Thank you.

We have three items up.

The first is a presentation from our ever cheerful fire chief.

All right.

Good afternoon.

Thanks for being here in this crowded, uh crowded room today.

To arrange for overflow.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the camera's not picking it up, but we are at capacity here today.

But just keep keep track of the egress paths, we'll be okay.

That's right.

We're gonna talk about our hazmat team today.

So this is something that is a low frequency, high risk event.

Uh Captain Stevie's gonna come up here.

He's the program manager for our hazardous materials team.

And we were just talking about not only the frequency within our city, but the risk within our city.

And the risk within Grand Rapids is pretty high when you look at the traffic network, the rail system, the chemical manufacturing, and everything taking place within within the city.

And I will tell you as a fire chief, these are the types of calls where I may or may not be in command, but I do not know as much as my hazmat team.

So we take that step back and we turn it over to our subject matter experts, and we we let them guide the response to make sure that we're doing this safely.

So Captain Stevie.

Chief.

Good afternoon, everybody.

As the chief said, I'm Justin Stevie, captain.

Um captain at Truck 2, right at MLK station.

It's our hazardous materials response station as well.

I'm the program manager for our hazmat team, been in that position for about a year.

Prior to that, about six, seven years as the assistant program manager as well as a team member throughout my entire tenure here.

I've been with the Grand Grand Rapids Fire Department for 16 years now.

So I'm gonna give you a brief overview of our team, kind of how we're comprised, some of the responses that we go on, and then offer up an opportunity to you all to ask questions.

Uh so our leadership team, uh battalion chief Kathy Thompson, she's our battalion chief of oversight, and myself, and then Captain Matt Dumond, he is my assistant program manager for the team.

That way we have some uh internal succession planning within the team.

Uh we have 36 hazmat technicians, and then we just added six more for a total of 42 team members.

And we have uh four hazmat apparatus, but two primary for hazmat, and then uh two that are cross-staffed.

So we have hazmat one, which is one of the big ones at uh MLK station, then hazmat two is a smaller Dodge 5500, and then we have engine two and platform two that respond with our hazmat technicians.

Uh response disciplines, and this is a brief overview of the training that we go through.

Uh so the basic hazmat technician is an 80-hour program that happens either at Lansing or out in Colorado.

And then public safety sampling, that's for our white powder calls.

That's a 24-hour class.

And then we train on rail, we train on highway incidents, those are each 40 hours.

And uh even though we're firefighters, we still get into the science of it to some degree with chemistry.

And there's a 48-hour program through Michigan State Police that a lot of us attend.

And then we like to have our officers on the hazmat team go through a hazmat officer safety officer program, and then there's some additional hazmat IQ.

It kind of makes hazmat response easier, and that's one that we're actually looking to bring to the city uh this summer.

And then an advanced air monitoring class, which is 24 hours.

So at the end of the day, we're we're looking at 200 plus hours of training that we're going through for hazmat technicians, and uh that's in addition to our hazmat operations that every single firefighter in the city gets.

So and I think that that's important to note that a lot of our hazmat calls.

Um, you're not gonna see the big glow glow worm suits come out.

You're not gonna see all of our fancy hand uh the monitoring equipment because a lot of these calls we we try to keep them as simple as they can be.

And a lot of our personal, our day-to-day personnel can handle those types of calls without calling out our hazmat team.

So there's our hazmat uh response apparatus, hazmat one and two.

Uh I want to note here hazmat one that was uh a purchase made early mid 2000s, and it wasn't a purchase that the city made, it was through uh the regional response team network after uh the events on 9-11.

They equipped uh a variety of teams throughout the state of Michigan with this apparatus, and we've been utilizing it ever since.

Um we're fortunate enough to keep maintaining it to have it be uh frontline or a secondary um response apparatus for hazmat.

So some statistics from 2024 and 2025.

Um I think this is important stuff because this is a merging trends that we're seeing throughout the US, just not locally within Grand Rapids.

Uh we implemented a lithium battery response SOG, so standard operating guideline.

Um, and we we actually sent some members out to the to New York City to do some tandem training and kind of some mentoring with their hazmat technicians out there because at the time New York was the epicenter of lithium ion battery fires and incidents.

So we learned from the best in the business of how should we be handling these types of calls.

Um, and then as far as specific hazmat team responses, and this could uh you know vary from uh a semi truck crashing on the highway and leaking diesel fuel to lithium ion battery fires to uh chemical plant incidents in 2024.

We had nine hazmat team responses, and 2025 we had 24, and that difference some of that's tied to our lithium ion battery responses within 2025.

We had 10 of them.

So training we hit on it earlier of some of our our standard training that we did.

Um so I wanted to show you here uh the picture is actually from Hudsonville ice cream.

Uh we do we participate in region six and we do a lot of collaborative training as well as responses with their teams.

So we did a training out of Hudsonville Ice Cream along with uh going out to New York City.

We sent people off to hazmat technician and uh the hazmat officer.

So we're we're trying to keep our members up to date on the emerging threats as well as new techniques and technologies that are out there for hazmat response.

I think it's important here to note uh we we'd like to align and we strive to align with uh not only the fire department strategic plan but also the city strategic plan.

Um we look at the strategic priority of safe communities and we identify safe communities as one of the six high level priorities, and it's defined outcome is that all people feel safe and are safe at all times throughout the community.

So as a hazmat team, we strive to meet that strategic plan alignment by providing specialized response uh services that protect lives, property, and the environment during a hazardous materials release, as well as enhancing overall community safety through rigorous training and readiness for hazmat incidents.

And kind of future outlook on our hazmat team.

What we're trying to do.

