he police engagement and giving police tools when when engaging I wanted to just give a little bit of feedback from my personal experience with the work that we've done to say that also Catholic Charities and the host team does not have a sufficient capacity to handle the amount of need through street outreach in consistent ways um directing people to drop off centers repeatedly who need services people cannot get there people do not have the ability to repeatedly show up across town things like that on just a basic level um show some some real challenges um also they're just not trusted in the unsheltered community um secondly I would like to um inquire about funding that you said federal funding um was available I wondering if this is um funds that are are maybe being allocated away from housing first agenda um another question that I have is um can um another sanctioned encampment be uh opened up at the fairgrounds the closure of finley pre winter before cold weather um was was cruel and we need a new location for people thank you thank you um bailey followed by daniella hi hello can you hear me yes yes awesome uh hi uh my name is bailey um and I um would like to say that yes um I am in support of this uh cahoots like program um I definitely think that um um mental health professionals uh should be handling um mental health cases um coming from someone who is schizophrenic um I the times that I have been in um I guess you'd say uh a break or have had a bigger episode um the police were not the first on my list um they were they've never been on my list um I think that this program um should not um partake or should should not have um the police involved um I think that um the professionals of mental health can definitely do their jobs um because that's what they're trained to do and um the police are not trained to do that um and uh also um yeah I think that there needs to be um I think that the the police need to be defunded and those funds do need to be reallocated to more services um to give to the greater community um and uh yeah um that is all I have I yield the rest of my time thank you so much uh Daniella followed by Cox hey thank you so much for taking my comments and yeah I just wanted to say this is really exciting news um I was one of the many public um commenters this summer who kept bringing up the cahoots program I actually lived in Eugene for a while and thank you thank you for listening because I think this is a great first step and I think it's a great first step for the county um I'm not a resident of Santa Rosa I never know if I'm supposed to call in but here I am hi I live in Katari um I've lived in Sonoma County though for 30 years and I was a resident of Santa Rosa for a long time but I'm hoping we can do something like this in Katari so if I could get someone's contact information um I would just love to to you know I mean I know that we're all looking to you as the leaders in this program with this pilot program so you know I'm I'm hoping we can extend it and so that Katari could be involved as well and then I just had another couple comments um yeah so in 2017 the cahoots program actually about 17 percent they served 17 percent of the overall calls for the Eugene Police Department their overall call volume so they actually took 17 percent of that so I'm thinking that you know we are very Santa Rosa is very similar to Eugene in many ways the size demographics um so I'm thinking that you know cahoots will be taking more than five percent as well one of the previous commenters said that you know maybe that's what we're thinking here it's going to take maybe five percent of the police total call volume but I'm thinking it will be more like what the Eugene program has um and yeah I'm wondering as well as the um Vice Mayor Rogers I believe asked whether those 10 hours a day were going to be peak times where um you know the Santa Rosa Police Department gets um mental health phone calls so I'm hoping that we can line those up I mean ideally we would have something that's 24 seven and also to echo other callers um yeah the 911 dispatch dispatchers should really be trained so that the police don't have to be involved at all that those calls go directly to cahoots and then cahoots can take over without having the police presence that I know um you know is requested with um mobile services team so this is a totally different program and I think it's going to be much more successful and as we all know a preventative approach is the best approach um and I guess my only other question was whether we were going to be able to fund you know with that grant money or any other money those 911 dispatchers um I think that's my last question I actually have one other question how is it budgeted I believe Evan Phillips asked is this a line budget from the police department or is it budgeted separately so I think that's it but thank you so much and hopefully I could be in touch with someone about this program because I'm really excited thank you uh cox flap followed by Michael hello um I do support uh the last you know police engagement and especially mental health crises because police are not trained um as mental health providers they tend to escalate situations in all cases but also especially mental health situations and also um you know it'd be interesting to see you know what are the police are what's their level of training around therapeutic approaches do they get any training around anything like that or is there any interest in having counselors even go out with officers on other calls where this kind of cahoots like program wouldn't maybe take that call but still maybe a person who would go out just to make sure and can act as a de-escalator and and uh also you know policing the police kind of there to de-escalate the police if needed but um you know it's interesting to see if there's interest in training police and therapeutic approaches but also it'd be interesting to know how many of our police officers are receiving personal therapy um so that they're not bringing their work you know bringing their stuff into work bringing their bias into work bringing you know their white supremacy and domestic you know terrorist ideology into their workplace with them um also another thing with mental health is just physical health and well-being and and having a safe place to be um and that has a lot to do with sanitation providing of the hand washing stations especially during covid providing another winter shelter and long-term shelters and also writing the bathrooms which were previously provided and taken away um it seems like it's follows this very strategic format where there's these sweeps or like these really violent acts against our houseless communities where it goes from like the east Santa Rosa down south and um it just keeps going in a cycle where it goes east to south east to south in a cycle and also follows a kind of like a news cycle as well where it's kind of like oh we're allowing them to stay here we're extending the time or or we put in a toilet and then as soon as you get a little bit of public support and then you take it back and then you take away the toilets you take away the hand washing stations you send in the police you send in the bulldozer and the last point I want to make is also a lot of the people who are there to clean up after when the encampments are destroyed and looted are people who are also houseless they're there because they have repeated accounts of violations for quality of living ordinance violations so that's something to consider as well you're making them clean up after the violence thank you thank you Michael followed by Sarah hi so I want to echo the comments made earlier um particularly you know making sure that this program doesn't fall under the police budget I don't see any reason why it should fall under SRPD um and I'm worried that that police would have the ability to you know control that budget and allocate that money and I don't think that they should have that ability um I also question the fact that um the catholic charities is the only um entity that's in contract here and they're the real diversity of contracts my opinion honestly I I wish that more homeless people who are houseless in this community um were in these calls or were able to attend these calls um to give their own perspective but having worked at last chance village and other encampments something I constantly have seen was distressed toward catholic charities so to make this program as effective as possible I think um there that should be something you know under consideration and it's you know making sure that police aren't responding to mental health calls is important because the um the levels of violence that we've seen by police again that was completely you know unjustified towards people with um mental health disabilities is egregious and it's not you know it's