 It seems if the animals have been let loose and they're already deemed a hazard, they shouldn't be returned to their owner. They should be impounded. That owner had a heightened level of responsibility to keep that animal contained. And if they did not, they need to have that animal impounded until they can prove that they've been mediated and made their ability to contain their animal safer so that the animal cannot get loose. If the animals have gone out and caused any harm, killed any animals, bitten someone, then perhaps they don't get returned to their owner. But there needs to be the animal impounded and there needs to be an investigation take place within a reasonable timeframe to address these issues, to simply return them to the owner. If they've then harmed anybody while they're out and there's no recourse. There's nothing for the people with the other animals that have been harmed. Other dogs have been bitten, cats have been bitten, killed. People can be harmed. And apparently we just return the dogs to their owners and don't do anything about it. So I would like that issue looked at. Thank you. All right. And then I don't see any, okay. Evan. Good morning. Are you able to hear me? Good morning. Morning. Yeah, I was just curious. Why the agenda didn't have anything specifically around our in response team. As it was one of the more, if not the most substantive. Outcome, you know, public demand over the last few years. And it's something that really is one of the, the better moves we've made as a city. I'm sure, you know, in regular council meetings, it's going to be addressed, but I just like the subcommittee to keep in mind that there's a lot of public interest in the ongoing work of that program. And the specifics of it. I know that the city website has a lot of details, which are very helpful, but having opportunities for public open forum discussion, I think would be really useful because, you know, the, the implementation and ongoing community feedback. About refining and improving such services is something of really high importance to many community members. And I think that's really important. I think that's really important. Because I think that's regarding public safety, public health, public wellness. And improving the trust and bond between, you know, our elected leaders are unelected. Our first responders law enforcement, et cetera, et cetera. So I just thought it kind of seemed like a. Omitted priority. And I just wanted to say that to the subcommittee. Thank you. Do we have anybody else calling in who'd like to make comment before we go to our prerecorded public comment? All right, then. Let's take prerecorded public comment. Oh, I'm wondering if you could turn up the volume a bit on this. Thank you. Are we going to have, we already heard both public comments. Those look like new raised hands. So I don't know if you, I don't know how that works. So I couldn't hear either of the, I, I saw that we started to play Renee, but I couldn't hear either of their public comments. The recorded ones. Right. And I see we shouldn't have a chat box on this. Because it's a brown act meeting, but. So are you not seeing the item for slide show? I can see it, but, but I can see that neither myself nor a member of the public can hear what the callers are saying. Okay. I have the volume all the way up. Well, why don't we go to M. Leslie, because you spoke previously. We cannot have you speak again, but we'll take. Tigerson. And then we'll hear any of the comments. Thank you. We're aware we're working on it. We'll move on to. So. I suppose then. I don't see the other hand raised anymore. No, but I hear something now in the background. I think Leslie could mute perhaps. And we, so Leslie's not a panelist. We should just be able to unmute. Her speaking or remove speaking permissions. Okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. No worries. So then. I suppose we'll just move on and see if we can resolve the issue about the pre-reported public comment at some point. Yeah, I will see if I can get some assistance and also try to do the slide shows at the same time. Yeah. Yes. Council member Rogers. That was a mistake. Sorry. Oh, okay. All right. So let's move on then to item five new business and my, my sincere apologies to the public. We really do want to hear what you have to say and apologize for that. The technical difficulties. So this will be chief Westrope. We'll bring us an update. Good morning, chief. Morning chair Fleming. Good morning, council member Rogers. Scott Westrope. I'm going to call on Sue because when she has her hand up, it's usually something. So I just wanted to confirm that we are trying to, and confirm for the public that we are trying to get the volume issue corrected and that we will play those messages later in the meeting. Yes. Thank you very much. They're coming. They're very important to us. All right. On to you, chief Westrope. City manager Smith need to jump in there. I was just going to say I have someone working on it now. Thank you. All right. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning to chair Fleming and council member Rogers Scott Westrope fire chief. And with me today is fire marshal Paul Owen Paul. And what we wanted to do today was to bring you an update on three of our main programs that we're working on, just to give the subcommittee idea of the progress on some of those. strategy and talk about where we're at with each one of the strategies and as you recall the recruitment and diversity strategic plan is essentially an upstream investment in the community to educate and inform the community of Santa Rosa and the surrounding areas about opportunities within the fire service and with the city of Santa Rosa and give the youth of our community the tools necessary to be successful either in a career in public safety or in general. So we have implemented that plan we did last year and things been going very very well on the communication strategy which was strategy one on the social media marketing aspect. It's well underway and we're using the youth of our organization to really build the social media marketing side of the organization. We're working with Ciro and the PIO shop to adapt to the changes in the platforms being used and making sure that our strategies are really adhering to and drawing in the youth of our community. All of our posts are currently being translated so everything's in English and Spanish and really seen a lot of success and a lot of likes and things like that. Paul probably speak more to exactly what it is but really a lot of interest around the social media aspect and some of the recruits that we're seeing coming in or the laterals we're seeing come in are a result of that. On the updating our website and that's currently underway as well. The team is working on building how-to videos so it's short snippet videos of how to become a firefighter, how to get into the junior college, how to get into different programs, virtual tours of firehouses and fire engines and ladder trucks things like that. So I'm really drawing the attention in providing the youth of the community and community members at large additional resources for career and public safety and really just better flow and usage of the website getting back to where it's really drawing people in and really leaning on to the needs of the youth of the community versus my generation which is it's pretty basic website and interest card that doesn't really fly anymore. So a lot of good work being done by the team there and really leveraging technology to recruit people into the organization or into our programs. The second strategy which is really the heart of the matter is our recruitment programs and the first portion of that is the community engagement and education and one of our fire captains, Captain Corey Ricker, is in charge of that and she's done a great job of really building this up and uplifting this program. You know the reins are out and she's she's absolutely doing the lion's share of the work and doing a great job with it. So far we're integrated with Santa Rosa City Schools from the superintendent down. Rosalind Unified School District from the superintendent down and we're engaged with the CTE Foundation for all schools across the community. Some of the programs or projects we've been involved with so far at LC Allen, we've been involved with the career week, both myself and our engine companies and our community outreach specialists were involved several days at the career week and we just attended the Cal State Long Beach Health Fair at LC Allen High School as well. Been involved in several career days much more than we ever have been in the past, providing mock interviews at different schools throughout the community and recently we just partnered with the Office of Community Engagement to come into their program, which is a pilot program at Santa Rosa Middle School, is an outreach program to some of the youth in the community there as well. So we're really spreading our wings and trying to be involved much more at the educational level of the community. The Youth Fire Explorer program is slated to start this summer. One of our engineers is in charge of that program. And what we've done is every event we go to we have QR codes that people can use to sign up for either the Youth Explorer program or the mentorship program. And so we can gather their information and contact them when the programs are ready. And we have more than 50 students already interested in the Fire Youth Explorer program. So I'm really excited to get that off the ground. We're just working on some outside funding opportunities for that. And the Fire Explorer program will be underway. The mentorship program where we're essentially providing mentors to protégés that are students in the community is actually underway. We do have mentors and protégés both in the program. And again, we've gotten a lot of interest through the use of the QR codes at different events that we go to. Our partnership with the Junior College is as strong as it's ever been. It's always been strong. It's just getting stronger. We're integrated in the Fire Academy and Paramedic Academy there. They have different programs for organizations to come in and talk to those classes and we earn a lot of interest there. And we co-hosted a Veterans Day event with the Santa Rosa Junior College on Veterans Day where some of our veteran firefighters were out there engaged with veterans through their Office of Veterans Affairs and garnered a lot of interest there as well. And last but certainly not least, in the sub strategies are Women Public Safety Day. We had a very successful first year event on March 5th of this year. We had over 350 attendees and 40 different organizations throughout the Bay Area tent. And so it was to be the first pass. It was absolutely incredible with the women and the Fire Department put on and everybody's support to be there was really incredible to see my daughter included. And so we're looking forward to that being an annual event, moving forward and getting bigger and better. The next strategy is the selection processes. And part of the sub strategy of that is bringing in implicit bias and cultural competency training for anyone who sits on any interview panel throughout the organization, regardless of bureau or position that's currently under development and will be implemented by the end of the year. And then use of community members and oral board interviews that was implemented immediately. So we're using that across all bureaus and all ranks. We're using community members that come in and to be part of that part of that process. The data analysis piece, which is one of the strategies we're currently working with the SEED collaborative on developing what the strategy with the data points are going to be to track our progress. So we're we're using their expertise and we'll have those done probably in the next couple months. And we can go back and get old data and put it into the system and track our track our effectiveness in this in this program. And then recruitment staffing was the last strategy. And for that we're using current staff right now. And we like I've said before, we had about a 60 to 70% response from our organization internally who wanted to be part of this. And each strategy is led by somebody in the organization and they do it as a as a collateral assignment. With the SEED collaborative, we have three committees. Essentially, we have the recruitment and diversity task force, which is the large group. And then that was broken down into two subcommittees, one on recruitment and one on hiring. We're actually we just wrapped up the work with the SEED on Monday. And our recommendations will be moving from our recruitment and diversity task force to the city equity task force in an upcoming meeting. So we're really excited about where we're going and and a lot of the progress that we're making and I'll pause here to see if either of the community members have any questions on the recruitment and diversity strategic plan. Councilmember Rogers. I don't have any questions. I'm just thrilled to hear this stuff. This has been a huge priority of minds and joining the council and to see it taken this seriously with this much deal detail and thought and execution just makes me really I'm really proud. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. We really appreciate that. We we do take it serious and we're very excited about it. And, you know, it's one of my top priorities that always has been and it comes from the heart and the heart of these this organization has been tremendous as far as the response and their dedication to it. Well, thank you. I hope you pass on that comment to your team. We'll let's see turn to the public and see if they have any questions about this unless you have more to add before we open it up for public comment. Not on this one. We have two more two more slides to go through essentially. Why don't we finish the slides and then we'll open it up. My apologies. No, no worries. The the next plan we wanted to talk about and give you an update on was the Wildland resiliency and response strategic plan. And again, if you recall, this was essentially an internal look at the organization with, you know, and see to see how we can be better in the Wildland realm without adding stations or people. So it was really how we can refocus and reequip our personnel to be better in the Wildland response. And, you know, we've always been a stellar department as far as urban firefighting goes and we're a very good Wildland Fire Department, but the environment in the world has changed around us. And so it's adapting to that. So on that front, there's five strategies, I'm sorry, six strategies to go with that. The first is legislation. And, you know, Paul and his team are working very hard on the legislative aspect. And some of the examples of that is this year, you will see that we'll be bringing forward a vegetation management ordinance to the Council for adoption. And so changing local ordinance is important. We work with our state partners and our state lobbying team on working on state guidance and laws as they relate to wildfires, and then even federal guidelines. For instance, we've worked really hard as a team throughout the city to change a lot of the provisions of the Stafford Act. So we're making a lot of changes across, you know, really every sector of the government to make the legislation and the guidance as best as it can be and use our insight and use our lessons learned to help other communities in the future. The second strategy is capital enhancements. And as I reported to the subcommittee and to Council, this is really looking at how we equip our fleet. And so we purchased one type, we actually purchased two type three fire engines right out of the gate, we were really really fortunate that they were actually demo units from the manufacturer, but it was the exact spec that we wanted. So we were able to buy that based on the funding that was provided by Council. We received one last September. The second one is actually arrived in Sacramento, and it should be delivered to San Rosa this week. And then from there, we already have all the equipment for it based on the fact that we had the funding. And so it'll be in service probably in the next two weeks. And so we'll have the second type three fire engine, engine 27 in service, and we'll obviously communicate that to Council when it arrives and it's ready to go. We're currently trying to purchase two type six fire engines, which are the smaller fire engines that are built on a commercial pickup or truck chassis, where I have some difficulties with actually purchasing a chassis. And so there's some some delays in that we're working really hard on it. But essentially, the commercial chassis aren't being built by the major manufacturers right now to focus on electric vehicle fleet. And so we don't they've been we've been told that they're not building any commercial commercial vehicle chassis until the fourth quarter of this year. But we're trying everything we can based on the fact that we have funding available to us to move that forward. And in the meantime, we're working on the tactical water tender, which will be our second water tender to bring into the fleet as well. We purchase new dual band mobile radios and mobile repeaters for all of our equipment. There should be here relatively quickly. As far as the supply chain goes, but essentially those are the radios that go in our apparatus or in our command vehicles, and there'll be dual banded meaning that we'll be able to talk on our normal fire and ambulance traffic. And also we will be able to switch over to the law enforcement banks. So what that does is it creates a much smoother path or trying to when we're trying to work on evacuation. So we're all on the same page and we're on the same communication channel. So that's a big enhancement for us. And with that came the mobile repeaters, which are essentially a disk that will go on top of our command vehicles and turn them into a mobile repeater site. So on our channels that are line of sight, meaning our tactical channels will have the ability to repeat those. So it really expands our radio network throughout wherever one of our vehicles is parked. So it's a huge enhancement to our communication strategy as well. On the non capital enhancement, which is the third strategy, we've purchased all new state of the art personal protective equipment for our firefighters. And so essentially we always had state of the art equipment, but there's two versions of that. There's the Cal fire spec and then there's the local government spec. And so now we have both capabilities. So that's been a big enhancement. And we purchased portable radios for each one of our members. So it'll be an assigned radio. So one of the issues we run into, if you recall, is when we have these large scale events, we have to call people back to work. So instead of delaying trying to find them radios and get them on piece of equipment, they will not have that available to them right away. And so it'll increase that ability and it will increase our capabilities towards communication goes because just like anything else, communication is the first thing to fail on an emergency. So on the operations front, we really looked at our operations to make sure that we were using industry standard, which we really are, but we'll finalizing the plans on detailing some of our operational guidelines and making sure that they're meeting industry standard and that we're consistent throughout the state. And that'll be completed prior to the 2022 fire season. And on the staffing strategy, again, that was not adding staffing that was looking at different staffing models, our upstaffing plan when we upstaff during the red flag event or when we do an all call, essentially revising our policy and that's almost complete. That'll be done before the season starts this year. And last but not least is community engagement. We've really been invested in the community outreach and preparedness programs throughout the city. We have been since last year. For instance, this funding will go towards the wildfire preparedness event that is being co-hosted by Office of Community Engagement on May 21st. That's a community wide event that will be held at Courthouse Square. The funding that was provided by Council for WUE 2.0 will be used to purchase some of the equipment that we can use ongoing and educational information we can use ongoing at that event. We've made a lot of programmatic improvements to alert and warning. The city of Santa Rosa was the first local government city of our size to receive our own iPods license. So essentially now the city has the ability to send any alert morning tool that we need as far as emergency alert system, Reverse 911, all the emergency alerting systems that we have. We always worked with the county and had a co-license but now we have our own license. So a lot of great work by our emergency management team there. And lastly, I just wanted to talk about the remote automated weather stations. I received a federal grant to essentially put seven weather stations through in the micro-climates of Santa Rosa. They will be public facing and forward facing. So we can monitor those micro-climates because right now we have weather stations at Keysight or at the airport. Well, as you know, if you travel throughout town, there's a lot of different micro-climates. So we've strategically located those weather stations through this federal grant. I'm able to monitor our weather better and also we can pre-position stage our equipment better based on the micro-climates of our area. So that's where we're at on the WUI 2.0 plan. And I'll pause to see if either one of the committee members has any questions on that. Councilmember Rogers, any questions? Okay. I've got a couple of questions. One is for myself and the public. Can you review an abroad stroke what the Stafford Act is? The Stafford Act is that has to do more with recovery and resiliency based on a disaster. And so it's a FEMA policy. And so what we ran into in particular, it's both for the community at large. And so it's a lot of the disaster recoverings, recovery and resiliency acts that you would see, I mean federally declared disaster was announced as it was with the Tubs. What we ran into locally was that moving Fire Station 5 to a new location did not fall within Stafford Act provisions because the Stafford Act was built for eastern and midwest disasters, meaning it was built for floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. So for instance, with Station 5, there was no ability for us to move Fire Station 5 lower into the flood plane, which is safer for fires, but not safer for floods. Their guidance didn't allow that. And so we worked with MMO and our team at CERO and Senator Padilla's office to change the Stafford Act to look at wildfires more holistically or look at disasters more holistically throughout the entire United States. And so there's a lot of changes to what will be provided to the public, but will also be provided to public agencies should a federally declared disaster occur. Thank you. And I think for the public, CERO is community or communications and our governmental relations office. And then can you go over what having our in a little more detail what having our own iPods license would mean for us? Yeah. And really it's it's administrative, you know, after 2017, where the city of Santa Rosa did not have control over its own alert and warning programs, it was based in the county. We made a lot of strikes between 2017 and 2019 with the county to make sure that we had access to that. So if we had to do an emergency alert, whether it was the emergency alert system or the reverse 911 system, whatever the case may be, we had the ability to do it and we were able to do that with the county. Essentially, what this means is with our own license, we now have the ability to send those from the city of Santa Rosa. But quite frankly, we would never do that without partnership with the county. So it would be a coordinated event regardless, but it just goes to show the hard work that's being done by by our lobbyists by the intergovernmental relations team and our emergency managers and our city managers on moving Santa Rosa forward and using the lessons that we learned to make sure that other communities don't face what we faced, particularly in 2017 with alert and warning. So while it's administrative, it's a big win and just shows the voice that we have as Santa Rosa. Okay, excellent. Thank you. So with that, I will open it up for public comment. One more. One more. I'm sorry. It's okay. I just want to turn it over to Fire Marshal Lowenthorol quick for a brief update on the vegetation management program. And then we're done. We'll get to this one quickly for them. So the third final slide is the vegetation management program. So just giving a quick update on where we're at with that. Chief Westrop touched on a little bit with the code language. So we will be coming forward with a adoption of the new code language in January 2023. So you'll see some readings from myself and Chief Building Official Jesse Oswald towards the end of this year and part of that will be evaluating exactly what the chief talked about, new code language that we want to bring into the 2023 adoption as part of the three-year code cycle. So we'll be looking out of things, not only out of the fire code that we want to make improvements to, but also based on what's in the Community Wildfire Protection Plan, which leads into the second point. So as you know, that is our five-year roadmap that was approved just weeks prior to the glass fire. We are due for our second annual update in September of this year to show where we're at in those nine objectives and 46 actionable items. As I saw during the last update, a lot of progress had been made and looking forward to continuing to make a lot more progress on that plan. With that, the funding to implement the plan, as we've talked about in the past, came primarily from the PG&E settlement funds and then the additional funds that were allocated to offset the costs of the grants in the event that we were awarded them, which we were. So we were successful in receiving relatively, in a really short period of time, award letters for all three grants. They are our evacuation fuels reduction program through HMGP that's being federally funded through FEMA. Second program is what we're referring to is buoy modification, which will be home assessment, as well as helping offset the costs of home hardening in the form of gutter guards and vent screens. And then the third, and that's also at HMGP through FEMA. And then the third is a HCD grant when we were awarded the total of half million dollars. And that'll be for primarily outreach, education, and staff time to help implement those needs. The two HMGP grants total, just shy of five million dollars. They're 2.1 and 2.8 million dollars a piece. And we have our quarter, 25 percent cost share. So we are awarded what we refer to as phase one. So phase one will carry us this year and that'll be to start building the framework for those large scale projects, the GIS support, and then ultimately opting community members into it. Once we've opted the community members into it and we have the framework in place, then we'll take that back to FEMA and Cal OES and then move