The EOC room two to and also people are available to join on Zoom.

Um, Madam Clerk, may I have roll call?

Uh committee member George here and committee member Vladimir here present.

Thank you.

Okay.

Item number three, special presentations, introduction of the police department's mental health initiative.

Uh good afternoon, everyone.

Uh today I have the privilege of introducing our newest member to the police department.

Um, she started back in December of uh 2025.

She's uh been our clinician since then.

Um, I'm gonna have her go ahead and stand up and kind of talk about herself for a minute.

So she's yeah, okay.

And then as she's coming up, I'm just gonna uh talk about her role um from uh our perspective and the dual response model and how it's kind of funded.

It's funded through the county's uh BHSR BHRS grant, um, and she'll be with us uh at least in June of uh this year.

So I'll give it over to Natalie.

Thank you.

Um yes, my name is Natalie Correy Espinol, and I serve as a mental clinician for the PD.

Um my main job is to co-respond with the officers and provide crisis intervention, um, on scene assessment, and then also short-term stabilization for individuals who are experiencing behavioral health emergence.

So it's a very delicate balance but a very great opportunity to meet the needs of the community.

Um, and I personally love what I do.

Um, I was in longer-term therapy before this, so this is a very different skill set for me.

I'm learning a lot, and I'm very appreciative of all of the PD for welcoming me with a very warm welcome.

I'm curious, can what is the average number of calls that you're going on?

That's a great question.

Um, every week can vary.

Right now, what I'm seeing is on average about four calls per week, but that can windle down to two calls per week.

Now it might sound like a small number, but each person and family is very delicate, right?

They all need specific needs.

So my job is to connect them with community resources, right?

So I need to know who my core agencies are.

I need to know who my immediate response is for unhealth individuals.

Where can I connect them to behavioral health and medical and possibly food?

So it's more than just going out on the call per se.

I do a lot of the follow-up.

Sometimes these individuals are um wanting to connect with me and communicate and work in a partnership, and others aren't.

Um, so I take that very seriously.

Um, and I will do my best to continue to provide the communication about what's happening on my end.

Um, but I would say right now that's kind of where we're sitting, but like I said, it can vary.

It really can.

Thank you.

Welcome.

I just want to, you know, she mentioned that between two and four.

I don't, I think that's a small snapshot.

I'm glad she went through just the other backside stuff that she's done and not just a quantitative number, um, because there is a lot on on each one of those calls and stuff that may not be captured through a specific call for service that was so as time goes on, we'll hope it'll capture some more data and see how that plays out.

Uh, but she's been with us since December and spent a lot of time just kind of you know, feeling getting things squared away, going out and doing working with other agencies to figure out their best practices, and so she's been a fantastic resource for us uh thus far, and we continue.

You know, we're excited for the next couple of months to have her as part of our team and for the community.

So I think the only thing I'd like to offer is that um I'm on the county's uh community action agency um commission and that coordinates the eight core agencies.

Okay, so um, if any part of you is interested in kind of like attending a meeting and getting to know some of those leaders of you may already know some of the leaders of those agencies, but I'm happy to like connect you so just you know, right?

That would be great.

Thank you.

If that feels okay.

I guess it'll work.

No, that sounds great.

No, I think it's uh fantastic to have you on board and I appreciate you doing the additional explanation that it you know doesn't just end at the call, right?

So that there is follow-up for you know the individuals who need the additional assistance.

So thank you to think of that.

And welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, item four, public comments and announcements.

The this agenda category is limited to 15 minutes with a maximum of three minutes per speaker, and is for items of interest not on the agenda.

If your subject is not on the agenda, the committee will recognize you at this time.

Do we have any public comments um go ahead and yeah and if you would like i you could state your name yes yes i'm Bethon Emster um past name V O N E M S T E R and I'm a Belmont resident uh really glad uh that Natalie is the board really um was a proponent of of this kind of response for our community so really uh that we have this resource in our um I actually wanted to give public comments about um automated license plate cameras which have been in the news a lot lately um I think Belmont's had its uh cameras in place for about a year and um grateful that the community was really brought into the process of things on um the news about these cameras is I think we're using flock which is has been the subject of some really negative uh media attention um and a lot of cities in the Bay Area are um really questioning whether that's the right um system for them and I hope that uh Belmont will engage in a similar uh inquiry to to really consider whether whether that's the right choice for us um I want to note too that um minneapolis had an officer recently it was a report in the New York Times and I can circulate this article um an officer uh used his authority to access the data like 150 times or something like that um to uh to review the movements of his partner and um the partner's ex only found out because the ex found out about it it wasn't found out through the department so worried that that could happen here too um I'm I'm seeing that right so all of that prompted me to go on um our Belmont portal which I'm really glad we have the public can see all of the traffic but I'm surprised to see how many agencies have accessed our data in the last year.

