winona Area Public Schools. After organized community pressure, WAPS School Board voted to remove police from schools.
- April 2021: With continued pressure from the community, the Winona County board members declare they will no longer consider building a juvenile detention center.
- The current proposal places children next to police: “I think the city has lost its mind if it wants to put cops on top of children”–Tara Bailey and her husband, Andre, lead a drumline that’s based out of the ERC (Winona Post, May 18)
- Community Not Cages has been told there is potential for state bonding, and that when making that request for state funding, one building is cheaper than two. Using this same logic, we contest that zero new buildings are cheaper than one, economically and environmentally.
- City Manager Chad Ubl has not provided ample evidence for the claim that state bonding is more likely! The city will need to wait and request state bonding funds in 2024 AND can still be denied. Like the jail, will we sit with a large complex and no plan for payment!? The community did not ask for this project!
- Chad Ubl’s claim that the total cost of three separate projects — $47-55 million — would be $9-12 million more than the cost estimate for the combined police-fire-community center project (Winona Post May 18). This claim is again new and not based on evidence or adequate research. In February and March, the police and fire station remodels were discussed at a total cost of $6.3 million dollars, a quarter of the proposed project. Invest in our community, not in cops.
- What do these proposals do to make us safer? The safest communities don’t have the most police; they have the most resources. Tell the city council, support Kids NOT cops!
Organize!
- Talk to your neighbors
- Submit digital form for public input. Note: we reject the continued rhetoric that policing is public safety.
- Pack the City Hall for the Public Hearing July 5 at 6:30pm!
- To get involved, contact: winonacommunitynotcages@gmail.com
“Listen to Us“
“LISTEN TO US”: On February 26, 2022, Our Voices, a Winona Black youth organization, wrote and performed the following act in honor of Black History Month. Some excerpts shared with permission. Learn more about contacting city council members about the East End Rec.
Ugh! You know! We really have to start speaking up more. Just because we’re young doesn’t mean we’re voiceless.
For real though. Because all of the destruction that’s taking place around us will be left for us young people to fix.
The thing that gets me is when grown ups get together and come up with “plans” for us without even talking to us!
Yeah like how do they know what we want or like if they don’t even talk to us!
Did you hear they’re building a bigger jail here?
We KNOW who they’re going to fill it up with.
Yeah did you hear they’re also talking about possibly tearing down the East End Rec? Making it into like a police-fire station kid center type thing. Sounds weird.
NOOOO! The rec use to be fun to hangout at.
Who Makes these decisions? Are any kids talked to when these plans are being made?
It’s sad because a lot of us kids are struggling mentally. Many kids deal with stuff quietly and unfortunately many kids drown out these struggles with toxic things.
Yes, stuff like drugs, alcohol, and other addictions. It’s like we’re screaming out to be seen and heard and no one is listening. Instead they want to talk about ISS, suspension, detention centers and prisons.
How does any of this help us!
You can’t ride your bikes in a group without someone asking if you’re a gang. And don’t have too many young people hanging out at the lake or the parks because then you’ll have someone threatening to call the cops on you because your group scares them…mmm hmmm. We all know what they really mean.
Instead of talks of bigger prisons and preparing us for it through the school to prison pipeline with these exaggerated suspensions. Why not talk about needed things?
Things like Rec centers where kids can go and do art, play instruments, group therapy, animal care, yoga.
I wonder why therapy is never mentioned but they’re quick to talk about locking people away.
I’m tired of feeling like I’m in a big bubble having my every move watched. Feeling like we’re in cages not allowed to be kids who make mistakes without the mentioning of jails. Why is there never mention of mental health services?
We are not too young to advocate for ourselves. Yeah, we’re not voiceless!
IT’S TIME FOR US
TO USE OUR VOICES
TO ROAR LOUD!
Because we stand for COMMUNITY NOT CAGES!
Take action!
- Listen to kids!
- Center and amplify kid’s voices
- Contact city council and demand they stop plans that harm kids
- Mutual aid for Our Voices!
- CashApp: $LaSharaMorgan
Save the East End Rec Center: Kids Not Cops
City Council Proposal
On January 31st, Winona City Council announced potential plans to demolish the East End Recreation Center, one of the only sites for kids to play, and to replace it with a combined police and fire station with a new shared recreation center space. The current East End Recreation Center is a treasured site and is well-used by the East End Community. The residents that use the Rec were not consulted in their vision of how the site could better suit their needs. Instead, a consulting firm from Minneapolis was contracted to determine the best location for the new $23-26 million combined police and fire department. The East End Rec site was at the top of their list, but an out-of-town company does not understand the value the Rec Center provides for us and only considered city-owned lots and response times. We know there is more to public safety than response times. The Rec center provides a safe space for youth and adults alike. The rec center supports neighborhood youth. It is the location of a community garden, the winter farmer’s market, vaccine clinics, and a polling place. It is a true community resource that provides safety.
