It is 1016, and we're gonna go ahead and call the public safety committee meeting to order.

First item of business is the approval of the February 3rd, 2026 minutes.

Do we have a motion?

All right, all in favor aye.

Any opposed?

All right, passes.

All right, next is a written report from UNT Safer Care Texas.

Uh, this is submitted by neighborhood services.

This is a question uh about what they were doing.

Do we have any um questions from the committee on that?

Okay, moving right along.

Next, we have a hope team and partner updates, and Deputy Chief Wheeler and Commander Stewart from the Fort Worth Police Department are here to give that update.

Good morning.

So, how do we get this?

I can see it on my screen.

Do you guys okay?

There we go.

All right.

We're on.

So good morning, everybody.

Um, I think I know everyone here.

My name's Buck Wheeler, serve as a deputy chief over to the community alliance command.

Wanted to give you guys an update on what we're doing in the Lancaster corridor.

Um, specifically specifically along uh Presidio Cyprus area.

So as we go through this, I'll probably touch on a few things uh a couple times.

Uh Commander Stewart will come up and give some stats and data for what we're doing PD-wise.

But just an overall synopsis.

Really, what we're trying to do out there is uh uh there's a lot of resources in that corridor.

As a result of that, we have a large portion of our homeless population that stay in that area.

Um, as a result of that unhoused population, we have things that stem from that illegal camping, narcotics, uh, that leads to some violent crime.

Also, it's a very vulnerable population.

They are often targets for people coming into the area, whether that be for narcotic cells or prostitution.

So the highly congested area, um, it leads to a lot of those things.

We we want to really focus on making that as safe as we can for those people that need the resources and the folks and resources or the people that work down there as well.

So just geographically, you can see there's a high concentration, whether it be medical, MHMR, employment services, various shelters, and you can see that is uh that is the Lancaster corridor, very concentrated.

That's what brings those folks in.

Um, so a lot of resources down there, then those are also uh partners that we work with on an almost daily basis.

So some of the violations that we are focusing on are things like illegal camping, obstructing the roadways, the sidewalks, littering, obviously, there's uh stored vehicles and parking issues, narcotic sales in use, the prostitution, and I mentioned it before, even though those initial offenses they may seem relatively minor, that sets the stage for the violent offenses that we see when we have these kind of situations build up.

So the goals really really simple public safety, promote public safety in that corridor.

We want to reduce the violent crime, enhance the safety of everyone working down there and living in that area, especially I mentioned it before, those folks that unhouse population, the folks that actually need the resources, and we want to reduce the fear and danger that for not just the folks that work there, but the people that legitimately need the help.

If they don't feel safe going down there to use those resources, it's gonna be a much more uh I guess bigger challenge to break that cycle.

So public safety, that is the goal.

The strategies proactively address the criminal behavior and disturbances that we see, uh remove the illegal camps, disperse the groups that are obstructing the roadways and sidewalks.

So pretty general strategies, resources.

We have pulled a lot of folks and teams together on this.

Obviously, our hope uh police team, central division, environmental services.

When I say central division, you'll see it on there.

We're just we're talking about patrol, our bike teams, our MPOs, uh, homeless strategies, some of the our local stakeholders in that area.

The schedule, I'll just touch on a few things here.

The Hope MPOs and patrol team.

We have coming together on this project.

We have found some efficiencies that we can make.

In general, our teams are working together.

We're identifying as as many schedule gaps as we can and finding ways to fill them either short term or long term.

Our hope team has recently changed their schedule to seven days.

So we now have Monday through Sunday hope teams out there.

This allows them to better address uh some of those issues, and also it allows some of those folks to still break off and handle the needs and the of uh homeless situations throughout the city.

Um our MPOs and our central division, they are actually working to fill some of those gaps that we have.

Uh we have an overtime detail that we've been doing for the current initiative for those evening hours.

So bike patrol, I just mentioned it.

Uh they're they're picking up a lot of stuff on the evenings and weekends.

Um, same thing, really focusing on that corridor, those issues I mentioned before.

We have the overtime detail that's been running through January.

We anticipate that running uh through the end of this weekend, March 7th.

Strategies.

Uh the this is some of the a little bit more details on it.

We want to, real simple, nothing complicated, enforce the laws and ordinances that lead to the overall crime reduction and promote the safety.

Uh really focus on the illegal camps, clearing out the sidewalks, the roadways, removing the illegal parked vehicles.

Those vehicles have a tendency to lead to other crimes and issues, narcotics, prostitution.

So we want to get those vehicles out of there.

Direct individuals to resources that again that really need the help.

We want to make sure they have access to that, and accurately tracking and documenting all this.

So I want to I want to say this.

Uh Commander Stewart might mention it also.

Um, this is not about if you're homeless, you got to get out of here.

This is about if you're homeless, we want to make sure that the behaviors and conduct are lawful and you're using the resources, and we're helping you get to those resources.

So I say that because I know uh displacement is a is a piece of this.

Um so we're making sure that we're addressing that as well.

Strategy, oh, follow-up additional information.

Uh talked about Commander Stewart's role.

One of the things that he has been doing is compiling everything that we've done, which he's gonna go over that in just a minute.

A lot of the a lot of the numbers there.

Uh, we are sending in daily worksheets um from the day before the Hope team.

We've been partnering, work very closely with environmental services.

They are also sending their stats and information in uh for Commander Stewart to compile.

Some additional stuff.

Uh we are gonna be doing sort of an after action.

Uh we we talk about this almost every week uh with our teams.

Um while the initiative may be short term, we are finding some ways to make this lasting, and we're also working, we're seeing it happen is we anticipate and hope that this shift in culture down there sets the tone.

So when these issues arise, if they do later, we'll be in a better position to address them and knock them out instead of things uh getting to the point where it it becomes more of a concern.

So again, the goal of the initiative is not only to change the current behaviors, but to change the expectation of what is and what is not acceptable in that corridor uh moving forward from this point.

So I'm gonna turn it over to Commander Stewart.

Um, any questions I can answer before I go?

Just on this topic part of the room.

I'm sure we have a few.

Carlos?

Yeah.

Thank you, sir.

Uh Chief Wheeler, thank you, you know, for that uh presentation.

And uh I know that uh a lot of eyes have been on this, right?

Uh probably a few of us have gotten inquiries.

I know I have, you know, from the public, and also from stakeholders on the East Lancaster corridor.

Uh, some you know were concerned that it was uh not the best attention that the corridor was getting, given all their years work, you know, trying to improve you know the corridor for businesses and residents alike.

Um I know that I've answered that.

I've talked to you know a few and on your command staff about how to properly respond.

So uh you touched on what I was curious about.

No about the short-term, you know, efforts.

Uh I'd like to see, and and maybe Commander Stewart, you can talk about this.

You know, we hope that some of these things we did are lasting in nature.

I'd like to get maybe some examples of what that is that you're referring to.

Okay.

Uh, one example, uh just some of the efficiencies that by us coming together.

Uh, we found that there were some silos that we broke down.

Uh we made the communication and the how the inf information flows much more efficient between central division, uh, our in our hope team.

Uh, by spreading out the hope team throughout the week, it allows us to address a lot of those issues.

And most everybody probably knows this.

Uh, historically, if they go in and do camp cleanups, um that they would often come back really, really quick, and then over the weekend hope wasn't working, they were more of a Monday through Friday.

We would see it build up a lot during the weekend.

So we anticipate by doing this, and we're seeing it happen, it gives us much more sustainable effort in terms of having some presence down there over the weekend.

Um, the other things that we found is the My Fort Worth app.

We went in there with some help and we created some different priorities in there.

