 Good morning. I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish Channel to commence translation of the meeting. For those just joining the meeting, live translation in Spanish is available and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish Channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in Zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish Channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you can only hear the Spanish translation. Interpreter, please restate this in Spanish. For those who just joined the meeting, live interpretation in Spanish is available and members or staff wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish Channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in Zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish Channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio so you can only hear the interpretation in Spanish. Thank you. All right. Good morning. Let's go ahead and call this meeting to order and Madam Secretary. So we're hearing the translation in person here, so If we can adjust that that would be greatly appreciated. All right, Madam Secretary. Can you call roll, please? Chair Krepke here Councilmember Alvarez present Councilmember Fleming Absent let the record show that all subcommittee members are present with the exception of councilmember Fleming Thank you very much. We're gonna move on. We don't have any announcements or minutes for approval Excuse me. We'll move on to public comment on non-agenda matters So if you'd like to address something to the committee that is not agendized This is your opportunity. Go ahead and move to one of the lecterns either East or West and you have a few minutes to do so Okay, seeing nobody moving towards the microphones will move on It's a new business 5.1 independent police auditors recommendation Chief Kreegan take it away Good morning. I'm John Kreega. I'm our chief of police here in Santa Rosa and I have with me captain Dan Marin sick who runs our division which includes our professional standards Team and we have our two independent police auditors. I'll let them introduce themselves Good morning Michael Chinako part of the independent police auditor team Good morning, my name is Steve Conley and I work with Mike in the independent police auditors office All right, and we're gonna go through this presentation and so this comes in response in June of 2023 we had our independent police auditor come down here and do a presentation to our city council of the 2022 annual report and there were eight distinct recommendations that came out of the report and we presented that to our city council Auditor team did and then some of the feedback was okay. So what is the police department's response to these eight recommendations? So that's what we're gonna go through today is in 2022 the independent police auditor team reviewed 67 different complaints 14 of those were internally generated by the police department and the rest came from our community members who had some type of Frustration with an incident that had occurred with on one of our staff members We went through each one of those our independent police auditor also reviewed some of our policies and our procedures Within the police department and those were all incorporated in those eight recommendations So we're gonna go through recommendation by recommendation if we can go to the next slide here This covers what it has talked about about with the 67 complaints in the annual report and if we go to the next slide We'll look at recommendation number one So the first recommendation that we discussed here is on the slide that SRPD should expand the range of complaint Cases for which it conducts formal interviews of subject officers in order to ensure the completeness Fat gathering and proper discretion for administrating discipline where? Applicable and this is one that we've had a lot of conversations with Steve Connolly over before and I think it's just really important There was some confusion at the city council member for some of our community members of understanding that every investigation that we do does have a Formal process the word formal I guess can be subjective and that we have though Administrative investigations, which are more formal and that's where we're following some of the guidelines of the Peace officer bill of rights and that we have where we have they have a right under a po-bar to have a formal union rep or attorney Coming in represent them and it's a little bit more structured and more delayed process We have another one for more low-level complaints that we call a personnel inquiry that personal inquiry though Still is a very formal process that a supervisor Conducts an investigation in each one of these personnel inquiries when necessary We complete an interview with the officer to talk to them about what their mindset was For this incident, but each one of those is memorialized in our complaint database We call I a pro and it's memorialized in there. It's reviewed by the sergeant who does that report It's reviews by the lieutenant in our professional standards are sometimes in our field services or special services divisions So each one of those is formal but in discussions with our police auditor We have agreed that there are some that we could take more to that formal I a process of the administrative Investigation process and we have been doing that and we'll be able to talk with our auditor team at the end to see Some of the progress that we went in there But we wanted to make sure that everyone was clear that each one of these is Memorialized in a structured formal process that we investigate each one of our complaints if we go to number two it kind of Sprills off of this as well. So SRPD should review its approach to disciplinary Consequences for low-level policy violations and consider leaning more in the direction of a formal process And this is one again It's specifically talking with these personnel inquiries which are more what we consider like a low-level offense now one thing That's really changed for us as a police administrators and for us to be able to more accurately review these incidents is the advent of the body worn Camera and now every single one of our police officers in uniform wears a body worn camera the same with our detectives when they're going out Serving search warrants or any type of enforcement action is required to wear a body worn camera required to activate that body worn camera when Contacting the public another thing that we've taken a big step forward is as of just last month all 63 of our marked patrol vehicles Now have camera systems in them. So we have from the front camera. There's two different camera focuses That is a 270 foot degree range or sorry 270 degree range that goes out so it's incorporating most of what you see in a traffic stop a bicycle stop our pedestrian stop And then we also have another camera inside the patrol vehicle for anyone who's in the rear passenger area where potentially a suspect would be transported to the jail or otherwise We have both video and audio with those because sometimes we found that the body worn camera footage can be limiting With that that in a scuffle or sometimes when an officer has their arm extended with a firearm or whatever So now this is giving us a whole lot more perspective So what we do is we immediately review the body worn camera footage the vehicle camera footage And we're able to really ascertain what happened and for those one of the important things for me with discipline As the chief is to be able to correct the behavior. I don't want a lot of these complaints are coming with An officer was rude on a traffic stop or was curt with someone when they were issuing them a citation So we're able to quickly review that body worn camera review the in camera in car camera And then my goal is to as quickly as possible to stop the behavior So I want to be able to intervene. I want to be able to counsel that officer I want the supervisor to meet with them I want us to be able to document that behavior and what we found is the quickest way to do that is to these Personnel inquiries when we can review the incident and based on the body worn camera footage We're clear that it would not result in a higher level of discipline So we could handle at that personnel inquiry level But we're continuing to work with our police auditor to be able to evaluate which one of these should be held at that Personnel inquiry level and which one should go to more the formal administrative Investigation one and look at what discipline is necessary and that's another important thing that every single one of these cases We meet with our independent police auditor team We evaluate and talk about the circumstances of that case and what discipline that we're going to recommend on it and Sometimes that we have a difference of opinion But we're able to work through those and there's never been a case so far in our time that we haven't come to an agreement on What the appropriate level of discipline in one of those cases are and it's really been a Benefit to me and my team to have their input on this and see some of their perspective about what's going on at other Agencies across the state and making sure that we're holding people accountable For that and meeting the expectations of our community It will go to recommendation number three So recommendation number three says expert SRPD should review its current force review process To ensure that supervisors are engaged in holistic assessment of each incident and that identified issues are addressed Even if they do not rise to the level of a policy violation So this one is something that we strongly agree with them and have taking substantial steps to be able to Enhance our holistic our really complete review of each one of the use of force assessments One of the things is we built in our procedure that the sergeant which is the first line supervisor Responds to the scene and does an interview with the suspect involved And so they're talking to the officer who's involved But also for the community member who is involved in that use of force and they're be able to do a second layer Review of able to see exactly what occurred Assess the injuries if there's any injuries themselves or the lack of injuries be able to assess what witnesses were saying On the scene so it's really important for us for that first line supervisor to be on that scene and be able to see in the Moment what occurred and not just rereading report five hours later even a day later so that was something that we built into our Training processes of making sure that occurred another thing is we have incredible training team at the Santa Rosa Police Department So we have our training sergeant who's now going to start completing an annual training report And what he's looking at is some of these use of force incidents Some of the cases that we had throughout the year and looking for training trends and some of the things And that's what we're really trying to identify so many things are sometimes Incidents are lawful they're within policy, but there are things that we still could have done a better job So this training report is going to look at like what are some of the ways that we can improve our department-wide training? So we can reduce where incidents are use of forces are occurring and being able to look for are there ways that We can help with some of the de-escalations with the verbal skills that our officers have to be able to de-escalate some of these incidents Another thing that we've been really working to is we add it in the sergeant reviews So this talks about a bit more the holistic part right here is that we added a section that the sergeant now has to Fill out in that assessment form where were there any specific training needs? And if so, what do you do to be able to address those training needs? So you might have an officer who's going to a call and maybe they're watching it and going like man If he would have be able to use a little bit better skills of de-escalating this incident Or maybe there was things like that about this that he wasn't aware of a law Maybe that led to some type of anxiety between the officer and the community member So we're identifying what those training needs are and the sergeants are taking proactive steps right there at the Very beginning to be able to address those and that's outside of what the training manager eventually is going to do in a little bit More global perspective. So those are three distinct steps that we've taken We also have and we've had this for some time But we also have a review where it basically of like an alert system or a red flag system for us If we see an officer that's involved in multiple uses of force So we have where you a sergeant can pull up a dashboard of each one of their officers in their team And it shows like the uses of force incidents. They've been in the pursuits They've been involved in the citizen complaints that they've been involved in And we're able to be able to track those and to be able to see like man Are we seeing an uptake with this officer? This officer is using more force and we're seeing the other officers on his or her team So that's something that we work on like that early intervention that we're looking like what are some of the outliers from there? And it could be early intervention. That's with training It could be things that we could be doing with our employee assistant Program and providing mental health resources to be able to make sure that an officer is in the right mindset When they're going out in our community every day And those are some of the things that we're trying to do proactively to be able to address some of these things that aligns exactly with their OIRs recommendation number three number four Says SRPD should review its current template to require officers who use force to document any efforts at de-escalation And if none were feasible explain the reasons why and this is another one that we strongly agree with our order on that We can take better steps of able to do this So we put out our training manager put out an apartment-wide training bulletin Which really outlines some of these things and what we're hoping to see is that we see some improvements with our officers Documenting the de-escalation, but for us. It's not just about the documentation. We're building a culture of the Santa Rosa police development about Wanting to see the de-escalation in each one of the incidents and one of the things that I really tried to do as Chief is to be able to reward and honor that behavior when we see that We've had some incredible cases at the police department with officers who contacted a homicide suspect on Sebastopol Road Who had stabbed someone just moments before and actually ended up killing that victim in that case still was armed with a NICE when the officers responded our officers quickly responded to that scene We're able to use some of the de-escalation tools and not involve in any significant use of force With that individual and safely take him in the custody We had another one just a few months ago at Foodmax where subject was wanted for two shootings Officers confronted him. He still was armed with a handgun when they got there There could have been potential to be able to be involved in an officer involved shooting with that individual with officers Slowed things down was able to use some of the de-escalation tools I eventually talked that individual into dropping the gun and safely took him into custody and just two or three weeks ago We had one where an arm schizophrenic subject who was in a mental health crisis armed with a knife charged our officers again They slowed things down. They didn't use force and they're able to safely take that suspect in the custody So those are the things that I sent out an apartment email like saying this is exactly what we want to see like encouraging that type of behavior I reached out to the individual Officers involved in that and one of the things that we're doing right now We're preparing for our next award ceremony for our awards throughout 2022 And we're gonna add an award this year on like resolving critical incidents safely and what we're doing We're trying to build to the culture of our organization This is what we want to see and it's no mistake that we see the Santa Rosa Police Department with a level of calls That we go to and the last time a Santa Rosa police officer with going Over 250,000 calls a year is coming into our 9-1-1 dispatch center Our officers actually responding out over a hundred and nine thousand times a year and Contacting community members and the last time that a Santa Rosa police officer has been involved in an incident where a subject was shot Was in 2017 and that's because that we have the training that we're doing the first line supervisors the incredible men and women that were Hiring at the Santa Rosa Police Department But also a building the culture of what we have here at the Santa Rosa Police Department And we very proudly say and I say it often to our team that we have something special and something different here at the Santa Rosa Police Department But we're going to continue to follow the recommendations from OIR and look like how we can even strengthen that in our processes If we go to recommendation number five Says SRPD should revise its current template to require reviewing sergeants to expressly consider and evaluate any efforts at de-escalation that preceded the use of force and again again agree with that I think it's a great recommendation So with that same training bulletin that our training sergeant vickers created that we incorporated that about the sergeants having more of a review In that we also add it to we have that automated process where the sergeants goes through a checklist We added a de-escalation area to that where a sergeant could be able to Document some of the de-escalation that was done in those incidents and that's what we're really trying to do We also have made some policy changes to our use of force Policy about showing and there were some some changes in state law as well with that they talked about that with assembly bill 392 and so those are some of the things that we're seeing like not only at our our Policy level that we're seeing with our changes with our use of force protocol with what we're doing with and incorporating with our sergeant review But also what we're doing with our officers to make sure they understand the importance of the de-escalation recommendation number six says SRPD should revisit its current protocol for interview of subjects upon with the force has been used and Reinforce the policy expectation that a supervisor will handle this responsibility So we tied into a little bit of this earlier that we are reinforcing the policy that a supervisor respond to the scene and does an Independent review of that incident We also have for every use of force that we do no matter how minor it is the sergeant is required to Review the report respond out to that scene talk to the officer and any of the involved people there But one of the most important thing is we have that sergeant independently review all the body worn camera footage Any of the vehicle footage that may be relevant, but we don't just leave it there We also have a lieutenant was there our mid-level manager do a second air review of that to be able to make sure that our sergeants are Following those protocols and have one more set of eyes looking at these uses of force to make sure that they're lawful They're within policy they meet our training needs and they meet the community's Expectations here for the city of Santa Rosa if there was one that we think there's any issues Then we're able to immediately incorporate our captains into that and we start looking about does this need to result in discipline Does this need to be a this at the training exercise or our training that we need to be able to do for these things? So those are some of the reviews We've also done an important thing now that we built into our protocols that if the suspect has any Injuries who the suspect who is involved in the use of force has any injuries that would result in medical attention So even a cut on the face that's a resultance of minor stutters whatever it may be then we have an independent officer And this came directly from OIR's recommendation We have an independent officer who was not involved with the use of force come and does that independent interview of the suspect So that way there is no Potential bias in that interview or leading questions that we may have so that's one of the things to steps