Speaker 0: Why the motion carries for 2 to 1. Thank you. Okay. So we have dispensed with the consent calendar and we move on to our regular agenda items.
Speaker 1: Six days adoption of resolution amending the recruitment and hiring incentive policy for lateral police officers in the Alameda Police Department.
Speaker 0: Okay. And who's presenting? I think we have our H.R. director and our police chief. Come on up.
Speaker 7: Good evening, Madam Mayor. Members of the Council. Paul. Hillary, chief of police. Our director, Nancy Braunstein, is going to help me out with the slideshow. And she's also here to answer any questions that might be specific that I'm unable to answer. So thank you for allowing us to do this presentation tonight. This is, in my estimation, a very big deal for the police department, and I hope that you will see it the same way. As everybody knows, we've been struggling for many years now to bring our bring our sworn staffing up to our full capacity of 88. We have, for a variety of reasons, struggled with that. And it is it is not a situation that is ours alone as the slide that's flashing up before you shows. These are primarily articles that are referencing Bay Area police departments, but it is a nationwide problem and for reasons that we don't have enough time to talk about all of them. The big ones for us lately have been, as a lot of people in the room have experienced, the high cost of housing in the Bay Area has created a situation where a lot of departments in the East Bay are unable to have officers. Even well-paid officers cannot afford to buy a home, especially those with families and children. So they're commuting from long, long distances away, and it's frankly not sustainable. We've lost a handful of our officers over the last couple of years, probably five or six to be exact, to do the commute where they've gone somewhere to take a job with another police department for less pay, but with only a five or ten minute commute instead of a two and a half hour commute. We have done many things over the past several years to to try to fill the positions. And this is a short tenure slide with a little bit of a history lesson to let you know where our authorized staffing is, which is the darker column on the left. Um, we were at 92 back in 2009. We were cut to 88. Back in 2011, we lost four positions the same year that we closed the jail, and we've remained at that for the last eight years running, but we have not been able to get up to 88. The this slide is really a snapshot in time of January I'm sorry, December 31st of the year in question. So for example, I'll bring it to one sort of stark column, which is if you look at the difference from 2014 to 2015, we went from four down to ten down and it looks like that happened overnight and it didn't. Well, it did. And it didn't. On December 30th of 2015, five five officers, a captain, a sergeant and three officers left the department on full service retirements all in the same day. So overnight we went from five down to ten down. And that's why the 2015 slide reflects a bigger discrepancy. We've been up and down at various times during each of the years that have followed at one point, and Nancy and I talked for a minute and a half, I think we we actually were at full staffing and then immediately lost some people and and went backwards again , not on the slide. But worth mentioning both to the council and to the community is that when I was hired back in 1992, the police department was had a sworn authorization number of 111. So the number the current number of 88 represents a 21% decrease in our staffing. The city, in large part, hasn't really understood why our staffing or service levels have dropped a little bit. But that is a huge reason why the 21% drop. The ten people that I'm missing now, I need and we need them for for for a series of reasons. But. We're just we're just having trouble filling the spots. And so that's what brings us to what we're trying to do today. Um, can you go to the next slide, please? So looking back at this slide, this shows our applications received, the people that actually made it onto the eligible list and then the very, very small column on the right is who we've actually hired. So we've maintained a very high level of scrutiny in our applications. We are not too careless in who we pick, very selective. Less than 1% of the people who apply get hired. And when you only have 274 or 69 people applying, as we did in 2013 or 14, we just don't seem to do as well. We made some changes that I'll get into in another slide where the city went from a closed recruiting process where we would just occasionally open up and accept applications and then close it again . Back in 2015, we were able to successfully lobby the city to do open and continuous recruiting, and we now do backgrounds or I'm sorry, all boards every two weeks. And so that's why you see the application numbers jump up, jump up considerably in 2015. At the end of the day, you know, we picked up nine, ten, 11 and eight people, but we were already operating at ten down. And then we've had other attrition issues, people that either quit or failed the academy quit or failed the field training program or quit or failed during their two year probationary status. Um, all of that has led us to the point where we have been literally treading water to stay ten positions down for most of the last several years. We just hired four people, swore them in on November 19th. So they're all in the early stages of the field training program. We have two more recruits in the academy, one that will graduate in the early spring, one in the late spring. And then we have other people in in process and actually have a an applicant in the audience tonight who decided to come out and watch a city council meeting. So hopefully, hopefully in a year, he'll have a badge on his chest. The struggle for