So it helps us better address those My Fort Worth app calls, and we also created a system when uh which we're using right now where the MPOs from the other divisions, if we need their help, we can get them on a rotation base just coming down there to help so we can have our hope team go knock out of the stuff out citywide if that starts to build up.

So we found some departmental efficiencies long term.

We would like we put a needs assessment of personnel package.

We would like to see where that goes.

Um big picture if we and I know we need officers everywhere.

Big picture if we can if we'd increase that later down the road, that would be a long-term goal.

Mr.

Chair, if I make just one other follow-up question.

Uh have we uh seen any improvements on uh maybe performance with the maintenance agreements with TechStot as far as the overpass is concerned where uh folks tend to gather, you know, they're overnight?

Yes.

So it's and it if environmental services, I don't know if they're gonna be here talking.

Um, what I can say is all the efforts that we've done, we have got a great system um between environmental services, our hope team, even central communication lines are really, really good.

So we're getting a lot of how we work together is flowing even better than what it was before.

So a lot of improvements here.

Dr.

Hall.

Um first and foremost, I just want to say I appreciate the efforts that um are being expended in and the um I guess the different opportunities for us to partner.

Um I guess my question is about the ripple effect, the implications of so much targeted focus in the Lancaster area and how that made this be displacing our unhoused neighbors into other portions of the city.

What is that response look like to kind of I don't know, strike a balance, if you will?

Sure, great question.

Um so here's what we found.

Um, and Commander Stewart probably touched on a little bit more.

We haven't seen that much displacement.

Um what we have found is by the the focused effort on the corridor, a lot of those calls, the first couple weeks we're building up, and I go back to MyFort Worth app, that's where a lot of them come in.

Uh so what we have done is the MPOs from other divisions are coming over to help with that presence in the corridor and our hope teams that they they know a lot of where the camps are, they work very closely with the unhoused population.

They got a lot of um uh relationships built throughout the city with some of those folks.

So the MPOs are coming in to help, and we're sending our hope officers out throughout the city to knock those down.

So I don't want to give you a hard number because I don't know the exact number off the top of my head.

Um that first week or two we saw a pretty dramatic increase in the My Fort Worth app.

And uh what we did when we had the MPOs come over to relieve the hope units so they can go out throughout the city.

We saw those numbers get down to about normal uh and fluctuate just right around where it's normally been.

So we have that in place now.

Um our hope long term is to kind of get back to where it's more sustainable, more of a maintenance.

If Lancaster needs that attention again, we have something in place where we can bring in some MPOs.

Uh, but we haven't seen as much displacement as we expected.

So we're we're able to address it with the partners or our MPOs from other divisions coming out and helping us out.

And just from my my own understanding, when we when you say displacement, what do you what it what is your definition of displacement?

Uh having a those camps and some of the issues that we see in the corridor have dramatically reduced there and increase somewhere else.

Okay.

Good.

Some feelings about this.

Um I'm gonna push back on that displacement a little bit because the areas um adjacent to the Lancaster corridor that are in District 9.

I have personally seen an uptick in the homeless population.

For example, um, I'm on Magnolia pretty frequently.

I have a really good understanding of what the general homeless population looks like on any given Friday night, Sunday night, Wednesday night.

Um, and as I walk down that street, I felt like I was walking over homeless people.

It was a very clear uptick in the number of homeless people.

And uh likewise with the community crossroads uh facility that's right there on hemp hill.

I'm accustomed to seeing a certain um you know, number of people hanging around there.

That seems to have exploded.

Um I'm seeing and I'm getting more complaints in the West 7th area that um so it it I'm be interested to see those numbers because it certainly does not feel that way as I move about district nine that we're not displacing people.

I've seen an upticks in areas that we have been working really hard to see that um that decrease in.

So um I I just I can't I can't say that it doesn't feel like we're displacing people around the city.

I'm also really interested in the identified violations.

I understand the reasoning that small crimes beget bigger crimes.

But are we criminalizing homelessness in the way that we're policing down there?

The narcotics, the prostitution, the violent offenses, uh, you know, those are definitely crimes that we need to go out after, but obstructing sidewalks, littering.

Um I looked at some of the citations, and it's things like you know, they don't have a front license plate, but they have a rear.

Are we are we making it harder for our homeless population to exist and potentially get help in the future?

So two things.

One, thank you for your feedback.

Um as far as the citations and the numbers, uh, Commander Stewart's gonna get into that uh and specifically about the the the traffic violations.

Um I'm gonna let him do that in just a minute.

Did you want to respond?

Yeah, just real quick, and just wanted to cover just one issue with regards to not only is this a homeless uh you know strategy, uh, you know, quite frankly, community community safe in that area for the homeless individuals that are trying to find services.

But in addition to that, what's overlaying over this is as you all know, we're undertaking the a crime plan with the criminologists that have come down and they divided the city of Fort Worth in about 95,000 microgrids.

Uh these grids are no bigger than a football, two football fields.

To be a violent crime grid in the city of Fort Worth, you have to have led the city of Fort Worth in incidents of aggravated assault, aggravated robbery, or incidents of murder.

Uh when you run that data, the number one grid in the city of Fort Worth is one of those locations.

The number 10 in on that list is another one of those locations.

When you add simple assault to that, one of them lowers to number two in the entire city, and one of them rises to number five.

So I just want to have the context from a perspective that not only are we trying to assist, you know, our homeless community to ensure that the area they're they're getting it, they're they're going to is safe, but actually to reduce true violent crime that's a that's occurring in the city by using data and working with the criminologists.

I did want to just throw that piece of information out that as we discuss the issues around homelessness and what we're doing out there, we actually are trying to do our very best to impact violent crime in the city as well.

Yeah, and let me be clear.

Um I definitely think we needed some efforts in the Lancaster corridor.

As I spent the evening doing the point in time count this past February, um urging people to seek shelter ahead of the extreme cold, uh, many of them expressed fears and concerns about it not being safe.

And so I want to make sure that we are making it safe for the residents in the neighborhoods there, but also the people that need the services.

So it it's not to say that I don't think we need to do anything down there.

I'm really concerned in the way that we're doing that, that we're criminalizing, we're writing people citations for obstructing roadways or obstructing sidewalks or littering.

And we historically know that when we write those types of citations for homeless people, they go into warrants, and those are the types of things that keep them from gaining employment or housing in the future.

And so are we are we exasperating our problem in six months or a year?

I'll let Commander Stewart deal with that one and we'll just let me respond to just that.

If later in the presentation, we provided some information about what's happening when if a homeless person is receiving a citation.

So if we can maybe get to that portion, it might help answer some of those questions.

That works.

Good morning.

I'm Commander Stewart uh for Central Division.

So I hope I can clarify some of this stuff and answer your questions.

Uh if we get to some of the data, you can actually see how we got here and what we've done.

And you can see that we've messaged this from the very beginning.

This is not gonna be a displacement uh initiative.

We're not looking to move anybody out.

We're looking to make it safer.

And when I say that, I want to give it the appearance of being safer, and I want to reduce crime.

I want to I want the folks that have to live in this area to be able to access the resources that are there, and then the folks that are helping them to be able to get to work.

So we can so as you can see, we started this initiative January 23rd, and we've done our stats to February 17th.

So here's our citations.

We've done the first column is actually gonna show our activity.

So we've removed 265 illegal camps, and basically those are large tents and you know, makeshift camp areas that are over sidewalks or or obstructing the roadway.

We've issued 735 warnings to 74 citations.

So we're relevant we're one citation for every 10 warnings.

So we're not coming in there heavy handed.

We're not trying to just write tickets to address this issue.

We're also giving warnings.

We're also linking people to resources.

Some of the arrests we've made.

We've made some significant felony arrests.

So while interacting in some of these deals, we've taken the criminal element out of that area.

So if we're able to take somebody that's wanted for aggravated assault off the street, it greatly reduces the risk to the community that's out there for violent crime.