forward hopefully within phase two to actually implement both of those programs. And the plan for that implementation and work would be next year. On the partnership front, we're finalizing an MOU right now with FireSafe Sonoma. And this is an exciting opportunity for us. FireSafe Sonoma just hired its first executive coordinator. And FireSafe Sonoma is the true FireSafe Council for the county and really will continue to act as the kind of leader in the county for mitigation, prevention, and everything wildfire prevention related. The issue that FireSafe Sonoma has had is that it really hasn't had a home for a number of years. When the county of Sonoma went through some of the reorganization, there used to be a Sonoma County Fire Emergency Services. That agency doesn't exist anymore. And so FireSafe Sonoma has really had an umbrella organization. So Santa Rosa is helping with that. We will provide them with the space to really help flourish that organization. And that will not only help the community, but it'll help us. So we see a lot of benefits in helping with this coordination. And by no means is it Santa Rosa taking over FireSafe Sonoma. That's not the intention at all. It's just giving them kind of a home and some support to make it a successful organization and help all of us. Because as we know, fire doesn't know boundaries and we all benefit from that organization continuing to push and lead throughout our county. The Venetation Management Program has three positions that are allocated to it to help with the process. Those are limited term positions and we're in the recruitment for those right now. It will be for two inspectors and an additional plans examiner. And those inspectors that work is currently being absorbed by existing staff right now and they're very busy. There's a lot of outreach and information requests from neighborhoods, from neighbors, from HOA. So our staff are in the field year round right now since the well as much more since the glass fire, but obviously since the Tubbs Fire, really in the community a lot doing a lot of work to help educate on defensible space, home hardening, meditation management, talking about weed abatement and anything and everything in between, which ties into the community engagement that is happening and continues to happen. We're still continuing to push all of our wildfire ready and ready Santa Rosa information. And then lastly is projects in addition to the grants that we have in process. So we've historically used remaining funds from our weed abatement weed abatement project and programs to implement vegetation management programs. We'll be using those funds as well as our existing hazard vegetation management funds to implement a couple more projects this year. Last year we did work in Howard Park and work and constructed a firebreak along Sullivan Ridge and we also conducted a constructed a firebreak on the unburned portion of the lower area of the Skyhawk open space. This year we're looking at doing work along Fountain Grove Parkway in between Sinead and Brush Creek Road on the as you're heading downhill be on your right hand shoulder or the south side as well as additional work in the interchange at Sinead and Fountain Grove Parkway and potentially on the opposite side of Howard Park as well this year along Medica Trail. So we are continuing to use SAC for that for those opportunities and we'll also continue to work with Cal Fire for crew availability. And sorry one last project that we have that's actually an exciting one for us that does actually come out of the community wildfire protection plan as well as our partnerships with Cal Fire is a unique opportunity to actually conduct our first prescribed fire within the city limits. That is something that we have not been able to do historically. As you know we brought the burn ordinance forward last year and that was the first time we allowed on a very limited basis burning pile burning in specific locations to help mitigate the risks here locally under very specific protocols. But now we have an opportunity through our partnership with Cal Trans and Cal Fire to conduct a prescribed fire along Old Redwood Highway in between the Fountain Grove the old Fountain Grove Inn the Hilton Hotel and I believe it's the Fountain Grove business complex. There's about 10 acres there that we will be conducting a prescribed fire on that property in June. So that again is a really unique opportunity for us. That area is actually a mitigation area that was a result of the interchange that took place there. So we saw how the lack of maintenance kind of led to some overgrowth that took place in there. So this will be an opportunity for us to help keep that area healthy, clear and show the community that we are doing everything we can to make our community safer and the benefits of prescribed fires. That is it. Fantastic. Do you, Council Member Rogers, do you have any questions? I was I was going to ask the question of how are we working with other organizations in the community to with the vegetation management with like other regional or state lands. But I think you started to go into it and it looks like you guys are working at it. It's just not something that we can do all at one time. And so the public may not see it being done all at one time. It's a step by step process. It was asked to me in the community. So I was passing it passing it forward. So thank you very much for everything that you are doing. It sounds like you guys are very, very busy. And thank you for all the work. It is definitely needed on all fronts. Yeah, no, absolutely. And yes, you're right. The as I said, as a board member for fire states, no man. So this will be a good opportunity for us to improve those relationships that we have right now. But we do have them from the Homeowner Associations in Oakmont to Fountain Grove to Bennett Valley to the county level with parks and our different fire agencies as well as at a state level with Cal Fire and state parks. So we have good relationships with them. We're continuing to build them and remain in communication with them as we work on projects that we can collaborate on. Great. And I have a question. So first of all, it sounds like a big deal to be able to do a prescribed burn in the city limits. And it sounds like it's going to add some huge safety advantages for us. I'm curious to know, since you said it's going to be in June and with impending fire season, what your plans for communication with the community are? Because if I don't know what's going on and I smell smoke, I would probably be not probably I would be very fearful. So what can we do to communicate with people? And how can we as council members help promote the message? Yeah. So that's a good question. Thank you. So yes, there's a lot of method that went into the madness of establishing that date. And it's one to get a clean effect of burn. That is healthy for that hillside. And then two to work through, I want to say red tape, but some red tape at a state level, working with Caltrans and, you know, getting through the environmental concerns of Bay Area quality management district permitting. But then three is also to give us the time that we need to engage with the community and make sure that it's crystal clear of what's going to be taking place. So we're working on everything from, you know, the nixle message to literally the signs we're actually working on having a sign that's going to be made and posted on that property. That'll talk about the future prescribed burn that'll take place that location. We're conducted on a Sunday morning to lessen the impacts to Highway 101. But with Caltrans involved, there'll be signs out on the day of, but really the messaging from city connections to social media to an actual nixle will all take place and it'll be coordinated to ensure that we're doing everything we can to make sure that it is taking place and that people are aware of it. With that, you know, it's subject to the weather. So all of the data is picked. If for some reason the conditions are not appropriate for us to conduct a healthy safe prescribed burn, it will not take place and it'll be canceled. So a lot of effort is going into us at a local level, although it is state property in the city limits, the centers of fire department is taking the lead on this. Cal Fire will be there to support and Caltrans is helping us with the environmental paperwork. But it's our staff and we're committed to making sure that this is a successful event. It's healthy, educational, and the communities as informed as we can make them about it. Wonderful. Have you also reached out to the newspaper to see if they would be willing to print something or even purchase a small ad saying that this is coming up maybe the day before or something? We haven't yet, but we have had multiple requests from not only our print, but our barrier television stations that there have always been very interested in any time Santa Rosa is doing any sort of vegetation management or any sort of projects. They've asked for it and they want to cover it. In fact, when they found out we were doing the work in Powered Park, they sent crews up and it was all over the evening news. So we've established a lot of good relationships with both our local and Bay Area news stations and will absolutely make this visible to them and allow them to be part of the outreach as well as educational campaign and marketing for it. Well, thank you so much. This is all really exciting stuff and hopefully we'll keep us safe for fire season. So with that, can I now go to public comment? Great. All right. So do we have any members of the public wishing to comment on item 5.1 fire teach update? I don't see any hands raised at the moment. Do we have any pre-recorded public comment? We do not have any pre-recorded comments. With that, I'll thank you gentlemen and let you get back to the important work of keeping us safe. Thank you both very much. All right. So now we'll move on to item 5.2. This is an update from our police chief, Chief Navarro. Good morning, Chair Fleming and Councilmember Rogers. It's good to be with you this morning. I will, we have a couple of long items coming up here. So I'm going to try to keep this fairly short, but we have, I wanted to give you an update on some of the community engagement things that we've been doing. Before I get there, there was a comment earlier this morning about in response and wanting to know more information. I do want to let the community know that the team is being, it's very busy right now for the team and we are going to be providing some additional information in the next few weeks. We're working on, as you know, we have a team that is working, teams working seven days a week. We're working on expanding the team for greater coverage for hours starting, hopefully this summer. And we are going to be having an informational meeting by Zoom on May 4th to talk about the first three months of the program. Captain John Krieger will be providing some information on that, at that meeting. We are going to be sending out information via social media and then also city connections next week to let the community know on how to be able to participate and view the information on May 4th. In addition to that, again, I wanted to talk a little bit about some of our engagement opportunities. We have, it's been two years since we've been able to do a lot of things and so it's been exciting to be able to open up and re-engage with the community as restrictions are lifted. We've had several opportunities including the March 26th Mary Lou Lowrider event which was well attended and I want to thank our Office of Community Engagement for Spearheading that program with the Lowrider Council. On March 11th, we held our first coffee with a cop. That is, it's just a really great event to be able to have positive interaction in a very low-key opportunity with police officers and dispatchers and technicians where our staff can go and the community can talk to people, talk to our staff just so they're very, again, a very low-key event. We do plan on having those coffee with the cops quarterly so I would expect another one coming up in May or I'm sorry, in June or July we will make sure to let the community know via social media and so we just ask our community members to continue to follow us and look at our website for upcoming events. Another exciting event was the implementation or the re-implementation of our community police experience. We have 15 community members who are in the middle of an eight-week course. They're getting a first-hand account of the daily responsibilities of Police Department staff and they have the opportunity to ask questions, discuss the issues that are going on, view demonstrations and experience a variety of training that our staff go through. Part of that is they get to go on a ride along with our officers and also sit along with our dispatchers that community police experience group will be graduating here in May and again we put these on a couple of times a year so continue to watch our social media for the next one in the future. Related to that we are planning our community police experience with youth in June or July it's going to be the summer. This is something that we do once a year it's a week-long community police experience and we take juniors and seniors from our local schools and we put them through a truncated process and experience which has been very successful in the past so we're currently planning that and our community engagement team is working on putting that together. One of the exciting things I wanted to tell you about is this week is volunteer appreciation week. We have a program called VIPS volunteers and police services our VIPS