Good morning.

Welcome to the adjourned meeting of the Super Committee of the Whole, Part 2.

My name is Oreen Chowdry.

I'm the chair of this committee.

This is a continuation of yesterday's committee.

The committee of the whole took up most of the agenda, but we did not complete several items on the discussion agenda.

We completed all of the consent agenda, all of the public and quasi judicial hearings, and one presentation was received and filed from Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty.

All items considered yesterday and today will be forwarded to the full city council for its consideration at the meeting this Thursday, March 5th at 9 30 a.m.

As usual, these meetings are broadcast live and live streamed from our public access channels and the city's website to enhance public accessibility.

With that, I will call this meeting to order and ask the clerk to call the role to verify a quorum.

Present.

Apologies.

Councilor just start with Rainbow.

Councilmember Rainbow is absent.

We talk.

Present.

Warren?

Present.

Osman is absent.

Schaefer.

Present.

Stevenson.

Stevenson.

Present.

Chavez?

Present.

Lighting.

Present.

Palmasano is absent.

Chuktai.

Vice President Chuktai is absent.

Chair Chowdhury.

Present.

We have nine present.

Let the record reflect that we have a quorum.

Before beginning the meeting, let me offer a friendly reminder to everyone that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public presentation.

The broadcasts include real-time captioning to increase accessibility for the entire community.

So it's important that all speakers be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast.

First, we have a staff direction that's from council members Palmasano and Whiting.

Councilmember Whiting, would you please introduce this item and move approval?

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

And I might need some specifics from our clerks over here how to move it, just kind of move it forward to be accepted.

Yes, and then speak to it.

Perfect.

I am happy to speak to some of the questions here.

And I know we have uh Andrew, I believe probably Director Hawkins somewhere to also uh I think for questions as well, but I'm happy to kind of speak to it.

This is a just a legislative directive to kind of undertake some of the research and analysis, uh, particularly to um best practices and training uh facilities across the country.

Um and so it looks like uh director Hawkins is here to speak to it.

Um before we have him, yeah, you want to say I want to motion for approval.

I would like to make an I would like to move for approval of this item.

And then I will second it.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

Director Hawkins, would you like to come and speak to this?

Uh good morning.

Uh Chair Chucktai, or sorry, Chair Choudry, Vice Chair Chuktai.

There we go.

Good start.

Um day yesterday, and um happy to be here this morning.

Um if I could speak to this just briefly.

So this is a staff direction as we receive from this body.

Um the idea behind this one was that obviously the administration is bringing forward um some in the coming weeks um some information to council to consider about potential location and construction of a public safety training facility.

Um the focus of the administration is gonna be primarily on you know what that facility looks like here, what we want to do here, um what the city is pursuing.

Um our goal with this is to kind of work as a parallel to that, um, to provide some additional information as far as what's being done nationally, um what's being done in other locations, what are best practices for trainings um from comparable cities, comparable facilities, uh comparable departments, um, and so that we have that information um essentially benchmark kind of what we're doing and make sure that there's alignment um and that you know that we're pursuing all potential options that are out there.

Um, I also think that uh the timing of this one, if we do it as a policy briefing would allow us to bring the information back fairly quickly, um, so the council has that in time to consider what's being brought before them by the end of the month in the next coming weeks.

Um, but then it also sets up a longer term um, I think kind of again, not parallel tracks, they're related, but um providing additional information as we, you know, in the event that we do move forward down this path.

Um, so uh if something does if something does pass and this advances um as we continue that discussion into the future, it allows us to continue doing that kind of research on a parallel track to make sure that we're considering all potential options and evaluating um you know what we're doing in comparison with best practices and standards of comparable jurisdictions.

Great.

Thank you.

And I will also note for the record that uh Vice Chair Chug Tai has joined the meeting.

Um, colleagues, is there any discussion?

First, I'll recognize councilmember Wandsley.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

Um I will note that the staff direction is a bit hard for me to support because for uh the last three years and over multiple times, uh, my office, and I know a number of my colleagues who've been here um have tried to work with the Fry Administration to get additional information regarding our public safety plans.

Also, Director Hopkins, you can this no questions to you.

Um, and more specifically, I wrote a legislative directive about three years ago in 2023, asking very specific questions about plans regarding public safety workforce size size anticipations and ways in which we were looking at um not just beefing up MPD staff.

That's always uh predominant point of conversation, but as we're embracing um the safe and thriving communities uh plan, that means we have all these other alternative safety services and workforces that we need to be looking at scaling up and what are our plans to do that and how do they relate to one another?

Um, I also asked about specific details regarding um how we're mapping out our programs and services as it relates to uh safety services and again to our facility needs.

We have long had this conversation for three plus years around not only MPD's uh facility needs, but because we have violence interrupters, we have prevention uh or violence prevention um services and contractors out in the field.

What are we doing to provide space for them?

That said, for three years, those legislative directives that I brought forward were never answered by the administration.

In fact, just last cycle, this council approved continuing one of those motions as it related to our capital um safety projects because the administration failed to present answers to uh crucial questions that we've been asking um asking about and asking for thorough plans and and elaborations on for again nearly three years.

I also want to highlight, even in prior budget cycles, in consultation with our capital long range improvement um committee that has also asked the administration for several years now and it's documented in their own reports.

Please provide a plan.

Um actually hire a consultant um to present said plan around what these public safety capital projects you're requesting, actually, how do they relate to your overall vision and plans for public safety?

And in consulting with our own click um boards and members.

I even try to work with the administration around bringing a budget amendment forward to do exactly that, to hire a consultant that could give us a thorough and independent analysis of what we could be doing in a more thoughtful way before just rushing into a multi-million dollar purchase.

Um we were told by the administration in response to that budget amendment that it was not needed.

Um actually property finance services would be able to do their own internal assessment and they will present all the information that they gathered from that um and will present it to the council and the public in the following year.

That would have been 2025.

Once again, that never happened.

Um I took the proactive initiative to request information from the administration for three plus years because I didn't want us to walk into what we're doing right now, once again, rushing into the purchase of a multi-million dollar uh building and facility at the drop of a hat simply because the mayor, Jacob Fry and MPD decided that they wanted it in that current moment.

Um we have long had conversations right now on this this body around the precarity we're walking into financially and needing to be thoughtful of how not we're just spending our general funds, but that also includes our bonding dollars and how we're being intentional of our investments in projects such as capital projects.

Capital projects aren't just for um being the extension of a blank check for some of our departments.

They can also be tools to generate revenue.

And we wanted to be able to explore that over the past three years and make sure that we're we're being innovative in how we're meeting our public safety facility needs while also acknowledging the direction that we're saying that we're gonna go, which is moving away from traditional policing that led to the murder and brutalization of hundreds of residents that landed us into a consent decree in the first place.

Um I had hope um that again, we could have avoided that for three years, but we are here again proposing a nearly 40 million dollar, or sorry, the mayor's administration is proposing a nearly million, 40 million dollar building.

Um, and it still is not flushed out.

And while simultaneously asking us to just rubber stamp that purchase of a building, they're also simultaneously cutting almost $5 million from our alternative public safety programs like violence prevention and a bedded social worker within MPD, which we will be taking up two items from now.

We're being asked to eliminate.

This again raises so many questions for me that I have been requesting information on for years with little to no response from the Fry administration.

I will know I have no problem supporting this particular directive.

I think a general premise of this body has been it's it we should always be able to seek information.

Um, and council members should be able to do that, and as directive essentially aligns with that intent.

Um, but critical information around anticipated figures, a full staffing levels for all public safety um personnel that we currently have and that we're looking to bring on, not just police officers, how that was going to relate to our growth of our BCR, violence interrupters, those things.

We could have had three years of discussion around this had the administration proactively responded, as opposed to seeing another iter iteration or duplication of information we've been asking for and deny for three years.

So I would love to see how this directive comes back and gives us more information on why we should support the purchase of a 40 million dollar COP city.

I really look forward to receiving that information.

I know you all do a thrill through a job in your analysis of things, uh, but I at least wanted to share those comments as my concerns around supporting it.

Vice Chair Chuck Ty.

Uh, thank you, Madam Chair.

Just for for those who are watching along and for the public record, I wanted to um just provide some context as to where the staff direction came from.

Um, last week we had um a series of briefings for all council members.

Um, perhaps it might have been two weeks ago actually.

Um, and in which the administration um provided an update on the um the public safety facility um that um that was a part of the capital budget last year.

Um, and um we the the council through its budget process um took some of the the resources that were allocated in the capital budget for um for this training facility and um use those for other safety um um initiatives such as um the expansion and full funding of our neighborhood traffic calming um programs, our um protected bikeways, um, and so on.

So um in those briefings, council members raised a series of questions about um about the about how we we arrived at this uh at this um at this point in the process.

Um and uh in um consultation with our legislative research and oversight um division in the legislative department, council members, Palmasano and Whiting are bringing forward the staff direction, which um essentially is um directing the legislative research and oversight staff to conduct an analysis of current training needs in alignment with national best practices, along with the national landscape of public safety facilities in comparable cities and the costs associated with those facilities.

You'll see that in the staff direction, you don't see a uh a specific date by which um the staff are asked to come back and and present this information to this committee um and make available to the public.

Um and and that's that was that was uh a determination made in consultation with staff and the authors.

Um we're looking specifically for the current training needs again in alignment with national best practices, um, and uh include the emerging and innovative training technology as part of that.

Um, the national landscape for public safety facilities and the way that comparable cities are approaching proposed construction, renovation, um, funding, location, function of facilities like this, um, and then the immediate uh short term along with long-term costs associated with newer updated facilities and the trade-offs related to um building new facilities.

Currently, the police department has a uh training facility at the um at the Hamilton School, known as the Hamilton Special Operations Center, located on 41st and DuPont in North Minneapolis.

Um and um so I just I wanted to provide all of that context for um for colleagues along with um along with just making sure that those who are following along are really clear about what it is that we're trying to do here.

Um thank you, madam chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Vita.

Thank you so much by Chair Sheptai for um that analysis of this.

I think it's important for people to understand kind of why this is before us at this point.

We have briefings that were not public that spoke to um money that we need to maybe get from the state, and that we need to pull together at the city level.

There's action that's gonna be coming uh before us at a later date.

Also, there was an announcement made about this project to the public, and so I've had a lot of questions from folks about what this looks like.

Um, and so I'm excited to see the staff directive before us because that's exactly what's needed for me to communicate with the public, why we're doing this, how we're doing it, you know, what um impact it's gonna have on the city, and um especially the impact that the the positive impact that it can have in North Minneapolis because two of these um training um needs are located in North Minneapolis, and folks have been advocating to get them out of North Minneapolis and out of a residential, out of residential neighborhoods for a very long time.

So I'm really hoping that this staff directive takes us in in the direction of really showing us not only just about I think there's been a lot of talk about the police department.

I also want to see w how this is gonna affect fire and 911 and all the other public safety entities that are um a part of this package.

So I know that I guess that's what I was leading to.

I know that that's not listed and that the focus is a lot about police, but there are other public safety um departments that's gonna be included in this training.

Excuse me, that's gonna be included in this training center, and I'd like to be able to use that to share with the general public.

Um, one thing in particular is we have the facility in Northeast that was initially um the emergency center that was initially a firefighter center, and now it's it was for firefighters for training, classrooms and all these things that have now been kind of used for all these other things.

When we have an emergency to pop up at the city, will that now go back to the firefighters exclusively using that and all of that work being moved out to this um facility that we're proposing?

So those are some of the things that I'm interested in.

But I am happy to see that this um that this staff directive is before us.

I know there's no date, but I'm really hoping that we can get some information back before we take that vote on um if if we're gonna be moving money around or whatever staff is gonna bring before us that they talked about in the the briefings a couple weeks ago.

Um through the chair.

I just took council member um Vita's uh point.

Like that that is the goal of this is to bring it back in time for the council to consider additional information.

Um also the way that we will generally write the um like kind of help them, you know, like inform the staff directions is to keep them specific enough that it's clear, you know, we we at least know the subject matter we're gonna be looking at, but broad enough because often with these we don't know what we're gonna find.

Um, and so we don't want to box yourself in too much.

But I think um from even a cursory look and um the staff that are working on this, um like I've um like spoken to Dwight as well, uh at the fire police um emergency response, like that that does seem to be a trend that's uh happening in this space.

So like I fully anticipate that that'll be a big part of um what we're looking at.

It's not just exclusively carving out um police specific training facilities.

Um, and like as we look at other jurisdictions, we want to see um where there's been efforts to collaborate across those departments as well.

I I really really like that and appreciate that.

And I'm looking forward to having one-on-one briefings about this when this comes back because I do better in those.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to council member Stevenson.

Yes, thank you.

Kit.

First, can I ask that you bring the mic closer to your mouth?

I I can't really hear when you're talking.

Um my first question was what you just answered.

So looking at a more expansive is this is this just police or is this all all of our public safety needs?

My second question, maybe this is to the clerks.

I don't know.

What committee is this gonna go through when we're done with SuperCal?

This was not a committee.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, good to know.

Okay.

Um and could I move to amend this to uh in to include not only everything that's in here but also um a look at what we actually need.

Um a lot of policy gets made based on what everyone else has, but I'd like to have an understanding of what we actually need, what can't we do right now that uh this is gonna solve.

Can I move to amend?

Um councilmember Stevenson, you can certainly um say the the language that you'd like to include as a friendly amendment, or you could bring it tomorrow at the council meeting.

Um okay, the language I would like to include is just adding on the end of uh national best practices, national landscape of public safety facilities in comparison cities and costs associated, sorry, comparable cities and include uh what public safety training we are unable to do right now with our current facilities.

Councilmember Stevenson, if I might offer an assist.

Yes, because this would actually be voted on tomorrow at council.

It sounds like what you're actually to me, it sounds like you're adding a fourth, a number four, which then brings home the landscape analysis that the LRO division is looking at to the specific city of Minneapolis needs.

And I think potentially you and I could work offline and have that amendment for council tomorrow that would identify specifically what that fourth um number could be.

That's great.

Thank you.

I would appreciate that.

Um, and lastly, just uh to um to talk to what everyone else has talked about with the the public safety facility that the administration wants to build.

Uh we are not moving on that yet.

We have made no votes on this.

People are talking about this like it's happening.

It's $38 million that we don't have, um, and we have not begun to discuss it yet.

So even though there was a uh news uh press release, it is not happening yet.

We have yet to decide.

Thank you.

Councilmember Whiting.

Yes, thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

Uh, just kind of want to speak to it and and appreciate, I think, the the concerns that some of my colleagues have raised, particularly on this issue.

And I think this is the the hope of this staff direction um that can kind of give us some information, give us the background about what other cities have done, um, particularly as it as it relates to uh the the uh facilities reports and and plans that have already been put out there by the settlement agreement um and consent to create requirements.

And so I appreciate uh you all looking into this work.

Uh and and also I would like to add, you know, this is this was uh a staff direction brought by council uh woman Palmasano, and I think it's uh it's her hope to have these the same concerns um kind of addressed as well.

And so uh appreciate the work that that her office is has done, and I'm looking forward to uh looking at an ability, right?

I know uh the proposed site is in Ward 11 uh and have been in in conversations with council member Vita as well of how we can make sure that we don't have the same things that happen in North Minneapolis happen in South Minneapolis, and so I know we'll be working in conjunction to ensure uh that those uh the the inequities that have happened on the north side do not follow on the south side as well.

And so uh appreciate you looking at uh everything that is going forward in it.

I'm excited to see uh when this report comes back to us.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Council members, there we go.

Councilmember Wandsler.

Thank you, Chair Chagli.

Um just wanted to also offer a quick clarification just regarding something that council member uh Chuck Tye raised.

Um while I understand the briefings and the discussions and potential um requests for future action on this item um all took place or initially was initiated last week.

This is grounded in a three-plus year c larger conversation.

This project has been long known and advocated for by the administration.

There's been long discussion and debate by a variety of partners around what was actually specifically needed uh regarding this project to ask for fuller details and those external partners for several years were not giving the information that we are now seeking.

So I just need to put this in the larger context of for over three years.

People have had curiosities of how we can have proactive planning around these projects to meet not only MPD's uh training or wellness needs, but to make sure that it's in alignment with the newer direction that um we are moving towards with the safe and thriving communities plan and the implementation of that.

Um so I just need that to be grounded.

These conversations then just started last week.

This has been a longstanding project and deliberation around how do we make sure the facilities that we have support our new vision around public safety and not just doing a rebrand or rush around MPDs, capital projects to fit their needs and then slap um a new safety service such as BCR on the front to then say, oh, we're we're doing something different.

Kind of like what we've done with the community safety center that we're rolling out in my ward, where that was a rushed process and purchase where for also several years, council members asked, can we be proactive?

Can we get additional information?

And the administration did not do so at that time.

So I think this is largely part of it's a 38 nearly 40 million.

And I think we need to be cognizant of that too.

We were given a different amount several years ago around this project.

It's now 40.

We should not anticipate with the way that construction costs and building costs are that we are just simply looking at 40 million.

