Good afternoon, everyone, and uh welcome to our uh Columbus City Council's hearing on alternative crisis and the report that our uh contractors did for the City of Columbus is uh we're grateful to be here.

This is actually a joint hearing of uh the rules committee, public safety, as well as Health and Human Service and Equity Committee as well.

And so I want to begin by recognize the many people who made this moment possible from our council team, uh city staff from public health and public safety, Mr.

Cochrane, Director Cochrane, thank you so much.

Uh Ms.

Anita, thank you so much.

Um, so many community advocates, national partners from Mission Critical Partners, and the residents who have been advocating for years and years for this topic, with both their knowledge uh and their lived experience.

Today is an important milestone along that journey.

Mission Critical Partners has now released its report, and council members are here to learn from its findings.

Findings that challenge us to think differently about the city's current programs for alternative crisis response and to dig a little deeper into making this response an integrated part of our city's infrastructure.

As we all know, for decades, our default response to nearly every societal challenge has been the same.

Send police.

Mental health crises, substance abuse, homelessness, noise complaints, traffic issues, UDAL 911, and no matter the nature of the call, a cruiser shows up, lights flashing.

But we know that approach does not always serve people.

We know that most calls for service are not emergencies and do not involve a crime in progress.

And we know that asking police to respond to every situation, especially those involving behavioral health or social needs, can sometimes escalate crises rather than resolve them, particularly in communities where trust and law enforcement has been strained.

I want to be very clear this evening.

We support our police, and I believe every Columbus resident should be able to call 911 and get the help that they need when they're in crises.

But we also recognize that we need it to be more strategic about how we deploy our resources.

That understanding is what led council to launch the Reimagining Public Safety Initiative, which worked to redefine what safety really means, moving beyond a narrow reactive model and toward one that addresses the full range of factors that keep communities safe.

Alongside policing reforms and strategies like youth programming, we began building something new.

A system of alternative approach to crisis response.

We have invested in programs like the Right Response Unit, where social workers support 9 1 1 dispatch decisions, like the Mobile Crisis Unit, which pairs clinicians and officers when behavioral health expertise is needed, and React and the Spark team, which respond to overdoses and connect residents to critical services.

That progress is the result of tireless work by police, by fire, our public health partners, and community leaders who never stop pushing us to do better.

Today we have a growing network of interdependent interdepartmental and community-led programs that are actively reshaping how we think about safety and how we execute care.

That work has not always been easy.

At times it has been slow, but the early outcomes show real promise, and they tell us something important that this approach works, and we need to keep doing it.

And if we didn't know it from the data, we know it from the fact that over 20,000 residents have signed a ballot measure championed by the Columbus Safety Collective, demanding that the city keep going.

Which brings us to the to today.

The Mission Critical Partners report builds on this foundation and provides a clear roadmap for what comes next.

Full disclosure, I have not read all 200 pages of this report.

We were talking about this upstairs, but that's what I'll be doing over holiday break.

But here are a few things that jump out to me right off the bat.

First, it is time to establish a non-armed, non-uniformed crisis response option.

The report calls this a civilian response unit or a CRU, which would deploy trained licensed clinicians and peer support specialists to situations which aren't violent.

I believe that this community is ready for this.

Second, it is time to figure out some centralized organizational structure or office that synchronizes all this work so that we have one citywide strategy for crisis response.

Third, this approach actually saves money.

It is more effective and efficient.

It is a more effective and efficient way for a big city to provide public safety.

We should deploy highly trained police officers, paramedics, and firefighters to work at their highest and best use.

And we can deploy social workers, clinicians, and peer support specialists for the work that they do best.

Fourth, to help us implement this report, we need to create a table where everyone sits together.

Community members, council, administration, labor leaders, experts, and city staff.

It's time to establish the advisory commission that we've long talked about.

I'm gonna stop there because today's discussion is about understanding and understanding the many recommendations, asking the hard questions, and imagining what it looks like to implement them responsibly and effectively.

It's about ensuring that when someone is in crisis, that they get the response that they need every time.

So I'm grateful for the work that has brought us here today, and I'm excited for the conversation ahead as we consider how to take this uh to the next uh step.

Um I want to thank my uh colleagues.

I want to thank uh council member Beatty.

Uh, even after his last sitting meeting, he is still showing up for work, uh showing up to the very end.

Very grateful for Councilmember Beatty.

And I'm gonna turn it over to my two colleagues who are co-chairing this hearing with me.

Uh first starting with Councilmember Reamy.

Chair Reamy.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Um, as you mentioned, uh, there's been a lot of work to get to this point, and I'm excited to hear from mission critical partners about their analysis into our current programs and the opportunities ahead of us as it relates to alternative crisis response.

I too have not read the full report yet, but um certainly uh have glanced through it and saw some of the suggestions that that have been made.

We have a real opportunity right now to go above and beyond what I believe is already an impressive portfolio programs that serve residents when they call for help with their needs in mind.

So I'd like to thank um all of the city staff, including both council staff and staff from the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Public Health, both the divisions of fire and police who make up some of the great programs that we have today for getting us to this point, for working closely with all of our partners.

As chair of public safety and criminal justice committee, I'm committed to continual improvement in how we serve Columbus residents.

It would be easy for us to say that we already have the programs and have already done the work.

But we owe it to our residents to keep improving our crisis response procedures so we ultimately get to the point where we answer every single call the right way every single time.

For everyone attending or viewing this this hearing, please know that my office is always open to dialogue, problem solving, and collaboration.

Please reach out with comments, concerns, or feedback as we work through this process.

This is important work, and I look forward to actionable progress in 2026 to improve upon a great foundation of alternative response programs.

Thank you and wish everyone a very happy holiday.

I'll be very brief.

Um, thank you again for everyone for being here today.

Thank you to so many people in the room that I know have been um absolutely integral in and getting us to this point that we're at today.

And I also just want to take a minute to recognize our council president because we would absolutely not be here without you and your passion and compassion uh for people and um your leadership around this issue.

Uh changes hard, but it is time uh that we make some change, and we have been making changes, and we have uh further to go, and so I'm looking forward to hearing more about the recommendations.

Um I did do my homework though, and uh skim through the report, but I'm interested to hear your analysis and then also um moving with speed and urgency to begin implementing some of the recommendations here and making sure that we're being attentive to um as we are making changes in our own operations here at the city, also integrating and supporting the continuums of care that exist in the organizations that have been doing this work for many years as well.

Um, because we have a good, we have the good foundational pieces and it's just figuring out how to build with them that I think is gonna be the next fun challenge for us.

So thank you again to everyone for being here.

Um, and I will turn it back over to the council president.

Thank you, madam chair, and I'm not surprised at all that you would have read it already.

We will catch up, I promise you.

Um with that, I want to turn it over to our partners in the administration, um, Director uh Mike Holleran as well as Assistant Health Commissioner Anita Clark.

Director of the floor is yours.

Thank you, Council President Harden, Chair Reamy, and members of council.

On behalf of Mayor Ginther and Public Safety Director Pasciati, I'm honored to be present tonight as the city takes an important step forward to improve the delivery of service to Columbus's Columbus's residents.

I want to thank the mayor and this council for the opportunity to have Mission Critical Partners review our existing alternative response programs and to provide a framework for us to build upon and improve our services.

I want to thank members of the community for spending time with Mission Critical Partners to express their views, share their stories, and lend their expertise to help us to continue to develop and grow.