This proposal to combine police and recreation centers isn’t new, and Winona is a microcosm of systemic racism. As abolitionist Benji Hart argues of these combined proposals in “FORCING BLACK PEOPLE TO INTERACT WITH POLICE IS ITSELF STATE VIOLENCE”:
“The prevalence of this type of pro-policing propaganda appears against the backdrop of school closures, shuttered mental health clinics, and ever-rising gun violence, paralleled by a police department budget that — despite austerity measures in every other sector — has increased every year since 2012. At the same time that such stunts work to rebrand police as a community resource rather than an occupying force — using Black and brown children as props in the process — they are also undeniably a response to massive, militant uprisings from Ferguson to Minneapolis, demanding the defunding and abolishing of police departments, who continue to kill Black people even while boasting of progressive reforms.
Despite the steady failures of increased police spending to curb interpersonal violence, and of “community policing” to stop officers from murdering the residents of the municipalities they patrol, those outside of movements — and often outside of the most impacted communities — continue to push for more spending and coerced interactions with police as the only imaginable solutions.”
Similarly, we do not accept the assertion that maybe a rec center can still fit on the same block, a plan the city is currently exploring. We reject the copaganda espoused by Mayor Scott Sherman who said last Monday: “I literally can envision one of the officers before a shift … is over at the basketball court, knocking down some threes with kids before he heads out.” Putting a police station on the grounds of the rec center will remove one of the few resources local youth have, ending any safety they may have once had there. Placing a police station next to the rec center will continue a dangerous pattern of police surveillance, violence, and county attempts to invest in youth incarceration in Winona; it mirrors the racist, ableist, classist, and patriarchal youth control complex. Victor Rios defines this as a “ubiquitous system that functions to monitor, stigmatize, criminalize, and collectively punish young people of color.” Winona has a documented pattern of the youth control complex, which is interlocking to the school-to-prison pipeline:
From 2017-2018
- Black students were 8.5 times more likely than white students to experience suspensions at WAPS, linked to the racial discrimination and policing in schools. The ACLU defines this as a school-to-prison pipeline: “a disturbing national trend wherein children are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Many of these children have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse, or neglect, and would benefit from additional educational and counseling services. Instead, they are isolated, punished, and pushed out.”
July 2020
- Minnesota Department of Human Rights investigation documents police harassment in Winona Area Public Schools.
- After organized community pressure, WAPS School Board voted to remove police from schools.
April 2021
- With continued pressure from the community, the Winona County board members declare they will no longer consider building a juvenile detention center.
February 2022
- Winona City Council announced potential plans to demolish the East End Recreation Center, one of the only sites for kids to play, and to replace it with a police and fire station with a new shared recreation center space.
The city of Winona is framing the proposed combined fire and police station as a “public safety” building. Community Not Cages rejects the claim and continued branding of police as instruments of public safety; the police do not keep us safe. We consider public safety to be grounded in a healthy community, in which people are housed, fed, and our collective needs are met. None of these have been historically provided by police departments. Alternatively, fire departments provide an important and necessary service and should be independently housed. The fire department remains a trusted institution that, if housed with the police, will lose the public trust, making us all less safe. People should not have to fear state violence from the police when they reach out to the fire department.
Winona is considering spending $23-26 million on the combined fire and police station. Investments in health, community support, harm reduction, livable wages, housing and food, clean air and water are all more sound investments than continued purchases of new buildings, upkeep for militarized weapons, drone surveillance and carceral apparatuses (carceral: of or relating to prison or imprisonment, or to other formal methods of social control like policing). To be a safer community, we must push elected officials, who control budgets, to invest in true public safety measures. True safety and healing is the presence of care and community support, not police. The recreation center gives kids a safe place to play and be kids. It allows community members space to grow healthy food. It is a space that strengthens community bonds, encouraging us to keep each other safe. We know what’s best for our community; an outside firm that specializes in designing police and fire buildings does not. The East End recreation center is a gem we must keep. It won’t be sacrificed for the expansion of the police.
Call to action:
The city council says they will seek public input on this proposal. SPEAK UP! Reach out to your elected representatives, and state your opposition to this plan. Stay tuned for more opportunities to be heard!
Fund Collective Care with American Relief Funds
Winona, we have an opportunity to demand investments in our collective care through life-affirming institutions: genuine public safety, housing, and community-based non-coercive mental health care and addiction services. The city of Winona is getting nearly $3 million in COVID relief from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP). The city plans to use just over half of its ARP funds on the $1.6 million Masonic Temple HVAC upgrade, and according to current City Manager Chad Ubl, the city does not have plans for the remaining $1.3 million. The city will spend $50,000 on consultants to interpret federal rules and advise on how the funds can be spent.
Community Not Cages has been consistent in platforming demands that are invested in our collective Care. According to the US Department of Treasury, the ARP funds can be used for the following:
- Promoting healthy childhood environments, including: child care, home visiting programs for families with young children, and enhanced services for child welfare-involved families and foster youth.
In 2021, Community Not Cages met with children to discuss the county proposal to build a juvenile detention center. We asked kids what they would invest in to make their lives better. They were clear: a juvenile detention center would not provide safety! They wanted more support for their families through counseling and childcare, tutors for education and mental health support, and a center to learn, play, and grow together. Their voices and priorities must be central to the city council’s investments!
