City Council

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 the Zoom toolbar, it looks like a globe. Once you join the Spanish Channel, we recommend you shut off the main audio. So you only hear the Spanish translation, Mario, will you please restate this in Spanish? >> was going to feel so when they interpret union be with us. But you for you look both open. Will not get which adding a new one within come out. But when you leak the effects killed in a lot of you for that. So but it's a robot that back to you. We know knocking on to come in, but kept by load and can which the you know. >> Good morning. Let's start this JANUARY. 23rd Public Safety subcommittee Renee, could you please take roll? >> Mayor Rogers, PRESIDENT Councilmember Alvarez, PRESIDENT Chair Okrepkie Let the record reflect all subcommittee members are present. Thank you very much. >> I don't believe we have any announcements and there's no minutes for approval. So we'll move on to public comment non agenda items. This is the public's opportunity to comment on anything within the purview of the public safety subcommittee. That is not a gen dies for today. If you have anything you'd like to say, go ahead and move to one

of the lectern on either the east or West side and we'll give you opportunity to speak seeing nobody moving at all. We will move on new chief First Response. Advanced Life Support Partnership agreement. Take away. Good morning. Show prep to members of the subcommittee. Scott Fire chief for the city of Santa Rosa. With me today is Division Chief Jack Thomas who oversees all of our ems, a divisions and programs. You know, before we get started, I really want to publicly thank Chief Thomas and his team, which ems captain Chris Matthews and City Attorney Jessica Molins for all their work in putting this agreement together. There was countless hours that went into It's been going on for years and years and actually like to retire Division Chief Steve suit or because he actually started the process before Jack took over this position about little over a year ago. So thank you for the work that went into We covered some of this in the JANUARY 9th City Council meeting. But today we're kind of getting a little more finite into some of the details to present too. The public safety subcommittee. On what we got out of frost agreement with some of the county fire District. So just some real quick, high-level review and council's seen this in the subcommittee, seeing a lot of this information before. On JUNE 6, the 2003 the dhs director they did the through dhs through this at the county of Snow before Emergency Medical Services exclusive operating area agreement results and recommendation. And as we go through and I use the term I'm referring to the exclusive operating area, one in Sonoma County, which is largely Santa Rosa, about 75% of Santa Rosa and includes runner parks, a vast pool in the unincorporated area. Areas

that surround us. The recommendations of the report that the Board of Supervisors authorize the dhs director to execute 5 year contract for emergency ground Ambulance service to the snow in the Sonoma County exclusive operating area. One to the Sonoma County Fire district with the option to extend another 5 years. The Board of Supervisors ordered in support of this recommendation. Some background, the center's a fire departments held a first response and like Advanced Life Support contractor will refer to as froze contract with the previous grand Ambulance contractors. 2004. And we're an integral part of the robust ems system. Anyway, one and as part of the new ground ambulance contract, it was important enough that the county actually inserted that. This is the center is a Frost pro program would continue under the new contract. So again, a lot of this we discussed at the JANUARY 9th but the Frost partnership between Snowy County Fire District in Santa Rosa was negotiated in good faith between with the city attorney's office in the district. The agreement actually took effect on JANUARY. 16th which is tied to the start of the new ground ambulance contract. The expiration of the agreement aligned with the ground ambulance contract. Initial term ands in JANUARY on JANUARY, 15th, 2029 with the ability to extend with a 5 year extension of the ground. Ambulance contract to 2034. And again, you for this and to study Sessions and in the JANUARY 9th meeting. But our whole focus on this with the was these 4 points. And I really think that we fortified this through this new agreement our focus was on service. The community number

one, first and foremost with the ability to enhance our operations and improve our operational control to fortify open communications and data sharing and build a financially sustainable model, an agreement. So 2 slides here on some of the key components of the partnership agreement. And certainly Chief Thomas and I will be available for questions and to Chief Thomas is the really the author of this can answer more granular details that you MAY need that the service area definition was a was a big one for us. And we have a clearly defined service area for the city's primary delivery of service, allowing city resources to Beatles utilizing cost rate within the city limits. The response response time frame We were using our city response time set forth by council under the ground emails contract. There was some discussion about changing those. But we held strong that we want to use the council goals for response Times. In this agreement, there's reciprocal reciprocal obligations for the city and the fire district obligations of both parties are more consistent. Uncooperative. Substantial change reopen ERs. We the opportunity to reopen this agreement and have discussions as required based on substantial changes to the system. Whether that's operationally financially, whatever the case MAY be. And then with really building the partnership of the Joint Development and supported Bms enhancements gives us the opportunity to partner on systemwide enhance months and provide increased service to the community. And then really with data sharing. We just codified data sharing between parties as both being public entities. That's pretty much cleared up as it is, but

really wanted to build this regardless of who the contractor was to make sure that we had access to data at all times. And really sort of the heart of the matter Probably the interesting to the subcommittee is there are these 5 or 6 components here. Number one is the compensation to the city of Santa Rosa. Our previous contract last was about $605,000 for first response, ala service under a new contract will receive 1.5 million dollars per year for for all service. This equates to complete cost recovery at the current time for our for all service, for ems division in its entirety. There will be an annual adjustment based on the ground. Ambulance contract rate adjustments. As the race goes up, our rates will go up as well. With this. We also have our own medical director for the first time in the 20 years that we provide been providing advanced life support service. Really the benefit to that is we have a medical director who is now dedicated to Santa Rosa and and Chief Thomas kept him out. He's up done a great job of selecting a doctor. Who will be our medical tractor to provide oversight training in consultation on a psa agreement basis with the city. So first time we've had that knee and really just dedicated to our personnel and us. Previously of share that concurrently will have our own seek Uighur continue a quality improvement programs will be the first time we're not partnering in this and we actually have our own cq. I coordinator that assist in and employee development quality assurance and all the things we need to make. System is strong as it can be. But again, it's not going to be a shared resource will be just

indicated to our employees. One of the components. We're still working on it in the agreement, but we still have to develop. It is a mutual aid agreement for surgeon ambulance protection. Essentially what this means if the system for whatever reason due to a large-scale incident or due to a urgency or just at the system gets busy. We as the city and the fire department want to have the ability to surge into the system with their own ambulances. So it's something that we're working on. It will be a side mutual aid agreement, but it's there is a provision within this contract that allows us to build that into that. We're going to be working on that really hard here in the next couple months. And lastly, one of the elements that we really, really want to look at was the ability to have long term or planned revenue coming out of this. In addition to the compensation for the ground ambulance, Connor, for the agreement itself and this will be payment of a development is Subscription fee were first responder Fee program. We've looked at this in the past and it could be lucrative and it ad additional revenue stream to pay for ems services. But we still have you know, do some research and due diligence on which one we're going to go with, what the best benefit to the community is into the city is and then we'll be building that with Sonoma County Fire District and will bring that back to council when it's finalized. So again, we're just trying to build a financially sustainable program. So as we expand and as we grow, we have the funds available to do that without coming back to the general fund to measure So with that that's sort of the the high-level overview of the new contract. And we're here for any questions you MAY

have. Thank you. Thank you very much. Chief there. Any questions on the presentation from all right, my only question before we go to public comment, is it with within this contract is there are other staffing requirements. >> There are staffing There's a couple number one is we have to maintain 12 advanced life support unit. So the current 12 units that we have on the street, the tensions in 2 trucks. >> contractually obligated to keep those in service in advance life support qualified and capable. The other staffing pieces, you know, and it's not required. But there is the compensation for the medical director for the c q, a coordinator in for an additional emergency medical services company office or so they're not required. But fundings in there for those pieces are really the only staffing requirement is that we keep our current system solid as it is. And I know as with any staffing can be a The Sonoma County Fire district have a minimum staff that they have support us >> as a city and as as the exclusive operating And is there any concern about them up staffing to get to those levels? >> So they they certainly do have a minimum staffing, you know, just like we all do in the public sector is we have a minimum staffing pattern. We have there. I'm not only their their staffing model in their daily roster, but also they're posting plans. So that's the one big benefit that we've seen already is the transparency. And so we're seeing on a daily basis what

their staffing looks like. It's a concern, but there contractually obligated to meet that staffing concern to make sure that we're covering make sure that we have enough ambulances on the street to cover our community. One of the things that the chief Thomas is monitoring very closely is, you know, the system has been in service for a week and there's going to be there's going to be speed bumps along the way. And we're monitoring it very closely. Our crews are filling out and what we call an unusual occurrence form and sending them to Chief Thomas. We're compiling that data and so we'll go back and work with the district and with coastal valleys, the msa 2 to make those modifications necessary to make sure that we're up. We're being covered by a missus and the way that we expect. All right. Thank you. Hours. >> Thank you, Good In regards to to be as a starter. The hiccups the vetting process, absolutely in the future, how we actually measure if the service is actually being provided and a higher standard. Other people auction walking out of the hospital opposed to the to the side of that coin That's a great question. So >> those metrics are going to be measured in several different First of all, will be using through the Contra through the ground ambulance contract. There's a program called First watch. So access to everybody. That's in the system to watch exactly what's going on in real time. So there's real time data through a dashboard that we're able to monitor. And the second piece is the center is a fire departments. Just switch to a new reporting system called image trend. And with that, we can build our own dashboards. Both public facing an internal

facing to monitor what response times look like. What on scene times look like. All the all the time factors involved. And then with the medical director cq, I coordinator in the new ms captain, we'll be measuring patient outcomes as well. And so we'll tie all of that together to make sure that not only are we quantitative quantity of Lee meeting our our response time standards, but Kuala Tivoli as well. So so there's a lot of things involved in the not only the ground contract, but in the contract to make sure that we can measure those. And the nice thing is that we've really worked the last 4 or 5 years to have a seat at all the tables to make sure that our voices heard as the biggest user of the system and to make sure that, you know, Sandra's needs are being met while keeping in mind. This is for one in really for the whole county. But making sure that our and protecting our interests of protecting our community. >> All right. Thanks very much move to public comment on this If anybody would like to make a comment on the ground and service, please move to one of the lectern Ys. Seeing none come back to the committee for a final. Comments or questions. >> I just want to say that I'm very high that we have a week under our belts that this has been a long time coming in to congratulate you guys again on a job. Well done. >> Yeah. And for this is I I know we discussed a little bit accountable for, but I want to provide an opportunity to get into the nitty-gritty if necessary. This is a large for how we operate and great job

