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Urbana holds community session on alternative response; residents press for funding, equity and coordination
Summary
City staff and LEAP presented options for an unarmed community responder program and solicited public input; attendees praised the model for mental‑health and welfare checks but pressed for concrete funding plans, dispatch coordination with MetCAD and safeguards against racial disparities.
Urbana city staff and consultants from LEAP presented options for an "alternative response" community responder program and heard roughly 90 minutes of public comment on program design, costs, equity and coordination.
LEAP consultant Deontay "Dee" Martin told the community that LEAP works with cities to design community responder programs—unarmed professionals trained to handle low‑risk 9‑1‑1 calls such as welfare checks, neighbor disputes, panhandling and some mental‑health responses. "We are a nonprofit organization," Martin said, and explained the firm analyzed Urbana MetCAD call narratives to identify calls that could safely be diverted from a police response. He cited LEAP’s inventory of existing programs (about 91 programs nationwide across roughly 31 states) and described models in Dayton, Evanston and Durham as examples for Urbana.
Why it matters: LEAP said its analysis of Urbana call narratives shows the largest share of eligible calls relates to…
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