program we cannot do our community police experience and several other things without the help of our VIPS and I wanted to give them a quick shout out our VIPS our graduates of our police experience program they help out with our current program now we have 20 volunteers that help in a variety of different areas. The first area is patrol and since in the first quarter of 2022 our VIPS have worked over 368 hours in the field I'm sorry total our VIPS have worked 368 hours that's the savings of over $23,000 for the city the patrol VIPS have recorded 290 over 290 hours and 48 shifts in the patrol areas dealing with traffic related issues and vacation checks and helping out with community engagement our support VIPS internally they help us out with paperwork and administrative duties missing persons and work in a variety of assignments inside the department and they've worked over 75 hours to assist us with providing service to our community so we really want to thank them and we also encourage members of the community who want to do who want to volunteer and give back to look at our VIPS program it's very exciting and just a great opportunity to give back the fire chief mentioned their work in Seed Collaborative we are also continuing our work with Seed Collaborative on our equitable policing plan we have two groups an external and an internal group and they're looking at several different areas we're working with community members on on these groups and some of the areas that we're looking at are recruitment community engagement community partnerships community culture and history we're looking into promotions and mentorship policies and procedures internal communication and resources and internal culture and belonging so a lot of work going on there and again the community is involved in that area and we're working towards recommendations which will be coming forward to City Council in the near future finally I wanted to let the community know that we are we will be releasing our annual report which will be for 2021 that report will be out in early May it's going to include statistical information include highlights on our strategic plan and what we've done and also goals for the next year we will let the community know through our social media when it's out and how to access it on our website so just a quick run through of some of the exciting things that are going on and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you so much chief council member Rogers do you have any questions well one I wanted to give a shout out to the visits I know when I first came on to council I was bummed out because of COVID that they were not active because they could not be as active as they wanted to be and expand the program so I'm definitely happy to hear that they're active and getting more people into the program and thank you very much for all that they're doing out in the community also I wanted to know about whether or not the coffee with a coffee would be on their city connect if people were not on your social media page that might be a good way if it has not previously been on yeah that's a great question it is we do put it on the city connections anything that involves the community goes on our social media and our website and then we also will include that we work very closely with our marketing team for the city to make sure those things are on there okay and the junior and seniors for that experience in the summer are there specific schools that are targeted or how are how is that open to our local juniors and seniors so we work with the local high schools so we both both with the Roseland school district and the Santa Rosa school district we push that out with them and with our non-profit partners to let let the youth know that it's available we do have limited availability so we can't you know especially as we're still working through some of the final you know restrictions with COVID so we do limit the number of people so it is an application process but we do encourage our youth to to sign up so it does go through the schools and we work with them on getting that information out and then lastly I wanted to ask just a couple of questions about in response and I could hold off on that until we have a specific update about in response or it's up to you though well I we do have Captain John Cregan on on this right now so we could probably provide some information if we're looking for data or statistical information I think it's more about you know we probably wait till the informational meeting that's coming up in May but the Captain Cregan would be happy to share whatever you share anything that he has no data or specific information but specific information that maybe would be beneficial or that I would like to to know is the in response team is responding to welfare calls and we we all know that sometime welfare calls do not end the way we would like them to end that's why they are welfare calls I'm in being a clinician myself I wanted to know if the welfare calls are are not a happy ending or maybe someone just couldn't get a hold of someone what do we have in place to assist support are the team members that are on the in response team such as debriefings or how much time do they have in between calls things like that because we have such a great program going and within the field I see a lot of burnout so I just want to make sure that we have the proper you know what we need for that team to continue to have what they need the refresh and to keep doing this wonderful work that we need in the community so I just wanted to bring that up yeah that's a great question I just met with our program manager Katie Swan on Friday on that specific issue so they have unfortunately have that where they've done welfare checks already and found people who are unfortunately deceased and had taken their lives and that's a traumatic event for all involved so we're working on a plan so it's a little bit different since they're all by different they're contracted employees and so we have a system in the city of Santa Rosa where we have critical stress debriefs and we have therapists who are employee assistance program so we're talking we're we're going to meet with our team about how we can make some of those resources available are about to work with them because they are members of our city of Santa Rosa family is and we want to make sure they have the resources that's something that we're working on a plan and we just met on Friday about that and we're going to we have a in response steering committee of executives from each one of these organizations so we have that on our next agenda which we're meeting next month but that's it's important for us and but we're going to be getting out there and in one piece of clarification the community meeting is going to be on Monday May 9th is for the community meeting so we'll be putting that on city connections and our social media so it's Monday May 9th at 4pm via zoom and it's it's our first meeting what we call our community advisory group and we're going to be presenting out on the first three months of data from the in response team how the teams being deployed where in the city what are their highest level of calls and then we're also going to give the update on rolling out the exciting second part of the team which would be going from a coverage of 15 hours a day from 7am till 10pm at night and so that Monday May 9th will be important meeting to get the word out and we'll be sharing it on all of our platforms perfect and I'm I'm sure I've told you because I'm so excited about the in response team but I've heard nothing but wonderful things about the in response team and the wonderful work that they are providing to our community members so thank you so much to everyone that has worked to get the in response team out there and on the streets they're doing a terrific job so I know they're doing very hard work and I just want to acknowledge the work that they are doing and to keep them healthy mentally and physically to continue to do the work so thank you absolutely thanks for all your guys support for getting the team off the ground thank you I too share council member Rogers satisfactions and concerns around those issues that was related to in response so with that we will now go to public comment on item 5.2 do we happen to have any raised hands I'm looking here I don't see any raised hands oh I see one all right so we'll go to Iquavus Iquavus can you got three minutes hi good morning everyone my name is Iquavus I'm the wraparound coordinator for the violence prevention partnership and I'm sorry I didn't catch the name of the point of contact I run a lot I work with a lot of youth and families and I'm always looking for team programs and I didn't catch the name of the point of contact for the youth police community program and also the fire program I went on the websites and I couldn't find a point of contact and I can look at elsewhere I don't want to take up too much time but if somebody could repeat it I'll just jot it down really quick thank you thank you we can't get into a back and forth but I will ask your questions after we're done with public comment so do we have any prerecorded public comment there are no prerecorded public comments okay I'll ask the chiefs to respond to those two questions about point of contacts so I'll go I'll go first for the youth community police experience we have you can contact our lieutenant in charge of our community engagement team and that is lieutenant Janine Cooker her email is we just J Cooker so it's J K U C K E R at SRCity.org and again we'll be putting the information out on our social media when it's I'm sorry I'm getting a correction here it's J R Cooker J R K U C K E R at SRCity.org and then we'll be putting information out to our social media and then we'll also be working with the officer community engagement to make sure that you have that information thank you and any communication that needs to be filtered down you can go directly through me so ask Westro at SRCity.org and I'll send it to the appropriate strategy lead so for the youth explore program of the engineer Pat Bradley and for the community engagement piece it would be Captain Corey Richard so but it can come directly to me and I will filter down appropriately and put you in touch with the right person okay thank you thank you all right so with that we will move on to item 5.3 with the cap the lieutenant Dan Marensik this is about military equipment morning council members and members of the community so I'm here today to talk about assembly bill 41 which relates to military equipment and use um I don't know if we're able to put up this slideshow that I have might make it a little bit easier I can go to the next slide so assembly bill I'm going to sorry I'm going to give a brief background it's an office about this and then some of the things the Santa Rosa police department has done assembly bill 41 it's a bill that was signed into a while last year by the California legislature and what it does is it looks at things deemed military equipment and the whole purpose of this bill it's really to promote transparency accountability an oversight really kind of the basics of what is it that the police department has that's deemed military equipment how are we using it how much of it do we have um you know with the whole the whole point to just safeguard the citizens of the community and so the the community knows what it is that we are using what we have next slide please so these are some of the requirements that 41 put into place so one of the first requirements is that we need to draft the policy and complete an inventory of our items and we need to post that online 30 days prior to a public meeting or a full council public meeting so our plan for this currently is we're in the process of working through our policy finalizing our policy finalizing our inventory and we hope to post this within the next two weeks on our website and through various methods prior to our full council meeting and then so if you look down further what you need to do so we need to go before the whole city council with this policy as well as with the military ordinance and that needs to get approved by council and these are some of the things that the policy needs to put in place or needs to spell out we need to have this policy how the equipment is being used so when we talk about how the equipment is used what is the capability of the equipments what is the usage of the equipments what type of training goes into this equipment that we're using in this policy we need to put about what are the maintenance costs and the use costs so when we purchase one of these items that's military equipment we need to put in there how much that's costing us not only that initial cost but if there's any ongoing costs as with maintenance or training related to it next up is quantity possessed so we need to conduct detailed inventories of every item we have that's deemed military equipment which I'm going to get into a little bit further what that is detail what it is and how much we have how much we have and with that goes internal audits we need to make sure that we're constantly auditing this in our inventory that we have and one of the other things that goes with this when we talk about putting the policy and ordinance in places after this goes before the city council for approval every subsequent year after that we need to come up with an annual report or put together an annual report that talks about the equipment we have how we used it any complaints or issues that arose from the equipment and after we do that we will hold the community meeting at least one community meeting and really solicit public feedback regarding any