by everybody. Thank you so Sorry, Chief I know you have a a small little countdown on your on your cell phone right now. But this is a this is a great legacy to have. This is a huge lift in a great by you and the rest of the department. And so thank you all so much for working on this. With that. We'll move on to the next item, which a presentation on the gang crimes team by chief Cregan and started making. >> Good morning. I'm John Cregan, the chief of police here in Santa Rosa. Thanks so much for allowing us to present this important topic to the public safety subcommittee. I'm joined today with being kusa sergeant of our newly Gang Crimes. Team and Travis will go a little bit into his story. But he spent 7 years as a detective on our gang crimes team and was assigned to the fbi Safe Streets. Task Force and truly is the subject matter expert for entire police department. And so I'm really proud to be able to have him leading this team. It's ominous. Start off and talk a little bit about the outline of this team and then sergeant being he's going to discuss some of the gang crime that we have here in the community and how his team is going to work with the virus, pension partnership and some are other key partners. So start off with the very beginning. And I myself served as a gang crimes detective. And later as a sergeant of the gang crimes team, at one point from 2005 to 2019, we had 7 game detectives that were in the team with one sergeant and 2019. We saw that slowly start whittling down because we had some catastrophic staffing shortages at the Santa Rosa Police Department. At the time, Chief Ray Navarro made a really tough decision to temporarily suspend the gang team until we're able to regroup with some of our

staffing needs. So and 2019, the gang crimes team was reassigned to patrol to to go to 9-1-1. Calls and other issues. Since 2019, we've seen a significant resurgence in some of the gang crime and gang activity throughout the city of Santa Rosa will go into some of those details in just a little bit. Another thing that's really important to understand, as we also saw significant breakdown and the bridge between resources and our community. And the reality is the Santa Rosa police officers are the first in the city of Santa Rosa that are contacting people who are involved in gang activity have been victim of gang crimes who are involved in gang activity and they're an important link to be able to provide resources to the families, to the youth who are involved in some of these gang activities and be able to you some of the existing resources that we have with the Santa Rosa Finance pension partnership and many of her other nonprofit resources, some resources that are available through our district Attorney's office. One thing that was really important to me is and I became chief just about a year and a half ago when one of my priorities from day one from firm understanding of some of the gang issues that we have in the city with to be able to bring back our gang crimes team, but to make some adjustments and able to hear some of the concerns for our community and how we can be able to build back this team that meets the needs of our community today. Some of the groups that I'm at with Wes Arch, a chief's community advisory team in these are 21 members that are cross section of our entire community. They were by city manager Mark each of Smith going through the applications and we really

tried to pick a diverse, group of individuals who can give me like solid feedback about what is what's the community saying on these issues. And they had a lot of questions about the gang crimes team and we work through some of those concerns and they really helped build some of the main structure of this team about hearing their feedback. The other thing is going the mayor's town hall meetings and we a really robust conversation at our Roseland Thing also a council member Eddie Alvarez was help participate without as well. We had a lot of community feedback on that. We also presented it to the public safety and Prevention tax Oversight Committee. And that's when we asked to be able to use the at the time funds to be able to fund the sergeant. And that position position had been eliminated and 2019. We've also had a lot of other discussion and we did that with the virus pension partnership with their strategic planning sessions that we met and with Daniel Guard uno from there. We had a lot of feedback from our community. So those are some of the Kia it teams and meetings that we have. But also just for myself, a lot of community meetings of going the rotary clubs and other things like that are presenting about some of the future problems here in the city of Santa Rosa and how we're going to address them. The one thing I really want to lay out for right now, we're not going go to 7 detectives were going to go to the for detectives within that meets my staffing capacity to have right now. So we have 4 dedicated detectives and one sergeant and we'll talk a little bit about as important understand there's some confusion about this team about being uniformed out in the street and making kind of indiscriminate stops. And

we'll talk about that. These are plainclothes detectives that are are responding to acts of violence in our city. So we've had just last week and sergeant me can talk about it. A large gang stabbing out a bill, the ranch park where we had 7 juveniles were involved in a pretty violent assault with a a man who was stabbed 10 to 12 times for doing nothing but wearing a red hat when drove through Bellevue Ranch Park. And this is we're having this dedicated detectives who can respond re actively to that but used their training and experience to be able to make pretty swift arrests in those cases. But there's 4 key priorities. And this is something that's new from our regional getting crime team. And this came from feedback from our community about really setting out what are the priorities. And I want to be as transparent as possible with our community on that. So the first one is prevention and we're going to be out playing a key part and be able to prevent our youth from ever joining gangs. And some of that is going to be being the bridge to resources that I use that phrase a lot about connecting to incredible final stretch and partnerships team that we have. But again, with a firm understanding that it's our officers are out there in the streets. Arts, our officers are making the first contacts with the youth here in our community, especially when they're exhibiting some of this gang activity in getting involved in gang fights in a gang salt. So where are hoping to be able to have conversations with these youth work with their parents, be able to work with our youth in our local schools to be able to. I have real conversations with them about never getting involved in the gang for a in the first place and preventing that activity. The other one I think is so important is the intervention. And this is where we're

helping young people leave the gang lifestyle behind. I still have conversations with a gang for years later after me working in the gang crimes team. And this is you can build relationships with the youth and even with the adults that are involved in gang crimes and help able to give them that path out of the gang lifestyle, how they can get their tattoos removed and be able to introduce him to many of the resources that we have here in Sonoma County. Another really important one is to education. And this is so important about not only for our city leaders, but our school leaders are teachers, parents, community groups working with youth and even our own police officers here. The Santa Rosa Police Department about educating them on gang trends and gang signs. And so we have that awareness. And when moms and dads are able to see some of these things and they can start some of that early intervention of helping some of the youth. And I can't tell you how many times what I was on the gang crimes team that we would be serving a search warrant, someone's house and mom and dad were just flabbergasted about that. And we're showing them the gang clothing and the gang Facebook in and the and all the other things. Their minds were just blown by this and they had no idea. So it's really important for me to be able to provide that education and be able to use that to help the parents. And it's really going to be a team effort to help and somebody Tuesday believe this gang lifestyle behind. And the last one equally important is the enforcement that we are going to have to have that thing. And we've made it very clear as chief that we're not going arrest our way out of the gang problem, that that can't be the only solution

that we have here. But the reality of it is it is piece of peace of the of the problem that we're going to be solvent as part of the equation that we're going to have to be able to use. So this team will be working out just like the case last week with the stabbing. They're going to be working with that enforcement. They're going to work to quickly solve some of these violent gun crimes. And what what I feel is what's going to happen now is we're going to able to address some of these problems instead of having repeat victims, where we have the same person who's involved in 5, 6, shootings within several weeks that this dedicated team is going to be able to movin, put some of those resources and take some of the violent offenders and have some consequences for their behavior. And hopefully they'll leave them getting out of that gang lifestyle so they can come out. A reform youth are formed adult. That like I spoke about, I hear the term I pursue a little bit when I hear this about gang task force. So it's it's not a gang task force. And a lot of that comes from misunderstanding about a previous team that was through the county of Sonoma. This the Santa Rosa Police Department didn't participate in the magnet team, which is the multi-agency gang enforcement team that we didn't participate, that. So there's a lot of confusion sometimes and that team was uniform street level of going out and making a lot of stops throughout the city and throughout the county and the team had a lot extremely powerful uses. But that's not what this team is that these teams are the plainclothes detectives that are working and be able to have the expertise to be able to respond and work on those 4 priorities. I was able to talk

about it. We're not a task force. It for Santa Rosa Police officers with no other agencies involved with our team. The I can talk about our buddy detectives. I think it's really important. And when you hear from a sergeant mean, it's about having the dedicated supervisor and that supervisor is monitoring their investigations as monitoring their actions as monitoring their contacts with the community to make sure it meets not only my expectations but the expectations of our city manager, city leaders and very importantly, our community. And that's going to be one thing that I want to be able to talk about. But I want to continue to hear how was our gun crimes team doing our their adjustments that we need to be able to do. And I want to make sure I have full confidence and Sergeant Mikan are 4 detectives that we have assigned to our team. The funding. That's a question that's come up before about, hey, it was this additional funding. So I want to make really clear for that. The the only additional funding we had was just for the sergeant position which have been eliminated from our budget. And we're using that public safety and prevention tax formally called with measure age that is the only the additional 4 detectives were from my already assigned positions that I had for full-time positions at the police department. And I was able to do it just because we've made country could a significant progress in our hiring and recruitment over the last 2 years. So no additional funds were doing outside of just the public safety and prevention. A tax. Another one that's come up a lot is in addressing some of the implicit bias and concerns about Cal Game. So for those who are familiar counting counting was a system where you can enter and say, hey, this person had some contact gang-related. There were 10 different criteria talking about wearing gain clothing, gang, all these other

criteria. But there's a lot of concerns on that. So the Santa Rosa Police Department for years has not participated in Cal Kang. I want people to understand that that we're not putting people into the counting system. That's not a concern that's going to come up with this. And we really done a lot of training with our team about recognizing some of the signs of gang activity and also understanding some of times the mistakes that have been made in the past by agencies across California are really work to be able to understand that. We've also dedicate that every Santa Rosa police officer, he's going significant implicit bias training, procedural justice training. And we're really focused on building what we call Relational Police Department, relational policing, which is getting out in our community. And this isn't always like this us versus them. But yet, like we're building connections in our neighborhood and we're building whether it be were other gang activity MAY be they were going out that relational police policing at the end of the constitutional policing that were meeting like the guidelines that are set both by the state and by federal government to make sure that we're treating each person with respect with dignity and within the confines of the law. And that's again, we're really want to be able to focus. This team is going to be working on the root causes of the violence. And we understand just arresting kids that are involved in low-level gang crime is not going to be the necessary solution. We're going to work with our partners. We are going to work with this team and really to be the bridge to resources. Another thing that we didn't have when we had our regional gang crimes team that we have now is our new restorative justice program. So we launched that in 2023. I'm really proud about this