And I also want to take an opportunity to thank the employees within Columbus Public Health, the Department of Public Safety, the Division of Police, Division of Fire, and the Emergency Communications Center for spending time and effort to work with Mission Critical Partners during this process.

We are proud of the organic work we have done thus far, but we understand we have room for improvement.

We are looking forward to fully understanding Mission Critical Partners report and to articulating a path forward for our residents.

Thank you.

Good evening, President Harden, Council members Reamy and Green.

Um thank you for investing in alternative response.

And I just really want to thank Mission Critical Partners, Jenna and Bonnie, uh, and your team.

You've been fabulous to work for and with.

Um I really just respect your diligence and your hard questions that you've asked us.

Um and they were hard at times, and I appreciate our staff taking the time to answer those questions honestly, and our partners out doing alternative response.

And the only thing I you know, additionally, I want to add, I think Deputy Director Howlerin, you summed it up well, is I really want to shout out to our unsung heroes, and I have a lot of them that are sitting here this evening, and I'm gonna ask them to stand up.

If you have worked with alternative response, or you work with an organization that assists in any way, I'm thinking Adam H.

North Central Mental Health, NetCare, please stand up, City of Columbus workers, please stand up, please.

And I say that and I want to commend them because this is hard work.

And um, I was recently over at our RRU Right Response Unit over at our emergency communications center, and our clinician was transferred, a call was transferred to them, and it was a father who had um walked in and his son had unlipped himself and he saw this and he needed de escalation.

I think that's just one example.

It's tough work.

Um, in addition to that, most recently, our mobile crisis response team, our police officer, and our social worker um had a call with a youth that had a plan to commit suicide.

And so they located this youth and they were they were safe and they were able to provide them assistance.

And I think that's another good example.

This work is important.

We need to work together.

It's a collaboration, it's gonna take all of us.

We know we're not perfect, we have things to improve on, but I'm so very proud of where we're at today.

So thank you all.

Thank you, Commissioner.

That's a sobering reminder of what we are actually talking about, people when they are in their uh deepest moments of need.

And if we um are providing a service, and I'm and we want to make sure that we are giving the very best service to our residents when they are in that moment of need.

So uh I am very also grateful for the teams that we already currently have doing this work.

And I think that that will be that is I know that is acknowledged in the report as well as we talk about how we can continue to lean in and go forward and go further.

With that, I'm going to turn uh the floor over to uh Jenna Streeter and Bonnie Maney uh from Project the project managers from Mission Critical Partners uh to kind of walk us through a presentation on what they found.

Welcome.

Welcome and thank you for having us again.

Uh Council President Harden, Council Members Remy, Green, Beatty.

I remember standing in well, I was standing in front of you, sitting now in front of you, um, just earlier this year in January.

And President Harden, you asked me, you know, how do we how do you how do you think we're gonna stand?

And I stood up there and I said, I think you're ahead of the curve, right?

And we still firmly believe you are ahead of the curve while there is work still to do.

I know we have a short amount of time, 200 page report, so we're gonna really give you the high level, I hope, um, overview here, and to start with, like everybody else has said so much, we really need to acknowledge each of you, your community members, all of the folks that we met with are passionate and have a genuine commitment to this work, and it showed people were candid with us, they were open, they asked us a lot of hard questions, and gave us a lot of answers that were sometimes frankly, you know, also difficult to listen to with the lived experience.

You know, Jen and I, we come from this world, and so does my whole operations team that worked on this project, and we were again just reminiscing about this.

When we were back under the headset in the 911 centers, all we had back then were police, fire, and EMS to send, and we knew back then that there was a better way and there was a need, and when all of this work started to really escalate across the country, starting in 2020, 21, there's older programs than that, yes.

But as we saw this escalate and these programs come to fruition, we knew that the the country was on the right track by bringing these services and these opportunities to be able to respond in addition to our traditional field responders.

With that, let's see.

So, I mean, we want to make sure that there's an understanding of, you know, kind of just refresh everybody of where we were, what we were asked to do.

And so we were really asked, you know, you all engage us to look at the current four programs with President Harden.

You gave a nice little summary there, so thank you.

Um where are those at?

Where do they stand?

How are they doing, and then kind of collectively from those insights, how is the city doing as a whole?

And I think that's where Jen is going to share with you the breakdown of each of those four programs, and then from the city's citywide perspective, where that kind of leads us to then the recommendations.

So, what we did so far is we had a variety of hearings, and we heard from each of you, we learned so much, and to be able to answer those three questions that we talked about back in January, which was from an organizational administrative perspective.

You know, how does this existing program look and what changes should be made?

That design of the non-law enforcement unarmed response, and then creation of a temporary alternative response advisory committee.

And again, President Hardin, you gave the really good highlights of those how that panned out, and it was a beyond that three.

We did then look at call allocation, uh coverage and staffing as well as cost considerations to supplement that.

To make this possible with our analysis, we did apply what we call a red model for advancing public safety, and I'm gonna share with you what that looks like on the next slide and how we applied that.

We did within the the couple of visits that we spent time we spent here in the city, uh, 65 focus groups, community listening sessions, virtual interviews, we did a community survey.

We will say that you know we have had more responses to the community surveys with with other or entities with other cities, but it's still really aligned with what we were hearing from the collective, from the different you know other entities and the partners with the city.

And then we did uh we reviewed a whole bunch of data, we did desk reviews research, we reached out and talked to um did desk reviews of 13 other programs.

Now that's where this aligns with our alternative response continuum because we hear a lot.

Well, how do we compare to this city and how do we compare to that city?

And this city has this, and this city has that.

And so with by using this uh continuum type approach, we're able to apply the unique elements, standards, best practices, all of these types of things as as it relates specifically to the city.

Are you meeting your community's needs?

Now, there are things that we can of course learn from other cities, best practices, lessons learned, but at the same time, we need to take that and apply that to this continuum to make it the Columbus way, and what is best going to meet your community's needs.

And what is best going to meet your community's needs?

There could be plenty of communities out there that you know their communities may not need a civilian response unit, right?

So we weren't gonna be comparing those to you, right?

So at the end of the day, this approach with the alternative response continuum, looking at it from legacy, foundational, traditional, progressive, and advanced.

Where does the each of the if individual programs sit on that continuum?

How does that inform us of where the city sits on that continuum, which then allowed us to make recommendations and the 12-point strategic framework to be able to help you advance through this continuum as far up to advanced as you want to go?

So providing a menu, if you will, of options to guide your decisions moving forward.

With that, I am going to hand it over to Jenna to discuss.

Oops, I went too far to just I'm going the wrong direction.

My apologies.

There we go.

There we go.

To discuss this current state, uh thank you.

Thank you, President Harden and Council members.

Um I want to go through each program briefly and provide some standout points and opportunities that exist.

Uh as we've said a number of times, Columbus is doing very well already, but of course has room to grow.

Um Bonnie just discussed our continuum.

The minute we stop uh believing that we have room to grow, that I think we all need to hang up our hats and go home and read.

So the continuum really does reflect that that advanced uh state, it doesn't end.

That continuum does not end.

And I do want to point out that uh none of these programs were at the legacy stage.

Columbus is not at the legacy stage.

So that is not an element that we even address here because you guys are past that.

Um just going through each program uh a little bit.

The RRU, as you can see, is uh a foundational, uh upper foundational.

And RRU, the co-location model that Columbus has put in place with RRU is a really great opportunity and provide provides that space to seamlessly integrate with those 911 calls that are coming in.