Um MABIS, it's a mutual aid box alarm system.

It's essentially everybody cooperating together throughout the state for uh with this with hazmat responses.

We got accredited, we're one of three teams within the state that's a MABIS hazmat team.

So we're seeking re-accreditation.

And on the MABIS end, it's it's not a very uh formalized reaccreditation, and they they've told us that we're doing a great job with what we're doing, and what we'd be getting reaccredited whenever the time comes, and they haven't told us when that time is yet.

Uh, we're also looking to uh increase our gas leak identification as well as a potential of replacing of our frontline hazmat apparatus.

Then, as always, continue to match emergency response capabilities to our mu emerging community risks.

You all have any questions for me or Chief Brown for our hazmat team?

Uh Mr.

Fine.

Thank you.

I really appreciate this information.

And uh having been in construction, uh, there's a couple things that jumped to mind.

Uh one is um the railroad that runs through town and to Grand Valley, and I'm sure you've had a voice in the fact that they go very slowly, like it might be a jog or between a walk and a jog because um there is um I'm aware a lot of dangerous stuff that is transported, um, let alone if there's an accident of some sort.

And having spent three years at our wastewater treatment plant, things like um chlorine, heavier than air type exposure, if something like that gets out into the public.

Um so the follow-up question I would have to myself is that is there some of this information or that should be become more publicly aware of how to act, like stay back from a hazmat situation, and uh if there's I'm sure there's um problem with chlorine gas, there'll be public notices uh sent out.

Um the last thing I would bring up is that um delighted to see Hudsonville.

I had no idea that was ice cream, that's makes it better yet.

But um coordination with other local uh organizations, and we just had that hundred uh vehicle pile up uh last week, I think, uh, between Hudsonville and Calin.

I don't know if they've called you, but there are things that become catastrophic catastrophic or can be.

And so working ahead of time on um coordination of services, I think is very important.

So yeah, I'll try to hit all the question statements and try to add some depth to it.

Um, you know, as far as the rail goes, we try to stay in close coordination with the rail.

Um we have a point of contact there that oversees multiple states, and we're actually within region six, so all the teams within uh the area were doing a rail exercise uh in October of this year out of the CSX rail yard to kind of focus on that as from the emergency response aspect.

And then to tie into that, you know, if there was a large scale, be it a rail, highway, even a fire event um through our emergency manager, we can do an IPAWS release that gets uh information out to the public very quickly through their cell phones and gives those, you know, hey, this is what you need to do, shelter in place or evacuate, and other key points to keep the public safe.

Um, and you know, along with that uh cooperation with other entities, especially within the specifics of hazmat, uh, because it's that low-risk high frequency, um, you know, we're not dealing with them every day, and we we have 36 team members for hazmat, and in some incidents it might not be enough, so we can rely on our neighbors to come and assist us on those specialized incidents.

Yep.

Yeah, uh city manager.

I got one question.

Um this might be more of a risk management question, but do you do any form of statistical model modeling in the form of analysis on different industrial areas within the city based off of the activity, maybe railroads, the type of freight that is coming through those railroads.

Um, how are you able to anticipate risks using some form of statistical analysis?

Okay, yep.

Um, through the state, uh they've identified these things called serotidal three sites.

So essentially they're um highly um I don't say highly toxic, but dangerous chemicals are stored, manufactured in certain facilities, and they have certain reporting requirements to the site uh to the state as far as quantities, uh what they are, where they're stored at, we get floor plans, we get in-depth reports from each facility that identifies what we're dealing with.

And uh not only is that a hazmat team issue, it's a fire department issue.

So we train on that in an annual basis within our response districts that everybody's expected to be familiar with those dangerous sites.

Um as far as going more in depth with data, that's kind of out of my realm.

I'm not sure if Chief Brown has anything to add with that.

Um, but we we do have a uh hazmat planner of sorts that does go and inspect these facilities.

And I would like to say that we that our facilities within the city have had a pretty good track record over the last couple years.

I know there's a stent where we went you know to some facilities often, and we haven't had any recurrences like that in a number of years.

So I would think that safeguards that have been put in place are doing their job.

Yep, that's totally fair.

And I'm just continuously impressed by the work that the fire department is doing as a whole.

Um, just sitting on this committee.

I'm constantly surprised by the way that you are anticipating emergency situations.

I think to be able to anticipate risks like using some form of statistical analysis is probably more of a general request, but something that would more so inform the work that you do, something for maybe the city as a whole.

City manager.

Thank thank you.

Um thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to go back to the um the high-risk uh low frequency incident, and I recall the and then I'll go back to the uh low risk, high frequency incident.

Uh I do recall some time ago we had uh an issue at one of the rail yards and had a very uh immediate creative response such as the rail had complimented us on that.

And if you could I I can't recall the data, can you revisit that?

And secondly, the chief and I spoke about this briefing, and I asked, well, we we have accidents that happen all the time.

Matter of fact, you mentioned the Hudsonville, there's a 2030 car pile up right now on M6.

But in our city it happens a lot.

And can you talk about how the trucks outside the Hazmat team also prepared to respond to some of those uh frequent accidents?

So with the uh rail incident that you're referring to, I think that's year and a half, two years ago, um, out of the CSX rail yard where a um diesel fuel tank on a locomotive had ruptured and started releasing mass amounts of diesel.

And it wasn't a uh a small rupture in the saddle tank, it was a rather large one that we couldn't fill with our typical means or plug-in patches, what we call it.

And our members developed a a hammock of sorts with uh plastic with viscreen plastic to capture that diesel from flowing out into the environment.