not just the police it's also the people who call the police I've been in so many situations where I you know I've been with a group of people and I've seen someone they see someone acting what they think is erratically on the street and if they just call the police and they're just like this is 1-800 make this person disappear um and so I think it's really important that those calls are not you know routed to that and that there's that there isn't this this idea that Santa Rosa police should be making these people disappear um there should be real solutions embedded in this what I remember call from the you know the previous Santa Rosa auditor was this idea that morale um among the Santa Rosa police was low because of they were forced to respond to all these these homeless calls and you know what are they're gonna what are they supposed to do are they supposed to make these people disappear um are they supposed to enforce these quality of life violations um I think it all kind of goes hand in hand and so I I like I really appreciate this program is happening I hope that we can get some clarification on the budgeting and I hope that there's a diverse more of a diversity of contracts and I will yield the rest of my time thank you Sarah followed by Keith yes hello my name is sarah casmith they them pronouns um I agree with just so much of what's been said already and I don't know that I have too much to add um but I do want to note that there is um just like earlier uh Ms Ms. Tejas was saying that um the the program had reached out to community members that aren't as able to navigate spaces like this and I just want to like normally that's about you I deeply appreciate uh but I just want to kind of pause and reflect on how many of the voices that you've been hearing from the public uh today and recently were were voices that were present a year ago um so just to note that these are folks that uh didn't navigate spaces like this and have learned to do so and so I just want to make sure that that these are also voices that are incredibly important because they've made the effort to do that and that's just uh that's something that they can't be be left out because as we need to continue to reach out to community that that isn't able to reach the space when they do that's also uh folks that need to be listened to um and and you're hearing over and over again from people saying that um that they don't trust police that they don't um you know that this is uh they don't trust catheterities and I keep hearing that we need to repair the relationship and restore trust and so there's kind of that those two things don't um you know they don't come together in in some kind of middle ground and suddenly become a fix to the problem we have to actually look into why people don't trust the police um and start investigating that and this is one of those programs that that can lead us to that place of you know starting to uh address some of the underlying problems um but as folks have said uh you know Sonoma County Access Highness is a really great program to or organization to look to uh that that works with the homeless community that knows that has relationships there and has that level of trust has um that in place uh and I know y'all know them I know SRPD does um and yeah uh it's great that y'all are working with Kahootz they're absolutely the the gold standard for this kind of work um but also just remember that that's that's a program that started 32 years ago and so just because it is embedded within the police there that started under very different circumstances than what we have right now so what we do to distance that program from the police so that it can gain the trust of the community is really important I really don't think that it should be housed under the police I can see some like logistics uh dispatch reasons for that but but it's more critical to get the trust of the community when you're doing something like this thank you for your time so we're going to take um Keith, Colin, Tavi, and Alan and then we're going to take a brief break for um uh we've been going since one we're going to take a five minute bathroom break and uh change over break as well all right sounds good can you hear me can indeed well I thought it was Keith can you hear me are you Keith yeah great go for it I'm still Keith thank you I feel like I'm living on a different planet please let me know if I cut out um it's so discouraging when I read in the paper that some malfeasance has been uncovered in the center of police department because I truly believe it's the best police agency we have in the county now not saying it doesn't need improvement but that article that hit last summer about withholding evidence and the city having to settle for some two hundred thousand dollars because the department withheld evidence as recently as 2019 I just think you guys you know public safety has got to get serious about improving the reputation but the real reason for my comment is this this is at the far end of my son's suicide last spring 2019 when an officer refused to call in the MST and he was dead within 24 hours I complained to the police and the police did their investigation and it turned out of course with all police investigations to my experience the police department investigating themselves always comes up with a reason that they didn't do anything wrong all right so I'm used to that but my hope with this cahoots program is that no other parent has to go through what I have gone through trying to get help from my son uh and being refused and and him ending up taking his own life the next I'm truly supportive of this direction the police department is going and I hope no other parent has to suffer what I and many parents of uh addicted or mentally disturbed children have and uh and then up losing them to suicide which is of course a permanent solution to a temporary problem thank you thank you call on followed by to be hi can you hear me hi my name is Colin uh I want to start by surveying um mr Reinhardt I'm so sorry for your loss like you deserve better and it sounds like your son deserved better as well and I'm sorry that the police department did not come through for you um what I wanted to say about cahoots I think it's a great program uh I think it's it's an excellent first step towards where we want to be heading um I think once we see that other agencies can start taking over some of these calls from the police department we'll only find more and more creative solutions to say well how much do we really need the police department to do and we can work on pairing it down to their essential functions um maybe diverting in time and in the future more things away from them as well and just entrusting the community to keep the community safe um I do want to add and I believe that this is already part of the cahoots program uh is just making sure that calls uh for overdosing addicts um addicts in mental health crises uh would also hopefully be going through the cahoots dispatch uh system um on top of mental health crises and how something that uh that greatly impacts both our community and just everyone in general a lot of the times the three of them are intersecting you'll have people with mental health issues who are addicted to drugs or people who are houseless with mental health issues or people with all three and uh just understanding the intersection of those and that police are not the correct respondents to any of those three situations um would be excellent I also do have some similar concerns to other folks about it going under the traditional emergency response uh like dispatch system radcom um I would hope that maybe it can set up its own uh dispatch program but I understand that that's a lot of logistical issues and then what do you do with people who are calling 911 and then transferring them through so I understand that that's a much more complicated subject than we probably have time for today but and then that thanks thank you to be um followed by Alan again can you hear me um again um sorry for your loss sir and this is a consistent and a chronic issue we have here in Sonoma County um I do support the hoots I do think that we need to modify it to fit our community it is it was the right floor pan in in the beginning but it does not fit the floor fan of our community and how we change that is that we need a mediated listening session with our unsheltered and also those who have suffered from law enforcement dealing with mental illness um on march 12 2007 this is from an article in the bohemian in 2009 Jeremiah's parents knew that they're 127 pound son the product of a black father and white mother was having an episode of mental decompensation they had tried to find mental health health help for him the night before to no availability I'm not going to read all of this but they called the fire department which