- Addressing health disparities and the social determinants of health, including: community health workers, public benefits navigators, remediation of lead paint or other lead hazards, and community violence intervention programs.
In August, 2020, community members, now organizing as Community Not Cages, proposed an alternative response team without police, citing CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets) as the vision for public safety in Winona. In the CAHOOTS model, the community can access services through a non-emergency number that is dispatched through an emergency center. Each team consists of a medic (either a nurse or an EMT) & a crisis worker (who has at least several years experience in the mental health field). Locally, in June 2021, the city of Winona approved funding for the Alternative Response Team and a contract with Hiawatha Valley Mental Health was approved as an alternative first responder model. Despite this designation, dispatch was inadequately trained to determine how to direct calls and the program was repeatedly misrepresented by city council, the WPD, and news agencies as a co-responder model. By November 2021, they cut the program, citing budget concerns.
Non-police responses are necessary and critical for individuals experiencing mental health and/or substance use disorders, homelessness, and other situations caused by unmet needs. Community Not Cages believe the Alternative Response Team should be a priority in ARP funding; however, it must adhere to the original vision: separate from the police as an investment in public safety outside of police and jails.
- Building stronger neighborhoods and communities, including: supportive housing and other services for individuals experiencing homelessness, development of affordable housing, and housing vouchers and assistance relocating to neighborhoods with higher levels of economic opportunity
We can learn from existing movements. In January 2021, the Austin (TX) City Council voted to cut millions of dollars from their police department budget to reinvest in various forms of community care, including the decision to purchase “one hotel and turn it into 60 units of permanent supportive housing for people experiencing chronic homelessnes”. In this way, basic needs such as shelter for the community were prioritized. Winona has a well-known affordable housing shortage, and housing should be a priority.
Funding housing prioritizes survivors of violence. Via Interrupting Criminalization: “A majority of survivors describe housing, health care, income and immigration status as things that would enable them to prevent, avoid, escape and mitigate violence.”
Historically, Winona has not prioritized basic needs such as housing. Economic development, the site of Winona’s investment in housing, has increased by $190K from 2018-2020 (0.32M-0.51M), police funding has increased by nearly $1 million over the same period of time. Public safety is achieved by supporting and affirming the needs of community members.
Get Loud
The City Council does not have a public comment period. This anti-democratic practice ensures that the demands to fund community resources go unheard by the public. A majority of Community Not Cages supporters have never heard a response to their emails from elected officials, the only voice we’ve been afforded. It is time to show up on February 7th and demand our voices be heard and our community needs are funded!
Contact the city council!
Dear City Council Members,
The City of Winona must spend its American Rescue Plan funds providing for our collective care, following the intended spirit of this financial relief. I expect the city to use the funding to invest in genuine public safety. I want the Alternative Response Team reinstated, as it was originally intended: as an alternative first response, separate from police. Furthermore, the affordable housing shortage in Winona must be addressed, and funds must be appropriated to low-income and/or households in need of assistance paying rent. I do not accept that my correspondence with city officials goes unheard by the public without accountability or response from officials. For this reason, we need a public comment period to be added to city council meetings, ensuring that demands are stated on the public record.
We urge you to contact council members, the Mayor, and the City Manager to echo these demands. Send an email using the following email addresses:
arepinski@ci.winona.mn.uscubl@ci.winona.mn.us
Complete Comprehensive Plan Survey for City of Winona
Winona, we have an opportunity to document the need for investments in our collective care through life-affirming institutions: jobs, education, housing, health care.
Please complete the Engage Winona survey on the comprehensive plan.
Community Not Cages thoughts on some of the topics to include:
- Land use and development – updating recommendations for growth, downtown development
- Not a jail and two parking lots as the “welcome.”
- Land back
- Housing – addressing gaps in housing, celebrating neighborhood characteristics
- We need more safe and accessible housing!
- Accessible Government – increasing participation and representation in city activities
- 13D.021 MEETINGS DURING PANDEMIC OR CHAPTER 12 EMERGENCY.04.§Subd. 5. – Public comment period during health pandemic or emergency. If attendance at the regular meeting location is not feasible due to the health pandemic or emergency declaration and the public body’s practice is to offer a public comment period at in-person meetings, members of the public shall be permitted to comment from a remote location during the public comment period of the meeting, to the extent practical
- Make this happen! Public comments! Drop in hours with elected officials and city staff!?
- City council has discussed ending online participation in public comment periods post covid. Online accessibility important…
- Keeping the Zoom option allows for people with limited mobility, interrupted access to transportation or childcare, and people with compromised immune systems to attend meetings. Removing virtual participation to City Council meetings is sending a message that participation in local government is contingent upon certain types of access.
- Weblinks to observe council meetings not functioning: how does this contribute to accessibility?
- Demand public comment period during every city council meeting
- Currently no accountability for elected officials to follow through with public demands during public forums/etc
- Ask what needs to be in place for this to transpire?