Uh, I believe, and uh forgive me if the exact numbers wrong, but those those diesel tanks hold upwards of six, seven thousand gallons of diesel, and they're able to prevent over three thousand gallons from being released into the environment.

Um and it wasn't a normal response, meaning that it was about the same time of year, so cold, snowy in the middle of the morning, so a delayed response, and we still had a very successful outcome with it.

Um, even to the point where CSX um commended our hazmat team at our award ceremony that some of you may have attended uh with our our great response to that incident.

Uh the other question that you asked about how other our other apparatus can assist with responding to motor vehicle accidents, and we actually pulled some data, uh believe just from last year alone.

We responded to over 1,200 motor vehicle accidents.

Now that 1,200 responses, we had to deploy soak-up oil soak up down 64 times.

So there's motor oil transmission uh fuel or sorry, transmission fluid, gasoline leaking, uh sort of remediated 64 hazardous materials at car accidents.

And a majority of those incidents, we don't need the full hazmat team to respond.

Our um our frontline apparatus, our engines, our aerial trucks, they carry soak up, uh, something that I have in my garage that I used to clean up around whenever I'm working on my vehicles.

And uh so a lot of our personnel being hazmat operations personnel can handle uh those uh low risk, higher frequency events with our specialized response.

Thanks.

Um yeah, Commissioner.

Yeah, thanks, Mayor.

Um, thanks for this this presentation.

I know there's uh with my military background, there are very few things that military jokes around about, and hazmat is not one of those.

Um I'm curious, I know kind of building off a former question.

Um in fact, I was at a drill weekend in Walker.

I think there was a hazmat incident with an industrial uh facility not too far from there.

So I guess what is that?

Can you speak just a little bit more to that relationship?

Like if and when you know our city resources have to be involved, like do we like bill them for that, or like what is that entail?

Um, and and chiefs feel free to step in, but I'll speak to what I know.

Um, you know, we have our different aid agreements.

We have automatic aid, there's mutual aid agreements, so automatic aid is um we have a setup with Plainfield, Kentwood, and Walker, where we respond in.

And um, you might be referring to Avastar there up off of Alpine.

Uh it would have been like three mile in Kenny.

Okay, yeah, and that was a number of years ago.

I was actually out there on that.

Okay, yep.

And um, so that's an automatic aid response of sorts.

However, for our special operations, so hazmat, water rescue, dive, uh technical rescue.

We will bill for our time, our equipment supplies used.

And it's not a direct bill to the responsible party, it's billed through that local agency to then pass on the bill to the responsible party.

So we we we are absolutely very mindful that specialized responses are not uh the cheapest, and we need to be frugal with our our money and spend it wisely.

So we do make sure that we bill as appropriate for all of our our specialized responses.

Yeah, no, I think I think it's great that we as a city can provide a specialized resource to spark communities that might not have those resources.

Um so I think that's great.

Was just curious kind of like what the reciprocal response was, like if and when we get called into an incident like that.

So appreciate the info.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Thanks.

Uh any other questions, folks.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, and uh city manager suggested that we take uh in out of respect for our staff time that we ask Mr.

Davis to come up now and uh do his part of the uh uh presentation.

Our um and and our city manager will will detail he's going to our city manager is going to take uh brief overview of the crime statistics part of this uh meeting, which normally is uh done.

Normally we have our chief here, but he's not available today.

And uh so our city manager is gonna go third, but Mr.

Davis, if you want to um take us through an update on the uh know your rights work.

All right, good afternoon.

I'm Brandon Davis.

I have the pleasure of leading our equity office in our Oversight Public Accountability Office.

I'm joined by Albert Gasaki, who is a justice analyst in our office.

I'll actually uh before we jump into the presentation, I'll give him an opportunity to introduce himself and explain why he's so passionate about this work.

Albert.

Thank you, Brendan, and thank you.

Uh city the mayor, uh city manager, uh the commissioners.

Uh my name is Albert.

I originally come from Rwanda, Rwanda that's Central East Africa.

I got here about 15 years ago uh as a refugee.

Um when I when I got to this city, the first thing that really amazed me is how people are very friendly.

So uh I get to learn uh that people from Michigan uh smiley and initially for me where I come from, you don't smile to somebody, don't know.

You uh but when I was on the street, everybody was smiling, and I thought this cities welcoming, and uh part of the reason I'm really passionate about this uh work and leaving this city is uh to to help to make it more welcoming and and smile even though folks are not my friends.

Um long story short, um I'm passionate about this work because where I come from, uh for example, uh if we talk about public safety, uh we have one national police.

So if from east to west, you deal with just one police force.

But here, I cross the street, down division, Wyoming PD.

In Kentucky, I leave, I deal with Kent Kennedy police.

Here in Green Rapids, Green Rapids Police.

That's super confusing to folks like me and others who are not familiar with how things work, how things work, how systems work, how government works, and having a program like know your rights has been really helpful for many community members who have the same back same background as uh as me, but also ordinary really citizens here.

Uh it's uh I I thought it's only for refugees and migrants, but everybody really uh uh part of this program are the things I I like is to see everybody learning from uh our our sessions, how how to interact safely with the government with uh the GRPD and public safety, uh how to make sure you are safe.

And uh for the past couple uh for the past couple of years running this uh we've seen change, we've seen changes, people having more uh safe interactions, more understanding of the the rights and how to safely engage with uh public safety.

Thank you, Albert.

Uh what Albert is an absolute rock star, what he didn't share with you all is that he's also well uh practiced as an attorney in Rwanda before coming here.

Um and he also didn't share that he recently received his national certification as a uh civilian oversight practitioner, I think within the last month.