This is going to be a substantially expensive project.

And we want to be sober around how this is actually not only supporting our city services, but actually, is this the right prioritization right now?

Could we be doing different things with bonding money, which this body has already made votes on?

We made votes just last December to say, no, we want to reinvest money appropriated for this project towards other safety projects, such as traffic calming and ADA compliance, so that our uh communities experiencing mobility issues and disabilities can also have a variety of safety services and projects that can improve their quality of life.

We actually made decisions around that.

Um, so this is continuation of a long-standing debate that did not just start last week.

Next, we'll go to Councilmember Vita.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Wandsley.

That is correct.

This has been a long um ongoing conversation.

I actually started it the year we got elected as the chair of public safety.

You said that the administration is who's been bringing this forward.

I would say the administration in collaboration with council member Vitaw, because one of the first things I heard from all of North Minneapolis, wards four and five, is whatever you can do as a council representative in North Minneapolis is please get this out of our neighborhoods.

Please get this out of our neighborhoods.

So I have been actively working with the administration since 2022 to figure out ways in which we can make that happen for these residential neighborhoods that are enduring more and more trauma every day when they have to um watch what is necessary for a police officer to do their work.

Like the police are doing nothing wrong.

It's just a terrible location for training facilities.

It's a terrible location for a gum range.

And so we're trying to get that out of North Minneapolis.

I was happy that the administration even listened to me and took into consideration what I was trying to do.

And um, there was a sense of urgency then.

I cooled my jets, I've calmed down over the years.

This project has taken way too long, in my opinion, to happen.

I've had many conversations with click representatives, and it always feels like the north side has to wait until it's our turn, and our turn never seems to um get there.

We've seen multiple things happen on the south side around public safety, and all we're asking is for fairness on the north side.

So this project means a lot to me.

I know it means a lot to um council member Warren.

She's new and she's been hearing about it a lot also.

And so my hope is that we can work with the administration, we can use this staff directive uh to not only help the north side, but help our entire city.

I mean, this this training facility, in my opinion, is necessary for folks to do their work in a healthy environment and that is not re-traumatizing people.

So I'm grateful that council member um White and is saying, yes, we have a spot possibly after we get this information back in Ward 11 that's not residential, that's a commercial area that we can do this in.

Um that's not easy to say I'm gonna take this to my constituents and we're gonna bring this training center there.

So I'm happy that he's even open and willing to have conversations about it.

Um I just want to say again, this has been a long conversation with the North Side.

That's um, I mean, we have to have these conversations with the administration, and I've had this conversation with almost every single one of my council uh council colleagues from the time I started here.

This is our third term together, some of us, and this conversation started in 2022.

And my advocacy will continue until these um training facilities are out of North Minneapolis.

Thank you.

And then I will note for the clerks that council member Rainville has joined the meeting and know you've been here for some time now, and I'll also recognize you for comment.

And I'll also recognize you for comment.

Thank you for recognizing me uh as being here and for allowing me to speak.

I appreciate that.

Uh I just want to briefly uh uh talk about my interest in this project and uh this is a public safety project, and as we want to improve our public safety uh system, whether it's BCR, MPD, the FIRE 911, we have to spend the money.

Uh my life experience has taught me that nothing is free.

And if we want to keep improving our public safety system, it's gonna cost money.

And we have to spend that money for our citizens.

This is money well spent if we go forward.

It's gonna help us, it's gonna help our citizens is uh it's necessary.

So I I commend the hard work that uh and acknowledge the hard work that Councilmember Vita has put in over the years and want to remind the public uh the conversation is still going on, but it's been going on for years and years and years.

We have to make a decision and get the state involved in this process if we choose to go forward.

Council members, is there any further discussion?

Okay.

Seeing none, we have a motion before us for approval.

I will ask the clerk to call the roll.

Councilmember P.

Quick question.

Is this uh also recognizing the Stevenson amendment?

That will occur tomorrow.

Okay.

Aye.

Rainville.

Aye.

Vita.

Aye.

Warren?

Aye.

Schaefer.

Aye.

Stevenson.

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Waiting.

Hi.

Vice Chair Chucktai.

Aye.

Chair Chowdhury.

Aye.

We have 11 eyes.

That motion carries and will be forwarded to tomorrow's full council meeting.

Next, we will go to item number two, which is a presentation about the 2025 annual traffic camera report.

I'll welcome Ethan Fally to give that presentation welcome.

Thanks.

Chair Chowdery, um, council members, thanks for having me.

Uh, my name is Ethan Foley.

I'm a transportation planning manager in Minneapolis Public Works.

I also previously was the Vision Zero program coordinator, and as part of that, I've been the program manager for the traffic safety camera pilot.

It's an honor to be here today, which one of my colleagues called this super duper cow, so you can use that if you like it.

But um right, so just a reminder on um, I know there's some folks that are newer on the traffic safety camera pilots, so I'm gonna give a little bit of overview and then we'll get into the annual report details.

So, traffic safety cameras are one part of our overall vision zero work to get to and make progress towards getting to zero traffic deaths and serious injuries on our streets.

We've got a lot of other important strategies as well, but this is an important one of those too.

We've been talking and researching, engaging, uh planning and uh now implementing on the traffic safety camera work since 2019.

And so you can see some of the steps we've taken over time, including um initial analysis work and engagement work to decide well, we want to pursue this really, and then going to the legislature and getting authority to do a pilot program here.

And since that and uh we got that authority in 2024, we've been working to prepare the details to implement it, which we started this year.

Uh, we do have authority for this pilot program through the end of June in 2029.

This is obviously about improving traffic safety on our streets, but for this pro pilot to be successful, we also need to build community trust by implementing the system fairly, equitably, protecting privacy, doing it efficiently.

So those are reflected in our goals for the program and an important and critical part of this work as well.

I want to I'm up here presenting.

I'm um the overall project manager, but there are many others involved across departments.

So just want to acknowledge that public works overall, we lead on the uh reporting and evaluation work and the overall coordination, and we determine the camera locations.

Um regulatory service staff, um, traffic control agents are the ones who actually review uh when there is a violation that comes in to confirm it and actually issue the warning or citation as appropriate.

City attorney's office manages a lot of the legal coordination with the uh county courts and also manages dismissals.

And then we have a camera contractor, Navoa Global, who uh would they operate and maintain the cameras themselves and also mail out the warnings or citations and maintain an on online system that people can call in and provide information so that uh if they have a reason for a a dismissal.

We also have a lot of other important partners across the city and externally as well in this program.

Just a reminder, kind of on the steps of how this goes.

So this is for initially we only have speed safety cameras out, and they only record if uh and process for a violation if a someone is going 10 or more miles an hour of the speed limit.

And so then it's taking a picture from the rear.

Um, as part of that, we're not allowed to have anybody be personally identifiable in the pictures.

Um, and then that information, which is a pictures and a short video clip, is sent to those agents and regulatory services who confirm and actually issue the warning or citation.

You can see here that our program is set up, it's unique in the country that the first violation is a warning for everyone.

And then the second offense, you get the opportunity for a free online traffic safety course, and then beyond that, it's 40 fine or 80 dollar fine if it's 20 or more of the the limit.

Those are things that are really intentional about the fairness and equity that we talked about.

We're trying to reduce the unsafe behavior.

We're not trying to be uh generating revenue or being overly punitive here.

Um and then from there, uh we can see it's sent out, people get it, and they can go and um resolve it online if they'd like, and we're we're always working to improve those systems as well.

In 2025, we had five uh traffic safety camera locations um spread across the city, which you can see here.

Uh we launched the program in October last year.

Uh and so this is reporting through December.

And you can see over the two months there from October to December, we saw quite significant drop in speeding at camera locations of more uh more than 50 percent for both 10 or more over or 20 and more over.

Uh I'll I'll just note that this is kind of what I've expected based on results in other cities.

Would also expect that we can continue to see this go down, which is my hope.

Um, I'll just I'll just say that based on other cities, but uh it's a good first step.

I want to also just note this is just a few months' data, there's a lot going on, right?

Like I think we're reporting out here on what's happening.

This is not our evaluation, right?

On the overall program.

Uh we will be doing more evaluation to come.

This is encouraging, but I think there's a lot more to look at and uh as we go forward.

Oops.

We saw more than 40% drop in speeding at all of uh the camera locations.

Uh so you can kind of see uh just the kind of the trends across um uh the different locations here and kind of the variability uh in amount of speeding before and how it's gone down.

So that's very encouraging that it was quite uniform uh across locations.

Overall, you can see we are our team, uh our staff and consultant or and contractor um managed more than 33,000 violations uh in those three months last year.

And so there is a lot happening here.

Um that is uh very significant volume, right?

And we're uh but I also think it's important like we reduced, I think it was by you know, that reduction was equivalent to about 14,000 fewer drivers speeding past these locations in December.

So very significant numbers of reductions.

Um you can also see we have we report on these things part of the state requirement, but um our agents did see a few times when they determined that they're they shouldn't issue a warning or citation, but not a ton as a percentage.

And then so far, not that many people have opted into the free online traffic safety course, but uh that will increase as uh as we go.

And then good to have it as an option.

Okay.

So we are we do anticipate adding additional speed safety camera locations as early as May 1st this year.

Those will come from this list here of this uh of high priority feature expansion locations spread around the city.

Uh we are still finalizing the exact timeline and locations for that initial expansion, and then I would anticipate we're gonna get to most of these high priority locations this year.

As part of that, we we do have some mobile camera locations, and we might move one of our existing ones to a new location as well because we're you know we're a piloting and we're evaluating different things, so that's part of it.

We're also trying to finalize uh having some uh one or two locations that do both speed and red light uh enforcement.

Uh and we'll continue to monitor this and looking at uh our ability to expand beyond that in the future.

With that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for the presentation, Mr.

Faley.

Are there any questions?

Okay, we will go to Councilmember Rainville.

Thank you.

And uh Ethan, I I have to compliment you in front of my colleagues.

Uh I was over at the state when you were testifying last year, and one of the rural legislators uh questioned you about why should he be responsible when his 15-year-old nephew borrows his car and speeds?

And your reply was well, wouldn't you like to know that your 15-year-old nephew is speeding you could help him?

I thought that was a great answer, and you completely neutralized the whole room after that.

So thank you for helping get this through.

The questions I have, how long will it take uh to expand to county and state roads?

I know you had to work out things without does this uh the the locations you showed us for potential expansions, does that include county and state roads in the city?

Uh, chair, council member, uh so we currently our analysis only looked at city streets.

And if we uh we are interested and open, I think to looking at county or state roadways in the future that does require sign-off from the county or state um for those roadways.

That is a conversation we'll uh we're exploring with them.

And that would be for potentially 2027 or beyond locations, and so it is something that we continue to look at for the future.

Well, thank you.

And I would encourage you to start those conversations early because so many county and state roads are in our city, and uh they're a problem as well as the city streets, maybe maybe a bigger problem when I think of Hennepin over in Northeast or or Broadway.

So thank you for that.

My last uh question is uh what about bridges?

Uh are those on your radar at all?

You know, I I represent an area that has a lot of bridges over the river, and cars speed over that all the time, and it's it's just it's a problem.

Uh Chair, council member.

So there are a lot of potential locations we could we could uh that would be good locations, right?

And uh so that's one of our challenges in the analysis, and we get a lot of community requests, and some of those are on bridges and other parkways, is another one where we get community requests um quite a bit, and there is a lot of speeding happening in those locations.

And I'll remind like we have different tools, right?

We have our traffic calming program as well that is also uh supporting traffic calming efforts.

So this isn't the only tool that we have.

Uh but overall uh our analysis really focuses on prioritizing based on what's the injury crash history that we have at locations, along with looking at other factors like proximity to schools and uh equity and making those prioritization decisions.

So the reality is is we have a lot more good candidate locations than we can locate cameras, and I think bridges kind of fall off of that because there's a lot of speeding on bridges in a lot of cases, but there might be fewer injury crashes than we have at some other locations because there aren't intersections and most of our injury crashes are happening at or close to intersections.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next I'll recognize Councilmember Whiting.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury, and thank you, Director Farley.

Um just kind of uh a quick question.

I was looking at kind of the the proposed locations on there, and it looks like four of those are in uh ward 11.

And so like if if you're just trying to slow me down, I promise uh I will slow down.

Uh but if you're able to talk to a little bit of of why you're prioritizing these specific locations um in Ward 11, uh and then second question is especially when they're around schools, um, kind of what the thought process is when you were putting these cameras around schools as well.

Yeah, chair council member.

So I think most of those locations are on the border with uh adjacent wards as well.

And so one of the things that it you know when we talk about fairness and equity that we've heard around is what does that mean for camera locations, right?

And I think there's this balance of enforcement efforts in areas where there are more folks with lower incomes.

And anything, any fine-based enforcement is inherently inequitable when it's a static fine amount.

And so I think balancing what we've heard and then state law requirements around that.

We are looking to make sure we are locating and spreading cameras around the city.

I will note that the reality is ward 11 has fewer injury crashes than some of the other newer in wards, and that that's sort of the uh the reality.

And so we're looking at locations, particularly city street locations where we still see the value added there, and the the Nicoleton uh near 46th location had the highest speeds.

And I think you go out there, if anybody goes out there like there's a there's a daycare right there.

It's a residential neighborhood.

There's no reason people should be going 35 plus on that street right there, right?

And that's the highest speeding area that we have.

So I'm glad we've been able to address that.

And I think these other locations have a high-level amount of speeding, even if they don't have quite as many injury crashes as some of the other locations.

But I think we will be balancing these with mobile location testing.

So some of these will move around and they won't be as permanent as some of the other locations where there's just a little more injury crash history.

Thank you.

Yeah, and and I would like to know too.

It's I think this has been really helpful uh in our ward.

I think we've seen a a massive decrease in speedings, particularly at the 46 and nickel locations.

Um really excited to kind of see more of these pop up and particularly for safety for our residents and uh our youth and young people that are around most of these spots.

Uh just another question here, as I've started again, I've I've had a lot more uh um comments coming in in support of these, but obviously a few have come in uh with with frustrations or questions.

Um if you could kind of talk to the signage uh and I know we have to to give some level of of um notice uh for these things.

Can you talk to why there isn't like a sign with massive lights telling you that a speeding trap is right here?

Um just kind of the thought process behind that as well.

Uh chair, council members.

So our approach has been ahead of, and then that first week of the launch, we put out the variable message signs saying that there's a uh a traffic camera coming and the start date, so that we are really educating folks ahead of time.

Um and then every location has signage ahead that uh we're required under state uh state um rules to do this uh it to notify that there's um enforcement ahead.

I think I had a picture with exactly a photo enforcement ahead, and then remind folks of the speed limit right there.

Um and and I do get that sometimes people reach out.

I didn't realize the speed limit was 25 miles an hour.

Well, that's part of what we're doing is educating folks on that, and you get a warning first.

Um but uh that that allows us to educate folks, and we've got the signage, and we do see we did see decrease right away from the signage, right?

Um we we saw that right away from the signage.

And and at the same time, those variable message signs, they're more expensive over time, and we don't want to clutter over all the message, you know, like it's just you have it too much, and then it just kind of blends in and people forget about it.

And so that's the balance overall um as around the signage.

But the signage is really important, and we definitely uh do that for all locations.

Amazing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to council member Stevenson.

Yeah, thank you for this presentation.

It's been great.

I have a few questions.

Um the first is how are expansions being decided?

I think you got into it a little bit, uh, but could you go over that again?

Yeah, chair, council members.

So from these 11 high priority expansion locations, we've already been working on the details of siting.

So citing a camera at an actual location takes a little bit more than maybe you think at the surface.

So for example, like getting one on Hempon Avenue in downtown near 7th Street, this is a little bit challenging for us to make sure we locate that in a way that it's gonna work well and that we have the power it needs and other things like that.

And so generally we are installing new poles to place these on for the permanent location.

So siting is a is a is a thing.

And so when we talk about where are we going next, we have some locations where the sighting is sort of totally figured out and will be ready, they're ready to go.

Um and those will be that's kind of how we're we're thinking about which ones will come first, along with just the overall prioritization uh system that we had in in our analysis, as well as making sure we've got geographic balance around the city.

So maintaining that some level that geographic balance is and equity balance um in the locations is important even as we phase in uh additional locations.

Okay, thank you.

Um do you have limits like by the state law as to how many you can roll out or how many you can roll out at one time?

Uh chair, council member, so yeah, we do have uh the state law maximum of 42 locations during the pilot um period.

And so we obviously can add additional locations here, and um part of this is just sorting out the budgetary side of this.

So one of the things I didn't get into it, but I'll mention it now is any revenue generated from the citations is uh is required to be either spent on operating the program or if there's excess revenue and it required to be invested in traffic safety efforts.

Um so we are you know we have uh now a special revenue fund that all the those revenues go into as well as the general fund allocation, so that um we're making sure we're meeting that requirement.

So one of the things we're still working out is exactly how much revenue will it generate from citations, and that I think is still we're still I you know I just got the January numbers, and you can see in the report that like mostly this was funded by the general fund, and that's I think gonna continue to be true this year.