us hasn't always been visible to the public or to the to the city at large. What we have done over the years, and I've talked about it in some other settings, is we have removed people from special assignments and detectives or in the traffic unit and we've put them in patrol. That's the backbone of the department, always has been, always will be. And we have done everything we can to keep that staffing level somewhere between 40 and 45 officers. We're at 40 today. Uh. Hopefully going to 41 here in a couple of weeks because we have somebody nearing the end of the training program. The hidden cost of that is that we have fewer people in investigations. So. The backlog is bigger today than it has ever been before. We're still getting to our cases, but we don't we don't have the same complement of detectives because everybody's out in the street. The other thing that that does is it creates a ripple effect where we have officers who get into the and this happened with me and probably most of the people that work in the department. You get to about the five or seven year range and you're looking to spread your wings a little bit and learn how to do new things and get new challenges and go into detectives, go into motors and get special assignments. And I can't offer that to them right now. And that's that's hurting it's hurting us. It can, at its worst, cause people to leave and go somewhere where they're going to have more opportunities. The blessing and the curse of Alameda is that we're a small enough department, that everybody knows everybody, and we operate like a family. The curse is that there aren't a lot of positions that are available on a good day, and when we're ten down, there are fewer positions. So it creates and creates an overtime burden. We have police officers that are getting pulled in different directions, traffic enforcement. We've got children that have been hit going to and from school. We've got car break ins. We've got issues on Park Street that we've been dealing with. And and we've got the well-documented issues with homelessness around town that, frankly, the island is split on how we should handle it. And we try to do all of that. And the cops are doing the officers on the street are doing, I think, a very commendable job. Tiptoeing through all of that and working a lot of overtime. Most of what we're getting accomplished recently that the traffic, the stepped up traffic enforcement is all being done by officers on their day off or who are coming in early or staying late. We just don't have the bandwidth to do it with people during the regular duty hours. So I think that that is something that, again, to the naked eye people probably in the community don't realize that that's what happened. What's happening? Uh, our crime is up a little bit. I'm not here to say that the sky is falling. It's mostly property crime. Ah, violent crime is largely down. The numbers that we that we present, percentage wise, it's just statistically they're not significant numbers, but we have a significant issue with property crime. And it's again, it's a regional problem. Probably taking an extra report and a half per day of people who are getting their cars broken into some some level of theft, grand or petty theft. Now, I'll take that every day and twice on Sunday versus violent crime. But it is still an issue that affects the quality of life of the people on the island. And ten extra police officers would help us have people in investigations that would help us put hopefully a couple of people on motorcycles to do traffic enforcement and put some extra people on patrol and maybe on walking beats on Park Street and Webster Street. That's what I hope to accomplish. This is just a recent slide. The November numbers won't be out for another week or so, but in October you can kind of see in a descending way how many applications we received during the month where we are year to date. So 427 for the year. The numbers, obviously, by the time you get through the entire process, it's much smaller and the people that we hire is even a smaller number than that. So we're publishing this now internally at the department so that our employees can see what efforts are being made. And I'll forward that over to the city manager as well, so he can also see that next slide. So I talked about this a few slides ago. These are some of the improvements that we've made since 2016 to increase the number of applications open and continuous. I can't overstate what a big deal that was for us. We it was not uncommon for us to go to recruiting fairs and have people say that they were interested and we'd hand them an application and say, you know, we'll let you know when it's when we're open. And by the time we got around to it, they had already moved on somewhere else. Now, now we have the ability to bring people in immediately, and we are doing that. We get all boards scheduled within two weeks of the application. We've been attending job fairs and doing kind of innovative. We've gone to CrossFit CrossFit events. We've gone to. We had a female officer present at the women leaders in law enforcement. We're doing all kinds of things to try to increase our visibility. But we have you know, we have a $10,000 recruiting budget. And, you know, we could we could probably at some point try to beef that up a little bit. Back in 2017, some of you were here when we implemented the initial lateral hire incentive programs, which we greatly appreciated. We're continually evaluating the changes to the hiring process and trying to expedite these things because frankly, everyone, it's a it's a buyer's market. And every department, every department in the Bay Area is looking to hire people. There are several departments in the East Bay in Alameda County that are down in excess of 20 officers. Percentage wise, it's similar to us. But, you know, it's a big it's a big deal. I