complaints issues or concerns for this and really our hope for for part of this presentation is really just to kind of spur that dialogue and see what it is or what input what feedback the community has if there's issues and concerns going forward things that we can look at and that we can address before we do put this policy into place next slide please so AB 41 the law that was signed into place it deems 15 categories that it that it deems are military equipment and so one of the things to note here is that when it uses the term military equipment it doesn't necessarily need to be things that are purchased from the military or used by the military it is stuff that within this law the law deems it as military equipment whether it's obtained from military or not so therefore it is something that applies or AB 41 applies to so we conducted a inventory kind of an audit with the police department of all the items that we have to see what is it that we have that falls under these categories or these 15 categories and through that we found that of those 15 categories we have eight categories where we have some items that would fall under the 41 category and I'm going to talk about those in the next couple of slides our next slide please so this is a list of the eight categories of equipment that we have within the police department and I'll again I'll talk about them a little bit further detail and what they are why we use them and why we have them so projectile launchers flash bang grenades tear gas command and control vehicles the long-range acoustic device specialized firearms and ammunition that are outside of what we normally issue to officers armor personnel carriers battering rams unmanned aerial or ground vehicles next slide please so that first category that I talked about is projectile launchers and what these are is these are those less lethal launchers that we have and they allow officers to use chemical agents or kinetic energy projectiles and launch them from these platforms and one of the reasons why we have these is it allows officers to deploy them from a greater distance so it gives us an alternative option rather than using a higher level of force and so one of the things when we look about how do we de-escalate a situation or how do we keep an officer from using a higher level of force there's a few concepts that we follow and one of them is distance and time and so the concept behind that is if we're able to give an officer further distance from somebody that they don't have to engage with them right away or we're able to provide more time one of the things that studies show is that lowers our use of force or the use of a higher level of force so these are different options that we have as opposed to lessening that distance lessening that amount of time where we can engage somebody or talk to somebody or deal with an individual from a further distance away and from a safer distance away so with these projectile launchers the piece of equipment that we have is a 40 millimeter launcher and that's something that falls under projectile launchers that's something that's equipped in every patrol vehicle and there's sponge rounds or west lethal rounds that officers have that they can deploy from these I'm additionally just to note when we conducted this audit of projectile launchers we actually use this opportunity to look at other items that we have is there if there's things that we can purge from our inventory or that we no longer need and we actually identified two other west lethal devices that we had that we no longer needed at the police department just because of the replacement of 40 millimeters into our inventory so those items have been removed from our inventory all the munitions have been removed from our inventory next slide please the next category we had is chemical munitions and aversionary devices so these are items and includes flashbangs and what we call CS gas so what a flashbang is it's it's a distraction advice when you deploy it it makes a loud noise and there's a bright light and so it's used to distract or disorient somebody these are used only by our SWAT team and they're used during high-risk situations when they would need to use these devices they're not used outside of the SWAT team with chemical agents we use those in both our SWAT and both our mobile fuel force teams so depending on which team it is there's different situations they can use them for for our SWAT team they use them during high risk search warrants arrest warrants critical type of incidents where they need to either help remove somebody from an area so as opposed to going into an area to remove them they use a chemical agent to remove them from that area and try to gain compliance or to keep somebody from going to the area and they use that as opposed to using a higher level force to really keep this situation from escalating and for the safety resolution of the incident and then for our mobile field force they use chemical agents and riotous situations where they need to use those to deploy a crowd in opposed to using some other type of force situation and so I talked about this category the two main things in this category are flashbangs and CS gas that falls in this category again with this is we took this opportunity when we went through this and inventorying our items to see what it is that we have what it is that we currently need what it is we can get rid of so when we first did this inventory we had approximately 28 different items like chemical agents or chemical munitions or diversionary devices so through this process we've actually purged 10 of these items for our inventory either dispose of them give them to other agencies gotten rid of them and then we're looking to see if there's anything additional that we can remove from our inventory next slide please command and control vehicles this is also something that falls within the AB 41 category so what command and control vehicles are is I just kind of equate them to their their big vehicles that we have but we have the ability to set up what we call a mobile dispatch so there's somebody inside of those vehicles who can help dispatch direct different units or different officers or any resources that we have within the police department or even other agencies that we're working with so we use these for special events large events critical incidents you know natural disasters and really the benefit for us using this is when you have a command we make a command area that's close to the incident that is occurring it allows us to get that real-time information more quickly it allows us to communicate better and that just allows us to make better decisions so within this we have one mobile command vehicle currently in our inventory that's over 20 years old so we do use that regularly however we are also in the process of attempting to purchase an additional smaller command vehicle in the future as this other mobile command vehicle that we currently have is outside of this lifespan next slide please long-range acoustic device so this is another item that we have that falls within the AB41 category we possess one of these items within the police department we have recently gotten them within the last couple of years and really the point of this is this is a communication device that we use so we can use this for a whole multitude of situations natural disasters evacuations protests high-risk searcher restaurants hostage barricade situations search and rescues anything where we think that we need to be able to communicate better and communicate more effectively one of the things with this long-range acoustic device is that it focuses the direction of the sound waves so you can actually hear things more clearly more audible and at a greater distance than any other piece of equipment that we have we've previously given a presentation before the public safety subcommittee about this long-range acoustic device in the past one of the concerns that had come up from the community was the use of what is called a warning tone on the LRAD and that is a that is an audible button if you press it would emit a high-pitched tone from the long-range acoustic device and that's something that we have disabled and we can no longer or we no longer use on our long-range acoustic device so it's been permanently disabled as well as put into the policy that it shall never be used next slide please specialized firearms and ammunition again this is another category where we have items that fall within the AB41 threshold these specialized firearms these are things that are used by our special tactical team our SWAT team so they have a few firearms that fall outside the scope of normal duty-issued firearms and there's really two things that they have they have SWAT has specialty rifles that are not standard duty-issued rifles that normal patrol officers would have with that come specialty ammunition for it and they also have we have a sniper team associated or a task-star SWAT team and they have a longer range rifle which is a sniper rifle which allows them to have a greater distance in order to deploy that if they were to ever need to so the point for having these the reason why we have these on our teams is rifles are a more precision-guided weapon they're more accurate they're more efficient you can deploy them at greater distances so depending on how far away a SWAT team if they were ever need to engage somebody the greater the distance they have more accuracy so not only are they going to have a better shot placement but that also really minimizes the risk to the public because in the unfortunate event you would need to fire rounds you want to obviously do that as accurately as you possibly can and really minimize that risk to the public in the difference between accuracy between a handgun as opposed to rifle and the range is really astronomical a next slide please armor rescue vehicle so this is something that also falls into the category we actually don't possess one of these items at the Santa Rosa Police Department however through a memorandum of understanding with our Sheriff's Office we do use this item it is something that is used by our tactical team by our SWAT team and really what it is is they use it to provide protection so it's a big piece of equipment that's bulletproof or bullet resistant and it's really to provide that protection to officers and citizens in a case there is some real critical incident whether an active shooter situation a high risk arrest warrant a high risk search warrant some type of hazardous situation where either officers or people in the public need that protection from some type of round or some type of ballistic protection it can also be used as a rescue vehicle right so in the event that we have an active shooter or we have an officer down that piece of equipment can allow officers to safely or more safely evacuate people and get them the medical attention to get them the medical care that they need and then just a thing to note one of the things when you look at armor rescue vehicles there's really a wide gamut of what armor rescue vehicles are considered throughout the country you have things from where you do have former military surplus vehicles used in other parts of the country however the one that we use within a joint agreement with the sheriff's office it's a civilian vehicle so it really is just a reinforced 4F550 pickup truck with ballistic protection on it next slide please breaching apparatuses so what a breaching apparatus is is it's something that allows an officer to make entry whether into a residence an outbuilding something where we need to get into either through a door or some other way you can enter the building with 41 we have one thing that falls under breaching apparatus is because it's it's deemed explosive breaching and what that is is they're breaching shotgun rounds so what those are are those are small clay rounds that go within a shotgun round and an officer who is specially trained can use that round if there's a deadbolt on a locking door they can use that round to disable that deadbolt and make entry so the range of those is very limited they're designed obviously just to impact that lock they don't have an extended range to minimize the the or maximize the safety to civilians or other people who might be present during a situation like this and again their specialty training that goes into that and this isn't something that an officer would use every time this is something where again it's possessed by our specialty tactical team our SWAT team where they need to make that quick entry into a building or a residence because they think that there might be some imminent risk of injury to somebody else inside next slide please and then unmanned aerial or ground systems so drones and robots we have a we have a numerous drones in our fleet and then we have one robot and really the the point is I talked about before about really how important distance and time is so we really have multiple situations where we can use drones and robots so drones they're used by our drone operators who go through special training they're actually licensed to use these drones and really the benefit for this is just allows us to see areas or view areas that we wouldn't normally be able to see not only that you know it can allow us to go or look at a situation before we're actually in there to make sure is it safe or is it as safe as can be or is it something where we need to delay going into a delay making an entry into place because we think that there's some information we've received from this drone where it might actually benefit us and benefit the people there if we were to delay our entry so we can use this for a lot of things we've used