It also provides uh very good contact with the emergency services, uh, other emergency services traditional responders, and opportunities to train with and for the 911 uh uh telecommunicators who to improve their understanding and their triage of mental health.

RRU currently collaborates well with the 988 programs here, NetCare and North Central.

Um they are continuing to develop and to fine-tune that collaboration.

It was formal and they're continuing to formalize it.

Over the year that we've been here, we've seen the more formal policies develop and continuing uh continuing that work.

There is, however, some limited collaboration and understanding with some of the other alternative response programs like MCR, React and Spark.

RRU's work is intrinsically linked to a lot of those other programs, but yet they don't share information.

Uh there's not a strong understanding between the teams of of how they each impact the uh the response ecosystem and that experience.

Uh so there's you know, there's some opportunity to for that, and and of course the hours of operation that the RRU has right now could be improved, especially the weekend work.

Uh they are continuing to expand hours, they are continuing to increase their staff.

That is a significant opportunity that RRU has.

And the positive impact that MCR is having on the community that they interact with is apparent, both observed directly by my team, as well as through the data that we you know that we gleaned.

The ability for MCR to bridge law enforcement and social services, and their strong professional and personal networks that connect individuals with services that are beyond those immediate crisis uh needs is very apparent.

Ooh, sorry.

Staffing is limiting their ability to really have a broader impact.

Staffing is dependent on the officers' attendance.

And when officers are not available, then the social workers cannot go out and do the work independently because of the nature of the model.

Further, the fact that MCR doesn't really have like response zones the way that traditional responders do.

It means that they kind of they they free, they're like free range, right?

They free roam all over the city, which can impact response times and diminish their ability to handle more calls, if you will.

And that could also be by the public's perception of the armed response model and that linkage to the police department.

Um that does develop some distrust in certain communities.

Um that is, you know, that's a that's a gap.

Um they are doing really good work.

Let me be clear about that.

And while they are doing that good work, and it should not be minimized, the community desires a different model.

They desire a a non an unarmed model.

And MCR is not they're just they cannot provide that.

That's not the model that that exists.

Uh both MCR and RRU are affected by call allocation workloads, and the 911 intake process and the 911's ability to recognize and classify calls for those alternative response uh teams.

React, oh, and I'm sorry, um, as you can see on the screen, MCR is in the right in the middle in the transitional model.

Um next, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk about React and Spark independently, but also a little bit together because React and Spark are both housed under the division of fire, and they share uh they share leadership, they share a lot of commonalities, right?

So I'm gonna talk about each of them independently, but React, as you can see, is in that upper transitional phase of the uh continuum.

React an eight-year-old program, and it is that has been the subject of academic research and documented uh very well documented in as an early adopter and an early model of this type of post-overdose response program.

I mean, it's quite impressive, the um accolades that React gets outside of the city of Columbus.

Um the multidisciplinary response model is uh a great demonstration of how this can work.

And the internal coordination because of the fact that Spark and uh React are housed under the same division, the internal coordination between those two programs is very impressive.

It's it's they're doing a lot of good work, they're communicating, they're sharing knowledge, they're sharing information that helps each team then do better work in the community.

Um React's model, uh, they do have some informal involvement with the community with the people with lived experience, just kind of through how they do their work and their very, very strong community engagement.

They have like, I don't, I want to say it's like 100, but don't quote me, it's in the report somewhere.

Um they have they do a lot of community engagement events with their um alumni, so they get to you know interface and get feedback informally.

That way the funding for their community engagement events is not there.

The that team is oftentimes paying for those community engagement events out of their own pocket.

So it's really great work, and there's obviously a lot of passion and drive from the team that's there.

Um React is in the process of developing a training program that formalizes that tacit institutional knowledge that uh their team members have.

And so that is that's something that they're doing.

They're they're working, they've they're aware of that gap, and they are working to fill that gap.

There is not enough staff for them to perform the follow-up activities that they would like to do.

Things like long-term care coordination, family support, and other post-crisis check-ins.

Again, Spark under the division of fire is kind of in your upper transitional phase there.

Another multi-departmental model.

Spark, like React is in the process of formalizing their protocols and procedures and team roles.

So both of these teams are setting this foundation of documentation that's necessary for growth and development, scaling up of a program.

And both Spark and React's current hours of operation align with what they do.

They don't work 24 hours, but they their work is dependent on referral services that also don't work 24 hours.

Spark could benefit from expanded hours to do, you know, off hour contacts with some of the community members that they serve.

Spark relies as all the programs do, to be honest, but there's a heavy reliance on experienced individuals with a lot of knowledge.

And that's what makes Spark super strong.

But also when those people retire or move on to the next phase of their lives, it can be difficult to fill those gaps and to train the people who come in because a lot of the knowledge is in the heads of the people that are doing the work right now.

Funding for training and professional development could support that.

And you know, Spark, and I would also say this about RRU there's not a lot of public awareness of Spark and the program they do.

And the services that they provide that are really meaningful to uh the people that people with the social service needs.

So that's me.

Okay.

Next slide.

Um the city as a whole, we have on this on the screen some the foundational progressive and advanced elements.

Um the city is sitting right at your uh very upper foundational stage of the continuum.

The the meta problem here is that Columbus has a collection of really strong alternative response programs, but not an integrated system.

We are looking, they've got their the programs are there, but we are not looking at it in a system-wide uh impact and outcome focused manner that would allow them to interact with each other and to really strengthen that service that they're providing.

Um of the things that we found just in the city overall is of course the uh fragmented authority and the the lack of unified coordination and established structures for oversight.

Uh there is some siloing.

Entreage decisions are often they often occur in isolation with limited real-time coordination between call intake dispatch and field assessment.

And you know, that that further speaks to that siloing.

Um there is some active collaboration between and among the programs, but the formal MOUs are still they're limited to at this point, and they are continuing to develop.

Cross-discipline data collection is a gap.

Right now, each program is capturing their data, their call data, um, but they are not sharing that data or capturing that system-wide holistic data.

Nor are we sharing the data out amongst all four programs.

Y'all have a good dashboard.

Don't get we've got RRU and MCR data publicly available.

Um, you've got a lovely uh interactive map, there's you know some good opportunities to drill down, look at different areas, um, but we are not look doing so for all four programs.

Um an opportunity exists to to share outcomes and to look at outcome-based data to demonstrate that impact while also maintaining the transparency that the stakeholders and your funding partners need.

Um training, cross-program training, again, this speaks to that unification, that coordination.

Doing so in the in the training realm would help to bridge some of those gaps between those programs that exist, build that understanding, uh, help everybody know how they each like how their puzzle piece fits in the whole system of crisis uh care in Columbus.

Continuing to involve people with lived experience in development training and review services is imperative.

And budget transparency and fiscal decision making, bringing that closer to the point of program administration.

Right now, the budgets are embedded within the departments and divisions in which they live, which can sometimes limit program administration from making immediate impact decisions.

That the city is investing $8.5 million last year in alternative crisis response.

I mean, that's not nothing, you know.

So I that needs to be noted.

And the city certainly deserves accolades for that.

The other thing, and the last thing that I really want to touch on that we noted when we when we were here in January, we walked away with we were very impressed with the rich landscape of services that exist in Columbus and in Franklin County.

Um, outside of the city services, these four programs, the greater Columbus area has a lot of private organizations that are already doing a lot of this work.

And very passionate folks, we talked about the collective, you know, we've the community advocates we met with, like very passionate folks that have really great ideas to take what the city is doing and just push it forward.