think the county sheriff's office might be down as many as a couple of hundred right now. So we're all hiring or trying to recruit the same folks. It's a buyer's market and a lot of times the winner goes to the first offer. And so we're trying to by doing these things and by hopefully getting this approved tonight, as I mentioned to another area, chief, I'm trying to improve my place in the line and get us up to the front. And that's why we're here tonight. Next slide, please. So on the left side, February 2017, the Council adopted the current existing lateral incentives, and on the right is what we're proposing and hopefully, hopefully going to get approved tonight. I will tell you quickly that $30,000 sounds like a lot of money and it is a lot of money. It doesn't get paid out all at once. A fully burdened police officer with salary and benefits is probably a little north of $200,000 a year. So if we filled ten of these positions, it's basically costing us one and a half bodies. It's not new money. It's money that's already been allocated in our budget. These are these are salary savings, which you all know that we've had a couple of million dollars for a few years running. And I appreciate that. Thank you very much. So I think for a relatively small investment, I'm hoping to attract people who might already. And I think that they're out there, that there are people who are sitting on the fence who are thinking about making a move. And I'm hoping that this will, in addition to some other things, will help incentivize them to come our way. The reduction of the probationary period from two years to one year is going to be a big deal. Also, if you're a police officer that's already been working for four or five, six, eight years in another city to to leave the comfort of that civil service position to it to a city where you now are at will for two years, is a big pill for people to swallow. And I don't think that we need to do that for the laterals. I think one year is plenty of time for us to evaluate whether or not they can and should remain on the job. We would we would retain the two year probationary status for new hires, new recruits. The the referral incentive used to be only. Offered to our existing police employees. We are now proposing to extend that so that anybody who works for the city of Alameda, who might know somebody who's interested in a career in law enforcement and is a lateral not not not a new recruit, but a lateral officer that we would offer you two additional days of vacation time or a $1,000 non-personal lump sum bonus. If you bring us somebody who makes it get, makes it through the process, gets hired and stays on for is it three years or two, three, three year commitment? So hopefully that will help some people in the city who might know, some folks that are thinking, I've I've already received a couple of phone calls. So I think in anticipation of this going well. So I'll keep my fingers crossed looks like. There you go. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them again. I can't tell you enough, personally and professionally how big of a deal this would be to the police department. I can't guarantee its success, but I am super optimistic that it will help move us to the front of the line. Help us fill the vacancies and stay ahead of. What we anticipate are going to be additional departures in the next year or two. There are going to be 13 people, including myself, who are eligible. It doesn't mean that they will leave, but they could. And we have to keep that in mind. Every year I've got a list on my desk and I know January 1st exactly how many employees are in that that 350 zone, and that's going to be 13 in a month. So they won't all go, but I can guarantee you that six of them will. I already know that to be true. So we're trying to catch up. Bring it. Bring us up from the nine that we're down nine or ten down today and then stay ahead of the people that are leaving next year. So with that, if you have any questions.
Speaker 0: Thank you for Larry. Before we do any clarifying questions on the report, before we do our discussion, because I think we may have a public speaker when. Public Speaker Any clarifying questions on the report? Councilmember de SA.
Speaker 6: Good question, no. Several slides ago there was a acronym DHS.
Speaker 7: Personal History statement. I forgot about the acronym thing. I said personal history statement. So basically they fill out they fill out their whole life story in a in a booklet. And then we go through that. Some people are are eliminated during that process. And then other than for other folks who continue in the process, it becomes the basis for the background investigation, becomes fact checking. Thank you.
Speaker 0: That's Councilmember Vela.
Speaker 5: Chief, you had mentioned that the cost of living is a barrier for some folks. Some cities have have done like moving bonuses and things like that. Did you look at that at all.
Speaker 0: Or a.
Speaker 5: Little bit? How would this compete with that?
Speaker 7: I it's hard and it's hard. It's hard to say. We did the city manager I did consider a proposal that was actually brought forward by a couple of my employees about. The possibility of an apology for bringing this out. We're not moving forward with it right now because it would have been a police only thing. And I think if we're going to do this, in fairness, it really should be offered to other departments, other city employees, where they are. There's some form of a a either a preferential loan, low interest loan, some kind of the city might provide the the employee with a down payment assistance that could be repaid through, you know, payroll withdrawal or something like that. Right. It it gets complicated. It's totally legal to do. And there are a few places that do it, I think. San Mateo County does it, but it's it's it's almost like a lottery.
