The city of Ann Arbor is facing controversy after canceling their search for a third party to implement an unarmed response program in the city last month. The request, opened in August, received only one application, which came from Care-Based Safety, an organization founded in Washtenaw County. CBS focuses on responding to conflict and crisis in Washtenaw County and community building to address the root causes of violence. According to a press release from the city, they identified several issues with CBS’s proposal, including its timeline and operating hours, which prevented them from accepting it. However, community members and advocates connected to the organization have responded with criticism of the city’s lack of communication regarding perceived issues with the proposal and its subsequent cancellation.
As of now, the city plans to issue a new request for proposals in the coming months. A request for proposal is a document produced by private companies or municipal entities to solicit proposals from a third party, often for some kind of service. In order for the city to receive applicants for an unarmed response program, it had to first create a request for proposal outlining what the city would require from the group it selects and their proposal.
In the press release, City Administrator Milton Dohoney Jr. said the city did not agree with the proposed timeline of five years to develop a program. The statement also criticized the plan’s limited dispatch hours, which would not extend after 11 p.m. or during much of the weekend.
The plan proposed to dispatch volunteers into situations which the city deemed to be too dangerous. Furthermore, the city objected to what they perceived to be disproportionate attention to community-building activities as opposed to emergency response. Dohoney’s statement in the same press release said given these issues, the city could not accept the proposal.
“This is a new program that will involve challenging work,” the statement said. “While the city applauds CBS for their willingness to submit a proposal to take on this project, given the importance of unarmed crisis response for both the community and our City Council, we would be doing both a disservice to accept a proposal with the issues noted. The city will outline a new (request for proposal) timeline in January 2024.”
CBS responded to some of these concerns in a Dec. 23 Instagram social media post. Liz Kennedy, culture and operations director at CBS, said in an interview with The Michigan Daily that the cancellation came as a surprise.
“We were very surprised at the city’s announcement that they would be canceling the RFP,” she said. “We had been awaiting better communication or further feedback from the city for months.”
Linda Huber, Rackham student and organizing committee co-chair for the Graduate Employees’ Organization, wrote in an email to The Daily that she hopes CBS will be reconsidered if a new RFP is opened given its strong ties and commitment to the community. GEO advocates for defunding and demilitarizing campus police through their abolitionist caucus, and has been a staunch supporter of the creation of a similar unarmed crisis response team on campus.
“CBS’ proposal is supported by over 40 local organizations, businesses, and social service providers and reflects a program developed for community members by community members,” Huber wrote. “We hope that the city will maintain its commitment to establishing a service that is fully independent from the police by giving due consideration to CBS’ proposal.”
Donnell Wyche, a member of Coalition for Re-envisioning Our Safety, a local group advocating for an unarmed response team, said in an interview with The Daily that organizers were frustrated with the decision.
“We were completely surprised, and I will say, disappointed as well as just emotionally devastated that the city decided to cancel (the request),” Wyche said. “On Dec. 18, the last meeting of the year — with no notice — effectively hearing that this thing that the community has been working on for the last two years is being canceled and reissued … it led to a lot of uncertainty.”
Wyche said despite the cancellation, he is hopeful CROS can bring its key objectives to fruition in the new proposal, including a dispatch number separate from 911 for community members to call.
“If you call into Metro 911, even if you ask for an unarmed (crisis response team), and they route you to an unarmed service, it does not preclude them from showing up themselves,” Wyche said.
Wyche added this is important to prevent unnecessary trauma such as false arrests or even fatalities.
“We continue to hear story after story of people calling 911 and being shot within minutes of police arriving on the scene,” Wyche said. “That’s not a care-based system, so we want something that’s an alternative to that.”
According to Wyche, CROS is also concerned that a new request for proposal might have parameters favoring an organization with ties to law enforcement.
“My fear is that the city would write an RFP that only a law enforcement agency could respond to,” Wyche said. “We heard in this proposed resolution that’s coming (Thursday night), that City Council is affirming that they do not want an unarmed program that is tied to law enforcement. And so we just want to make sure that that is the case.”
For advocates, the path to an unarmed response program in Ann Arbor has been a long one. The first step toward its creation came after advocacy against police violence gained unprecedented momentum in 2020. Local advocates recalled the 2014 death of Aura Rosser, a Black woman who was shot and killed by police in her boyfriend’s Ann Arbor home, leading the city to pass a resolution calling for the formation of an unarmed public safety response program in 2021.
During this period, community stakeholders came together to form CROS and began researching unarmed response programs nationwide. In 2022, CROS held a public forum attended by city staff to explain their vision for an unarmed response team in Ann Arbor. In June 2022, some members of CROS left the organization to form CBS. As a separate group, CBS prioritized implementation, rather than advocacy, according to Kennedy.
“While we did grow out of them, we share no members,” Kennedy said. “We do not take direction from CROS advocacy and vice versa, and Care-Based Safety is really committed to implementation.”
Members of CROS and CBS responded to the cancellation at a City Council meeting on Jan. 11, when attendees and Council members discussed a resolution that reaffirmed the city’s commitment to an unarmed response program.
Councilmember Cynthia Harrison, D-Ward 1, said at the meeting that the City Council had not voted against the CBS proposal. She added that councilmembers did not review the proposal or play a role in the cancellation.
“It is important that you understand that councilmembers do not personally review proposals,” Harrison said. “We depend on a team of subject matter experts on city staff to review the proposals and advise us on the best course of action.”
The resolution to reaffirm commitment to an unarmed emergency response program was unanimously approved by City Council and provides specific deadlines for the new request for proposal process. The resolution directs Dohoney to provide a timeline for the issuance of a new request for proposal by Jan. 26, and issue the new request no later than March 1.
In an email to The Daily, Dohoney wrote that the city’s next RFP will be more clear about what they are willing to accept in a proposal.
“The city will attempt to be clearer in a revised RFP about what is expected, what is not acceptable, and areas that need to be more clearly explained,” Dohoney wrote.
Kennedy said once the RFP is updated, CBS hopes to reapply and work with the city to implement an unarmed response team.
“We are absolutely considering reapplying for the RFP,” Kennedy said. “Care-Based Safety believes that we are still the strongest choice for delivering community needs and visions for unarmed non-police crisis response for the city of Ann Arbor … We’re born out of almost three years of community organizing from U-M scholars, local activists, nonprofit leaders and crisis responders, across so many different disciplines and fields.”
However, Kennedy said CBS would not apply to an RFP that requires implementing a 24/7 response program immediately, requests a co-response program with law enforcement or goes against the organization’s values.
“It’s really important to Care-Based Safety that we protect our autonomy as a non-police alternative,” Kennedy said.
Daily Staff Reporter Amanda Pirani can be reached at amandavp@umich.edu.