Um the private private sector folks that are doing some of this work right now.

We heard the Columbus Way.

I I remember sitting in a meeting with uh Adam H people and leadership, and they said the Columbus Way, I said, what does that mean?

Like I keep hearing that.

What does that mean to you guys?

And they were like, it's about the public private partnership and using all the resources that we have in Columbus to work together to make the best model possible.

And you have all those pieces here in place.

I do also want to give a one shout out to the coordination with the external partners that the four programs in the city is doing.

That, you know, that's that's that early coordination piece.

That's something.

So Bonnie, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to you to talk about opportunities.

So this next part, Jenna and I are gonna go back and forth with because we spent a little more time in different parts of the report as as we developed it.

So one of the areas that when we started looking at opportunities and considerations, a couple of lenses that we looked at this through.

One of them, I've got to grab this.

Yeah, sorry.

Is uh from a perspective of respond, resolve, and restore.

Now, responding and resolving is really where the main part of our focus came from for for our work here.

Restore is more of the the case management element of it, right?

So um, but it's really important to look at it through this lens, responding to the with the right resources at the right time to the right locations, and being able to at least initially resolve the problem to a point where then referrals and things that can be made for longer term restoration.

That's the first one.

The second is from the concept of first contact response.

That whether somebody is seeking help physically by using a phone call, or if they are electronically, you know, needing to report a crime or situation that they could do online, that that first contact is they get that response piece, whatever that may mean to them.

Because again, that is a very individual concept and perspective.

But those are the two lenses that we use to then develop the rest of the recommendations, which as I said, President Harding, you gave a really good high-level overview.

We're gonna dive a little bit deeper on to how we came up with those positioning the city for the future type elements.

So I'm gonna pass this back to Jenna for the first one, which is the administrative structure and oversight.

So I would be remiss if I did not say that public health and public safety are intrinsically linked rather than independent systems.

And so where to house this program then becomes a big question that we grappled with as our as a team for quite a while.

The report offers uh six administrative models.

They each have unique strengths and trade-offs, and at the end of the day, no model is inherently correct.

The recommendation that we make to start off with is what we call the braided coordinating body.

It introduces a central coordinating body to unify communication, set system wide standards, and maintain alignment across the multiple independent programs.

This body is not intended to manage day-to-day operations, but to provide oversight to facilitate communications and to drive that system level alignment across programs.

The ultimate goal should be long-term transition towards a more permanent structure that establishes alternative response as a co-equal mean coequal municipal entity alongside police and fire with independent budget, authority, leadership, and performance accountability.

Back to you.

Oh, that's me too.

Yes.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, yes, that's me too.

Um we've spoken about the civilian response unit a number of times, but to complement Columbus's existing RRUMCR and React and to respond to the community's interests in the unarmed uh health centered response.

Our research does support the development of this unit.

Um there are three staffing models that could be available to stand up this program.

And we also understand that developing a program like this is a big elephant that you have to bite like you know, one bite at a time, maybe a couple big bites at a time, I don't know.

Um but you have to start somewhere.

Um so there are three staffing models that we've seen nationally.

Uh direct hire being these uh employees are city employees.

Outsourcing means you you know go to the people who are already doing the work and uh get them to you know partner with them to do the work for you, or you could take a blended approach.

A blended approach does allow some uh control but already takes advantage of the partners that you have in the community that are doing this work, and it can help to stand up the program quicker.

At the end of the day, the approach that you choose really is about getting how are we gonna get this done?

Okay, if what is the the quickest path to a civilian response unit?

And that doesn't have to be the last stop on that path, it can be as you build the program, right?

Um that's why we do recommend a phased approach that reduces risk and and builds the internal uh public uh internal and external like public trust and it establishes a foundation for the integration of this team in a larger system, ma'am.

All right.

So moving on to the next one, which was the response advisory bodies.

Now, the original ask was about it being temporary, and and what we found out that you know, well, the purpose of these groups is really beyond the routine oversight.

It's separate from the centralization and the administrative oversight that Jenna was talking about.

These are really more about building and fostering that trust between the public safety agencies and the communities that that are served.

Um they have the opportunity to offer independent guidance, um, reviewing operational practices, recommending policy improvements, all of these types of things, and they bring that community voice into decisions that might otherwise be made, you know, in isolation.

Well intended, but not possibly fully informed of what is needed.

So we did find several examples.

We did look at other, you know, other cities as well, but no really standout model.

Again, what is going to apply and be best in what works perhaps currently in the city of Columbus?

And we found that you know actually they're not as routine as as you might think to have these advisory bottles models, but structure is important.

So again, we kind of use that word blended or braided, but coming um approaching this from a blended perspective.

So we dug a little bit into the civilian police review board with the community inclusiveness, it's flexibility, and we also then looked at or sorry, the flexibility of the chief's advisory panel, and blending those we think could be uh provide a best approach for the city.

And that would be that would create not a temporary but a permanent uh advisory spot response, sorry, alternative response advisory panel.

All right, and then I'm going to go on to the next one, which is crisis response typology, resource allocation, and service coverage.

We've already touched a little bit on these.

Um what we found here is you know, we've we've touched on it.

They're already responding to alternative response calls.

They're doing a really great job, they're partnering, and but without them being 24-7, and it it really is creating a challenge to really provide those responses when they're not Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 or Saturday, Sunday during the day.

There's no time or place that uh a crisis like this cannot take place.

And so, first of all, when we talk about the typology, encoding them, having the calls coded correctly.

That is a challenge.

The teams are doing a really good job, but having some um better approach to call typing, some more consistency in applying protocols could definitely uh make a difference.

And with that, we feel that um right now about 80 to 90 percent of the calls that are coded for MCR, they're in there, but they're only getting 10 to 20 percent of those are actually getting an MCR response.

What where that problem and that challenge lies is that they are getting a CIT response because the officers are trained, but we do know that there is academic research that says that the CIT response isn't the same as having a civilian response, maybe not as effective.

So that kind of brings two things into focus with looking at the typology and the resource allocation and the service coverage together.

First, having the better typology, they're understanding the types of calls so that they are coded better, then having them resourced allocation, making sure that in the computer-aided dispatch system, not only that you have MCR, but you also have the civilian response unit, those units actually become dispatchable, right?

We would like to see those dispatched by dedicated dispatchers rather than being you know, kind of already kind of incorporated into the police radio communications you know, workstations, so how should they have ultimately having their own dispatch, not a separate room necessarily, but in the in the communication center, but having their own dispatchers that are managing that.

An example of that is in uh Phoenix Fire and as well as Albuquerque, they have that same type of approach.

Can ask a quick question Have you seen that integrated since the rollout of 988?

Like how would how would they call go from 988?

And then there would be intermediate that would either send it to then a traditional 911 call or this other thing.

Well, my understanding is that once it goes to 988, it's gonna have to beat a certain amount, certain criteria to come back.

988 is not communicating with their mobile crisis teams, if you will, over the radio to have that immediate.

Any one of those that would have an emergency out in the field would have to call 911 to be able to get that response.

So this is actually a safety aspect to having any, and this is something again working with the partners.

If they're going to be dispatchable, that they would have that immediate ability to communicate if they needed help, if they needed an MCR, or they did need an armed response.

So can we let's yeah, I apologize?

I know you guys want to dig into this, and that would be great.

And well, I know it is there's so much there.

But let's talk really quick about the about 33 percent what we find.