We broke the citations up into two different groups.

There was the time frame that we had that cold weather event.

There was 12 citations written.

One of them was written on that Monday when it started thawing out, and the rest were written on that Tuesday.

Now you'll look at these citations, you'll start going, well, there's a lot of vehicle citations and not as many illegal camping.

Well, the reason that is is because we found that a lot of narcotics sales is coming in from vehicles.

Prostitution, narcotic sales, it's from vehicles that are coming into that area, taking advantage of the unhouse population.

So if we can get them stopped, if we can get them arrested, we've taken that dealer off the streets and we've increased the success there.

So here's the total uh citations that we've done.

Uh prohibited camping is the number one citation that we've issued, but as you can see, we've had activity in all different areas.

And again, 735 warnings to 74 citations.

So this graph will show the increase in proactivity in the area.

As you can see, beginning of January, we were not going out there and calling out on calls and and creating activity.

And we've steadily been doing that since.

This shows our success in the reduction of significant violent crime.

This is what initially caught our attention.

October, November, if you could see uh violent crime was way up.

By January, February, we have almost eliminated serious violent crime.

There still is some minor assaults, but then again, we're we're in the area a lot, so people are reporting minor assaults, which could be pulling hair, could be poking somebody as minor as that.

So based on 289 eight-hour shifts that we worked out there, uh 139 of them were hope units, and again, we've mixed together.

There's been MPOs, officers, bike officers, everybody working together.

This is a breakdown of how much approximately we've spent monetarily out there for the officers, just salary and benefits.

As you can see, it shows you the hope breakdown, officer breakdown, and then total cost at the very bottom, 157,000.

These are the pictures for environmental services.

So the biggest takeaway of this whole thing is that there's people that weren't talking toget to each other that are now working together.

So we're working with environmental services, we're working with homeless strategies, we're working with Hope.

Everybody's on the same page.

Uh the community courts, everybody's on the same page with the same mission.

Um, and you can see the results right here.

This is what it looked like before, and then afterwards.

Here's the total expenses for the estimated expenses.

Sorry, are you going to do that?

Yeah, I'm happy to take over.

Okay.

So um Wendy Turpin, Environmental Services.

I just want to talk about some of the things that we're doing with the Hope team and the police officers down there to address uh what we can address down there in that corridor.

Um of the things that they've talked about is expanding the Hope Crew over the weekend, and what that has allowed us to do is expand the upspire crews.

So we now have two um five-person upspire crews, and they work down there seven days a week.

So you can imagine um previously we would stop on a Friday, and then everything would come in on a Saturday and Sunday, and it looked just like we had never cleaned it over the weekend, and then Monday it was always a real long haul cleaning up.

But now with some adjustments, we have two upspire crews Monday through Friday and another one that's Thursday through Monday.

Just in the last two weeks that the police officers were talking about, we've had 92 camps cleaned up and 18,000 tons of debris removed.

And it is one of those aspects where one end of the street we're cleaning up tents and debris and litter and personal hygiene items, and at the other end of the corridor, people are giving out tents, personal hygiene items, blankets, et cetera, et cetera.

So it is a constant upkeep there.

We've worked with homeless strategies and the Hope team to come up with a redirection plan.

And it's a four-step process, and I'm just gonna uh give you a brief overview of what that is.

We are coordinating with our partners at the Union Gospel Mission, the Presbyterian Night Shelter, and Todd James of Cutting Edge to encourage street feeding in three different areas of that corridor to try to get them off of the rights of way off the sidewalks and into those three areas.

And I have a map of that area so you can see how we're addressing all aspects of the corridor, and I'll show you that in just a second.

We are currently serving 2,500 meals down there every single day through lunch, breakfast, and dinner.

So the fact that we really don't need that kind of street feeding down there, but we know that that's in the hearts of our residents and visitors, and so we want to encourage that they can do that, but only in three areas of that corridor.

We've also revamped our website with homeless strategies.

They have added to the pay and handling website that you guys are aware of information about how to donate, how to volunteer, and how to street feed safely and productively.

So our website is up and it has a lot more details that it previously didn't have.

We're also working with our Union Gospel Mission and the Presbyterian Night Shelter and Communications.

Um this is uh on the right hand side is a little brief sign that we are going to be purchasing and putting out there to encourage people to give differently and provide charity differently in the area.

We will also have business cards that our uh hope team and our environmental services staff will be able to provide to people to encourage them to give in other ways.

And then lastly, we have worked with our law department and the police department, and all of us are very aware of the enforcement actions that we can provide out there to ensure that people are not giving on the right-of-way, that they're giving safe foods rather than things that would cause illness.

This is the map of the charity areas.

You can see we've got one on the east end, the west end, and in the middle.

So hopefully we'll be able to address all of the street feeding across the way.

So we're gonna work with our charity groups and meet with them one-on-one, um, talk to them into encouraging to use those three spaces to provide foods, and we will provide you um examples of the signage uh when we get those made up.

And I'm gonna turn it over to Tara who's gonna talk about the outreach that's happening down there.

Hi, Tara Perez, homeless strategies with the city manager's office.

So, as part of efforts to direct more resources to East Lancaster, um, part of that is our city funded outreach.

So, outreach um tripled from two outreach workers to six funded outreach workers on October 1st.

And they're working in target areas.

As you can tell from the four first quarter, there's already been a lot of presence in East Lancaster Historic South Side.

But one change we made at the beginning of February is we now have one team of two that is dedicated solely to this East Lancaster Historic South Side area.

Good morning.

I'm Judge Houston.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to present here on our community court program.

I hope I'll be able to answer some of your questions regarding what happens to site what happens to these citations once they're issued.

Our community court program began in 2008 as part of the directions home uh strategy to address chronic homelessness.

Typically involves uh two parts of the docket, one in which you come in, get enrolled, meet with us regarding uh what the needs are, and then a compliance docket to ensure that everything is done prior to citation dismissal.

This community court is open to uh unhoused individuals as well as individuals living in the shelters.

It is citywide, it's not limited to the East Lancaster corridor area, although many of our people do come from that location.

Our goal is to remove the financial impediments that homelessness may cause.

We understand that handing a citation to somebody and expecting them to pay it when they're experiencing homelessness may not seem the most uh kind thing to be doing, but it is a way to get them into our program so we can meaningfully meaningfully help them.

One of the ways in which we help go out into the community is that we actually hold our community court programs at TrueWorth, removing the inability of people to come into our courthouse, find transportation.

We go out into the we go out into the community, we sit in True Worth and actually hold our court dockets there one time a month.

We work directly with the caseworkers at Presbyterian Night Shelter, Catholic charities, uh UGM.

We've been in contact with all of them.

We use a referral basis, they reach out to us when they have somebody they believe would be eligible for our community court program and would benefit from that.

The way the community court works is that they are referred to us by the case workers.

The caseworkers also provide us with suggestions about what we can do to help them.

Now we include all citations, whether they've had a judgment on them or they do not have a judgment on them.

We include all citations as eligible to be able to be dismissed or the fines waived upon completion of the program.

We work with the city attorney's office, the prosecutors who also appear at TrueWorth to sit down with the defendant and figure out a meaningful plan for what we can do to help them get on a path out of homelessness.

Usually our orders include things like getting an ID, applying for jobs, getting on a list for housing, getting on medical assistance.

If they are MHMR, we work with MHMR to keep them in their programs with MHMR.

We also partner with the Veterans Program at Tarrant County, so that people who are participating in that program are also eligible to participate in our community court program as well.

We find ways to provide a life skill courses and meaningful opportunities for people to work towards moving out of homelessness rather than just slapping them with a fine.