So we celebrate your accomplishments, Albert.

So our know your rights program is Albert indicated in the educational program that we offer year-round.

Uh, and there are lots of organizations across the nation that offer know your rights programming, but we saw a need in Grand Rapids, uh, and we've partnered with other organizations to make sure that we wrote that out.

As Albert talked about, our goal is to make sure that individuals have the necessary information in order to have safe interactions with law enforcement.

We want them to know their rights.

Uh when we give these trainings, we don't try to tell people what to do.

Uh, we just want to make sure they have the correct information and understand the law so they can make informed decisions about how they choose to move forward.

Uh, we focus on four, fifth, sixth, and fourteenth amendments, uh, and we offer it again to people across the city at different uh starting at age 16.

We do have another program that we offer for for youth under that age.

Uh community members can request a know your rights program simply by contacting the Office of Oversight and Public Accountability.

You can do that online uh and submit through uh uh a link we have there, or you can also call, stop by the office.

Uh you can send a smoke signal if you want to, right?

We will however you tell us uh that you want to have a know your rights uh training, we want to be a part of it, we want to help you do that.

Um so we invite community members to do that, and they have been doing that uh in record numbers.

Normally people are requests for for special programs, meaning you're asking us to design one for your organization.

It's usually groups of 10 or more, but we do offer trainings throughout the year that are just readily available and posted on our webpage and our social media pages where people can choose uh to come and be a part.

Next slide, please.

Okay, so um what makes our program unique is that it's divided into four parts.

We were the first in the country that I'm aware of to offer uh know your rights trainings in this way.

So we have an introduction to civilian oversight.

Uh some people don't understand what that is and what their rights are with civilian oversight systems.

So we offer that as one of the trainings.

We also have what I would say is the most common form of know your rights training, which is what to do when you're stopped by the police.

So we walk through all the rights and responsibilities uh related to that.

Um then we have one that's specifically designed for our immigrant and refugee neighbors.

Um and now we focus a lot on safe interactions with ice and navigating that space.

Uh, but it's really what what makes that part unique is we compare uh laws and and the native uh country to the United States.

So somebody's coming, for example, uh from Rwanda, and they're saying, hey, uh, I want to understand the law.

We want you to give this group uh this training to the group of members from our community.

Then we sit down and say, let's compare, right?

So you can not only know that there are differences, but see what the differences are and know how to put that in the action as you move forward.

And then we have a broader introduction to the criminal justice system.

Uh courts can be complicated, people don't know the difference in some of the language we use, so we walk through and help them understand uh those spaces as well.

Uh-oh.

Okay.

Albert, talk to us a little bit about past workshops and upcoming.

Yes, for the past six months, we we've run uh 12 workshops uh across the whole uh the whole community.

Uh we've we've we've been to all the city, uh all the three city wards um running uh different topics.

Uh most of the topics we've run uh concerned around uh were around uh how do you interact with uh police, uh like local police, GRPD, uh how do you interact with uh ICE and immigration enforcement.

Uh uh and then um most of the hosts were neighborhood associations.

We work with uh all the neighborhood associations and uh work with churches, schools, nonprofits, and uh uh uh and and for the past six months we've uh uh we've we've run uh programs with those institutions.

So the languages we've served, uh participants speak uh Spanish.

Spanish is one of the one of the biggest language.

We've we we've served uh our uh community members, especially from the west side, um uh Swahili.

Uh we have a very big group of uh folks who speak Swahili, uh folks from uh Congo, uh from Rwanda, from Burundi, uh African immigrants, uh most of them speak uh Swahili and Kenya Rwanda, the languages that I also speak.

Uh we've run those uh uh programs and and then uh Pashtu, that's a language spoken in Afghanistan.

Uh we have uh our new community members uh from that country, uh that Afghanistan, and they also speak Dari, but uh we we we didn't have a chance to uh run a workshop or provide uh documentations in Dari.

Um and then Tigrina, which is a language from uh folks from Eritrea and uh and Ethiopia, and then Amaharic and Haitian Creole uh responding to the needs of our uh our uh Haitian uh community.

We've provided uh we've provided uh over 2,300 um uh translated materials um uh of know your rights, uh safe interactions with police, and our our upcoming workshops actually uh this week has been has been a very busy uh very busy week.

We've run a few uh sessions this week, and we are running uh two more uh this week.

Uh our biggest one is uh Mads uh Madison Square Church uh on Thursday.

Uh it's going to be at six uh uh uh uh six and that's Thursday uh uh January the the 30th.

It's open to the public.

It's open to the public, yes.

The uh the host is is is uh accepting some sign-ups, but uh community members are encouraged to try their chances if uh we still have the capacity.

Last time I checked, we had about 215, so the capacity may not be there, but we are open to uh do more workshops.

And then uh we have a few more programming coming, uh a few more know-you're rights sessions uh uh with uh Kent ISD.

Uh this is our most diverse uh session.

Uh we we run one of these uh this week, and we we we had eight countries represented.

Folks from Kosovo, I've never uh met uh community members from Kosovo.

Uh we we saw them uh yesterday, and folks from uh countries like uh Ecuador, um Guatemala uh and uh uh and Mexico.

So uh our training at Kent ISD has been very diverse and it's very well attended.

Um next, please.

Moving forward, uh moving forward, we we plan to run more know your rights, but uh but uh we are planning uh know your rights symposium uh mid-February with uh commit different community members.

Uh this uh is happening uh in the here in the community.

And uh this symposium will include a know your rights presentation.

Uh we will have speakers, we do partner with uh experts, we do partner with uh attorneys, immigration attorneys, uh criminal attorneys, and organizations who've been doing this for a long, long time, like migrant legal aid.