So in studies that you'll see out there in the wild, you'll you'll see something that says, oh, 70, 80% of calls that come into a communication center aren't emergencies, and therefore our research is showing us in it in practical terms, it's actually about 33 to 40 percent that actually are appropriate for all an alternative response.

And that's not just mental health, that's online reporting and and those types of things as well.

You know, your TRU, and so about one third of the one third of your calls.

All right, on those, and really this uh City of Columbus is in alignment in alignment with that national average, if you will.

And we want to highlight here again that we are talking about a phased approach to how this implements because you can see up on the screen when we start talking about staffing and coverage and adding bodies, right?

Uh, it's not realistic to think that this can all happen overnight.

So this is where there's gonna have to really be this teamed approach to coming up with some sort of uh to coming up with a strategy, and we still have a concept of operations document to provide to you as well as far as how this could all lay out, right?

And so that's how do we make this happen quickly, but not so quick that we miss something.

So we want this to be sustainable long term.

That's gonna lead just to this last one, um, which is cost consideration and financial stability.

Again, we want you to treat this as a menu over time.

The scale of costs are also um ultimately depend on the size and scope of the program that Columbus chooses to pursue where you want to be on that continuum of maturity.

Every time you you know inject a new program, you know, it's going to impact that.

And we have laid that out as you'll see in the 12-point strategy.

How that impacting implementing these recommendations will impact that.

We do suggest that again these things do take place over time.

Places like Albuquerque, Phoenix, they did start out with you know, even you know, eight and a half million of dollars of investment already.

They started out a lot smaller, and then over time have built to where they are today.

All right, with that for the recommendations.

Do you want to walk through this?

No, no, okay.

All right, uh, one more.

Thank you.

So the strategic framework in in the one-page summary and in the report looks a little different than this one.

We needed to make it flow on on the slide.

And as you can see, it is labeled just like it is on the continuum: traditional, transitional to progressive, progressive, progressive to advanced, and then advanced.

We want to make be very clear here that this is not intended to be done sequentially.

This again is to serve as a menu of options that is going to be you able to be implemented upon the right place in time and funding.

Doing something, any of this will help you advance along the continuum.

It's just going to be figuring out the actual strategy ordering and sequencing and things that are happening in parallel, perhaps, to make that happen.

And so when you look at the 12-point strategy, each of these things do align with the all the positioning for the future and the recommendations and considerations that we just shared.

And with that, I believe, whoa, yeah, we do have a few adjacent strategy recommendations.

I think you might recall we said we don't we we look at everything and some other things may surface as we go through this.

And these are eight things that actually did, and I am gonna let Jenna, you know, go back to this one.

Okay.

Um so yeah, these were just things that kind of stuck out to us as we were uh as we were meeting and learning about the city of Columbus and all the programs.

Um, but these are some areas that can help strengthen alternative crisis response, like overall.

Um the the work that the community liaison officers is doing is really tremendous.

And um leveraging those relationships is so important to continuing this work uh and improving public service response.

I mean, they're they're out there doing non-enforcement work and just they're just doing really good stuff, right?

Um 311 is a great opportunity to help alleviate some call workload.

We've 311's another intake point.

President Harden, you got into 98.

I'm really passionate about that.

If you want to go like, you know, have a drink and talk about 98, like I'll do that with you later.

Um but 311 is another intake point, and uh another way that our community service uh it's a an important part of the ecosystem.

It's important part of not necessarily public safety, but public service.

Um you have other great uh departments, the department of neighborhoods, again, another community-rooted relationship point that can serve to educate the public on the programs that are out there on what they do, how to access them, where you can learn about them, the advisory boards.

Um there are some other opportunities here as well that we go through in the report.

Um everybody loves a therapy dog, therapy dogs for uh the alternative crisis response would be lovely to see.

And we do also want to remember equity with all of our community members.

Um so community access points, placing um uh like stations, if you will, like in like public libraries or in different places, so that people that don't have maybe uh a computer for online reporting or a cell phone or whatever can still access certain services, make reports, non-emergency reports if they need to.

Uh so those are just some things that came came about, just ancillary recommendations.

Um next steps.

Next steps, we just have a a couple of things, and that's really uh as we get take your questions and receive your feedback, taking that in to help uh help us develop the concept of operations document, right?

That's really our our next steps in what that looks like, and we'll be turning that around, you know, in in the January time frame to get that back to you and kind of you know finish at least our initial relationship is as far as this report and next steps goes.

With that, we will stop and you can um we'll entertain any questions that you all may have.

Well, thank you so much.

Um we actually could have gone through that for another hour and uh and um I you know I will admit that my questions are sm are smart and and up here.

Uh Councilmember Green's questions are going to be so deep in because of her knowledge and care for this.

Uh yeah, but we are um we're really grateful for this.

Um and I even just that that last slide about adjacent recommendations.

It's brilliant.

It's good good work.

So just thank you for that.

It's always better to have the outside eyes on it.

As you as we and you hit on this uh gaps in um in our crisis response system right now.

You brought you you hit on that.

Was there one that stuck out to you the most?

What was the one that you didn't anticipate or the thing that that popped out to you?

Was there was there a gap that you said oh, I don't know that I would say that there was one that we didn't anticipate, and we you know, we had some ideas going in, right?

But the coordination, I think I think that's the most pivotal gap is that that unifying body, that coordination, because that is the way you're going to take your individual programs and really develop a system.

Yeah.

No.

Well, I always have something.

Um I think what the gap wasn't I I don't want to say it wasn't a gap.

But we find this everywhere.

You guys aren't alone.

It's in the the call allocation piece is something that we're highlighted, it's highlighted everywhere that we talk to folks.

Even some of the most advanced programs are struggling with the call allocation.

And and I would say in tandem, kind of cascading into the dispatch piece.

Because once you have to make a phone call to get a resource, that's time.

Sure.

That impacts your response time.

So I think that maybe again it wasn't surprising, but it is a significant gap in getting that coordinated piece.

You're not gonna get them, you're not gonna be able to maximize the resources that you have.

And again, to be fair, that is one of the biggest challenges with any system.

Absolutely.

In any city right now, I'm sure I think that's where you want to go to too.

But that to me is one of the biggest hurdles and scary is the dispatching and how we would wholly rewrite that or re-reck that.

Um it comes to the civilian response unit, you say that we could launch in the in the report, you say that you could launch um this as a pilot for about two and a half million dollars.

Is that that that's correct?

That was in the report.

Can you describe what that pilot would look like?

How many staff it would uh need to be a meaningful pilot that would instruct us?

So I think that's the next part that when we talk about the concept of operations, that's where we really want to lay that out.

We do talk about it in a very high level.

In let me just pull this up here in one of the appendices, and I want to grab it.

I don't want to miss speak the pilot framework, appendix I.

And so in laying out, you know, what would the scope and the hours look like?

Of course, we want to have it in areas that currently having unmet needs.

Um, operating hopefully about 12, 16 hours a day, providing the resources, um, you know, supervision, ROU, and we have that also laid out, what that staffing needs, not uh you know, in in dispatch as well.

Um what does the laying out of what does the triage look like that is going to be very important?

That becomes the dispatchable piece, right?

We want to make sure that it integrates with the existing call flow that you have today for efficiency.

Uh what's the staffing and safety piece is going to be extremely important.

Uh deploying two-person teams, we talked about providing radios, personal protective equipment, immediate communication device so that they can communicate back to dispatch if they have a problem.

We also talk about something called um wrong one.