Speaker 0: Where.
Speaker 7: It's not they don't do it for everybody. You can apply for it. And then there's a handful of folks that are lucky enough to get selected and then they can they can qualify for that program. I think we sort of have to suss all that out and it would take us some time. Mm hmm. Interesting note. San Mateo County is I think the poverty line there has now been designated at $100,000 a year for your household income. So if you're going to be a brand new police officer and you're making 105 or even hundred $10,000 a year, you still have to come up with a down payment in a county where the median home price is close to $2 million a year. You're still going to be commuting from Tracy? Mm hmm. And that's. And that's a problem. So there are cities that have similar hiring incentive bonuses. Palo Alto is 25,000. San Mateo is 30. We've lost two people to San Mateo, by the way. But they're not necessarily attracting the candidates because, again, the cost to buy a home in that area. Mm hmm. Makes this look like a bargain on the East Bay. Mm hmm. It's. It's just. It's a difficult time. I mean, I can't even imagine being a 20 or 30 something with a good job and good benefits. But the prospect of buying a home is a million miles away.
Speaker 5: And this is the 30,000 especially passed out the way that it is. Is that going to be sufficient, do you think? How did we end up with the 30,000? Because we are competing with other cities out there. I know Fremont recently passed something. They've been down by a number of positions.
Speaker 7: So I guess we don't know because we haven't tried it yet. But the the concern I would have would be if we if we give $30,000 to somebody and then they don't stay. Mm hmm. I think getting it back could be. I think we want to incentivize people to stay, not just to not just to come through the door, but to stay.
Speaker 0: Mm hmm.
Speaker 7: And so I and the other cities that are doing this all do it incrementally. Fremont is 15,000, and I think they do it 7500 up front, 7500 a year when they've finished probation or something like that. So I don't think anybody pays it all out at once. Mm hmm. Um, I think it would be. Fiscally prudent for us to just to to part it out that way. And I think I think it will be successful. I have already been contacted by a few chiefs who.
Speaker 0: Are mad at you.
Speaker 7: I'm not mad. But I mean, you know, again, it's a friendly it's a friendly competition. But but it's a competition. I mean, my brother works at Berkeley and we oftentimes talk about many things related to work, but we don't discuss who's on our radar. For that reason, I mean, we have some awkward moments of silence sometimes about certain people. And because it is it's a it's a competition and it's a buyer's market. Mm hmm.
Speaker 5: And my final question is, I know that you're proposing reducing the probationary period. Did you consider reducing it further for somebody who's been an officer in good standing for so many years? I think.
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think that there's there isn't necessarily a monetary value that you can put on that, especially when people are walking away from being vested in a retirement system, things like that.
Speaker 7: So it's a good point and I'm going to look over my shoulder because I should know this and I don't. But I believe that post requires I believe.
Speaker 0: In post would be.
Speaker 7: Well, I'm sorry, the California peace officer standards in training. So that's the agency that sets all of the training and certification requirements. I could be wrong.
Speaker 0: They're all grim. That's a.
Speaker 7: Bad one. I could be wrong. I don't I can't think I don't think that there's a single law enforcement agency in California that has a probation period that's less than a year.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 7: I will double check that, but I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 5: What would it be more helpful to just say that the minimum like. And this is just a hype like, I suppose. But would it be more helpful to say that the the probationary period is equivalent to the minimum, you know, the minimum required by post or something like that? Would that give you more?
Speaker 7: Um, yeah. And we can look at it again. I don't I don't have it. I don't have it memorized.
Speaker 0: Well, let the chair director come up the mike. What I would say is that actually it was Paul. When you check with your folks. It was actually labor who brought up reducing it from 2 to 1.
Speaker 4: And one of our laterals who.
Speaker 0: Felt that confident that that change would make a difference. So that's why we left it at one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not I'm.
Speaker 0: So I'm at this point, we're just doing clarifying questions because we'll do our discussion after we have public comment.
Speaker 5: My my question is just kind of how did we get to it and do we think it's going to be effective? Do we think something less than that would be effective?
Speaker 7: So here's here's the definitive answer from post probation periods range from 12 to 24 months, although a few agencies have reported a six month probationary period. The commission regulations require in bold print that every full time peace officer serve in a probationary status for not less than 12 months from the date of appointment.