these for missing people our SWAT team has used this before to gain information before they serve search warrants we've used them to document crime scenes there's a whole multitude of situations that we that we can use these for and then with the robot we have one tactical robot within our SWAT team that's used primarily just by our SWAT team or just by our SWAT team and that's something again I talk about distance and time so if there's a search warrant an arrest warrant where the SWAT team thinks it would benefit them to send in the robot first which it often does they can send that robot in and really get a picture of what it is they're going into before they go into it and if they have that information they're going to be able to make better decisions understand of is this the best situation to go in and make an entry in the house or should we delay and wait because of the information we've received from this robot so we really use these for information both drones and robots and really to help guide our decision making with what it is that we do before we do it and next slide so that's that's it that's really a quick brief rundown of what it is that we have why we have it again this is something that's going to go before the the full council but really our hope is is from this public safety subcommittee is really just get that input and feedback both from from you council members and even to spur that conversation that discussion with our community you know if there is questions if there is input if there is concerns if there's stuff that we can use to guide this policy going forward because nothing is finalized yet right we're just working on putting together our draft and we definitely want to take into account all the input from from you from the community as we go forward and move forward with this so that's that's really all I have I don't know if there's any specific questions related to any of the categories of the policy or process thank you lieutenant council member rogers questions comments question yes how how many people are trained to be on the SWAT are trained to be SWAT am I asking you right no you are you are a member okay yeah you are so we currently have I believe there's 18 SWAT members and three supervisors for that team and then on top of that there's one lieutenant who manages that whole program okay because I noticed many many things that you went over they were specific to SWAT training which would be additional hours of training it is yes a lot of this stuff does it just pertains to our SWAT team there's additional training so with these all these members on the SWAT team there's a higher level of training that they receive so before you can even be a part of the SWAT team there is a post-approved two-week SWAT school that you have to go to a lot of these items there's specific training associated with those items that you need to do and then also our SWAT team they receive more ongoing training as opposed to our regular patrol teams so in addition they train two days extra or two days a month throughout the course of the year so for approximately 24 trainings a year that they are training where they're going over these items through practical applications or through testing processes yeah I'm not sure about chair Flynn but I for me it's important to kind of know what what SWAT was like I I know what it is from television and movies but really that you know they go through specialized training and ongoing training and why it is if they would be able to these devices more so than anyone else um yeah that's that's a good a good question and one of the things of as we finalize this policy so what you're going to see with this policy as it goes forward to is each one of these categories it's a pretty lengthy policy there's a capability a usage in a training section built into each into each of these categories so as you look at this you're going to see in more detail than the recent offices that I gave of of what it's used for what are some of the legal and policy requirements that go into that in order to use it and then what are some of the retraining requirements whether it's mandatory training requirements essential training requirements what you need to do to be able to deploy deploy these devices so there will be some more detail on that as as the policy in the policy as it moves forward and then lastly is SWAT called in or is there always a portion of the 18 on duty that's a that's a good question so it depends on it depends on the circumstances so I'd say there's there's really two reasons that we would deploy a SWAT team we could say three but an emergency event so something happens rather a call for service and we need to get everybody there immediately so you know you look in a situation let's say you have a shooting and the individual who's the suspect has gotten a vehicle pursuit and then they you know they got out of the car and they ran into an area that's an emergency situation where we would call and that SWAT team in order to help locate that person take that person into custody the other event it's a pre-planned operation so it's something where they have the benefit of time and they can put together a tactical plan so sort of an example I would use for that is let's say our violent crimes team they've done a conducted a homicide investigation and they've identified the person they've located them and then they bring all that information to SWAT and they're like, hey, put together a plan to take this person into safely in a custody so then SWAT has that time in order to develop that plan and then serve that serve that warrant so the way it's kind of staffing works right now is a lot of our SWAT team they are actually assigned to patrol so as some of these events unfold they will be the ones who are naturally responding to these more higher risk type of events and they'll go to them immediately we try to whether it's a whatever SWAT deploy what we do that we try to deploy as many SWAT officers to effectively solve the situation so there's times where there might be a SWAT deployment and they can safely and successfully resolve that incident with just the officers that are in patrol or there might be situations where we need to call in additional bodies whether they're not working that day whether assigned to a different assignment and they will call in those bodies to solve the problem Okay, I think that answered my question they're assigned to patrol but they're not they're not just like SWAT and they don't do anything else No, it's not a it's it's not a full-time assignment here at the police department it's what we call a collateral assignment so for SWAT they have that assignment but they have their primary duties which come first before their SWAT assignment Thank you very much for helping me look at that out That was really helpful thank you Councilmember Rogers for those questions and excellent answers Lieutenant I don't have a question what I have is a comment which is I think that part of this process that will be really helpful and I think that this is a good bite into it today is clarifying what it is that we have and under what circumstances it's used and that the police department has thought through carefully about the community's concerns about the potential for these things being misused by accident or other circumstances and that has taken reasonable precautions to prevent those types of unfortunate incidences and so I think that going forward you know this is really helpful and I know that oftentimes we don't want to have too much detail because you know you get down into weeds but I think that having detail and being or being prepared to answer these questions and the kind of detail that you did in particular with Councilmember Rogers's questions around the SWAT team will be really helpful going forward to assure the public that we've thought through all of the issues that we're aware of and are doing our best to make sure that things don't go sideways so that's my comment and my concern so with that we will take public comment do we I see one hand raised from Evan can we unmute Evan are you able to hear me indeed thank you just contextually I would like to point out that as a nation we spend more money on our domestic law enforcement than any other nation in the world spends on its entire military so that's a key thing to understand as an overview and also contextually point out the recent settlements the city has had in the millions for SRPD's misuse of military equipment so this is not abstract in any way this is not just a state thing coming a law that's being mandated but it's very real here in this community and I have some comments and questions that I would hope you know representatives would follow up on as I know this is not a back and forth but you know he mentioned there were two projectiles that removed what are they specifically why were they removed and were those used in past protests also contextually using any form of chemical agent or gas on civilians is largely considered a human rights violation by most international standards and I think that's very important to consider again we had 28 items he identified in our gas and chemical inventory that's can we get the detail on those 28 sounds like 10 were purged what were those by name why were they purged which were kept and why were they kept also like to say it's very disingenuous to represent Elrads as primarily a communication device historically their primary function is as a torture weapon so I am encouraged that we permanently disabled the warning tone but I would just like to know who's verified outside of SRPD that that has been permanently disabled and how was it permanently disabled also just psychologically it's interesting that your presentation would mention rescue vehicles and mentioned rescuing officers and dire need or duress ahead of civilians that's very odd to me regarding drones is the city going to create policy that bans facial recognition technology used on our drones and robots and in general and I also want to know if the drones are used in private areas without a warrant or just using public space and then also lastly here according to our own Pentagon FBI etc the largest threat that we have here domestically is armed white militia nationalist group as we saw partially in the January 6th insurrection and relating to military weapons I'd like to know if any members of the Santa Rosa Police Department are affiliated with any other militia groups and if that's been investigated and if not why that wouldn't be investigated knowing that that is again not abstract but our own military deems that the largest threat which also creates some contradictory concerns because as a community member who is part of a lot of the activists in protest scene we want these sort of oversights in place for civilian safety but ironically some of these military tools may need to actually be used against the violent insurrectionist as I can assure you BLM and social justice community is not interested in violence we're not going to ever pose that sort of threat to the police department so I know I just threw a lot out there I hope some of that could be followed up on now or in the near future thank you I will I will ask some of those questions when we're done with public comment so now we have phone number ending in 0694 Hi this is Jim Duffy Chair Fleming and Council Member Rogers thank you for taking my comments today I'm an oversight practitioner at a runner park I want to thank the Lieutenant for his excellent presentation it is unfortunate that the draft policy was not able to be brought before this important subcommittee and there needs to be a hearing on the actual draft policy before this subcommittee before that draft policy is brought to the city council in my opinion because that's where the rubber hits the road is when we're looking at the actual policy rather than this process discussion that occurred today but it's good to have the process discussion one of the things I suggested the subcommittee and the council get from the police department is details of the usage of all of this equipment over the last 10 years so that you can really see how often it's used and to what benefit and what effect so you can decide what you want to keep and what you don't the policy should detail permitted and prohibited uses of each individual type of equipment there should be no language that says the uses include but are not limited to and then lists some uses because if you're not going to limit them then they're open for usage however people might decide and you know probationary officers very likely to make a mistake if they're not given specific uses and prohibited uses and then my last point right now because we don't really have a policy to dig into is do you want to allow military equipment to be used for public relations purposes I've got pictures that I really like kids in the armor personnel carriers of the sheriff's office but I also kind of feel weird not sure whether that was a good use of it and so that's a discussion that I think the council should be having thank you for taking my comments thank you mr. Duffy and I do hope you participate when we have this item come before us again whether it's here at the the full council raise some great points okay do we have any prerecorded public comment there are no prerecorded public comments okay so now we'll go back to staff and see if we can get some answers to some of the questions raised I know that these are broad in scope but they are important could you address first why the projectiles were removed yes so there was approximately 10 different between projectiles and chemical agent munitions that are removed so there's a multitude of reasons