I guess when it came on board I was thinking well Sam and Tao we'll take a look and Menlo Park Berkeley but um over 250 agencies have accessed our data um across the state including one that where the sheriff openly it's a county where the sheriff openly um says that he won't follow california law on um uh cooperation with immigration authorities so I'm I'm concerned about that and hope that's that gets visited as well.

Thank you.

Hi Bellopitas and um building on on what Beth's saying I know we've had some really great discussions internally as well as in these meetings and um we really do appreciate that that dialogue that we have and we hope to continue it in light of changes that have happened and have come to light over the last year in terms of other Bay Area cities and and counties and um that nationwide as well and I just wanted to relay something because I attended the Woodside City Council meeting a couple weeks three weeks ago where they were discussing this this is in my role as a um ACLU chapter member and um the uh the you know we were asked to um you know provide um insight and what I found very interesting is that Woodside, which has the sheriff as our police um department has um flock cameras, but they also um only allow um the sheriff's department, San Mateo, and um remote city to access their their data.

And the sheriff department can only access it for their own.

At least this is what Ken's looking at me quizzically.

This is what they the sheriff's department has stated in that meeting.

It may be different, but the sheriff department said that their data is segregated on the different part of the server.

And so the fact that the sheriff might open up sheriff department data outside of those cities doesn't mean that Woodside's streets are opened up outside of it.

So even with that limited usage, there are a lot of concerns in Woodside.

And some of the city council members are concerned about some flocks' recent activities and issues that have arisen with it.

And so I just raised this as another point of conversation that I hope we will have, you know, continuing to discuss this as a city.

And so that's that's on the ALPR side, and then just on another side.

And I was very surprised that only the two city council committee members are listed in the attendance, and who else attends in terms on behalf of the city are not listed.

And I'm just wondering, you know, whether that is something that, you know, where somebody comes in and in place of the chief, or when Ashraf can't make it, or you know, however it is, whether that should be reflected in the minutes as well.

So point of request.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um I assume we have nobody on Zoom that wants to speak.

No, okay.

All right, item five, consent business consent calendar items are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion.

There'll be no separate discussion on these items unless a member of the committee or staff requests specific items to be removed for separate action.

Item A, meeting minutes.

And all I need is a motion to approve.

Okay.

I can I'm pausing because I'm wondering.

So it was brought up on in public comment, but it's not on our agenda.

I think it's okay for me to ask the question.

What typically happens in minutes when you list attendance?

Typically just the council members' process, it's not a minute.

Okay, staff members in other case, is not listed.

That's not a typical practice.

Thanks.

Um I can move approval.

Okay, a second.

Minutes approved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, it's sorry, one question more.

Um videos of this are also overloaded on okay.

Okay, item six general business.

General business items are considered separately.

Typically, are listed.

The chair will call for public comment on each item when the body considers this item.

Item A, Chief's quarterly report.

Thank you.

One moment.

Sorry.

All right, um, uh good afternoon, everyone.

Um, today we're just gonna discuss just an update, kind of overview of where we're at as a department.

Um just some uh quick highlights, our case updates.

We've um we've got our uh main suspect in our O'Donnell Park homicide and guided on all counts of working on our uh taking that individual into custody.

So that was that happened at the end of the calendar last counter year last year.

Um all defendants were found guilty in the Mohammed homicide at the end of last year as well.

They've all been sentenced, and then in January, just kind of a different change of uh face here with case updates, is we had a major multi-jurisdictional um counterfeit ring um up turned over uh within town based off a traffic stop, and um it turned out to be far stretching not only out of the Bay Area region but throughout the state.

Um they were uh conducting uh massive operations out of uh hotel moving in town.

So, those are some fiscal year stats.

Um, the way that it's broken up here can be kind of complicated, that's because of the new NIVERS system and how that's stated, but I can talk about that offline, put it in the next slide.

Training, we continue to do just not only our officers and uh all staff continue to do you know their normal work shift.

Uh, we also did 1200 hours of extra training throughout the uh that last period since our last meeting.

Um that range is from basic uh first aid CPR recertification, science and wellness.

Uh we did updates on human trafficking, especially with the influx of the Super Bowl and the FIFA World Cup.