routed it to the police department which routed the call to the sheriff's department which officers shot their son 11 times and I'm not going to go in gross detail but that was in 2007 in 2019 Nino Nino Bosco's mother called the police to request a welfare check since he was in the car in front of his house having a manic episode and I'm not going to go into detail out of respect for the family but this is a chronic issue in our community the fact that we don't have sustainable help for mental disorder or drug addiction in our community is just creating the domino effect of disparities and we need we need to take that in mind we need to take communication and hold it close to us we can't just take a hoop then and pretend that that's going to make everything better we need to modify it we need to adjust it to our community's needs and this is with the input of the unsheltered and I say mediated because we want Sonoma act Sonoma acts of kindness to a group that has shown consistency and rapport with the houseless to mediate the conversation because at this point there is a lack of trust and we we really need to look at our patterns and we need to end them so although this is a great effort we are still far behind so we need to do better thank you um our last public comment prior to our break will be on hi everybody thank you um and uh so I'd like to echo the sentiments that I've heard from everyone about uh it's being the right way to go and um moving as many services away uh from being done by the police department is exactly what we want to be doing and also looking at other groups aside from Catholic charities because whoever is performing the service needs to be trusted in the community and Catholic charities is not um one thing that I would like to recommend is that um we pay the employees who will be doing this valuable work at least if not vastly more than we pay our police officers um now these are just rough estimate numbers but roughly it costs um about five thousand dollars and six to eight months of training to become police officer to go through the academy and to become a social worker it uh takes four years and uh around forty thousand dollars at the low end so it costs a lot more uh to do that and so we need to be paying these people uh you know what they're worth um and I'd also like to request that that come out of the police department's budget and I really wish my time thank you thank you very much uh we're going to take a very brief five minute break um and return thank you interpreter charles can you please um turn on your screen and confirm that you're on the spanish channel interpreter charles can you please um give a thumbs up and uh and check your mic please all right welcome back uh madam clerk would you please call the roll do we need another minute i'm ready to take roll call chair i apologize councilmember schwethelm here vice mayor rogers president councilmember fleming president thank you um do we need a interpreter update we've checked that the interpreter is on and I can make the announcement again if you like only if it's necessary thank you we're good okay great um so uh we had a couple of attendees wanting to make public comment thank you for your patience uh now would be the time to raise your hand um if you have anything that you would like to add to our conversation on the mental health model okay seeing none um do we have any prerecorded our voicemail public comment we had no voicemail public comment on um on this item okay thank you um I will now close public comment and bring this item back to the subcommittee for your questions councilmember schwethelm thank you madam chair um yeah most of these are for captain cregan questions that came up um so i'll just go in order not necessarily ordered by the ones that i wrote down um so what will the police department's role be in this it's my understanding um because the police department controls the 911 system they would be coming into 911 but could you explain what level of involvement the police department would have in this model yes so it's a great question and so our hope is to really to have very little police involvement in this so there won't be police officers assigned with the team they won't be patrolling with them and the only time that they'll be going to calls is when the cahoots team they can't it doesn't meet their criteria and some of the key criterias are calls with violence or weapons so there'll be many calls though following the Eugene model where an officer responds to the scene the scene is stabilized and similar to the mobile support team then cahoots will come in and provide their advanced level of service but as many of the calls as we can we'll send just the cahoots team to them there won't be uh uh the only contact will be a police dispatcher will receive the call will evaluate it if it meets the criteria will dispatch that team and that team will respond and there'll be no uh marked or uniform police presence on the scene okay thank you then i also heard some questions about uh chain of command in budget locations can you explain and i know this you know you're talking about a pilot program what have been the early discussions about those two items well the budget discussions will be a council decision that will go will go for the budget review and set the city priorities and then ultimately decide where this uh funding comes from and where it sits with is the easiest answer on that okay and then could you also talk about i i know you briefly mentioned it but we heard a lot of comments about catholic charities can you talk about um why they have been a player in this in these discussions certainly and we had a lot of discussions and some of this comes from the advice of looking with our cahoots model and some of their advice is working with an established nonprofit is going to be able to get us off the ground and some of the things is catholic charities has established relationships with the city they're currently a contracted service provider for us from the city of santa rosa they have staff in place with the local knowledge uh in our homeless community they have a lot of established partnerships with our homeless uh groups and services here in our city and throughout the county uh catholic charities in in our talks with them is also willing to provide quite a bit of in-kind services meaning using some of their establish of some of their administrative staff and at no cost us as is part of their existing program so it really helps reduce the cost for our taxpayers and to our city's general fund and one of the keys for us of working with cahoots is and the strong community feedback that we got that this is uh an immediate need for our community and by using these established nonprofits like catholic charities and buckaloo it helps us get this pilot program off the ground and running as quickly as possible we had a strong desire desire to do it with the new fiscal year coming up in july of 2021 and this is going to help us to be able to provide this critical service to our community as quickly as possible and again this is a one-year pilot that we're starting with and we'll continue to evaluate as a city with our city leaders and council uh to what meets the needs of our community okay and then the the last question that i heard um well there's a lot of questions but about what type of calls get diverting and i'm making the assumption that's part of the role that cahoots would be playing so if you get elaborating on that and then also the whole aspect of if it's going through the 911 center or redcomb what what type of training for those dispatchers would be taking place yeah so the the primary calls are going to are obviously those in mental health crisis with the exception of with weapons involved or violence involved but also we talked about with intoxicated subjects with though with drug overdoses so that's that's a core part of their calls but they're also assisting with this public services with and our team is going to have that strong homeless emphasis of providing services doing welfare checks going out to some of our larger encampments going out to just a homeless individual in crisis on a downtown street or anywhere in our city doing and then again a lot of those upstream approaches of taking people who are in crisis who they've been working with and this team will quickly start to build strong relationships with some of the vulnerable members of our population here in the city and they'll start being able to say let me take you to the doctor's appointment let me take you to get your meds and things like that so that's going to be some of the core calls now our dispatchers are certainly going to have a training aspect and for those they'll initially come into our 911 system if it's a medical call that's what goes to redcom so those are separate and distinct dispatch centers and