And those citation revenues, get understanding that better helps us understand like what capacity do we have to add additional camera locations.

Because every new camera location, we got to pay for the operations, the camera.

We also have to pay for the traffic control agents to to actually review the and and send out the the warnings, issue the warnings and citations.

So uh those are factors in kind of how quickly we add additional camera locations.

Okay, thank you.

Um and do is there limits in state law for the the citation tiering?

The reason I'm asking is because uh 46 and Nicolette, the the southbound side is in Ward 8, and that was where there was this insane amount of uh speeding.

People go in 45 miles an hour on that street, people live on that street, people are walking.

I personally think if you go 45 miles an hour, you should get a ticket right away and not a warning and then a free class and then a ticket.

Like, are you limited um in your citation abilities?

Chair and council members, so yes, the those setups uh around first a warning.

We also do a one-month warning period uh at the start, and I I think we will do that at new camera locations as well to make sure that somebody has gotten their warning at a new location before citations are issued.

Um and and then the fine amounts of 40 dollars or 80 dollars if it's uh 20 or more over the speed line, those are set in state statute, and so uh we are you know uh we're just following the state law.

I will note that we had you know quite a bit of conversation with legislature about that as we were creating the program.

I mentioned that some of those elements are fairly unique, and I think that's something that we're gonna be evaluating as part of the pilot program.

You know, is does that structure make sense going forward?

I think there's a lot of benefits to it.

And you know, maybe you argue we should fine-tune some things.

I will note, you know, in other cities, one of the things they focused on is the people just who ignore it.

And uh I think we had one person who has 76 violations so far.

Um and uh so we will be looking at that a little bit too, right?

And uh generally we can see from the data that I shared that people are responding, and they're uh and we know most people will, and then maybe that person will once they get a really big bill at some point and collections if they're not paying it.

Um but we'll be looking at that part of it too.

So there's a lot we can learn through the pilot and how people are responding locally and how we refine that over time with the legislature.

Okay, thank you.

Um next, when you're looking at injury crashes, are you also looking at like how many times a sign has been had to been replaced?

Um I'm bringing this up because 35th and 36th and Blazeddale, the signs are like constantly being run into.

They spend most of their time parallel with the ground.

Um so it's just like a place where crashes are happening all the time.

So I'm just wondering, does that go into the consideration as well?

Uh chair and council member, I guess I'm not aware of any of our signs for the traffic safety camera pilot being damaged so far.

Oh, I guess I meant like city signs.

Oh, are you also like high injury streets and also like how many times have you had to replace a city?

Because that to me is like if somebody's standing there, they would have died.

You know, so that's like that's what I'm getting at.

Thank you, uh council member, chair council member.

So the uh that isn't been part of our calculus.

I I think we've been really focused on the data we have around reported crashes, particularly injury crashes.

So there are other data points that we can pull in, but we do have a lot of good data that we feel like we can prioritize based on that, and really focusing on what's our vision zero commitment.

It is focusing on reducing those fatal and serious injury crashes.

And that isn't to say we're gonna we also want to bring down all crashes and all injury crashes, but those in particular are our focus with the program.

Okay.

Um I only have 41 seconds left.

Uh so my constituents are gonna definitely want me to ask you how are you making sure the data isn't going to ice.

Uh yeah, chair council member, great question.

So this was an intentional part and focus for us as we worked at the legislature, right?

And so data security, privacy, those are really important elements.

So I I think at the core we're trying to have is not collecting data that's useful for other things, right?

Like we're not collecting, we're they're not just regularly recording video.

They only record video and take pictures if they sense a violation.

And in that council member Stevenson's out of time, but I'm in Q next.

So I would love to hear the answer to your question.

Okay.

And um, and so we uh so that's part of it is like not having the data there that people can pull.

There people can't be personally identifiable in in the in the so you if you if you hope hopefully no one's gotten one yet, but if you were to get one and you go and you and you look at the video, you're gonna see that there's areas that are blurred out in in the in the the video and camera footage, and that's intentional to make sure we don't have somebody walking on the sidewalk and we we see them in the in the footage.

So uh the state law also uh prohibits use of the camera violations for subpoena for anything other than speed and red light enforcement.

Like that's the only thing that can be used for.

Um and what we have then is data is really our contractors pulling in uh data that is publicly available through law enforcement agencies for vehicle owners, right?

Like and and from that uh they're able that's how they send it to the right person.

And so that but that's data that's already available publicly.

And so I think we really tried to limit that.

They have not had a request.

Um I asked them, have you had a request from a subpoena from a federal uh agency for any of the data?

They have not.

Um, and I think that's uh because we try to really limit what data is there and the privacy and and the protection of that data was a critical part of this overall approach and of our RFP selection and IT was a big part of that to make sure we have security and privacy, and and that's a big part of what we monitor as well, and we'll be doing an audit uh to make sure you know that they're continuing to do well on that as well.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

I am very, very supportive of the traffic camera work.

I think like the numbers speak for themselves.

The amount of speeding decrease in the these project areas is incredible.

Um I think we're really clearly in a point in the city of Minneapolis where the real thing that's going to lead to change in speeding is actually trying to do things that will change people's patterns of behavior, the actual built environment.

Um I'm excited to see that the results have gone over so well.

Uh I think it's staggering that there's 33,000, almost 34,000 violations in just a couple months.

But also just names the problem.

And I think like there have been so many community members since uh COVID-19 that have just been complaining and also more severely very negatively impacted by speeding and crashes and have uh experienced the the loss of loved ones or uh seeing someone that they love or themselves have a permanent disability.

And that's largely a huge reason why um this was pushed so hard uh by you, by public works, by the city, um at the Capitol.

Like that was the whole goal.

So we can save more lives and make sure people's people's lives are not damaged and they could just move around our city freely.

Um and we also want people to be better drivers.

Uh we also want to encourage people to drive less.

So if this also plays a part in that, then great.

Um of the questions that I have, it's related to uh councilmember Stevenson's questions uh around data privacy, and I think it's important to lift up, I think every single time you talk about traffic cameras before us, I always bring it up, but I think it's important for you to just share like um kind of the mechanisms and things that were set in place into statute uh that the ACLU brought up, that Minkoji, uh the Minnesota Coalition for Government Information, got it.

Um what they brought forward and kind of the parameters that we put in place.

Chair, I can definitely tell you're on the intergovernmental relations uh uh being able to name what Minkoji means.

Um so yes, we uh it's uh those data privacy and practices pieces were essential for this, right?

And so we did work with those uh partners that you mentioned, ACLU, Minkoji, and and others um at the Capitol on really best practices, and I I think I was really intrigued that Minkoji said we think in a lot of ways you're setting up a model and how we can manage and protect data through this.

So there's data retention requirements in there, data struction timeline requirements in the state law.

I already mentioned some of the the limitations in the data that we can retain and and how it can be used.

Those are all really important things uh for this, and and you know, things we were all interested in doing the best practices because it helps to have the strongest program possible.

And I'll just uh note I didn't mention in my presentation, but to your point around saving lives and other things like that.

So we we have in the last four years in Minneapolis had more than that, we're now at 50 people who were killed in crashes that involve clear speeding or running red lights.

And those people should all be alive as we know, but it's extra terrible that most of those people were not speeding around and run right themselves, they were killed by somebody else who did.

And now this is not the only thing we are working on in that space, but we do think it's important for helping to reset some of the driving culture, which has I think we all see has evolved in a negative way since uh 20 uh COVID-19 and everything in 2020.

So this is just part of that, but it is really important for that project.

Thank you.

Um another question that I have is more related to the federal uh operation Metro Surge.

We have gotten several reports from constituents about erratic driving behavior, speeding, violating our basic traffic laws.

I'm sure there's a likelihood that they're involved in some citations that we might see, but they have rental vehicles.

What does that look like?

And what are kind of some of the discussions that you've had at the department related to this?

Yeah, Chair, uh it is a good question.

I've definitely seen some of that behavior myself, right?

Um what the what we have with the data and how it's handled through the traffic safety camera program is it's really hard for us to know how many federal agents have violated or traffic safety cameras because they are reported to the owner of the vehicle, and so if it's a rental or a lease vehicle, it gets reported to that agency.

Now, most of the bigger companies that rent or lease, they just take care of it and they would pass on the charge.

But if it's a warning, right, like they don't have any obligation to tell us who was driving.

And if it's a citation, most of them just pay it and then pass it along, and they don't come back with who was driving.

I'm out of time, so I'm gonna pass it over to um Councilmember Schaefer.

Thank you very much for this report.

It's really exciting, and I'm super supportive.

So thank you for all your work.

Um I really resonate with um this idea of the parkways.

Um you mentioned your main metric is really, you know, this reported injury crashes.

Um, what is your next tier of metrics within that, or will you primarily land on that for the foreseeable future uh chair, council member?

So under the state law, we are required to consider and show that there is a track uh a documented safety challenge.

And the way that we have chosen to like as a first screen for that is some level of injury crash history.

Um I didn't include it in here, but if if uh there's a link in the RCA and the annual report to our traffic uh camera analysis that we did, and as part of that, you can kind of see how we narrowed it down, and we have a map, and sorry I don't have it in here, um, but uh is where are all the locations that have had at least one injury crash over a five-year period?

And if we had locations that didn't have that, then we weren't considering them for locations.

And so I and then from there, then we were doing a different additional analysis that builds off of that, looking uh at proximity to schools.

So these have to be within 2,000 feet of a school under state law.

Um so that's another kind of filter factor.

Um we're also then looking at pedestrian demand and generators and uh and other factors in there, and then equity and geographic balance.

So all those things come into play there.

Um the parkways themselves, I think we get a lot of complaints, and I definitely it's one where we hear a lot about, and the and there's a lot of speeding going on there.

And the reality is we don't see that many injury crashes on parkways, so it's hard for us to justify prioritizing it broadly in the system.

And it might be a similar thing to the bridges because parkways often don't have quite as many intersections, and so there's just fewer of those conflicts.

There's a little, they're easier to manage than on some of the the busier streets.

So that's just a reality.

And then I'll be honest, I think we're gonna continue to hear from that, but like my professional perspective ultimately is we have to prioritize where we can make the biggest safety benefit, and we have that obligation.

Yeah, absolutely.

I I totally concur with that.

I guess you might just I mean, the the park system has all the data on the usage around multimodal and pedestrian, and you might just for fun pull those up and say, hey, are these targeted spots that we have chosen anywhere affecting these the highest volume pet and multimodal trails that we have in our city?

Because I think if we could have a little bit of sensitivity to that, we might increase usage in those areas and in that form of transportation if people felt safer.

Um right now, I think people are afraid sometimes of you know crossing West River Parkway to get to the greenway, or you know, West River Parkway is what comes to mind.

So I just I think you know, if there could be also some you know analysis around that for just for comparison's sake, it might be interesting.

But thank you for that detail.

Thank you.

Thanks.

We'll go to Councilmember Vita.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, I just wanted to thank you, Mr.

Foley, for this amazing work.

Uh I knew this would turn out great when you started leading the work.

I say it every time you hear we worked many, many years ago in our previous life to get rid of the inequitable uh camera program because it was targeting people in North Minneapolis, because it was targeting people in underserved communities.

So I I always trust that you're doing the right thing by people, especially not breaching any sort of um using surveillance to breach folks' identities or put them at risk for anything.

I knew the day that you brought this uh program before us, this pilot program, and when you took it to the state that it was about ensuring that no one died from traffic deaths in this city.

You've been committed to that work for as long as I've known you.

I'm certain you will stay committed to that work in any way that I can support you on this body to continue this program.

To I mean, I've told you I need at least 50 cameras in Ward 4.

So however, I can help you reduce traffic deaths in our city in these um these areas where it really is some places in our city where there's accidents more than we would ever know, and people are uh being disproportionately harmed by traffic debts.

So I've always just admired how committed you've been to this work and how you stay on top of this, and you know what's going on all around the world when it comes to traffic safety.

So thank you so much.

I'm looking forward to these um presentations.

I I know it's just gonna get better and better and better.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

I put myself back in queue, and I think I'm the last one uh unless other council members decide to jump in.

Just wanted to confirm I understood uh the answer to your question.

So the the charge would go to the rental company and they would pass it on to um whoever was a driver, or they would incur it themselves, but we would have no way of knowing who the driver is.

Uh Chair, they have the option to report back and have us transfer the violation, but overwhelmingly they do not do that, they just take care of it themselves.

And so what the challenge would be is getting any level of like consistent data that we'd be able to say with any level of certainty what was happening, that would be very hard to do.

Yes.

We do know though, if it is a rental uh rental company company, correct?

Uh Chair, yes, we do.

I I do have those numbers.

Um we had uh I I don't want to misspeak, uh, but I can I can share them.

But we had uh hundreds of rental company violations in the the three months and uh and in 2025.

Um I think in January we had like 60 or so rental company violations from the biggest firms.

Um and there might be other leasing agencies that are not getting pulled into those numbers fully.

Yeah.

Okay, that's good to know.

It will be interesting to compare that time to the next three months.

So would love to follow up and know what that ends up being and seeing if there is a noticeable difference.

Um the next question that I had, and I think it's my last question, I just have some comments, is partnering with other levels of government, Hennepin County parks or the states, particularly Hennepin County.

Um, if they were to do a traffic safety camera pilot, would that be a shared project with the city of Minneapolis and would the hope be that they take on some of the costs to do it?

I also know that there's perhaps discussions of them doing a pilot themselves, but I I guess I'm not clear as to if the state statute only gives the city of Minneapolis the authority as an entity, or it also encompasses Hennepin County.

Uh Chair, that's a good question.

So the state law is sp gives us as the city of Minneapolis the authority to do this pilot.

Uh we can through our pilot locate on county or Mindot or parkways and with that agency's approval.

Uh and so those are conversations we've had some in the past.

Uh, we're gonna be revisiting those conversations this year with trying to understand might there be some locations that we look at for 2027.

And if we get to that, um, then we would do additional location analysis to look at those roadways and prioritize from them and do additional community engagement as part of that to get feedback.

We have gotten feedback from community members already on county and and Mindot roadways and parkways, as I mentioned.

Um and so that would be all part of that, and we would definitely have it be public, and it would be looking to 2027.

The reality I think is we're probably gonna be like kind of calling the question on that with those partners this year because for the pilot period, it's probably not gonna make sense to, you know, we probably want to get it in next year if we were gonna do it.

Um and and you know, I'm I'm pretty confident that we'll have at least some partner uh locations that we can consider for 27.

Um is already doing a pilot in work zones, so I think they're maybe ready to partner with us and we'll have the conversations with those other agencies.

Great.

And I'll just make my comments in terms of uh partnership with other levels of governments, particularly the county.

I think council member Rainville did a pretty good job of teeing up the need on county roads in particular, and I will go back to kind of the origin of why we're doing this project, and a lot of that had to do with um the amount of crashes that have occurred on some of the highest injury injury streets in our city, and Lake Street is the highest injury street in the state, and it's a county road, and routinely county roads like Lake Street, Cedar, uh Mini Haha Avenue, they see the highest level of speeding.

Um and then on Lake Street in particular, um there were three sisters who were driving, and there was a crash at an intersection, person was speeding, went through a light, and they lost their lives.

And that was a key part of the testimony for why we needed the state to pass this, and that is why we need Hennepin County's partnership.

So, anyway, I could be of service and supporting and making that happen, please let me know.

Thank you, Chair, and I and I will sort of also just acknowledge the partnership we've had with the county on making safety improvements.

So when we look at Lake Street, right, it looks a lot different than it when it we when that terrible fatal crash happened, and that is partnership we had with with the county.

Um, and we're already seeing positive results from the the four to three-lane conversion, safety conversion on Lake Street, speeds are down, uh crashes are down, and so we are working with them on lots of other projects there too.

So I really appreciate that partnership, and it's one we can want to continue to grow in in a variety of areas.

Thank you.

And then we'll go to Councilmember Whiting, who was kind enough to let me go over a little bit.

Yes, thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

And I'll be really quick on this one.

Sorry, I have another question for you.

Um for the specific locations that are on the borders of uh it looks like 11, 13, and this would be eight.

Um for those wards, do you know like which side of the borders they're on?

Uh Chair and Councilmember, uh very good question.

Um I so the the Nicolad uh near 46th Street location is near 47th Street, right?

And that's kind of down when we get down to like where can we locate and get power and like the when we get into those things.

So that's why we say near because like we need that flexibility.

Um I know that 28th Avenue South near Minihu Parkway, which we're looking at uh we already have a poll in the ground to support a permanent camera location there, and that will be just south of Mini Haha Parkway on 28th Avenue South.

Um so I think that's full uh that's just outside of uh so I think that's in 11.

And maybe, but it'll impact uh both sides there.

And we'll claim Ward 12 claims it.

Uh you all can uh argue over that.

And no, and then uh I I think the those other locations were we're we're looking at as um for uh mobile locations.