- 13D.021 MEETINGS DURING PANDEMIC OR CHAPTER 12 EMERGENCY.04.§Subd. 5. – Public comment period during health pandemic or emergency. If attendance at the regular meeting location is not feasible due to the health pandemic or emergency declaration and the public body’s practice is to offer a public comment period at in-person meetings, members of the public shall be permitted to comment from a remote location during the public comment period of the meeting, to the extent practical
- Arts and Culture – increasing variety and access to arts
- As discussed in the juvenile “justice” sessions with Engage Winona, we want more art resources and youth programming!
- Land back
- Support the creation of a Dakota language and cultural center
- Park and Recreation – maintaining and improving park facilities, connecting parks through the community
- Green spaces! The current interstate entrance is multiple paved parking lots and a jail!
TWO CRITICAL QUESTIONS TO RESPOND TO…
What one project or issue, if addressed, would make the biggest difference in Winona?
Dream big – imagine nothing is in your way. What does Winona look like in 15-20 years?
- Housing
- Via NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Safety: “Looking to the leadership of the Movement for Black Lives, we see the importance of a robust and holistic definition of safety. A crucial element of housing justice might be that every person has a safe place to call home. Moreover, in defining “safety,” we should consult the expansive and imaginative work happening now that considers the range of conditions that enable people to be, and feel, safe in their homes and neighborhoods….making households safe from the threat of eviction requires rendering eviction unnecessary. Eviction cannot be abolished without providing landlords with meaningful alternatives to eviction—not, as it currently stands, leaving them to choose among ousting tenants, calling the police, or engaging an overwhelmed adult protective services system. Likewise, for eviction to be unnecessary, people must be able to afford their housing. If those conditions were able to drastically reduce the incidence of landlord-tenant disputes, the conflicts that remain might be mediated in arenas that look radically different from todays housing courts, offering dignity and voice to all participants…Research has compellingly linkedmany of these structures to the legacy of slavery in the United States, and abolishing and replacing them with meaningful alternatives is as much a project for housing as it is for criminal justice.”
- Via Interrupting Criminalization: “A majority of survivors describe housing, health care, income and immigration status as things that would enable them to prevent, avoid, escape and mitigate violence.”
- We can learn from existing movements. In January 2021, the Austin (TX) City Council voted to cut millions of dollars from their police department budget to reinvest in various forms of community care, including the decision to purchase “one hotel and turn it into 60 units of permanent supportive housing for people experiencing chronic homelessnes”. In this way, basic needs such as shelter of the community were prioritized.
- In Oakland (CA), the City Council redirected $18 million from a proposed police budget last year to fund violence prevention. Anti Police-Terror Project. James Burch said this was a victory after a six-year campaign: “And it speaks to how difficult it has been for us to gain traction and demand common sense out of the city council.” This reprioritization will further fund the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) who respond to non-violent, non-criminal mental and behavioral health calls instead of police.
- Non-coercive mental health and addiction support
- Via Maya Schenwar: “The threat of returning to jail is an obstacle to seeking emergency help for many people who use drugs…What would’ve happened if, instead of being policed and criminalized, my sister would’ve been given tools to survive while using drugs?What if we decided it was never acceptable to kidnap anyone and lock them in a cage?What if instead of grounding our “solutions” in capturing and torturing people, we grounded them in principles of autonomy, care and noncoercive support?”
- Funding ART – If there is not an option for people other than the police, there cannot be an interruption in police being used as mental health crisis response or jails being used in lieu of adequate services or facilities.
- See CAHOOTS.
- Not a jail and two parking lots as the “welcome.”
- Community gardens!
Contact WAPS to Fight Jail Profiteering
Who are Wold Architects and Engineers?
Winona Area Public Schools have entered a contract with Wold Architects and Engineers. WAPS has about $63 million in deferred maintenance needs, based on an estimate from Wold.
“We are proud of our long-standing tradition of being at the cusp of innovative jail design. For example, Wold worked with Stearns County, Minnesota, in 1983 to deisgn an dbuilt the first direct supervision pods in the state.”
Wold Architects and Engineers are a private company profiteering off from public funding of mass incarceration. The current U.S. carceral system imprisons over 2.3 million persons in local jails and state and federal prisons. The “school-to-prison nexus” exposes the myriad practices that schools and prisons have in common, which uphold institutional oppression.
Contact the school board with these demands:
- Parents/guardians/advocates of students will be contacted and must be present if minor children are interviewed by police.
- The district handle their own attendance concerns and do away with requests to the County Attorney that refer children to the juvenile injustice system.
No (NEW) Jail in Winona Gathering with Jason Sole
Much love and solidarity to our comrades that joined us in the rain to say NO JAIL IN WINONA. Jason Sole (he/him/his), a formerly incarcerated abolitionist, joined to stand in solidarity.