that we're doing for any of those cases of more Significant uses of force that we're doing and then recommendation number seven So SRPD should commit to making issues of racial equity and implicit bias a regular part of our training schedule So I strongly agree with this one, too We're really proud that we did create we sent a team to Chicago to their procedural justice train the trainer course We also sent a team who became to a train the trainer course on Racial bias in policing and implicit bias and so we built our own team Not only have we done a procedural justice training, but we also built some training around specifically with implicit bias And the reality is is human being all of us have some form of implicit or unconscious bias And for us it's important just to lean into that to understand that and to make sure that our policing in the community Does it isn't incorporating that and we don't have some of this bias in our policing So we built a four-hour course that We're able to work with and we had all of our sworn police officers attend that course We're also looking towards some of the things that we're doing on our next training Cycle and I was this meeting with our training team and talking to them and we have three trainings We already have scheduled for the next 24 20 24 training cycle that we go through first one's going to be on bias-based policing then we're going to have a Use of force and a strategic communications class and that's talking about how you can de-escalate these incidents through just like verbal skills And the last one we're going to do is about procedural justice And so there's some of the tenants about giving people a voice treating people with neutrality and some of those are the core things that we're doing So we're building that heavily into our 2024 training cycle and we agree with this. We're also looking and I'll talk about on the next slide about interviewing some different courses from outside Perspectives to come in and provide some of that training. We go to number eight We'll talk about that as SRPD considers future training in this area should consider supplementing its internal facilitators with contributors from outside the Organization and that feedback came to we did build a really good implicit bias course that we taught But we had our own staff teaching that so some of the feedback is hey It might have more credibility more depth if you have community members or people with who maybe have more expertise in this So we did do a lot of training with our officers and we had the right people training that class But one of the things that's important to note is that team We did bring in a lot of community Collabories who helped us create that class including the president of the NAACP. We had representatives from low CN From our AI PI Community our LGBTQ community We had a large group of community members who came in there and helped craft that course But we really took that this recommendation seriously So we were actually our training team right now is interviewing several different outside course presenters who can be able to come in and Present our next implicit bias course our organization and hopefully it has some more of that credibility more depth And hopefully it has a different perspective that may be from our staff So it's something that we agree with and we're taking steps to be able to do that So I kind of quickly went through these recommendations at the end of the day Undeniably our partnership with OER and our independent police auditor has really strengthened not only our internal review process It's really helped me as chief to be able to have a greater understanding and perspective on so ultimately what some of the discipline for these Cases with Ben so we're really happy with our partnership And I really feel strongly that we're seeing the benefit and I think hopefully from our community that they see and have that Trust that we're doing the right thing with the internal investigations that we're doing here At the police department and but we're going to be committed to working with our OIR group and looking for what future Recommendations we can go make going into the next year So now I'll turn it over to our OIR partners to see if they have any other comments. They want to add to this Thank you and good morning. It's good to be back in Santa Rosa and I Really appreciate the chief's work up this morning on our recommendations and how the department is responding I might want to contrast it says some of the other experiences. We've had in other jurisdictions that will remain nameless, but Sometimes we'll issue a report. There'll be a dozen recommendations It'll be received the head of the law enforcement agency will say We appreciate the report. We appreciate the recommendations. We're going to address them and We're going to address them in about three days and we're going to implement all the recommendations And when we get that kind of feedback, we recognize that this report that we've spent all this time on Looks like it's going to go into a filing cabinet somewhere and never see the light of day But that's not what happened in this city So I'm just contrasting the two experiences and as a result of a couple things that are built into the system And as a result of counsel's interest in getting feedback on the implementation of the recommendations I think that's largely why we're here this morning. It was at the direction of your larger body That you know asked the chief to come back and report on the recommendations and make them And whether or not they're going to be implemented and if so how and I think that process is is crucial to reform Recommendations that don't go anywhere not implemented or not become part of the culture of the organization Don't really improve the organization in some ways They're hollow because they're out there and it's even worse because no one's paying any attention to the recommendations That's not what we've seen in Santa Rosa The other thing that's built into the system that I think will Prevent that kind of dynamic from occurring is the fact that we're still here And since we're still here doing the work we will be able to gauge the degree to which The recommendations that the implementation of the recommendations that the chief talked about are real and are actually embedded Integrated and becoming a part of the system. So That permanence or that regular returning to report to you all which we'll do next year sometime Is I think also a good safeguard to ensure that the recommendations are taken seriously And in fact are adopted because we're if it's not the case We'll be able to tell you that the next time we're back before you and and we have no reason to doubt the legitimacy and the interest of the chief the other thing that this Assignment does is it causes the head of the agency and his Command staff to figure out how best to incorporate those recommendations into a living breathing organization So for all those reasons we are particularly appreciative of the work that has been done in Responding to these recommendations the other thing I would say just To provide you an update on where we are is that we're continuing to do the monitoring in real time With the organization we continue to interact quite frequently I'll probably ask my colleague to weigh in a little bit more more detail on that dynamic, but unlike 2020 We're in 2023 now, and I think certainly things have changed in a significant way Most significantly is unlike 2020 when we were brought in With regard to uses of force that we call sort of hair on fire events We have no hair on fire events in 2023, and we're not Disappointed with that. I'm sure that chief in the community is also not disappointed that Events are making their way into the public discussion and the enterprise etc. Etc. So that's actually a good thing Steve could you want to supplement some of your work and your response to the recommendations as well? So good morning, and thank you for having us back I Just a couple things and we certainly welcome any questions you have about any of the particulars from from the chief's presentation One of the things that that we certainly want to emphasize When we're in a forum like this and obviously it's it may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction But in terms of our day-to-day working relationship, I am happy to be able to Share with you That the department is absolutely holding up its end of the bargain in terms of providing us with the Access to all of the relevant information that we need to do our job and we have a very good regular Dialogue about events. We don't always see things Exactly the same way, and then I think that's okay That's I that's healthy some because our perspectives are going to be a little bit different and our experiences are different but I have always felt from from At every level of the agency that I've engaged with the people are taking us seriously They're listening to us and and if we do agree to disagree It's it's after everybody's had a chance to share their ideas and thoughts And we certainly have respect for the the ultimate authority that the police department has with some of these with In relation to some of these issues and then just touching on one of the things that the chief said also Which is a lot of our specific recommendations really do have to do with tightening up processes in terms of documentation And and kind of creating a record showing your work in other words I a lot of times I've had conversations with the department with regard to their use of force review process or If I see a particular complaint case where yeah, no policy was violated But there were things about the way the officer handled it that that I had questions about What the department has often said to me is oh, yeah Well, of course we recognize that too and of course we addressed it with the officer But it wasn't wouldn't necessarily be written down Anywhere and it isn't documented and it isn't necessarily something that you could turn look back and point to If there were another incident three months later that was similar and we said why aren't we making any progress here? So We really think some of that documentation and systemic making it just kind of a routine standardized things that when things like that are identified by supervisors and they are addressed that there's some kind of Documentation of it and I think that it really goes hand in hand when you take the time to put things down In writing and commit to it It really does contribute to the culture that the chief was talking about That those ideas just kind of do become second nature and in part The the little homework that goes along with it helps to reinforce that and helps to to create the expectations for Officers and supervision folks alike. So as I say, we're happy to be back here We're gonna be in town for a couple days And and follow up on some of the things that that are we are that are in the pipeline for us in terms of our current audit and As as Mike was saying we're getting the opportunity to verify some of these new programs and then roll our sleeves up and look at some specific examples of of cases from the force review process in particular. So We have a couple of other things on the schedule for today in terms of Meetings with other groups that we will be sitting down with I haven't we're gonna have the opportunity to talk with the in-response team People later this afternoon and hear a little bit about their perspective because I know that mental health response is a huge issue In our communities around the country and the law enforcement Working with with trained experts in that field. So I want to learn more about how Santa Rosa is doing it We also have the opportunity this afternoon to meet with some members of the chief's advisory team That the new group that the city manager selected of members of the community who who have been very engaged with the department since June and so it will be good for us to be able to follow up with them and hear Anythings that are on the front burner as far as their concern and then tomorrow I'm gonna have the opportunity to to ride along with The special enforcement team as they as they address some of the issues with the unhoused encampments in in the city I know that's an ongoing source of concern and it's a it generates quite a bit of the complaint business that we have Processed in the in the last year in particular. So just the opportunity to learn more about how that works and how the officers Engage and understand what their their role is and what the rules of engagement are and how they're dealing with with some of those different issues It will it will be an interesting opportunity for me tomorrow So as I say, we're very happy to answer any questions that that you folks have for us and but I definitely want to underscore the point that We're very appreciative of the of the collaboration that the department has helped to establish since the the beginning of our time working here So thank you Just to some final remarks and then obviously as Steve indicated we're available for any questions or comments or suggestions, but one thing I noted that I Intended to respond to is one of the things that the chief indicated as Consistent with our recommendation although it wasn't specifically in our recommendation this concept of Starting to identify incentivize and provide recognition for officers who perform Consistent with principles of deescalations able to talk an individual out of a weapon without resorting to force and provide recognition in that way And I think that's one of the that's one of the ways in which The culture of the organization can be Channeled in a positive way It's a different kind of valor that an officer has in order to Neutralize a situation without having to go hands-on without having without having to resort to a weapon to neutralize a situation and Talking deescalation time distance and all those principles when they come into play when essentially nothing happens is a different kind of outcome that's positive and Should be recognized and so we very much appreciate the chief reaching out in that direction Finally the last thing I wanted to address is that as Steve touched on And consistent with our current scope of work in the contract We are our bread and butter is responding to complaint investigations. So when a complaint comes in whether that's from a Community member or from internal complaint from derived from the department We're going to be following those kinds of events in real time and reporting out on the progress reporting out on the sufficiency of and thoroughness and objectivity the investigation as well as whether the outcome makes sense and is reasonable But that piece of work is entirely reliant on the complainant right so We are cabined in a way in that work based on what the complainant is complaining about Which gives us a smaller? Spectrum of information about the department, but our scope of work as Has set out in in the contract that we signed a couple years ago Allows us also to do independent audits and what independent audits and how they're different than complaint reviews is that they don't rely on a complaint they are aspects of policing that potentially contain risk potentially contain Issues with regard to full functioning accountability etc and When we do that type of audit we can take a deeper dive into certain aspects of policing That we wouldn't ordinarily do if we were just cabin by those complaints. So as Steve indicated one of the Things we'll be looking at in this next cycle is looking at force in a general way how that force is investigated how that force is reviewed and Going outside just the force incidents in which there's a complaint behind and doing a broader look But we can as a result of this scope of work that we have we can do other things and certainly welcome any Suggestions from your community from you about areas that you may want us taking a look at we have some ideas That's where we're going to start but we can certainly do other things and the remaining the time before our Period ends, you know next year when we're reporting back to you so with that unless you have anything Steve I'm going to close down our opening remarks, but appreciate the opportunity to be here with you this morning All right, thank you very much Questions any questions? Yes, thank you chair to our can you expand on the IOR complaint process from the Complaints or the person who submits a complaint what their experience Good morning. Could you repeat the question Councilor Alvarez in terms of Yes, the process from the from the person who submits the complaint What's what's their experience with the interview process or or what are they looking at when they do submit a complaint? So what happens is we become notified as soon as a new complaint comes in and we have the opportunity To see firsthand what form that complaint came in was it an email was it you know a phone call that somebody left a voicemail? there are a lot of different ways that that people are able to access the complaint process and it's a kind of You know inclusive rather than you have to say the magic words and fill out this specific form or else We're not going to take it seriously So we find out what that when there is a new complaint We learn about that almost Instantaneously and occasionally we have had members of the public contact us directly to ask us to explain our role and Help guide them through the complaint process and we of course will refer them to the police once that The police become aware that a complaint has been submitted Then generally speaking there is going to be a follow-up interview of that complaint and that gets recorded it's done by the internal affairs sergeant and We listen to all of those complaint interviews to to make sure that the intake process is Objective and receptive and that all of the issues that the complainant may have are Properly identified at the outset of the investigation And so occasionally we'll go back to the department and ask about a peripheral thing that the complainant brought up That may not be at the core of the allegation, but you know it was it was important to the complainant So we'll try to get a little bit more information about that and then as the process proceeds the complainants do get notified at The end of the process the department provides them with a notification letter They're obligated to do that under state law But what the department does that I think is a very positive thing is they go beyond the bare bones Requirement of the you know the boilerplate letter. Thank you for your complaint This was the outcome and and provide no additional details The department really does make an effort to explain about the process and the steps that it took in order to to help People understand that yes it was taken seriously and we have occasionally Heard from people on the back end of the process when they get their notification letters when the case is completed They provide our phone number is available to people and they're very welcome to call us to ask us about You know tell us about their experience or ask us questions that they may have so there are definitely some systems in place to Make sure that those folks are getting heard When you said that person is interviewed is this over zoom is this an office is this at our police department? So it is ideally it's gonna be a a face-to-face interview and that happens in a percentage of the cases, but Oftentimes it's done by telephone as well just in the interest of practicality. I think for both Both parties in the in the interaction, but yeah, all of those interactions are recorded either on body camera or on Audio camera and I'm able to hear the the entirety of them and there if it's a Spanish-speaking person or another A non-English speaker that the department will make sure that a translator is available and that the communication You know any obstacles to effective communication are addressed very well in response respect. I'm sorry As we understand the public safety is always working progress especially the collaboration and the recommendations Are there any further recommendations that may have risen for from this next stage in in in in the process? from the from the eight recommendations We will probably have additional recommendations next cycle we just haven't formulated what those are going to look like but What our experience has been is that? We start with some very basic sort of recommendations at our first cycle and then we move from Oversight 101 to the graduate level if you will and so as things get more refined