Upon successful completion of all of the requirements, then the fines are are waived, or if there's a no judgment on it, the case is dismissed and does not impact their criminal record.

For the last five years, uh you can see we've had over 5,000 cases that were set.

We were able to successfully close 3,644 of them through this process, and then about 1,700 of them were closed through the admin close process.

Typically that happens when a case goes completely stale.

The case is more than seven years old.

It's been more than two years since we've had contact with them.

I'd like to end on a positive note.

I think sometimes it feels overwhelming to sit up here and address this issue.

So I'd like to tell you the story of two people within the last court of last year who were able to successfully complete our community court program.

Now, Mr.

G was a very charismatic individual who came to our court with some traffic tickets.

He was experiencing homelessness and he had a young child with serious health conditions.

He worked through our program.

A lot of times the 90 days that we initially give for compliance may not be enough.

His was extended to six months to get him his ID, to get him applying for jobs, to get him on medical care, what he needed for his son.

At one point in time during this program, his son was at JPS.

He walked over two hours to attend his court hearing to make sure that he was able to be there and address his citations.

Last October, he finished the program and his citations were waived and closed, and he successfully moved on out of the program.

Additionally, I'd like to start tell you the story of Miss B.

She was a uh a young woman who had been experiencing homelessness since she was a teenager.

She came to our court with several citations, and through the program, uh she was able to get those citations dismissed and ultimately receive an offer for a position as a PE teacher for Crowley ISD and is doing very well.

So while it doesn't seem like it's uh it doesn't seem like it's always uh an insurmountable problem.

There are there are people that we are helping with this, and we are trying to do our best to remove those financial barriers.

So I'm happy to answer any questions you have about our community court.

So actually, I I do.

That was great information because when we really need that piece of it, because one of the biggest complaints uh I hear, especially from our officers on the front lines who are trying to enforce some of these issues, is they may be arrested on a warrant, they're taken downtown.

Uh all their stuff, all their belongings have to go with them.

Uh they're deemed to be indigent, then they go right out back the back door and the right back to it.

So it was great to hear the good stories there.

To me, it seems like those are almost the exception.

Um if they don't complete these programs, or if they're just like, nah, fam, I'm good, I don't want to have any part of that.

Uh, what are we doing to hold those people actually accountable?

Because I'm sure it's gonna be frustrating for those putting in the work like this to see others just revolving doors.

So, what are we doing to actually hold them accountable?

Absolutely.

Uh so I am also the jail judge I work for to midnight at the jail, and I have also heard those complaints multiple times.

I am part of the enforcement group that has worked for the last year to try to help with that enforcement, and so I've heard those complaints directly from them.

There are uh limitations that we have to hold somebody in custody.

Most of these citations, the ones that go through the community court are the low-level offenses.

They're the class C misdemeanors.

There's a couple of things that we do at the jail.

One, I try to encourage them to join the community court program as well.

State law now requires that if they have served any time after they receive the citation, they are eligible for credit for time served, which can look like we are dismissing the tickets and they're done and out the door.

They're still having convictions, but we're bound by state law to follow that rule.

Uh, if they have been through the process, they have warrants, they have failed to make a meaningful effort to complete any kind of community service, payment plan, do anything on their case, then we can commit people.

What that means is that we transport people to Northwritten Hills with where we have a contract, and they can sit out some of their citations.

As far as indigency being granted at the jail, it is extremely rare.

In order to be eligible for indigency, you have to be below the poverty level, and you have to be unwilling to unable to complete community service.

Typically, what this means is that we hope we held a indigency hearing where they have to bring with them their proof of their indigence.

If they're on social security disability, we take that into consideration, and also a letter from their doctor stating that they are unable to physically complete community service.

So I can assure you, we're not just handing out indigency closing cases willy-nilly at the jail.

There's a whole process that they have to uh go through in order to meet that requirement.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I want to go back to the citations, thank you so much that we're issuing.

And um, and just my uh curiosity is I see that we're giving a ton of warnings, and I appreciate that.

What um in specifically to camping, the tickets we issue to camping, what what's that determination between giving them a warning and then actually giving them a citation?

What what tips that scale?

Because I imagine as part of that 700 and something, a lot of those are camping warnings, correct?

Yes.

Yeah.

Um, I think there was 28 if I ever remember right.

So out of the 800 folks that we saw coming in that offense, 28 were cited.

Are are they just I don't know the particulars of each each one, but sometimes I mean on a day-to-day basis, we go out there, we have a great relationship with the citizens.

So we'll give them a warning, we'll say, hey, you can't camp here.

They pack up their things, they move along.

There's no problem.

Occasionally we have someone that says, no.

Gotcha.

I'm not going to.

So we try to reason with them, work things out.

Our next level is we're going to issue a citation.

You know, so it's just a progression.

It doesn't happen every time.

It's not necessarily this person or that person.

It's just the circumstances that lead us to.

But it's most likely just uncooperative individuals that were successful.

Yes.

Yes.

If they if they're cooperative, there will not be any citation issued.

If they're cooperative, there's no problems at all.

We go around, we environmental services cleans things up, we help them get to the resource centers they need to get to, get them connected with everything, and we move on.

Can we talk about the cleanup specifically?

Um what are we doing with their stuff?

I mean, are we are we giving them the opportunity to leave before we start taking their things?

Because I've had several um people, uh two different people reach out to me with concerns about us taking, you know, doing a cleanup before giving them a warning.

And so we're essentially taking all their items and throwing them away.

No, we have procedures in place.

So we give everybody warnings, even throughout the entire city.

We give everybody two hours to try to clean up their stuff, get out of there before we do anything.

So it's the ever since the Hope unit was created, we were able to put these processes in place that you know the warnings happen first.

Uh then we see if they they go along with being the law, and then from there we'll move on to enforcement and other things.

Any questions?

Real quick on that on the on the cleanup piece, told to clean up all their stuff.

We see how much we spent every year on our taxpayers are spending on cleanup.

If they're just like, all right, I pack up all my stuff, I'm gonna leave, but I'm gonna leave all this trash behind.

We'd like to track them back down and be like, hey, you need to come back, pick up the rest of your crap, or we're gonna get citation for littering.

Is I mean, what are we doing about that?

Because it seems like we're spending a lot of money to clean up after people who should be cleaning up after themselves.

You're absolutely right, and that is what's happening.

And usually when there is, especially the the depending on the size of the camp, if it's a larger camp, there's a lot of stuff left behind.

The tough part is how do we show if there's six people over there, and there was probably 10 before that.

How do we know who left that stuff there?

Um, so we do use environmental services, they go in and we clean up everything.

And you know, we're providing that service for the citizens and they can have a clean city and uh we don't just leave trash sitting around everywhere.

Okay.

Maybe that's something we can explore going forward is you know, if there is a large camp and whether that's holding everyone accountable for it and shared responsibility, but it seems like we're spending more and more money every year cleaning up after them after they take their belongings and move along.

So thank you very much for that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Was that the other question?

So that's that's everything.

So just a couple from me.

Um I'd like for us to explore is especially in those those areas where we you know, we have drug dealers who are taking advantage of the situation and they're keeping those from getting the help they need because they're enabling them.

Um I'd like to know if there's anything we can do at the city level to have uh, I guess more strict uh I don't want to say enforcement.

I mean maybe state law type bill that's holding us back.

But those hot spot areas, you know, like like a construction zone speeding, there's workers present, fines are doubled.

Is there anything we could do at the city level to make those the repercussions even worse for narcotic cells or prostitution in areas that the city deems as hot spots?

Um I don't know if that's something we can explore or if that's state law.

Uh I we've been pretty successful in what we're doing in the police work we're doing there.

So the good thing about getting getting a lot of the clutter out of the area, it's allowed us to really see things better.