ultimately the Santa Rosa police department dispatch center will dispatch directly to cahoots and we'll work with training it'll certainly add staff responsibilities upon our dispatch center but we're working with our technical services manager for them to be able to incorporate that training and build it into the capacity of the team that we have but also for us we'll evaluate over this first year what is the impacts on our dispatch center and are we do we have the capacity to handle that and that'll be part of the things that we're evaluating as a city great thank you nice mayor okay hi um so i have a a couple of questions going based on um the dispatchers first we heard last night that we're already short on dispatchers um so these would be separate dispatchers for the cahoots program or all the dispatchers will be trained in how to respond incorporating the cahoots program yeah so it will not be separate dispatchers it'll be part of the job responsibilities of our current dispatcher but it will add to their workload certainly but to be clear it's going to be them just diverting the calls so we may get some additional calls that we have families that grow trust with this team who wouldn't have normally called the police department so i actually hope we see an increased calls with those families reaching out to us and using this service that we have but most of the work will be just instead of sending it to a uniform police officer they'll be diverting it to this other team and it won't be significant more work on that team it'll be just using a different radio channel basically and dispatching it to the cahoots team okay and i i realize that the the easiest and the fastest way i'll say to get this program implemented um we has been said that catholic charities is the you know they're established here but i i think that we do need to listen uh to the community and the part of having this program is to have people uh that are coming out that the community trusts and wants to work with and if that is not the case then i think it kind of is working against us in what we actually want the the program to do so i just hope that we are hearing the community speak and i would have to say this would not be the first time that i heard this um and working in mental health so i just hope that uh we're listening um in addition to i hope that the staff uh for the cahoots program is a diverse staff uh and staff that uh has different languages um that they speak only to make it easier especially in the bi-pop community dealing with mental health is not an easy thing to ask for assistance um so just in that way making it easier it's easier to to deal with people that look like you that can relate to you um a little better and will the grant um funding be able to assist with uh the 911 dispatchers in other areas besides training the current grant that we applied for the samsa grant would is is training focused and would provide some equipment that we can do but that's where we're going to be actively looking that's a big part of our plan is actively looking for other state and federal grants working with some of the city resources that we have to be able to explore that and that's going to be a key part of that for us to establish the funding and to reduce the impact to our general fund and to our community okay and uh my last question is having worked uh in mental health for a while what direct contact will the team have if they if things change and I know that things can change fairly quickly um so will they have radios or like what would be the direct contact that they would have for backup to ensure everyone's safety that is on a scene that does not have law enforcement present absolutely that's a key concern so the first stage will be us evaluating the calls that they go to and then they won't be in uniform like in a police uniform they'll have probably like a polo shirt or something with with the cahoots name or the name that we choose for our local team here but they will have a police radio so they'll have they'll have immediate mobile way to communicate with our teams and uh and be able to call for resources and then an officer could be dispatched to provide those services and um in speaking with the cahoots team they've done a tremendous job for the thousands of calls of service that they go to they've had relatively minor incidents that I've heard with staff but it's certainly a concern and it's always going to be about evaluating the calls they go to and then building that trust between the police department and that team that they work uh collaboratively to provide that service to our community perfect thank you so much absolutely thank you um my uh questions I think largely will be answered as we start to roll this out but one is um if in working with a non-profit partner would this be sent out for a competitive bid and that's something we so to be clear we haven't entered into a contract with any non-profit so the feedback that we're receiving from working with cahoots and and as we explore this as that an rfp process will certainly slow this down and won't make it realistic for us to start a program this summer so the the current uh model but we're looking for feedback is that we roll out this prop the pilot with the nonprofits we've identified we do this pilot year we continue to evaluate what meets the needs of our city what the best nonprofits are and that'll be certainly something that we could explore in that year okay um and so to start with the cost center would come out of the police budget and that's something that we could evaluate after the pilot period that'll be a council decision as you guys set your priority and I think the set you guys are processing that is going to be of me being able to come and talk about the grant opportunities and the private funding and as we still establish that and then council will be able to see what is the total cost of what this program the pilot program is going to take and then we can make citywide council decisions about where that's going to come from it would also be helpful um during the pilot period to track the reduction in um you know there's going to be some ways that it's going to require more coordination with officers um as you know highlighted by the vice mayor's last question around police backup but there will be some ways that it's a reduction in in stresses and in calls for service um and then there will be more in terms of dispatch complexity so you know it's it's going to be a complicated picture and I hope that we're able to capture that completely so that we assign the funding um to reflect the needs therein um that's all of my questions um uh so um we'll go straight into comments and the comment that I wanted to make which was um around the um the rfp thing is that you know a year and a half ago we brought up um whether or not we should send catholic charities or ask for an additional rfp because catholic charities had been re-upped so many times um without having a competitive bid process and that this um there's not a slam on catholic charities they they do some uh really you know intense work for the city but that it's just not good governance to continue to re-up contracts it doesn't invite other players to the table and it doesn't um allow for the kind of accountability that that we would like or that I would like to see in government so um you know while I understand that there's a push and a pull here um I do hope that that we have a very transparent process and that we don't just continue to re-up contracts and expand them without um adding I think we have a responsibility regardless of you know they might be the best the best um nonprofit in the world but we have a responsibility in government to inspect our contracts and scrutinize them so you know I'm not for just expanding that without a careful and critical eye and then um the other thing is that you know I know it will be council decision but I'm I'm hopeful that that these um that as the hopefully the the pressures on the police department will come down and therefore funding levels um to make to do what your core services are will not be as high and that this can come out of the police budget if that's uh what's appropriate but I think that we'll need more time to know um how that's going to look so those are my comments for now and I see that the vice mayor has her hand up I forgot to put my hand down but just again uh thank you so much I'm really excited to see see where this goes thank you uh councilmember schwedhelm your comments please thank you um I I am very supportive of this program and I like the direction we're going I totally hear the rfp process but quite frankly what I've seen was some rfp process it um for something of this urgent nature um I like the direction we're going with the pilot program with catholic charities because I also know um a catholic