He said of the new Winona County Jail: “For them to even consider breaking ground right there to enslave people is absurd. I was told there are 21 people that are in your jail right now. Why would you build an 80 person facility? Why? Who do you all think is going to go in this facility? People that will look like me. Slaves. Right here, modern times. That’s why I’m an abolitionist. Why would I be trying to work with my oppressors? Bigger police departments. Bigger jails. That’s old thinking. That’s the war on drugs. I’m an abolitionist. I’m committed to doing something different….standing against the jail is the right thing…Ask the people that are building this: are you going to put your family members in there? Hold them accountable.”
We released a new zine last night, email us at winonacommunitynotcages@gmail.com for a copy.
CALL TO ACTION! – City of Winona & Winona County Budgets
Both the Winona City Council and Winona County Board will be meeting to finalize their plans for the 2022 annual budget, we must remain steadfast in our demands to divest from carceral violence and invest in genuine public safety. As we stated this year of the city’s priorities:
The city of Winona is considering funding a new combined fire and police station which they are framing as a “public safety” building. Community Not Cages rejects the claim and continued branding of police as instruments of public safety; the police do not keep us safe. We consider public safety to be grounded in a healthy community, in which people are housed, fed, and our collective needs are met. None of which have been historically provided by police departments.
Amidst the largest movement to divest from policing, the city of Winona has greatly increased funds for policing. While investments in public safety via housing and non-coercive mental health and addiction resources are limited. According to City of Winona Director of Finance, the expenses for the police include:
- 2020: $6,374,417
- 2019: $5,714,045
- 2018: $5,452,414
“Economic development” (in blue) is the site of housing investments in the local budget. While economic development has increased by $190K from 2018-2020 (0.32M-0.51M), police funding has increased by nearly $1 million over the same time frame. Public safety is achieved by supporting and affirming the needs of community members over oppressive carceral systems.
As Interrupting Criminalization, a BIPOC and survivor-centered movement, have argued, our collective care depends on safe housing for everyone. Public safety must include affordable, quality housing, particularly for adult and youth survivors of violence, and in disenfranchised communities: “Defunding police is a survivor led anti-violence strategy that stops police from looting resources survivors need to prevent, avoid, escape and heal from violence – and puts more money into violence prevention and interruption, and meeting survivors’ needs.”
Winona County has invested in the notion of “public safety” through the funding of surveillance technologies and militarization of the police. As documented in the Community Not Cages Visions for 2021, we opposed the county budgeting for surveillance technology via drones and the purchasing of assault rifles. The December 10, 2020 County Board packet included the sheriff’s intent to purchase assault rifles with scopes for ⅓ of the county police (Ganrude 542-543) which was approved. How does this make the community safe?
As Community Not Cages has continued to argue: “Budgets are moral documents and our demand is still the same, invest in the community not cops.” Please take a moment to share your concerns with the Winona City Council, demand that they invest in actual public safety and collective care such as affordable housing, non-coercive mental health and addiction services, among others. The city has set a date for public comment on the budget for December, 10th at 6:30pm. It is crucial that the council hears your demands. Use the contact information listed here to reach out and/or show up to the December 10th meeting.
Example Email:
“Hello Council Member/Commissioner,
As budget deliberations are underway,I am reaching out as a constituent to state my support for divesting from carceral systems and investing in genuine public safety. Public safety is grounded in a healthy community, in which people are housed, fed, and our collective needs are met. Furthermore, I do not support the use of ARPA funds to balance budgets, pandemic relief funds should provide direct support to people devastated by coronavirus.
(insert salutation. name)”
| Scott D. Sherman | City of Winona Mayor | https://cityofwinona.wufoo.com/forms/q1jtpnfz1352c5l/ | 507-313-0676 |
| Steve Young | City of Winona Councilor, Ward 1 | https://cityofwinona.wufoo.com/forms/q1jtpnfz1352c5l/ | 507-312-4491 |
| Eileen Moeller | City of Winona Councilor, Ward 2 | https://cityofwinona.wufoo.com/forms/q1jtpnfz1352c5l/ | 847-890-5478 |
| Pamela Eyden | City of Winona Councilor, Ward 3 | https://cityofwinona.wufoo.com/forms/q1jtpnfz1352c5l/ | 507-454-6758 |
| George Borzyskowski | City of Winona Councilor, Ward 4 | https://cityofwinona.wufoo.com/forms/q1jtpnfz1352c5l/ | 507-454-4463 |
| Michelle Alexander | City of Winona Councilor, At-Large | https://cityofwinona.wufoo.com/forms/q1jtpnfz1352c5l/ | 507-454-9179 |
| Aaron Repinski | City of Winona Councilor, At-Large | https://cityofwinona.wufoo.com/forms/q1jtpnfz1352c5l/ | 507-458-7485 |
| Chad Ubl | Winona City Manager | 507-457-8258 |
Contact the Winona County Board Members prior to Tuesday, October 26th. You can also show up to bear witness at the Working Session on Tuesday, October 26, 2021 at 5:30 p.m. when the board will discuss the 2022 Draft Budget. The Working Session will take place in the County Office Building Board Room, located at 202 W. 3rd Street, Winona, MN.
