Reparations Study Session
Information
Department: City Manager's Office Sponsors:
Category: 07. Study Sessions
Attachments
Printout
January 23, 2024 Staff Report (web link)
February 13, 2024 Staff Report (web link)
City Council Strategic Priorities (Web Link)
November 15, 2022 Staff Report (web link)
Kuruvungna Springs Foundation (Web Link)
May 28, 2024 Council PowerPoint Presentation (web link) California State Reparations Task Force Final Report (Web Link) United Nations Principles on Remedy and Reparation (Web Link) Committee for Racial Justice Facebook Page (Web Link)
Gabrieleno/Tongva – San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians (Web Link) Santa Monica Black Empowerment Association
Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy (Web Link)
Zeal Arts Collective (Web Link)
LA County indigneous harms report and land acknowledgement (Web Link) Written Comments
PowerPoint Presentation
Recommended Action
Recommended Action
Staff recommends that Council provide direction on the key areas of focus for a City Reparations & Landback Program to study the historical harms done to Santa Monica’s marginalized communities and provide recommendations on how to address those harms.
Staff Report Body
Executive Summary
On January 23, 2024, the Council directed staff to survey reparations efforts in other jurisdictions, identify any potential legal issues with pursuing our own reparative efforts, and report back to the City Council. On February 13, 2024, the Council directed staff to consider a series of recommendations, including adopting a city-wide land acknowledgment initiative and a restorative justice approach to repair harm of past actions of the City of Santa Monica impacting diverse groups from various heritages and cultures. Following engagement with many diverse community members to develop the City’s equity plan, which will come to Council later this spring, and the evaluation of different jurisdictions’ reparations programs, staff intend to launch a comprehensive Reparations & Landback process. This 18 month process will be centered around a task force of community members and experts who will explore and recognize the multiple historical injustices faced by marginalized communities in Santa Monica as well as identify priorities and recommendations for how to repair those harms. This will be done through a phased approach that will require multiple inflection points with Council to ensure the direction of the task force is aligned with Council's vision. At the conclusion of this process, Council will be presented with the Task Force’s recommendations and the opportunity to adopt the policy framework for Santa Monica’s Reparations Program.
This work to develop the City’s Reparations Program will operate in phases, including community engagement and truth-telling, and culminating in the development of a comprehensive plan that will include a foundational harms report and repair recommendations within legal parameters. The recommendations will also include funding models, with considerations of external funding sources (e.g, grants, community fundraising) to implement those recommendations. Embracing this process will substantiate the City's commitment to racial justice and contribute to a more equitable and healed future for all Santa Monica residents.
Background
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of Santa Monica as a city—a time that naturally lends itself for self-reflection on both our impressive collective
accomplishments over the past 150 years, as well as the harms we’ve created along the way. As a part of this reflection process, the City has an incredible opportunity to take an unflinching look at the harm that has been done to our marginalized communities over the course of our history, and to make amends for that harm through a community-driven restorative justice process.
City of Santa Monica
California
Staff Report
6841
In addition, the City’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion team has recently completed a yearlong engagement process to learn our community’s equity priorities to inform Santa Monica’s first Citywide Equity Plan, which will come to Council this Spring. Throughout the community engagement process, which provided feedback from a diverse group of residents, the topic of restorative justice came up repeatedly as a key priority of our community.
Participants in community-led listening sessions shared specific incidents of bias in Santa Monica’s past that they saw as the cause for gaps in life outcomes for residents of color today, and proposed reparations of different types as a means to repair the harm that was done. Toward this end, staff in the City Manager’s Office will convene a task force that is made up of community members and subject matter experts in the fields of racial and restorative justice to identify those harms that have been done and make recommendations on how to repair them. This act of community introspection and atonement may become one of our biggest accomplishments yet, paving the way for a more equitable City that truly lives up to our stated strategic priority of justice, equity, and diversity.