We do we do collaborate with migrant legal aid and other uh partners to to deliver some of these uh sessions or to provide the expertise.

And uh and we're having uh this symposium uh mid mid-February.

The goal is really to strengthen relationships and to share resources.

Uh, like Britain said, we don't teach people how how how how they what do they do or or what what they not do.

We just provide the information because we trust the uh uh we trust their discretion to use that information for the for their benefit.

But we don't tell people, hey, do that, don't do that.

We just provide uh the information in the context of the constitutional uh I mean constitutional.

Thank you.

Thank you, Albert.

And oh that takes us to here again.

If you want to sign up for a know your rights uh workshop, these are the best ways to do it.

You can go to the city's website, type in OPA, call us at 6164564 OPA or email us at OPADRCD.us, and we'd love to get something like that uh set up.

We can pause for questions.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Davis.

And you know, I didn't think that I would ever be in a position where I'd have to say this, but um you're doing great work.

Uh a lot of this is focused on new citizens, but I think frankly, uh this is a moment in our country's history when we're going to have to um make sure that this information really broadly gets out to US citizens.

Um I mean, there's been we've seen what I think is fairly convincing uh evidence now in an era of deep fakes.

Uh maybe maybe what I'm seeing is you know, maybe seeing is not believing, but uh I think we've seen pretty uh substantiated and real uh evidence of federal agents uh clearly violating people's constitutional rights out in the community, um, doing things as basic as demanding to know someone's citizenship when they're walking down the street, um, which is completely unconstitutional.

Um and absolutely uh it's absolutely not necessary for anyone to respond to or participate in that kind of interaction.

Um but that's not something that you know I had to teach my kids uh when they were growing up.

It's not something that I think maybe the the average citizen knows, and and partly it's because and I'm saying this partly for the benefit of the audience, uh as you know since you're an attorney, um there's a very there's there's a very big difference between uh interactions that that begin in they at least begin with a vehicle and in directions that don't.

And so uh people's uh rights to vehicles come with you know driving is a privilege and and so we license it and we demand all kinds of things like you have insurance and you register your car and so on and so forth.

And so properly historically we've said that law enforcement can interact and ask you, you know, is your car registered or show me your insurance.

Um they don't have the right to ask me that when I'm walking down the street.

They don't have the ask they don't have the right to ask me my name and demand a response.

And so getting that information out into the community in a in a in a time when people are really concerned and really afraid and really concerned about their neighbors in ways that you know have not been I have not witnessed in my lifetime.

Um I'm thinking back to, you know, I was born in 1966 and I'm thinking back to, you know, the early 1970s and interaction with police and the community, and this is something new.

Um you know, as dark as some moments were in the in the late 60s and early 70s, um in terms of community tensions with with uh public safety.

Um this is something new.

And and I think it's really incumbent that our everyone in the population uh partly because if we all assert a constitutional rights, we all are strengthening the constitutional protections of everyone in the community.

Um and I think that um exempting yourself by saying I'm a U.S.

citizen um doesn't help your neighbor.

Um and I think that um knowing your rights and pr and and uh is is about as important now as it's ever been.

So thank you for doing this work.

I think it's incumbent on all of us to stove to stovepipe or funnel people uh to you so that we can have more and more and more of these community events.

And I know that our city manager is committed to giving you the resources to make this happen.

Uh the more we can get the community to ask uh for our for our help here.

I think uh the more we're gonna be able to do to create a community where people not just feel safe but actually are safe.

So uh commissioner.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Davis.

Uh we got to see firsthand uh on the 17th.

Feels like forever ago, uh with the Safe Encounters Community Summit.

Uh Commissioner Belchak was there, the uh city manager was there as well.

Uh Commissioner Belchak was there, the uh city manager was there as well, uh, and I got to speak with the community as well, and there's been great feedback around this direct making ourselves accessible.

I think it's incumbent upon us to continue to put ourselves right in community.

I was very thankful those in the third ward.

I think there was well over a hundred people there.

Um I'm thankful for the police chief, uh uh Chief Winchram for coming out and speaking directly uh to the community.

I think that is exactly what we need to see and continue to see.

Um, and I'm wondering here, we just got the timeline on fiscal committee for these public safety trust fund dollars.

Which is in spring, so we're thinking April or May.

And I made a note at that.

I think this is I'm hopeful.

I don't know if it would be your office, but I think maybe it would.

I don't know, city manager.

I loved your feedback on how we fit and make sure we can get feedback when people are already talking when we had hundreds of people there.

That would have been a uh the type of event that would have been wonderful to just have a booth and say what does community want to see, right?

With these additional funding.

So that's just a note and would love to hear how we're going to get as robust feedback as we get from these know your rights trainings.

You have very lively, very passionate folks, um, and people who you know learned more there, but I think that may be a good avenue for seeing what community sees or just educating them about these new funds as well, if it's not getting that engagement.

But I think that may be a good um idea when we have folks already thinking about public safety.

Thank you, uh Commissioner, for the question.

And we just had a briefing on engagement this morning.

So uh the plan is uh a couple things.

We're gonna first have the conversation with the city commission and talk about uh resources and existing programs that we know already exist that need to be leveraged that you've already endorsed.

And I've also asked for proposals from programs uh like uh know your rights uh internally that's already running that we know that we need uh law enforcement adjacent things leverage.

But there are other, I mean the public safety committee it will be another place we've added the safe uh task for these already existing places where we have lots of people representative community that are there.

Um and then, of course, your budget process will be the other opportunity for people to give feedback on kind of the use and purpose of it.