You know we're gonna continue to and I think the chief appreciates this. I hope he does. I think he does is You know every Every agency as good as it is can always improve and so we're gonna start at one level and then get even better Hopefully, no, it's definitely understood. I believe the the the public understands that's definitely work in progress But what I do appreciate is the willingness from our chief to do that work and make the progress And on page for who compares the statement to the officers statement in respect to transparency who's responsible there was a there was a Parliament go page for Recommendation for I should say When an officer makes a statement, and I believe it's in response to use of force who verifies that information is that I or that immediately compares and and validates the statement made by the officer So in a regular use of force scenario that it's going to be the responsibility of a supervisor to compare the actual body worn camera recording of the incident to any statements that the officers are making either verbally to the sergeants or In any report that they write in connection with the incident We do not have a standard protocol of Automatically reviewing every use of force it has to be referred to us in the context of it Becoming the source of a complaint and so we've had a small window into the into the standard use of force review Process where no complaint emerges, but that's certainly one of our pending projects is to is to Look at the uses of force more broadly Even if a complaint hasn't been generated just to kind of do the kind of double checking that you're talking about with regard to how the department reviews all of these Chief I believe that might have been where you Said we review when we spoke of reviewing footage In the in the in the presentation today So it's pretty much comes up on the SRPD and then once that's our PD it feels they should move on to IR That's the next step in the process. Yeah, so a little bit of clarification too So I are reviews any that results in a complaint But they also have anyone that results in a serious bodily injuries and automatic trigger for them to do But one of the things that we're expanding now is OIR is going to be doing more audits of going through just different random use of force Even low-level uses of force where there's no complaint No seriously bodily injury things like that just to make sure that at all levels even the minor uses of force that we're doing everything We can but for the review It's really important that we have that two-step process where where the sergeant the first-line supervisors responding to that scene and they're Talking to the officer, but then they were also getting that statement from the involved community members about what's going on in that Way, they're getting a little bit more perspective and having that and then we have that two-stage review where the sergeant then reviews All body-worn camera all video camera related to that incident and that's very undisputable about exactly what was said and what occurred And then we have that lieutenant who's the mid-level manager doing that secondary review reading that report and Watching all the available camera footage as well And we do that at every use of force that we have that we go through there and make sure that that review is done If there are any training needs if there's any accountability or discipline needed that we take immediate action on that And then that's where also that OIR would immediately get involved if we identify Discipline and we've had that this year where we've identified where this this use of force didn't meet our standard We've launched an internal investigation on that OIR was heavily involved in that Process and and ultimately we came to a conclusion with that and so so you're not being repetitive I believe he might have just answered my following question Which is what resources are available to you when we do have a staff member who is not contributing to the culture that she Wished to create and I believe that's part of the process To remedy that situation. Yeah, the number one thing we're looking at is like What's the level of like the infraction like and if it's small level things that we can incorporate training Then we're immediately doing that that we're documenting the behavior We're making it clear to that staff member that officer that they didn't meet our standard to the Santa Rosa police department We're looking at some of the training needs but unfortunately from time to time that we do have things that are more serious and in those cases we take Immediate action some of the things that we can do is putting that officer in administrative leave So we're taking them off the street It's basically like a suspension off the street where so we're able to assess exactly what occurred and that's something That's the least in my tool belt to be able to use the next step is handing out discipline and that discipline may result going from written reprimand to suspension without pay to ultimately even firing that individual and so those are all things that are like at my Availability and then using OIR as a partner of that to be able to get them as a sounding board About where we are and and do they think my level of discipline that I'm proposing is Appropriate for that so those are some of the resources that we're using for it And then also now with state law for Senate bill 1421 Talks about and we have our change for the better website that we created on the police departments So through Senate bill 1421 and AV 748 We're putting all the material that we're putting the police reports to the body worn camera footage We're putting on that and one thing that the Santa Rosa Police Department does is above and beyond the way that Senate bill 1421 Is written is like if we get a public records act as requests then we have to provide that information We don't wait for that. We immediately put it on our website It's available for anyone the press Democrat any community members any one of our city leaders here on council You can go to the change for the better website right now And it's every single case that meets that criteria is there and available and has all the written documents and the body worn camera footage That you can watch right now without having to go through the cumbersome process of a PRA request Well, thank you and my last question and when we first entered agreement with IR in 2020 I believe it's 2020 time does fly I expected to see an increase in and In complaints and that increase did not signify that SRPD was doing a worst job If anything it was that we were creating more trust within the community so we can really fix whatever because we could always improve What metrics are you applying to the centers of police department and the city of San Rosa as a whole to see how we're actually doing? so one of you make a very important point council councilman Alvarez that the Number of complaints is absolutely something to keep an eye on but it can mean a lot of different things and trust having trust in the process is a Reason that people might participate that might you know not otherwise even though they might have a grievance with the way They've been treated by the police so in terms of numbers We saw a pretty significant number of complaints in in 2022 this year is tracking with a little bit less But then the important thing is what's happening the number of complaints is is is a Metric to kind of keep an eye on but is subject to different interpretations But by looking at some of the individual you know looking at them on a one-to-one basis and seeing how is the department Responding in terms of the the legitimacy of its investigative process I can say that that process is is very good And then are there any trends that are being identified if you step back from each individual case and look at them as a group Are there things about the way the department is treating people that are? Sort of recurring themes and we actually did see a little bit of that last year in 2022 There were a lot of kind of low-level discurrency issues where I Thought in the department agreed that that the officers could have handled themselves better in terms of their Communications with people and we talked about that last year and there was a lot of emphasis was particularly with newer newer officers There are a lot of newer officers with that with the agency and just working on their communication skills Their their diplomacy skills if you will their customer service so that even if you're handling 90% of the call really well Don't blow it in that last couple minutes by saying something unprofessional or just leaving people with a bad impression I think there absolutely has been an improvement this year and lastly I definitely want to share experience a Couple days ago. I stopped by and picked on my dry cleaning and I'm wearing sweats and the shirt and I'm out of suits and The outside of the dry cleaning. There's a felony stop Three vehicles are there stopping one vehicle and people being pulled out of the vehicle and one of them standing in Near the hood of the vehicle and I walk in I pick up my my dry cleaning I'm placing the back of the trunk and and I see an officer to look over and smile So I go. Can you recognize me? So I raise my hand. How you doing officer? I'm doing well counseling and the other officers turn over but also the suspects and also some of the suspect goes Oh, Eddie. What's up, man? How you doing? I was so brother. How you doing? He goes. Oh, you know just doing my do I know right on So I put the rest of my stuff in the vehicle and I finish up and you know very loudly I say all of you, please be safe out here And the one thing that I noticed whether it was it was the people being pulled out of the vehicle or the officers there was Not a feeling of tension, but just process and I did speak to the individuals afterwards and I said hey How'd it go? He was you know what? It went well. They treated us good They just did what they had to do and and the day went on So definitely want to come in on the culture with my story my experience of when is seeing the happenings Maybe within the city of Santa Rosa But chief is definitely the positive culture that I'm hearing and it's not the only case that I've heard of positive interactions with our police Department, so thank you. All right. Thank you. I don't have any anecdotes like that, but a Few questions Chief How many new hires have we had over the last year and how many do we have in the pipeline in the academy? That's been one of the really exciting things that we've done and Captain Dan Brinzik and Lieutenant Brenda Harrington Have really been a big part of that in our in our whole team there But we started in July of 2022 so just as I was taken over as chief we had 21 sworn police officer vacancies out of 184 so it was overwhelming and quite honestly was it was really hurting our Operations in the field of our rapid response and be able to meet some of the needs of our community So we really came together as our department and got some cooperation From our city and we were able to do and we did a host of things that that we hired an outside recruitment firm that came in And filmed about seven different videos of highlighting how incredible it is to work for here in Santa Rosa for our city and for the Santa Rosa and police department we started doing some creative advertising things We really started getting out in the word in our community and as of today We have just two sworn vacancies we have one officer and one supervisor vacancies But we have four lateral police officers right now in process for those two So we hope to have those filled by the first week of November to be back to no sworn Vacancies in our entire agency So that's a game changer for us to being able to get out there and be able to start filling some of the specialty teams We've been able to increasing some of our patrol resources and we've been able to do some exciting things that we're going to talk about later in The updates to about expanding our downtown enforcement team. So Staffing is always a roller coaster ride And so we're on a high right now But some of it is that we're building something special here at the Santa Rosa police department Not only support from our city council our incredible city manager that we've had 14 lateral police officers who are Transferring from other agencies across the Bay Area who are coming to join our agencies and the lateral police officers Especially do their homework and looked about like this is a big move for them to leave their comfort of their current agency But they're coming to our agency because of what they see here And they want to be part of our incredible team and that's helping us be able to fill some of those things So we really appreciate council support on some of the things we've done with our recruitment initiative with our also We did a hiring bonus for lateral police officers that have been at least a year and a half and we're seeing the benefits of it So to that end Can you briefly touch on The the FT of the field training officer program and with that and with so many so many new hires and this new expectation of trainings Does that need to be reviewed and possibly extended because of the the Recommendations and the new trainings that you're discussing or do you think it's sufficient enough? Well, we're building it in so each one of our police officers go to a state-wide approved Academy that's the same across the state of California And it's 20 weeks and so they're building in some of the things with the implicit bias is now getting built in and de-escalation That's getting built into the basic 20 week Academy and that there are employed earn there They're Monday through Friday from 8 to 5 sometimes even weekend events So they go through that core training of 20 weeks We're getting some of the foundation of this But then we have what we talked about now is next the field training program And so we start out with a three-week orientation program and we're doing some of the core things with defensive tactics But we're building in some of those things with the de-escalation that we're building in from moment one with all of our new recruits We're having them to now that we really have put a focus on like mental health and Organizational wellness and the studies are overwhelmingly that if officers have the support they need and they're going out on the right like Mental health space when they're going out in the street that they treat community members better They use less force so we're really excited for kind of our focus on organizational wellness that's important We're building that in too. We now have a thing with an employee assistant program that we have them coming in on our Three-week orientation and meeting with the trainees We have a dedicated thing if some of our lead officers from our peer support team Who are meeting with these new trainees and kind of laying that foundation from day one? We're doing a new thing that we've never done before to that We have the EAP program that are the employee assistant program You can meet with therapists out there that we do but what we started seeing is sometimes there's barriers Actually making that force of first appointment, so we created a new initiative where we have EAP providers coming to the police department And we gave them a space and we do two days a month where they come and we send out a big email saying hey You can go meet with the EAP provider and it's designed And then we have the EAP provider go to all of our patrol briefings to kind of talk about what the EAP program is and again It goes back to the culture of deescalation We need to build a culture of this organizational wellness where people can reach out to those resources But back to that FTO program so then they do they do the three week orientation And they do a minimum of 20 weeks for a new a new police officer where they're riding with different senior officers And we're evaluating them every day They have a they have a sheet of a daily observation report and we have 20 or 33 metrics that we go through we evaluate them every day And some of those things are treatment of our community members that we're evaluating We're showing them from day one and looking at what steps we need to do But we always have the ability to extend that to 25 weeks if necessary and things that we need to do and we do that on a Individual basis of what we feel like an officer needs more We've had officers that have gone through 30 weeks in the training program And we do what we can to make sure before we certify them as a solo patrol officer that they meet all of our expectations Great, thank you What Levels of use of force or what kinds of incidents would escalate to an outside law enforcement agency I think typically that would be the sheriff's department doing leading the investigation So we have here in Sonoma County was called the Sonoma County critical incident protocol So that's doesn't doesn't and we strategically don't call it the fatal incident protocol because of that very reason that it used To be years ago was only fatal incidents resulted in this but we want to do more significant one So an example would be obviously an officer involved shooting Would be one even if and especially if it were to result in what we believe are going to be life-ending Injuries for that individual so it's automatically and it's not just the sheriff's department that we have a bank Petaluma police department Is involved in that Rona Park Department of Public Safety at some point it depends upon their staffing and what they have But we're able to do that So if we were to have today an officer involved shooting in the city or even an in custody death where we've had where maybe An individual struggling with officers maybe results in a taser deployment or baton Whatever it may be in that individual either dies or looks like they're potentially going to have life endangering injuries Then we would invoke that critical incident protocol and then it's completely independent then none of the San Rosa police officers are investigating this We bring in this independent resource from Petaluma from the sheriff's department Rona Park they come over to take the entire investigation They complete like a fact finding so they're gathering all the facts and they send it to the district attorney's office This is a attorney normally takes about 90 days to review that and ultimately makes a decision if it results in a Incustody death then our procedure is then all those also go to our grand jury here in Sonoma County Who review the district attorney's report to concur with their finding or to see if they agree with that So there's multiple layers on that there's some also changes in state law with AB 1506 that talks about that if an officer is involved and a use of force incident that results in that series injured death With and a person is unarmed then now you have the California DOJ that comes and investigate those So we've never had that occur here in the city of Santa Rosa But if it does that we would follow that statewide law So there's those are the two that we'd have the critical incident protocol where we have the outside agencies from Noam Sonoma County if it meets that AB 1506 threshold then we then it would actually be taken We'd also have another review done by the Department of Justice Okay, so outside of AB 1506 because that's a I think that would be an anomalous Occurrence, but have we had discussions with our partners in the critical incident protocol about This process and working with OIR and so that we can have them as well as our own department Work with OIR to review these in a more holistic manner We're having active conversations right now with OIR and and those may be some of the recommendations You see come out of this next report about what our internal review process is so of us having a little bit deeper dive Where we're reviewing and and looking like okay So this was within policy and it was lawful But could we have done anything better and then so we're building out that structure captain Denmerin's it's actually leading that project Right now and we're working on that We do have written into the scope of work that if we have an officer involved in custody death or officer Involved shooting that OIR has the ability to come down here and to be able to kind of shadow that investigation So we built that in One of the blessings that we've had that and this goes back to some of the things that we're doing here is Santa Rosa Police Department since OIR has been hired on we have had zero in custody