Many recent developments have positioned the City to undertake this important work. In November 2022, the City offered a historic “Black Apology” to its African American
residents, in collaboration with the Committee for Racial Justice. In January 2024, the City Council followed up with a directive for staff to research reparations efforts nationwide and identify any legal challenges to pursuing reparations in Santa Monica. In February 2024, Council adopted all of the recommendations coming out of the ReFrame Mural project, including the following recommendations which pertain to restorative justice for Indigenous communities:
· Facilitate relationship with the Kuruvungna Springs Foundation and support their efforts to have their land transferred back to Indigenous sovereignty (began September 2024) · Adopt a Citywide land acknowledgement initiative (“Statement of Accountability” completed November 2024) · Facilitate Landback in Santa Monica
Further, the Council adopted an additional recommendation to “consider a restorative justice approach to repair harm from past actions of the City of Santa Monica impacting diverse groups from various heritages and cultures.” In light of this directive, and in response to growing community calls for reparations for harm done to communities of color in the Pico neighborhood, Belmar Triangle, and other historically biased interventions by the City, staff recommends implementing a comprehensive restorative justice approach.
Legal Guidelines for Reparations Programs
A May 2024 presentation from the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) team and additional guidance from the City Attorney’s Office provided Council with a horizon scan of reparations efforts across the country, including the legal considerations for proceeding with reparations under federal and California State law as well as several examples of cities that have recently implemented reparations programs.
According to City Attorney’s Office, a legally compliant reparations program may compensate or provide a benefit to a class of individuals or their descendants who
were harmed by past actions of the City, but the City cannot give a preference based on a person’s race based on the following laws: First, Proposition 209 prohibits race
conscious programs in employment, public education, or public contracting. Second, federal and state fair housing laws prohibit discrimination based on race. Third, federal and state equal protection laws require that the City treat two or more similarly situated persons in an equal manner. Race conscious policies are subject to strict scrutiny, which requires that the program be narrowly tailored to further a compelling government
interest. To meet this standard, the policy must be tied to an exact injury suffered by a specific individual or group of individuals to remediate specific, identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute.
The City’s reparation program will be focused on providing accountability for historic injustice; address contemporary practices that perpetuate wrongdoing and persecution of oppressed communities; and provide restitution to remediate specific, identified instances of provable historical harm to victims and their descendants.
The City could establish a fund, policy, and process for making claims and awards from the fund. Accordingly, extending compensation to a beneficiary class of victims or their descendants based on a race-neutral common factor such as geography (i.e. those living in the Belmar Triangle at the time of the City’s condemnation), is consistent with legal requirements.
One recent example of a city’s race-neutral restorative justice approach happened on November 14, 2024, when the City of Palm Springs agreed to pay $5.9 million in reparations to families whose relatives were displaced in the by the city in the 1960’s.
At that time, the city demolished and burned the homes of over 2000 Black and Latino residents in a one square mile community known as Section 14, to make room for commercial development. In addition to the financial reparations to descendants of families that were directly impacted by the city’s actions, the Palm Springs city council approved funding for a broad restorative justice program applicable to the entire Palm Springs community, with outreach targeted to Section 14 families, including $10 million for a first-time homebuyer assistance program and another $10 million for a community land trust, and the construction of a monument to commemorate the history of the neighborhood.
About Reparations and Landback
Landback and reparations are forms of restorative justice gaining traction in communities across the country. Landback refers to the movement to return land taken through colonization to its original Indigenous inhabitants. While the most complete form involves transferring land back to Indigenous sovereignty, other approaches—such as co-managing land or restoring it to native plants with Indigenous stewardship practices—are also forms of Landback embraced by many Indigenous leaders. Nationwide, California is currently leading the way in Landback, with efforts at every level of government. At the federal level, 125 acres of Redwood National Park are now co-managed with the Yurok Tribe; at the State level, over 1,250 acres have been returned to California tribes since 2020; and at the local level, cities like Oakland, Berkeley, and Huntington Beach have returned parcels of land to local tribes.