Okay, and and I can't recall exactly how those have been cited, but it really it does get into like technical and a lot of it's about power and making sure we got good visibility that there aren't trees in the way and other stuff like that.

Okay, thank you.

I think Councilmember Palmasano wants it on her side of the ward.

So if you want to put it over there, that's okay with with us.

Thank you.

Councilmember Warren.

Thank you, Chair.

I greatly appreciate it.

Jameson, they not coming for you, Council.

Um I really appreciate all of this great work that you're doing, and I am in full support of this moving forward.

I'm just wondering in the future uh scope of work with this project.

And I want to thank Council Chair for bringing up that very instance with the death of those those young ladies who were in that vehicle.

When we're seeing things like this, it would like it would be great to have real-time response for you know to aid in those emergencies or emergent type situations.

Um I can think of of several instances where we have lost, you know, dear community members at the result of vehicular violence for individuals recklessly driving throughout our communities.

We just had an incident on Olsen Highway where we lost, you know, two beautiful community members with respect to that and the erratic driving that's happening throughout.

So, is there a future scope of work where we will have live time video that will aid in us being able to respond more effectively and efficiently to those type of um violations that are happening within community?

Uh chair, council members.

So the state law prohibits that um right now for the pilot program, and and I think that was responding to quite a few concerns we heard at the Capitol around that.

Now there are other cameras that the city has out across different departments that uh including traffic cameras that are managing signal operations, and uh and some of that data is uh we can pull from some of that um for and this is these cameras um are not set up to do that um and they're not because we're of that state law requirement.

Um but I think it's also just because the intention of this program is focused on a certain outcome and those other there are already other cameras that are kind of serving some of those needs, and so we felt it was really important to respond to some of the concerns we were hearing around surveillance and make sure people know that this program to be successful at its core does not need to have any of that extra surveillance, and so that's what's built into the state law.

Thank you for answering that.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I'll ask council members if there's anyone else that had any questions or comments.

We're not seeing any, so thank you again, Mr.

Foley, for the presentation.

I will direct the clerk to file that annual report.

Next, we'll take up item number three, which is for the appointed position in the police department entitled director of police health and wellness.

I'll welcome up I'll welcome up Brenda Miller to kick off the presentation and then ask every subsequent presenter to just introduce themselves.

Okay.

Good morning, Chair Chowdhury and members of the committee.

I'm Brenda Miller, the classification supervisor for the city.

Um I'm here to present to you the director of police health and wellness for your consideration.

Um this is a new position in the police department, and it's responsible for the overall strategy for police health, wellness and safety.

It's been evaluated at 578 points and is a grade 12.

Um, the 2026 salary schedule ranges from approximately 132,000 to 157,000 dollars, and the incremental cost is in the budget.

Changes would be effective March 5th of 2026.

This position meets the criteria of section 2010 10 of the city code of ordinances.

It reports the police chief, and it's a member of the department's executive management team.

It leads the development and implementation of policy goals and strategic planning for the police department related to uh wellness and safety.

It requires leadership vision, team building and strategy implementation, and establishes policy goals and strategies that are consistent with the goals and priorities established by the Minneapolis City Council and the police chief.

Please find that the director of police health and wellness meets the criteria of section 2010 10 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances and forward it on to City Council.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And I'll check in.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Chowdery, Vice Chair Chug Tai, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to present here this morning.

I recognize this is well-worn territory at this point, but as we entered day two of this Cal meeting, I want to assure you that Dr.

Martyr and I will be as brief as possible so that we can keep at center focus the health and wellness of everybody involved here.

With that said, my name is Mark Hanneman.

I'm a sergeant with the police department.

I'm here with my colleague, Dr.

Meredith Martyr.

She's the health and wellness manager, and together we comprise two-thirds of MPD's health and wellness unit.

We're here to present to you all today on the proposed reallocation of funds to support the hiring of a health and wellness director.

We hope that through this presentation, we'll be able to showcase to you all that this is an increasingly valuable position for the police department, and it's critical and vital to our ongoing work to make certain that all members of MPD are prepared to face the challenges that they often do throughout this job.

Thank you, Sergeant Hanneman.

So this position would use redistributed funds as was discussed earlier by Council Member Wandsley from a vacant compliance specialist position and also from an ongoing reduction in the Hennepin County embedded social work contract.

The health and wellness director would be the go-to SME concerning issues of general wellness with an emphasis on psychological wellness.

The director would oversee a newly created health and wellness division that would include health and wellness unit, which we are a part of, health and safety unit, as well as the early intervention system.

This position would create a shift within MPD from reactive with wellness issues to being proactive by dedicating full staff to focus purely on wellness trends.

The director would co-create and implement a unified vision, mission, and goals, and would oversee the compliance process.

Lastly, the director would be filled by a non-sworn subject matter expert that would make it informed decision making making processes.

So why do we need this?

First, MPD is needing a leader to co-create a human-centered design approach to the department that prioritizes the health, well-being, and development of its employees so that the community is receiving optimal and safe services.

This would look like expanding the offering of programs and benefits that enhance employee wellness and opportunities for professional and personal development.

By having our director, MPD would achieve reduced stress amongst the rank and file, improve employee engagement, and foster a positive workplace culture that would directly translate to the Minneapolis community.

Next, a director dedicated purely to wellness concerns would demonstrate a strong sense of purpose to improving employee performance and foster a positive and productive work environment focused on self and community care.

As stated previously, the department has lacked a non-sworn subject matter expert to lead the wellness efforts, and this position would bring the expertise required to lead long-term change and reform.

And lastly, the impact of having your director focused on fostering a culture of wellness would demonstrate an investment by the city in establishing a clear commitment and infrastructure to supporting MPD employees and thereby the Minneapolis community.

So we asked the question why now, and we recognize that we're asking for this request outside of the traditional budgeting window.

And I want to offer a little bit of a history lesson about how we've gotten to where we are now.

Paragraph 254 of the MDHR settlement agreement requires the department to conduct a needs assessment related to the ongoing health and wellness needs of the department.

We contracted with a group called the consortium, and in that report, they offered a staffing plan.

Within that staffing plan, they recognize the need for us to appoint a director of health and wellness so that we can make certain that we're providing uh a model of service that aligns with professional best standards.

Uh someone who is a director who has subject matter expertise, who can speak specifically from a non-law enforcement perspective, can make certain that we are clinically aligned and uh aligned with, like I said, best practices related to how we do our work.

Olifa adopted that plan from the consortium, and in our meetings that are ongoing with them, they have mandated us to comply with the terms of the consortium's report.

So, with that, we have been seeking uh for some time now to attempt to fulfill that staffing plan.

Obviously, with the staffing shortages within MPD, there's ongoing struggles to fill all of these required FTEs as we continue to do our work of reform.

Uh, but nonetheless, we recognize that now is is a time.

Uh, we need to be good stewards related to health and wellness.

And the reason I say that is we have a significant contract with an external therapy group known as wellness that fits.

Um that contract came before this body some time ago.

And what we need to do is as the members of the internal health and wellness unit, we need to make certain that that contract is being used appropriately.

We need to make certain that we are plugging in our members who require the use of those services and make certain that they are getting those services given to them in the best possible way.

But the last thing that I want to speak to as well is recent needs or excuse me, recent events and how they have really emphasized the need for this position.

I was transferred into health and wellness in August, and what I noticed right away was we underwent the horrific incident at the Annunciation School.

And on the back end of that, Dr.

Martyr, myself, and our other sergeant who works within our unit.

We took the time to really attempt to connect with all of our MPD members, and we recognize the struggle that they they had in processing the events of that day as well.

We worked to connect MPD officers with the victims' families.

And we also worked to make certain that our efforts aligned up and down the chain of command in terms of administrative needs.

And we were able to be responsive.

We were able to provide administrative days off to those who required them.

But admittedly, this work was overwhelming for just the three of us in our position at the time.

So there's a lot of numbers on this screen here, but I just want to point to a couple of them specifically.

First of all, uh 2.76 million, that is the allocated maximum amount that can be spent pursuant to our contract for therapy services with wellness that fits.

That is paid out as it is used, obviously, but there is, as you can see, a substantial investment from this body already in ensuring that our members of MPD, both sworn and non-sworn, have access to therapy services.

Next, the number 89 up here from January of 2026.

This is a unique number.

In the preceding 15 months, we had approximately 450 therapy visits in total from our members.

In January of 2026, we saw 89 visits alone.

And what this showcases again is operation metro surge, incidents such as enunciation, as well as just the ongoing stress of being an understaffed department tasked with a monumental amount of reform work, has led to an accumulation of stress for the department overall.

We're destigmatizing the use of these therapy services, and we are doing the best we absolutely can to make sure that support is given where support needs to be given.

And on this note, if you look third from the bottom on this slide, you'll see that there have been 15 members who have either separated from the department or gone on what we call PTSD leave since the start of 2026.

This is an alarming number, and it represents a departure from other recent numbers.

It shows that yes, the stress is continuing to mount.

We are not through the veil of what took place in 2020.

Rather, this is going to be a continuing and ongoing effort that requires continued attention from the health and wellness unit as we continue to attempt to rebuild the staffing of the department.

The last slide I'll show here is a proposed org chart for what we would call the health and wellness division.

Underlying this effort to seek funding for this position, we are seeking to create a health and wellness division.

I want to just note quickly that the green shaded uh boxes within this org chart are sworn positions, and the blue shaded are for non-sworn positions.

At present, like I said, I have myself as a health and wellness coordinator, Dr.

Martyr as a health and wellness manager, and then we have one additional sergeant who serves as our peer support team coordinator.

The three of us report directly to Chief O'Hara.

In this new structure, we hope to bring together the health and safety unit as well as the early intervention system, combine those into a newly formed division, of which the director would be the head, and then through the director, we would report directly to Chief O'Hara.

This would allow us to firmly streamline our efforts as we often, as the health and wellness unit coordinate our efforts with the health and safety unit as well as the early intervention system.

It would allow us to be more cohesive in our own internal communication.

And then by removing some of the uh administrative levels between us and the chief, it allows us to be extremely responsive to his needs.

And what I mean by that is a lot of what we can do as a health and wellness unit within our department, it relates to uh or it requires the chief's permission in order for us to uh give and provide certain services.

By allowing us to report directly to him, we're really able to be much more responsive and much more quick to meet the needs of our members.

Okay.

And I will wrap it up just by talking about the national precedent.

Um, so there is a national precedent of having directors of wellness in police departments in response to the increasing recognition of the impact of police work on general wellness of employees.

Uh this trend reflects a growing understanding that investing in wellness programs is not just an individual concern, but it is a strategic priority for PDs, particularly for the communities that they serve.

Uh this is again a proactive measure to address the unique stress factors faced by sworn and non-sworn employees, such as working with people in crisis and the potential for trauma exposure.

Uh these programs help prevent, reduce, and mitigate the effects of stress and trauma, and thereby increase retention.

Um this list is non-exhaustive, by the way, but we thought we would just um share with you some of the other agencies that are um leading the way in health and wellness.

Um otherwise that concludes our presentation, and we're ready for any questions that you may have.

Thank you so much, City Council.

Thank you.

We have a number of council members in queue.

I will go to Vice Chair Chuck Tai.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um I have a few questions, and some of those are I think going to be um best directed to the two of you, and then some might be more appropriate for uh Ms.

Miller.

Um so just to begin, um, can you can you both just remind me um of your roles within the police department right now?

Yes, um, I can go first.

Um so my name is Dr.

Meredith Martyr.

I'm the health and wellness unit manager.

Um so I am non-sworn employee.

Uh I'm a clinical psychologist.

Awesome.

Uh through the chair, council member.

My position is a health and wellness coordinator at the sergeant level.

At present, my job is to attend to the everyday needs of the department related to health and wellness.

And what that means is we have members who struggle, whether it be through family illness, whether it be through stress related to field training, uh, and it's my job to provide them the services that we are able to provide, and then also to communicate to the administration to receive permission to afford specific services based on needs.

That's helpful.

And you know, I I think I wanna um I wanna begin by complimenting you on um on a very thorough um and extensive presentation, really outlining what it is that you're you're um hoping to achieve from this position.

Um it is not often that we see presentations that are this thorough as it relates to the creation of a new appointed position.

Thank you very much for taking that seriously.

I really, really appreciate it.

Um I know we discussed this during agenda setting, and I I just see that reflected so well in this presentation.

Um I think uh a piece of the presentation as you were you were showing us the new proposed org chart um that um I I think I perhaps didn't understand correctly, hoping to get some clarification here was um Sergeant Hanneman, you spoke about how um the the three of you that are in this unit right now um are reporting directly to the chief currently, and that um this new structure would allow you to report directly to the chief.

And those uh I'm just confused as to you're reporting directly to the chief right now.

I don't know how this position makes it more possible for you to report directly to the chief.

Through the chair, council member, we have what I would call a non-traditional reporting structure at the moment, and it's meant to be interim in basis.

It is not typical for a manager and two sergeants to report directly to the chief of police.

However, we learned through our response to annunciation as well as some other very specific, very intensive events involving some of our members, that it was crucially necessary for us to be able to go directly to the chief to be able to provide targeted services.

Uh, in our previous model, we reported to a commander who reported to a deputy chief who reported to an assistant chief who then spoke to the chief.

Oftentimes we need to be immediately reactive to time-sensitive needs.

And so the ability for us to, with all due respect, cut out middlemen, go directly to the person who has the ability to grant the ability to use the services really made us much more streamlined and efficient.

In creating this division, what we seek to do is is put a singular person underneath the chief, a director who can be that go-to person related to health and work wellness, and then all of our internal staff could then route directly through uh a director.

That that's helpful to know.

So I I think my next set of questions are um about the the um how this position is going to be paid for, as this will be uh a mid-year budget adjustment.

Um there are significant um overtime costs within the department just um this year alone.

Um, and so uh, you know, I have uh difficult time really wrapping my head around quote unquote salary savings or savings within the department when it feels pretty clear to me right now that this department is gonna go over budget by the end of the year.

So can you help me understand um is all of this being paid for through the embedded social worker contract um I can just start with that, vice chair.

Um I can just start with that vice chair, um, and just say that uh I have been in conversation with this, and right now um the data that we have is this would be funded via um two positions.

So 120,000 would be from the compliance specialist position, and 67,000 would be through the Hennepa County Embedded Social Worker contractual reduction.

And I think it would be helpful.

Um Director Traswick, I see that um she's also here today.

If you can um help me identify help me understand how you identified these as the these two this position and then this contract as the place for reduction um to pay for this position.

Thank you.

Vicky Traswick, MPD Finance Director.

Uh through the chair, Vice Chair Chug Tai.

Um we went through our vacancy list for civilian vacancies.

Um I think there's only 12 to 15 on that list.

The list is minimal.

We did pick uh the compliance specialist because it's already collect uh connected to the implementation unit for a settlement agreement.

So the relationship is using a vacant position related to the settlement agreement to address a settlement need.

And help me understand why why the embedded social worker position.

Um and and as you're speaking to that, if you can just tell me how many total embedded social workers are within the department right now through through that through the county.

Through the chair, council member.

The embedded social worker, there's currently four, and we pay $354,000 a year.

And we did discuss this with um Leah, the head of Hennepin County, to discuss service impacts.

Um this would bring us down to three um starting in April through December.

That's the $67,000 reduction.

And she said that with this reduced compliment, they don't expect a significant impact of the city and that they're open to that.

Yeah, I I I appreciate that.

I think I just have a hard time understanding how a 25% reduction to um the embedded social worker program is gonna have no impact, but um that um thank you for for that response.

I have one more question that um, but I have about 30 seconds left.

I'll name it now, and then Ms.

Miller can uh I'll get back in queue for for you to respond um later.

Um I'm trying to understand how we landed on this 186 number.

Um, and you know, historically, I think it's like an average of step three.

Um, and and I know that as part of the 2026 budget, that process was changed so that um the FTE costs are calculated based on step one.

So I'm just trying to understand how we went from uh step one being 132,000 to this position costing 186,000.

With that, I'm out of time.

I'm sorry, I'm gonna get back in queue for you to respond later.

Thank you.

Next we will go to Councilmember Whiting.

Thank you, Chair Chowdry.

And as it's helpful, I think I'll probably have questions for for Dr.

Martyr and Sergeant uh Hanum as well.

Uh just want to kind of start and cut me off if if any of this doesn't uh align uh with with kind of what you all understand as well.

And so just kind of want to walk through, I think it's helpful to bring some some background context into our assessments and the settlement agreement requirements here.

And so uh sorry for for the pain, uh, but just really want to I know you all understand it as well.

And so uh from my understanding, the settlement agreement requires uh right, 144 pages of of settlement settlement agreement requirements for all things uh public safety and policing uh in our city.

Uh and particularly within those, uh right, I think it would be really hard to to had every single requirement and request in that document, otherwise it would be thousands of pages.

Uh and so what I believe the settlement agreement has done uh has kind of outsourced that to uh consultants and other versions to recommend uh that's why we've we've had five assessments um that are required in the settlement agreement, and this is one of them, the the employee health and wellness assessment, which for my understanding was done by the consortium is the the consultant that we use, the provider that we use to do that.