But yeah, that that's actually uh something we'll talk about a little bit in February at the mid-year update, and then even more during the budget process.

Mr.

Davis, do you have anything to add to that?

No, thank you, sir.

Yeah, that's good to know about the internal processes, and I think uh so that's good the good reminder of there'll be very very public uh you know conversations regarding this Republican also, you know, give their feedback and concerns and hopes and ideas, and then also, but I do still think there's a good part where whatever we decide from this money, these you know, will be important to communicate with community as well.

Just trying to, as we discussed earlier, how many uh touches do we need with public um and making ourselves right, taking it upon us to communicate to public here's what we're doing, you know, here's what already existing initiatives or new that we're gonna invest in with these new dollars from the state.

I think the public really we're gonna have to do our part to really push that because it's exciting, it's new money, it's dynamic.

Um we talked about in fiscal um the three-fourths of that were new positions are uh for uh the GRPD.

That's great, right?

People need to know that that we're supporting our police department um with their needs with a growing city.

Um, and uh yeah, so I'm I'm looking forward to the public process to let folks know about these new dollars.

And the public is speaking about these summits.

All of them uh from safe encounters, which just actually took place as well as some of the other work that OPA has been doing.

Uh and the hope and the desire, yes, is that a uh community resource guide or kit or is is made readily available for all ages.

I'm interested in find out more about the under 16 program as well, because we need to start as early as possible.

Um, and those that actually come that are new drivers as well, those at 15, because you can actually get a get your permit at 15, 14 and a half, 14 and a half almost, yes.

Um, but yet and still uh and how there's a possible relationship with the Secretary of State office in some particular way, or how we can actually work together in that capacity and and all capacities.

So but I can commend OPA for the uh 12 workshops over the six months and 180 plus, and then those that are being planned now.

So we look forward to that.

Ms.

James, then Mr.

Fion.

I wanted to say thank you to the city manager for uh Commissioner Marshall Kilgore and for Brandon Davis for the plethora of work that you did for Safe Encounters.

That was on January 17th, and it was hosted by the National Association of Negro and Professional Women's Club, which I am a member of.

So I would be happy we do have a standing, at least these are some busy women.

And I intentionally joined this organization because most of the ladies are my senior by 40 years.

And it's a lot of wisdom to be absorbed by uh being in community with them.

And they've been intentional to have programs like this and to have the right partners so that this is regular with the community.

And because I'm a member and I'm one of the more techy ones, I would be happy to include that survey so that way when we are meeting, we can regularly gather that feedback.

And we had actually over 220 uh people through the doors on January 17th.

And some of the positive like some of the feedback was negative, and that's great.

Like, please say what you mean.

I mean what you say.

And Brandon Davis was there on site to be able to clarify any misinformation or or untruth, so that way the record could be straight and we all as a community can have a better understanding.

So I just wanted to say thank you.

It wasn't easy.

You guys were grilled, and I just I learned so much.

So thank you all for doing it.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Fyant.

Thank you.

Um I just want to commend everybody that brought this uh effort forth in a positive, you know, proactive way.

I think there is a lot, and I feel it myself, anxiety about how to act uh in any situation, supportive or as a direct.

So I think uh this is it's topic that is very uh appropriate for this body uh because it's about overall well-being, and I just want to the one question I would have is there any merit in some of the leadership speaking directly with local ICE people so that they know that we're being prepared to be uh peaceful and but that we know our rights and how to act, and that we expect the same kind of respect from them.

So just thought.

Thank you.

That's that's uh a good conversation.

Most of the the communication um with that agency obviously is uh the police department's directly involved.

I'm not sure if uh Mr.

Davis ever been or office has been directly involved.

But we'll take that under advisement on how best to communicate maybe it's actually through our city attorney's office or some other agency besides police.

And and I'm sure that uh I mean, I I am confident that ICE knows um that we have a current very strong and clear um non-engagement policy uh in our police force, and you know, again, I get we can't say this often enough uh as far as I'm concerned, but um you know there's been some discussion in the community about uh our resources being directed towards immigration control enforcement, and uh we simply do not do that with our law enforcement uh uh community.

And so um the the entities that are under the purview of this committee, uh Grand Epis Police, we do not inquire about immigration status.

We do not detain people based on uh civil immigration uh matters.

We do not uh refer those cases, we do not arrest based on those uh circumstances, and we have a document that very clearly details that as a matter of fact.

Um not only that, I mean there are some things that unfortunately don't lie inside of our power, and I've been very clear about this as mayor several times, and one of those is for example, we can't shut ICE out of owning property inside of the city limits because there's a concept called federal preemption.

Uh we don't get to do that any more than we get to have a Grand Rapids Army or we get to issue Grand Rapids currency.

Um we don't get to stop uh and so as much as we might like to say that we wanted to stop ICE having a detention center in the city of Grand Rapids, we don't actually have the power to do that now.

We of course uh aren't in the detention business ourselves.

We haven't had a jail since I don't know, the 40s.

Um, and we've had Kent County has been the detention mechanism in this county um for deck uncounted decades for generations.

And so concerns about Kent County policy are frankly outside the purview of this of this body, and they're outside of the purview of city government.

Um the you know, so there are you know, there are community organizations who are issuing lists of demands, and frankly, every single uh having looked at those demands, um we are already uh uh enforcing a very clear separation between ourselves and ICE and not putting our citizens uh in harm's way and our residents in harm's way, I shouldn't say citizens, but all of our residents.

And not putting our citizens in harm's way and our residents in harm's way, I shouldn't say citizens, but all of our residents.

People demanding things we already do or demanding that we do things that we can't do.