A RingCentral virtual meeting is available: https://meetings.ringcentral.com/j/1493058881 Or Dial: 1 (720) 902-7700 Meeting ID: 149 305 8881
| Chris M. Meyer | County Commissioner – 1D | cmeyer@co.winona.mn.us | 507-701-1228 |
| Marie H. Kovecsi | County Commissioner – 2D | mkovecsi@co.winona.mn.us | 507-450-2292 |
| Steve E. Jacob | County Commissioner – 3D | sjacob@co.winona.mn.us | 507-534-2554 |
| Greg D. Olson | County Commissioner – 4D | golson@co.winona.mn.us | 507-452-4454 |
| Marcia L. Ward | County Commissioner – 5D | mward@co.winona.mn.us | 507-459-6086 |
| Karin Sonneman | County Attorney | KSonneman@co.winona.mn.us | 507-457-6310 |
The American Rescue Plan Act & Winona County
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) was signed into law in March 2021 in order to provide $1.9 trillion in economic relief and aid to local and state governments. For this reason, in July, Engage Winona launched a “community needs survey” inquiring how to best use $9.8 million ARPA funds locally. Community Not Cages advocated investing in our collective care, like non-coercive mental health and addiction services, housing for all, and community-based restorative justice practices outside of the Department of Corrections.
Recently, the Winona County board passed a 3% tax increase and the use of $3 million in ARPA funds to reduce its deficit. After all the talk of “community engagement” and data collection, it is not obvious how the county is using pandemic-related funds for collective needs. Throughout the Engage Winona “juvenile justice listening sessions,” Community Not Cage’s demands were met with the tiring claim that there were no funds for life-affirming resources: housing, family support, and non-coercive mental health and addiction services. Considering the decision to balance the budget with these critical, one-time funds reveals the true character of our county leaders. Pandemic relief should provide direct support to people devastated by coronavirus, not balance budgets.
Furthermore, Winona County is using debt (bonds) to pay contractors for the new jail construction, and will pay off those bonds over years with either property taxes or sales taxes. If ARPA funds are used to reduce the county’s deficit and how much it has to raise taxes next year, one could argue that this is aiding in paying for the jail. The decisions of the county board do nothing to redistribute wealth, nor do they shift our priorities away from carceral apparatuses and toward collective care. Budgets are moral documents and our demand is still the same, invest in the community not cops.
In the recent board meeting, Commissioner Kovecsi stated: “There are a lot of services that we provide for people, and the number of people that need those services is increasing. I want to commend our staff. They’re doing more with less every year.” We can live in a community of abundance, one that does more with more, which necessitates that we continue to shift our priorities.
Community NOT cages.
Reimagining Public Safety
The city of Winona is considering funding a new combined fire and police station which they are framing as a “public safety” building. Community Not Cages rejects the claim and continued branding of police as instruments of public safety; the police do not keep us safe. We consider public safety to be grounded in a healthy community, in which people are housed, fed, and our collective needs are met. None of which have been historically provided by police departments.
Alternatively, fire departments provide an important and necessary service and should be independently housed. The fire department remains a trusted institution that, if housed with the police, will lose the public trust, making us all less safe. People should not have to fear state violence from the police when they reach out to the fire department.
White supremacy and oppression dictate current carceral definitions of “public safety”
The origins of policing in the US are in the South through slave patrols, colonial occupation, and violent repression of labor movements. State violence and policing have disproportionately targeted communities of color and queer and working class folks. Modern police departments have remained steadfast in their practice of violently enforcing unjust and racist laws. Criminalization, containment, and surveillance are core components of carceral apparatuses; as such, for who are they “safe”?
Ryan Lugalia-Hollon points out, “After forty years of mass incarceration and roughly 150 years of police brutality, we are being called to imagine a public safety system without policing….How we hear the call to reimagine public safety is, in part, shaped by whether or not we have experienced the violence and racism of our criminal justice system. Yet there are also many subtle ways that our imagination is policed by white supremacy, the treacherous yet pervasive idea that white people are in any way superior to Black and non-Black people of color.” He offers a list of 26 questions to examine white defensiveness to reimagining public safety, concluding with “For white Americans, like myself, who have never been profiled, harassed, detained, or imprisoned—and never had loved ones endure any of these experiences—the need for a new reality can seem strange and foreign. Conversely, for Black Americans across the country, no matter their level of wealth or achievement, the deep flaws and bias that govern our country’s criminal justice practices are all too familiar, though their full extent can still be difficult to acknowledge.” Winona has the potential to examine and dismantle systemic roots of white supremacy inherent in the claims of “public safety” under the prison industrial complex.
Divesting in the prison industrial complex; Investing in collective care
Reenvisioning public safety beyond policing and the enforcement of white supremacy is both urgently necessary and just. It will take dedicated work to strengthen our collective imagination to create the future we deserve. As MPD150 states: “Some of the solutions we need don’t exist yet. There are some things we can do now, but this work is also about planting seeds. A vital first step toward a police-free future is simply being able to visualize what that future will look like. We must break out of the old mindset that police are this inevitable, irreplaceable part of society.”