Um and then within those assessments, right?

They they make a list of recommendations uh for the city of Minneapolis to do to be in compliance with with all of those uh recommendations that they think is best fit in public safety in that area for for their specific uh what they were hired for.

Um and then once you go through that, this the MPD in the city um has to do a plan based on those assessments.

And so there's my understanding that then the city has to put together a plan that has those recommendations in there, and that is what the the monitor, Alifa, would then approve.

And so once they approve that, those recommendations based on the assessments that are in the plan that Alifa then approves is where compliance comes.

And so if we do not do the things in our employee health and wellness plan, we do not receive compliance.

Is that does that sound right?

Sorry.

That was incredibly accurate.

Thank you very much, uh City Council.

So then the question is then is this position uh our director of of health and wellness within the I think both the the plan and the assessment?

Just broadly have is that been has this position been included in both of those documents?

Through the chair, council member White.

Yes.

So the consortium report specifically identifies a staffing plan.

That staffing plan identifies the need for a director.

We are then required to conduct or compile what's called an employee support plan.

And within that employee support plan, we call out the need to hire for this position.

And yes, Alifa, uh again, they will not give us compliance until we complete all of the conditions of that employee support plan.

And thus, in order for us to become compliant, we do ultimately need to fulfill this position in order for them to consider our employee support plan compliant with the conditions of the settlement agreement.

And then Olifa has approved the employee support plan, correct?

Through the chair, council member whiting.

My understanding is that this is an ongoing living document and it will not be deemed compliant until we have fulfilled all of what it is that we have set out to do within that employee support plan.

They are in support of our employee support plan.

We meet with them monthly and we go over what it is that we are doing to actively work towards completion of that work.

But again, um with all due respect, you're the lawyer, not I.

And I my understanding is we are seeking to achieve compliance through completion of everything outlined within the employee support plan.

And then once all of the requirements in the plan are done, have been proven by the city of Minneapolis, that is when the city would be in compliance with such plan.

Okay.

Helpful.

Thank you.

Uh that is kind of all the the questions that I have, and also just want to give a thank you to both of you, uh, particularly uh after the efforts of of what we saw at Annunciation.

I know both of you were instrumental, both in our needs, not just for MPD, but our community as well, and have heard many uh uh uh votes of appreciation for your support.

So thank you for for everything that you are doing for that work.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to Councilmember Wandsley.

Thank you, uh Chair Childery.

Um thank you for this presentation.

I think this goes back to an ongoing conversation that we're having, even just regarding the public safety and wellness center around the ways in which you all bring proposals, specifically the administration MPD, um, through our formal settlement agreement process.

And as council member White and you all articulate it, the settlement agreement does not give any direct to-dos.

They give a lot of recommendations of you should carry out an assessment, which you all completed.

It does not then say you have to then do all the things in the assessments.

Now, this is where looking at Alifa's most recent report uh shared in January 2026, they highlight again, it's our task to then do the assessments, the evaluations of all the options in which we could be responded to the concerns um and provisions raised in the settlement agreement.

We don't have to adopt all of them.

This was one that MPD brought to Alifa through the request of having additional dedicated staffing towards wellness and support.

Um but as you also highlighted, I'm assuming because I see in the presentation for well fit, you also brought that contract as part of your uh recommendations to Alifa as well for completing health and wellness.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

Great.

Okay, so there are things that you already brought to the table, other additional proposals that also can support compliance with the provision and settlement agreement.

Where it's a hard line for me is where we're seeing the settlement agreement be used to then counteract or undermine other safety services, particularly the one of concern is the embedded social worker.

Um I will name where we're seeing our neighborhood safety department just share an email, series of emails saying because we are all in a financially challenging position, departments are being asked by the Fry Administration to make cuts and reductions.

They are doing so and have essentially proposed reductions to a variety of their contracts to be able to still meet some critical services, but they've had to make difficult decisions and say we have to go without some things.

Um where we're seeing neighborhood safety make those reductions.

I'm confused as to why this is not happening too with actually that will uh fit contracts.

So if someone can share with me, because as you highlighted and also what's in this presentation, it's about 2.6 million dollars allocated, right?

Or sorry, 2.7 million dollars allocated to the uh that fits contract, correct?

Correct.

Okay.

May or maybe this is director mailer.

Is there a consideration of why not looking at MPD's exhaustive list of contracts to think through reductions there that could then feel what you're requesting for this as opposed to cutting a social worker position?

Welcome.

So Chair Chadry, hi uh Councilmember Wansi.

Hi, I'm Katie Black.

Well, some of you I haven't met yet, assistant chief of operations for the Minneapolis Police Department.

Uh so just to answer your questions, we did not take this lightly uh to to cut an embedded social worker.

We work very closely with our partners in Hennepin County, and we know that we couldn't do this work without our embedded social workers or just social worker coverage.

Uh the ones that when we look through, we don't have many contracts, and I Vicky could probably speak more to the contract stuff, but we looked up and down uh our full-time employee count of where we could do the best we could with um the limited resources we have in certain areas.

And so in this position, if I thought for one minute that this was gonna break this um this relationship or the services in any way, we would have never even have considered it.

Um but when we looked at it and we were working with them saying what other coverages, what other resource allocations that are dedicated in certain areas.

So for instance, when we were looking at cutting one downtown DID has two social workers as well, so they're able to help and fill in and that constant collaboration and that communication that we're working with, uh that's where we decided that we could we could reasonably do this right now.

Did you look at potentially repurposing and even moving that social worker to for instance the third precinct, one of the largest precincts that you have?

So, Chair Councilmember Wansey, we we have we had five embedded social workers, one in every precinct.

We went I thought the reduction, so we got a presentation last term that said you actually again reduced correct.

Yes.

So we had five, we went down to four.

And we worked with Hennepin County, the behavioral health director over there, and they were showing us where the referrals were the most were where there was other segues and pathways for resources in those precincts.

And so right now we're looking at another precinct um for this position if we when if we absorb the embedded social worker for this position where there's other resources available.

You said where you will absorb, because yes, last presentation um with the cut to going to four, there was uh embedded social worker that had to split part-time between two precincts.

Um and also the data showed that there were other precincts again that were getting increased referrals.

My whole point is there, and I would love an administrative follow-up on this.

I would love to know the analysis that you did of your contracts, and actually if you could also highlight in within MPD's budget, what is the amount allocated for contracts alone that you could have looked at again using the that fits contract that has 2.7 million dollars already?

Um also I can point another one that this body actually had a resolution of support for cutting Zen City.

So I know there's two contracts where off the back that there could have been reductions that this could have absorbed.

So I director uh blackwood, I know you you mentioned you you wanted to do the thorough analysis, but I'm having a great deal of challenges to actually believe there was an exhaustive assessment of MPD's comprehensive list of contracts that represents millions of dollars that could have been used to fulfill this position as opposed to cutting a social worker position that other precincts could have also used, and we're seeing over the span of a year be cut down and cut down.

And that's great that there's relationships with Hennepin County that's being maintained around this, but either way, I think the overall piece is why are we expanding traditional policing positions and then putting that at odds with our alternative services that we know are also helping keep our community safe like our social workers?

So my administrative follow-up, because I think this is uh Director Troswig's question is what is the total amount right now for the contracts within MPD allocated.

I figured you there's staff memo for that, and then looking at specifically can this these cuts be absorbed with that fits Zen City, those recommendations, and I have no time left.

That's all.

It looks like uh our clerks got that for administrative follow-up.

We if we are voting on this tomorrow, we're gonna need that administrative follow-up for tomorrow.

Yes, chair.

Thank you.

The next council member we have on queue is council member Stevenson.

Yes, thank you.

I have a few questions about the positions being cut.

Can you explain to me a little more about what the compliance officer being cut, what that position is?

I think it's still morning.

Good morning, uh Chair, Vice Chair, and uh council members.

And uh Chair and uh Councilmember Stevenson.

Um the position for the uh compliance specialist, is that what you're referring to?

Yeah.

Okay.

Um it's uh a position that provides uh kind of the the quality uh assurance and uh umperational internal uh controls and systems to determine whether a personnel comply with MPD policies and procedures uh through our activities through our department.

Okay in short.

Okay, in short.

Um is this position coming out of the settlement agreement, or was this prior to the settlement agreement?

This position is within the settlement agreement, and this position is something as uh AC Blackwell uh said, we looked at these, we were looking at them uh very seriously.

We're looking at uh ways that we could have uh the least amount of impact and and stay away from having to lay off employees as well uh and still continue to provide the services that community members actually are expecting from the police department.

Uh when we look through these positions, this is the cuts.

Um this is a position that uh in all due respect we may revisit in the future uh at asking um to to bring this position back.

How however when we align and look at in uh a uh priority uh of positions, this position fell under the need for the wellness piece because that is also something that is within the settlement agreement as well, uh at least in a suggestive manner uh for us to provide.

And as we know and have seen over not just denunciation, but even recently, um not and not just our sworn personnel.

Uh these are our non-sworn personnel as well who are taking advantage of uh of uh the robust nature that we're trying to provide for them in wellness, making certain that all employees are providing service to your consistent constituents and and as we look at it ours as well, um, our community members, and making certain that when they're going out, they're healthy with no cognitive um impediments uh when they provide service to those who are expecting service from them.

Yeah, thank you.

Um so the way that I see this is we're we're being asked uh is which one is more important to fill right now, the health and wellness director or this uh social worker, which is currently a job that that we're having, and the compliance officer, we're we're at being asked to weigh those because it's from what I've heard, it's everything will come back.

Everything that we're talking about here will be something that you ask for either in the next budget or or in the future.

So it seems to me like we're not necessarily talking about are these positions going to go on in the future.

We're asking which positions do we need right now and which positions can we get at the end of the year?

Um a note on trauma on wellness.

Umfficor Haneman, uh, you may or may not know, but it was your body cam footage that showed me getting shot um by a Minneapolis police officer.

Um there is trauma to go around in our community.

I know that officers are under such intense trauma, witnessing violence, witnessing horrible things.

Um but our community is also under intense intense trauma being the victims of said violence, uh being the victims of said terrible things.

And so we're weighing do we want an embedded social worker and a compliance officer or compliance uh specialist to make sure that officers are are following our policies, or do we want uh a director of wellness right now?

Because it sounds to me like in December we're gonna probably be having all of these positions filled again.

Um if you ask me, I think having a compliance specialist and an embedded social worker are a right now need, uh, and a wellness director is a need that we can fill in December.

So um I'd like to, if it's possible, refer this back to staff to come up with a different way of funding this proposal.

We need this wellness director.

Let's fund it not by cutting um uh a social worker that we desperately need in this city, um, and also a compliance specialist that we also desperately need city.

Councilmember Stevenson has a motion to resert refer back to staff, and Councilmember Chavez has seconded.

So that is now the motion before us.

I am next in queue.

Thank you for the presentation.

I definitely see the need for the director of wellness position.

I think a lot of us see the need for that, and I want to get to a place of being able to support it.

A lot of why I can't support it in the way that it is written is the sourcing for it.

And I've had a couple of different meetings with MPD about that concern.

I think the compliance specialist portion of it, I don't have as much of a concern because I believe we have other compliance specialists that are currently doing that work.

Could someone speak to the number of compliance specialists we have doing the work?

And it sounds like there is a certainty that the department will bring back this position.

Good morning, I think, Chair.

Thank you.

So they are uh Could you introduce yourself, Chief?

I'm sorry.

My name's Brian O'Hara.

I'm the police chief.

So the question was uh related to a I quote the tail end of it, the compliance specialist and speaking more broadly about uh the numbers that we have, right?

I think.

Yeah, what is the current amount of uh FTEs that we have for the compliance specialists' roles and work?

Thank you, Chair.

So there's six positions total, four of which are filled.

They're part of a larger um the implementation division, which was formed uh to implement the requirements of the settlement agreement.

Um and so they work collaboratively with you know uh close to 20 other people that are doing implementation work directly.

Great.

And so then this proposal would bring the compliance specialist FTEs down from six to five, and we currently have four-filled, is that correct?

Yes, sure.

Okay, great, thank you.

Um I think that's my only com question for now.

I'll make a few comments.

I might have another question down the line.

Okay, thank you.

So for me, so for me, I don't have an issue with the um compliance specialists portion of it because it's amply filled, and I think uh for me, based off of the conversations I had with the police department, it is there's a pretty strong certainty that that's going to come back into the city budget.

Um that that takes care of 127,000 of the total portion.

The place in which I have an issue is the Hennepin County embedded social worker, which is just at 67,000 um uh continuous funding.

Um the first reason why I have an issue with taking from this source is essentially we're put in a really difficult position of pitting officer wellness with social work and social work capacity.

A big part of public safety for me and the community that I represent is ensuring that we have alternative responses and that we can provide care to community members that need it.

Um in the third precinct, I have worked uh several cases and different constituent issues where we have had to rely on the embedded social worker.

We've had to rely on the embedded social worker around issues around people who are facing uh a form of homelessness or they're unhoused.

We have had to work with families who have kids that are going through a lot of trouble.

And for for some of the families that we worked with, there are kids that don't have like an active guardian.

Um in several community meetings, we have had to in order to respond to constituents and the needs that they have, the response has been we will connect with the embedded social worker.

This feels like the right fit.

And in looking at the referral data that we have gotten across precincts, there's a large number of need, and it's it was already difficult to see these positions go down from five then to four, and now see a proposal of it go down to three.

I think we should see an increase of social work availability, especially as it's connected to Hennepin County because they have access into the HMIS system where they can look at all of the things that an individual has connected to the county on prior.

And that is not something that any of our city staff has.

It's an invaluable, invaluable resource.

There are people who are out of work.

There are people that are going to fall into homelessness.

And there are families with kids who are mentally traumatized.

And that was indicated in our own assessment report, uh, economic assessment report where we detailed the cost of mental health services.

And so my big ask to the department and my fellow council members is let's find another source for the 67,000.

Let's keep the four on.

Um I know that this person is on leave, and if we cut this, it would go back to the county, but we need to keep it at the city.

And I would love to continue to be on a path where we're advocating for more embedded social workers and get back to having one in each precinct.

Um so perhaps that's a question to the chief or AC Blackwell.

Will you please look at a place where we can find another source for the 67,000?

Chair, yes.

Open to uh conversations or whatever suggestions uh the body has, yes, of course.

Great.

And my other request would be that it's it's not a source that is community-facing where they're doing navigation work with our bilingual community or on the ground and being kind of that type of connector that we rely on.

Um I saw a list of some of the potential FTEs.

I think there might be a couple there.

Um, but also if we're not looking at uh a position that requires a personnel hire, I think it's 67,000 and we can find that.

That's true.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Chug Tai.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, Ms.

Miller, if I could um have you just speak to how we got to this 187,000 number for the total cost when step one is 132,000.

Sure.

Um, Chair Chowdhury and Vice Chair Chug Tai, uh, members of the committee.

Um, we had a recent change in how we are calculating overall costs when it comes to classification studies.

Um so what it is is we take the average of all the steps that are in a salary schedule and then add into that estimated benefits and fringe benefits and um I'm forgetting something.

Um, but it's along those lines.

So last year, as the recommended budget was put together, finance um went through this extensive process where they um changed how um current service level costs for FTEs were calculated.

Are you telling me that that has changed yet again?

I can't say from a finance, this is where we get into trouble because we've got a finance way of doing things and we've got kind of a comp and class way of doing it.

I was under the impression that we were all in agreement about how this was being handled.

Um it is the number that goes to finance for final approval is the average of that of those steps and the uh you know, cost of benefits in fringe.

Gotcha.

It's just I'm seeing a $55,000 difference between step one and the total proposed cost here.

So I just I I understand that there's some that there we we have like a long-standing problem with systems in finance, systems in HR, how they speak to one another.

Um, so this feels like actually another added reason to refer this item back to staff because this is a discrepancy that needs to be figured out before this item is approved.

The second thing I will say is, you know, I I think there's um I think there's a little bit of a distinction, you know, like as the chair spoke about um the vacant compliance specialist position um and that uh and her level of comfort with uh using that position um as we're looking at the next year's recommended budget.

And I I think because we have so many leaders from the police department um in the chambers right now, welcome.

We're excited to have you here.

Um I'll just name that you know, every other department right now has to tighten their belts and really look at um want versus need.

Uh nice to have would make things a lot easier, mission critical.

Um I you know this just as well as I do, that that as the recommended budget is going to be put together for the upcoming year, requests for new positions uh or or new investments are are not going to really be happening for for the next couple of years.

So you're telling me you want to take a vacant position, but then bring it back next year, but then you're doing a mid-year budget adjustment for something that's that's potentially not even going to be included in the current service level for next year.

That makes no sense to me.

What makes more sense is you should actually just make this request for this director of health and wellness um to the mayor as a part of uh putting together the recommended budget and ultimately the mayor can determine whether that is uh a need that rises to a level that uh that he wants to include it in his recommended budget or not, instead of doing what you're doing right now where you're uh repurposing vacant positions that you intend to bring back.