Speaker 0: Understood. Thank you. Thank you. Any other councilmembers with clarifying questions, Councilmember Odie?
Speaker 3: Thank you. So I was going to ask if you evaluated other successful programs, but I think you answered that in Customer Miller's question. But in doing that comparison of places where these type of incentives have been successful, are there any other ideas that you found that maybe you decided not to pursue at this time besides maybe the mortgage or homeowner assistance?
Speaker 7: Oh, I think honestly, I think I think that's. That's the big one right now that in the probationary period. So I, I spoke with another when I was in Chicago for the International Police Chiefs Conference last month. I, uh, I had dinner and met with a lot of different chiefs during that time. And there's one area chief who told me that they had lost a handful of officers to another agency who offered retiree medical and their agency did not. And they lost a bunch of people. Well, we already offered that. So that would be a big deal if we didn't. I would probably be asking you for that right now. But since we already do, one one agency has lost half a dozen people to another agency who who now offer that to their employees. But since we already do, I think there are some things here that are the foundation is really good. We're just trying to build up on it a little bit.
Speaker 3: But you have to be here five years for that, right? Or ten years. Ten years medical. Yeah. The ten. Five. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah. It was it was longer when I first got hired, but it was reduced to five several years ago.
Speaker 3: Okay. Thanks for the answer. Sure.
Speaker 0: No problem. Thank you. And Councilmember Knox White, do you have any clarifying questions?
Speaker 2: No options at the time. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thanks. Okay, so then we'll go to a public speaker or speakers.
Speaker 1: Only one will.
Speaker 0: Be when.
Speaker 1: Jenny McCarthy.
Speaker 0: My nap.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Madam Mayor. Council members that returned my note around. What is this?
Speaker 0: I don't know. That's new to me too. But it's so fancy. They're going to wrap it as a Christmas present.
Speaker 4: My name is Janet Mckelvie, and I'm the executive director of the Downtown Alameda Business Association. And our downtown district and its merchants have felt the effects of cuts to the police department over the years. Our district lost its beat cops some years ago, and it has indeed been a trial. Our hardworking business owners want and need their employees and customers to feel safe and secure. Having additional officer officers on the street is key. The Downtown Association enjoys a first rate collaborative relationship with Chief Larry and his team, and we look forward to supporting an effort to recruit and hire more qualified personnel. It seems that the plan presented tonight is relatively inexpensive and a proactive way to attract qualified officers who can be out on the street in a fraction of the time it takes to produce new recruits. Please join us in supporting our excellent police force, as they do to compete and bring additional officers to our island community.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. And that was all our public comments. So I'll close public comment and we'll go to council discussion. And actually, I'd like to lead this one because I was in attendance at a meeting today at the police department with Miss Maccabee and probably 2020, more than 20 of the businesses just from Park Street, because you may or may not know that there's been a spate of petty and not so petty crimes and some that have resulted in personal injury. And to the extent that some of the park merchants are even considering not opening in the evenings and during the Howard holiday times is when we always have the stay open, stay late , open late on Thursdays or even on Saturdays because, you know, people can shop and bring more revenue to these businesses and indirectly the city. And it it was quite compelling to hear person after person lament the fact that we just don't see that police presence. And Chief Larry did a good job of explaining the five sectors that the city's divided into and the numbers that I don't even want to announce in public. But it's they're they're stretched thin. So my feeling is this is not an area where I want to second guess. The police chief and our h.r. Director, who have worked closely together, have looked at other departments in the in the bay area because it's true we're competing with all of them. And what just I mean, in the council, we all get the same emails from our constituents. We have had children and adults too. But just since the start of the school year, ten children have been hit by cars while they've been either walking or on bicycle. And we have seen this increase in crime in our business districts and not just Park Street, South Shore Center as well. It's private development. But, you know, they they're experiencing that car break ins. We hear about almost every day package thefts from porches and the issue of homelessness. And I have to give a big shout out to our police officers because they have the the homelessness outreach team. They're highly trained in how to approach and and work with unsheltered people. And there's no one way to do it. But it's done with a lot of sensitivity, getting people referred to other places where they can be sheltered, and then to make sure that, you know, there's not criminal activity, but yet we're treating people humanely anyway. We we expect a lot of our officers and we can only stretch people so thinly. And I worry that I mean, I think it's great that they have stepped up enforcement around traffic and speeding. We seem to be seeing a lot of that and just inconsiderate driving. But to do that, as we heard the chief say, he's taken people off of working at as detectives and also bringing people in and to work overtime. And it's just, you know, that's never a good thing when people people need their downtime and they need to rest. So I think this is a well thought out proposal. I think it's something that is worth adopting in and let's give it a try and see how it goes. So that is those are my remarks. Who would like to go next? Councilmember Odie.