Community Not Cages rejects militarization and the accompanying misuse of public funds. In May 2021, Winona law enforcement yet again deployed their Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicle, originally purchased through the 1033 militarization program. Local police defended the use as “de-escalation” and protection. The claim that heavily armored military vehicles are needed in our community is absurd and horrifying, and it reflects an escalating desire to fund the lethal potency of local law enforcement with more tax dollars. According to an email from Sheriff Ganrude, the MRAP has cost $30,000 in upkeep over the past 6 years. This expense does not include gas costs. True safety and healing is the presence of care and community support, not militarized police.
Winona does not have a behavioral health department in either of the medical centers that serve residents locally, and there are only limited options for urgent mental health care needs in the larger SE MN area. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, many arrests were alcohol and drug-related, yet addiction services are non-existent in Winona. Non-coercive mental health and addiction services, without excessive wait lists, are a necessary investment. As journalist Maya Schenwar has said in “My Sister Died of an Overdose. Defunding the Police Might Have Saved Her”:
“It’s time to acknowledge we can’t arrest our way out of the overdose crisis…Fortunately, a better call to action is in the air, thanks to the work of abolitionist organizers: Defund the police, and redirect resources toward life-affirming priorities like housing, food assistance, education and noncoercive health care. Supporting people in meeting their basic needs, including housing and cost-free medical care, is one of the most important ways in which we can help people avoid overdose….Funds should also be channeled toward addressing some of the specific needs of people who use drugs, like offering widespread drug-checking to ensure drugs’ purity and distributing fentanyl test strips and naloxone. We need supervised consumption sites, with medical staff who can help prevent or treat overdoses and offer clean needles. Such sanctioned programs exist in at least 11 countries, with clear success and no recorded overdose deaths. Medication-assisted addiction treatment — including heroin-assisted treatment (which is currently available in seven countries, and is highly effective) — should be cost-free and accessible to all who want it.”
We can learn from existing movements. In January 2021, the Austin (TX) City Council voted to cut millions of dollars from their police department budget to reinvest in various forms of community care, including the decision to purchase “one hotel and turn it into 60 units of permanent supportive housing for people experiencing chronic homelessnes”. In this way, basic needs such as shelter of the community were prioritized.
In Oakland (CA), the City Council redirected $18 million from a proposed police budget last month to fund violence prevention. Anti Police-Terror Project. James Burch said this was a victory after a six-year campaign: “And it speaks to how difficult it has been for us to gain traction and demand common sense out of the city council.” This reprioritization will further fund the Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland (MACRO) who respond to non-violent, non-criminal mental and behavioral health calls instead of police. This program is a similar initiative to Community Not Cages’ demand for alternative response team based on the White Bird Clinic.
Let us look at organizing by Yes 4 Minneapolis, who offers a new approach: “Our movement demands our city leaders move away from violent policing to create a department that addresses community safety holistically and with a public health approach. Our movement believes that the community should decide what safety looks like.”
To be a safer community, we must push elected officials, who control budgets, to invest in true public safety measures. Safe and affordable housing is a critical component of public safety. We can’t solve the mental health crisis without solving the housing crisis. Providing shelter for unhoused individuals directly improves the safety and wellbeing of everyone in the community. Investments in health, community support, harm reduction, livable wages, housing and food, clean air and water are all are more sound investments than continued purchases of new buildings, upkeep for militarized weapons, drone surveillance and carceral apparatuses. As Damon A. Williams, co-director of #LetUsBreathe Collective, has stated: “When I see police, I see 100 other jobs smashed into one thing with a gun.”
The safest communities don’t have the most police, they have the most resources.
Community Not Cages Response to the Creation of the Alternative Response Team
On August 7th, 2020, community members, now organizing as Community Not Cages, met with City Manager Steve Sarvi voicing concerns about the upcoming budget and plans to fund social worker positions within the police department. We requested that a steering committee made up of care workers and those most impacted by the proposed alternative response team, without police representation, because we were opposed to having an alternative response team housed in the Winona Police Department.
In September, Community Not Cages launched a call to action requesting that community members join their vision for the steering committee and a true alternative crisis response team. We cited CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets) as the vision for public safety in Winona. In the CAHOOTS model, the community can access services through a non-emergency number that is dispatched through an emergency center. Each team consists of a medic (either a nurse or an EMT) & a crisis worker (who has at least several years experience in the mental health field). Numerous community members contacted the city council and because of organizing efforts a consensus-based facilitation was planned with Engage Winona.
In good faith, members of Community Not Cages joined the committee as individuals, and advocated strongly for the alternative response team to be located, and be separate from the carceral apparatuses of the police and Department of Human Services. It is important to note, that despite Community Not Cages organizing efforts to remove police from the process, there was a police representative. Furthermore, there were no harm reduction advocates (those supporting non-coercive addiction services) and very little effort on the part of facilitation to include impacted communities, those that have experienced racist, sexist, and ableist state violence, despite it being framed locally as a “diverse committee.”