charities is populating our host team so they're working with this population um and they're also bringing their own additional money and resources to the table so I'm more comfortable with as you've been mentioning captain cregan a six month or 12 month pilot program and then absolutely I think we go out to rfp because quite frankly even um our other partners with buckloo there may be other resources out there and by that time you know I'm hoping maybe even there's some county resources and other jurisdiction resources so I think the best for our citizens because that's the big thing here for santa rosa this is not about what's going to make it easier on the police department or even the hospitals but it's what's the best service delivery for those people of our community who are most vulnerable and that's what I don't think I don't want to delay this until january of 2022 and if this is the route that we're going I think it's very strategic and I I heard you say that your early consultation with gahoots um subject matter experts are saying that it's a good model that we're going for so I would like you to continue and I'm supportive you continue it on the path that we've already begun so thank you all right uh thank you very much everybody um I think that we have exhausted this topic for today uh so moving on to school resource officer update um and so I'll be turning this over to chief Navarro thank you chair Fleming uh vice mayor rogers and uh councilmember schwedhelm a few months ago the committee asked for ongoing updates regarding our school resource officer program um I believe there's a slide um that should be coming up slide five there you go so um just a quick update on the where where we've been uh the school resource officer program uh was uh in effect and we had a sergeant and five school resource officers uh we had a partnership with the center of the city school district and had an officer assigned to each of the high schools and their feeder middle school and then we also had a um uh we had we had a uh a relationship with the sanders or the rosin school district and some of the other smaller school districts working with them we did a lot of education with staff and students on a variety of topics and crisis issues they responded to uh they respond to emergency situations such as a shooting which occurred in 20 october 2019 uh in front of one of the one of our local schools uh they've um they've worked on uh teaching and mentoring and and talking about alcohol abuse drug awareness gangs um discussing peer pressure self-esteem and we uh they were they took the lead in our great program which was a life skills program uh working with fifth grade students in several of the school districts uh that was a that was a program that we were in partnership with several different schools where they asked us to come in and build better relationships with our with our youth they've also in the past led our youth community police experience um and uh that was that's a um it's a program where we bring juniors and seniors and uh uh bring them in to have them have them learn more about public safety and uh the different areas within our department uh they've also engaged in local nonprofits mentoring youth and um being involved in community listening sessions recently uh they've collaborated collaborated a lot with our other city departments and specifically with the violence prevention program over the years um they uh they're they're involved in uh some of the um the restorative circles uh that occur uh on campus in the past and uh some of the other awareness that they've done is drugs and vaping uh they they've addressed school safety uh both on and off campus and uh one of the things that uh some of the some of the other uh key things that they brought forward was specific training on uh active shooters for our staff and the and the teachers um and then also addressing um again uh significant incidents that occur on campus they were also very very instrumental in some of our recent emergencies so they were part of the direct response to the glass fire and uh in the in the days afterwards and also dealing with the COVID over the last year uh they were um they were instrumental in dealing with protocols and managing these incidents as part of the incident management team uh currently there's no uh no no campus or no no school on campus at this time uh due to COVID-19 and we do not have an active MOU the next slide please so uh this is our current status again we don't have SROs on campus at this time uh we have um we had a uh or the Santa Rosa City Schools District Board they set up an ad hoc committee which meant for about 15 weeks to talk about uh current issues related around the SRO program uh we had three employees the sergeant and two officers who were part of that ad hoc committee including um and it also included uh uh council member Fleming uh the uh it ran again for several weeks there was uh uh there was some very uh good discussion going back and forth included community comment um however there was no vote um based on the recommendation uh by that ad hoc committee uh and by which was to continue uh the program with some changes and so uh as we are have been awaiting uh you know the uh decision by the schools we've also have had some significant staffing issues uh as as you are aware of and um so we've had to make some adjustments for uh this particular um for 2021 uh so uh to address the uh the staffing issues um some of the things that we did uh we had to uh reassign our sergeant back to patrol uh however that sergeant continues to liaise on with our local school districts for any questions or any issues that come up and uh working with them to direct uh calls for service back to our uh beat officers uh we are uh we've assigned uh three of the officers of the SRO officers back to patrol to assist with our staffing shortages uh the uh again calls for service are are are directed back to our beats uh two officer positions were frozen uh based uh because they were measure O positions and uh they uh we we have seen a revenue shortfall within measure O so to meet that uh meet that need and to meet that budget revenue we had to freeze two positions there uh we are in ongoing conversations with the Santa Rosa City Schools District um and also uh the Rosen School District on how do we how we continue to partner in the future uh there are some things that we are going to continue to have to work out uh number one uh we continue to have staffing staffing issues and so uh where our priorities are in patrol right now uh we are going to need to uh look at an MOU that uh to sign with the school uh any school district that we work with um and uh you know those are going to continue to to be part of strengthening the learning environment for the students and uh how to support and transform safety on campus uh again we've I've had uh I've had conversations with the superintendent we're both in agreement on on the need to continue to move forward uh our our staff we are um we are willing and committed to continue those conversations and um uh be in dialogue with them to work on um how to better uh provide safety for students and uh staff uh so that is a quick uh overview of where we are um I don't know I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have again uh there there is a uh a component of this that is outside of our control uh with the centers of city schools district um having to make their own decisions thank you chief um I'll open it up to the um the subcommittee for questions vice mayor mr schwadholm any questions seeing none um I will now open public comment um and I want to let um the public and staff know that we have to adjourn this meeting um or um for uh staffing reasons at 5 25 p.m so if we don't get to you um that is because um of of things that are beyond our control and we will resume this meeting uh when when we get another time and we'll put make that sure that's public so we'll start with lee followed by evan hi this is lee i'm calling again um uh a couple things I just want to again state um as a member of the community I again am in strong favor of um the the leadership of this community funding programs like cahoots um as as far as the schools I think that they're um again we have another issue here of police are absolutely not capable of distinguishing uh between a person who's having a mental illness crisis at a school um versus somebody who's just not obeying orders and I think that puts the most vulnerable kids in the most amount of danger and those kids um need to be protected with um with mental health resources um and uh that's not an appropriate place for um trying to trying to have a good relationship with the community kind of circles back to the human rights violations report and making sure those things are taken care of in the community first and foremost