That has been a huge topic of discussion, not only within the city but the county and our region uh overall and how we're gonna combat that as not just uh a small silo of Belmont, but just as a region and have been very aggressive on that.

So we've got some additional training on that for all eight all officers, and then our interpersonnel skills that's something that we all uh need to work on, self-included, and yeah, that's our training.

Just trying to I think your interpersonal skills are pretty good.

Thank you.

So obviously, I did not not bring this stuff up.

So I appreciate your comments during public comment and look forward to any discussion that we can limit it here and then potentially offline to kind of help uh help with that.

So I appreciate that.

Um, but specifically to ALPR use, it is continuing to be a useful tool for us during investigations.

We continue continue to be extremely aggressive in our audits.

Um, our policy says quarterly, we probably do them more frequently uh just because we don't want to go down that rabbit hole.

Um I think you uh brought it up during public comment uh about the trust that we've built both uh internally and externally, and that's not something that we take for granted.

And we want to make sure that when we come up here and say something, that's what's actually being uh done.

And um, we've removed just kind of an operational uh thing from that.

We have downsized significantly some of the users to our uh system because of some of those things.

We're extremely aggressive on removing um uh agencies for not following our policies, in essence, not putting in case numbers, things like that.

Uh, we remove them at the very infant stages of our uh setup, we would send out letters saying please make sure you're conforming to this.

Uh and then we just started removing, we've probably removed over 300 agencies from um our uh California list.

Uh talking about nationwide searching, um, it's a hot topic.

Maybe we can talk about it offline.

Happy to discuss some of it here.

Uh, but that is not something that we've ever uh been uh utilized, um, nor have that setting on our cameras to do nationwide searching.

Um, I don't understand.

So, yeah.

So yeah, so there are um uh I know that you know, don't want to get into because I only know basics of what took place in Mountain View, but I do know what our settings are all statewide.

There are no settings outside of that.

Um, and I believe that in Mountain View, one of their cameras was sent uh set on a nationwide search.

Uh, that's based on the staff report I've read and things like that, trying to acclimate what kind of took place so that we didn't fall into the same traps or uh same issues.

Um, and so far that has not been the case with us.

And I think we've um it comes back to the due diligence from the infant stages of our program and all of the outreach and community dialogue that we've taken in to help build our uh our system based on you know being transparent about it.

Um I look, you know, the what we've recently done is uh restricted our settings to 50 miles.

We did a hasty um hasty um analysis of data that we've utilized for our own case investigations on okay, whose data are we pulling to assist in our cases, and it really doesn't outstretch the B area.

So we've really started to uh sync those numbers down to uh the that 50 mile radius from Belmont.

We've also looked at uh so that makes us non-discoverable, meaning if there's an agency in Los Angeles or Riverside County or wherever that's trying to find Belmont, we're not discoverable outside of that 50 miles setting.

So everybody outside 50 miles doesn't know that we have cameras.

I mean, if they really wanted to go to our web page, find out that we do, that's one thing, but through the flop system, we're blind to everybody else.

Um before I go on to uh our drones, if you have any questions or comments on wherever you know, I have a question.

Yes, no.

Um, so there's 50 hour restriction, which is great in that that we're not advertised that we have the flock cameras.

If an agency looks for us, could they still pull the information if it's beyond those 50 miles?

No, so usually they can't pull that through that system.

They would have to make that phone call to us and say, hey, Belmont, this is you know, River City, California and say we're investigating this, you know, and then we probably would be able to kind of assist in that, but that's a case-by-case, it's not a blanket, here you go, have access to our system.

It would have to be some sort of cause as to.

Well, there should be there is a cause no matter what.

Yeah.

But if they're happen to find out, like it's one of the agencies that is outside that 50 mile radius, and they find out you know, they do that, like is Belmont half walk, we're just not seeing it, they could reach out to us individually and say, hey, we're investigating this homicide, you know, is there, you know, and then those those meals can start turning that way.

I think it's important to note to this point, is that since we've set up an obviously some of these systems and the issues of other cities that are having our systems that have been slow for a while.

That's what the state of practice and controls they had was kind of different than the exercise we went through in establishing our policies or on the use of the cameras here, right?

So the policy itself is very kind of articulate about the steps we have to take, and the level of audit and review and access to the information and the transparency that's loaded up on the website as to what we do the case numbers, so to the point of uh our officers somehow outside of their uh responsibilities accessing data that's not allowed, it gets reviewed through multiple layers of the department reviewing the data and the reason for any officer accessing the information.

So it's got to be an active investigation, it's logged, it's tracked, and then so and it's then audited on the regular basis by both the supervisor staff as well as uh registrate uh administration that looks at that on our regular.

