San Leandro City Council Rules Committee Meeting on Restorative Justice - April 23, 2026
San Leandro City Council Rules Committee Meeting on Restorative Justice - April 23, 2026
Note: The transcript indicates the meeting occurred on Wednesday, April 22nd, but the authoritative date provided is April 23, 2026. This summary uses the provided date.
The Rules Committee met to discuss the potential implementation of restorative justice mediation into the City Council's discipline policy. The meeting included a presentation by Councilmember Simon, legal guidance, and debate over the scope and definition of restorative justice. The committee did not reach a consensus and agreed to continue the discussion at a future meeting. The second agenda item on cannabis policy was deferred.
Discussion Items
- Restorative Justice Mediation Implementation (Item 2A): Councilmember Simon presented a handout with redlined proposed changes to the discipline policy, advocating for a restorative justice collaboration approach. He argued that restorative justice focuses on repairing harm through dialogue, accountability, and community healing, contrasting with traditional punishment-based discipline. He cited statistics that restorative practices can reduce reoffending by 14 to 18 percent. He proposed that the council would receive training and mediate disputes internally before resorting to formal investigations. Councilmember Bowen raised concerns about the lack of prior notice of the redlined changes and questioned whether the discussion was properly agendized. The City Attorney clarified that the handout was permissible as an illustrative example but that the committee could not adopt specific policy changes without proper notice. Mayor Gonzalez and Councilmember Bowen expressed that restorative justice requires acknowledgment of harm and accountability, which they felt was lacking in the current council dynamics. Councilmember Bowen also noted that a previous disciplinary process took nearly a year and that dialogue had already been attempted unsuccessfully. Councilmember Simon requested that the proposal be sent to the full City Council for consideration, but Mayor Gonzalez and Councilmember Bowen opposed, arguing that the committee should first define restorative justice and determine whether it is needed before crafting policy. The committee agreed to continue the discussion at a future meeting.
Key Outcomes
- Restorative Justice Item: The committee decided to keep the discussion at the Rules Committee level for further exploration. Councilmember Simon was tasked with providing a clear definition of restorative justice, a convincing argument for its necessity, and an explanation of how current processes fall short. The committee plans to reconvene on this topic in June 2026, with flexibility on the exact date.
- Cannabis Policy Next Steps (Item 2B): Due to time constraints, this item was deferred to the next Rules Committee meeting. No public comment was received on this item.
- Meeting Adjourned: The meeting adjourned at 10:04 PM.
Meeting Transcript
Okay, so it's nine o'clock, and I'm calling to order this rules committee meeting of the San Leandro City Council. Today is Wednesday, April 22nd. Madam Clerk, would you please take roll? Councilmember Simon. Present. Sorry. Present. Thank you. Councilmember Bowen. Present. And Mayor Gonzalez. Present. Thank you. Okay, may we have the public comment announcement? After each agenda item is presented, the mayor will ask for committee member comments and then take public comment. You will have two minutes for your comment. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and attendees. So this time we'll move to item 2A. Today we have two items. I understand that Councilmember Simon has some time constraints. I also have some time constraints, so ideally we can move through this uh by approximately 10 o'clock. Councilmember Simon, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you. Um the restorative justice item discussion to consider implementation of restorative justice mediation to the city council discipline policy. I have prepared a handout, and everyone should have a copy of that. And what I've done is taken the discipline policy and implemented track changes, and I've highlighted a few key terms I wanted to touch bases on before uh digging into the details. Uh so I think one of the key terms that's in our policy and is throughout many of our city documents is the word fair, something that's just equitable, or impartial. And I think that's really important for us, and I think we all believe that we should all be fair in in all of our policies here at the city. Um stepping back a little bit, why restorative justice? And folks may have Googled this or tried to research it on their own, and I've been researching um as well. And why restorative justice? Because it focuses on repairing harm through dialogue, and I want to highlight that word dialogue. It's important for us to communicate and talk, um, and community accountability aiming for rehabilitation and reduce recidivism, whereas traditional discipline centers on punishment, retribution, and rule compliance. While traditional methods use suspension to isolate offenders, restorative practices like mediation foster relationships to prevent future incidents and reduce reoffending by 14 to 18 percent. That's some information that I found online. Some of the key differences between restorative and traditional approach. Uh the core goal is for traditional discipline, it seeks to punish and enforce compliance while restorative justice prior prior to sizes repairing the harm caused to the victims and the community. The reform the ref the role of the offender, traditional systems, isolate the offender, while restorative justice requires them to take active accountability and make amends. Victim support, restorative justice centers on the victim's needs and voice, whereas traditional retributive models often treat victims as a secondary witness. And the methodology, traditional systems rely on suspensions, detentions, and expulsions, and restorative justice systems use restorative circles, mediation, and conferences. And the outcomes, restorative justice seeks to build social skills, strengthen community relationships, and prevent future harm rather than focusing only on punishment. So that's just some background. And what you have in front of you is the actual discipline policy, and in track changes mode in red font, I have made some recommended edits for consideration. And the title essentially of the discipline policy would be changed to as shown above, restorative justice collaboration and discipline policy. And first page you can see it just added that that term as I mentioned, and the bulk of the changes are on page two. So the first step, and this is essentially taking away the consultation with city attorney step, but the attorney is involved with this method. So the mayor, the council member or the mayor seeking to raise a concern of perceived violation would submit the information to the city attorney for evaluation and actually warrant it. Then the city, and I'm not going to read it word for word. I'm just going to kind of highlight it.
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