um again I'm totally um in favor of funding programs that will increase salaries for social workers who will deal with very that already deal with issues that are huge and beyond the scope of what law enforcement is um usually um educated to be able to deal with it takes a lot longer it takes years of education to understand how to the nuances of mental health issues and especially in the school setting um I'm a former teacher I have a mental health issues um I am very concerned for lots of reasons in the in the community that that we it would it would serve us all to have funding be for people who are better educated to take care of the situations that are happening and even further in increasing funding for communities so that these issues aren't even in the streets in the first place so I yield the rest of my time thank you again for having these meetings thank you Evan followed by Merlin um thank you for taking my comment I'm sure by getting tired of my voice um this is a conversation that's really about best practices I work for an organization uh as an independent contractor that's locally based called Community Matters that is one of the foremost if not the foremost um campus safety and climate safety you know on on campus experts in the country if not the world I think both the city and senator's police department are familiar with them the history of SROs is being completely overlooked in this discussion SROs being standardized is not for the reasons that chief Tavaro um laid out which were lots of good things that they can add but those are not unique services that they offer outside of shootings um the standardization of SROs was out of response to mass school shootings and to date um zero mass school shootings we're having a hard time can you hear me hello yeah yeah yes okay the standardization of SROs was a response to mass school shootings that's why they were put there not for the things to do that chief Navarro laid out that that's a fact of history that's not a any type of interpretation they have yet to stop a single mass shooting even when there is an SRO not to say that they couldn't be a deterrent for them happening that's a different discussion however the data is empirical about what has happened with the increase of SROs which is a massive increase of arrests and suspensions over very small and petty things disproportionately affecting BIPOC and low-income students so for all the things that it's not a slight tool an officer for the good things that they do I personally know officer Crosby consider him to be one of the most outstanding and incredible members of this community that's not the point the defensiveness you get from people defending SROs it's about best practices and what the initial purpose was at all and for the cost of one officer you could fund the entire city to have a program that like community matters offers that is not it's in a lot of schools it's not in every single school so do you want to prevent these things from happening and do you want to actually increase school safety with actual data evidence and proof or do you want to do something that just seems like a logical line that doesn't have a lot of evidence to back it about SROs increasing school safety and when there are really dramatic things like shootings we already have a police department that's active on their normal beats to respond no SRO has ever stopped a mass shooting and that's why they were there in the first place and then ironically in the city of Santa Rosa you have access to an organization that is one of the leaders if not the leaders in school safety that can be funded for the cost of just one of these officers city-wide it is like mind-boggling we'd even be having this discussion about a use of funds in SRO so thank you very much you'll the rest of my time thank you Merlin followed by Keith yeah can you hear me yes schools have done the right thing and kicked cops off of campus they're keeping these violent criminals away from our children that is absolutely the right thing to do and look at these creeps trying to insert themselves back into the lives of our children that should concern everyone I am so pleased to hear that the police are having staffing difficulties and staffing shortages that is exactly what we need continue that trend absolutely a pause do more of that defund them take away their staff take away the money that they pay their staff with take those resource officers that were on campus and instead of inserting them back into the communities around the schools get rid of them the school said we don't need them we don't listen to the schools they know what's up keep these violent criminals away from children and away from the rest of us we don't need their violence we don't need their guns we don't need their abuse nobody needs that children don't need that people of color don't need that other marginalized groups don't need that none of us need that thank you mark followed by this hello can you hear me yep yep hi I was a member of the SRO ad hoc committee that met this past summer I wish to offer my support for continuing the SRO program with some modifications at santa rosa city schools this support was also offered by 24 of the 27 people by vote at the conclusion of our ad hoc meetings as noted in the december 16th letter from president fawn this committee was comprised of what appeared to be a majority of people of color yet race and ethnicity were not part of the selection process it was particularly disappointing to not see support and involvement by the city council on this important committee since Victoria Fleming was listed as a member yet chose not to attend any of the meetings also noted in president fawn's letter was that eight percent of the student surveys stated that they had some level of dissatisfaction with the SRO program students of color make up almost 70 percent of the middle and high school student demographic so it's only logical this 60 percent of this eight percent were students of color more importantly if looking through an equity lens to see which students would be harmed most by a decision the 40 percent of students who felt safer with SROs on campus would now feel unsafe and be harmed most i'll ask you the same question i asked the school board what is the educational and emotional process that you are going to undertake to support the large majority of our students as well as the admin and staff personnel who are going to be traumatized because they will no longer feel safe on their campuses if SROs are removed in the school board's special meeting on november 9th several directors mentioned the need for SRPD to acknowledge and apologize for the shootings of Andy Lopez and Jeremiah Chase before they could move forward with any kind of support for the SRO program SRPD was not involved in these tragic shootings it was the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department this would be like asking the Santa Rosa City School District to apologize for an incident that occurred in the Healdsburg district they are different organizations i truly hope that the SRPD will be able to continue providing the viable SRO program at no cost to the Santa Rosa City Schools the city and school board should work together to develop a new memorandum of understanding that is acceptable to both parties the SRO program is an excellent opportunity for young students to hope to build relationships and bridges with police officers in our community in order to alleviate any possible fears that may exist thank you thank you Keith followed by Bibbs hello can you hear me yes okay so this is the other end of my sad tale and i want to thank Evan and other folks for their time comments about man and late son Liam Liam was put into the system by a Santa Rosa Resource Officer in 2009 under no tolerance and that was because of the school district at the time had no tolerance and i actually went around town objecting to why were SROs even in school i didn't know there were cops on campus when i put my kid back into mainstream school so to correct the point of order now it may have been standardized what Evan was saying however we put cops in schools in 1994 five years before Columbine and the reason was an increase in gang activity stemming from what was going on in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict so the whole reason that we have SROs in Santa Rosa in my opinion was racist in nature going after people of color and trying to find out which family members were in gangs and that is what i believe is the inception of our SRO program and frankly it's shameful secondly when my son who was only 15 was detained by a detective for over four hours and admitted to all kinds of things because he didn't nobody called me nobody called an apparent fortunately that can't happen anymore to a student who's under 16 but you cannot trust the police