So we've identified two different locations that narcotics is investigating right now that we've kind of traced cars back that were going back and forth from the uh near Southside neighborhood.

And shortly after we started this, there was a major arrest.

Um, that was a guy that was providing most of the narcotics to the homeless area.

Uh, and I think they got him.

I don't quote me, but it was a large amount of narcotics, and he's probably gonna be in jail for a long time.

So we're not it you gotta look at it as the big picture.

We're we're we're we're addressing crime and public safety.

Um this area was unsafe.

This area had a lot of crime.

And we have to think about what we can do, what resources we can pull together to address this crime issue.

I think we've we're addressing it well, we're having success.

We are gonna have to look at a long-term process and that may require more resources or us to rework the process that we have right now, but we're seeing success.

The numbers don't lie.

So I hope that answers your question.

It does.

Thank you.

Oh, go ahead.

Dr.

Hall.

Um, I just wanted to say um that I appreciate the update.

Um, and I guess the effort to like systematize this this initiative um and the opportunities to partner with our nonprofit partners.

Um the data is really good and it's definitely a need.

So I do appreciate that.

Moving forward, I would I would just love to be able to see maybe down the road, and I know that you can't do this all in one day, that this is a really big undertaking, um, just to see what that impact does look like um as we push out into the greater city.

Um, I know to you know, councilwoman Beck's uh point, there are some visible changes within D6, and I can't without knowing or having any type of real data, I can't say that it is because of the efforts that are happening in Lancaster.

But um I know as you could fix one problem, there's gonna be other things to remediate other places and just would like to have an opportunity to hear or see how we are managing that um more formally down the road.

And I know that you may not be there now, but just something food for thought, if you will.

Well, I think one thing we could do is provide um a look at the uh camping complaints.

I think that's a good marker.

So we can look at how many camping complaints there were before this, how many we're having right now.

If they've increased in certain areas, such as Magnolia or anything like that, or West Seventh, then we can say, okay, we have an issue.

Um all those areas are in the same area that I'm over.

So I have a vested interest in not moving people around.

It's not solving any issues for me.

So all of my MPOs in the area are very aware of this.

They're supposed to report any increase they see.

We have not seen an uptick in camping complaints.

We have seen just small anecdotal stories.

We have seen where some of the vehicles that we were that were legally parked there are now parking in other places.

So uh Officer Marquez, the the MPO in that area does an amazing job.

He's already identified them, he's already working on them.

So we're trying to address all those issues and the maybe the negative impact that happens from our activity and try to reduce that as much as possible.

Well, I I didn't want it to be lost that uh that there is appreciation for the efforts and that it's it's duly noted, appreciated, and I know that it's a really big task.

So thank you so much for for all the work.

Thank you.

Chief Garcia, do you have something to add?

Yeah, I was just gonna call the council member.

One of the one of the dynamics with regards to being part of the crime plan and being tracked by the criminologists is that that data will be tracked.

The criminologists do track displacement quite a bit with regards to how it pertains to how crime moves around in different parts of the city.

That's part of the plan.

In addition to that, moving down the road, I mean, this grid work is as we're starting off, and what we're doing now really is just the first part of a crime plan.

Eventually, what this area would become is it's right for an area that's called PI, which is a criminological strategy with regards to the fact that the police then become just a cog in the wheel, and it really is an all hands-on deck city services attempt to really get that area better.

Um, again, what we're doing, we're the Tylenol, we're the Advil to reduce the fever.

No, we're not a cure to the illness.

And so it'll be an all hands-on-deck approach that I've had conversations with criminologists already from this is a perfect location to really go on with that whole hands-on-deck mentality that we're currently doing now, but then truly put uh science and data behind it.

Any questions at all regarding that?

Okay, just what a couple of thoughts that I'd like for us to uh go over in the next update on this is I know what we're doing down there is to make things safer and allow those who actually want the resources to get the resources.

Um, but for those who just outright refuse, again, you know, not criminalizing homelessness, but if they're gonna be a hurdle, uh, what are we doing about those uh those folks?

Um, and then early in the presentation, we we saw you know education on what is and is not acceptable.

Um, I'd like to hear more about what is acceptable and what we're accepting as a city.

Um, and the last thing is I would really like us to look at the uh the naming of the hope team as well.

Um I think it's I don't want to say disingenuous, but I think it's the the E part is what gives me pause, like the enforcement.

You know, whenever we have forward police officers going out there, they have hope on their shoulder, and at this point it's past the point of their you know accepting resources and they're just they're like, nope, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing.

Um camping out here at this uh this commercial location doing whatever I want.

And then now we have a hope team going there to enforce.

I just think it makes things a lot more difficult for them trying to go in there and be like, all right, we tried, now you don't want to.

Here's a citation, here's you're gonna arrest you for warrants.

Um, and so I certainly, you know, I heard Dallas is like the hot, whatever that is, the hot team.

Certainly don't want to go that way.

I don't know what cool acronyms we can come up with.

Um I'd just like to see if we can explore something else there.

Um any last questions or thoughts.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

All right, the uh next item is the fire department EMS staffing and schedule changes, and Chief Hill is here to give that presentation.

Yeah, we just wanted to make sure that um the committee was aware of some changes that we that will be forthcoming.

You may hear about them, and that before we implemented them, we wanted to share with the committee.

Uh good morning, committee members.

I am interim fire chief Raymond Hill.

Uh I am going to give a EMS EMS shift update uh for transition to our EMS single role staffing from a 24 from a 12-hour shift to a 24-hour shift.

So the driving factor of our changing the schedule, uh a lot of it is due to our attrition rate.

Uh attrition rate right now is 16%.

Traditionally in the fire department, our tradition our attrition rate is 5%.

Uh within the EMS industry, we're doing a little better.

The EMS industry attrition rate is between 20 and 30 percent.

Uh, we've had 55 separations since last April.

We're losing about seven to eight single role members providers per month.

The average tenure is two years, and the average age is 27.

So if you look at the bar graph at the very bottom of this slide, you'll see that the majority of our EMS providers are leaving for dual role positions in other agencies.

And if you'll look further uh to my right to your left, you'll see that pay is really uh not a major contributing factor for us losing our single role providers.

So what we have done uh just based on the survey between the 440 and we've also done a survey between our EMS supervisors, the 440 had 68% uh of our single role members that were in favor of the schedule change.

Our individual polls, like 87% of our providers were in favor of the 2448 schedule change.

So we're going to implement a pilot program starting Saturday.

So here's our current operational status.

Out of the 449 that Fitch recommends that we have to operate our system.

We have units at 35 stations right now.

They're in our 12-hour shifts.

They work three 12-hour shifts one week, and then they'll work four 12-hour shifts the next week, and they have a built-in four hours of overtime.

So we have units assigned to 35 stations, 24 hours around the clock, and then we have peak demand units.

We try to staff those from five to ten peak demand units.

And we need a minimum of 280 employees to operate our system daily.

So if you look at the staffing snapshot on our current operational status, we have 297 employees available today.

Out of our total operation staff of 360, we have 14 employees on leave.

Which a lot of our single role providers come over from MetStar, and they're not accustomed to being force hired.

So that is a problem for a problem for them.

Peak demand units, we're trying to schedule up to seven between 7A and 7P, and we have four crews per station.

So the key operational challenges.

Right now, we have a total of 89 vacancies.

We were 100 vacancies short of the 449.

So we still have 89 vacancies open.

We currently have 39 single role providers in training.

We just graduated a class of 35, I believe.

So we're starting to close that gap.

Challenge we're having with overtime dependency, like I said, we're hiring 30 single role providers overtime every day.

We're force hiring at least 10 of those.

High unit hour utilization.

Ideally, we want unit hour utilization, just to explain it.

That is the actual amount of time that the ambulance unit is working.

