The STAR Community Advisory Committee provides input to a program that sends a mental health professional instead of police on some 911 calls.
DENVER — This week, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced plans to create a new Office of Neighborhood Safety.
The city will move $11 million and dozens of employees from existing safety programs to make this new department. The idea is to shift away from armed law enforcement to keep neighborhoods safe. Instead, it will focus on community-led violence prevention programs.
Community members have expressed some concerns about a popular and successful effort to avoid unnecessary police responses: the STAR program.
“I think it could be a good thing in terms of its approach to health and safety,” said Vinnie Cervantes, chair of the STAR Community Advisory Committee. “Also, it could be something that is not so great.”
The STAR program’s mission is to help people without dispatching a police officer. But a community oversight group is torn about Denver’s idea to keep neighborhoods safe. The committee Cervantes is a part of provides input to the STAR program, which sends a mental health professional in place of police on some 911 calls.
The committee has been around for a few years, but now Cervantes is worried the city could dissolve it.
“It’s not fair to take some of us from this body and move it onto another one,” Cervantes said.
The “other one” would be a new community board inside Denver’s new Office of Neighborhood Safety. The office will handle safety and violence prevention initiatives including dispatch for the STAR program. The mayor and City Council-appointed Community Advisory Board will be in charge of shaping the Office of Neighborhood Safety’s strategies.
Cervantes doesn’t know what this new advisory board means for his committee.
“Our concern is they will dissolve the SCAC to add folks maybe to this new board,” he said.
The city answered questions about these concerns at a council meeting this week. The executive director of the Office of Social Equity & Innovation, which the Office of Neighborhood Safety is under, told council members Wednesday the city doesn’t have definitive plans for dissolving the existing STAR group.
“Definitive sounds concrete but it is also very arbitrary to us that it could eventually be a decision they make still,” Cervantes said.
If Denver were to remove his committee, Cervantes believes their work with STAR wouldn’t be as effective.
“So to dilute that with other programs in this new office doesn’t allow us the level of impact we already have,” he said.
9NEWS reached out to the mayor’s office to comment on the future of this STAR committee. A spokesperson said the new program is still in the early stages, and the mayor is looking forward to engaging with the community over the next few months to determine the best next steps.
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