That makes no sense.

Um I will echo what what I've heard from other colleagues here though, that um the reduction to the thank you, Ms.

Miller.

Um the reduction to the embedded social worker program is that's just unacceptable.

Uh I mean, we've we've I remember when this program first uh came to exist within the police department.

I remember um I believe AC Blackwell was the fifth precinct inspector back then, and I remember um talking with you about how uh how important it was that this was something that was coming online, how much it was gonna take off of uh the plates of 911 um dispatchers who um are receiving frequent flyer calls, um, how much it was gonna be an investment in staff, how much it was gonna be an investment in in some of those more complicated cases um and take some burden off of sworn personnel.

Um and so, you know, three years ago hearing how how important it was and and how big a deal it was that we were getting the service and now hearing, oh, it's totally fine, we can just you know make a 40% reduction to to the total investment in social workers.

It's gonna it's not gonna impact anything.

Nothing's gonna happen as a result.

That that doesn't that doesn't make sense to me.

Thank you very much, madam chair.

Councilmember Vita.

Thank you, Chair.

Um thank you, uh Doctor.

I'm so sorry I forgot your name, but thank you so much and uh Sergeant Hannerman for the presentation.

When I was uh reviewing the the RCA, I was very skeptical of this position being moved uh from the embedded social worker, but after conversations and figuring things out, I really did uh think you all did a good job at figuring out how to collaborate with our partners and eliminate duplicate services.

That that was what I saw, and like that was the conclusion I drew.

And I think there's gonna be a lot of that in the future when we talk about budget constraints, how we eliminate a lot of duplicate services that we're doing here at the city, that the county is doing, and so you all are kind of beating me to it uh by by doing this.

Um I I want who's the lieutenant in this there was like this flow chart that you all had up.

Who's the lieutenant doing this work, please?

Through the chair, Councilmember Vita.

Presently there is no lieutenant within this unit.

Uh as part of our ongoing efforts to beef up staffing within health and wellness.

Uh we anticipate uh again with Chief O'Hara's guidance that we would ultimately seek to obtain a lieutenant for this unit.

Uh the uniqueness about sworn positions is uh within the needs of the organization's personnel can be moved.

And uh if I could speak from the heart for a moment, uh wellness is experiencing a tra uh an extraordinary put bluntly, we just don't have enough people to do the work that we need to do.

Um every day on my drive home, I have an hour-long conversation with a cop who's struggling.

And really, it's just trying to keep people supported in doing this incredibly difficult job.

Uh it's trying to support them to do this job in a way that aligns with what it is that we're all being asked to do now here today in 2026.

Uh the people I'm supporting believe in this mission, and really we just need them to uh know that they have a health and wellness team and an administration that's behind them.

Um so again, we've been working with the chief to staff up our unit.

That lieutenant position is uh is anticipated and planned uh at a potential future date.

And really what it allows us to do is meet the needs here and now of the department.

Thank you.

Chair, thank you.

Um I apologize, I didn't mean to make you so uncomfortable um standing behind you while you're talking.

I just want to add to this, you know, uh this is something uh the the uh consortium, the report.

We've been talking about this for at least two years.

It's not the first time that we've tried um to make this thing happen, as you know, council member.

Um I pushed this uh within the last couple of months because I was very concerned.

I've lived through um we have lived through um some of our responders who went to annunciation very having very very serious uh mental health issues.

Um a member that committed suicide.

Um then through this, and I understand council member, of course, the trauma's been overwhelming for everyone in the community over the last few months, but my fear has been when I started to see these PTSD numbers again.

What happened here a couple years ago, the PTSD numbers went into the I mean, I think well over 200 pretty quickly.

And my concern was what are we doing responsibly to try and make sure that we don't have that type of thing happen again.

So that's why that's why I felt it was urgent now, but it's not something that we didn't try and bring about.

Uh we've been talking about this for at least two years.

Yeah.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Um also, you know, I really do appreciate you all sharing that data around who's walking in to get resources for wellness, the culture shift that you are um really focused on right now.

I mean, I I have uh Father Hayes, I don't know who knows Father Hayes, but Father Hayes is a chaplain for MPD and has been for over 50 years.

He lived in my ward for many years, and I take him to the 50s grill for a shake and a burger as much as I possibly can.

And this is one thing that he's always talked to me about officer wellness.

And our last conversation, he talked about the overwhelming number of officers who reach out to him after these tragic events we've had in Minneapolis, including announciation, including the attack on elected officials in our state, including um the ice surge in the city of Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota.

And and what we always talk about is just you know how hard it is to get officers to even say that they're going through something, and not just on the professional level.

Sometimes folks come in with something already happening at home, and then you know, you respond to a situation that you've never expected that you would respond to.

And we've had these huge events happening in our city, but there's still crimes happening every single day.

Last week we had a shooting in North Minneapolis, and I immediately checked in with my inspector to see what I can do to see how people were navigating through the traumatic scene of two young men being killed in the house with four other uh children in the home and a grandmother and a mom rushing to the scene.

And so it's not just about um, you know, I I understand that it's not about the officers' wellness only, but officers who are doing well treat our community better.

Officers who show up with having the resources that they need to get things in order for themselves, as someone who's been in several traumatic situations, I will say to you, an officer helped me, and an officer wasn't so nice to me in those traumatic situations.

And that's why I do this work, because I know it matters who shows up when you are your most vulnerable, when you need help.

When you doubt 911, it's almost always a state of panic that you've never ever experienced before.

And so I want our offices to be well.

I completely understand how this social worker position, and if you can, Chief, please go back and figure something else out.

I think that's a fair ask for you to go figure something else out.

But what I do know is we need our officers to be well.

And we need our um our uh non-sworn staff to be well too.

I I come I hope that there's an opportunity for them to participate in this as well.

Um but yeah, Chief, if you can go back and figure something out, that'd be great.

I I really do hope that this gets a unanimous vote at some point to show that we care about the future of our city, and well officers are a big part of that when we talk about uh this implementation, when we talk about um how people show up in community, especially in vulnerable.

Council member V underserved communities.

Thank you.

Councilmember Whiting.

Thank you, Chair Chowdery.

And I think it's helpful, maybe clear up some some clarification to it.

And this is it this is not a position, right?

That MPD just decided to make.

Right.

This has been a position that has been ongoing for two years.

Correct.

Chair, yes, council member.

Thank you.

Right.

And so this position isn't something that again that MPD is just like, hey, we're we're just gonna do this willy-nilly.

And thus, again, through that within the uh health and wellness plan, which then was approved through that process, not for compliance, uh, by leaf, by our monitors.

And so this is something that is again within those confines of the settlement agreement requirements broadly.

Chair, yes, council member.

Thank you.

And I think what is helpful to know, and I have a question probably for our city attorney as well.

Um hearing kind of uh comments from the dias that this needs to be mission critical, that we need to need this there, there's kind of is this gonna come back up?

I think there is a there's never been a another example um within the last two years of how mission critical this position is needed.

Right?

We've seen it after the aftermath of annunciation.

We've seen it over the last two to three months of an occupation um in our city.

Uh and I think this position again shows that direct need and that mission critical today.

Uh and so before I kind of ask the question of our city attorneys, I think what we are seeing, and I appreciate our comments uh of of alternatives in other areas.

Uh right, we just had a presentation that showed uh Baltimore, Vegas, uh and other cities that have these positions.

Uh right, and we are seeing fantastic leaps and bounds of of reduced crime um both from those positions.

I think what we are seeing is I will be somebody every single time that requires and demands uh a standard of excellence, both from our police department, um, but also those alternatives.

And I think this is something that again continues to push that forward that we are holding our our police department, those alternatives to policings to a standard of excellence in this city.

And so those are just kind of comments there of about half of my time left.

Uh question for our city attorneys.

I think it's maybe helpful for me as well to understand kind of what the city itself is and what we are are being asked to uh kind of move forward here based.

It looks like right adopting the findings of this position um and then kind of approving the salary schedules as well.

So just would like some clarification on that.

Thank you, uh Chair and Councilmember Whiting.

Yeah, the the city council is being asked to do two very specific things here.

The first is to create this position under the ordinance, which is uh MCO 2010 10.

And the question there is whether the position meets the five criteria that are in the ordinance.

Those were outlined in uh Ms.

Miller's presentation.

They primarily have to do with uh things like the level of discretion required for the position that the position reports to to management.

It it's really a functional analysis of does the position meet the criteria?

Um and then the second thing that the council is being asked to approve is to approve the salary schedule for the position in accordance with the compensation plan, and then there's documents um uh in limbs discussing that.

Um when it comes there, I know there's been some discussion about the financial piece.

Um the city council's budgeting authority is at the department level, so it's ultimately up to a department to find space within its approved budget if it's creating a position like this.

Um at the end of the day, the city council does not make the decision on where the funds come from within that approved budget if the department can find room within its budget.

Thank you.

And then just as we close up here, um right, it is my understanding from from our our comments today from our presenters uh that right, we have three social workers, embedded social workers, which I think are necessary and helpful for our city, and then multiple uh compliance officers within uh MPD IU as well.

Uh right, and we don't have a single wellness director.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Chavez.

Thank you, Chair Chowdery.

My question would be for someone at MPD, maybe Chief O'Hara, or maybe even the City Attorney's Office, wondering if the settlement agreement requires us to cut a social worker position to fund this.

Anybody?

Is there anyone that can come and answer the question for Councilmember Chavez?

I can answer that.

Um thank you, Chair and Councilmember uh no, that specifically is not in the settlement agreement.

Okay, thank you.

So one I support the position in itself.

I will just not be supporting the cutting of a social worker position that is really important to my community, that is really important to our communities across the city of Minneapolis.

So my question to Chief O'Hara is what is the plan to make sure that we can vote on this and make sure that we're not cutting critical services for our neighbors.

Chair, thank you, Councilmember.

I don't know what your procedure is, but uh happy to uh as as I said earlier, happy to you know offer other alternatives in whatever means uh the council prefers to do that.

And is it looking into or a commitment that there will be an alternative source that we will be happy with?

Chair, council member, we will come find an alternative source that uh hopefully will be mutually agreeable to everyone.

Okay, thank you.

Um I just to your question, because I think we need to figure out the process for that.

Right now, there is like a motion to refer back to staff, meaning we'll come back another committee meeting.

Then our next committee meeting is on March 24th, and then we have our council meeting tomorrow.

I think it might make sense to come back on March 24th with a a different proposal.

Can we do that?

Uh Chair, uh we're hopeful we can resolve this today or tomorrow.

Okay.

I think there might be a couple more follow-up questions I'm hearing from the vice chair.

We don't know the total cost.

It's this is also not my time, so I'm coming back into queue later.

And then I also know that councilmember Stevenson has the motion that's on the floor as well.

So I will get off cue and then if councilmember Chavez is done with his comments.

Just want to make sure I don't want to cut you off.

You still have time.

I will go to the next council member in queue.

Great.

Councilmember Warren.

Thank you, um, Madam Chair.

I just want to say that I am in full and total support, and I know that the constituents within my community and the city of Minneapolis of wellness and wellness as it relates to our public safety officers.

I think it's important for us to keep in mind that it that we should definitely be focused on taking a proactive approach to the wellness of our officers that are serving within our community instead of paying reactively on the back end when something happens, because that ends up costing our city a whole lot more money than if we take a proactive approach and make sure that individuals who are showing up to serve in our community and ensure the safety of our constituents are in their will and and best operating practice ability.

So keeping all of our social workers and making sure that we have one available at each and every precinct, and sometimes too, if it calls for it, whatever that needs to look like, um, in addition to the wellness um of the work that you're doing, because it's a lot.

Um I'm also you know heard um uh other council members on this body make reference to our violence interrupters and and working out in the field of doing you know alternative response work for almost two decades throughout the city of Minneapolis, know how important it is to have wellness wrapped around the work that you're doing in that with response to communities.

So, you know, it's a delicate dance for everybody, but it's most needed and most necessary because as you know, um outreach and intervention workers, we don't carry firearms, but our public safety officers do, and so I want you at your most optimum best practice in all the work that you were doing and ensuring the safety and security and well-being for for um our community members.

So I'm in full support of this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

I put myself in cue um for a question for the city attorney, just to clarify a comment that you made earlier um about our ability to make decisions on the budget source and make changes.

I feel like that was not in alignment with my understanding.

So could you clarify what comment you made?

Sure, thank you, Chair Chowdery.

I mean, the when the city council budgets, the budgeting is at the department level.

Um, and a department within its adopted budget is free to move money within that department budget.

So in finding so ultimately what the city council is being asked here to do today is to find whether the position meets those five criteria in the ordinance.

Um PD is saying where they intend to take the money from.

Um, but ultimately it's up to the department within its adopted budget to find that, and that's not something that the council is ultimately approving.

Okay.

But that does not mean that we wouldn't be able to have the item before us and then change the budget source as an amendment because it is an item that's before us.

So like I just want to be really clear.

Like source X, Council has the ability to swap it for source Y through amendment process.

I'm gonna actually go to my go to the budget chair.

Well, the council members are just one people.

There isn't a budget amendment in front of you now.

I mean that the council can amend a department's budget.

Okay.

Can I go to the budget chair?

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

Hopefully I can offer some clarification.

I mean I guess technically this is not a budget amendment, but it totally is.

Um it is it it's it's reducing a service to establish a new position.

Um Minneapolis Code of Ordinances, Section 2010 10, which is what is um, which is what Ms.

Miller always presents on when she brings forward these um appointed positions, outlines the process by which um the administration um creates new appointed positions, and the purpose of that is to make sure that appointed positions which have a higher degree of responsibility have um our are um go through a different process around hiring are not represented.

Um and and uh there are there are enormous privileges that come with um being an appointed official uh and then there's there's also high potential for for abuse within that process.

So just uh the that that process in section 2010 10 is there to make sure that there's always a um a very a lot of rigor put into the creation of new appointed positions.

Um certainly, yes, at a at a very technical level, we're adopting findings, but when new appointed positions are created, 2010-10 um outlines that the council must approve the creation of a new appointed position.

And so ultimately, like the real question before us is do we want to create a new appointed position?

The department is telling us how they want to pay for it, um, and we get to say yes or no to that.

By returning this item to staff, it allows staff to submit a new RCA, figure out the the discrepancy of of the cost of this FTE and how that has been calculated, um, which will give Ms.

Miller some time to go back and talk with finance uh and and figure out how what the true cost of this item is supposed to be, um, and then for staff to come back with a different proposal about how they want to fund this position, which might uh be more amenable to the council and might result in the council saying, yes, this is an appointed position, we're ready to approve at this time.

Um section 2010 10.

Um also, you know, because the authority to approve an appointed position rests with the council, um, the council can choose to say this is not a position we want to approve at this time because of uh the way in which you are proposing to pay for it.

I hope that's helpful.

That thank you.

That's clarifying.

Um if you thought you were gonna eat lunch at 12, you so aren't um we got several members still in queue.

So I um I feel like we're getting closer and closer on this item.

So this is the committee of the whole, all the committees end up here.

So we're doing committee meet committee work right now.

I I I'll just name I would love to get some clarification from members as we continue to proceed on this refer to staff or this waiting um till tomorrow to see what is proposed.

I also hear this question about um the total amount needed for this position.

And I'm at my time, so I will go to council member Palmasano.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Councilmember Chugtai.

Uh, appropriately explained some of the comments that I would have had.

Um health and wellness has been a consistent theme that I've pushed on the council since I got here, stemming from my own experience as a first responder.

In 2018, as a council member, um, we even got serious about mindfulness training.

Um that was predicated by a horrible incident in my ward.

Uh, but in 2020, all of that went away based on resource constraints, is my understanding.

Um there are unique stress factors in this environment in this kind of law enforcement work.

Um we've talked about that.

It's okay if the will of this body is to figure out a different funding mechanism, but I also need to point out that we're hearing about officer wellness in new ways, in inde stigmatized ways, in personal ways that staff has been calling out, and that's a really positive direction.

We as council members really need to foster and not hold back this kind of forward progress.

So I'd ask that we move forward with urgency on this matter.

I really ask us to not stall out here in pushing that forward progress in our police department, which they are demonstrating here.

So I'd ask if we could at least have a chance, a chance.

Not that this is gonna work out, but to move forward tomorrow.

It's an important position uh to me to have, so let's approve this position.

And if we're looking for a budget amendment, as pointed out by councilmember Chugtie, that's a different motion.

Um but could we at least wait until tomorrow to refer this back to staff, assuming that we can't get all of the things pointed out earlier accomplished.

Um yes, thank you.

Chair Chowdery also asked me the same thing.

Um and so yeah, I I'm not against this position.

I want this position.

I just don't want us to cut out a social worker that our community also desperately needs.

So yeah, tomorrow, please come with other funding sources and we can uh deal with it then.

Great.

That was me removing my motion.

Yes, so that motion is now off the table.

And then um councilmember Stevenson, you're in cue, but I assume that's why you were in Q.

That was why I was in Q.

Okay.

Great.

And then we will go to Councilmember Schaeffer.