But everything we can do to keep our immigrant brothers and sisters safe, our uh non-U.S.

citizen brothers and sisters safe, our fellow U.S.

citizens safe.

Um I know to my bones that we are committed to doing in the city, and I know that all of us who operate in the city, whether it's you know my fellow commissioners or whether it's our city attorney or our city manager, um we're spending a lot, or you, Mr.

Davis, or or you I'm s I'm sorry, sir.

What I'm already forgetting.

Albert, I I is it Mr.

Albert?

No.

Mr.

Gasaki.

Kasaki.

Gasaki.

Gasaki.

Okay.

I don't want to I don't wanna call you Albert unless you call me David.

Um so Mr.

Kazaki.

Um, but I know we are all spending we're all losing sleep over this.

Um this is a this is a uh to say that this is a distressing moment in U.S.

history uh is to put it mildly.

I mean I've said before I don't know, and I know I'm going a little off topic here and using point of privilege, but like I still don't know what to do with the fact that nine people in black robes said that you can detain people based on skin color in the United States of America.

Saying that makes me want to vomit or weep.

Um I don't know what to do about that except to say that that's a manifestly unconstitutional sentiment, and I will have nothing to do with any uh race or uh origin based uh public safety uh operations on my watch.

Um I won't I won't tolerate it, I won't participate in it, and I will I will sound the alarm if I ever catch a whiff that anything like that is happening.

Uh and you know, I think that frankly, I I think that maybe God put me on earth to try to deal with these kinds of issues.

I mean, I'm not sure, but like nothing could be more important to me than that we live in a society that's truly, truly equal and truly welcoming and truly loving.

And unfortunately, we're in a position where we have to talk about these kinds of things to bring us back to our duty to love our neighbor.

But thank you for what you're doing and thank you for instantiating that love.

Because at the end of the day, I think that's that's what you're doing is you're is you're showing our community how to how to instantiate that love as we live together.

Thank you, sir.

And thank you, Albert.

And I would before before, well, you don't have to stay up for it, but I would actually like to take what I hope will be a more usual step, which is to ask this group to um to take an take some action by form of a motion.

So I would actually like to move that we um that this committee support OPA's effort uh to create awareness and uh in an education through the NARU rights program and uh partner with our immigrant refugee community and that we um make that uh make that motion that we support this that's so that can be forwarded to the city commission.

So I'd make the motion.

So moved.

I think I moved.

You can support support.

Uh so all in favor of the motion.

Quick discussion.

No, I I just want to say like I I think um, you know, we we talk about knowing your rights and the constitution and and you know, our whole civilization and democracy thrives out the constitution.

So, you know, I I think to many people these conversations are timely based on current events, but ultimately I I think it's important to know like these are things that everybody should know in any season of life, whether like regardless of age, like it is important to know your constitutional rights and be confident in those.

Um so I just want to make sure that that was was said and lifted.

So I have a quick comment.

I'm not able to vote on this because I think our only voting members are our commissioners and mayor.

Excuse me.

But I would add into the discussion around this motion, um, as we thank OPA and Mr.

Davis and his team for such wonderful work, I want to thank our you know, our deputy and acting city attorney, Mr.

Strom and our mayor and city manager for having such a strong um public presence and and um I appreciate the way we've tackled the conversation head on, but I want to affirm some of the thoughts that have happened at the table.

And so if I can just comment on Pastor Golston's uh comments earlier, I just want to affirm that as we make a motion and potentially vote here, that the work of OPA, while it is importantly focused on our immigrant neighbors, um to our new Americans, that today on a snow day, I have a 10-year-old boy here who's asking me at home, what do I do when ice comes?

That today, on a snow day, I have a 10-year-old boy here who's asking me at home, what do I do when ICE comes?

And he doesn't have those answers.

I have a 15-year-old daughter learning to drive desperate to get her 16-year-old birthday in hand.

She doesn't know what to do, and I don't know what to do.

And I want to just add one more layer to confuse us.

I work at an institution who receives federal funding.

And I think it's really important for our city leadership to understand that as the federal funding climate changes, they are sending out dollars to organizations like mine.

I work at Family Promise of West Michigan, where now the federal agreement requires us to allow for ICE's entry to receive funding.

We have to do things that maybe the city is not even aware of yet legally, and so I would challenge the motion to include some sort of um research and inclusion of changing policy in this moment because what we knew last year is not true this year.

And I just want to make sure that as we're protecting the people who are being targeted by this awful institution we call ICE, that those allies who have been here for a long time are getting that same education and ability to step in front.

Um I feel as a mediocre mediocre white man that I don't know what to do.

Um, and I feel like we it is upon us at this moment to do something because we are less vulnerable, and I'm frankly feeling like there are there's a missing population of people who want answers that we are not providing answers to.

And so I'm just hopeful that that can be included in the conversation.

Mayor.

Yeah, yes.

If I could one of the things I think will be helpful if we took the next public safety committee meeting and have Mr.

Davis and uh Albert go through the know your right um education for the community, maybe take 40, 45 minutes, so it's publicly on the record.

You don't have to go to uh a church meeting on a snowy night to do it, and we do it in front of the committee and you ask questions, and that creates the visibility.

I see the attorney would be here, public safety committee, and so I think that would be a good step of creating the more broader awareness around all of our constitutional rights.

That's great.

And I guess I'll say uh one less thing.

First of all, I'll I'll take the friendly amendment.

So I guess um I'm not just moving that we uh make a motion to support the uh OPA's effort here to create awareness and education, but uh to uh also on an ongoing basis um you know investigate uh you know uh ongoing needs uh to inform people about their rights.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um and I will I since we're since we're discussing uh that you're like Batman and people have to send up the bat signal to have you come and give them the education.