deaths for the Santa Rosa Police Department So we had to have it we haven't had to invoke that yet But what we will have is if we do have an unfortunate incident of an in custody death here will immediately Notify OIR will give them the facts of that case and they'll have the ability to immediately come down here and be able to shadow that Investigation and be involved in it from day one so that way they can kind of see behind the curtain on exactly what's happening with that investigation Yeah, I guess my my concern would be Not here internally But should it be the sheriff for Roner Park or Petalumber whomever that they understand that our department and our council has the Expectation that OIR be involved in this process From the beginning and have access to everything even though they're the ones that are conducting the investigation I'm wondering if that communication has happened or if it should happen that you know just just so you know that this is the Our internal expectations going forward since we're we are not the ones running the investigation Yeah, and I think we meet monthly all the chiefs a sheriff to district attorney here We have a Sonoma County law enforcement chiefs association that we meet once a month And we go over some of these issues and actually right now we're looking at our critical center protocol looking like are there any changes? That's certainly something that I can be able to incorporate in some of those conversations. I don't know if you want to add anything to that yeah Yeah, if I can just jump in for a second. I just want to make the distinction because Chief Creegan talked about the robust process of the investigation, but just to clarify there's actually really two investigations that go on So we talked about the critical incident protocol and that looks at the criminal investigation So we're looking at is there criminal culpability on the part of the officer and that's when the sheriff's office is investigating that It's going to the district or whatever agency is investigating that it's going to the district attorney It's going to the grand jury But regardless of that outcome we're still going to conduct an administrative Investigation internally and so when we conduct that investigation, we're involving OIR We're notifying OIR right away, right if we were to have that incident and we're going to be working with them on our administrative Investigation which often happens is or what often happens is is we wait for that criminal investigation to come to a finality And then we would initiate an administrative investigation or an internal review on our part and when we initiate that review and we conduct that Investigation we're going to be working step-by-step with OIR on that process Okay, I just don't want to get to the point where somebody Investigating for one of our partners is like man I don't want to deal with this independent auditor and like doesn't want to participate like I want to make sure it's understood understood that you know when we're doing our internal process that That's the expectation Yeah, and I think Captain Renzi brings up a really good clarifying point where that that we're in charge of our Administrative investigation and we're going to do that and again We'll continue that very close partnership with OIR and their team and continue that what you don't see and what we've talked about even across the state of California the unfettered access that they have to be able to be part actually be part of our administrative interviews And they have been repeatedly to be able to review anybody worn camera footage They want to not wait until the investigation is over, but they're actually Front-loading getting the scenes early on before and they get to be a key partner in what the final discipline and outcome of that case is And so that's something that we're really happy with that more more of their involvement from day one in the investigation As opposed to what you see sometimes at other agencies where it's six months later when the investigation is complete And there's not really a whole lot that can be done at that point great So for OIR The the response to the recommendations the eight recommendations, I believe is what it was Generally speaking you concur with with their responses and and are on board with it Thank you for the question counsel Councilman yes, we absolutely have worked closely with the department right even when we first start circulating a draft of the report last spring Before it made its way to council we we were talking to the department about these ideas And they have been receptive to them from the beginning. So as I mentioned earlier I'm gonna have the opportunity to kind of verify I've certainly been hearing all the the right things and I've seen some corroborating evidence But the opportunity to get into the force review process a little bit Systemically will be an added layer of verification that I'm looking forward to but the short answer to the question is We have found the police to be receptive responsive, and we feel like the The different points that the chief has made this morning are exactly aligned with what our hopes would have been last year Great I'm not gonna ask you to give a letter grade or rank it But would it be safe to say that it's the top 50% of experiences with departments so I Absolutely would and I think that a key thing for us to be clear about is that our relationship with with In different jurisdictions are our scope of work and our model for for providing oversight is different in different jurisdictions This is one of the most robust in the sense that we have a Real time Beginning to conclusion opportunity to know what's going on when a complaint or a critical incident occurs We have the opportunity to be actively engaged in the process Not just when everything is all over and to give it a thumbs up or thumbs down but to actually participate to ask annoying questions at the beginning about how the department is framing things and making sure that everything is being addressed appropriately and That that model that was set up by the city council. It really has I think given us a very unique opportunity here and we are very pleased to be able to say that the department has Certainly held up its side of it in terms of working with us and listening to us and interacting with us in every way that we would have hoped Great. Thank you. I was happy to hear that you're gonna be here for a couple days for stakeholder meetings What is the general frequency you plan on having throughout this contract like the over a yearly basis? How often you're gonna meet with various stakeholders outside of the department or council? So we have the opportunity obviously Remotely to set up meetings with people as often as is necessary and we plan to be physically here Probably at least three or four times a year But yeah, we are in I would say that that I am in touch with a member of the Santa Rosa police department More days than not during the average working week So we certainly are keeping a very close eye on what's happening and we would be very happy to respond in person or set up Something remotely whenever is necessary Thank you. And then my final question is During your portion of the report you said that you had some ideas Not just on recommendations the council member Alvarez Asked but just overall ideas about our department that may be coming forward in the future Can you expand on that a little bit? Sure council member what I was I think that was in the context of the potential to do audits And so there are certain things that police agencies do that Certainly impact The degree of trust the degree of Function Nality Etc. But then are not necessarily going to be captured in the complaint review process. So As Steve indicated the force review is a good example, but there are other things that Are out there and I could just give you a few examples of things that we could do For example, what we've done in other agencies has taken an audit look at the way in which Officers respond to individuals of mental health crisis and how the addition of other resources has helped or not And what's been effective with regard to that just as an example another example I know that there has been a lot of discussion in this city about whether or not it would be advisable to Re-energize the school resource program. That's another area in which we could talk about best practices and and the light but We are certainly receptive to any suggestions particularly by the leadership of The city you all and we have talked with your city manager about some of these topics on a forward-going basis Great. Thank you. That's all I have. Do you have any more questions? No, sir. All right. We'll go to public comment on this item. So if you have any If anybody here in the chamber has any comments they'd like to share on this subject, please move towards one of the microphones All right. See nobody moving at all We'll end public comment and we will move on. Thank you all very much All right. Next up on the agenda 5.2 is the safer grant implementation by The fire chief Ready when you are chief. All right. Good morning chair O'Crepkey and councilmember Alvarez Scott Westrow fire chief for the city of Santa Rosa This morning. I'll be presenting on the update on our safer grant implementation Just as some background as we presented in August of on August 22nd of 2023 The fire department applied for a safer grant, which is the staffing and adequate fire emergency response grant out of FEMA This is for hiring firefighters in compliance with our NFPA 1710 response times There is no cost share or a match during the period of performance We were fortunate enough on September 20th of 2023 to be awarded the grant for seven point zero eight million dollars over three years Equating to two point three six million dollars a year Allowing us to hire 12 firefighter paramedics That will staff two advanced life support squads during peak hours Probably 0800 eight o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock at night and during the nighttime hours. They will be staffing Engine companies on the outlying portions of the town Allowing us to meet more compliance with 1710 during our nighttime response to structure fires the grant terms The period of performance is March 13th 2024 through March 12th of 2027 The new employees must be hired and the program implemented by March 13th of next year The funding will remain for three years and we will have annual reports required to go to FEMA So as far as the implementation plan goes we built an implementation implementation team It's a joint labor management effort led by our EMS division It includes 20 members of the organization across all ranks and all seniority levels The goals and objectives of this team are to come up with a plan on hiring and onboarding apparatus and equipment station logistics operational procedures and reporting and data collection Is this is a relatively new concept to the Santa Rosa fire department? It's a new resource that we'll be adding there's obviously comes a lot of change that goes in with that So they have a a lot of work to get done in a short amount of time They have to change all of our CAD deployments for example a lot of our SOPs And our operational control procedures on all types of events The first draft of this plan is due back to To my office on November 1st from this team in which point we'll take a look at where they're at and make any changes need to make But we'll continue the planning process Our current eligibility list for entry-level firefighter paramedics has enough applicants on it Pending backgrounds. We'll see how many get through we currently have 29 on it where we had 29 on the list We paired it down to 16 And they're actually doing interviews with those employees as we speak right now So depending on how many we get out of Of this pool we may have to go back and do specific specific recruiting for this position or these positions In the future. So a lot of work is being done The team is doing a great job of putting a comprehensive plan together to Deploy this new resource and we're really excited But we are on track to deploy The squads via the safer grant by march of next year And with that, I'll turn to everybody for any questions. Thank you very much Councilmember Alvarez. I'm not at this time. Well, thank you. Um, all right. My only question would be Is that timeline Realistic for the hiring of those positions as well as the acquisition of the apparatus It is as far as the personnel goes, you know, we're we're fortunate enough to have a good group of people already on the list And then we can go back out and do another recruitment, whether it's lateral or entry level So we're we're confident. We'll have the employees on boarded by then We have our background process. It's it's pretty Pretty comprehensive. We have it down to about six weeks And we're actually in the process of hiring a second background investigator to help us through that process To expedite that process. So We're confident we can get the personnel there As far as the apparatus goes, it's going to be a bit of a moving target We can start now with what we have we established the pandemic response unit if you recall back during covid Which was converting one of our staff fleet vehicles into a Essentially what's going to be a squad makeup. So we have that capability with our current fleet. It's not going to be perfect It'll work The sander is a fire foundation reach recently purchased two vehicles That could be used in that capacity as well So there'll be a new three-quarter ton pickups that actually have pumping capability And then long term we're looking at purchasing actual rescue squads That we'll probably look at measure o for purchasing in the next fiscal year. So You know, we have the ability to get the resources on the street as far as the apparatus goes now It's just going to be evolving Based on what we have the financial capability to do Thank you. And just for The the edification of the public can you kind of get Give a breakdown of what a squad is so that people understand. Yeah, sure A squad is essentially, you know, you go back You know, 40 or 50 years ago squads were pretty prevalent throughout the the fire service Um I'll avoid explaining squad 51 too much to everybody but a great show called emergency which got me in the fire service in the 70s But uh squad 51. So essentially it's a two person resource It's on a small light piece of equipment. They could respond very quickly But those two personnel both being paramedics can really help Particularly in the core area cut down the call volume particularly in emergency medical responses that our engines are going on a day to day basis So it takes the the workload off the engine companies that are Very very busy And it also provides two paramedics on scene very quickly Without impacting the engines. So They're very effective. They're still being used in larger metropolitan cities Quite progressively. So it's just something we actually had squads back in the in the 80s But it's sort of it's sort of going back in time but something that's uh Very useful. It's going to be a great tool and a great addition to our response matrix to get us through the next couple years Great. Thank you very much We will move to public comment on this If you have any public comment for anyone in the room, please move towards the microphone Seeing nobody moving We will close public comments Any comments Chief love the staff. I run into them everywhere and nothing but smiles and and and Really just seeing the great work that that the senator of the fire department does. So thank you for again Again, the culture that's being created within the city of san rosa. I do appreciate it. Thank you Thank you Yes, I also agree. Um, I don't really have any other comments other than possibly updating your pop cultural references um to something that is more current than you know before I was born but um Uh, I think this is great Um, I know you were sweating bullets on this because it came down to you know, maybe one of the last weeks before we found out but I'm very excited to see what This kind of going back to the future model can do to to help cut down call volume on our engines and also, uh, you know lifesaving Also help our lifesaving efforts. So thank you. Thank you and just real quick. I'm just super proud of the team They they really got creative And they used a lot of ingenuity to come up with A model that will will suit both the needs of FEMA for the grant but also for our community and what we need to do to Serve the community better All right, awesome. Thank you very much We're going to move on to uh item 5.3, which is the measure h update and I believe uh chief you are up first on this City manager, would it be beneficial for me just to give a little bit of background as to why this is on here Why we're doing a measure h update and So because measure o came up for renewal via vote, which was then called measure h We now have measure h for a 20 year window And so we've asked the departments to give updates on Their efforts within the scope of the now newly named measure h Think you just did So good morning again scott westrop fire chief city of santa rosa And this will be a three part presentation very briefly on Where the departments that benefit from the public safety sales tax measure Benefit from what was measure o transitioning into measure h. I will add that finance is asked For staff input on what to properly name this tax measure. So it's not confusing to us into the public So in the next meeting that's coming up in the next couple weeks the measure o subcommittee or System oversight committee rather will actually be choosing a formal name to call this into the future So we're not confused all the time on which measure we're talking about So as the chair described he asked us to come forward and talk about what the sales tax measure does for The three departments that benefit from it And i'll just cover the fire department very very briefly So for the fire department, there's three things very You know in a simplified format that we can spend measure o revenue on its personnel Station construction and specialized equipment So currently for the fire department We have additional firefighters An additional paramedic units deployed Via the sales tax measure. We have three paramedic captains three paramedic engineers Three paramedic firefighters and our training captain that runs our training facility In addition to the 10 fte's we have our training Excuse me our ems division chief a quarter of that position is paid for by measure o As well as six paramedic incentive positions that Equip our ladder trucks being advanced life support. So So it it's a big number for us if you look at the totality of the fte's for the fire department equates to an essentially an entire company So it takes nine people to staff an engine company and measure o provides us those nine positions. So Again, we were kind of sweating bullets on the reformer measure o into measure h Because it risked for us was an entire engine company, which we can't stand to lose right now Measure o has historically been designated for station construction and relocation of fire stations We've built station five with measure o station 10 in the southwest and station 11 in the jc neighborhood with measure o funds Because There is funding set aside for the relocation of fire station eight in roseland and funding a few future fire station nine In the southeast as far as the replacement of portable buildings station 11 in the jc with a permanent structure The one thing that i'll say for For measure o or measure h for us is the way it was set up in 2004 as a quarter cent sales tax measure We hold a reserve fund balance in these accounts in order to build up to what we would consider at the time to be able to build a fire station The unfortunate thing is that the the construction costs have outpaced the revenue created by the sales tax measures. So So will we hold money in reserve? It's not enough to build a fire station, but we use it For obviously we can use it to Relocate stations or purchase property. So we still hold that but we can't use it to just outright build a fire station anymore But that's still what it's set aside for And lastly as far as special equipment goes since inception we've been able to buy 55 dual band mobile radios and eight mobile repeaters For all of our equipment. Um, this is this came out of after the tubs in the glass fire where we needed that dual band capability to work with our law enforcement partners particularly around Events such as