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A week before the Nov. 2 2021 elections we sent a survey to all candidates for the City of Columbia’s At-Large City Council seat and Mayoral Candidates. Responses will be posted as received.
Dear Candidates,
Soda City Bail Fund is one of over 100 grassroots bail funds across the nation working to reduce or eliminate the use of wealth-based detention as a way to punish poor and marginalized people ahead of their right to trial. Wealth-based detention is costly and disruptive to families and communities. It inhibits the ability to maintain employment and provide care for children and elders and imposes financial hardships on struggling individuals. Cash bail works hand in hand with policing tactics that target Black, brown, and Indigenous communities and the chronically poor.
We hope to provide insight to our followers about the issues they care about ahead of this November’s elections with these questions. We appreciate you taking the time to address our communities by responding to the questions that follow. We will post your responses on our website and share them on our social media accounts.
- Do you oppose “money bail” as a way to determine pretrial detention or release?
- What will you do to ensure that the city does not use the jail to house people for lack of housing or behavioral health disorders?
- Do you oppose the use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and other “less-lethal munitions” against residents exercising their First Amendment rights to protest?
- Are you aware of the conditions at Alvin S. Glenn and the high rate of COVID infections/deaths, incredibly long pretrial detention times, and the repeated requests by those incarcerated for better conditions occurring as a result?
- Is there anything else you’d like for us to know about you?
We have received responses from
Run-off candidates:
- Tameika Isaac Devine for Mayor
- Aditi Bussells for Columbia City Council At-large
Candidates
- Christa Williams for Columbia City Council District 1
- John Tyler for Columbia City Council At-large
- Aaron Smalls for Columbia City Council At-large
- Heather Bauer for Columbia City Council At-large