On the other hand, reparations is typically, although not exclusively, used to describe restorative justice work to heal historic harms done to African American communities. The reparations movement is gaining momentum nationwide, with dozens of cities studying the issue and some already distributing reparations funds. Notable examples include Evanston, IL; Asheville, NC; Athens, GA; St. Paul, MN; and most recently, Palm Springs, CA, where funds have been granted to largely Black and brown communities displaced by condemnation, similar to Santa Monica’s Belmar Triangle.
Additionally, four states are exploring reparations, with California again leading the way. In 2023, the State published an extensive 1,100-page report that documents harms done to Black Californians and provides policy recommendations, many of which could be implemented at the local level, ranging from mandated racial impact analysis with policy decisions, to increasing housing options, to mitigating pollution from highways built in communities of color.
Both reparations and Landback are subject to the United Nations Principles on Remedy and Reparation, which states that full and effective reparation must include:
1. Restitution: The actors who caused harm have an obligation to return victims to the status quo before that harm occurred, or as close to it as possible.
2. Compensation: Compensation is to be provided for both material and moral damages, including lost economic opportunities and potential earnings, physical and psychological, and costs associated with the harm, such as legal expertise.
3. Rehabilitation: Actors causing harm must provide any necessary professional assistance as a result of the harms endured, such as medical or psychological care, and the victim(s) must be able to play a part in choosing that care.
4. Satisfaction: Satisfaction means that harms being done must stop and can include a public truth-telling and reckoning process, as well as a public apology restoring the reputation of the victim(s), and any commemoration honoring those who were harmed.
5. Guarantees of Non-repetition: Reviewing and reforming laws on the books to prevent future violations, with a focus on structural changes through legislative measures
Current conversations around reparations tend to focus on the monetary aspects of the work, which are certainly a part of true reparative justice work, as point two illustrates above. However, as a government agency, the City has many tools in its toolbox to bring about repair that satisfy the rest of these points through new policies and programs. Indeed, the City has already began the work on the fourth point of satisfaction—at least with our African American community—through The Black Apology. The Task Force will evaluate the myriad of options the City has to implement its restorative justice package to recommend a program responsive to Santa Monica.
The Reparations & Landback Task Force
To develop the work plan of the Reparations & Landback Task Force, staff engaged leaders in the Santa Monica area who held significant knowledge of Santa Monica’s history and past incidents of harm. In order to get their feedback, staff met one-on-one with leaders who responded with interest and availability/capacity from each of the organizations below:
· Committee for Racial Justice
· Gabrielino-Tongva (Kuruvungna) Springs Foundation
· Gabrieleno/Tongva – San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians · Santa Monica Black Empowerment Association
· Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy
· Zeal Arts Collective
What emerged from these conversations was a confirmation of a need to focus on the more known historical incidents that require repair: the taking of Belmar triangle and the eradication of the Black and Brown community that was once there, the disruption of community and displacement caused by the siting and development of the 10 freeway, and the taking of Indigenous land to create the City of Santa Monica. From our broader community engagement efforts, staff is also aware of other harms that have not been as well documented and may need to be explored, including the displacement of the Jewish community in Ocean Park and impacts of development on the Latino community. In order to develop a comprehensive approach to begin to repair these harms, staff will initiate the Reparations & Landback Task Force that reports to the City Manager in March 2025. The Task Force will be structured with three sub-committees focused on Historical Research, Fundraising & Messaging, and Community Education and Events. Residency in Santa Monica will not be a requirement to serving on the Task Force so as to include national subject matter experts; our engagement partners agreed that a mix of Santa Monica residents and subject matter experts would be ideal for the Task Force’s composition.
The proposed timeline for the Task Force’s work is as follows:
· Phase 1: Orientation & Planning – April-July 2025
o Key focus areas: introductions, adoption of roles and decision-making processes, civic empowerment and advocacy trainings, overview of the Landback and reparations movements.