Speaker 3: Sure, I'll go next. I don't have much to add, except we had a discussion about the children getting hit. It wasn't maybe a month ago and I asked our city manager to bring back ideas and things that we could do to help with police recruitment. So I appreciate that. And and I also appreciate the fact that we have deployed our limited resources in a way that makes them most effective for providing on the ground services. And I just had that experience about a month ago where there was a middle of the night accident in front of my house, and they were there quickly. And I just sat there and watched in awe of how quickly our police and our fire personnel just worked just to save those people and clean it up and investigate. And so that was super impressive. And, you know, to me, maybe I'm a little biased, but I think Alameda is the best place to live and is probably the best place to work. So my only ask on this is I'm happy to support it. But you know, if you need more and come ask us because I want to solve this much problem as much as you do, and I'm happy to give you whatever support you need. Thank you.
Speaker 0: You even just go down the line. I'm Councilmember Vella.
Speaker 5: So I'm ready to support this tonight. I do still have concerns about how we retain our officers because we are losing them. And this while this will help us bring in laterals. I want to find a way to shore up the folks that are here. And I think we should. I think the next part of figuring out this problem is also figuring out who's leaving and at what point in their career they're leaving. And what we can do to Councilmember Oates point what we can do as a city to to incentivize them staying. And that's where I think looking at some of these other options, whether it's a mortgage assistance or something like that, not all of our departments have this unique problem of being this understaffed for this long. And this isn't kind of one year of being understaffed. This is multiple years and it's getting increasingly worse. And I don't want to get to a point where we're so understaffed and we're overworking our existing officers that there's burnout. I think there's there is something to be said about quality of life and time off the job. And I think it's incredibly important, especially for our first responders, to be able to have that. And I think if there's you know, I think this is something where we're going to need to be creative about making sure that we can find those solutions. But I do think that we need to figure out that retention portion of this, because I don't want to lose folks that we're training up and getting to a spot where we've done that solid recruitment portion. We've weeded out the best of the best. We're investing a lot in them to get them ready to go, and then they leave after three years or they leave after five years. And I think that that that means that we're not supporting the folks who are here for the long term. In fact, we're making it harder for them to to grow. And as our chief said, in their careers. I would also say, in terms of the referral, the thousand dollars on the referral, I'd be willing to increase that, especially if it if it results in us.
Speaker 0: You got anyone in mind?
Speaker 5: Well, no, no. But I think that, you know, you know, especially if the person's coming on, you know, doubling that or something like that and then paying them the thousand, you know, kind of upfront. And then a thousand later, once, you know, once they passed academy and then a thousand after they've stayed three years or something like that, that's not a lot of money. And that might mean that we get real serious and obviously we're getting a police officer out of it. So I think tacking on an additional thousand dollars onto that wouldn't I'd be willing to do that.
Speaker 0: When we did the.
Speaker 5: Motion. Okay. And, and yeah, I just can't stress enough. Let's find a way to figure out how we do the retention portion of this and if there's a way to incentivize people even staying on after they've reached their three at 50, which I know is enticing to leave. But if we can find a way to to keep those solid folks here who have that breadth of knowledge and experience and and and keep them here instead of leaving at the 350. But let's work on that because we do have really good officers and they have a knowledge of the community. And I think that we're going to need to retain people just as much as we need to recruit them.
Speaker 0: Thank you. And Councilmember Odie, I'm sorry, Council Vice Mayor Knox White. I look up like Australia. Is that. I don't know. It's really down. It's down. Yeah. He's down under.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 0: I remember.
Speaker 2: I know it was back in January. I just got the one. You landed on it. And I'm really going to be coming forward and I think I'm going to have to address my emotions. I would love to see some of my reporting matches in general, and not just for me to be moral, but I am going to remember those comments about, you know, pretending or attacking new and now we're creating more. We can be environmental issues.
Speaker 0: And I think those last words were, I'm ready to support. Okay. Councilman Rudy.