Um stage and clear protocols for the unsafe scenes, if they're if they do run into this, that they would always have to be able to say no, we're not we're not going in there.

And then the other piece is talking about dual affirmation, meaning that if one of them does not want to enter, that they need to both confirm that they are okay doing whatever it is that they're going to do, whether that be transport, entering a scene, something like that.

So you got your staffing and your safety.

Uh we also talked uh for the pilot about the contracting pathways for the for the uh peer support specialists with lived experience, having the clinicians be city employees, and then reaching out to your partners to provide the peer support specialists and having that relationship, what that looks like, whether you'd have a sole provider, a master of service agreement, or whatever MOUs are already have in place to be able to reach across and and engage those uh those partners with lived experience funding, you know, combining the federal federal, sorry, municipal general funds and other sources to be able to get them have the money for the pilot and then sustainable long term because we know that we we know it works, right?

It's just how how does it how could it work best for the city?

And then pilot metrics gonna have to be making sure that you have you're collecting the information because it is a pilot, right?

And making sure that that's working as intended, and then lastly the safeguards and public assistance, making sure that there's those established thresholds again for if police need to you know need to be called uh for their involvement, um, committing to public reporting of safety indicators, um, and those types of things again for the public safety, not just of the the crew members, but also for the public as well.

Thank you.

Um I just have two more questions for for you.

Um you are aware of our community uh uh partners who are leading in uh effort for a uh ballot measure.

Yes.

How does what they are recommending, how does it compare with uh what the report has found and what the report recommends?

I think that looking at the referendum and looking at what the report has found, I think there's some really good opportunities of connection and actual more common ground than previously maybe have thought.

I will say too that in our research, as we started delving more into costs, there is more common ground on the cost of what and ultimately a program could look like.

And I'm not saying program just for the civilian response, but again, when you take into its entirety the whole of what Columbus offers with alternative response, that the costs are you know it pretty much in alignment.

And then kind of connected to that, this is my last question.

I'll just have one question for the departments.

Um what then do you find is the importance of standing up that community advisory group?

Like and and you talked about two models that we already have to look towards, one being the civilian review board, which you focused on the independence there, and then the chief advisory committee, which you focused on the makeup and the structure there.

Why is that important?

And I and I in my mind, what I am doing is bridging um the internal of what we're doing with the external of what advocates are asking for.

Like what is that do you see that as it coming together?

Like what is the importance of that?

And then Yeah, I I think when you're bringing in again a diverse group of community members, along with you know, government officials and and health providers, your directors, you're all your groups, you're going to be learning from each other.

I think that's one of the biggest things that Jenna and I have found out with in the 988-911 work is there's a lot of I almost it's misunderstanding, honest misunderstanding of not knowing how the others function and their capabilities and things like that.

And when you bring these diverse groups together, a lot of education and learning and respect come along with it, and that trust is then built.

And yes, I think a very good term to use is a bridge and bring those folks together to have these discussions, ask some hard questions, listen to some hard answers.

Sure.

I think it helps to break down silos as well.

Well, I mean, you know, it it it there's silos in what the community doesn't always understand the work uh that the public sector that y'all do, right?

They they don't understand there's some limitations, and one of the things we didn't bring up is in some of the programs that we looked across, you know, across the nation, the form of municipal government does impact the city's ability to how easy they can stand up these programs depending on the form of municipal government that that's in place there.

So, like those are some nuanced things that like you know, community members don't always understand.

And I mean, you all council members, you represent your you represent your constituents, right?

But they also need to have a voice at the table.

Um and they need to have they there has to be that feedback loop, like not just like how are we gonna do this, but now we're doing this, and how well are we doing it?

Are we doing it, you know?

Do y'all think we're doing it right?

Or what you know, so I think that's I I agree 100%.

If there were any criticism that I would have on what we are doing or what we could do better right now, it is bringing the community in.

I think we're scared to hear sometimes from the community, which is wild.

Um, but I also think there's so many opportunities to create advocates if they actually were behind the curtain about these programs and about where we're trying to go.

I think that we're leaving something on the table by not having this advisory group set up right now.

Uh and and I think it would be pro sit more pro-city in what we are doing than one would think.

I just uh I'll say that.

I'll say one more thing.

I apologize.

If um I don't think that the public really truly understands all of what what is happening in the city right now, and so there to me that speaks to a lack of you know public information out there about this work.

It's the biggest opportunity.

Yeah.

And that is one of the parts of the 12-point strategy is improving the the quality and the robustness of the public outreach, not just the public, but also internally within the city divisions as well.

You can go ahead and jump in.

all of what what is happening in the city right now and so there to me that speaks to a lack of you know public information out there about this work it's the biggest opportunity yeah and that is one of the parts of the 12 point strategy is improving the the quality and the robustness of the public outreach not just the public but also internally within the city divisions as well you can go go ahead and jump in I honestly just want to sit here and kind of have a dialogue you know truly because I think I think it's hard I mean it's hard to put this information out there because as you mentioned earlier you know we're hitting 10 to 20 percent on on a good day of you know the of the demand that we have for these services um and so you know you don't want to overpromise and then not be able to respond to people that are in crisis you know if you so I think figuring out how to scale how to how to walk and shoe gum at the same time is a is a good thing.

I have a couple of uh tactical questions about a couple of things you said um and one thing that jumped out to me and and Bonnie I think this is you or well um you talk you were talking about staffing limitations um and how how it is a limiting our ability to maximize our impact uh specifically I think you were talking about MCR um but you said something that I was kind of confused about this might be a question for the director um about staffing like when staffing doesn't show up when staff doesn't show up for duty or you know whatever like we can't send social workers out on their own if a call comes through what does that mean is or how is this how is it not just that we don't have enough staff but we are what what does that mean?

The co-response model is built on having an armed officer MCR's model having an armed officer and a social worker respond together um the five teams have an armed officer and a social worker so when the armed officer or the social worker has like takes vacation because you know they they do that yeah then the social worker that takes a team out of the mix a whole team the whole yeah so now if we had five teams that day now we have four yeah okay I see what you're saying yeah right it could be for training it could be for a multitude of things and to cover one one position 247 typically takes somewhere between five and six people just for one body then you have a team of two right so trying to cover the hours even with five teams is a challenge.

Well that's what I was gonna say director do we have do we have staffing quotas like just for regular law enforcement like on the ground I'm assuming like if an officer certainly if you know few officers call off work we don't have nobody responding in a quadrant of the city right exactly um I believe that's up to the the uh the commanders and lieutenants of those areas if if we're talking about the number of individuals but uh that precise question I can get into and okay um and respond back to your office.

Okay so workforce workforce definitely an issue um and then another question that I had too and this was not covered in your presentation but I'm just curious to get your insight into it because I I imagine this probably jumped out to you as data people the way it did to me but on our dashboard um the the right response unit and then you have the page for the um actual calls that are being responded to there seem to be some disparities in where responses were going um in terms of you know we were pretty familiar it's the same areas every all over the city that are experiencing crimes and overdoses and our infantality data it all aligns in the same places um and but we had uh a very large number of calls isolated in Northland and I think that's probably because that's where the unit is located there but I but I'm curious to get a a sense of you know how that workflow why so many responses going into that one area.

Do you think that that's because of that you so you were talking you talked a little bit about the fact that we have officers they're not broken out in quadrants you know so I think you know I and I will I can only speak to this anecdotally I don't I don't think that that has that that's the reason that you have a cluster of responses in one area.