Yeah, I just want to say it's really encouraging for me to hear all my colleagues um show support for this position.

And I hear that across the board, and that means a lot to me to hear that, and I think that means a lot to um the people who have presented us here today and to our uh officer community because we do want to prioritize those that are on the front lines um dealing in stressful situations, um, their own personal and mental health.

So thank you to my colleagues for this support, and thank you to Councilmember Stevenson for clarifying your motion.

And I will look forward to hearing these new um additions tomorrow and moving this forward.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Chavez.

Uh thank you, Chair Chowdery.

I'm glad that we're gonna be figuring this out.

I'd just like to make a motion to move it without recommendation just to make sure that we can all be in alignment as we head into Thursday.

Second great.

That has been motioned and seconded, and that took so many people off of queue.

Uh I think many people wanted to make that motion.

Um seeing no further discussion.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay.

That motion carries, and then we'll see everyone tomorrow at our full council meeting.

And now we will take up our next item.

Item number four, which is also our last item, is a presentation about the effects of Operation Metro Surge from our police department.

Uh welcome back, Chief Brian O'Hara and MPD leadership for this presentation.

Well, keep it up.

Um, our police presentation.

I said I was gonna be good today.

I was gonna be on my business behavior.

Here we go.

Yes, Mary, then it was Brian, who's who's inviting these people here.

Okay.

All right.

Good afternoon, Chair.

Um thank you for the opportunity to be here.

Um I've tried to get a lot of information in uh kind of an organized way.

Uh I appreciate the opportunity to speak about um what were about 12 weeks during this surge um to inform the council about the police department's preparations for this, the policy reform process that led into this community engagement, and really the the challenges that we faced during this.

Um I would say uh essentially uh I'm very pleased with the response of the police department during the last 12 weeks.

Um I will acknowledge that it was not perfect.

There are things that we could have done better, uh, and I will talk about that as well.

So kind of uh quick overview of what what I'll speak about is I'll briefly talk touch on the state of the department before the surge, then kind of go through an overview of the 12 weeks, a timeline, some significant events, and kind of try and go through chronologically the experiences, the operational issues that we faced, how we tried to learn from what was happening, tried to adjust, uh tried to engage community during this process, um, and and sort of a timeline of some key events, and then the op the impacts of the surge and kind of our next steps as a police department.

So before the surge, going into this, obviously the the department had started to make gains recruiting and trying to rebuild the ranks of the department.

We ended 2025 hiring 125 more people for sworn positions than what we lost.

So the overwhelming majority of those people are community service officers, about 75 of them.

Uh another two or three dozen or so are cadets and others in in various stages of their training, but no doubt uh a solid pipeline of people to try and rebuild the department.

There were also some significant uh declines in in major categories of crime, murder was down, the number of shootings was down again, auto theft, burglary, and some significant decreases in robbery as well.

In addition to just the the crime statistics and personnel, um we we were starting to make progress in responding faster to calls for service uh from from members of the community in the city uh without having uh uh any notable increase in staff.

So in the years prior to 2020, the police department typically responded to life-threatening emergencies in seven minutes or less that had gone to nearly m nine minutes in the years since right before the surge we had gotten it down to about seven and a half minutes uh without any significant increase in staff.

We'd also implemented some reforms in how the department was responding to domestic violence and starting to see uh greater impacts both in uh the number of arrests that were being made and decreasing the amount of uh response time.

So the the overall three prongs of of the year prior going into this, particularly when we talk about reform.

We're talking about uh community engagement and learning sessions that were happening, the policy directions, uh directives, a lot of the reform work that had been happening, and the departmental uh trainings.

A little bit deeper into that.

We had uh 29 policies that had been approved through uh the MDHR and a leaf process.

We implemented uh a policy uh resource hub, which is uh essentially an app uh that better manages uh both the dissemination of policy uh and it's also uh kind of better user-friendly.

Uh previously the policy manual is just simply uh uh a PDF document, a 700-page PDF document that was not uh easily accessible in the field.

The department last year completed over 20,000 hours of training that was delivered to members.

Uh and in terms of the settlement agreement, there were there were 24 focus groups, uh, 10 community sessions, and really countless uh perhaps hundreds of pages of uh feedback that was received that went through uh went into the policy reform process.

Now, as the surge was talking specifically about immigration issues, we also had revised policy around the MPD's internal policy on how we respond to immigration matters, and that's the written formal policy.

Um this had uh significant uh impact, uh significant input from community stakeholders, including the uh civilian commission for police oversight, the mayor's immigration task force, and just community members at large posted online, people were able to provide us feedback on what they wanted to see in the department's policy in regard to immigration enforcement.

An added uh what I think benefit uh of trying to do this process is also to try and help educate the public about what police can and cannot do around immigration enforcement.

Um I think uh because we went through this process, you know, in the six months, five or six months before December, I think we were in an even better position uh as an agency once the surge did occur.

So setting out the 12-week period from December 4th uh through the 24th, um, and and obviously this is the time that the surge happens in the city.

Overview of timeline here, beginning of December when the surge is announced.

Um the first significant incident um I would say happened around December 9th.

Uh there was an American citizen that was arrested in the Cedar Riverside uh neighborhood, and I would say that's probably the first uh significant incident um that kind of got a lot of attention.

By December 15th, there was an incident at uh 29th in Pillsbury.

Um really the way both calls came into 911 and the way the police department responded, that's the first uh changes that I began to make to how the department was uh was responding to this stuff.

So what happened on December 15th is there was a 911 call that eventually came to MECC and it was toned out citywide as a help call, and that means the there's a you know a beeping noise that comes on the pol on the police radio, and it really sends all of all available officers in the city uh to a specific location.

And what happened that day was the information that came into 911 uh later proved to not be accurate.

It was uh a report that several uh people were assaulting, actively assaulting uh uh federal agents, uh the officers wound up responding uh and it was a crowd control situation, but there were no active threats of violence that the officers received.

And the MPD wound up clearing the scene very quickly, uh I think in about nine minutes.

And um what I learned from this was we we were very quickly experiencing a dramatic increase in calls for service, and it was very, very heightened tensions in the community.

And so what I wanted to happen was as the calls came in, I wanted to have a designated supervisor to be responsible for fielding these calls to try and get as much information as possible.

And if there was an event where legitimately there was a large-scale violence or a situation where a federal officer needed to be rescued, um, that we would instead of just randomly sending police to the scene, we would have a supervisor in charge that would be able to get independent information, whether it's live stream, cameras, uh drone footage, that sort of thing, and designate a supervisor to be in charge and to assemble police officers to go in with a plan so that they could go in safely and get out safely as quickly as possible.

And so after this incident, that's when we started to have a designated supervisor on duty around the clock that would be responsible for fielding all of these events.

By January 5th, that's when the announcement comes that there's an additional 2,000 more agents.

It's believed that there were well over 3,000 agents in the city at that time.

And to put that in perspective for all of you, um, there's there's about 10,000 licensed peace officers for the entire state of Minnesota.

So we were talking about over 3,000 federal agents here just for this surge.

It tells you the volume and just really how overwhelming a lot of these actions could be.

As that was announced, I ordered every sworn member of the department to be in uniform.

So that included our investigators, people that are typically not in uniform because of their duty assignment.

I wanted everyone to be in uniform in case of an emergency so that they'd have to deploy out on the street.

And then literally the next day, that's when Miss Good is killed.

And so that becomes the first time that we really have to mobilize the entire department.

Everyone was already in uniform.

We began calling in for mutual aid, and I can get into some of that a little bit more ahead.

The following week, obviously, we have a non-fatal shooting on the north side.

The vice president visits downtown during a lot of this.

And then obviously January 24th, Alex Predi is killed.

Until finally, then a few days after that, the border patrol commander is reassigned, and eventually we start to experience the drawdown.

I think we've all lived through this, and it's just been so much.

Putting it into perspective, December is when we're dealing with a lot of harassment around some of the Somali businesses and some of the ethnic businesses.

This is the 29th in Pillsbury.

This is the incident I mentioned where the officers responded to the help call.

This ultimately led to me assigning a full-time lieutenant to screen these calls and developed a sound tactical plan, assemble officers if we need to go in on a report of uh large-scale violence, that kind of thing.

This lieutenant was staffed in the new uh first precinct.

They were supported by civilian personnel, community service officers who helped uh you know monitor social media and live feeds, also the the uh city's cameras to help try and get real-time information uh around what was actually happening in the city.

And obviously, Renee Good is killed on the 7th.

The day before the department, uh, everyone's ordered to be in uniform, everyone has all their equipment.

The department uh rapidly responds to the scene, and this is the first time we activate our incident management team.

Um we recalled people to duty that were off duty, and that's something that we wind up doing multiple times for the duration uh of this operation.

It's also the first day that the department largely transitions from doing conventional policing in the city to really being in a state, constant state of being prepared to do public order policing.

So we're you know, we're pulling officers out of their usual assignments, we're pulling officers out of neighborhoods, pulling officers away from investigations uh in order to uh assign them to secondary functions and really be in this uh kind of heightened state to be prepared for public order policing in the city.

All sworn members of the department are recalled.

Uh we communicated and asked for you know mutual aid from state, county, and local officials.

Um and I have to say that this this continued, um, it's it seemed, as everybody knows, it continued and continued seemingly to escalate without end uh for quite some time.

I have to say, though, this scene in particular, this is the first time.

There's many times since then.

Um I cannot thank enough the council members that are here.

Um all the council members uh starting on this day.

We all know um just how angry and frustrated people were.

The council members were out there themselves on the line trying to help us de-escalate things.

Um not just this time, but several times after going forward, and then later being joined by members of the community who helped us through this.

So we all know how tense and how real and how much the potential was this day and going forward, and I'm just I'm very grateful to our residents and to the council members, state officials, uh, state representatives and and state senators that were there with us through this trying to de-escalate things.

So we begin in this sort of public order footing Operation Trust and Safety.

We're obviously very concerned to be able to respond quickly in the event of any significant unrest uh and destruction in the city.

Also, what's happening at this time is we began planning uh to to support uh the vigil site that is there, and we also start having the first of uh of hotel protests that are happening.

So during this time, all days offer canceled, everyone's been reordered, uh ordered back to duty.

Um we're on this sustained deployment period and just trying to uh trying to develop uh some sense of um predictable procedures for our officers as we were going through just a very unpredictable uh event that was continuing to unfold.

What was also destabilizing for us, as I'm sure for the larger community, is that we while we were doing this, and while you know there was all this emotion and frustration over what happened, we were still seeing immigration enforcement happening in ways that were disturbing to the community on the street.

Um during this time we came up with a plan for the vigil site.

Uh we wound up uh signing a camera there, having some dialogue officers, there's members of the community, both regular residents, community organizations that helped us that came to the scene, tried to de-escalate again, tried to just be present with folks who were upset, trying to have a conversation, bring some of the officers into the conversation, and it was just uh I think it was just critical uh to kind of lowering the temperature and helping us be there to preserve the peace.

The following week now uh there's a non-fatal shooting on the north side, and this kind of gets everybody obviously by surprise.

This is not an event that uh that was foreseeable.

Um so there were there were significant staffing challenges getting people to the scene, not just for us, but for the outside agencies as well.

Um the MPD uh secured the scene, which wound up proving essential for having accountability in this case.

Uh it's camera footage that was recovered by the MPD that I believe uh wound up making a significant difference in this case.

Um this event started with a vehicle pursuit that wound up going through uh North Minneapolis and resulted in a shooting off of Lindale Avenue.

The scene became uh very hostile at times.

There were federal uh officers, federal agents present that were deploying uh chemicals, chemical agents repeatedly in a manner that we would not.

Um I think wound up just adding to uh sort of the increasing of tensions that that were there at the scene.

Um, there were fireworks that were being thrown at police, ice, all kinds of things.

Uh we had reports of people needing help at this.

There was a six-year-old child that officers had to get to because the federal agents uh had deployed tear gas, and there was a child that was in respiratory distress.

There was at least one or two other calls for help that wound up being unfounded, but the officers tried to uh locate people that may be in help in need of help.

Um and it was definitely a different scene from the week before.

Um it became uh a scene where the police department, the first time since I've been here, uh the police department deployed chemical munitions themselves.

Um and we deployed chemical munitions for the purpose of safely evacuating the officers at the end.

There had been chemicals used for hours during this event, um, and it was increasingly tense before that.

Uh but once our officers needed to leave, it had become so unsafe that they did that as a way of trying to evacuate our officers without anyone else getting injured.

Um that was informed by in part not just how volatile this scene was, it was also informed by the experience that we had the week before.

The week before the crowd was different, and it was largely uh largely peaceful.

But as the officers were leaving uh that scene, I'd say the last 10 to 15 minutes of it, um, things did deteriorate, and there were a number of police officers uh and at least one state trooper that was injured as the officers were leaving.

So to get our officers off of this scene safely and to prevent you know the use of any batons or physical force or that kind of thing, I made the decision to authorize gas to be deployed on that night.

There were a number of demonstrations, obviously, that occurred.

There were a lot of uh planning, a lot of engagement that went into this with the community, a lot of help from outside agencies.

The state patrol, the National Guard were actually staged on the on the interstate highway if they were needed.

And I think it's important just to mention in the context of these 12 weeks.

So that's whether people are reporting that there's you know somebody standing in the street or somebody's making noise or something.

There were 518 calls related to that.

Um but of those, I believe there was 97 marches or protests that we tracked that were specifically related to Operation Metro Surge.

And again, related to this, um, you know, ultimately the march never went to Cedar Riverside.

There were a lot of community-based organizations that were working with us.

Our inspector, our deputy chief, was present in uh Cedar Riverside with a lot of the elders.

Um met with community members beforehand, and this largely uh this largely uh went off peacefully.

Then uh the third shooting and second fatality.

Um this was a Saturday morning.

Again, this was unplanned, and so um it was certainly a challenge uh staffing-wise.

I would say that this day is the closest that we came to having uh large-scale destruction in the city.

Um there were during the course of this, there were two small fires that started uh at the scene during the day.

Um the fire department actually had to evacuate their station because there was just there was just too many people in the street, they were responding from an alternate site, uh, and we were getting um a lot of calls, especially in the evening, from people who had been out there for weeks, all these demonstrations and stuff, saying that they were they were worried that the vibe was just kind of different.

Um, and just with the toying with the fire to fire uh chief, um Chief Rucker, you know, we were both really concerned that we could get into a situation where despite the tens of thousands of people that were here peacefully, and and just really dozens and dozens of people that were helping the police de-escalate things at these scenes, literally intervening so that the cop didn't have to to correct people that were out there.

That was happening repeatedly from random members of the community.

Despite all that, we were concerned that a bad actor could start a fire and we just we wouldn't be able to get the fire department in there quick enough, or somebody could lose store on on Nicolett Avenue on each street, and we wouldn't be able to get down there fast enough.

So that was that was the worry.

Um and so that night uh with with the fire chief, we made a joint recommendation to uh to cut off vehicular traffic into the area to allow people to gather for a vigil, but to try and decrease the likelihood of outside people coming in with flammable materials with accelerants, that kind of thing, um, that could cause large-scale destruction uh to the community.

And so uh we think that was helpful.

Uh, and we're just we're thankful for everyone that was with us through this and and all of our residents and everyone who made sure that people were not allowed to cause destruction to the city.

This is the most significant day, I guess you could say, in terms of uh, you know, demand for mutual aid, that kind of thing.

It was about a 24-hour period that uh Minneapolis police were not responding.

For the most part, we were not responding to calls for service in the city, and it was primarily being handled by the St.

Paul police uh took a lot of it, the university police, um, and a number of uh surrounding suburban jurisdictions, as so many of the officers uh were redeployed on on uh these other public order type uh type details.

But ultimately uh we were very quickly uh able to reopen the zone.

The zone uh that night collapsed in as crowds left.

Public works was able to work to clear the streets, clear the roadways, and really by the next day have a safe, respectful place that could develop as as a vigil site, and thankfully without you know people inflicting further damage on the community.

There's obviously there's about 12 hotel press protests that happened during this thing.

They targeted five hotels in the city.

There's a number of hotels outside of the city that were targeted.

Um, the ones in the city.

This one on the 25th.

Um I mentioned there's some things that we you know we could have done better.

This is one we could have done better.

Um this is an event that was another event that was unplanned.

Um we had the vast majority of the department working 18 straight 18 days straight for extended tours without a break.

Um we just we just were not able to get officers there uh fast enough.

Um we assembled our, we recalled our uh standby folks or strike teams that would deal with this type of thing, the booking elements that you know can make uh make arrests.

They came in quickly, uh, but by the time they got to the scene, when we arrived at this hotel, there were federal agents coming out of the hotel with rifles pointed in the same direction where our officers were approaching, so they disengaged.

Um it wound up being federal law enforcement dealing with the crowd, and then we came back in later uh with public works to clear things up.

Um it's important also to just to notice uh to note the date.

I mean, this was this was Sunday the 25th.

Um we had a number of people that came in uh that typically do this work that came in at three in the morning that day because they were working in that zone around the vigil site to help public works to clear things out.

