Albany Community Action Demands Stronger 'Sanctuary City' Resolution

It was just after the general election in November 2016 when Albany was rocked with white supremacist graffiti along the Ohlone Greenway. Albany resident and mother, Sara Hinkley, lives just one house over from where the graffiti was painted. She attended a City Council meeting to discuss her concerns about the need for the city to protect its citizens and to ensure that Albany was an inclusive city for all. Sara wasn’t the only concerned resident at the City Council meeting, she met a number of other concerned parents reacting to the graffiti as well as expressing their thoughts around how the city should respond to hate speech.

Citizens began to meet and became engaged in local issues. Their hope was to bring real community engagement to the city of Albany. This group of parents and citizens, named the Albany Community Action (ACA) group focused on a few key issues for the city of Albany, including becoming a sanctuary city, Albany Unified School District engagement and developing a city policy on how to deal with hate crimes and hate speech. So when the City Council voted on a Sanctuary City policy in March, why did Albany Community Action oppose it?

“No community is immune to ugliness and social distress,” said Hinkley. “We have supported Albany becoming a Sanctuary City from the very beginning. But we didn’t want a Sanctuary City resolution that was just symbolic. We wanted meaningful protections of Albany community members.”

According to Hinkley, the ACA group submitted recommended language for the resolution to the City Council in March, but a number of key items from their recommendations were not included in the proposed resolution. These key items recommended by the ACA group included: Albany would not provide federal access to people in custody; Albany would restrict all City officials and staff from releasing information about individuals to the Feds; Albany would prevent funding for any kind of registry; and Albany would have a formal process to file complaints if the Resolution was violated.

The ACA group made a strong case for their concerns and recommendations, and the proposed Sanctuary City Resolution was not passed. Instead, a community meeting was held on April 5, 2017 in order to get more public input on the Resolution. The Albany City Council will be voting on a revised Sanctuary City resolution, which was reviewed and approved by ACA at the City Council meeting on April 17, 2017.

To counter the hateful message that was graffitied in her neighborhood, Hinkley turned her own fence into a colorful mural with messages of unity and hope, painted by members of the Albany Community Action group and their children. The group hopes to partner with other community groups in Albany and surrounding communities in order to continue to focus on critical local issues that impact the community.