San Diego Signs Brief Supporting Transgender Student

This is KPBS Midday Edition I am Maureen Cavanaugh. The full San Diego City Councilman day officially accepted the long pull -- long-awaited police racial profiling report without much fanfare or clear direction. The police chief told council members that her department is still waiting for recommendations from the state on how to collect traffic stop data and to learn who is going to pay for the extra time and software involved. Also a political controversy seems to have developed between Republican city councilmember the new Democratic city attorney. Joining me is KPBS Metro reporter Andrew Bowen. Hello. This was the racial report that was presented late last year. Can you remind us what the report found? They found disparity between how Blacks and Latinos were treated in traffic stops but whites were more likely to be found with contraband. Citywide there were some disparities in hit the police were actually stopping in 2014 but not 25th teen or when he combined the two years together. It was a bit of a mixed bag and what the noticed is that some of the data was incomplete and the recommendation was to start collecting more data. A new state law will require more information to be gathered at traffic stops. The state has come out with draft guidelines for how to comply with this new law but not the final guidelines. The San Diego Police Department is taking a wait-and-see approach. They are then we do not want to start a policy to maybe have to change it once we figure out what the state will require. Some of the frustration we heard from critics yesterday is that they feel the San Diego Police Department is dragging its feet. They say they will comply with the law but no sooner than they are required to do so. What to the Council decide to do in response? The action was pretty limited they just accepted the report and asked for his Police Department. Back to the public safety committee every year with an update on what they are doing to implement the recommendations of the report. There were dissenters? Tell us about that. David Alvarez and Georgia Gomez voted against the motion I was on the floor. They were dissatisfied with the. They said the Councilman should be doing more to implement the recommendations now proactively. For example collecting demographic and professional data on the officer involved in the traffic stop. The researcher said the police could collect this data pretty easily but it was not part of the city Council's actions. Here is where Alvarez had to say. We need to have this information. It starts with the data and from there we could probably go on to the other things that need to be done to address the problem. This recommendation does not do that. It is quite a shame that we have wasted so many people time hoping to actually get real action and instead we get this report before us and there it is. And yet so far the recommendation does stand as the San Diego city Council is basically waiting for more information from the state. Controversy has also developed over the city attorney presenting another Amicus brief to the city Council. The last brief asked San Diego to join in any further legal action against President Trump's travel ban. What did this one ask? Is supporting the lawsuit filed by Gavin Grimm he is a transgender high school student in Virginia and he is suing to use the men's bathroom and is high school. It is going before the Supreme Court. We do not know the details when a that San Francisco is writing it and they are the ones that approach San Diego to sign on. Out of the city Council vote? It passed with only the five Democrats voting in favor. One Republican voted against signing it and the three other Republicans were absent from the vote. Councilman Chris Cate released a statement criticizing the city attorney for chasing national politics as he said instead of doing her job in San Diego. What are his main points. As imagine this is the second brief that is been brought before the Council in just two weeks. The first is to support this lawsuit and the other -- Chris Cate notably voted in favor of that action to sign a brief that he is they never should've been brought before the Council. This one just appears to have been one too many. The city begin this item before the Council is bringing divisive issues before the politics and she is politicizing the office. He said he supports LGBT equality but they should focus on more important matters. Now we have another statement. How did she release -- defend her actions. She said she was just the messenger. Of another city ask San Diego to sign an Amicus brief she is obligated to take that to the city Council. She said it would have been more political to ignore this request and not. Before the Council. Basically she said Councilman Cate you are welcome to vote yes, no, or abstain however you see fit but do not shoot the messenger. A spokesperson for the office also said the time involved for the attorney's office in joining onto these Amicus briefs is pretty minimal. They said this is diverting attention and resources away from city issues and is not true. Are there signs that this kind of political attention over national issues could increase on the city Council? I think this will be a really interesting thing to watch especially under the Trump administration how much San Diego wants to weigh in on national issues. If you put yourself in the Republicans shoes they will be happy to focus on local issues five Dylan Powell's and things that are more partisan and -- less partisan and controversial. You will see a lot of issues coming into the pipeline nationally like policy and security and maybe a crackdown on marijuana legalization that will touch San Diego at least -- either indirectly or directly. I think ice will definitely be on local GOP leaders particularly those with ambitions for higher office. See in which side they are going to pick. I have been speaking with KPBS Metro reporter Andrew Bolan. Thank you.