Houston City Council Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security - July 21, 2025
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Houston City Council Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security Meeting - July 21, 2025
The committee met on July 21, 2025, to receive presentations from the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), Crime Stoppers of Houston, and the Office of Policing Reform and Accountability (OPRA). The meeting also included public comments and discussions on improving public safety communications, data transparency, and crime prevention.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Bridget Jensen voiced concerns about the potential for data manipulation in predictive policing, urging that transparency not lead to biased enforcement. She also criticized the Houston Police Department's cooperation with ICE, stating it undermines community safety, and objected to the criminalization of homelessness.
- Jason Oliver (District G resident) recommended improvements to Alert Houston, such as making it easier to share official graphics and ensuring verifiable information. He also offered feedback on the OPRA dashboard, suggesting it include case outcomes (arrests and dismissals) and data on the civility ordinance, and praised the shift to a more accessible platform.
Discussion Items
Office of Emergency Management – Communication Systems
- Director Brian Mason presented OEM's communication strategy, categorized into blue sky (day-to-day preparedness), gray sky (escalating events), and black sky (imminent threats). Key tools include Alert Houston (opt-in, 112,000 subscribers, ~5% of Houston's population), STEAR (state registry for vulnerable residents, 4,500 enrollees), and IPAWS (geotargeted wireless emergency alerts, but users can disable them).
- Councilmembers discussed the low opt-in rate for Alert Houston and explored incentives, such as fee reductions. Councilmember Kaman raised concerns about post-disaster communication when cell service fails, proposing a pilot using NOAA radios, drones, or other methods. Director Mason acknowledged the vulnerability and committed to researching other cities' solutions.
- Staff questions addressed outreach to senior citizens, partnership with Harris County, and the need for a concerted marketing campaign. Director Mason noted that STEAR requires annual re-enrollment and that OEM is working with social media influencers and community events to boost enrollment. Councilmember Carter offered to provide a shareable graphic for Alert Houston.
Crime Stoppers of Houston – Programs and Impact
- Nicole Kristoff (COO) and Sydney Zeiker (Senior Director of Programs) presented the organization's dual mission: solving crimes via a 100% anonymous tip line (713-222-TIPS) and preventing crime through education. Since 1980, the tip line has helped solve over 37,000 felony cases, apprehend 28,000 suspects, and paid over $13 million in rewards. The SAFE School program reaches 125,000 students annually in Houston and 250,000 statewide, covering topics like cyber safety, human trafficking, and mental health.
- The SAFE Community Institute provides adult education, victim services (including a victim impact statement video project for parole hearings), and the Glenda Gordy Research Center, which offers detailed crime data. New initiatives include Safe Text (a resource via QR code) and the NEEDS program for neurodiverse individuals.
- Councilmembers expressed support, particularly for victim advocacy and data sharing. Staff from Mayor Pro Tem Castañeda-Tatum's office requested statistics on illegal dumping tips from signs in their district. Councilmember Flickinger and Jackson thanked the presenters for their work.
Office of Policing Reform and Accountability – Data Dashboard Redesign
- Deputy Inspector General Christina Nowak and Senior Staff Analyst Tina Jason presented the redesign of the police transparency hub, transitioning from ArcGIS to Microsoft Power BI to improve usability and accessibility. The new dashboard will include district-specific crime data, allowing users to filter by council district, crime type, and demographics. Goals include increasing transparency, fostering accountability, and enabling evidence-based policy decisions.
- Planned additional dashboards include calls for service, response times, pursuit data, clearance rates, and safe roadways initiatives. The redesign features automated data flows and faster refresh rates. The dashboard is not yet public; the team is incorporating feedback from council offices and ensuring public access.
- Councilmember Alcorn tested the dashboard and asked about data fields. Staff from Councilmember Ramirez's office inquired about how the data will inform policy decisions and how requests for new data sets will be evaluated. Nowak emphasized collaboration with HPD and community stakeholders. The launch is expected in a few weeks, pending final technical checks.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken. The committee encouraged OEM to explore incentives for Alert Houston sign-ups and to develop a pilot for post-disaster communication (e.g., NOAA radios, drones). Councilmember Kaman offered to fund such a pilot.
- Crime Stoppers agreed to provide tailored data and monthly newsletters to council offices and to follow up on illegal dumping statistics.
- OPRA committed to incorporating feedback from council members and the public before launching the new dashboard. The timeline is approximately two weeks, after which the old police transparency hub will be decommissioned.
- Councilmember Davis announced a town hall meeting on hurricane preparedness later that evening at Sunnyside Multipurpose Center.
Meeting Transcript
Committee to order. Um, we are joined today by our Vice Chair, Councilmember Jackson. Also, Councilmember Flickinger, Councilmember Carter, and Councilmember Alcorn. And online is Councilmember Kaman, Councilmember Huffman, and Mayor Puritem Cast Sex Tatum. We are also joined in chambers by staff from Councilmember Abby Kamen's office, Councilmember Castillo's office, Councilmember Martinez's office, Councilmember Pollard's office, Mayor Pro Tem Castax Tatum's office, and Councilmember Ramirez's office. And Councilmember Davis's office. And staff from Councilmember Huffman's office as well. Thank you everyone for being here today. We have three presentations that we are very excited about. Our first presentation today will be Brian Mason, the director of the Office of Emergency Management to talk about communication processes and systems. If you'd like to come up and we are getting the presentation on. Yep, getting the presentation queued up. Do you want to sit or are you gonna stand? We can raise it up. Yeah, we'll raise up the podium. Ah, okay. Okay. Is that good or I usually walk around and I'm real animated. No, that's good. Okay, well, good morning. Thank you everybody for having me. So once again, I'm Brian Mason. I'm the director of Office of Emergency Management for the City of Houston. Um briefly today we're gonna talk about our communication processes and our systems, basically how we communicate with residents before, during, and after an incident or an event. Next slide. So just a quick uh outline. We're gonna do an overview of OV of OEM, and then we're gonna talk about kind of our three different types of communications. We have them broken out into blue sky, gray sky, and black sky when it comes to communication days. Next slide, please. So OEM, right? So once again, we're responsible for coordinating preparedness response recovery and mitigation efforts uh for the city of Houston. Um this is really done through our partnerships. So very strong partnerships with all of our city departments, with our county partners, um state, local feds, with through all of our partnerships, and we're here to safeguard everyone against uh all hazards and threats here in the Houston area. Next slide, please. So we have one um thing that we've implemented. It's called our duty officer program. So we have something that's available 247, 365 to city departments, fire and police will call it more often than anybody else. Um it's an opportunity for them to reach back uh to OEM if they need some support across the city. We have standard operating procedures and guidelines that are set up for those duty officers to where they know how to request resources or support from other departments. Um and then we're also working on coordination of large special events from monitoring the weather, and we're briefing OEM leadership on significant events. So that's what our day-to-day duty officer does, which is a 24-7 position. Next slide, please. So blue sky communications, next slide. We kind of broke these in through kind of three different kind of hierarchies of how we do our communication. Uh so first, what we'll say blue sky communication. That's something that goes on 355 days a year, 360 days a year. We hopefully don't have that many gray sky days or black sky days. But that's where we're just doing general our general preparedness 365 and really trying to change the preparedness culture here in the Houston area. Um we do things via our website, Houston OEM.org. We did a complete refresh of that website in 2024, and now it translates everything into six languages.
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