depending on them so some of them were of redundancy so with this policy we need to spell out the specific manufacturer and model number so there are actually multiple different manufacturers that create less lethal devices so some of these are you have one manufacturer making this another one making this and so for the sake of consistency and making sure we just have one munition we purge one of those manufacturers kept the other some of the stuff it's we evaluate our inventory and it's they're all used in a different context or a different situation so when we went through our inventory for some of this stuff it was well we have two things that are very similar let's say so I'll use for example a less lethal round all right so we have two that were similar right different manufacturers one the effective range is a little bit different than the other one so bait so we really just kind of evaluated at using our instructors we have in house getting feedback from different officers different people that are part of these tactical teams and so for an effective range it's well we have one and maybe we'll meet this effective range the other one will meet this effective range even though they're a little bit different do we need both that makes sense we can fulfill most of our needs just using this one round so I don't know if that makes sense I'm trying to explain it or not but that's that's another situation or that went in there or into our consideration for why we remove stuff and that's that just it stuff that we've looked at our inventory and it's okay we've had this we've had these in our inventory for 20 years have we ever have we ever use these do we ever think there's going to be a need to use these and so there might have been a situation where it's no we don't need to so let's remove those from our from our inventory we don't see a need where we actually will need to use this those are some of the things as we finalize the inventory and come out with it we can definitely talk about or if the conversation wants to conversation wants to happen as to why each individual one was removed we can talk about the actual decision-making process behind each individual munition or round that we removed as our finalized inventory list does come out okay thank you and can you speak to the permanent disablement of the the LRAD yes so the so the warning tone that that high-pitched tone that you hear in the LRAD it's what it is is it's the LRAD to big um my best way to say a big speaker and there's gosh i'm showing my age mp3 player or a little player that can connect to the LRAD so what that warning tone is that's a pre-recorded sound made by the manufacturer and it and so when you play it through the LRAD it amidst that high-pitched sound so to remove that process it went through a couple different things obviously we put in our policy that should never be used and then that actual sound file has been removed from that device so if you plug it in it's no longer there so you're not able in the field to put that sound out there so you're you're unable to actually make that sound so that was a process it went through all that that warning sound is it's an electronic file it's been removed it's been purged we no longer have it so we can no longer play that sound through our system and then just a thing to note with with the LRAD you know I can't stress enough the importance of it as an effective communication tool these are things especially during the times of the vaculations and fires you see a lot of local fire agencies you know even a marine county setting up stationary LRADs throughout to help you use for evacuation purposes okay and then on the facial recognition is is that something that we do with our drones no that is not a process that we do not use facial recognition in any form within the police department right now that is not a policy or a process for us and there's also some legislation in the state right now to further kind of restrict that however it's something that the San Rosa Police Department doesn't currently use or are going to use facial recognition okay and there was another question about drone usage and warrants on private property it depends on the it depends on the situation so if it's something open to public view we will use the drone but when you see drones using these tactical operations so such as a search warrant or an arrest warrant those are things that we have warrants for when we use them in those tactical operations but there's situations such as a missing person if we think somebody's missing in a public area we will use those drones but we don't and we don't just use drones for peer surveillance principle there's an identifiable need that's why we need to use that drone so you don't see us just up and flying a drone in a designated area to see what is going on that's all part in our policy it talks about the actual restrictions to what our drone use is and then I think the final question that I'm going to ask I'll leave the rest to the broader council because I think their policy points that were raised by the commenters but the last question I'll ask is what if anything have we done to ensure that our police officers are not members of white militia groups and I don't know if the chief wants to weigh on that that might be more yeah so yeah so chair Fleming we we do a we do a thorough background process for all of our staff members who are employed by the city of santa rosa police department and we are if there's a a complaint or a concern about potential association or affiliation with a particular group we will conduct an internal investigation or an administrative investigation to to see if there's any validity to that so if something like that comes up we definitely look into it we do have a whole process as you know we do work with the police auditor and you're going to be hearing a little bit more about that and they would have full access and information to those investigations but we do not have any staff members that are affiliated with any known violent extremist groups that we're aware of and I also want to just point out that a lot of the there were there were some questions about whether it was drones or some of our less lethal we do have in separate policies we've actually brought forward some of these policies to the public safety subcommittee in past over the past few months and if there's more questions we'd be happy to these policies are all accessible on our website go to if you go to our transparency page and then if the public safety or if the subcommittee would like to discuss more in depth any particular policies such as drones we can definitely look at that in the future excellent thank you so much and a hearty thank you to you as well as the public for raising some really important points so with that I think that we are on to our final item which is the police auditor item oh excuse me I spoke to best council member Rogers it's okay I just wanted to chief that is for the initial background for the groups the question that chair Fleming asks that's for the initial background that is done during the hiring process right that's correct we do a background process for the initial hire if there is a concern or a complaint that comes up then we have a process in place to conduct an investigation to look at any type of affiliations there are rules and privacy issues that you know prevent I think any any employer to go into personal social media accounts but if we if we hear or work if there's a concern about a particular employee we will look into that and fully get that out and again we work with that the outside auditor if there's any complaints like that that may come up in in addition to I think that some other the points were raised when the policy does come up for usage past usage if that can be brought forth that would be good to give background so that people know like well we don't use we don't really use this anyway or we have used this and it's useful and it's helped us or we need it although we use it very rarely it's still very helpful when we do need it because just because we have it doesn't mean that it's very widely used it could just be used periodically and uses include but are not limited to I thought was a good issue brought up but because we don't have the policy we don't really in front of us we don't really know exactly what it's going to say yeah and as to going back to what Lieutenant Morinzyk had discussed in the PowerPoint we will be providing an annual report on our on many of these areas including use costs how we use how we've used the devices or you know and the audits on whether or not they're effective or not so those those will be all included in annual reports great follow-up questions with that I think we can close this item and move on to item 5.4 police auditor which will be presented by Captain Ryan Corcoran all right so nice to see everyone here we actually made a change Lieutenant Brenda Harrington took over my position in professional standards and so if it's okay she will do the report out we will happily welcome Lieutenant Harrington hello there can you guys hear me we can hear you we can perfect hi good morning my name is Brenda Harrington and I'm a Lieutenant with the Santa Rosa police department's professional standards team today I'll be providing information about the independent police auditor and the next slide please on November 30th of 2021 the Santa Rosa city council approved OAR group LLC as the independent police auditor otherwise known as IPA the auditor reports directly to the city manager and is under the operating authority of the city manager there are 11 key scope of work areas already in place and or a timeline for implementation has been identified next slide please so with the 11 items of scope of work the first is the review of the center of the police department's internal investigations and citizen complaints OAR can participate in and review all internal investigations and citizen complaints OAR can attend interviews ask questions directly and assess credibility their second scope of work is the receipt of citizen complaints SRPD created a process and OAR has access to all citizen complaints OAR and the Santa Rosa police department's professional standards team via zoom approximately every two weeks the department website has been updated to reflect the independent police auditor and how to contact them directly to date they have had one community member contact them directly notification letters to the complainant include information that the independent police auditor has reviewed the incident next slide please the third scope of work is the notice of death serious injury for other critical incidents the center is a police department had one case this year and OAR was notified on the date of the incident and provided full details of what was known prior to the body or camera being uploaded and the police report being written and then they do have full access to that camera footage in the police report their fourth scope of work the audit of Santa Rosa police department misconduct complaints in the discipline process OAR has access to the Santa Rosa police department complaint database which includes all records available to the professional standards team in June of 2022 is an anticipated start date for a six month review I would like to point out that OAR provides ongoing and regular review through those biweekly meetings and discussions next slide please their fifth scope of work is the audit of Santa Rosa police department policies procedures in trainings the starting review date for RIPA compliance and the bias evaluation is in June of 2022 since OAR was not in contract until November 30th of 2021 they will have a year's worth of data to review by December of 2022 therefore in December of 2022 is when they will begin to review the data for the annual audit use of force investigations which includes TASER usage and use of force aggregate data the body worn camera usage and use of force use of force reviews by supervisors and the professional standard team along with policies practices and procedures related to legal mandates in the areas of use of force and equipment next slide please their sixth scope of work is recommended changes improvements to policy procedure or training to ensure the best equitable policing environment beginning in December of 2022 the OIR group will systematically review Santa Rosa police department's existing policies and procedures and evaluate new or changed Santa Rosa police department policies they will systematically review the training program the OIR group will make written recommendations to the police chief for improvements or changes to the Santa Rosa police department policy procedure or training regarding any matter their seventh scope of work is the production of reports and that report will be completed annually beginning in March of 2023 their eighth scope of work is the ability to conduct independent investigations if the OIR group thinks an investigation is necessary and the Santa Rosa police department has not initiated one they do have the authority through the city manager to initiate an investigation next slide please their ninth scope of work is community outreach OIR is to meet with various city and community stakeholders in an effort to seek input on policing issues that may arise on April 20th of 2022 which is today they will meet the CCAT team via zoom and in early summer of 2022 they will begin in-person visits to meet with stakeholders and participate in ride-alongs the OIR group is responsible for having culturally and linguistically responsive staff to meet the community needs of the city the OIR group does have a diverse staff and additional resources