The Engage process was billed as consensus, and on November 20, 2020 the following items were agreed upon:
- Provide an alternate first response to police in appropriate cases
- Provide resource connections and case management
- Assist and support the police department with crisis intervention, follow-up with individuals and families after incidents involving police
- Collaborate with existing community crisis and follow up resources and services, including: Hiawatha Valley’s Mobile Crisis Team; the Advocacy Center of Winona’s advocate program; the Winona Community HUB supported by Winona Health; and others.
- Create a trusted, confidential, community-based resource available to all city residents with minimum interaction from the government
- Act proactively to provide resources that will change the trajectory of a person headed towards or experiencing a crisis so that they avoid the long-term effects of it, and are supported in seeking followup resources in order to reduce future crisis needs
- Emergency Response The ART will have the capability to provide an alternative response to non-violent 911 calls with existing caseload, mental health crisis assistance, as well as assist with crisis intervention planning both in person and remotely. The ART will be dispatched through the county dispatch center and tasked with providing emergency-level response time. The ART will provide confidential services, support and follow up.
Despite the model that was agreed upon in the Engage Winona facilitation, this is not the model that has recently been proposed to the public. The model noted in the Winona Post describes a co-responder model, in which trained mental health advocates respond with police officers. The original proposal was intended to have an alternative response team respond without police intervention, unless requested by the crisis responders.
As Community Not Cages argued, the original plan of the city manager and the city council to place social workers in the police department was to use feminized care workers as window-dressing to “soften” the image of policing. This paternalism by police is further visible in Police Chief Williams Winona Post statements, where he argues that police must be involved at the outset: “Where does everybody call when they need assistance? They call the Law Enforcement Center.” Community Not Cages envisions a future where our community is served by life-affirming resources, which are not the police. As author and socioligst Alex Vitale argues in “You Cannot Divorce Murder From Policing”:
“Police spend very little of their time dealing with serious crime and even less dealing with violent crime. The average police officer maybe makes one felony arrest a year. It’s estimated that violent crime calls make up less than 5 percent of the calls that police receive and represent even less of their time actually spent on the job..So mostly police are managing a set of low level social problems in an effort, not so much to produce safety in some broad sense, but to produce a kind of system of order, and a notion of order that benefits some players more than others.“
Finally, the alternative response team was not the vision of the Winona Police Department, the public framing of it centers the police and completely ignores those that have demanded alternatives to police in our community out of fear of state violence. The alternative response was given its own separate funding and the demand to prove its efficacy, with potential to divest from the police budget in the future, and invest in public safety outside of carceral institutions.
Defunding police means redistributing funding to vital resources for our community. Community Not Cages is intentional in efforts to redefine public safety, we want our community to invest in: housing, non-coercive mental health and addiction services, child care, youth centers, education programs, community-based restorative justice programming (outside of the Department of Corrections), family support and counseling. Not cops.
Juvenile Detention Center Win
June 9, 2021
In the past year, Community Not Cages has repeatedly criticized plans for a juvenile detention center. We demanded an adoption of a zero youth incarceration policy. The county leadership had consistently stated a “need” for a juvenile detention center closer to home. However, arguments for jails “closer to home” reinforce the idea that jails and police create “safety.” Investment in jails takes away the resources that can create well-being. Youth incarceration is not inevitable; rather, it is driven by policy choices made by adults. We don’t want children separated from their families ever. We want zero youth incarceration.
One part of that demand was recently realized due to Community Not Cages organizing pressure to stop the plans for a previously proposed juvenile detention center. The Winona County Commissioners have publicly made clear there will be no future plans. At the April 29th Engage Winona discussion on Winona County Justice Programs, commissioners were asked: “Is there intention to build a juvenile detention facility?” Commissioner Chris Meyer stated “The answer is ‘No.’ I don’t have a plan…” Additionally, Commissioner Marie Kovecsi stated the board had actively “discarded the idea.”
Community Not Cages appreciates the county commissioners commitment to no further plans. We are especially grateful to Marcia Ward’s persistent demand for public transparency and a public hearing. We thank the 249 signatories of Winona Community members that signed a petition demanding no juvenile detention center be built.
This win is one of many to come for our community! We can collectively continue to show up and make clear that Winona County must invest in addressing the root causes of social oppression. We want to invest in things that keep us all safe: housing, child care, youth centers, education programs, community-based restorative justice programming (outside of the DOC), family support and counseling.
Stay tuned for a people’s public hearing, where we can celebrate this win and continue to build as a community in health, safety, and abundance.
Call to Action: Winona HRC
The Winona Human Right Commission will be bringing their “Zero Youth Incarceration” resolution to the City Council. We urge you to contact council members and the mayor and let them know you support this resolution. You are welcome to use the following email script in contacting officials. Send to all council members and mayor using…
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Community Not Cages’ Response to County Attorney Karin Sonneman’s “February 17, 2021: A Response to Concerns Regarding Juvenile Detention in Winona County” Claim: “There are currently no actual plans in the works to design and build a juvenile facility here in Winona County.” Rebuttal: As Winona Post Editor Chris Rogers documents, “minutes from the Jail…
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