program. We have a dedicated you with a company called dot our Day for Dot org for restorative justice and were able to do that for low-level nonviolent offenses. Obviously, if you're doing a stabbing in the shooting, you don't meet the criteria for the restorative justice program, but things like stealing shoes from Santa Rosa Plaza getting it MAY be low level disturbances that the all things like that that could be something that we could use this new program and you go through a 10 week program where you're going and meeting with the dot rj staff. You're doing things like meeting with the victim. Your understanding the consequences of your behavior and it's helping them, especially our young used to be able have a better mindset about what their actions are doing in the streets of Saint Rose and some of the consequences for that. If they successfully complete the 10 week program, they're they have no criminal charges and they're completely diverted from ever go into the criminal justice system that we don't even sent a report to. There's not even a record of that that goes to the criminal justice system. So we're really excited about that. And an anxious to see how we can use our gang crimes team to refer some of those. Also working with juvenile probation and have a host of different programs like it's the reach program and other things that are working with you that have been introduced to the criminal justice system. But our team is going to work with them to better provide some of the resources to really help with that intervention. Part. We're also talking and Daniel's here today. And as she's such a close partner with our team. And so we'll Sergeant Mikan. Some of our staff members are going to be working really closely of going to the

monthly operational team meetings. And also we're going to have teams Lieutenant Philip and Captain Brunswick attending the policy team meetings. I myself attend the policy team meetings whenever I can as well. So really be working toward bringing some of those resources connecting there and really being with. And we've seen the virus pension partnership, take big strides forward to having more of a presence on our streets of Santa Rosa. And we're going to continue to work with them really closely were also work with our district attorney victim advocates. And these are people who are been out victims of gang crimes and we can help them with some of the resources they need. Sometimes financial resources and other things for their able to attend court and get back on their feet. Now turn it over to start to make. And he's going to highlight a little bit of like some of the crime that we're seeing here in the city of Santa Rosa. And one of the things that he's really got to talk about as we've lost a lot of our tracking mechanisms for gang crimes and we lost again crimes team. So that's going to be another thing that I can come more and provide more accurate information to our community, to our city leaders. But he'll be able to go some of the gang crime. We were able to track this last year. Thank you, guys. So I'll try to be brief. Thank Try to be brief like and give you guys much time to ask questions of me. I want make sure you guys get the information that you guys need. >> And, you know, as I kind of navigate this new get a better understanding of the information you're looking for. So please ask questions what we're seeing so far. So as a chief alluded to, we've lost a lot of our tracking mechanisms and our ability to evaluate. But a lot of these crimes with their getting motivated. There's a gang nexus and those sorts of

things. So we do understand that about half of our homicide that occurred have a gang nexus. That does not necessarily mean that they have again, Hance meant. But there is maybe a good motivation for the crime. There are individuals who have prior histories of being involved in games that are involved in these these incidents. The really concerning thing we've seen is that over the last year we had a dramatic increase in juveniles being in possession of a loaded firearms. So we had, you 5 in 2022. That jumped up to 21 in 2023. Over recent case, we actually this last week arrested a juvenile who was manufacturing firearms. See the 3 printer was actually bringing manufacture firearms and high capacity magazines to school in his backpack. So this is something we're concerned about. We're aware of. And as we now to get the next few months, next few years with the gang crime team will be a focus. We did have 2 juveniles shot and killed this past We are seeing an increase that to really are increased. Rate of firearms in the hands of young people that love sea translate to increased violence. We have had shootings that had not resulted in a death as well. So school safety obviously what we're seeing is that a lot of this gang involvement where the violence manifest itself is at school. So when you see begin to see identifier. You have a gang problem in the community where those problems will. Rise is when you have these juveniles interacting and that is usually at schools. So I'm you know, going back, we have the

homicide at Montgomery High School. We have a stabbing at Santa Rosa High School. We have transit mall where recently a juvenile the 15 years old was confronting perceived rivals in the Trans Mall. He was then apprehended with a loaded firearm by an officer working mall security on overtime. You can see that even though incidents are happening in schools out of time. A lot of times the disagreements at school where the conflict that school will manifest itself in other areas of the community shooting on meadow. Young man was shot about a year ago. We've seen recently where we had a stabbing after school ended at the park just north of l c on high school. Those students then fled from that scene throughout Allen to get into cars are parked in the parking lot we'll see on students. So we see a lot of these these gang things, all they're getting motivations that are occurring and bringing violence to the campuses throughout Santa Rosa. And one of the directions, obviously is that if we can prevent crime and prevent gang violence, that is the ultimate goal. And the questions are how do we do that? A lot of times it involves identifying getting involved with these kids young when they're at risk. And that unfortunately going to be anywhere from 12, 13, 14 years old. A lot of times when they get upwards to 18 and early 20's and then we see them. They've already been ingrained gang culture. They're already out felonies, their upcoming more serious crimes. So with this gang team, hopefully when we have a

dedicated group detectives working gang involvement, gang crimes, 40 hours a week, we will be able to identify and help these younger people get services sooner instead of once they get to the police level to get to that where they're breaking the law. A lot of times are already ingrained in that culture. And that's our high level overview of the gang crime team that and just want to acknowledge like. >> I've heard concerns from our community about bringing back this game crimes team. And I just really want to talk to our community right now like I've heard some of the concerns. I want to promise you that I'm listening to those really incorporating that as we build back to this team. But at the end of the day, we have a significant gang problem here in the city of Santa Rosa and throughout Sonoma County. And it's important that we have those train resources to be able to provide that. But I'm going to continue to closely our team there to hear the feedback from our community. I really just want to pledge like let me know directly about concerns that come up and I'll be able to hear that and we can make adjustments as we go. But I have a lot of faith and the detectives sergeants that we've got selected for the team. We went through a careful selection process to select the right people that really have the right temperament to be able to do this that have that focus on the prevention and intervention and be able to bring some of the resources to those in our community. Really feel that we have the right team, but I want to also say continue to hear that the back and very happy to make adjustments if necessary turn over. There's any questions.

Thank you very much, chief and questions from the committee cut. >> Thank you, Good morning to you both. And I will definitely redundant in my question just to make sure that we are addressing longer concerns of the community. And my first question is how many police officers or patrol officers will be assigned to the grant that to gain crime team. >> So will be the 4 dedicated detectives and then the one sergeant of Travis make that will be the sergeant. So that will be the total that we have. And that's a reduction from our 7 that we had back in the early 2, thousands and into the a 2010. >> And I did not hear patrol officers in your statement >> No, so they're not going to be uniform. They're not going to be. These are going to be plainclothes detectives that are responding out to these incidents. And there will be times that they'll do proactive enforcement throughout the community. Nobody serving search warrants into another enforcement options. >> will know in in regards to generational, getting life were we pick up the culture so to speak? What what what are we doing? Or Hauser team working with our partners to break that lifestyle to break that chain. >> And I think it all at Travis being a dive into. But I think that's really that connection with the virus mission partnership. And we have people with lived experience working on the virus, richer partnership that that we've been able to work over the years and they have that expertise. And that's something that we're working with them to be able to make those connections and be able to help the youth that maybe grow up in generational gang household and be able to show them a lifestyle outside of games and be able to do that. So I'm in constant, constant contact with Daniel doing on her team Helio and the rest of the team to be able to use

them and kind of leverage their with our team and sergeant mean he's going to be the same, really communicating with them on a on a daily level. And talking to him that we work together as one Santa Rosa Strong team or if you want to add anything to that, sergeant. >> So one thing we got to make very clear is that it is not a crime to be a gang member. Okay. So we're not going go out and arrest people who we believe are being involved in gangs. One of the things that is important understand is that there has to be an accompanying felony. We're a public offense. So if you do the crime and Oregon participant, the new or could be subject to an enhanced penalty. But we do not identify gang members. The law articulate is that we need to identify them as a gang participant. And that is a substantial amount of work. So it would it would completely exhaust patrol in this capacity. These gang enhancements or designating someone is again, participant is done, discern doubly. Back prior beef, we've lost this over the past 4 years since the game team has been gone. But we are only identifying gang participants in about 8 to 10% of the time from 2000 tend to I would say 2017, give or take when I was testifying as an expert in these types of it was only generally a more serious felonies, your assault with deadly weapons robberies, home invasion, robberies, murder investigations, attempted murder investigations. These were the gang enhancements and identifying gang participants was truly used. The overwhelming majority of our work is not qualify for a gang enhancement for enhanced penalty. So again, we do identify gang members be identified. Gang participants

per the law when any 62, the penal code. So it's not something we throw on with w# # # # We don't enhance meant on a young kid at his first fight. These are generally people that are well entrenched in gang violence. If there is a young man who is arrested for, say challenging to fight somebody at school. It is motivated by a gang. It would go through our juvenile justice process. There's a restart of Justice's other mechanisms. Hopefully that can intervene and working with pounds pension partnership back in kind of mitigate that and that I would be the plan going forward is to try and intervene, get these kids out of a lifestyle, get the resources before they get, you know, to those high level felonies. >> And that's a very important statement that you just made. I know the most would feel that we should identify all members should go after all members, but being a person of color, the way that we perceive it is our skin becomes a saint. And I don't see that your strategy is going to that direction. Already has been a change. And strategy. And I do appreciate that statement very much so >> And I just to kind think back your point that is that is truly never been the aim of the center's police department is you know it it again. It is not a crime to be a gang If you are out of a lifestyle and I've seen dozens of people move on. You after a momentary a juvenile indiscretions, if you and they lead or highly productive members of society. We've used individuals with previous gang members to members and close supporters of our found Central partnership. So, you know, Redemption is complete