· Phase 2: Truth-Telling & Listening – August- October 2025 o Key focus areas: soliciting public input on the harms sustained and witnessed by members of Santa Monica’s marginalized communities, hosting a public truth-telling event, drafting and soliciting input on a community harms report, adoption of harms report by Council and community distribution
o Council involvement: attendance at public truth telling event; review and adoption of harms report · Phase 3: Repair – November 2025 –May 2026
o Key focus areas: Exploring both monetary and non-monetary forms of repair, exploring costs of monetary repairs along with potential funding streams, drafting and soliciting community feedback on recommendations report, adoption of recommendations by Council, adoption of plan for ongoing community engagement
By the end of this process, Council will have been engaged at multiple points including via participation in a community truth-telling event, review and feedback on a report documenting the harms experienced by the City’s marginalized communities for formal adoption, and in the review and adoption of a final set of recommendations to address these harms, thereby creating the City’s reparations program.
Key Considerations
Though the work of restorative justice is necessary in communities across the country and can be cathartic and deeply rewarding, it can also be painful, challenging, and contentious. One notable challenge is the potential for conflict both within and between communities of shared identity.
Historical factors such as colonization, white supremacy culture, the perception of “scarce” resources, and the very harms we aim to address have had a divisive impact on many of Santa Monica’s marginalized communities. These dynamics will inevitably surface as we confront the harm done to these groups. For example, the Indigenous peoples of what is now Santa Monica are often referred to collectively as “Tongva.” However, this term, coined in 1905, does not align with their traditional self-identification, which was tied to the interconnected villages they belonged to rather than a unified tribe or nation. This lack of historical recognition, combined with limited awareness from the dominant settler culture and the absence of federal recognition, has fueled territorial disputes and conflicts over rightful representation.
As an external party, the City cannot dictate resolutions to these disputes but must navigate them carefully, following the example of the County of Los Angeles in its restorative justice efforts with these communities. Further, for this important work of healing rifts between communities, selecting members who are willing to work across difference will be absolutely essential for its success.
Further challenges from communities who don’t understand the legitimacy or need for reparative justice work, as well as communities who feel that their unique issues are not addressed through this process will certainly be present. In response the DEI team, together with the Task Force is prepared to do extensive community education to overcome these obstacles, as have the many other communities have who are further along in their reparative justice process.
Financial Considerations
In this period of elevated uncertainty, the city’s General Fund remains constrained by unprecedented liabilities, a backlog of infrastructure maintenance and capital projects, combined with significantly reduced general fund reserve levels as a result of unprecedented legal liabilities. Therefore, structuring a funding model will be imperative to the success of any reparations program the city implements.
Because the Reparations & Landback Task Force has not yet made their recommendations to Council on what harms to address and what remedies should be considered, we cannot know at this time how much this restorative justice process will cost. Amongst cities that have already begun paying reparations to their residents, price tags have ranged from $2.1 million in Ashville, NC to $10 million in Providence, RI, though notably, these efforts have been aimed at paying reparations for only one community, and not many communities as Council directed in Santa Monica. Funding streams in these cities have included American Rescue Plan Act funding (Providence, RI), instituting a 3% cannabis tax (Evanston, IL), sale of excess government property (Ashville, NC), and re-allocating funding from law enforcement budgets (San Francisco, CA). Other cities have relied on community fundraising. Given the state of the city’s financial challenges, staff will evaluate various funding models as part of its recommendations to implement a reparations program.
It should also be noted that the enduring nature inherent to a high-quality restorative justice process may actually help reduce the city’s immediate financial burden without diluting the city’s commitment to community restoration. Good reparations and Landback processes are not one-and-done solutions. They are long-term commitments that leave the communities and people who participate in them transformed and create expectations for a more equitable future than what was done before. Therefore, the recommendations around reparations funding will need to contemplate the initial funding requirements as well as a mechanism to provide on-going support to the program.
Financial Impacts and Budget Actions
There is no immediate budget action necessary as a result of recommended action. Staff will return to Council with the associated financial impacts and specific budget actions required based on direction received from Council. Future actions to complete the reparatory justice process will likely be in the $2-10 million dollar range, which can be paid over a period of time, and will include outside and community funding, in partnership with the Task Force.
Powered by Granicus