I don't know the context of you know what types of responses those were you know what the population of that area is but I do I don't believe that the free range nature of the MCR teams is creating that but again that's just purely conjecture.

Oh that's interesting.

And then um another question too is about the um continuity of care with these programs and again I'm kind of more specifically thinking about MCR and the RRU unit.

So in section three of the report, you when you were talking about operations, you talked a little bit about the fact that MCR isn't providing follow-ups after a client interaction.

Is that is that normal or within and best practices?

You know, or you know, how do you see how do you see that impacting continuity of care for clients and and do you imagine that the program should be looking at how do we provide follow-up interactions with people or so MCR uh I think early on, and you know, the folks in charge of MCR can correct me if I'm wrong.

Um but MCR did provide some degree of follow-up as they could earlier on.

Okay.

Um so I do want to point that out.

To your question of like, is that normal?

There is no normal here.

Uh that's you know, there's would follow-up act follow-up be beneficial to the continuity of care?

Absolutely.

But again, I think that speaks to the alternative crisis response system as a whole in uh the respond, resolve and restore model.

Like MCR is really out there to respond and resolve that immediate crisis.

Should there be other individuals, maybe a civilian or you know, social worker team, who can then circle back and do that, you know, do some of that follow-up.

Um these teams are doing a lot of work with a small amount of people.

And so while I think that follow-up care is something that would be ultimately desired by the people doing the work, and you know, I apologize to speak for y'all, but um would that follow-up come at the expense of responding to immediate needs?

Yeah, okay.

Okay, interesting.

Um, I don't know.

I mean, in terms of you know tactical questions, I I think that's pretty much all that I have.

But I would just, you know, I would love to sit down.

Um, you know, and Anita and then maybe the team of the fire department and Dr.

Stro, you know, put minds together and just figure out as we're looking at some of the recommendations here.

One thing that I think is really exciting is that um reiterated throughout this report was something that I think we uh most of us in the room knew and like feel is that there is um a real desire for collaboration and coordination.

And so now it is all about integration, you know.

So how do you do it?

But like I think, you know, I I think that um we are very lucky compared to a lot of other communities where collaboration is um not always um is sometimes a dirty word in here, you know, we really have a desire to coordinate, and so figuring out how you know, I don't know.

Um assistant health commissioner, if there's like opportunity to even think through, you know, is there ways we could look at some staffing positions and how can we repurpose people to kind of start meeting some of these goals in a way as we're looking at setting up a pilot?

I don't know.

I mean, just you know, lots of opportunities to um figure out how to take some of the stuff and run with it.

So I'm I'm really excited to think through that more detailed.

Thank you.

Councilman Bailey, do you have any questions?

Believe it or not, I don't have any questions, but I want to echo my colleagues' comments.

Just thank you for what was obviously a lot of hard work.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, thank you, Councilmember.

The one last question I have would be for the department.

Um my biggest one of my biggest behind the scenes concern was around always the organization, and that stuck out uh in this report.

I always ask one every budget hearing.

Can you tell me how much we are spending on uh alternative crisis?

And I would see everybody working to try to like talk to their neighbor to to kind of add up the programs.

But the issue with that is I would always say, well, then who do we hold accountable?

Who's in charge of this thing?

What would be and this could be for either assistant or deputy director?

What would be your your first thoughts on first steps towards organizational alignment?

Thank you for the question.

This is uh one of the issues that um Commissioner uh Anita and I have spoken about quite a bit is where best does this type of program live, whether it's independent from health and safety or whether it's some type of co-managed situation because of the integration between health and safety to respond to some of the residents' needs and the skill sets that exist within public safety and public health.

Um that is one thing that's that's ongoing.

So I'll uh hazard it uh not answering the question right now uh at the risk of contradicting myself next week and then contradicting myself a week after that um as we dig into this report and learn more and understand more.

Um it may be a situation that involved that evolves over time.

Um, but that is one of the biggest things for us at our level is is how best do we oversee um these these programs in a manner that ensures that the residents get the maximum impact from those programs.

And we really see that that's our job to do it, so that's what we've been trying uh to focus on, um, especially in light of some of the things that that we heard this evening.

Um and I would like to point out I feel now a sense of kind of outside understanding that it seems like uh the individuals who work on these teams were so focused on addressing the issues uh that they were presented with.

Um I've learned now that we haven't taken the appropriate steps to take a step back from uh a management administration standpoint um to understand some of those uh developed program developed questions is how do we best manage this from a big picture standpoint?

So one of the things that I think we'll really have to dive in next is to answer that exact question that you just ask us.

Thank you.

I'm just glad or an asking, I think this would be one of the um oversight areas that council would like to play in, just know that that table is set where uh they're having an interdepartmental conversation around, even if it's out, it will be out years out some in some instances that those conversations are happening and that we have um benchmarks and milestones so that we can all hold ourselves accountable that we're moving in that organizational direction.

That that would be something that I will um ask of the administration and probably even during the the uh budget conversations that we'll have in the next couple weeks.

So thank you.

Well, and if I can too, I I also think that I think that those conversations have to include the Adam Board as the entity that's doing the primary funding right now of all of our civilian or you know, as you would call them, you know, all of our clinical teams that are out in the community.

I think it has to include our providers that are doing that work currently um at Netcare and North Central, and I think it's also it's complicated because you know, I know um uh assistant commissioner, you and I, or we've run into challenges before where you know things that the health department can do are governed by the Ohio revised code in a very stringent way, you know, and and the work that our organizations are doing in the community, there's a cred, you know, accreditation and you know, many, many different layers of governance and requirements, and so figuring out how to sort of um how to manage oversight when there are so many other layers of oversight and rules and regulations that necessarily aren't under our purview that we have to be conscientious of, I think is gonna be important, which is why I feel like it's um it's exciting to have this as a guide.

I like I wish I would never ever put our friends at the Atom board or at Netcare on the spot, but I would just love to hear your you know open feedback of what do you think of this and what do you make of it and how did how does this fit in what you were imagining for the future of our crisis continuum and what you think uh you know barriers might be within your organization and um and so I think I'm excited for those conversations that are gonna come next me too, me too.

Uh well we're gonna go to the public testimony part of the hearing.

Um we receive written testimony from local 67, our firefighters union from the Columbus Safety Collective, as well as from uh a retired social worker Virginia vote.

So uh that those uh uh reports will be entered into the record.

Um, but we only have two folks who have signed up to speak, and the first uh person is uh Dr.

Leah Beavis.

Uh I want to uh have Doc come forward.

Doc is uh well known by uh us as city council and folks who who care about alternative crises.

So I'm excited to hear uh from you local.

Oh, right here in the middle, sorry.

Welcome, welcome.

As President Harden said, my name is Leah Beavis.

I'm a professor of applied economics at Ohio State.

And a few years back, my colleague Jen Hefner in Public Health and I received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant to evaluate CIT training and the MCR program within the Columbus Police Department.

We did that with a letter of support from you, President Harden, and in partnership and under a data sharing agreement with the Columbus Police Department.

This effort took years, and we use multiple layers of police administrative data on calls, arrests, pink slipping, use of forests, et cetera.

We also interviewed 30 individuals who had recently called 911 with a behavioral health crisis, including folks who had received an MCR response.

So I'd first like to lay out our key findings for you.

Staff at City Council, as well as the mayor's office have a policy brief with more details.

First, MCR has the strongest impact on the highest severity cases.

MCR meaningfully reduces arrest and jailing and increases both voluntary and involuntary psychiatric hospitalization for the most severe 20% of crash.