possible. In those cases you can go on and do many more things through this kind of program that we set up. >> And although bit Joe Khaleel say that, you know, as as youth, we see a lot of people go through the gang life and they have their first league the ones that are left behind are know, week burnouts, you goes way beyond getting life or anything else is just much to standing in trying to fill a void that skill set, that they do not pick up and sell. You know, it's it's something that happens. Society. Glad we're doing something to address that. That shortfall in regards to. To a registry time Part of the strategy is to build a list of those participants. Not not not members, participants of the participating him and doing well for the gang's crimes. Who are we going to be sharing that with this with? If there's one? >> So I think I can speak to this as well. So there is no list per se. One of the things if there is an investigation where we have a group, a criminal organization, if you will, of, you know, like a game in the community has to find to the penal code, which means that there committing a pattern of criminal offenses. And that's consistent. And they're doing in association with for the benefit of or at the direction of a criminal street gang, then we would identify those perpetrators of said crime or incident were people that involved in criminal activity. So now there's no list that's built. It would be pursuing to an

ongoing investigation or if there was a ability to provide investigative direction. So kind of answer your point. I don't communicate with individuals for like a background check or for a job interview. I'm not fielding calls from the community for somebody who's trying to get a job at a bank. I don't deter people from employment or anything like that. This information would be held at the police department pursuant to an ongoing investigation or through some sort of intelligence mechanism through a network of potential confidential informants that we are receiving, you know, better direction from the community on where crime MAY occur. So it could be something as simple as a data analysis you know, if individuals are coming out of prison are coming out of federal custody coming back into the area. We MAY. Better serve the community if we know where these high-risk individuals are at so if we go into an incident and we identify a license plate and license plate is relative to a gang participant. Helpful to know who his associates are because they would likely be perpetrators of the crime. Just logically right? So there's no list per se. There's no there's nothing that we establish or maintain. Cal Game database, for example, was essentially built in its infancy as a way to monitor individuals involved in gang crime because we know that these games can be no Matic. They moved from area to area we had individual Crip gang members who are coming from Virginia here to commit home invasion robberies and then flee out of state because it would law enforcement's locating them right come out here. They did a homicide in

the county area. They were marijuana rips the Saint Rose area. The counting database was basically built a track that so that I could log-in and password protected. Maybe put in a name or something like that into the database. It would direct me to law enforcement contacts. I would then seek out those investigators that that resident agency get more information about that individual. So it did not retain information per se. It also had a purge date that would 3 to 5 years with no entries that that entry would be purged. So those lists have now gone you know, for various reasons as we know. We do not use those list that kind of along with an answer. Your question is we don't have a list that is not relative to ongoing criminal investigation or have some sort of intelligence relevance. >> I appreciate the liberation. That is a major concern of the community of being MS. Identified as a rallies by association. He went to the school or whatever might have been. Didn't get to just kind of some eyes is that we would not be using that information unless there is some sort of felony that's been committed to. >> Show that. That person is again participant relative to the offense that they committed. >> And that that you were just participant. I believe there's one here correct? Yeah, we do not identify gang members. A gang member is a social term. The law articulate clearly through the penal code that it's a day game participant. >> You see it you spoke a little bit of chief. You spoke a little about strategies are

being used for. >> Identifying whether it's school education, enforcement. And I'm wondering if you could detail some of the strategies in regards to for the parents. You know, you are you're spot on when you said that. I let you walk into a home and the parents had no idea what they are. Their child was up to. And I wanted specific programs and for Daniels. The question for you as well is, is that if the specific programs and strategies that you like to share, that would use to really educate parents. >> Yeah, I think that's a key thing in some of is going to be community meetings that we're doing. And actually, Daniel, think about hockey has one coming up just next Wednesday, believe it is like that about be able parent education, have to talk about our community about first, what is the of the signs of active gang participant Secondly, like what are some of the available resources that are out there? We're also been having some talks with our district attorney, Karla Rodriguez, about a program that we did years ago about talking about firearm violence in the school where we partner with a disc returning. They talk about the criminal consequences. And we talk about some of the real world consequences of and getting back in our schools and doing that. We also participated. Both sergeant mean can I both participated in the great program which is gang resistance, education and training where we went the 5th grade classes for 7 weeks and talk to them just about how to avoid peer pressure, trusted resources. So we're going to be looking a lot of these different programs and working really closely with Daniel and her expertise. Follow her talk about the upcoming meeting that she's been planning that's got, I think an important one and start to make. I are both going to be

there at that Participate. >> Hello, good morning. So next Wednesday, 06:30pm, in Santa Rosa High School. We will be hosting a community-wide educational event, mainly targeted for on signs to look If your child might interested and gang showing signs that they might be involved gang activity. So my staff will be providing an overview of what to look for. Why kids join gangs. What is the motivation behind that and how we can in that. In addition will have a community partners from probation and Verity on hand to talk about parents, rights and responsibilities, available community resources and from very specifically, we have someone who will be able to talk about female getting participation. We've seen it incredible rise in the number of females being referred directly to us for services, some as young as 12 13 years old really talking about what it's like for a female to participate in a gang and some of the issues that come along that are unique to female gun participation, including trafficking issues that we're also seeing tied with that right now. They will be on hand to answer questions and then we'll about 2 dozen community partners providing for tabling opportunity after the presentation is over. And hello to you, Good one. >> Russia that the event happening next ones and so was a high school. What time is >> It's at 6.30. I'll also add that we're in talks with Rosen

school to host a similar event in the Roseland School District for parents there. And also add to our wraparound program and Reverend coordinator talks to parents on a daily basis. And so he's doing a lot of that education one-on-one with parents. I'm talking to them about signs as chief mention, a lot of times, parents are completely blindsided and had no idea their kid was involved in this type of activity. So working with them to get them connected to so that they can better support their child at home as well. >> Now question the future of of following this program provides prevention shortfalls your program. We're we're we're we as council film, you. What can we do better to assist you? >> I will be here next Tuesday to talk about that with full Council. Perfect. Thank you for the question. COUNCILMAN Alvarez and threw the chair. >> I would say it's staffing. So we have a minimal amount of staffing tried to. With partnering agencies for 42 square miles of crime. And that is a lot. We're spending a lot of time, as you know, in our school systems but we only have so much capacity. And we have obligation to protect everyone here in the city. So I think we do at some point have to talk about with the staffing model. Looks like for violence prevention. >> And I appreciate your focus on on really shortfalls and be proactive in that sense. I know is one of the issues that we have with our is a police department. And I'm happy to hear when you say that staffing were we have officers that but you need so hopefully

we can do that for Vols prevention as well. Moving forward. My my desk when actually believe my last question is metrics. You know, how can you possibly Cajun for doing good, bad other not seeing any games where a violence in the season runs right. You know, with with covid and what we did with the social issues like the rules from the pandemic. How are you able to gauge how we're doing with and the gang? The point. And that's an important part for me to be able to be able to talk to our city manager, be able to provide her other city leaders about. >> Okay, we made a significant investment and like are we getting the return on that investment? So I think one of the simpler ways as we're going start tracking some of the gang-related crime in our city and look at next year. I hope to see a reduction in our homicides in this year. We did see a 17% reduction in our homicides this year, but we need to do better than that. What I was really concerned with 50% of those had again connection. So I'm hoping that will see that we had 361 shootings reported the city of Saint Rose in 2023. That was a 14% reduction from 2022. But we need to do better than that. So I'm hoping that we're seeing some of the shootings, the gang violence go down. But on the other side, what I'm really hoping that we see is working with and her team is that we're seeing an increase referrals to the virus. But your partnership, we're seeing an increase of people engaging in some of these services and leaving that game starts lot life solve aside. And I'm hoping that we're seeing more robust community participation and that's where we're having some of these meetings. And we have people coming from all of our community who want to be a part of the solution about how

do we start providing some of these resources? We're seeing a lot opportunities that our schools and we've had a lot of conversations with our school leaders and they're very engaged with working with us about how we can provide some of the resources from the virus into partnership in the police department to address some of our youth violence in some of the gang activity. So I'm hoping that we see that that we see see for schools in Santa Rosa for this next year. And I think which is combined citywide effort that we're going to be able to see that. I'm hoping that a year from now we can come back and be a report that we've seen a reduction the gang violence, the gang activity and a substantial increase in those refer getting some of those services across our city. >> Really run. It sounds the level participation that we see. And on the other side taking them out of the shootings or deaths and seeing what percentage of of of those were. We're gang affiliated. And as basic metrics or to gauge we're doing. >> Yeah, I think another thing that's really important understand is being able to bring justice to victims of violent crimes. And I think society when we put out just a press release about last week, we had a very tragic incident in 2022. Were young, 19 year-old male was on the Comstock Elementary or middle school campus. After hours on the weekend was just standing. There was assaulted and robbed by 2 young individuals. He was doing nothing wrong. This young man had no gang activity whatsoever, but yet was shot and execute a right there at the Comstock Middle School. And that I had multiple

conversations with the family and that one who really wanted to have justice for Connor Brock was his name and our detectives worked tirelessly over this last year and a half working with dna evidence and a host of other things to finally identify the young man who were gang participants here in the city of Santa Rosa. But those cases are going to get solved without having dedicated detective with the expertise and what a cool moment that was for our team to build a call the family and saying, hey, after almost a year and a half, we have closure for you. And it's it's still a gaping hole for them with a loss of their son. But it's bringing them some justice for that. And I think that's really important for me to be able to have that obligation to be able to be able solve some of these violent crimes and bring justice and peace to some of the victims of violent crimes here in the city of Santa Rosa. >> Absolutely. For sure. Definitely appreciate that's all the questions I think you thank you all 3 of as well our entire police department and was Our staff and city manager or working to really address the issues that the player community. Thank Thank you, And just real quick to next week, we will have at the city council meeting. There will be a study session on the implementation of the Van Prevention partnership a strategic plan where we can dovetail off this conversation as one. Make sure the public is aware of that that that is. >> Very nearly a Jason, if not directly connected to this conversation as well. Thank you. Chair. >> So I just had a couple of questions skews me. >> They're coming related. The first would what resources are available to support individuals trying to get out