evacuations or a potential active shooter event So all of our resources have been switched over to a dual dual band radio. So measure o was able to fund that last year We've purchased two type one fire engines One is actually on order right now and i'll talk about that later in a different presentation It purchased the type three wildland fire engine Four command vehicles in our swift water rescue trailer. So So it's peeled us that measure o or measure h or whatever we're going to call it in the future Remains solvent. It really is helping us and it's really important To how we serve the community and with that i will turn over to chief cregan Real quick Would i'm looking to the city manager in the city attorney would it be okay to ask questions And so we don't have a rotating Carousel of chiefs and and vpp. All right councilmember alvarez. Do you have any questions? No, sir All right. My only question is on the dual band mobile radios You know, we do have uh our downtown up or we want to build up Are these capable should i know we have one 16 story building, but should we go? 10 15 floors on multiple buildings. Are these capable of having sufficient communication within those kinds of buildings? For the most part they do It really depends on the power of the radio and how the buildings built but one of the things that we're I'm really looking at through the fire prevention division is making sure that radios are interoperable within buildings by having New construction integrate, you know repeater systems and things like that inside their building So There's a couple hospitals that are really tough because they're so concrete and metal and there's so much equipment And then where we have some communication difficulties So it does increase the power and it does increase our communication capability But there's a lot of different technologies that we're looking at That would increase our our capability not only in buildings, but also the other factor is On these wildland incidents, you know our tactical channels do not have a repeater So it's line of sight and sometimes we get really stretched out and so how we build that capability into those Systems as well So there's a lot of technology emerging and we have a great team looking after it making sure that we're We have that safety factor built into all of our communication systems Are these repeaters available to the general public or only to public safety entities only to public safety entities? Okay, thank you We'll transition over to chief cregan And the chair, I don't know if it's um clear to the public that measure o actually sunset sunsets March 2025 So Want to make certain that that's noted I think is the the fire chief explained that it's not clear to many people About this that yes measure of funding is sunsetting but is being replaced by measure h going forward Yes, and we definitely need to have a more consistent name All right, we'll kick off with the police department and chief john cregan and And quite honestly measure h is now we'll come up with whatever the name we're going to call but with a new measure h Is vital to the santa rosa police department and we average about 4.2 million dollars a year that we're getting dedicated specifically Uh to the police department from the tax revenue generated from this But it's critical and this first slide talks about it and our program has always been heavily funded towards staff that we're putting in Through measure h and so here we have 16 staff members and you see latin it That latin it overviews like our special events like all of our major events at the fairgrounds and other special events throughout the city Our traffic team and our downtown enforcement team, which are all really critical Teams that that we work with we added just this year for this new fiscal year a new sergeant position And that sergeant position is what for we hope our future of our gang crimes team to come back And we're still uh working to get our staffing levels as we get our rest of our office of ross training We really had a lot of community meetings about how do we bring back a gang crime team that meets expectations of our community Really as that focus on prevention intervention and education and working with our key partners with the violence prevention partnership of having that upstream approach So hopefully we start seeing reduction in some of the violent gang crime across the city of santa rosa But that was a new addition this year and we have nine police officers And those nine police officers are spread in three different buckets five of them are in patrol enhancing some of our patrol resources Really focus on driving down our priority one response times Then we have two that are dedicated to our traffic division and they're both motorcycle officers We saw last year eight fatal collisions across the city of santa rosa So we really put a increased focus on some of our traffic safety and enforcement and so far this year We've seen a dramatic reduction. We've had just two fatal collisions But still two that's two lives that are lost and we want to put every effort that we can into it And then the final two officers out of those nine are dedicated to our downtown enforcement team And we're going to talk about that later in the chief updates but that's one of the things that we're really excited that for the first time ever we've expanded that team to eight And uh measure h is helping us to be able to do that and we'll talk a little bit more about what that team's doing But equally important. We have five civilian uh team members here that are funded through measure h Two of those are the field and evidence technicians and the field and evidence technicians Play such a key role and they process every crime scene of significant crime scene that happened So last year we had 12 homicides and literally dozens of shootings and other violent crimes that occurred across the city of santa rosa They go out and it's really important not only for the judicial process So they're collecting all the dna and they're taking photographs. They're taking uh 3d scans They're processing dna evidence and they come to court and testified as those qualified court experts On the collection of dna and this evidence and they really play a key role And when they're not processing crime scenes, they go out and handle Collisions and burglary reports and other non-suspect reports So police officers can be available to respond to our emergency calls The same with we have one of our community service officers and they don't process crime scenes But they go to the non-injury collisions and to burglary calls And graffiti calls and other things like that across the city. So they're a key partner with this One communication. So dispatch supervisor. We have three dedicated dispatcher Supervisors who oversee 24 dispatchers that we have who work in 24 7 and they help on those major events About being able to kind of bring some calm to that chaos helping our dispatchers and the dispatchers are really our Communities like first connection with the police department when they're reaching out for help So we really want to make sure that we have the best level of service there and that dedicated Supervisor that's funded through this program is so important and then one police technician And this is one of the the toughest positions that we have in the police department is our police technician They process literally thousands of crime reports that we that our officers commit every or submit every year Collisions they're doing things like taking low-level reports like missing persons Stolen vehicles and a host of other things and it's one of the busiest teams And so this team is really critically Underfunded and so we're able to at least give them one position right here through measure h So those is kind of a breakdown of our 16 positions that really Without these 16 positions it would be crippling to our organization. So we're so appreciative of the support we have from this special tax Our next slide here kind of talks about what more we're doing So we're like I talked about the five officers that are dedicated specifically patrol But the other four that are in motors and in downtown enforcement Really enhance our patrol services as well And that's allowing us to do some of the things with traffic safety and violence reduction, which is one one of my key Priorities the expansion of the DET Office our team that we talked about but also measure h actually leases the downtown Substation that we have which is part of the transit mall there And part of our goal is and we've all known that transit malls Had some ups and downs over the years was sometimes some crime there some youth involved in some activity there So we really want the downtown enforcement team to be very visible and president the transit mall Santa Rosa Plaza and all of our downtown core area The traffic officer and these enhanced patrol resources have also really helped with our sideshow enforcement and prevention And that's another thing i'm going to talk about our updates later, and we've really revolutionized The sideshows that are happening here in the city of Santa Rosa and we're so excited with that progress But these officers have been instrumental in helping us accomplish that also with our ghost gun cheesers Last year officer sieves 236 illegal firearms off the streets of Santa Rosa 74 of those were ghost guns. That's incredible never seen that level of guns accessible in our community So far just in 2023 there are over 175 guns Guns seized off the streets of Santa Rosa and 34 ghost guns So we're continuing to see an uptick in these firearms and these officers are able to help us to be able to take Some of those steps and hopefully what we're going to see is a reduction in some of the violence But also what we're really doing is focusing on working with our violence prevention partnership of talking with Kids about the dangers of accessing these firearms and talking to parents And working with some of our other key community stakeholders to be able to get some of these guns off the streets of Santa Rosa We've seen the engagement we talked about it's really important for us We've had some exciting events And we had just the recent one with the tacos with a cop out on apple valley And we and the violence prevention partnership came with us and brought Eight different local nonprofits that were able to come there and put table events to be able to really give some of the resources And that's what we want to do and we had a taco truck came and it was so exciting to see Literally hundreds of families and kids and moms and dads Coming out there and engaging with our partnership team with the police department team With our city leaders who were there and this is what we want to do more of and this has helped us build Some of that trust in the community that we need and that way if someone is a victim of violent crime in Santa Rosa Or any crime they feel safe and comfortable to report it to the police department And then what we really want to be able to do is use our partnerships there at the vpp to be able to steer them Okay, here's some of the available resources that we have here We talked about some of the major events that our traffic will attend at doing another thing is that we're really happy about is we have a dedicated incident management team And that's what we're seeing for managing the major events that we've seen with wildfire evacuations And we know how overwhelming that can be for our city team So we built a dedicated department operation center with a dedicated incident management team And that all comes under the supervision of this measure h Lieutenant that's focusing on all these major events that we have in the city and making sure That whether it be country summer or the fairgrounds wednesday night market Whatever the event may be and now with our beautiful courthouse square. We're seeing almost every event mega events There so we really want to make sure that we have the resources to make sure that all those can be Safely held here for the city of santa rosa And now i'll take any questions you have from the police department before we turn it over to the partnership All right, so I don't have any questions. So we'll turn it over to vpp perfect violence prevention partnership. Sorry We defer to acronyms. So sorry to the general public for any confusion When you're ready, just go ahead introduce yourselves and get started. Good morning. Jeff tibetz w director with the recreation and parks department Danielle gardenio violence prevention program manager So i'm going to break one of the cardinal rules of a good presentation and start with an apology So today's presentation is really going to focus on the violence prevention partnership By the time I realized we were doing more of an overview and I should have had more information on neighborhood services There's a little a little too late to get that But we do have a lot of that information coming out as we're preparing for the citizens oversight committee presentation as well in the annual report So quickly before I have Danielle jump into the vpp. We're focused on that with the five-year strategic plan the one-year Implementation coming forward for year one But with neighborhood services, obviously that's a critical piece of this as well the upstream investment So that is the section of neighborhood of recreation and parks That is providing a lot of programs for youth primarily elementary through middle school aged With sports after-school programs summer camps break camps those types of things So the two roughly two million dollars a year through measure OH whatever we're calling it that comes through Is roughly split about 50 50 between vpp and the neighborhood services section So with roughly that million dollars a measure or so We measure units of service, which is for us a unit of service as a child for one hour in a program And neighborhood services is providing again through those sports after-school programs camps all those things Just under 200 000 units of service per year So again, as we all know right. I mean the things that we've heard that that upstream investment really is the most efficient model for us to get You know a substantial bang for our buck So again, if you have any questions or want any more information on the neighborhood services programs I can certainly provide that for you But now for this presentation. I will have danielle take over and talk about what we're doing with vpp and our five-year strategic plan Just real quick. Did you say 200 000 units? Yeah, just a little we're trying to get there. We're at about 185 000 at this point. So we're we're working towards that 200 000 mark Still impressive. Thank you. All right. Thank you So when looking at measure o funding and what it provides for our violence prevention partnership staff We have one so four FTEs One program manager myself. We also have one administrative analyst which oversees our choice grant program We have one community outreach specialist which focuses on our outreach and training and education components And one senior admin assistant. I will say that With our admin analysts, we're currently working to underfill that position with a research and program coordinator So we can move some of the high level admin duties off of that particular position focus more on oversight of choice and also Do more Research into other funding opportunities that we can leverage to implement the pieces of our strategic plan We also have two additional community outreach specialist positions that are not funded by measure o one funded through our MOU with cinnamon county probation Which this is our wraparound coordinator position which oversees our guiding people successfully referral program And pgd settlement funds which fund one community outreach specialist focus on street outreach and crisis response So our current programming with measure o we have our guiding people successfully program So again, we leverage funding through cinnamon county probation To implement the gps program gps provides critical funding for system level improvements to our referral system Which also supports evidence informed prevention and intervention programs including services Such as case management in home counseling and classes for parents Since its inception in january of 2015. We have served 515 youth through gps And this last fiscal year 22 23 We saw 119 non probationary youth referrals and 20 youth Who are on probation so referrals coming directly from probation? This is compared to the previous fiscal year We had 48 non probation referrals And 12 probationary referrals So we are seeing an uptick in our referrals through our gps program One of the reasons why we're seeing this increase Is One the march 1st incident that happened at montgomery high school Seeing more needs coming in from various schools with incidences of violence happening on campus As well as an upticking gang related activity that is happening off school campuses in our community Which also included the two shootings that happened here as well Um also with our choice or our measure o funding. We implement the choice grant program We are currently in our 11th cycle of choice Um through this cycle 11 we fund eight agencies to implement programs under the following three pillars Which include school readiness student engagement and truancy prevention and street outreach and mediation To evaluate our work we use what's called the results based accountability framework Where all of our community partners or our grantees are asked to use specific performance measures to evaluate the following How much did we do how well did we do it and was anyone better off? We contracted with applied survey research to provide our evaluation services for this particular cycle And applied survey research staff helped develop our cycle 11 evaluation plan and logic model With input from both staff and our grantees They also provided technical assistance to our choice grantees on development of performance measures and evaluation tools And from that we do have a year one summary report Which we will be presenting to the measure o citizen oversight committee in a few weeks In some of these numbers include a 5085 participants serve through events programming and workshop During year one This includes five violence prevention awareness series events that were held by our community partners Which reads 870 total participants through our Our partnership with four c's 113 families received case management services to assist finding child care and other family support needs 84 of these families Were in our youth were enrolled in child care as a result of participating in this program Community action partnership was able to engage 254 rosalind school district students to provide violence prevention and intervention resources 79 total youth were enrolled in the fuesa or rosalind strong program Through life works 140 youth and their family members engaged in counseling services 89 percent showed a reduction in risk-taking behavior like gang involvement and substance use Uh through the boys and girls club 220 223 youth participated in diversion and intervention services 86 percent of these youth did not violate probation while enrolled And 96 percent did not incur new criminal charges While they were enrolled in the program We also funded several other community organizations including the center for well-being community matters Landpass and rice is collective to implement programming around youth leadership development safe school ambassador program Outdoor activities and education and art programming as well Reaching many different students and their families in a variety of different pro-social activities We also were able to implement the choice mini grant program once again this year Historically this mini grant program provides funding for operational costs and capacity building activities related to violence prevention The program was on pause during the pandemic or reopened in april of 2023 We received nine applications All of which were reviewed in june and all received funding through this program totaling about $50,000 moving forward though Given the current needs and state of violence in our community We are refocusing those funds to respond to crisis response needs Including relocation costs basic needs transportation to services and food for victims of violence in their immediate family Other programming that we use metal measure o4 include crisis response So again, I mentioned that we were able to respond to the incident at Montgomery high school this year our partnership Staff linked students and