department to do the right thing uh in cases like this they get they get a a kid in a room and they start promising the kid as you know it's legal for an officer to lie to a subject in order to gain information that's been established in court already um and that's exactly what happened to Liam and i'm not saying he didn't do bad things and i'm not saying that he was a perfect kid because he was far from that you know but he was certainly loved um i don't think a cop should be allowed to talk to anybody under 18 without parental permission and i certainly don't think that we need the SROs on campus and i believe that it's mainly driven by the teachers and the parents and regarding Mark's earlier comment i don't think kids are afraid to be in school and i'll think they're gonna be afraid to be in school you know we were never afraid to be in school before there were cops on campus and we put cops on campus a full five years before Columbine so that that argument is out the window anyway i appreciate this committee thank you for letting me speak and uh i'll go now thank you babes followed by julia all right can you hear me yes all right um i remember being a child uh in the early 90s and early 2000s and remembering how much there was police propaganda just being pushed at me all the time and everyone was telling me that cops were heroes and that they are here to protect us and then i grew up and learned that that was actually not the truth and that they're really only here to support the wealthy rich class and cis people so well cis white people so that's the thing is that i don't agree with having an SRO program at all because what i was told as a kid was a lie and i can imagine i can imagine the cops trying to make themselves look good to these children say hey this is a good this is a good vocation you should do that you can use it to protect your community when in reality it's just another facet of the white supremacist system that we operate under so yeah the fact you're trying to maintain this program even though the whole school board was against it that's really suspect and frankly very disrespectful so if you're really trying to connect their community maybe just leave them be and leave the handling of other people to other people it's great to hear that the cops are losing more positions and funding because frankly we need more of this money for others other services for other people we need like we need more money for the kahoots program we need more money for iolero to also mean to we need it to be used properly or regenerative practices we can't keep operating under the same paradigm if you put if you keep putting SROs in schools you're just going to tell the people that you're not listening to them and you're not taking them seriously so really think on that and again the school board was not down so i don't know what more you need to back off navarro but you should probably back off i yield my time thank you Julia followed by colin julia are you with us okay uh because we're tied on time well we're going to come back to you uh colin hey can you hear me hi uh let's go on again i'll i'll keep it quick since you're short on time um just a small kind of fact-checky kind of thing uh indicating that the school board has not voted yet on we're moving SROs or not while technically true at the last meeting that the school board had regarding the question of SROs they did this kind of straw poll vote at the end of course non-binding so we don't know what their official vote is going to be yet but out of the eight members present seven of them indicated that they would support moving forward with removing SROs from campuses uh citing that they are already off campuses currently because of the pandemic and it's a lot easier to just say that they shouldn't come back as opposed to having to bring them all the way back onto campus and then turn around and tell them that they have to leave so a little disingenuous to say that they haven't voted on it yet you're writing on a technicality there that's they have essentially said that they want to move ahead with doing that and it'll be great to see this subcommittee and the council in general support the school board in their decision thanks thank you cox followed by Natalie just to echo what everyone else has said just to listen to the school board the school board is being informed by the community and if I agree if Navarra of you were to keep pushing this program onto the community you know if you say that you want to support the community and build trust this is how you do it is by listening to them I believe that having resource officers in schools in general is socializing conditioning and normalizing our children to over policing especially to black indigenous and people of color communities they are being conditioned to obey and comply with officers even when uh those officers are not trained as behavioral health technicians in cases of mental health and autism and other behavioral and learning developmental stages that they're not aware of and they're not going to be trained on and assuming on how to interact with those type of youth and also it's again it goes back to just like why we're not sending out police on mental health calls it's just our students don't need police officers they already have principals and deans and teachers who do that kind of the redirections and what I've learned from working as a child care counselor is that what's most supportive to youth is having therapists and counselors and therapeutic approaches and restorative justice rather than a police and I agree with that like the school board's decision to move away from that and I agree with them because what we really need is more mental health services thank you thank you Natalie followed by Alan hi can you hear me all right awesome um good evening I don't have anything new or revolutionary to say but I do want to add my voice to the chorus of comments tonight as a former teacher myself and a current parent in Santa Rosa City Schools um I just want to say this issue is very important to me I don't see any place for police on our school campuses um I said that to the Santa Rosa City School Board and I'll continue to make my voice heard there but as Evan mentioned earlier there is no evidence to support that um police police officers make our schools any safer and as Cox just said what we really need is more therapists and counselors and those sorts of services available to our students um that it was brought up at the school board that this is a program that's free to the school board but it's not free to our community and as a taxpayer in Santa Rosa it is expensive and I would much rather see those that funding go towards other programs and definitely like the concludes program things like that I'd rather see instead of officers on school I'd much rather see that money going towards um these outreach people that are going to be helping the community at risk thank you so much for you all the rest of my time thank you Alan followed by Chelsea hi everyone Alan from Santa Rosa um I'm calling for a few reasons uh one because um um Chief Navarro was indicating that they're you know not able to have the staffing now and they need more staffing in order to have resource offices and schools um I mean that that seems like an easy solution don't have them but I think the reason that he wants to have them is because that's another area of recruitment to try and get more staffing for him through um what a lot of people call propaganda where uh it's ingrained in society that police are the solution for way more things than they can actually solve or actually should be trying to solve so I think that that's really why that's trying to happen and I don't believe that police officers have any place in schools whatsoever and then to another caller who um mentioned that since it was the sheriff's department that murdered Andy Lopez that the Santa Rosa police department uh shouldn't have to apologize for that um I mean this whole issue we're talking about having police officers around children and a law enforcement officer in our community killed a child I don't think that child's parents cares if it was the Santa Rosa police department or the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department um if the Santa Rosa police department isn't very strongly condemning bad actions of their their peers uh then they're complicit in those actions uh and that goes for their peers everywhere but especially for those here local in the community uh thank you I yield maytime thank you Elsie followed by toby hi there um I just uh want to echo what other people are saying I also speak directly to one of the previous callers who was talking about the ad hoc committee that um uh sort of voted and took surveys around whether they were okay with the SRO program it was discussed at length in the board