of the game lifestyle I know I don't know very much about it, myself in chief sat down with the individual that explained to us that he wanted to get out for his family, but that there was a lot of physical violence other repercussions for that decision. So when we're asking someone giving them friendly advice, I don't know what you want to call it, that there is a better lifestyle. How do we support them in doing that? That's something we're currently building We used to have local provider, California youth outreach that provided that service. >> I'm doing intensive case management with those individuals. And we are working building that particular team. I have a 2 staff members right part of our wraparound coordinators. Time is spent doing that. And then we have a new member coming on board starting next week. That will take in from. Our partners like the police department and other to work directly with those individuals to start helping them build that that safety plan and that plan to exit that lifestyle. We also have a variety of community partners that we can refer them for individual type services, such as a mental health counseling and other support. And we have our partners inside juvenile hall through the boys and Girls Clubs reach program. Providing mentoring and case management services. For those who incarcerated and reentering back into the community. Then you know it. Can. I have one of talk about the importance. >> Of crafting a safety plan for these individuals who are actually trying to get a lifestyle. Absolutely. >> So the importance of that

is find out. What's going on with a particular individual. So there's intake, right what their goals are, what their challenges are that they're facing and and kind of what's the priority of services that are needed that particular time. So it's building out that plan with a dedicated intervention specialists that will serve as their case manager for however, long that they need. Usually it's about a year 2 to year and a half. And then also through that safety plan, identifying those resources that are needed, that we can then refer out too and then having those regular check ins to make sure that that individuals meeting their goals and that if anything comes up that they need to address, they're able to do that as well. >> And I think an important part of that. And as you mentioned, that we young gang members who are trying to leave this lifestyle. But then bucy violence in Santa Rosa when you're leaving a gang lifestyle and considered no good and and going through these things. So we're really working with Daniel and her team, but also with our district attorney's office. And sometimes it's when you're seeing someone who's willing actually testify in one of these gang-related violent crimes and they're seeing retribution and assault are working with their district attorney's office with our game team. And this is going to be a new resource to better provide them some of the resources and the protection they need. And sometimes it's even relocating out of the area and using some county resources that we have they be able to do that to make sure that they feel they're willing to have the courage to stand up and testifying one of these cases and assist us with a violent crime with is that they get the resources and assistance whether relocation, some financial resources, also refunding info for people who lost jobs and things like that out being the victim of a

violent crime. So those are resources that now this gang crime team is going to help connect between the district attorney's office between the Bias mention partnership. Just just to add one quick things that, too, is that with a dedicated group of detectives now who are on call, 24 7. >> Is that there is an avenue for them to get a hold of somebody to contact one of these these detectives each manage their case loads. They talk to the of the victims talk to victim's family and they can be that lifeline. If for say that, I don't necessarily feel comfortable talking to you from police officer, but I'm ok talking to that guy that detective. So they can meet and you see they can meet and kind of indiscreet locations. They can meet at a, you less risky positions. They contacted 24 7. Something does happen. And so there is an avenue now a conduit, if you will. That will enable that interaction, enable them to get to Daniel and to get to the resources that they need. >> Integrated in with that, too, is support for the parents a plan for the parents as so that they're getting the help that they need then to support their young person at home however, we all are also working individuals all the way up to age. 24 25 and even beyond we've had a couple of folks over the last few weeks since the press release went out about this new team. I'm reaching out to us directly saying, Hey, I'm a former gang member and I really want to help. So I I've been through this. I have this experience. I'm happy to share my story. So we're talks with those individuals to come up with volunteer plan to kind of incorporate their experience into this as well. >> So one I would like I can speak for myself. I would like

to be invited to the meetings that knowing you're going let Rosa High school and then also as they come up for, like rose I think is really important that they know that all leadership is behind them. >> It in doing this. I apologize guys. And chief, you mentioned wanting an increase in referrals for the pp, right? Because that's proactive approach. Do we have the staffing to accommodate that? Or do we have the resources to accommodate here we're building it. >> And I hear or see him saying, you know, we need. >> Staffing I know it's a hard question, right? But like, are we going accommodate this? Because we see the rise. So we know that there are people out there want to capture them. We want to help them. How are we going accommodate? >> Yeah. From the police department. We have the staffing to do the referrals. But to your point is didn't do we have the base? I think that's something the city manager is really working with. Daniel and her team to look like what is the future look like? One incredible thing about insertion partnership is the network forms of literally dozens of local nonprofits and community-based organizations that are helping to provide these resources. What we saw is when we lost the game crime team, we saw big decrease in the amount of referrals from the Santa Rosa Police Department. So what I want to see now as this team doing more education with all 8 of our patrol getting more of understanding the virus, partnerships and we've hired a lot of people really proud about 50 new officers in the

last 2 and a half years, but that 50 new officers that don't have as much of the relationship with the virus and your partnership and haven't been or do so. We're going to work toward this team and we're going to work with Daniel and her came out even coming into in briefing trainings for officers making sure they know how to do these referrals and being that bridge, the resources as I was saying about. And I think that we're going to see significant and will work with Daniel and her team to make sure that she has the resources to be comedy. Those referrals. >> Thank I just want to tell you that your team summary have an for Santa Rosa High School. So they are definitely listening. And following up another question I had was gang member is not a crime. But one of the things Councilmember Alvarez touched on this. You will not be stopping our our use or people that you perceive to be gang members just for the sake of stopping and harassing them. >> If they have not participated in that, I just want to make it really clear to that. I've heard a lot of Just for the sake of stopping them. Only if they have participated. In a in a crime, correct? >> Correct. Yeah. Most of our investigations and I I say this kind of understand the gravity of it. But most of our investigations will begin an emergency room. So the incident has taken place. The detectives have now been called out and we're doing a lot of follow-up. So our proactive cases are not our priority now, if we are working to crack the case in the capacity of a a search warrant or through a confidential informant type or through kind of a directed

enforcement at a criminal organization that would be from a special services division, not from the patrol division. So we do not have likened on view traffic infraction, which then leads to a traffic stop, which then leads to a subsequent investigation for a search of the vehicle or for some sort of contraband contained there within so that that is not the role of the detective. They will be on and on call basis. So when your home invasion, you're stabbing your attempted murder comes in the past month. We have investigated cases. It was a fight at Slater, Middle School where a student attacking a classroom to then pulled a 10 inch butcher knife out the gang crimes team responded to that follow-up investigation. Downtown got blasted with a couple $1000 worth of graffiti. Vandalism. Spawned out check surveillance to arrest of us rain again. Participants. We had a 7 stabbing attempted murder that occurred a park of ranch park last week. Detective spawned out investigated that the day and that best a geisha with the resources we threw out initially to 2 days made arrests. The attempted murder now took 5 days to a 7 defendant arrest They're getting an increased rate of solving the crime of apprehension and these aren't kind of lingering in the case load any longer. They're getting immediate review. >> I wanted to ask not registry, not list but because you're able to be out there, we have dedicated detectives in yourself were able to build relationships with people in know that I'm so really as far as locally, we won't need a list or a registry. Is that

correct? I mean, I know we don't have a list or registry came up Councilmember Alvarez was asking his questioning, but I was thinking about that. And I was just thinking if you're able to be in the community and get to know people that you don't really need a-list or a registry anything else of that kind because you're building relationships with people. You're getting to know Like she said, you're treating them with dignity. >> In respect to endure available. So that would essentially take in informal or formal. >> Registry? >> Well, just to be clarified to is that if the subject is can it convicted of a gang crime? Can you go to k is convicted of a gang crime and the court orders them to register as a gang member or gang participant. That can be ordered court authorizing that could go for they will be required to register for a period of time at which point it will be purged not required to register. Same type of a registry database is a a arson, a suspect or a sex registrant. So that would be court ordered. That is not something that we would necessarily come bile compound outside the court system. But as far as like, just building a list and now for whatever targeting or harassing that individual for simply being on a list of some sort that is not something, irrelevant. It doesn't serve a purpose so it would be a waste of my time to try and build a list. And then. Harassed these individuals without. An accompanying purpose. If that makes sense

>> I'm in. I also heard that gang member is not a a crime so there's a question in it or putting the cart before the horse when officers are present at any of our schools, are they children while they're in school regarding? Any possible gang activity that has happened within the community. I think that's really important. We're still working with our school board and city leaders on what is the future of a school resource officer program. Look like. But we're going to really carefully designed You dip a talking about like, what are the interactions with school campuses and the youth that are involving right now? Our procedures were just going to the schools investigation of some type of assault or weapons on school campuses. >> What we're really careful about that what you never saw with our regional asked for a program of a rose contacting individuals. But I have heard some community feedback on that. So that's one thing that we're going to carefully build in with our future program is water. The interactions with our youth and our school campus and making sure that we don't have any implicit bias or any type of discrimination going on in the school campuses. And I have absolute faith and the staff of the Santa Rosa Police Department that you're not going to see that occur. But we also have procedures in place. If you do see something that you're unhappy through our complaint process with our professional standards division, we now have an independent police auditor. Any we can in our community can contact directly, including students in our school campuses and parents and teachers receive

something that they feel is inappropriate and our pledges that will thoroughly investigate that and to be able to make sure that we get to the bottom of it. >> 2 things, the safety plan I think is great thing in the mental health field. I think that that is a very successful way of supporting people. Also, I heard about mentoring. People are in juvenile hall that is also great. But I would love to see some of that mentoring prior to people going to juvenile hall because we don't want them to have to go. To juvenile hall in order to get those robust services mentor ship, which are so important for our youth. And that concludes my question. Thank you very much for being here. All right. I just have a couple more First. How does this differ from the special Enforcement team? >> So it's an important distinction. The these are detectives were plainclothes detectives that are going out and investigating gang-related crimes and violent crimes. They work really closely with our >> violent crimes team that we have the special enforcement team is uniquely different and they work a hearing problem oriented policing areas that we have within the city of Santa Rosa. They're going out. They are street level team, but they're not focused on gang crimes and they'll do things like working with our narcotics team subject selling drugs out of the house. They hear a lot of community planes this specific home selling drugs are seeing some activity in their work with that. So there they'll work as sister teams and coordinate with each other but are uniquely different that the special enforcement team has been primarily focused on firearms and last year as sergeant make mention, seize 255 illegal