This suggests, I think, we think suggestive effective triage of high acuity, high risk cases away from the criminal justice system towards health care.

For medium severity cases, about 45% of calls, eligible calls, MCR reduces hospitalization, involuntary transport, and use of force, suggesting for these sort of marginal cases, MCR elects to leave folks at home rather than force hospitalization against their will.

Second, MCR reduces burden on patrol officers.

By taking time consuming crises off the plate of precinct patrol officers, MCR dramatically improves their response times for other types of calls in the next hour after a mental health call.

This is very evident in the data.

MCR also, third, reduces repeat calls for low severity types of calls, which are the ones most likely to be calling multiple times anyway.

In fact, they almost eliminate the probability that a low severity caller will call again within 30 days, probably by improving healthcare connections.

Last, Columbus Residents provided robustly positive feedback on MCR teams during interviews, and they were also very, very strongly in support of civilian crisis response, all often sort of volunteering to us the types of crisis response they would like to see training, setup, scope, et cetera.

So that's our core findings.

Second, because as you guys know, I've been advocating personally as a member of the collective for civilian crisis response for years.

Here's a few implications, things that I think we can see in the data that give lessons for what we would like to expect out of an upcoming civilian response program.

First, with five teams in total, MCR currently serves only 9% of eligible calls, mental health and suicide-related calls, and only 8% in poor neighborhoods.

To meaningfully impact citizen welfare or to meaningfully reduce police burden, a new pilot must be similar in size, at least five teams, with a plan for scaling up over time, particularly if you wish them to do a broader scope.

Also, a smaller program will be statistically impossible to evaluate without at least a decade of data.

And I think we'd like to learn a little faster than that.

Second, like MCR, civilian response teams could arrest, could reduce arrests and jailing and increase connections to health care, ideally through non-coercive means, for high end medium severity calls, but only if they're actually dispatched to those types of calls.

Well, no city in the US that I know of sends civilian teams to incidents involving weapons or credible credible risk of violence.

Many do respond send these response teams to psychiatric acute crises that will often escalate with police.

For example, when individuals cannot comply with commands or require prolonged de-escalation before transport.

MCR's largest impacts occur in precisely these types of psychiatrically acute cases, their staff will tell you the same, and similar patterns would be expected for civilian response teams.

Otherwise stated, civilian response teams will improve health care connections broadly for all types of calls.

But if the city wishes to see a meaningful reduction in police burden, force, and deaths, you need to dispatch to nonviolent but psychiatrically acute cases.

Last, systematic evaluations such as ours are made possible by publicly available data, in this case from the Columbus Police Department.

If a non-police right response program is contracted to a third party, data must be made available for evaluation and city learning.

Otherwise, how do we get better over time at serving the citizens of Columbus?

And because a beeper hasn't gone off, Councilmember Green, we also noticed that same increased response rate in Northern Columbus for eligible calls.

I suspect like you that's because that's where many of the members do park their cars, though we don't know that for sure.

And while MCR no longer does follow up, largely due to time constraints, other cities do have civilian team members that are devoted only to follow up, such as the care navigation teams within Durham's Heart program.

Thank you.

Thank you, uh Dr.

Beavis, and thank you for your work.

I mean, um, you have been a uh necessary agitator uh along the way, and I say that with all love and due respect um because it has helped move us.

The question really is for Gina and uh for Bonnie.

The $2.5 million that you said of our pilot, could how much does that how does that align with what Dr.

Beavis is and do you agree, not do you agree?

I don't want to pit the the conversation, but the point of the size of the pilot.

Do you agree with that premise that it has to be sizable enough to uh uh uh uh compare, but also to gather enough data.

Yeah, it does need to be.

Yeah, I don't disagree with with anything that Dr.

Davis just said.

Okay.

I agree.

I appreciate you.

Thank you.

And our our final speaker is uh Deborah Seltzer.

Welcome to council.

Yeah, thank you, Council President Hardin, Council members.

Uh my name is Deborah Seltzer.

I'm a lifelong president of Columbus.

Haven't been publicly involved in this topic, but have been following it very closely, um, and have attended many events and interactive with community members who have been affected by this issue, really appreciated the conversation about raising up the advisory board and increasing the voice of those directly affected.

Um I've learned so much from listening to them and learning more about the harm that is occurring, and just want to be very clear that harm is happening um, you know, as a result of the lack of the things that are being proposed here.

So I appreciate and and agree with all of the recommendations that are being made.

Um they're not new, um, and they need to be implemented sooner rather than later because the more time that goes by, the more ongoing harm is happening to our community members.

Um just to repeat again, lifting up that advisory council, um, they need to have that.

I I heard you talk about it, um council president, and I appreciate that.

But also to say, you know, I'm here today because I had the capacity to take an evening and be here and come to this place and you know be in this room with all of you.

Most people can't do that.

So I think in addition to having an advisory council, there's a lot that needs to go into figuring out how to make it possible for those voices to be present.

You know, what resources do they need to be able to attend and participate?

Um, where does the money go?

And how does that money support the community and the participation of the community?

Um so just just really wanted to lift up that voice.

Um also to say, you know, this is going upstream to protect people and reduce harm, and that there's so many ways that looking at the budget overall, and I know it's a really huge and complicated topic, but the more that we invest in our schools, in other mental health, in housing supports, um, other family supports, the more none of this ever comes to the attention of any of the people that are being proposed to be provided because the harm hasn't happened in a way that promotes the need for even that that response.

So just really wanted to lift up looking at city funding and how we can most protect the most vulnerable members of the community.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Dr.

Seltzer, um, for your for your being being here and for your advocacy as well.

Um that really I'm gonna go into closing remarks.

Um I'm just grateful for everybody.

I see Parish and and folks from FIRE, I see uh uh Suckey for Suckey from public health, folks who I've known for a long time, who have been doing this work for a long, long time.

And then when you add the community partner who's who have been both um uh advocating and pushing us uh because they care, um, we really do have something here.

And we should be more proud than we should be actually even agitated.

We should be encouraged uh to lean in and to continue to do something that we know is working.

Um all I can think of is kind of how we're Dr.

Seltzer ended with is we are this week, I believe, starting our budget hearings tomorrow.

Seltzer ended with is we are this week I believe starting our pup budget hearings tomorrow you don't want to connect um some of this to efficiencies and fixing budget issues but what I can say is that the tightness in our budget even this budget that we will be considering has a lot of uh there are a lot of public safety implications in the tight budget that we have and so I don't want us to be afraid to to talk about efficiencies and health and and link those things together I don't want us to be afraid to say the thing out loud that could help us solve multiple issues at one time um and I would encourage uh everyone to be open minded uh as we talk about this budget but budgets in the future we're not going to fix this thing overnight we're not going to get to where what was recommended overnight but there are certain certainly opportunities um and so um just thank you uh thank you again to mission partner critic mission critical partners for for your uh outside uh look we look we're excited to hear uh that read the rest of the report as you finish it up um I think it was uh it was brilliant uh chair do you have any closing remarks um just again an incredibly sincere thank you to everybody here and everyone for you know especially those of you that have been doing this work for many years for those of you that I have at one time in my career done work with I'm looking at Marion I'm looking at Catherine Parrish um uh so so so grateful um for all of you for sticking with us as we get to this point and um looking forward to see what good we can do in 2026 together.

Council Member anything closing are you good to go all right with that everyone have a blessed holiday season.

Thank you