Patient assessment, transporting, turnover at the hospital.

So ideally, we want that to be a 0.50, which is they're only actually at work half the time doing their shift.

Right now, with the staffing shortages, we're creeping up to 60% of the time, and that's really unhealthy, and it's not good for patient care.

Inability to meet peak demand.

Once we transition to the 2448, we will be able to put 55 units out on the street during peak demand.

And the structural staffing gap, you'll look at the chart again.

So that's probab that's probably up to 91 openings at this point.

So if you'll look at the schedule model and some of the driving factors of why we've decided to make the change, we're going from a 12-hour shift length to 24 hours.

The current model will hit 35 stations with our 2448.

We'll have actually have units at 45 stations, which will also improve our advanced life support coverage.

So we'll have units at all of our 45 stations.

And we'll also have using our peak units, some of the high demand areas, we'll have peak units staged alongside the station, the units assigned to the stations.

You have to change over twice because they have two shifts per station.

So right now it's just one shift, which is the same schedule that our firefighters work, the dual role firefighters.

So the advantages of the 2448 model, the 45 stations will have ALS coverage all throughout the city.

A lower unit hour utilization.

We have improved surge capacity just in case we have a tornado or storm, we'll have additional units already on duty as opposed to the 35 that we'll have at night after our peak areas.

The reduced forced overtime, we'll have a pool of 12 paramedics to fill in for leave time, sick time, and things of that sort.

So that will cut down on the force hire.

And then increased operational reliability.

So again, to our target staffing, we want to be at 449 to operate the system as designed.

Current head count is 358.

We lost to Friday, then available today is 295.

So the benefits of the 2448, uh you get more days off per month as to work in the 12 hour shifts.

You have an improved work life balance.

So people, instead of people being forced hired, they can plan on having that actual two days off and they'll have more notice before they're required to come in for force hour overtime.

Commute management.

And then as I mentioned earlier, the shift desirability.

And this, and again, this is a 90-day trial, and we have a we have a uh a SharePoint so all of our providers can f can provide feedback for what's working, what's not working, and after the 90 days, we'll evaluate that and see if this is something that we can continue.

So planning for growth.

Uh Fitch said that our system will we can anticipate a growth rate of 9.1%, which is compounded.

So once we get to 449, just a number of calls that we get, our population, our system will grow at a rate of 9.1% compounded every year.

So the 2448 creates a scalable way that we can manage that, just like fire stations.

If we open a new fire station, we we know how many people will need for that station, and we know how many relief personnel will need, and that'll work the same way for our medic units.

And this change position again, this change positions our system for growth, so we can anticipate based on the compounded annual growth rate, the number of single role providers we'll need above and beyond the 449 that we have right now that we're trying to get right now.

So this is our call density.

If you'll look at the map uh on your right, it shows you all the uh the stations.

The red is the called entity area, and once we have our units assigned to each station, we'll have our peak demand units, which will double at double up at the busier stations, and we'll have coverage for those areas.

And then the map on my right on your left, uh, that shows you where all of our fire stations are located, including some of the stations of our member cities.

The station capture analysis, this is a chart from Fitch, and it shows if if we staff these nine particular stations that we can respond to every area in the city 90% of the time within eight minutes and 30 seconds.

So are there any questions?

I'm sure there will be quite a few.

Sure.

I think my first question is uh do we have the capacity in our fire stations to support EMS on the 24 hour shift?

I know many of our fire stations are not equipped to um adequately house both male and female firefighters.

We know that our uh EMS team is much more diverse in that regard.

Uh so my concern is are our fire stations equipped to do this?

And have we thought through do they get the same level of service that our current firefighters get?

Are they getting a cot or are they getting a bed?

You know, are they are stuck sleeping on a couch or a recliner when our firefighters, you know, get uh a bed or are you know are we setting up a dual standard?

So this has actually been in the works for the past 60 days.

So I've had our logistics team work working on partitions and beds, and obviously there are there are some supply chain issues with the beds.

Uh we've partnered with the 440 and they volunteered to help us out with some of the beds until we actually get our delivery of beds for our single role people.

We also have cots, and we do have a set aside in our budget for any unanticipated needs that we may have.

Is it a supply chain issue for the beds or just a city bureaucracy issue?

Honestly.

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Yeah.

I mean, thank you for saving me, sir.

Thank you.

We can go buy some beds right now.

It's certainly an issue that we're going to be.

I think it's absolutely absolutely ridiculous.

We're asking the 440 to take a responsibility that the city should have for city employees, period.

So I don't know how that gets resolved, William.

But if it's a city bureaucracy going out to buy beds that are less than $20,000 to for these firefighters and EMS workers, we should be able to do that.

Yeah, it's a it's not a it's not a money issue.

Yes.

For sure.

It's a bureaucracy issue.

And so we'll we'll discuss with procurement what else, what other options we might do.

But I I think that the beds have been ordered.

Oh, yeah, we should have the beds in about 60 days, but in the meantime, you're gonna have to sleep on hot spots.

This isn't directed to you.

I think we're all on the same.

We're all on the same page, I'm pretty sure.

Absolutely ridiculous.

So I don't know what we need to do at the city level.

If it's a 90-day experiment and we've got 60 days before the beds come in, right?

So we've got hypothetically, we're buying beds for for 30 days.

I think we know that this probably isn't an experiment.

So the question is, do we have the capacity to wait until we're we're ready and able to provide this level of service for our EMSP?

We need to bring it up.

Next week at one Saturday.

Uh Saturday, yes, sir.

But we will address the issue with the beds.

I guess we'll work with procurement on that.

I guess for me, that also opens the question of with this different structure with regards to just beds is a really big deal.

What other resources or items do we not have or are deficient that may preclude us from being successful with this model?

I mean, I mean, and I'm not, and I'm moving beyond beds.

I'm I don't I don't pretend to know the work that you do or all of the items that you need, but I would imagine if you're now having more manpower to do more work, that it seems like there would be more supplies and needs to sub to support that work.

And just wondering, do you have everything that you need in order to do it effectively?

Well, actually, we started um assigning our EMS units to fire stations in November.

So we already have 35 fire stations that are fully equipped.

So we're just basically adding 10 more stations to that.

And again, once we receive all of our partitions and our beds, and uh I know you didn't ask this question and it may come up, but just based on the force hour overtime, the regular overtime, uh onboarding of new employees, basically the cost based balance out.

Okay.

Councilman Beck.

Yeah, I sorry.

Um I just want to put a bow in this because I feel like our we're not being concerned.

If our you're not hearing our concern, if we don't have partitions up, are we asking male and females to sleep in the same room until those partitions get there?

Because if we've got a 60-day lead time and we start on Saturday, that's 60 days that we open up um ourselves to some pretty significant liability here at the city.

So as part of our fatigue policy, we do realize we have some stations that are not completely accommodating.

So we do swap crews.

So if we have a crew, let's say downtown and the station is smaller, we will swap them during the night shift to go up to a station up north, let's say station 41, for example, large station, plenty of bedroom.

So we do have the capacity to swap crews based on the number of runs that they've made and if we need some privacy, we can move crews around to different stations.

So they're not actually completely tied to one station, they will be expected to move as needed.

So, Chief, on that real quick, if I could just follow up.

Um say if you have a say female firefighter at one station and they may not have the resources there, their adequate housing, they would then go to a different station to get their rest.

Yes, sir.

It's just a matter of just swapping the ambulance sheet.

So it's I that is I I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think that's it.

Uh, because especially if they live in Fort Worth, hell, just go home at that point and just get sleep in your own bed.

Yeah, if you got to go somewhere different, then you should be clear.

Because I don't think that's what he said.

He's saying that's what he said.

The the peak demand units, all of our units move around the city based on the demand.