firearms off the streets of Santa Rosa. And 55 of those were ghost guns. Are these unserialized firearms? So they've been really focused on some of firearm reduction in our city. If you want to add anything to that argument. >> Yes, so the special enforcement team is it's really kind of go over. They can they can help out in special services division. If we have a wanted subject that we need to get a stop on or something like that, they're kind of a Swiss army knife, if you will. That helps us to maximize our efficiency kind of a force multiplier fuel. I can. I now have a dedicated, dedicated group of individuals with training that can go out and help me fix a problem. The communities they can solve something we're always available and they can be uniform. Presence MAY need it. And the special enforcement teams meeting with community members go in the community meetings. >> And addressing some of the issues that are occurring our neighborhoods across the city of Santa Rosa. All right. Thank you. One of the things we heard a lot about was tracking And then we also saw your presentation and within the question to the use of that of schools, schools in district and districts. >> We'll be tracking number of cases within the gang crimes team that are evolving school age children is a either the victims or alleged perpetrators. >> You know, we currently track and we publicly of like all juvenile arrests made with And we talked. We also have different tracking mechanisms for incident on school campuses. So we haven't been tracking necessarily victims

of juvenile crime, but that's something that certainly we have the ability to track and we love to get feedback from our community, our city leaders about what are the specific metrics that you'd like to as we examine the effectiveness of this team as we go into our first year. Right now, we we tracked over aggregate data of the amount of crimes, the amount of shootings, the amount of arrest, amount of stops and all those things like that. But we can dive deeper into a lot of the discussions been focused individual crimes or is there any historical cases are examples of? >> Actual? Taking on an actual game and larger scale than just like they did this one crime. We rest of this one individual. Those. >> perpetrator actually taking on no game. Absolutely. We've had sergeant was part of the fbi Safe Streets Task Force and he could talk about some of the things you've done to dismantle. >> The Hells Angels, Criminal Street gang here in the city of Santa Rosa. As again, detective I tracked the Barbarian Brotherhood which is a radical white supremacy gang that we have here in the city of Santa Rosa. We brought the first step back, enhance mentor, the gang enhancements against the Barbarian Brotherhood almost dismantle organization here in Sonoma County. So those are some of the things I think it's also important is a community concerns this is only focusing on these active gang members and sometimes people of color. But actually we have white-supremacist gangs here in the Sonoma County and support. They were able to track that. We're all. So we've seen a significant rise in our in our Jewish community about fear of violence and

things like that. And I just met with one of our synagogue just this weekend over some of their concerns over that. So that's going to be another thing that this gang crimes team can talk about. But I let Travis mean talk about this. He led the investigation of bringing some of the first Federal rico Act against our local Hells Angels. >> Yes, so I guess one of the benefits of the gang crime teams, you actually get conduct investigations and you can target the leadership of a lot of these larger organization. So going back to 2002, those operations, Black widow which target Target the are feeling prison gang that was involving Santa's investigators. You had in South Park, which Rico indictment in the Senate in the South Park area. Santa Rosa are targeting entertain. You know, Criminal Street targeted 8 members. They're removed. The leadership of the group. We actually saw a significant vacuum effect where that area for decades have exclusively norteno gang area. Well, with the removal of that through the rico indictment, he actually saw some rain. You're getting members move in there. We had a shooting and we had several more contacts with rain. Again, members that moved into the void created when that investigation remove them from the in the following events after that indictment was rendered. You saw a extreme decrease in violent crime over the next several years. Now, subs going, all those individuals are getting out of prison at this point. Been almost a decade now. So you do see those individuals getting released coming back to the area. We also have another. And I mean that gives Angels

that was in. 2019 and preserve report proceeded through too. Federal jury trials that completed last year. With the gang crimes team with partnership with our federal authorities you do see significant investigations taking place throughout the senators area. Great. Thank you. And my last >> in the city, we have a Bateman program, it's also my understanding. I think most people understanding the graffiti is a key component of gang I'll let you speak to it rather than pontificate from from up here. If someone suspects there's there's gang graffiti on private or public property or they know it is based on their own education. What processes do you think that, you know, is that something that you're team will take care of? What process should they in reporting that? >> Yes, my my team will handle that. I'm like as we were to earlier, we've already been handling those types investigation. So the gangs crime team will investigators intially everything from graffiti, vandalism up to attempted murder. If there is a gang-related homicide, they will work with rbc work that that murder investigation. But in regards to curfew to vandalism, we get several different ways that could be an online reporting where the individual can take pictures with her iPhone submit a report through police database that will come to my desk. I can then a past that to an investigator for follow-up. If there is a amount say what recently happened at Central

Plaza detectives could be dispatched out on and on. Call generally they can check the area for video surveillance take, you know, high-quality photographs and those sorts of things and then immediately begin the investigation. There. It could come from a patrol dispatch where patrol officers responded out, took the initial report Forza to the gang crime team. So it's it's any matter ways, but it will come across our desk. It will receive a follow-up from an investigator. >> All right. Thank you very much. That it for my questions. We're going to move to public comment on this this is the public opportunity to give a feedback voice concerns and ask questions about the gang crimes team. Each individual given 3 minutes to make their If you have questions, please ask them. We can't into a back and forth. Will know them and make sure your questions are answered after the fact. So there's anybody that like to make public comment. Please go ahead and moved to one of the podiums. >> My name is Ana venues. And I'm I'm born and raised here in Santa Rosa. Just have a few questions because you did at schools. And I know some of my questions might refer to the past, but I just I'm interested in knowing how many chill, how many children have been a resident on school campus? What is the school's disciplinary process? How many of our children bypass those steps and instead were incarcerated Of those children. How many of them were of color? And how many of those users had their rights violated. How many of them were interrogated without leave or parental

representation. How many of those children were on? And I how many of them were arrested for violation of probation and parole. For actually not even committing a crime that MAY have just violated. The conditions being with another person MAY have been a gang member. >> And if they were committing a crime where they stopped this just probation like that, I mean, the only reason I can see you Searching questioning the child became you want them to come back and getting You want to find something on them. Was a little second right in this night as So my question is, you just automatically stop an individual because, you know, they're on probation and hopes that they find and have something in that position. Otherwise why would you make contact? Thank you very much. As anybody else would like to make comment at this time. >> But when you're ready. >> Hello, my name is Annette Arnold. And I'm with the South Park Coalition. A group of neighbors working together to try to make South Park it cleaner. Safer and better resourced neighborhood. I'm also on the Chiefs community investor team, which it gives me the opportunity to meet with the chief once a month and find out the issues that are happening with the city and bring it back to my neighborhood. I want to say that I very much in support of the gang. Crimes team and violence Prevention partnership and Hope that the city will fund them for the needed resources that we need to tackle crimes and gangs in

our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Anybody else? Seeing none will close public comment. When we come back to the committee for any last comments or questions. Thank you so much for doing this. I it MAY seem like we're kind of raking over the coals, but with anything like this, I think it's important for our council to represent our constituents and ask some hard questions and repeatedly, sir, what our expectations are units like this and what the community expects. I'm going forward in terms of I would like to see >> metrics on school activity. If we have 3 out of the points that this team is supposed to be taking on involved in education and prevention. I think it's important to have that so that we understand just what that looks like in our community and the reason for my graffiti question is I would like to see some sort of and I don't know which departments would fall under. But with gangs crime team work with the team that handles the mice in a row zaps the weekend. And so we can coordinate in and Individuals can just say, hey, I think this MAY be gang-related. It goes directly to you and you can make that determination of, yes, this absolutely is or know this is then. >> Comment on them. Is that having to turn over like code enforcement or something like that? So I'd like to see that going forward. Anything else from the committee? Seeing none. We will move on to the next item. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Real quick, sorry, chief, did you want to answer those questions and providing couple comment? That's my We moved over the

that real quick. Absolutely. So we are tracking. And so right now it's really important understand police officers are not doing random patrol of our school campuses that the only time that we're going to school campuses when called to investigate. >> We have unfortunately seen a significant increase in those calls for services over this last semester. There's been so there's actually of the law in California does allow juveniles been Now in California was probably 2 years ago that we can interview them without a lawyer present for juvenile arrested for defense. So there's no juveniles being arrested without knowing their rights without even having a public defender. There's some very small exceptions to that for public safety exemptions and things like that. I'm definitely not stops are being indiscriminately at. This is someone officer knows it's on probation on the school campuses. But that's what's really important. We've heard feedback about that from from programs for for an sro programs and other communities. So that's why we're really it's important for us to hear this feedback and make sure we build back some form of a school resource officer program that you specifically addresses some of these issues. Officers are not involved in any way whatsoever with school, disciplined with suspensions, expulsions. That's none of our purview. And we're not going to get involved in those. But those are some of the things that I want to more carefully outlined in this future. You about what the proactive interactions are when arrest need to be made on school campus and how we can minimize that. And some of the impacts

that come from that and also really clearly defining about when an sro is not going to be used is not going to be used for administrative offenses such talking on your cell phone and class are running in the hallways and things like that that we're really going to carefully to find those. We are going to be carefully tracked the metrics on our school campuses, including the arrest made in one of the recommendations are modifications that I'm recommending is that we do a public facing dashboard that dashboard we talk about what are the arrest made in our school campus? What's the ethnic breakdown? The gender breakdown, the type of crimes where they arrested on a school campus wasn't initiated by an officer versus a school administrator. And those are all questions that our community deserves to know and I'm able to have transparent. Those are some of the things that we're working toward for, especially with our school campuses. But we're going to have a host, more of community conversations with between us and our Santa Rosa School district. And so we really want to hear these voices so we can build a program that works for all. Thank you very much. I apologize. I didn't mean over >> move on to item 5.3, which is the Rosen Substation chief taken away when you're ready. >> All right. We'll begin our introduce myself. I'm John Cregan, our chief of police here in the city of Santa Rosa. And today we're going to talk about something that's really exciting. And so is our ongoing effort toward building a substation for our Roselyn community and we annex the roads and community and 2017 and I've heard strong feedback from our community about wanting to see an increased presence in the rose and community and how we can do that and how we can increase our response times to the