Speaker 6: So I just want to quickly say thank you very much, Chief, for the service that you, your men and women do for the citizens of Alameda. I think we're renowned in the Bay Area for being a safe place. And I know, you know, certainly the data might indicate a little hiccup there. But but I think all in all, we're really safe place. And it's a testament to the work that your men and women do over there at the APD. So thank you very much. And I just wanted to quickly say that, you know, if there is any modifications you need to do to this, you know, program, you know, do not hesitate to make modifications if you see it's necessary to be done. So I look forward to the implementation of this. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thank you. So we I am I'm looking for a motion to adopt this resolution amending the recruitment and hiring incentive policy for lateral police officers in the army to police department. Does someone want to make a modified motion? And I'm assuming that it would be okay with the chief. I see thumbs up there. So. Councilmember Vela, I'm not sure I should say the staff. Is there any city attorney, legal eagle, anything I should be mindful of?
Speaker 8: I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: Are we allowed to make a modified motion?
Speaker 8: Yes. Yes, Madam Mayor.
Speaker 0: Okay, good. I'd like a short, succinct answer. I don't think it could have been much shorter. Councilmember Vela, take it away.
Speaker 5: So I'd like to make a modified motion to adopt staff's recommendations. Do you want me to read the resolution.
Speaker 0: For the whole thing?
Speaker 5: That the amending the recruitment and hiring incentive policy for lateral police officers in the Alameda Police Department. The one modification I would like to make is to double the referral incentive from $1,000 cash to $2,000.
Speaker 0: Right. And actually, the resolution doesn't have the dollar amounts. Right. But the specifics. But it's in the in the. I was in the policy, too. So. Okay. So so we have a motion to increase that lump sum referral incentive bonus from 1000 to 2000 and otherwise the, the ordinance would remain the same. Or the resolution of the resolution. It's a resolution. Okay. So we have that amended motion to have a second. Yes, second. Okay. It's been moved by Councilmember Vela, second by Councilmember Ody will take a voice vote.
Speaker 1: Councilors decide. Yes, not quite. I'm Odie. Yes, Bella. I mayor as the Ashcroft.
Speaker 0: Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you, everyone. Good work. Okay, I'll make an exception to my no applause party for that. I think it's applause worthy. And thank you all, all of you APD personnel in the audience. Thank you for all the good work you do for us. 24 seven 365 days.
Speaker 7: Just like to. These guys have all been here more than 20 years.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Thank you. All right. Very nice. Okay. All right, then. We are moving on to item six B. But before we do, Councilmember Odie has asked to to make a comment.
Speaker 3: Sure. I just. Two quick sentences. As previously indicated, I personally chose not to pursue a claim against the city. It therefore feels appropriate for me to recuse myself from this particular vote in favor of allowing my colleagues to discuss and decide.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember Odie and Councilmember Vella.
Speaker 5: So I would like.
Speaker 0: Let's actually let's make a given moment for Councilmember Odie to step out of the room. He. Thanks. Councilmember Vela.
Speaker 5: I was wondering if it would be possible to bifurcate this so that I could there be to essentially to I'm looking to our city attorney about how to word this, um, to, uh, votes.
Speaker 8: So maybe I can provide some assistance.
Speaker 0: To the station.
Speaker 8: It is my understanding that Councilmember Val's request is to bifurcate this hearing so that the Council hears this policy in two different time segments. It would be a policy possibly applying to events occurring prior to today where a request for reimbursement could still be made. That would be phase one, whereby I.
Speaker 5: Would recuse.
Speaker 8: That. Councilmember Vela would choose to recuse herself. And then if the council chose to do that, then the Council would have a second part where the Council considers the policy again for all activities occurring after today, and during which time Councilmember Vela would not recuse herself if the Council chose to bifurcate this hearing by three votes, three affirmative votes to do so. The one thing I would caution the Council is that the second part of the hearing could not influence how the council made its decision on the first part. In other words, if the council wants whatever decision the Council makes on past activities and how a policy would apply could not be changed as a result of discussions undertaken in Part two. And so I believe that as councilmember of this motion, yes.
Speaker 0: And Councilmember Vela would be allowed to make and vote on this motion.
Speaker 8: Yes, Madam Chair.
Speaker 0: I see. Okay. So you want to make a motion? Yes. You're welcome to make a motion.
Adoption of Resolution Amending the Recruitment and Hiring Incentive Policy for Lateral Police Officers in the Alameda Police Department. (Human Resources 2510)