So there is not they are not like fire trucks where they stay in one area.

Right.

All of our units move around the different parts of the city.

And if we have a unit, let's say downtown, and they make 20 runs in the first 12 hours, based on our fatigue policy, we would move them up north to a slower area of town anyway, regardless of what the sleeping arrangements were.

Can we walk through this practically speaking?

So EMS will now work in a very similar way that our firefighters work in.

Right.

We don't control when someone has a heart attack, just like we can't control when someone has a fire.

So they and again, I'm not a firefighter.

I've never spent a 24-hour shift um with the firefighters, but my guess is it's a you know, you get it while you can kind of thing, and you sleep when you can.

And if that means you take a nap, you know, you get a call at one o'clock and you take a nap at two o'clock instead of just you know cuddling in bed at at you know 10 p.m.

or whatever.

We're not doing that for our EMS.

It sounds like they're out running, and then we say, okay, now it's time for you to go sleep instead of you can rest.

You you have the ability to rest when you know in those downtimes.

And and again, I want to go back to what happens to our female firefighters because maybe I'm understanding it incorrectly, but now we're saying, well, you're gonna be out of this station until it's time for you to sleep, and then you need to go to a different station.

And again, I go back to morale and quality of life that we're doing an uh uh an extreme disservice um to really any of our EMS peoples, but I think this is gonna have the most negative impact and most difficult on our female paramedics.

Yes, ma'am.

So what are we gonna do?

Yeah, it's and and on that too.

Um I really want to make sure that as we explore this and as we we test this this out, which I'm I have some concerns, but I want to make sure that we're also working very closely with legal uh to make sure you know any of our fair labor laws, uh, because I mean I know there's a case out of uh Arizona where female firefighters shoot for 3.8 million and one because there wasn't proper uh lactation room, and so all the things we may not be thinking about now, I want to make sure we're working with legal to make sure that we are doing everything we're supposed to, uh, because I'm sure there's a lot that we're not thinking of that that can come up.

Um so yeah, certainly a lot of questions on this.

Uh, council for us, did you have something?

Yeah, I'm gonna wait.

Okay, yeah, thanks.

Um I'm gonna cover a couple of different things.

Uh okay.

Um you said significantly reduced mandatory overtime.

Okay, being one of the uh problems with retention.

Uh so during the pilot program, what does that look like?

What's the pool size for paramedics?

Uh we have a 12-member paramedic pool, so kind of like our vacation relief for firefighters.

So that's what you're going to implement.

Yes, sir.

What do you have now?

Right now they're not, we don't have a pool for paramedics.

They're on 12-hour shifts.

Got it.

Okay.

Now ambulance availability.

I want to cover this because I know we're still trying to cover some ground there.

Uh, to achieve the increased ALS presence that you want to uh cover for the density of calls.

Uh where are we at on that?

I mean, are we are we good?

Uh is that an issue?

As far as the number of paramedics in our system, yes, we're we're good on paramedics.

Yes, sir.

Okay there.

Yes.

ALS calls.

Or ALS calls.

Yes, sir.

Because we can we we have predictive software that shows us where most of the calls will be, and that's where we're assign our ALS paramedics.

Unit availability is not an issue, right?

Unit availability is not an issue, right?

Uh availability is not an issue.

We just have expend extended travel times at this point.

And that's because we have a shortage of staff and a shortage of medic units, which we're working on.

And then I have uh one, I guess it's it's a structural related question, okay, to our EMS system.

All right, the position of EMS supervisor.

Uh, and feel free to you know talk about that.

Okay, that was adopted, you know.

Uh, we considered it on the ad hoc committee and the uh EMS train transition team.

And it has two primary roles, you know, it's uh administrative, right?

And then clinical.

Okay.

What I'm hearing is clinical's okay.

Administrative, maybe a little wonky.

You want to comment on that uh or correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, actually, that's something that'll have to be addressed in the collective bargaining contract as far as what their specific duties are.

I have had several conversations with supervisors who love the clinical work, they don't necessarily like the administrative.

So we're gonna look into different uh areas during our collective bargaining sessions to see what we can do to remedy some of that.

Right.

Thank you, sir.

That's all I got, Charlie.

Thank you.

Um the last thing I have is just on the uh the force hire earlier you said the eight to ten a day.

I believe a majority of that is with our single role, correct?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Um and then Well, that's that's all single roll.

Oh date to ten single roll every day, yes, sir.

Got it.

Okay.

Um, and then last thing, the the poll results, you said that there's 86% that were 87% from our uh management phone poll, and then the 440 conducted a separate poll, which was 68%.

68%.

Among single roll.

Yes, sir, in favor of the 2448 schedule change.

Okay.

All right.

Um, yeah, I Councilman Flora has brought up a point about ambulance availability and how this impacts us.

Currently, right now, are we ever at a place where we don't have ambulance availability?

Uh that would be present in every system.

Like if we have a storm come through town.

It happens occasionally, and that's just based on call volume.

If we have more calls than we have ambulances to assign to it, then that'll impact ambulance availability.

Okay but just on a normal day with 500, 550 calls, we do have adequate resources to handle that.

And that'll remain the same with this change.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Uh would you have considered yesterday a normal day?

It's not a trick question, I'm just asking because in the information that we got this morning, it's set at 9 35 a.m.

yesterday, citywide member cities.

Ambulance availability is at level zero.

No ambulance is available in the city for a call with EMS calls.

Or for a member city?

Yeah, it said citywide in member cities.

I'm just I'm just I mean, following up on that question of do we ever have you said not on normal days.

I'm just if yesterday was a normal day, we did not have availability at 9 35.

I'll all would have to uh talk to an alarm office and look at the same.

I think for this committee to see is how many times that actually happens on a regular basis as we're moving into the new systems.

Are we adequately prepared to do this?

And that would I don't ever want to see that.

And I don't think anybody on this table ever wants to see that at 9 36 of a citizen calls and they can't get an ambulance.

That's not what we want to see, right?

And the advantage of this, we'll have an additional 10 units day and night as opposed to just peak.

So it will have more consistency in the number of units we'll have on the street.

Yeah, that's just the first time I've ever seen it.

So probably it's helpful for all of us to understand how frequently is that already happening, but that's maybe we can get that information for you.

Thank you.

Okay, so I I think that was it.

Uh, the final final comment was just I know last time we discussed you said that you thought we were good on resources as far as station build out stuff.

I looks like we probably will not be.

So I won't put you in a tough position to ask if you have what you need.

I would just say let us know what you do need, but we'll do.

There's clearly some some needs.

So um okay, that's it.

Then uh thank you, Chief.

We're gonna go ahead and move to the emergency communications update uh from Aubrey Insco.

Good morning.

So I'm excited to be here today to give you some good news on progress that we're making to improve the 911 system in the city of Fort Worth.

So over the course of Q4 of 2024 and throughout 2025, uh, we heard you.

You told us that it was a priority for us to improve community safety.

You asked us to make our public safety response system better, faster, more equitable, and reliable.

And we have strived to meet that priority through a host of different initiatives.

So as I talk about the highlight reel for those initiatives for 2025, they all were aligned to this priority.

I am happy to say, as I'm standing here, we are responding faster.

Um in the end of 2024 and throughout 2025, we really have taken a deep dive look at what we've been doing, opportunities that we could um evaluate to improve efficiency and infuse efficiency in our process.

We have empowered our 911 call takers to take action quickly.

Um in a previous modality, we transferred all the calls out for fire and EMS.

We empowered our 911 call takers to verify the address, verify the phone number, and enter a call for service to facilitate response at the 911 level.

In addition to that, we took a deep dive look at where we've been, uh reports, statistics, research that had been done on the state of 911 and our responsiveness and crafted developed and implemented um a phased approach to a new staffing and accountability model to ensure that we had the right people in the right place ready to respond when precious seconds were counting.