Roseland community and our connectivity to the community. There and especially being more accessible. So we're going to go through some of those things. And I said as soon as step into the role as chief, that was one of my first priorities, which is to locate a building that we could purchase. And my keep parameters were that wanted to be on Sebastopol Road that was visible to the community right there in the heart Roseland. A council member Eddie Alvarez has been such a key strong partner in this from day one. And actually we spent a day one time we walked a mile or 2 back and forth going on business and business and he has that strong connections in the neighborhood about looking for available spaces. Our city Realtor Jill Scott and Celeste and her team have been incredible partners in this and talking to Jill Scott as we've gone through the last year and a half of looking for an available space. She said it's the most exhaustive city searching she's ever been involved in about trying to felt a building that meter It's within our price range. And we're really excited that after year looking for a building that we're able to find a building and that for building that we and we use formally the money to be able to do that. We purchased building that's existing right now Rosa Library. That's at 4.70, Sebastopol Road right adjacent to the exchange Bank about the pool across the street from a took a and that's where we're able to purchase that. But we entered into an with the library that I obviously we didn't want kick the library out of that space until they move to their new building. And so they're moving hopefully in Twenty-twenty 6 as we see the community hub come together.

The library is going to move their space to a new improved building space there. The herd community have. And then we're going to move into that space at 4.70, Sebastopol Road. It's 4500 square feet. It's going to be such an exciting place. What and my goal and vision is to have actually have police there in the lobby where you could come in and you could file report, you have community questions. You can get picks a ticket, signed off whatever your needs, maybe and be able to have that Monday through Friday, like 8 to 5 open to the public and to have officers assigned out of that area to increase there connectivity with the community. Their response times and because we have 4500 square feet or we're going to build in even a community meeting space. So we have community meetings. We can hold right there in rose on whether it be and we had to be an available space for the virus, pension partnership in or other community stakeholders. The only downside is were excited, but we have to wait until 2026. To be able to get into that space. So then we started looking, okay, what are some of the other opportunities until 2026, as we're able to get in there and this is our the Rosa Library space. So it's an incredible building the owner of that ad done quite a bit refurbishing over the last couple years. So it's a perfect space for us to be able to move into and meet the needs of our community. So we started looking all over the place for a place that we could lease. The options were pretty limited to be frank, that like that, we're on to basketball road that were available. That met our with that. But after an exhaustive search, our city team was able to locate the space at 12, 15 Sebastopol Road. And if you're familiar with the areas, the

Sky Coast trucking company area and they multiple buildings there on that property. It is smaller. So it's approximately 800 square feet compared to 4500 square feet. So much smaller. So that's going to have some limitations. It's not going be a public facing location that we could have a lobby there and staff there. But we're going to have 4 deaths for officers say we have 4 parking spaces for police cars there. So what I love is now when you're driving down to basketball road, you can see police car cars parked there. They're going to be able to set a driving all the way back to Avenue to remain police department. They can eat lunch. Is there those small kitchen there for a bathroom? They can take bathroom breaks. They can write reports there. They can process evidence there that room. So the end of the day, you're going to see more of a presence in Roseland. And then when there is emergency call, they're going to have a faster response time and community members can always come knocking the door when they see a police officer and the officer to come talk to them. So it's still going to have exciting accessibility for the rose and community, but not quite what we get. Were able to move to are more formal location and we're in the process of finalizing at least it's actually going to come the council next week as a consent item as the final thing for that lease. And so that's coming up. And then we hope to be in this location by MARCH of this year. We have just a little bit of work to do with the deaths, getting moved him. We've already ordered the deaths. Our it team is to come connect to computers telephones and things like that. But our goal is to have officers using that space with in MARCH of this

year and we're closely following the timeline for the herd community hub for us to be able to move in to the new building. And that's where. We're going to have. Like I said, the public facing. But also we're going to have a call our phone there on the outside. So even at night, if any way come, you could pick up that phone. It would ring directly to our dispatch center to be able to alert and to be able to get resources. But I hope that you're going to see all night long that officers are in and out of those locations annex more accessible to our community. Have a picture here of the so this is the Sky Coast company were right there on the bottom left that first little building there as we're going to be our substation right there. We have the 4 parking spaces right there. So when you're passing Sebastopol Road, hopefully you'll see. And in any time you can come knock on that door and be able to access of an officer's there. But it's going to we're going to community education on. There's not always someone there. So called 9-1-1 in the case of emergency. But this is at least one more resource that you'd be able reach out to. Short-term goals that we have with. This is to provide a more visible police presence, improve the police response times and in the community access our long-term goals like I already highlighted is the walk-in counter service be able to come in directly to rose be able to have Spanish speaking staff there who can be able to address needs in the community and again, have that public meeting space, which I think is going to be a game changer for us connecting. And we've heard loudly from the Rosen community some of the barriers are coming all the way to the snow map near the police

department or the family center and kind of community meter leaders and rose and saying you come to us and that's where you're going to get more engagement. So that's one of my key roles in that way. I can hear more we're in the planning stages right now of doing a rose and community meeting where we want to hear it. So we're we're planning to do that sometime in Martin will be able to talk about the substation, educate the community. But I want to learn more about how we can provide a level of service throughout the whole city of Santa Rosa, but specifically for Rosen community here. So make sure the council's aware once set the date and for that meeting. So that was the quick high-level overview. But we're excited to be able to see where we're at with that. >> All I think the only question for me is to can you please confirm what I heard was that your desire to have this PRESIDENT's was as a response to community request to have a larger police presence. And Rosen, is correct? >> absolutely so. And and I just had a meeting with rose and community members urgent there who owns a business there and was really saying, like, hey, we're not seeing the presence of we want to see. We want to see a stronger PRESIDENT Addressing some of the crime drug testing, some of the safety concerns. But there's there's a real interest in building more of a partnership. And that's something that I really want to do. So I really wanted to be careful like this isn't trying to police more. The Rosen community. This is more to build like a partnership with the Rosen community and to be more accessible to our community that our community can reach out to us and with our building, especially our meeting That's a really important distinction that I

want to make this is to be with our Rosa community, not to be against our rules and community by any means. Thank you. Appreciate that. >> Seeing no more questions appear will move to public If you would like to make a comment on this item, please go ahead and move to one of the podiums up top and you have 3 minutes to do so. Seeing none. We will close public comment come back in the. Councilmember, our U.S.. Thank you, sir. What he thought. You're right. It was a long day getting a lot of individuals and I really do. Thank you for for. >> The focus being providing the service, not instilling fear, not a selling more tickets for the community that and sometimes already financially strapped. And I hope the community. Sees it for what it is and that's really providing more services to up to an underserved community when that's gone a long time without tension and without a helping hand. So from a committee, she's a such thank you. >> Thank you. We would have been there without always support. So thank you. All I think council as perfectly I I have no comments. So we will move to item 6. There's no matters. Held in committee item 7 Police Department update some 0.1. >> All right. And keep this brief. But we wanted to go over some of the most exciting updates that we've had the Santa Rosa Police Department see if we could share that one. There we go is our recruitment. And so it's really been one of our biggest focus is what I stepped into the role of chief with 21 sworn police officer vacancies and a host of civilian vacancies. And it was really crippling our organization to be able to provide the level of service that we wanted to

do. And I really have to tip my hat Captain Dan Moran sick Lieutenant Brenda Harrington and Lieutenant Matt North at the time. Now Christine Fisher, her on that team who really poured their heart and soul. And Amanda Donahue does all of our backgrounds toward really working together as a team. And we wouldn't be here today without the hard work of each one of those individuals. So just in 2023, we hired 37 new employees at the Santa Rosa Police Department and 3 interns that we are able to launch a new intern program. 26 of those were new police officers. One thing that we're really love is we recruited 13 lateral police officers who are existing police officers had training and experience that moved over from other police agencies because quite honestly, we're building a department that other people want to be a part of the word on our city managers. Incredible with other officers in the support with our city council. And so they feel supported here in the city of Santa Rosa and want to come over and be part of our incredible team. We also sent 13 new police officers to the police That's a 20 week program that they go through. So 26 police officers hired last year. We hired civilian employees who between our dispatchers are police technicians fill the evidence technicians community service officers and a host of other positions and the 3 intern positions. We now 20 hours a week of student intern positions. We're currently recruiting those positions right now. So that's something that we're able to do and able to connect some of our youth here in Santa Rosa with the police department. So we'll go through some of the things that we've been maintaining

near full staffing. We did have some retirement at the end of 2023. So currently we have 4 police officer vacancies, but we're we're recruiting right now for the APRIL and JULY Police Academy. So we're at a accepting applications right now for those positions and hope to be back to full staffing for a police officer positions in the coming weeks. We also have some existing positions for our field evidence, technicians or community service officers and one dispatch vacancy right now. The growth that we had last year, we added the one position to the gang crime scene that we talked about using the public safety and prevention funds. We also have our authorized to 2 more downtown enforcement officers and to fell the evidence technicians with our last budget. So that brings our total Department street 184 sworn positions and 80 civilian positions with that whole Department street of 264 full-time employee positions that we have. One of the things that we really saw as an area to growth with some of what we've referred to commonly as as like building a department matches and represents the community that we serve. One of the things that was remarkable for a county here, our city here in Sonoma. And you think we're very progressive in the things that we really saw that in 2019 that we only had 6% of our sworn staff were females. And so something that we really wanted to be able to take greater strides to representing our community. So we join the program. We're one of the first police agencies in the United States join the 30 by 30 initiative. And it's a host of pledges that you work toward examining your current department and some of