I I I will request that you come out to uh Mayor's Mondays and and do this training for at a mayor's Monday's uh gathering because I think that'd be appropriate.

So uh the new year or that was a friendly amendment.

Yeah, sure.

So you can you can you want to I'll I'll make a motion to amend my my my amendment and you supported it okay great.

Uh so you pass the request lost.

Do we have to vote on the amendment?

Yes, you'd okay.

All right.

So all in favor of the amendment, say aye.

There's okay.

All in favor of the amended motion, say aye.

Aye.

All right.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

City manager, I think that brings us to you stepping in for our chief.

And we have some good news and some bad news, unfortunately.

Yeah, and unfortunately, I'm gonna be mindful of time.

We only have a few minutes left, but our chief uh could not be here today, as many of you may be aware.

Uh, we had a very unfortunate incident this morning, a triple homicide in Southeast portion of our community, and they are um dedicated both to supporting the family as well as solving um um determining what what exactly happened.

So we we excuse him from this meeting.

In the absence of his presence, um he did submit his monthly report.

You should have that in front of you.

What we've asked is the chief to come back in February to give an update on uh events at that time as well as anything here, just highlighting.

I don't know what's bringing it up uh for the public.

Do you have this up for the public can see?

Is I don't see it on screen.

Um just as you can see, uh I am city manager for also the director of public safety.

So I'll just uh take a few minutes.

Uh first of all, thank the department for their work.

Uh all the officers are working really, really hard to keep our community safe.

Um and we continue to see positive trending on auto thefts uh going down.

Next slide, chief continues to report that for 2025, robberies down, 2025, uh as well as the number of uh shooting uh person shot continues to trend in a positive direction.

And um fortunately this slide on the person shot in January is now uh amended.

Next slide with the three people that were unfortunately fatally shot today.

And I'll just uh go through the end rush real clearly, uh rush real quickly.

Um on slide number eight.

Uh we as you can see our last homicide, we had 14 people that were killed in 2025, and it had been almost 30 days um since the last uh homicide in our city, and uh none of us expected uh to wake up to what we woke up to this morning on a day where uh school was out and uh two of the three victims were were the youth.

And so um again um uh our thoughts are with family at this time, but uh we do appreciate uh the work of the department.

Next slide in solving uh many of these very heinous crimes, homicides.

You see, the clearance rate continues to be well above the national average, and the police chief uh did share with me uh one of the positive things that he's doing with community this past week, either this week or last week.

He was uh last slide, Asante was um part of a conversation with um hosting the Special Olympics, and you can see one of the police department's cruisers has been uh rebranded uh on the back of it to um highlight the torch run, which will be in our city on November 5th through the 7th, and there will be thousands of people in our community, and we're glad that uh the police department is uh supporting Special Olympics.

So that for three minutes.

And I will uh I I just want to highlight a couple things.

Uh the first is uh it doing a quick back in the uh napkin math, like all of the categories for which you have a large enough number that you can look at statistical movement uh are down double digits.

So some of them are down ten percent, some of them are down twenty percent year over year, and so that's really impressive movement on some basic public safety metrics.

Um the I I also want to say that uh, you know, with the with the news this morning about the about the tragic shootings.

Um there's a real possibility that there's a domestic component to that uh to that incident.

And to remind this committee, um our our chief and our and our police force uh made a real investment in um better identifying um negative domestic situations that with a specific eye to trying to reduce uh lethal outcomes from domestic friction.

And we know that that's an important thing that we have to identify, and we know that um zeroing in on domestic dynamics is really really uh critical to to not having um these kinds of tragedies happen in the future.

And and you know, any any any uh any killing in our city is is too many, any.

Um and so um you know we can't solve the problem of sin and we can't solve every situation, but we s what we continue to zero in on trying to um do the job of public safety better, and there's been I I went to the training, it's the acronym is is DAIL, uh but I went to the training on it, and it's a good metric for trying to identify these high-risk domestic situations.

So I just wanted to tell the committee and the public that we are actively zeroing in on domestic dynamics because we understand this is something that we can we can we can lean into to doing to doing better identification.

So thank you.

Thank you, City Manager.

Okay, and I think that oh I I will just concur.

I just looking at the top level metrics.

Um I think our police chief and the entire department as a whole is doing a great job to try to bring down how you guess violence, those top level lines overall.

Um we'd hate to see them go, certainly.

So hope it doesn't come to that.

You're here.

Well, and and I will also tell you that I was on a ride along yesterday, and a lot of uh the the ride-along I did some of it was telling people to get out of the streets so they just weren't in traffic, uh putting themselves in danger doing things like panhandling and and I and it's that's really important work that doesn't show up in these statistics, but um somebody gets run over by a car, it doesn't show up as a crime, but the person is still dead.

And uh so I know that our police department's out there working on that level of public safety too, because I saw it yesterday.

I'm glad you mentioned that, Mayor.

I I too wrote out with both police and fire doing the inclement rather first and second, let me thank our plow drivers for continuing to do a great job doing this very inclement uh weather.

But the officers uh were doing the majority of their their beat was focused on wellness checks and we're proactively policing what we want doing good community work and um don't they don't often get credit for for that.

And we're proactively policing what we want doing good community work and um don't they don't often get credit for for that.

And if you see somebody who you think is cold and needs an intervention, please please call the city.

Uh we do not want people freezing to death out there.

So please everyone out in the community to know your eyes and your first alert system potentially some of these circumstances.

So keep your eye out for people who might be in trouble and might need help.

Thanks.

That adjourns us.