families to needed services including services provided by our choice cycle 11 grantees So life works was able to provide 11 free supportive therapy sessions for students on campus Rises collective provided in-class art activities and a lunch art lab on campus As well as facilitated discussions about cultivating and maintaining safety with students who witnessed the violence directly Community matters brought together school staff administrators and community members to identify ways to make changes So the incidents is like this don't happen again And unfortunately the incident happened the day after community matters did their safe school ambassador training on campus So they're they continue to work with montgomery high school this year To create a safer environment on campus In addition community action partnership utilize their Their relationships with the rosin school district students and parents To provide a workshop to support increased communication between schools and families around school safety Finally our partnership also part our staff participated in several debrief sessions with districts and school administrators And we also participated in their wellness school wellness fair in may and we will be there also tomorrow on campus for their their wellness fair We also initiated the crisis response team after the two shootings in june We also hosted a listening session with community members on june 27th To follow up not only to collect feedback on our strategic plan But to hear feedback from the community as to issues around gang violence and community violence in general in our community In addition to that we worked with buccaloo programs foresees life works Santa Rosa police department and the district attorney's office to assist one of the witnesses of the first shooting and Obtaining services including mental health therapy and relocation assistance We also hosted two community wellness pop-ups in response to both shootings We brought together partners resources services and we also brought ice cream to each neighborhood And engage approximately 150 residents From both neighborhoods. We had a total of 15 community partners that participated in the first work Pop-up in the belview ranch neighborhood and 10 community partners who participated at the pop-up at the continental apartments on corby avenue As chief kriggan also mentioned we also participated in the tacos with the cop in ample valley And brought resources out to that neighborhood We also continued to implement the life skills curriculum Which is a 12-week course which offers participating students classes in anger management conflict resolution and exposure to various violence prevention strategies and activities This curriculum was implemented at roslyn accelerated middle school during the school year and at our neighborhood services team Teen sports camp During the summer, which was shortened from the 12 traditional 12 weeks to six weeks given the length of the summer camp Six rams students and 24 youth from the teen sports camps participated in each weekly session Each session follows a restorative circle format where youth are provided with opportunity to dialogue with one another About their feelings and experiences as well as journal and engage in interactive activities Centered around a weekly theme This program is modeled after the regress Aggression replacement training or art program and includes wraparound services Provided to all youth and their families We also followed up with students who participated in the life skills classes at santa rosa middle school during the previous school year and That is my presentation Thank you. So you're not doing much, huh? That's quite a bit. Um, let's go to questions councilmember alvarez. Do you have any questions? No, not some all right. Um, I just have a couple real quick I think because of this of the transition of vpp Between departments as well as you're presenting the public safety subcommittee, but there is a vp There are two vpp committees as well as a measure o Slash h committee. Um, can you just give an overall idea about the Um, the responsibilities of the measure o citizen oversight as well as the two vpp committees and what they do versus Each other and obviously us Yeah, so the uh measure o from its inception in 2004 has had the citizens oversight committee Similar to this presentation all three areas of measure o report out to that We do for when we're doing our budget And they review and and approve that the budget the expenditures proposed in the budget are in line with with the ordinance And then we report to them again in an annual report on what programming we provide So kind of a look to the future and then a look to the past so Here in a couple of weeks we will be presenting to them again with our annual report And reporting out on all the services that we just provided And then within the structure of the violence prevention partnership We have a policy team and we have an operational team policy team Is consists of representatives from all of our participating partners At the higher level so we have you know, we have the chief of police. We have the d.a public defender Directors of nonprofits so on and so forth that participate those meetings are open to the public They happen Every other month our next one is on november 8th Being held at the ufo. I believe Looking at my staff to confirm that i'm not 100 sure we've been moving them around a little bit That that committee is really focused on the implementation and oversight of our strategic plan So developing that strategic plan coming up with an implementation plan and then coming up with Outcomes measurable objectives that we can utilize to To implement also looking for different sources of funding aside from measure o We have a lot of work to do and can't do it all with measure o funding So looking at other opportunities that are available to us And then our operational team meets every month that meeting is closed to the public Because we do case specific discussions we talk about Youth in our referral system as well as hot spots and trends that are going on in our community that pertain to violence That are critical for us to know about so that we can best serve our community And I should have specified the uh the citizens oversight committee as the name might suggest Is comprised of members of the community that are appointed by council members Yes, and the policy team also is chaired by our vice mayor currently So it's uh has two council representative appointed by our mayor chaired by our vice mayor and council member staff is the other representative Great. Thank you very much For the uh pgne funded street outreach and crisis response What is the sunset on that funding? June of 2025 Okay, thank you very much And then in terms of choice grants you you mentioned the term cycle What is the choice just so to for everyone's identification? What is the choice grant cycle in terms of time and length? Historically it has been a two-year grant cycle starting in january of a particular year and ending two years later on december 31st um However, the last couple of years given the pandemic and issues that we've had with implementing programming Given the in-person restrictions. We've moved to a um as well as I will be honest some staff over overturned in our department um, it's extended it by six months so Cycle 10 and cycle 11 have both been two and a half years Great, and then do we have any um Metrics to measure success of choice grants and if so do we know how successful these are? Yes, so use utilizing the results based accountability framework. We have the is anyone better off performance measures Most of these are um participants that have exited successfully successfully from their programming This might look different though for each uh program So for example boys and girls club through their reach program that is a reentry program So they work with youth that are currently incarcerated in juvenile hall And work with them as they re-enter back into community They have a a mentor that's assigned to them to help, you know, link them to job opportunities Make sure they're getting to their court mandated appointments So on and so forth. So they're exiting successfully is they look at The number and percentage of youth that don't violate their the terms of their probation while they're in that program As well as number and percentages of youth that don't incur any new criminal charges as part of their program Another example would be foresees. They're looking at the number of Children that are enrolled in child care services, whether it be preschool Or after school for elementary age students Okay, thank you very much that's all my questions for right now We'll go ahead to public comment on this matter if you have any public comments on Any of these three reports we'll go ahead and move to the to that if there is anybody seeing none We'll close public comment and come back to The committee comment council member avarice. Do you have anything you'd like to address? Pretty much a question slash concern. We're hearing a lot about the misuse of funds from nonprofits What are we doing to to maintain accountability transparency when we are funding different programs? Uh, so our reporting, uh, they have to report out to us on a quarterly basis They have an expense report a quarterly narrative as well as data entry So data entering data for all of their performance measures into our clear impact scorecard database That and then our staff will review that Information and if there are any red flags or questions that come up We work directly with the agency to address those. Thank you All right. Um, yeah, just my comments real quick. Um, I very much agree renaming is vital. Um, I think in the meantime, we can just call it measure o spelled o h. Um, and uh Tacos with a cop While it was termed tacos with a cop and that was a vital component having vpp out there I think just completely opened up the entirety of the event To a much more holistic approach to to um law enforcement and violence prevention. Um, I think it's Extremely clear that measure o slash h in the renewal of h. Um is Not being hyperbolic, but is a life-saving Effort by our by our community voting on an implementation by our team here Whether that be with law enforcement and fire now or with violence prevention partnership in the future So, um, I think that's been great one thing. Um During this, uh, uh report that, um, I think we can't I think we're we're kind of at a point with the five-year strategic plan with the renewal of measure h Measure h being a 20-year period The five-year strategic plan, um, and the cycles closing that I'd like to see if possible We bring this back to the, um, January meeting To discuss, uh, long-term funding options, um for vpp So that we're not on, you know, hey, let's do two years or three years But if there's something that we could do, you know on a five-year plan that may be more effective, um, and possibly get some feedback from The subcommittee here, um, I'd really like to see that That is all my comments, um, you good? All right, we'll move on then. Thank you very much Really appreciate your time The next item 5.4 is the vegetation management program update and when you are ready Uh, go ahead and get started Good morning, paul oenthal division chief fire marshal with the san rosa fire department Here to present an update on our vegetation management program This is actually in advance of, uh, what you'll be hearing about in january for our annual update to our community wildfire protection plan And also in advance of an ordinance whole bringing forward to you regarding this program in december So the vegetation management program, uh, Existed within our department kind of informally for several years obviously that, uh, kicked into a More recognized and developed program after the 2017 fires and then officially, uh, when it was, uh Essentially driven by the adoption of the community wildfire protection plan in 2019 Uh council approved that plan with the plan comes the annual report, uh, which again, you'll hear about In january, uh, the program itself is primarily funded by a combination of the money that was allocated by council In the amount of five and a quarter million dollars, uh, as well as through, uh, grants The five million for the program and then about 250 000 for the renewal of the cwpp Which we will start that process at some point probably in late 2024 So the cwpp, uh, Essentially, uh, really did no pun intended get into the weeds It's much different than other cwpps that we've seen where the plan essentially checks a box and allows Agencies to apply for grant funding by being able to point To an existing plan that meets, uh, the definition of what a cwpp needs to cover The, uh The company that we essentially used to develop ours, uh, took a different approach And actually provided us with a roadmap of what we can do to make santa rosa better prepared to Deal with and mitigate the risks associated with wildfires Through that, uh, they developed nine objectives and 46 actionable items That starts first with gis coordination Uh, the coordination and tracking where we've basically started to map a lot of our fuel treatment areas areas that our community is mapping in So that we can see when we did the work and start forecasting when additional work needs to be done in specific areas Improving evacuation routes, uh, you'll hear a little bit more about that shortly about what we're doing to improve The evacuation routes that we have throughout our community And that term's used a little loosely In some jurisdictions they have actual legitimately dedicated evacuation routes where there's one way in one way out We have a lot of street networks that we treat as evacuation routes because they can help move people out of specific geographical areas of our community Educating the public on how to Be better prepared to mitigate the risks and damage associated with wildfire That's where a lot of our effort is going. Uh, in addition to physical work There's a tremendous amount of work going into actual Education and then the next one improving overall wildfire preparedness Uh, that is right now in addition to being funded by the vegetation management program It's also being offset by a cbdg grant That is doing a lot of good work that you'll see around the community with signage that we actually have up around the city Pointing people towards our wildfire ready website, whether it's education outreach materials handouts that a lot of the increased Events and outreach education Events that we've been at Increased structural hardening You'll hear a little bit more about that shortly, but in addition to making Some of the funding publicly accessible and available either through different county grant programs, whether it's through PACE or an actual grant that we have in process Uh, or additional code language that we can come out with we're committed to helping with that issue And then treating vegetation to reduce the wildfire risks that is happening Primarily within our wildland urban interface, but also In areas across our community where there is a higher level of risk And again for those unfamiliar with it our wildland urban interface is primarily our hillside areas Most notably the bennett valley area between summer field in andle state park found grove Shanae down to the flamingo The skyhawk area as well as the south part of okma between okma drive and andle state park Improvement of defensible space and defensible space standards is Another effort that we have primarily been doing it on a case-by-case basis through Request, but that is Improving and we'll be moving forward towards an actual enforcement program And then we've increased our staffing through limited term positions to help Offset the the increase in needs associated with the overall program And then lastly consider expanding the wildland urban interface fire area to include other parts of the city That could potentially be considered part of our wooey So our program highlights as we mentioned for this year the cbdg funding under the Bit public services Essentially, we're able to qualify for the full amount of a half a million dollars That money right now is being used to fund our wildfire ready annual events staff time With costs associated with the development of the ordinance that we have in motion right now a lot of the education and almost your education materials Outreach the swag that we have for For events Is all being offset with those costs Another exciting opportunity that we have right now Is the mo use both with the junior college and fire safe sonoma Fire safe sonoma is the countywide fire safe council that really lacked a home We provided that home to fire safe sonoma where they're utilizing our office space In exchange for their use of our office space They'll actually be helping move forward with some grant funding projects for us Looking at a chipper program or potential other projects that they can do for the city in exchange for that mo you The jc with their Essentially their vegetation management program that they're developing to help educate an instruct on defensible space work and Literally helping people that are working strictly in landscape business be able to have some of the knowledge and understanding to Move out of just that that work and into more defensible space and fuel management type of work Part of the mo you that we've been working on with recreation and parks Is to allow them to use our city-owned properties to actual Actually start doing some of that physical work in our property And then another piece of it is actually integrating their grazing program from Shown farm and private property to actually bringing their grazing through that mo you onto city property as well Fuel treatment projects both in the form of burning and actual physical fuel management So as some of you are aware, we initiated our first burning project on old redwood highway Uh on state-owned property within our wild end of interface That was the first of what we hope is many of burns that we will conduct in between that location and mark west springs road To work on mitigating future risks of fire spreading from uphill downhill Or from downhill uphill, which is what we're more at risk with with just our typical wind flow We've also done shaded fuel breaks and fuel mitigation projects through both of our agreements with Sack, which is a supervised adult cruise, which is county probation And with the conservation court of the north bay, which is a new agreement that we have Most recently some of the examples of the work they're doing Was on the lower portion of fountain grove parkway in between the chenet intersects and chenet interchange and brush creek road They're actually working right now On the fountain grove and chenet interchange We've done work in the skyhawk open space Two weeks ago. We did a pretty Successful fuel treatment at vets memorial off of park trail that as it leads from city property up towards the state And it'll stay park And then we also did a fuel reduction project in this thomas lake harris open space That we actually hope to follow up with potentially a sprain application As well as a burning application We implemented phase one of two hmg HMgp hazard mitigation grant program projects one for evacuation route fuel treatment On about nine designated road systems throughout our community both in and out of the wild end of interface As well as our defensible space and home hardening the home hardening funds gutter guards And vent screens Those two grants Are an amount of about 4.9 million dollars total The phase ones of those two programs actually involve opting residents in where they signed up for the program And then we have to physically go out and validate every single one of those Addresses so we have over 400 properties that opted into the two programs We're well underway of the assessments our staff are finding that they're going a lot slower than anticipated because residents are really Excited about having not just the assessment done, but uses as an opportunity to actually do defensible space and answer questions and work with staff So regardless That phase one will be completed and turned back over to cal oes In early 2024 for us to submit for the physical phase two where they'll actually be doing the work Investigating the use of naturally based herbicides. So this Item was brought forward to the climate action subcommittee. This actually came out of the cwpp recommendations as as well This was in response to some of the changes in ecology that we're seeing within our wild end of