accessibility in some of the fairness that you have within your department and to be able to also do better job of recruiting recruits. And so the initiative says by Twenty-thirty that 30% of your police academy classes that you have a goal of them being represented by female employees. And we made tremendous stride. And actually just last week are all of our female officers came together and had an off-site meeting and talking about some of the progress. So currently today we have the most female officers in the history of the Santa Rosa Police Department, which I'm really excited about. We have 25 female police officers making up 12% our sworn police officer staff. So we're excited by that. But we also understand that we still have progress to do. We have 3 female sergeants and we have one female lieutenant to represent our command staff team and we're excited to have them in our leadership team, but also looking about how are we remove some of those barriers to application and promotion within our own department and do even better with that. But we have an incredible staff. Another thing that we really heard a lot of feedback is how do we have a Hispanic population here in the city of Santa Rosa? And how do we better represent that community with our police tap? And we've made some strides in. One of the thing is we really made a focus on developing internal Spanish speaking classes and we have some of our officers who lead this class and are doing now and we've really seen it in a huge growth and the number of our Spanish speaking officer. So currently we have a process that go through that you can test for

that. So we currently have 42 police officers who can speak what we call conversational Spanish or being able to be not completely fluid, but they can have a conversation with the industry to understand what's going on, bringing the resources that you need and be able to answer basic questions. But we have 24 police officers that are absolutely flew. It in Spanish and many of them come from Spanish speaking families and I'm grown up in that. We have 7 civilian staff members who are working in dispatch in our police technician spots that are completely fluent in Spanish. But we're really working toward refining our Spanish speaking classes and even increasing some of that. We currently ave out of 184 officers. We have 34 who identify as 30 male and for females and we have 10 civilian staff members who identify as Hispanic of kind of the opposite of 2 males and 8 females. So it's something that we're tracking closely. This is some of the things that we're starting to use metrics with our hiring with recruitment, working really closely with our hr department here, how we can increase some of these numbers and the most important thing for us is reducing some of the barriers to application were defying like, what are some of the issues? We're not seeing community members and that's our biggest thing is that we're really trying to get the word out. But we're not always seeing the number of applicants applying for these positions. So we really been working with our recruitment team about getting out in the community, meeting with some of our community leaders meeting with community groups and making their awareness about the great opportunities that we have here at the Santa Rosa Police Department. Some of the opportunities we have for Spanish speakers to and how we really promote that

within our organization. Also really working with collaborative the helped us create what we call will policing task force where we have both internal members from the police department and a host of community members who came together and we looked at different recommendations that we can do to improve the diversity are hiring, making sure that we're getting great qualified members who truly represent our community. And what we're also really trying to focus on in the city of Santa Rosa is how do we maintain the incredibly qualified staff that we have and how do we keep them here longer? And we're building that between the police department and our city team. We're building a city where people want to come and be employed and there's still progress that we can make on that as a city. But that's where really want to do is keep all the officers that we have and continue to be able grow even our street and how we can represent our community. So that was really quickly highlighting some of the successes that we've had. And I'm really proud of our team and I'm happy to take any questions on that of our areas that we can still improve on. No questions will move to public comment on this item. If there's anybody a public comment now is their time to do so. >> Seeing none. We'll close public comment. Any. >> couple of things I wanted to say I've seen an increase in district 7 of police presence. And I wanted to say thank you. The residents of district 7 would like to say thank less speeding down, you know, main roads and things like that. >> we're very grateful. And I

attended the U.S. Conference of Mayors this past week I wanted to say it was very nice to be able to brag about some of the wonderful things that we're doing in center of that. And I know that we wouldn't be able to do that. Know, it's a collaborative effort, but without your leadership team. So thank you very much. >> thank you very much. And and we really one of the biggest concerns we've heard from our is traffic violations. So with this full staffing, we just talked about, able to bring our traffic team at one time many years ago had 9 motorcycle officers on it and had gone all the way down to 4 and this 2019, 2020 kind of slump. So just next week, actually, we're adding another motor officers will be at 6 on a motorcycle team and they're able to really address some of the community concerns. We're able to have our downtown enforcement team now with officers due to the incredible support of our council with that. And so those are some of the teams that we're able to start getting back to full staffing. We're adding another property crimes detective as well. All those positions have been not for a field for years because of this staffing things that just this last couple months were able to start slowly tonight. They were going to take our patrol to the highest level spin of our uniformed patrol officers. So that's going to provide a much more visible presence on our community. I think I help us be more responsive to our community concerns and then one, our overriding stride is too decrease our priority one response times. And so we're really going to I think you're going to see in 2024 some incredible progress with that. >> officer that was supposed to being on a motorcycle

officer. And I hope he was able to do that because I know you have been waiting for a while. So. >> Yeah, they are the motor. I'm not sure who you met by. Garrison Swartz is a tall skinny guy. Is that going to be guy taken that position? Thank you. You're being very humble about this. And I just want to commend you and our city manager and all the staff on our successes and staffing the public doesn't know there are departments that are not far away. >> That are severely understaffed or the point of asking for emergency mutual aid just to cover shifts and patrols. And that's how bad down some of the these departments are near us. And we are nearly fully staffed. To the point where we can. We can staff multiple departments teams. And I think that's great. So congratulations on your success of this last year to both you and the city manager. Thank you. All We will move on to item 7.2, which is the fire Department update. I'm Chief Westrope. Thank you. Sticking around. >> Thank you, chair and that much of a choice. Good to see you all again. Scott fire chief for the city of Santa for the last public safety subcommittee meeting. I had a power point on our update and chief Creatinine. We switched roles this time. So we will. Accordingly for the next public safety subcommittee But I just have a brief update much in alignment with the police department. So as far as staffing goes, the fire department currently has a staff of 157 Ft ease and that's before the safer positions are added into the position control list. We

currently have vacant positions in operations is largely due to retirements at the end of the year. And then we have the 12 employees we need to hire for safer. I'm happy to report. We have an members starting next Monday. We currently have 11 in the background process and we have a new recruitment underway right now. So we're doing well as far as a cream and goes and we have enough for the safer positions which will talk about here in a moment. But we're doing well in our recruitment process and we should be able to fill those vacancies here relatively quickly. In fire We're back to full staffing. We had a brief vacancy due to a retirement in the community development technician role. We were fortunate to find the excellent candidate within the We're bringing over to the fire department to take over that position to keep planner viewing plan checks under way. As far as new construction and remodels go. And then administration, we one vacancy currently in admin We're currently recruiting for that position. That employee went back to her role in human resources. As far as fire station nothing really new to report since last Fire station 5 has been delayed a little bit due to the weather but will make up that time elsewhere in the process. I'm Reyna physical construction is to begin around JUNE of 2024, if not a little bit sooner with an estimated completion date of mid 2025. Fire Station 8 in We're currently finishing up. That is a design build process in order to put that out. Rfp and get that out to bid. There's still no fine. A start date or completion One of the elements that has been awarded is the demolition of the current, proper houses on

the properties so we're underway there. So you start to see some physical work on that. That property as well. One of the things that will kind of keep you posted on his. The real estate team is I'm actively looking for properties that we could potentially should the fire service sales tax measure passed in MARCH and we'll need to buy 3 properties to build 3 new fire stations. So we have been out with them and they're currently looking around for the the properties within the guidelines of where we need to build this fire station. So we're trying to get ahead of the curve there. Hopefully that I'm sure that sales tax passed in MARCH. As far as flea we still have 7 type one fire engines on order. We're expecting to them to write this spring. The other 5 to arrive in the fall. The 2 types, 6 fire engines. There's been a bit of a delay. We expected this winter. But the chances are built and are working on the box. Build up right now. We've already purchased all the equipment to go on the engine. So hopefully we'll see them in the next month or 2. And already have the equipment to put on there and finish to build out here. So those certainly will be in service by this summer. The quick attack vehicles that were purchased by the center's a fire via a grant from the community fun. We received one of those trucks and the other one should be here any time. So really excited about that. Those will be the initial rollout of the events like sports squad. So we'll see out of safer. So we're really excited about that and will will do some press on that as soon as we actually get both of them here and then we're working with fleet in with finance on the purchase orders or the purchase plan for are future purchases engines and a ladder truck. On safer, which if you recall, is a federal grant we received to put 2 paramedics squads and service in the core area of Santa Rosa. And a lot of the emergency medical services calling keeper engines and

trucks off of those calls. Their scheduled on pace to to go in service and MARCH as design when the period of performance begins. And as I stated earlier, the employees are in the background process. We should have all of them on board in time for this process to begin. A is a state of the vehicles are ready in the team is currently working on policy procedures and especially protocols. This is a new response model going into service, particularly the downtown area. And just a very quick update on the fire service sales tax measure. Again, this is for informational educational, only but things are moving along. Well, as far as the sales the campaign team has received some strong can Doris months, his reminder for the subcommittee and for the public, the funding for Santa Rosa would provide 3 new fire stations. 3 new companies that are staffed full-time companies the second battalion chief and duty on a day-to-day basis into vegetation management inspectors for a total of 35 new have to ease. I'm certain the Santa Rosa. So things are moving along. Well, and we're really happy with the progress the campaign teams making on that front. With that, I'll turn it over to you for any questions or comments MAY have. All right. No questions here will go to public comments on this item. If you have a public comment, please move to one of the podiums, seeing nobody move. We will close public comment. >> Any comments? Great job on staffing as I know our department tends to be a little bit more difficult to recruit for based on the fact that we require paramedics and don't back that with the empty so that be very proud of yourself as well as well as

your department. One question on the staffing, does those staffing numbers include maverick in Gabby? Maverick and Gabby are not in the position control list so they don't. >> Mavericks doing great, very well received in Gabby should be here in the next 6 months or so. So those are Baber health canines for are keenly aware of what's going on. >> I from the mayor here that there MAY be request that should you have another department updated a future public safety subcommittee meeting that maverick or Gabby should be present for that? We can certainly make that happen. Thank you. Chief. I'm seeing as how there's nothing else on the agenda will move diary, which is a German. Thank you.