available to meet any needs of the city community meetings which could include the community engagement team led by Magali Teyes will be facilitated by the mayor or his or her designee and held twice a year these meetings will engage and inform residents in the role work and outcomes of the auditor this will begin in the early summer of 2022 next slide please the 10th scope of work is reporting responsibility OIR will report directly to the city manager and will be under the operating authority of the city manager Michael Janako of the OIR group met with the city manager on January 13th of 2022 and will continue to meet every three months meetings will happen more often when necessary the 11th scope of work is an equity consultant to assist with carrying out the scope of work the independent police auditor the OIR group will contract with an equity consultant the OIR group is currently in contract with Brian Korr Mr. Korr is the executive director of police review and advisory board for the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts and has over 30 years of experience Brian Korr is the immediate past president of NAICL which is the national association for civilian oversight of law enforcement and their website for more information on that organization is www.nacole.org next slide and we just wanted the community to know that the Santa Rosa police department has a full-time sergeant and lieutenant myself dedicated to the professional standards team all complaints are thoroughly investigated and reviewed by the professional standards team to reach my team the number is 707-543-3559 or an email can be sent to srpdinfo at src.org community members may pick up a complaint form in English or Spanish from either the upstairs or downstairs police department lobbies or they may download a complaint form in English or Spanish from the department website if a community member prefers to communicate with someone outside of the police department they may contact the independent police auditor the OAR group LLC at 323-412-0334 next slide please and that's just a reiteration of the OAR group contact information the phone number again is 323-412-0334 or www.oargroup.com next slide thank you very much lieutenant do we have any questions from councilmember rogers okay thank you so much this is really helpful information and we'll see who in the public has any questions or comments I see that Evan has their hand raised can you hear me yes we can all right thank you first I just like the preface what I have to say is that I'm not trying to creating sort of hostile dynamic between the public and the police department because I think many of us particularly appreciate the work that the professional standards department does and I know that people are genuinely and sincerely earnestly working towards improving community services and relations that said I'm a little unclear why the police department is reporting on their own oversight is this just a clarification on what they do which was been passed very well established because I'm very certain that people would much rather hear on record from OIR specifically and then this I know not supposed to mix agenda items here but they do cross over into each other because a lot of the auditing concerns are about the previous item and I would just like to point out that it's entirely insufficient when you do an initial background check for hiring and then rely on a complaint in order to do further investigation about people with affiliations with violent you know militia or white nationalist groups when the very nature of those groups is sworn secrecy and while I'm aware there are privacy and H and R HR laws about and it's not illegal to be a part of a militia it is a violation of conduct code and policy to have sworn in oath for example to be an oath keeper which local press democrat is reported on how we have hundreds of members locally when you swear an oath to another entity that supersedes your public service that might not be unconstitutional but it does indeed violate HR policy and as a fire of a offense so I will send or we will find a way as a community to follow up on this as it's an OIR matter I hope public standards is also taking it as seriously but as much as these things are in place the fact that you've had so few complaints is not because there aren't complaints or that there's been just one request with the OIR group is that is still rooted in decades or centuries of distrust on the concept of calling the police on the police even if it's an independent auditor that is something that a lot of people still distrust so the other thing you know I guess most of my questions I assume somebody from OIR would be a part of this participation even if SRPD was presenting and I just find it a little bit conceptually odd and I look forward to having more opportunity to engage with OIR about actual independent oversight because getting reporting reporting on who's having oversight over you is just a little bit of like a head scratcher to me but thank you for the professional standards for the work that you do do and yeah like wish the rest of my time thank you Evan and now we'll go to the number ending in 0694 chair Fleming councilmember Rogers this is Jim Duffy thank you for taking my comments I just have three quick comments the first is on the part receipt of citizen complaints I'm looking at the Santa Rosa police department web page and right on the front splash page it says instructions for citizen commendations or complaints and it has absolutely no mention there that people can submit commendations or complaints directly to OIR so that needs and they used to do that when we had Bob Aronson as the auditor so that needs to be fixed rather quickly because it's proven that a lot of people will not as Evan pointed out want to contact law enforcement about complaints about law enforcement so you need that right on the front page that you know if people have an issue or a compliment they can also go directly to the auditor my second comment has to do with the quote-unquote community outreach that is going to be done by going to the chief's community ambassador team which I know the people who are on that team are well-intentioned but it really is a farce to have a community group that's supposed to be providing some kind of oversight for the police who is appointed by the police chief and serve at the will of the chief of police it just violates the independent rule right there and for OIR to be saying oh we're going to do community outreach and we're going to talk to the people that the chief appointed makes me very concerned that OIR has overextended themselves because they've been taking contracts all over the country lately because oversight is you know the hot thing and you know they've picked up Runner Park and Petaluma and Eureka and you guys and I wonder if they're they've overextended themselves if they think that talking to CCAT is doing community outreach you know they're the NAACP, ACLU North Bay Organizing Project LaLuce you know there's so a core zone there's so many groups in this county that they should be talking to that are not appointed by the chief of police and then my third comment is related to that I've heard from many members of the city council from the mayor on down saying that oh we're in support of establishing a community group that's going to you know talk about police issues and be doing the the civilian community arm of oversight and I haven't seen any movement forward on that so please thank you do we have any pre-recorded public comments? there are no pre-recorded public comments okay there are a number of questions are raised I think I'll just keep it simple and one I'll ask either of you if you would like to respond to any of the questions that were raised by you I mean the chief and the lieutenant uh yeah uh chair Fleming I'd be happy if you have any specific you want to direct me to any of those specific comments I do I do want to point out that there was a comment about the website if if you go to srcity.org slash file a complaint you will find there's a bullet point it says if you prefer to communicate with someone outside of the police department you may contact the independent auditor and there's a link to the auditor so it is there it's also their phone number is also there we can work on making it a little bit more visible maybe put it we'll see if we can move it to the top rather than in the middle of the of the webpage but it is there and the independent auditor the phone number which is on the website it's area code 323 412 0334 the second thing I wanted to talk about or there was a another question about the the community advisor our community ambassador team it is that it's an ambassador team it is not an oversight it is an advisory and provides feedback to to myself it is the starting point where we look and and try to get some direction it will not be the only community entity that OIR will speak with in in the future and then the final thing there was a comment about code of conduct and again the militia groups and extremist groups came up the being a part of a violent extremist group has no place at the center of the police department if we become aware of anybody being involved in a violent group and violates our code of conduct it will be dealt with significantly here so there is no place at the police department for that type of behavior I want to want the community to be assured of that we will look into that in a thorough manner and we'll work with OIR on that the OIR group will be conducting as lieutenant Harrington mentioned annual report outs so there are there are points in the future where OIR is planning on reporting out to to city council and there's I'm sure they will take feedback from you or the city manager as to what else they need to be doing the reason we're reporting out is just because we're at the beginning we wanted to just let you know we want to remind the community how to be able to access and how they are working with the police department thank you all right well with that I see what council member rogers chief I might be a little slow but I am on the website and I don't see where under citizen complaints or it is I see one two three four five mail you can mail a letter to the police department for a complaint you can call Monday through Thursday you can send an email to SRPD you can pick up a complaint form English or Spanish or you can download a complaint form this is what I see I'm looking at so I we will double check to make sure we have I'm looking at the same thing and I see another bullet point if you prefer to communicate with someone outside the police department so before we get off I will make sure we have the appropriate link and we will work on that right now but the I'm looking at a website if you go to the if you go to learn about are on our website there's file a complaint and it should be under there at the bottom I think I'm just on your your home page I want to say a SRPD home page there's a file a complaint and um I would I would say that that were if there's a file a complaint section there then all the information needs to be uniform whether we're going exactly to a file a complaint page or I don't know but that that's where I think I am so yeah we should check it out we we will double check I'm not sure what's going on because I'm hitting the same links you are and I'm coming up with a with a bullet point an additional bullet point at the bottom to contact the IPA so we will we will make sure that that contact information is available for the public it should be there I'm looking at it and so we'll get that work out so if it's not available right now we apologize we'll get it corrected here shortly thank you all right well done everyone so we have one more item which is to finish up with our pre-recorded public comment thank you and I do apologize for earlier I missed a checkbox in zoom for sound so hopefully you'll be able to hear them this time please let me know if you do not thank you hi my name is Renee Lopolato I'd like to leave a public comment for the agenda item four on the April 20th meeting and my comment has to do with this current present city code that allows dogs to be returned to their owners without any kind of sanctions on the owners we we lived in the neighborhood when the two pit bulls went on their rampage got out from their fence and terrorized the neighborhood and then killed two family cats and also attacked a neighbor in a car park these animals were taken back to their home and as far as we know there have been no consequences either for the owners or the animals we feel strongly that the animals should not be euthanized but rather that the owners should be fined that should be the very least that happens the amount of fine and the timing of the fine I would leave of course to the wisdom of the public safety subcommittee this has happened before in santa rosa with dogs jumping out of trucks and killing people and killing animals so those are our feelings I hope you will take them into consideration and we look forward to our result thank you so much were you able to hear that that was perfect thank you okay I'll do the next one then hi this is Sergei Zimbroth it's referring to agenda item four I feel that the code leads heavily in the direction of the offending animals needs to be changed to recognize other animals that we love, care for and consider as our family members thank you all right with that we have no further items our next public safety subcommittee meeting will be in June I want to thank the members of the public members of our staff and everybody who participated and a strong thank you to our committee members as well with that we are now adjourned