interface Were areas that used to have oak tree and grass woodlands that were destroyed in Our tubs nuns and glass fires Have lost their canopy and we're seeing an explosive rate of growth of invasive species those species Are quite the challenge and the recommendation is to potentially use the spraying to Minimize the regrowth and prevent it The open space that we conducted that field treatment on on thomas lake harris We're actually hoping to use that potentially as a test case where we have physically cut and removed In some cases literally 14 foot tall scotch broom That is actually making our conditions worse today than they were actually in 17 Cutting it potentially spraying it as well as conducting a low intensity burn to see if it actually truly does Prevent the regrowth within that specific area We're working on that in partnership not only with parks And water but also with cal fire We're monitoring the anticipated developments and the changes to the very high fire hazard severity zone maps As many of us saw the draft maps came out for the state responsibility areas outside of the city limits Those maps did change Based on what we're seeing with the state's recommendations for the state area In advance of when they actually map the city of santa rosa We are right now forecasting even though we haven't seen them You can kind of see what some of the changes are going to be because the lines literally stop at the city limits That we're going to probably lose some of our very high fire hazard severity zones Which would be our higher highest risk areas in fountain grove skyhawk and potentially parts of oakmont But I think we'll see some moderate risk areas bubble up around the fairgrounds And off of petaluma hill road Which will likely require us to increase our wooey potentially in those areas Previously under the cwpp we evaluated Coffee park That was not included it and actually in the state's assessment some of the risks on the north end of santa rosa actually came down So that would be consistent with our current findings to not Create a wild end of interface that pushes into coffee park And then the development of the vegetation management. Sorry the hazardous vegetation and fuels management ordinance. This has been a An effort that is designed to do four things primarily One is it will require the removal of invasive vegetation Which is primarily scotch broom french broom and bay from specific areas That's going to be around uh, right-of-ways. So along road systems around defensible space zones along property lines It will also remove specific dead and downed trees within burn scars again along Defensive around defensible space zones along property lines around right-of-ways Um And these are both in responses to the changes of an ecology of the ecology and the effects that we've seen of our fires I don't think that we'll ever get to the point At least within my career of us physically addressing every dead and downed tree as a result of our wildfires in our city That's a new challenge that that we're not just seeing locally But we're seeing it all across the state But this is our attempt at least requiring what we can and the right now the recommendation is once the ordinance goes into effect It will give them a year to start To to mitigate those before we start to take action just with the enormous Undertaking that will require It'll also require the removal of Specific mulches what we're really trying to limit is the gorilla hair mulch Which is the stringy fibrous mulch that created headaches for us in the glass fire Within 30 feet of a structure and there's also a second type of mulch That is basically died and the characteristics of that mulch really do Promote the spread of fire. So it gives us the authority to Require the removal of both of those and again Within a year and then The biggest piece is basically taking the defensible space inspections Sorry, the defensible space requirements that are typically only for very high fire hazard severity zones And expanding them across our entire wildland urban interface fire area, which makes up about 9 000 properties within our wui And moving them into an actual education enforcement and inspection program And that is the update again in advance of the two items that you'll hear for you The ordinance in december and your annual cwpp update in january and available for any questions if you have any Thank you very much councilmember alvarez. Do you have any questions? Just overall, how's your looking going into winter? Do we have any forecasts of what next year may bring? Or is that looking way too far into the future? As much as we'd love to be able to predict that far out. It is a little far Both the chief our management team and emergency managers We all monitor the national weather service in both the short term and long term Forecasts through the national coordination center, which basically provides us kind of that outlook most typically Run about three months in advance And as we've seen even with this most recent rain that we got the national weather service literally told us about 24 hours before that rain hit that we're going to get about 500ths to maybe a tenth of an inch of rain and we ended up with About six tenths of an inch of rain. So The forecasts are are not always great, but they give us something to kind of gauge what we can expect Next year's a little too soon, but we are very happy with how things have gone this year Just with the amount of rainfall that we had this last winter The amount of moisture it provided in our heavier fuels like our trees our vegetation Unfortunately, it promoted a lot of seasonal grasses to grow But I think with the weather cooperating and a lot of the proactive measures that our communities taken the cities taken The counties taken to to mitigate those risks. We really saw a decrease in fire activity and fire spread Thank you Yeah, thank you for all this effort a couple quick questions Obviously a lot of this has been focused in the wooey and Uh The fountain grove area and rightfully so um, but as two west side representatives here Would I be correct in assuming that this is a holistic approach including the large open space grassy areas of the west side That also tend to have a lot of age structures on them Yes, although a majority of our materials are genuinely We were designed for the wild intermediaries fire area. It is not uncommon for us to do the same speeches the same Education outreach materials and the same defensible space inspections across the entire city limits We've performed those assessments as far west as folton road Where residents are are concerned and rightfully so from that typical Breeze that comes in off the shore that has the the potential to blow Uh, what could start out as a small grass fire to something a lot larger? Like we saw a couple years ago on launo road at todd when we burned 50 acres Um, so regardless of it being in the wooey our staff work with communities across the entire city In fact, we actually just conducted one of our vegetation management burns in the undeveloped portion of the youth community park Uh this year For that exact reason that we do have a lot of open spaces that although not in the wooey do present Some level of risk and can benefit from the vegetation management program Great to hear um My next question is on the um The hazardous vegetation and fuels management ordinance. Um When you said removal of invasive vegetation um Does that include invasive trees or is that just more like ground level what you would you know ladder fuels type of a thing So the language actually is going to specifically spell out scotch broom french broom and bay But it'll also give us the um discretion under the chief's authority or his designee To identify other uh on a case by case basis Needs to remove something but really this is the attempt to to deal with what is the primary hazard up there right now Is that explosive growth that is is literally spreading across? The the wild end of an interface both in and now out of the burn scar And again is is making the conditions in some cases worse today than it was before 17 Great. Thank you. I guess my concern would be would also be um Vegetation that uh poses a threat due to amber casts especially at you know Higher heights if that's the proper term That may be um unrealistic for those areas or or also invasive Can can you clarify maybe so I guess um If you look at look at something like eucalyptus that can grow very very high And while it may not pose a threat for it burning itself it can cast embers As I think a lot of us are very well aware um to a significant distance Understood so the intention of of that specific section is not to address Trees such as as eucalyptus that are invasive by nature It's strictly looking at vegetation and and we can maybe narrow down some of the definitions associated with the vegetation would be Right now We are aware that there are several areas within our community that could benefit from the removal of of eucalyptus. I know the Supervisor Corsi Allocated some of his funds to remove some of the eucalyptus around the Franklin cemetery And there's other areas within our community that we're we're looking at right now Part of the evacuation route fuel treatment includes shenate We are looking to see what if anything we can do as part of that program that would affect that The best thing that we're able to do right now is make recommendations that involve Removing a lot of the leaf litter around the bases of them to prevent the upward spread We've seen the success of that. We're just some of those activities keep them from spreading upwards But right now we don't have any an actual plans to to do any any forced abatement removal of eucalyptus All right. Thank you We will move on to public comment Since there is nobody other than city staff and elected in the room We'll close public comment And move to comments councilmember alvarez any further comments No, sir I guess my last few comments Or I actually would have three. I would like to see eucalyptus to be considered more Specifically since it has been identified as a possible issue You know further down a little further down the line. I know it's not just a magic wand and add it but you know make that Assessment especially since the supervisors and others have looked at it Um Did you want to address that before I move on I can if you want one of the the Things that we're looking at is the balance of what the requirement would look like and what the forced abatement would look like and just being totally transparent that is part of the conversation and and the the Circumstances that we found ourselves faced with is that we had to be careful even in determining What if any requirements we put under the ordinance can we potentially abate and how how do we fund that abatement? That was one of the big issues that um Chief building official jesse oswald and I talked about when we were looking at how to address the dead trees Because some of those requirements are not necessarily in conflict, but Touch on an existing tree ordinance and we knew as a city that we could not physically require the removal of every Every one of those trees because there just isn't the money for it. Which is why we originally tried to get callous to fund it They denied that request Ultimately ended up approving it for paradise But at least we're able to fight for them, but we're unable to get it done here So right now it's it's our attempt at doing what we can With within reason, but we will continue to look for opportunities to look at funding sources Either through hmgp or some other project where that would be a very viable option All right, maybe I should rephrase that as I would like that to be prioritized pending proper funding is that That yes, and I know cal fire supports it cal fires has offered to look at that with us as well. Okay, great. Thank you The vegetation education portion that's all the vegetation management education. That's awesome You know bringing in landscapers that don't really have an experience of that I really appreciate the effort with that and then i'm also very interested to see Would also be very interested to see the outcome of the Naturally based herbicides testing if that goes forward I I think that could be beneficial With that unless you have any further comments We can move on. Thank you very much All right next up we are going to have we don't have any matters held in committee And then we're going to go to department reports. So At least chief cregan you are first up And this is just a time for the departments to give updates on what's going on in their respective departments that may not be ready for a full agenda item or Things that are in the pipeline Absolutely, so I didn't do a fancy powerpoint like the fire chief. So i'm going to keep it short and sweet With it, but I have three of the things that I wanted to talk about that are really important things going on First is some of the advancements with our side show efforts Second was the expansion of our downtown enforcement team and the third we kind of hit on a little bit earlier done the oir presentation But as the the big strides forward in our recruitment efforts and the impacts that has on our city So we'll start with a quick overview of the side shows and we all know here in santa rosa in 2020 2021 and then the 2022 We were seeing these side shows almost on an every weekend event and we were seeing areas of our city city paralyzed with Dozens of vehicles sometimes 75 to 100 vehicles 100 to participants with three to 400 people participant and and kind of egging on the behavior And we saw violence at these with several shootings that occurring at our city We saw collisions occurring and we saw unfortunately community members sometimes coming out in frustration to stop the side show behavior I'm being assaulted and so when I stepped into the role of chief We heard very loudly from our community want to see a more proactive response from the police department on this effort So we started examining in front of the first things was Providing more resources for our officers and we were finding that our officers were Oftentimes responding to these out of control side shows or getting faced with rocks and bottles being thrown at them And not so much of a clear plan for how our officer is going to do So we worked with our other chiefs across sonoma county and our sheriff Here to be able to create a county-wide protocol in the santa rosa police department led the way on this every chief agreed to it And so now we have an agreement that every agency in sonoma county is going to send available officers No matter where it's happening in the county and we get to about between 25 to 40 officers that are part of these And we all were able to move in quickly And we also saw that it's so important to shut down the side show behavior as quickly as possible not let it grow to These mega events so we started moving in more quickly Our city council led uh the sonoma county was the first here to create a side show ordinance And we created an october of last year to side show ordinance And it focused on four components the driver the passenger the spectator and the promoter organizer That was a game changer to this day. We've never written a citation for one of those But we've used it as an incredible enforcement tool and an education tool to help with parents and our youth To understand some of the legal consequences of these side shows We also started going out throughout this year and having that proactive approach and we've impounded over 150 115 Vehicles for 30 days that were actively involved in side show behavior And it's really had an like an astounding effect of each one of these some coming together so far in 2023 We've only had one side show that occurs So it's gone from an almost an every weekend to one and that was in january of 2023 It only had seven vehicles there We're able to shut it down within moments And so we've basically stopped side shows from occurring in the city of santa rosa We also though understand that with so many issues with gangs and so many issues Then we're not going to arrest our way out of these problems So that's why we've had kind of the multifaceted But we've really been working with the violence prevention partnership on some of the education But also the santa rosa police department joined this program called beat the heat Where we go out to the sonoma raceway and we're able to have officers in a mark patrol vehicle In a controlled environment get in these controlled races with the kids out there We did that years ago and we brought back this program and we're trying to talk to our youth and saying That's a safe and effective way to get out there if you want to show off your car and your driving skills Not doing it in communities across santa rosa and a really dangerous behavior So the brief update on that is that we've seen tremendous progress And it's been through the collaboration of our chiefs throughout sonoma county more clear direction to our staff Proactive enforcement and impounding some of the vehicles and the support of our city council with the first sonoma county ordinance And since then we've seen several other agencies here in cities across Sonoma county adopt almost word for word our same ordinance So we're really proud that we're able to lead the way on that one any questions revolving are involving the sideshow response Or any of the still community concerns that we're hearing in that area No other than I wonder where they went Yeah, really the message has been really clear for us not in santa rosa So side shows are still occurring around the bay area. We're also partnered with our City attorney's office and we're one of the first to be able to do a new program That's still pending where we were able to actually bring civil lawsuits against Several these for the damage they're doing to our roadways of not only doing thousands of dollars or tearing up our roadway But the environmental damage of rubber and other embers going down into our storm drains And so that's still a work in progress But the message is very clear and I think it's been well received that we're not going to tolerate this unlawful and legal behavior in the city of santa rosa We're going to give you other proactive or productive ways that you can go out there And if you want to be able to show off your skills with the behind the wheel Next one we'll talk about is the expansion of our downtown enforcement team So this has been an area that really has a ripple effect across our whole city Of wanting to have a safe and vibrant downtown that aligns with our city council goals And we've seen frustration over the years of sometimes a feeling of Of not having safety downtown and so we really made that a priority And it was really a two prong approach first of all was using our existing patrol resources to be more visible and get out of their cars So our officers know that and they know when they talk to me about really having a focus on Parking downtown but not even just downtown and your neighborhoods across santa rosa at your parks at your shopping centers Other community spaces getting out of your car walking through contacting our community hearing about some of their needs Passing out stickers or whatever it may be But we really put an included focus on downtown courthouse square railroad square and our core area here But then also we worked with our city council and we added two new positions So now the downtown enforcement team is at its greatest strengths We've ever seen in our apartment history with eight and that really allowed us and now we have seven day a week covers So now every day we have dedicated teams of downtown enforcement officers who are working throughout downtown But also working with our unsheltered population here in santa rosa Not just focusing on enforcement, but also on some of the outreach that we can do And we really have the the stands that we lead with compassion. So we're going out in each one of these contacts We're working with our partners at housing community services with catholic charities with our in-response team And so many other key partners to be able to help more of our unsheltered population Get some of the resources we've need we've seen our Large-scale and homeless encampments at the best they've ever been in santa rosa right now And you can just drive around the city and see that and that's because of all the city Partners coming together but with our downtown enforcement team leading the effort for our effort Also, we're doing things just like this friday night where they're doing evening and nighttime