So we have a fairly I think comfortable stance in a way of the protocol safeguards and other things that issues are coming up, we're constantly evaluating what that means in the way of our data and the pros and cons of the use of the information and the benefits versus the issues that are being raised in other jurisdictions.

So I think we're doing a pretty decent job of ensuring that the data is not accessed where we're not supposed to.

It's for legitimate cases, and the data is available and visible into those that we have some reciprocity and that we have shedding information.

We put in the policy, I think it was late 2024, that the council passed very strange um requirements right to use.

Um, and it sounds like there's been a lot of audits to make sure that we are using it in the way that we determine, or we are also more late adopters.

Um, so we waited to see what other cities were doing wrong and bought.

I don't know if it's a newer version or something, but we just we adopted it later.

So um, so all of our policies have to do with the program that we've instituted, which may be different, which is definitely different than what out of you maybe had.

I would just kind of think about kind of what uh council member power low and sea manager said is the process we did start is kind of later than everybody else, and it came down to not only the uh the council but the community's concerns, and that was really what helped shape our uh policy and the way that we practice these things to ensure that you know there are some safeguards for these type of instances.

And I think that was because it was a multi-pronged approach to this, opposed to just a singular secular way of us kind of putting it out there.

We've we we reached out um on different fronts to make sure the best practices, lessons learned from other agencies, and you know, as we can see, that stuff pays off when we kind of take a step back and really uh get that dialogue from uh the community uh to to make sure that we can use this system for what it was designed to do and doing it within Paulson while still safeguarding personal rights.

And just to confirm and reiterate, if someone accesses the data, they have to have case number, and if they don't, we audit them and we've removed different, you know, various agencies for not following the protocols.

Correct.

So we've uh probably removed anywhere between three and four hundred uh different agencies throughout the state, and it's not necessarily because of um bad practices.

I would say less than 10% was bad practices or questionable practices.

Um what we did was we started moving it back to the Bay Area.

We saw that it was more of a tool for that 50 mile radius, and we saw that just based on what our needs were in some of the and just saw that why expand some of that stuff.

We're potentially opening up ourselves up for uh other issues that we don't want to get involved.

Okay, thank you.

Uh and then our drones, our UAS program.

Um, we have eight different operators, so we have continuity across all our teams, so we don't have to bring someone in on overtime.

That's been extremely successful.

We've since we implemented them about a year ago.

We've had 101 different incidents where we were able to utilize that.

Um, and that ranges from a lot of different things that we're um as you can see, situational awareness for a fire to the boobash to you know, water dog run.

Um, unfortunately, uh kids get lost in the Mubesh and the egg adventure, and so we spent a lot of time uh spent a lot of time wrangling kids, and that was extremely uh operationally effective for us from the um other side from um we just a couple weeks ago I was sharing this information where we caught someone in the backyard trying to break into houses.

Uh we were able to get the drone up and find that person in the backyard hiding barricaded himself, so we were able to pull them out safely.

So this tool continues to be one that has been extremely effective for us operationally and just why it's on the same page as ALPR is an extremely sensitive thing that to everyone in the community.

Um that's why we continue.

We continue to have our transparency portal.

You can go up there and see the flights it's taken, and our policy continues to be aggressive in regards to audits restrictions and whatnot.

Um, so that's the questions.

I think it's actually kind of probably uses a little bit too much as I should.

We're using the issues of flooding infrastructure, and so all those instances are not the same public safety as it relates to police activity.

Well, we've been using it for a lot of the storm time, pen restrictions, uh floodplain inspections when we have HIA flooding, and so we've done a number of mapping on things that that's been useful for our public works for parks to uh have access to the information uh being made up over kind of things like we what the big substitutional message to what we do.

Uh e-bikes.

So we're just going to touch on this.

This is going to be pretty much a big campaign for us uh in 2026, not just the police department, but um our region really um regarding the safety and education of e-bikes in the neighborhoods.

Um there's going to be some legislative, potentially legislative at the state level and local level on to help kind of uh regulate some of those things without um restriction and restriction of you know um uh free movement, right?

So what that's gonna look like in the future, we'll wait and see.

But really, this what 2026 is for us is about education, education, education, education.

We're looking at a multi-pronged way of doing that through our own social media outlets uh through our schools and other uh different um avenues of getting this information out.

Uh Madam Kirk can is that capable of it.

We're gonna do it right here.

So this was a short video that we put out last week, just to kind of kick off 2026.

We're looking at the Belmont Police Department.