That new staffing model was deployed uh late May, early, I'm sorry, late April, early May.

And by June, as you can see at the graph on the right, we were able to meet um the National Emergency Number Association standard of best practice, which calls for us to answer 90% of our 911 calls within 15 seconds.

So you can see that since June, we have been able to consistently meet and or exceed that standard, which translates to a better level of service for the community.

That represents about a 52% improvement.

We're not done.

The goal is to make sure that every call is answered within standard, and we have some work to do there, but we have made dramatic improvement in our ability to respond when you need us.

So we've made modality changes, looked at our staffing allocation and improvements there, but you also called us to make sure that we improved reliability.

One of the ways that we've looked to do that is force some consolidation within our emergency communications centers.

So as a reminder, prior to the July acquisition of EMS, we had three different communications centers within the city police, fire, and MedSTAR EMS.

In order for us to meet maximum efficiency, it requires that all of these 911 practitioners are working shoulder to shoulder so that we can provide better collaboration and make good decisions in the best interest of those that we serve.

In July of last year, the fire and EMS communication centers were consolidated at MedSTAR's former headquarters on Altamir.

This has improved our call transfers.

Formerly we were transferring to the fire alarm office for fire incidents, EMS was being transferred to MedSTAR, and police was being handled by the 911 call takers.

So this partnership of putting our telecommunicators together has improved our response coordination.

It has improved our operational consistency and allowed us to align on strategy for faster response.

So that doesn't stop there.

We also went back to your priority and you called for us to use modern approaches, data, and technology to improve the way that we show up for the community and to bolster our public safety response capabilities.

We answered that call through some discovery of innovation to infuse smart next generation 911 tools for our teams within the fire, police, and EMS communications teams.

Technology that would improve situational awareness, break down language barriers, and ultimately allow us to act quicker.

In February of 2025, we deployed phase one of a technology pilot through a company called Prepared.

That's the dealer in these next gen tools.

In February of 2025, we started with instant transcription and translation on every single call.

1.7 million phone calls were instantly transcribed, and 10,000 plus of those were translated into languages other than or languages other than English were immediately translated for us.

This is important because when language barriers exist, it delays our ability to act.

When words were not enough, we also leverage video to 911 services so that when the caller could not properly articulate or unable to articulate verbally what was happening, we could put eyes on the situation and understand what was needed so that we can ensure we got the right people to the right place in the right time.

So not all of our work is emergent in nature in a communications center, but we strive to provide the very best level of service that we can for the community, and that means that we strive to honor every single request.

A lot of our work is non-emergent.

The residents are calling for contact information.

Maybe they need to report a noise complaint or abandoned property or a host of other requests.

We want to make sure that we are properly and timely resourcing those.

This also helps with our 911 call answer times.

Throughout 2025, we ran three live trials of a technology that is an AI call triage software that we call Ava for automated virtual assistant.

When the residents dial our 10-digit non-emergency number, they're greeted by Ava, who is programmed to hope to address and resolve a variety of different non-emergency requests.

So I want to be really clear here, too.

This is not 9-1-1 calls.

These are not life and death situations.

These are simply calls that do not require the skill level of a first responder to provide a timely and adequate response to the community.

During those three laugh trials, the callers experience zero wait time.

That means that instantaneously our automated virtual assistant is picking up the line and immediately trying to triage and understand what is needed.

During those trials, we responded to 12,000 calls.

And of those 12,000 calls, what we realized is that 26% of those were able to be triaged by Ava, by the software, and we were able to provide quick resolution to the caller.

And the beauty of that is that's 26% that we gave time back to our 9-1-1 call takers so that they could quickly respond to 9-1-1.

So when the community is calling in, we're able to respond quickly and triage the needs.

So we've talked a little bit about our staffing and our modality changes and efficiencies.

But honestly, none of this would be possible without relationships.

Over the course of the last year, as a new department, we really strive to find balance and forge better relationships with our fellow public safety partners.

So we have hearty relationships with Fort Word Police Department, Fort Worth Fire and EMS, the Office of the Medical Director, and our city management team.

This is where the thought leadership happens.

This is where collaboration happens, and this is where we form unified approaches to improving our system.

And of course, none of this would be possible without the incredible men and women that serve in our emergency communications centers.

Over the course of 2025, we really prioritized retention of these teams.

You've heard Chief talk about the retention issues they're they're experiencing in the field.

There are also retention issues within the communications center.

But we know that investing in our people is a key to our success.

So over 2025, we worked diligently to educate, equip, and empower them to make a difference in the lives of those that they serve.

We bolstered our continuing education, making sure that they had opportunities to get out and experience professional development outside of the communications center, interact and develop network relationships with other practitioners within the area to learn and glean from their successes.

And what could we do in the city of Fort Worth to provide this better level of service to the community?

We also revamped our quality assurance program.

It's very important that we inspect what we expect, make sure that our teams have the tools and knowledge necessary to execute on the mission.

This really has driven a great improvement in our accuracy and our operational consistency, and all of that means that we can show up in a better way for the community when those seconds are counting.

So those are some of the advancements that we have realized in 2025, but we are not done.

And I want to make sure that that's clear.

We still have work to do.

As I have mentioned several times, our goal is to get the right people to the right place in the right time and to provide an incredible level of service to the community.

And there is still work to be done there.

We are committed to focusing on those mission-driven improvements that truly do make a difference.

We have to continue to look at ways to evolve, ways to improve and constantly evaluate that and work towards improvement.

We regularly are reviewing where we've been, where we're going, and engaging with our teams to make sure that we're getting it right.

With that being said, I look forward to any feedback or questions that you may have.

Councilman Forrest, one quick question.

Going back to the assistal call take act.

That's a uh federal grant program, right?

No, sir.

Okay.

So how do we so that a pilot originally was funded through CCPD funding?

Okay.

Gotcha.

Okay.

I do know that at least a few years back, there was uh maybe this it was the same naming program that I thought was uh the same.

And funded through federal funding or grant funding 56 states with you know financial assistance that's why I asked about it.

But if it isn't, it isn't.

So that's fine.

Not to my knowledge.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

I think our district directors would certainly love to see about getting Ava in our offices.

Sounds like that's an amazing technology.

So any other questions or discussions on that?

No, I did have a comment.

First of all, thank you so much for for uh the presentation.

Um you stated that there are things that you will continue to work on and and improvements.

What what what if anything can we do?

I mean, what are what are some of the barriers, some of the obstacles, some of those things are there?

Are there any?

So I I think there are a lot of things that we want to continue to work towards, but I have found in my 28-year-plus career in 9-1-1 that culture and our people are our most important commodity.

So we have to continue to find ways to support them, make sure that their mental health wellness and resiliency is top of mind, that they have the tools to work smarter.

Um, and all of those things are an ongoing evaluation.

As we find those efficiencies, we will bring those forward and ask for support on those.

Technology is rapidly evolving in this space.

There are a lot of things going on, and we're really just trying to evaluate what the good fit is and how does that help us elevate the the level of service that we're providing here?

So as technology grows, we absolutely will keep an eye on that to align with the priority that you've given us, and we will come with projects and asking for your review for those.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Um any future discussion items.

Okay, uh, Mr.

Johnson, I just have one, and that's just an update on um city and state laws on e-bike and scooter usage on roadways, sidewalks, and trails.

We're getting a lot of complaints uh from a lot of our neighborhoods where we have uh parks, trails, and a lot of issues around the uh the e-bikes and what our HOAs can do to um I guess prevent some of those issues.

Whether we need to create ordinances or not.

So okay, got it.

Okay.

All right, if nothing else, uh meeting adjourned.