operations So we were out on friday night really focusing at our downtown parking garages And especially as we lean into the holidays that's so important that we want people Coming downtown seeing how incredible our downtown that the rest of our shopping centers are We have a new downtown ambassador program that we're launching So we're going to have our volunteers and policing that will be downtown and they're doing things helping people out with parking meters providing directions and information about different Stores and restaurants that we have and we really want to have that focus and we're really appreciative of our council support for the increase of our downtown Enforcement team and we're hearing really loudly from our community members about what a difference they're seeing And I was just talking to mark allen jewellery's who said he's been in that location for 33 years And that same location on 4th street looking over courthouse square and he said he's never seen downtown looking So good and that's with a combined effort and working closely with our Metro chamber in the downtown action organization and really bring it all of our resources together and really proud of some of the Impacts that we're seeing downtown and across the city of san rosa. Any questions on that with the downtown enforcement? Just real quick Does the I know that there has been some concern about the transit mall as well as the shopping mall Does the de t during their patrols go into either of those and make themselves? Known to be present in those areas as a deterrent Absolutely, so especially the transit mall. We have our de t office is right there in the transit mall So that they're every day and really working closely with our city staff that's there But that's something that i'm constantly encouraging them to even see if they can be more visible Not only the transit mall but across the street at comstock and then also there at the courthouse square So we're really trying to make a visible presence. We meet regularly with our director of san rosa Plaza and meet with them talking about some of the safety Needs that they have and security needs at the parking garages and inside the malls our downtown enforcement team walks through there We also entered into agreement in the last six months with Santa Rosa Plaza where we actually have a contract agreement just like when people can hire the police department for like fairground events and things like that That they have dedicated overtime operations that uh that we're doing where officers are just dedicated foot patrol Up to santa rosa plaza at some of their peak times and we're kind of Experimenting with that to seeing how it works and that gives them dedicated officers They've been really happy with the response so far But we're going to continue and we want to hear so we're meeting with the downtown action organization And the chamber and really trying to hear what are some of the concerns so we can hear them from our local merchants And community members and we can address them in a more timely manner We also have had two meetings where we met with one with all of our the metro chamber and the downtown action organization Where we met with representatives from the police department from transportation works our city manager and other key city members to hear about Hearing what some of the concerns and be able to let them vent any frustrations and let them know about What some of the movement we were doing and we did a similar meeting with the railroad square association as well To hear some of their concerns and i'm open to do that with any community group that has Issues that they want to express and we can work on some resolutions together And then the last one that we've been working on that we talked about is what's really been hurting so many of these Efforts is our recruitment and struggling with some of those and so we've seen obviously the huge uptick and our sworn We still have several civilians positions that are opening But we know right now that every year we average 12 officers that we lose to retirement every year So just hiring 12 we're just treading water to stay keep our head above water So we want to continue to work toward that. We're actively recruiting right now for our april and julya police academy So we want to encourage anyone who is interested in being a police officer to apply now and you can go to the joint santa rosa Website and we have some dedicated resources there But we're also hiring for dispatchers and for police technicians and so many other positions a community service officer right now But we've seen tremendous progress and we're going to continue to work with our city leaders to show why Santa rosa is the best place to live work and play here for our employees and make sure they have it So those are three issues that really we've been dealing with the police department and But also looking for any feedback if you have future agenda items that you'd like us to be able to Be doing any more research on to be able to bring before The public safety subcommittee Before we get into that, let's uh go to public comment Seeing nobody in the room Moving we'll close public comment Uh customer raver has anything you'd like to see come forward in the future any comments on the report Well as as we incorporate our law enforcement and build more trust in the community and district one specifically You know the the police station that we're we're envisioning in the near future Just really just expanding on on those efforts and and continue the community policing, which I really am happy to see Yes, absolutely, and we could do a presentation on that. We were able to Buy the rosin library there But one key thing for us was not addicting the rosin library from that really crucial community resource So we're leasing it back to them at the same cost that they were leasing it at until the heron community hub Is up and operational and the library is able to move over And we've had some difficulties of finding another temporary substation there We've been close a couple times, but i'm actually going to visit another location next week with our uh cities Retail our real estate team. So we're going to be going out there next week And we're still working on that and we hope to have a temporary substation until eventually We're in our more our grand substation, which will be in the existing library space And chief I just wanted you to clarify the statement on staffing um, you said you had 12 vacant positions No, on average we lose 12 a year. So to me, yeah to me super clear We don't have currently 12 but every year we average losing 12 to retirement So every year we're hiring at least 12 just to stay up with keeping us fully staffed With us and now that we've dug ourselves out of the hole so much of having the 21 sworn vacancies We're really doing well. And so like I said earlier, we currently only have two sworn vacancies one officer and one sergeant But we have four officers in background for that spot right now And we hope to be by december to actually have all those positions filled And we're actually going to over hire by two in anticipation for some retirements that we have on the horizon So it's going to be a pretty exciting moment. It'll be one of the first times literally in Over a decade where we've actually had all sworn positions filled. So it's a pretty exciting moment for us And I think the community is going to see the benefit of it. Fantastic. Thank you I think for me the only thing for any possible future agenda items would be um Uh an update on the gang crimes unit. I know that um, you're trying to get it up and running by right around this time So obviously it's in its infancy But I think January would be enough time to give a kind of update on on its efforts and and what it's doing in the community Absolutely, I think that would be a perfect time and by then we ought to be able to see the formation of the team And you'd be able to talk about it And also it's a great opportunity for us to continue to get feedback from our community about How this team can best serve our community Councilman rovers are you in Are you in concurrence with that though? Would you like to hear that? Oh, no, absolutely In regards, but you also mentioned the the substation as a study session or or report out as well So I appreciate both those happening. Absolutely. Yeah, we could put both of those on there both that you need information on Sounds great. Thank you very much. Thank you all Moving on to the fire department update chief westro Oh, is it this This piping thing Yeah All right. Good morning. I'll try to get through this quickly so we can We can all get going here But Scott Westro fire chief for the center as a fire department This is the fire department update For the public safety subcommittee on october 24th Some of the things we'll be covering today is staffing fire stations emergency operation center fleet Recruitment and diversity task force in the countywide sales tax measure We already talked about the safer grant implementation and vegetation management And then in the future What we've already discussed and we can add stuff to this too is An update a more in-depth update on the countywide sales tax measure and an update on the ground ambulance contract on the frols contract So staffing for the fire department. The fire department has 157 fte on the position control list In operations, we currently have two vacant positions. That's including the four that are in the academy as we speak today So we were supposed to have six in that academy and we lost two in the background process So we have just two vacant positions and operations We're working on working towards an academy For the 12 safer positions and the two additional vacancies. So we're hoping to hire 14 for our next academy And the fire prevention bureau. We're at full staffing and in fire administration. We're at full staffing As far as fire station construction goes, I don't want to speak too far out of turn. These are all cip projects So I don't have all the nitty gritty details, but for fire station five In fountain grove the rebuild of the fire the fire station we lost during the tubs They're just getting to where we're working on grading and site preparation When I built this powerpoint it was supposed to be started and I'm not sure that it actually has but We're getting close there And then the physical construction of that station is supposed to begin in june of 24 with an estimated completion date of april of 25 For fire station eight and roseland The cip team and the and the construction team is working on finalizing The community feedback for the hern hub and it's in the design phase of the design build process And there's no finite start date or completion date at this point As far as the emergency operation center goes If you recall we received a million dollar federal earmark that we had to match 33 With so we have the the 1.33 million dollars essentially With the goal to build a full-time hot eoc We've hired a project manager. They're selected and engaged An rfp was completed to select the firm to To engineer and design the seismic retrofit requirements again This is going into the transit transit occupant operations building Over at stony point road and we're currently under negotiations with the select to consultant They're on schedule to begin in november. They have 120 days. So we'll hopefully start the seismic retrofit in march of 2024 Once that's done an rfp will be issued for the construction phase which we anticipate to begin in april of 24 As far as fleet goes We currently have a total of nine fire engines on order We have seven type one fire engines The first ones we expect to arrive in spring of 2024. Those were general fund purchase actually and i believe fiscal year 2021 And we have five arriving hopefully in the fall of 2024. These were for those were purchased via the The new capital fleet replacement program last fiscal year and the fifth one was from measure o So we have seven type one which is our standard fire engine you see driving around on the street Ordered right now. Unfortunately. We typically we see a build time about a year, but type ones are um anywhere from two to three years right now We have two additional type six fire engines, which were purchased with the wui 2.0 funds out of the pgne settlement fund You see the schematic of the the two type six fire engines on the left there of the screen We're anticipating those being delivered pretty quick here probably by November we're hoping to see delivery of those and we'll be adding those to our fleet And then as I mentioned earlier the center is a fire foundation actually purchased two Three-quarter ton pickups that will be installing construction boxes and a pump into the back of Those have been ordered. They had about a 12 week turnaround time So hopefully we'll see those pressed into service by the end of next month And then working with fleet services over at the shop and our fleet manager We're looking at what we need to purchase next based on our Amateurization plan through the capital fleet replacement program And we may actually have to go out of order on what we're going to purchase and order a Tiller ladder truck. The reason is right now ladder trucks are about a four-year turnaround time So we want to make sure we have that here before the current ladder trucks expire On the recruitment and diversity task force. They just wanted to provide a quick quick update on where we're at As you recall we have a recruitment and diversity strategic plan that was retooled with the seed collaborative into the sander as a fire department equity plan We've developed a recruitment and diversity task force and that that task force's mission is to institutionalize The structure to implement monitor and evaluate the seven recommendations of the equity plan So that team is beginning to meet and we're working with the seed on that Very engaged workforce on making sure that that is that is successful We've really expanded our and enhanced our engagement and outreach particularly around the schools Captain Cory rickards involved with with all the schools all the cte programs And really doing a great job with the engagement there Throughout the community and we're really engaged with more civic organizations than we ever have been before One thing we're really proud of is we just hosted our second annual women in public safety day This year we had about 400 attendees show up and As you can see it was targeting you know high school and young college age Females of the community who maybe wanted a job in the fire service, but we got a lot of younger A lot of younger children as well showing up in princess dresses and really engaged on on what it means to be Joining the public safety sector And lastly we're working still working on the funding mechanism for the explorer post This will provide you know kids of our community from 14 to 20 or so An opportunity to get a taste what the fire service looks like it includes education training mentorship So i'm really excited about that our explorer post is going to be based in roseland It'll be at the new station eight in the meantime. It'll be at the the current station eight So i'm really excited about that opportunity. We have some different ideas on how we can fund our explorer post into the future And lastly, you know, I've I've spoken to you all about this But where we're out for the county wide fire service sales tax measure that we're proposing It's a half cent sales tax measure that is going to go on the ballot March 5th of 2024 The signatures have been approved by the county It has been voted on by the border supervisors to place it on the march ballot So that will be going on the ballot in march The revenue goes directly to the fire departments throughout sinema county, but for san rosa just as a refresher It's about nine million dollars a year in direct allocations And about 1.5 million dollars or so in savings and indirect funding With this we'll be able to build a new station nine in the southeast a new station 12 In the northeast and relocate station six from its current location on calla stoker road to the area of mountain hawk or so It also comes with additional 35 ft ease This will staff two new engine companies station or i'm sorry engine nine and engine 12 And one new heavy rescue on the east side of town I provide us with an additional on-data battalion chiefs the three battalion chiefs Three total ft ease for a second battalion chief and two additional vegetation management inspector So we continue to work on educating the community and educating our partners Um on on what the sales tax means not only for san rosa, but the entire region for fire protection And with that it will turn over to you for any questions I'll remember ever is How you doing chief good You mentioned you're working on the funding mechanism for the explorer post. What does that look like as of now? So right now we have a couple different options. We're exploring number one is we're looking at some one-time funding opportunities Through the city We're looking at potentially using measure o funds for that And the third resource could be through the sander as a fire foundation But we're really hoping to you know to find a city based mechanism for funding that but we do have other opportunities that That exists to to create that funding mechanism Do you have an idea of any numbers as of now? So right now the startup cost for the for the explorer post would be about $50,000 in an ongoing cost for about $25,000 per year The reason it's so expensive up front is we have to buy, you know All the explorers turnouts and by all our training equipment and things like that So there's there's an upfront cost, but you know the team's done a great job of building a program that's sustainable at a lower cost Thank you, sir. I have no questions We'll move to public comment Seeing nobody in the room We'll close public comment Any comment from the desk really just just the amount of Right now with with the hub that we're speaking of the heron hub And and just being receptive to the comments of the community I've seen that happening. I do appreciate that and I really just want to commend you for For your efforts and making sure that the community is being involved in the process Thank you Thank you. Appreciate that. It's a it's obviously a huge team effort multiple teams over multiple Different facets of the community, but we're excited about it and really excited to get going on that project and And really really building something the community has input in and really appreciates and values As for me The only real things I have are in terms of future updates for future meetings Definitely the ground ambulance contract for in our january meeting. Maybe the county white sales tax measures since you covered it right now Should it pass in march or april meeting would be a good time to talk about the implementation of it And then the only other comment I have on the report would be I and it's not specific to just the fire department, but the fire department is taking great efforts in the police department as well Are taking great efforts in your recruitment. I really am proud of your efforts to Recruit and hire And make a department and build a department that reflects the community they serve I think that's extremely important Not only in terms of understanding our community and our city's needs As intricate as they can be from street to street and and you know north to southeast to west But also it reflects the community when it reflects the community that we serve It shows that anybody can serve In the police department anybody can serve in the fire department. And so I really appreciate those efforts That you all have made Thank you. Yeah, it's uh Something that you know, I I believe deeply in and I know chief cregan does as well And and we continue to work with our partners to really expand that it's going to be a you know, it's a long-term strategy It's it's taking kids. They're in elementary school Middle school now and and changing their mindset moving to the future. So But we really want to do build a community-based fire department. I know chief cregan has this I don't want to speak for him, but has the same goal. So Yeah, we definitely are invested in it and definitely will continue to make those efforts. So thank you Chief cregan was nodding. So yes, he agrees Um, so with that, uh, we will um adjourn until our next meeting january 23 of 2024 Thank you everybody for all of your time today. I know it's it was kind of a slog in a in a long meeting But it's very much appreciated