So we'll start with and say we're talking about safety and writing e-mikes.

We're seeing more and more e-bikes on the roads and paths and have seen a steady climb of complaints of unsafe writing in our community.

The Belmont Police Development wants to focus on safety and education regarding e-bikes.

We want to educate parents about the different classification of e-bikes and ensure that they are purchasing bikes that are legal and kids are following the rules to run the e-bikes.

There are three legal classifications of e-bikes that can ride on the city streets of Belmont without a license.

Class one, our pedal assisted with a max assisted speed of up to 20 miles per hour.

Riders under 18 must wear a helmet.

Class two, our throttle assisted with a max unassisted speed of 20 miles per hour.

Riders under 18 must wear a helmet.

Class three, our pedal assisted with a max unassisted speed of 28 miles per hour.

All riders, regardless of age, must wear a helmet, and you must be 16 or older to ride.

High-powered e-motorcycles that can go faster than these limits are not considered e-bikes and are not street legal on the roads or paths.

Operating one of these e-motorcycles requires a license, registration, and insurance.

Unlawful use of these e-motorcycles can lead to citations and impoundments.

And writing as far to the right side of that road is practical.

Sidewalks are for pedestrians who always have the right of way.

Avoid distractions such as headphones, airpods, or using your cell phone.

When riding a night, you must have a white light mounted to the front and a rear reflector.

E-bikes are a great way to get around.

But safe operation is a shared responsibility.

By working together and following these guidelines, we can ensure that our streets and paths are safe.

Like I said, it's a great mode of a very popular mode of transportation, and we don't want to uh hinder that, but we also want to make sure that it's done safely and people are within the rules of uh like classifications for bikes and whatnot.

So we're really gonna work on that.

I mentioned it earlier at the very beginning.

Um there's a lot of effort uh both regionally and um throughout the state on what those regulations could potentially look look like in the future, but it's it's an ongoing thing, it's an ongoing thing.

Um, for example, if Belmont decides to do, you know, uh very strict organs, but San Mateo doesn't, or our neighboring cities, that would be very confusing for a bicyclist, right?

So we're just trying that sort of that regional effort and uh cooperation come into play of just trying to kind of pull that uh out together and uh figure out what the right approach is in regards to education and eventually potentially enforcement uh across across the county.

Then community and finished community engagement and outreach, things that we've accomplished.

Uh do not list everything that we've done for engagement outreach, but I'll touch on a few.

Uh the Belmont Boobash, as you may or may not know, it's an extremely successful event, not because of the police department by any stretch of the imagination.

It was actually done by uh a lot of staff members that did a fantastic job setting that up, and uh we just happened to be a small part of it.

Uh, the biggest one up there is probably our civics day.

This was our first civics day, our city of Belmont Civics Day that Braun brought on every department uh within the city, uh presented to the community about their facets of what they do day in and day out, things that they continue to uh have worked on and what some of the feature pretty much open the doors to City Hall and then people spend the day with the city uh and ask a lot of questions, great engagement.

It was a very fun-filled day.

We went an hour and a half past our eight-hour day.

It was extremely long.

Um, but it just goes to show you what people um that connect that people want with local government, right?

And uh what that what the government has, what they're what they're doing, what's affecting their community is extremely important, and that was a great tool for us to be able to do that.

On the horizon, uh we have the obviously 2026, is the City of Belmont's uh centennial.

That is a uh big big endeavor, doesn't come around every year.

I fucking I hope not.

I think it's too serious.

Um, and then obviously our coffee with the cop um and special events like that throughout the year that we try to uh continue our engagement, and I believe that is it.

I just can I just want to comment on the civics day and try to applaud you and the rest of the staff are staying 90 minutes over.

I think it just highlights how engaged the community members that participated.

Uh and I happened to be there at the point where I think it's just really started to go long.

Um they had a lot of questions and they you know the staff just never said, hey, we gotta move on to the next thing.

Like they just kept allowing the community to engage.

So I applaud you and the whole city staff for taking that whole Saturday because I only came for three, uh, but thank you for that.

And that is it.

Oh my god.

Okay.

Um we have any public comment on this?

Do we take public comment on this?

Yes, you may.

Okay, do we have any public comment?

It's okay.

No, okay, thank you.

All right, you don't want to find them.

Thank you for that that great report, Chief.

And I still think you have good interpretation.

Thank you.

Um, okay, committee updates and staff items.

Any updates?

Okay, then I think we can adjourn at 3 05.

Great job on your first meeting.

We weren't gonna be careful.

And I was gonna be late.