meeting and already they've been heard from on multiple levels I just want to say that just because the majority of people are okay with something doesn't mean it's actually okay just sometimes the right thing to do the anti-racist thing to do does involve looking at a small percent of people a minority of people and people in minority communities and listening to what they are saying about what they need and whether they feel safe as opposed to telling them that it is okay even though they feel unsafe I don't believe it's a lack of understanding respect or contact with police at a young age that makes kids of color feel unsafe around cops I believe that it's because of their lived experiences personally and their parents and their peers and the talk that they get that contributes to um that feeling and the very real harm and consequences that come from having that contact known as the school to prison pipeline so uh we can start always by just listening to the communities that are really affected and uh following um what they're asking for thanks thank you to be hey y'all can you hear me again okay so I just want to touch on the school to prison pipeline um you know let's just define that a little bit and it's you know taking young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies so let's just start with that and listen to that a little bit along with what Evan and everybody is saying I'm going to reiterate if you go on srcity.org you're going to get a list of duties and responsibilities of these SRO officers and a few of them is basically taking the role of teachers educating both staff and students on various topics including constitutional law drug awareness gangs juvenile law and court procedures resources for hard to control and out of control kids there we go right there it goes reiterate why we need cahoots uh self-esteem and peer pressure I don't know if um school resource officers are necessarily great for self-esteem or peer pressure um teen alcohol use I don't think they're great for that either if anything having an officer's presence in lower income neighborhoods would probably drive me at 16 to drink um my thing is that there is literally no communication with parents and where is it that the parents get involved these are minors we're talking about with influences from law officers on campus this is intimidation and if we look at the west side versus the east side you don't see this presence prevalent in any of the schools that are mainly white so that shows me that it is a form of oppression it is a form of intimidation which shows that there is white supremacy prevalent in our law enforcement we need it we need to talk about that we really really need to talk about that um you know we're not creating upstanding citizens we're you're you're not helping our people if you're not listening to our people and this is BIPOC people this is people on the west side we need resources you're called school resource officers but yet there's a lack of resources to provide substantial help for parents and as a single mother as a woman of color and a daughter of a refugee to the fact that it took them so long to even put a public library in roseland is egregious resources for parents to keep their kids out of trouble we need to think about where we put our resources in this community and with that said thank you um do we um have any voicemail public comment yes hi my name is elizabeth do that was that the conclusion of voicemail public comment um you're muted sandy yes hi my name is elizabeth merrick and i am calling to comment on agenda items 6.2 and 6.3 um i would like to voice my support for the school sro program officer and i would also like to voice my support for an auditor who is not based in politics um on the 6.3 agenda i feel that it's important that there is an auditor that is not politically based that is critical and i give my support to the santa rosa police department thank you bye it's monday commenting on item 6.2 the school resource officer it's a very important position and it should only be increased because of the uh there's more people so we need we need money to support that program yeah thank you that now concludes public comments i'll close public comment and bring it back to um the council or the subcommittee for comments who would like to go first 12 minutes to solve this one i don't mind going first if you'd like go for it you know for me there's been a whole process with the school board and it's their decision you know i'm supportive of whatever direction the school board's you know want to go we haven't had much discussion about the merits of it i know it was a lengthy process but we're not going to rehash that thing sounds like the school board's made their decision and let's move forward before moving on i just wanted to add a piece of information which is that yeah i went while i was the liaison to the the committee i was unable to attend the meetings as was noted by one of our callers and this was because the school board chose to put their meetings on Tuesday evenings which is when we have our council meeting so that was a challenge but i did read the reports so um thank you for um understanding natalie do you have anything you'd like to add same same as tom supporting with the school board supporting the school board decision um so um at this point the school board um has not made an official decision um so do we want to take a position on this outside of um what they decide to do as far as i know i didn't think that i don't it's their it's their schools what position it's their schools but it's our money well do we want to pay for five sros is that a question for natalie or who the question it's a um you know i'm trying to understand uh what the recommendation from this subcommittee is going to be because the schools can you know we the another option would be that we could defer um upon a formal decision from the schools but their decision does not bind us to to comply with it it only you know they're either going to say we don't want you there and and that's fine um or they're going to say we do want you there and then we have a decision to make are we going to show up i i the mayor i'd be meeting with the the president and the the superintendent i could bring forward whatever um you know if if the desires for the school board to make a decision i'm happy to communicate that back to the superintendent to the president uh that that's going to be the subcommittee recommendation or any other recommendation i just wanted to make you aware that we're going to be sitting down very shortly and having a a conversation so i'm happy to communicate um what whatever it is that the subcommittee wants me to communicate i for one would be most comfortable um weighing in after hearing the formal recommendation from the school board i think that um asking us to make a decision ahead of their decision puts us in a tough position so i'm happy to communicate that if that's the the subcommittees it sounds like that's the subcommittee's recommendation i'm happy to communicate can i get um some thumbs up or not well and for me i think a lot more discussion needs to take place because i i don't know all the information i try to follow as much as i could with the SRO discussion but quite frankly i i would think the time to discuss this is when the city manager presents the next year's fiscal budget to the city council and whether it's included or not that buys us a couple of months to you know for whatever the school board's going to be doing um but for me it's it's a conversation between the chief of police and the city manager because it is a san rosa police resource how we want to utilize that i'll be anxious to hear during the next budget process uh how they're going to include that okay um well i see it as a um that but it's also a philosophical um question about having people feel safe in our community and um we heard that 40 percent of people feel safer with police um in the schools which means that 60 percent of people did not agree that they felt safer so i think that um you know we we need to take this on um if it's the desire of the schools to have us uh fund this so um vice mayor do you have any comments before we conclude no okay thank you so um unfortunately for today um we are not able to get to the following items which um for the police auditor position and um a discussion around the social media post of last week um i will be working with the city manager and his staff to get us another meeting as soon as possible i want to thank the community for your participation vice mayor rogers and mr schwedhelm um city attorney mr navarro miss tayez um captain fregan and anybody else who i might have missed as well as our interpreters and our technical support from sandy and lis um thank you to everybody who makes all of this happen so with that i during this meeting