Um it just it highlights just with all of this.

We're not built to sustain these large scale public order policing you know operations for weeks unending.

Um we did work with the hotels prior to all this.

There's about 40 hotels in the city that were connected with a single lieutenant that we were sharing information with so that they could prepare on their own, as this quickly became a thing in early January.

But again, this was one uh this was one that wasn't on anybody's radar.

And the other challenge dealing with all of this is there were still things happening in the suburbs.

Um stuff with hotels, other things happening in the suburbs.

The state patrol was needed elsewhere, sheriff's office was needed elsewhere, suburban towns had their own needs.

It was very difficult to get uh mutual aid, sufficient mutual aid, which was again another reason why uh I I had been pushing uh to have the National Guard available quickly.

We didn't need them that night.

They were the only time they were deployed was on the 24th after Alex Pready was killed, just to help us secure uh the neighborhood around that vigil site.

There's one other protest after that.

Uh I mean there were multiple protests at the graduate hotel.

That's the jurisdiction of the university police.

Uh we had been standing by, I think the majority of the other times uh and would only go in if they called us.

This night, uh this night uh we were uh pre-planned to be there with them, uh, as well as the state patrol, the DNR, and the sheriff's office.

Uh this is one of the nights there were uh mass arrests, and I believe there were there were 67 arrests that were made, majority of them I think just cited and released.

Um demonstrations in general in January.

Um the largest demonstrations, Powderhorn Park, January 10th, tens of thousands of people, we think.

Downtown on the 23rd, tens of thousands of people.

On the 30th, tens of thousands of people.

There were zero arrests on the 23rd and on the 30th.

There was one arrest on January 10th, uh and that's after the main element of the protest had finished.

There was one person that was following a group that kind of splintered off that uh we became aware was uh vandalizing buildings along Lake Street, and we're able to follow them on camera and uh and arrest the person.

But at these protests and marches, overwhelmingly, no uh no uh notable incidents.

There was a lot of coordination beforehand with these larger events between the event organizers, uh some members of the police department to try and support them safely.

Uh and they were just really well organized and really very safe against.

There's a number of times that uh barricades were cleared uh throughout the city.

We still get calls on this.

I think there were calls over the weekend.

I don't think any of the any anything was uh uh I think they were unfounded the calls over the weekend.

But starting uh on the 7th, when there were barricades around the neighborhood uh at the first vigil site, ultimately we worked with public works to open the roadway to ensure public safety, ensure the fire department had access.

Um and and there were calls that were coming in during this time.

There were there was a baby not breathing call uh on the Portland Avenue corridor as well.

Um so I think this largely worked out well.

Um there have been committee members that were making complaints.

I think for the most part, um, we're able to respond in a coordinated way with other city departments, and again, get through this, not just these, but get through all of these incidents with a really really minimal uh use of force by the Minneapolis police department.

So the aftermath um as of the 15th, um it was obviously 12 weeks a very high stress situation.

It could have been a lot worse for all of us and our community.

Um I just uh I I can't I can't emphasize enough how many random uh residents uh that did their part, not just the everybody talks about the peaceful protesting stuff, they did their part to try and help us de-escalate things when people were trying to uh you know create a scene, you know, get people to uh you know do things, step out of line.

There were there were many, many times that residents of the city uh moved to de-escalate and to help us keep the peace, and and we're thankful for that.

During this time, there's about 50,000 calls in the CAD, the computer-aided dispatch system.

It's difficult to tell uh what you know, everything, the world of everything that was related to this because there's all different types of calls that came in that were related to this in some way.

So talking with the 911 director, I think we're we're estimating it's about 10% increase.

It's about 6,000 uh more calls than usual uh during during the January time period.

Um over 1,000 days off that were canceled for uh sworn members of the police department.

500 shift extensions.

Um we mentioned the PTSD cases earlier.

Uh nine officers were injured.

Uh a majority of them were injured uh during the uh while leaving the first scene on Portland Avenue.

Um one officer had you know, something broke the window of the vehicle that he was in, got some glass in his eye, another one got a concussion from being hit by some ice.

Uh and the officers um the officers were out there and rightfully so, the way I am dressed uh that day.

Um, they they were not out there and you know, with helmets on and riot gear.

Um the crowd was safe, so we ensured that they matched what the crowd was doing.

They took that equipment off and it was fine for the majority of the day.

Uh but we learned from that when we were trying to leave.

Uh, after federal agents had left, we held the scene so that the BCA, the FBI could process the scene, they could get the evidence that was required.

Uh it was in the process of leaving the scene that things kind of deteriorated from a handful of people.

Um so we learned for that, and uh we'll we'll continue to try and learn and and make adjustments as best we can.

There's been about well, at least 5.2 million dollars that was spent additionally on police services.

The overwhelming majority of that is overtime, but there's also the change, there's other contractual obligations that uh the city has.

So there were shift extensions, change of tour, there's some expense with all of that.

Um we have to put large groups of people on standby to come back in at night in case there's something at the hotels, there's standby pay that they get.

So the overwhelming majority of that is overtime, but there's other costs that are included with that as well.

Um we worked very deeply uh with all of the law enforcement community.

We had a range of agencies from the county attorney's office was in the command post with us several times from to the suburban departments, the state agencies, um, and really everyone kind of worked seamlessly together, and just a number of community organizations and residents that stepped up and answered the call when we needed help uh you know, trying to trying to have dialogue and and um and de-escalate things.

The uh two of our lieutenants, uh Lieutenant O'Rourke uh managed the site on Portland Avenue, and Lieutenant Dubuque at the 26th and Nicholet Avenue.

And I think they did a great job coming up with engagement and safety plans, involving the community, trying to get dialogue officers out there, trying to ensure really throughout all of this, in everything that we're doing that we're not showing up in a way that kind of adds to the stress or or unnecessarily escalate things.

And they did a lot of work with community uh to help us do that, and they did a great job.

Uh, we maintained security at the sites initially 24-7.

We put video on it and then made adjustments based on the operational need as you know, things were happening, as the crowds decreased, that kind of thing.

We coordinated the uh delivery and and removal of uh debris that was at the sites, uh coordinated some compost bins and to help clean up the bus shelter on Nicolet Avenue where a lot of uh flowers had been left uh that then uh needed to be retrieved after they had died.

Um worked with chaplains, faith-based organizations, community violence interrupters, really a large range of community partners to try and help assist at these sites.

Uh our crime prevention specialists were out there to help answer questions, and a number of city departments uh were helping as well.

This is a mix of reports, police reports that are notable.

It's not an exhaustive list, and some of the calls that are notable and obviously not exhausted.

So we have uh the two fatal shootings and the one not all fatal shooting.

Those are reported by us.

All three instances, I immediately requested the BCA to respond, uh, which they did, uh, and and you know, they have uh they have that investigation uh on their hands.

That's not uh that's not an MPD investigation in any of those cases.

In terms of the non-fatal shooting uh we provided that night, we provided some video uh that I believe uh makes a dramatic difference uh in that case.

There were a number of abandoned vehicles, there's three instances that the shooting on the north side after we left the scene and got the officers out.

We were observing it in surveillance video.

We realized that three specific vehicles were being targeted by the crowd that was there, uh, and realized that uh federal law enforcement had left three cars there.

So we had to reassemble teams with a couple of s of uh flatbed tow trucks to get in there, recover the vehicles, and ultimately uh try and account for what was inside.

Ultimately, there were some, I believe there's some firearms that were stolen uh that have since been recovered, as well as some uh some other materials.

There's two police reports that we have, investigations that we have, excuse me, that would constitute misdemeanor assaults if they're proven to be crimes.

Um the status of those is it's it's gone through the normal process.

Um the issue is we don't know the identity of uh the individual agent.

Uh so the status of those is we've been in communication with the office of the inspector general uh for the Department of Homeland Security.

We believe one person is uh federal agent with uh ICE, the other one with the customs and border protection.

Uh we have provided them video evidence, the inspector general uh that we have of that and have requested uh the identity of uh of the agents involved.

Um so waiting to hear back uh if we get further information from them.

If not, we'll seek uh legal counsel from the city attorney where further we could go from there.

Uh seven calls specifically related to uh chemical canisters that were left.

Uh, and then there were 12 accidents that happened in the city that involved uh federal law enforcement in some way.

Uh you know, one case on the north side a couple weeks ago, I think at Penn and Penn and Broadway, they were chasing somebody, and one of the vehicles they were chasing hit somebody else.

So that's one of the things that's in there.

Other cases, there's at least one where they crashed and abandoned the vehicle that they were using.

So it tried to give some sense of the reports that are out there, the calls that are out there, but it's it's it is kind of all over the place.

And looking forward.

Um I mentioned we had this full-time lieutenant's position that was developed after the December 15th incident.

I intend to keep that position staffed, and what I'd like to do now is use that person to help manage response times citywide as calls for service spike up in different parts of the city, ensure that we're doing everything we can uh to get our response times back down to where they should be.

Continue to evolve with our policy development, engaging stakeholders, and really trying to build on some gains that I think have been made with community partners during this incident.

So looking ahead, I mean, um it's not true.

You know, you might see out there that just crime went down during this thing.

That's not true.

Uh some crime did, other crime went up.

And the problem is when you pull investigators and you pull cops out of the neighborhoods because you have to do all this public order policing, we have a lot of work we have to get back to uh now that people are back to it.

There was a significant increase in uh auto theft and some damage to property uh work that we are working on now.

Um we're working on uh getting back to where we were with response times.

I think the last last week we were back down to about seven minutes and forty seconds on average responding to emergency calls in the city.

Um and I want to make sure we're doing everything we can to get to our residents as quickly as we can when they need help.

And uh, you know, it we mentioned with an extensive discussion on the wellness stuff before, as I mentioned earlier, you know, kind of going into this, there were a couple of incidents, serious mental health incidents involving uh employees, and then this thing happens, you know, and during during January, very quickly get a dozen people filing for PTSD, and that was very concerning for me.

Um it's important to mention I I know the whole community hasn't processed uh you know and dealt with trauma from 2020, then this thing happens again, and that this you know this surge happens.

Um, I know it's difficult for everyone in the community.

It also has taken a lot of the officers back to where they were and some of the feelings they had in 2020.

So I was just uh very concerned that we try and be as proactive as we can to make sure not only that they're well and capable of showing up the way the community expects them to, but I don't want people to leave.

Um we cannot have a mass exodus like we had uh after 2020, and that was kind of the biggest fear I had through this whole thing that seemed like it was never gonna end, was that we would have something terrible happen, we would have significant civil unrest, and then we'd have this dramatic increase in crime again and and people leaving the police department.

Uh and just thankfully um most of that did not happen.

Um the other the other issue obviously is uh financial um it was an extreme hit uh on the budget uh for the police department, the overtime budget.

I've sent uh weekly memos uh uh on this, uh just the the enormous expense it's been to cancel days off to hold everybody over to do all these emergency recalls um is just something that uh we have to figure out going forward.

So happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Chief.

First on queue, we have Councilmember Chavez.

Thank you, Chair Chattery, and thank you, Chief, for being here.

On December 15th, uh 29th in Pillsbury, I saw MPD help the facilitation of a kidnapping of two of our neighbors by ICE when they did crowd control.

Do you have an update on this case and did it lead to any discipline?

Chair, councilmember, um there's uh there's several police reports that were written that day.

There's uh video uh from the officers that responded that day.

Um to my knowledge, there's been no complaints specifically about the behavior of any police officer from MPD that day.

Um that's the incident I spoke about earlier.

Um my concern was that we were just immediately sending cops to the scene.

The call came into 911, and immediately that the there's a long steady tone that comes on the police radio, and they said officers need help at 29th in Pillsbury.

So randomly, people from all over the city, cops from all over the city wound up going there without any understanding of what they were getting into.

Uh and from the time they arrived uh to the time they left the scene was a total of of nine minutes.

Um the officers uh from what I have seen, the officers didn't have any interaction uh with anyone that was being arrested uh or any of the other uh incidents that happened there that have been uh reported in media.

So uh thank you, Chief.

So you're saying that there was no complaints about this case whatsoever.

Chair, council member.

Uh to my knowledge, no.

What I remember that day was uh a lot of inquiries about why was MPD there in the first place.

Um and to me, uh I had the same thing.

Why did we just directly respond to the scene?

Which is why we implemented uh procedural change immediately after that, created that designated lieutenant to field these calls uh before they go out.

They're not like if the state patrol calls us and says there's a trooper that needs help on 35.

It's just not the same thing.

Um so the police were being sent blindly into those situations without any awareness of what was happening, and that's why I wanted to change it because it's both uh it's not it's not good for anybody.

These types of things were so volatile, large crowds of people.

We need to we needed to better know what was actually happening, determine whether or not we needed to respond.

Uh and then if it was the case where we would need to respond, we need to have a plan with a supervisor to to go in before that happens, and that's why those changes were made afterwards.

Okay.

So I just want to clarify there is no complaint.

There is no discipline.

Mayor Fry didn't reach out to you when I texted him about my concerns this day.

I was there, so I saw MPD literally escort ICE and escort the deportation or the kidnapping of two our immigrant neighbors.

So I literally was there, and I'm just concerned that there's no discipline, no action taken, maybe some changes made.

So there's no complaint.

I'm confused.

Chair, council member, to my knowledge, there's no complaint.

I don't know if there's a complaint in intake, maybe I reported this to the mayor, and I'm just wondering if the police department do anything to address these concerns.

Has there been discipline?

Chair, council member, there's been no discipline.

Um what I remember, there were a number of calls that I got, and the people things people were asking me was the same thing I wanted to know was why were we there?

Uh and then just making sure that all our officers acted in accordance with uh the policy at the time.

We can review the whole incident, it's easy.

Um there's extensive police reports, this reports from the officers who responded, what they saw, what they did, and there's body worn camera video.

We we can review all of that.

Okay.

I would love for the department to review what happened that day because it definitely was something that should never happen ever again in the city.

It just should not be a part of law enforcement to assist ICE in that way.

Um the other question I have is in early December chief, you were quoted as saying if unlawful force is being used by any law enforcement officer against any person in the city, and one of our officers is there, absolutely I expect them to intervene or they'll be fired.

Based on today's presentation, it appears as though no MPD officer has intervened in the countless documented examples by our constituents of unlawful force being used by law enforcement people in the city by law enforcement in this instance.

I'm talking about ICE federal officials, am I understanding this correctly?

Chair, Councilmember, uh the duty to intervene is established by law in Minnesota.

The only loophole is the law only applies to people who are licensed as peace officers in the state.

Um I've very clearly communicated my expectations to the officers here that I expect them to intervene, whether it's a sheriff's deputy, uh uh state patrol, a Minneapolis cop or somebody else.

The reality with that is the officer has to have an opportunity to intervene.

If we're not sending officers out there in the first place, you know, you would need an officer to be present to observe some egregious ongoing uh use of force.

It's talking about use of force specifically to do to intervene, like uh like the Rodney King incident, like uh George Floyd, what happened to George Floyd?

The officer would need to be present to observe it and have uh an opportunity to physically intervene.

That expectation was communicated very clearly.

And at the same time, uh I realized that we were not present the overwhelming majority of the times that things happened.

And that's specifically because they were following the policy that had been developed in the months previous to this.

Um that expectation was real, and I know um the officers were quite aware of it as well, because I would have expected myself or any officer who did intervene in an egregious use of force situation, despite it being the correct and moral thing to do, I would expect us to be in handcuffs by the end of it.

But it didn't mean that we were not prepared and willing to do that.

Okay.

So Chief, is it your position that in the three months since you made those comments publicly, MPD did not witness a single solitary instance of unlawful use by federal law enforcement officers against anybody in Minneapolis?

Uh Chair, Councilmember, it's my position that there is no incident where it would have been possible for an officer to intervene based on uh the duty intervene statute, what that means.

Um but if there's any specific incidents, you know, the good thing is we can we can look through that.

We have video, uh, we have reports, uh, we know when and where our officers were.

So if there's any incidents specifically, we're we're happy to review that.

Uh just really quick.

Um so I was in discussion with the clerks before the the discussion started.

As chair, it doesn't feel right for how robust of a conversation this is, and the fact that we move this to another day to put time limits on council members and also limits on the number of times that you can get in.

So use speaker management until you're locked out of it, and then move to your tags.

We do have to get out of this space by 2 p.m.

because that's when we lose captioning.

So you may continue and you may continue.

Thank you.

I just have I just want to ask again, Chief, and then I have a few comments, and I'll be done.

I just wanted to make sure I got clarification.

So is it your opinion, at least from what you experienced and what you've heard the Minneapolis police department, that there have been no instances where an officer has seen federal law enforcement violate the law, I guess is my question.

Uh Chair, Councilmember, no.

That's not what I'm saying.

That's thank you.

Uh I guess what I'll just I just wanted to answer that question.

Uh and I'll finish it because it looks like we're running out of time.

In conclusion, I just want to wrap things up by saying that what we heard in this presentation today is not fully aligning with what our constituents have faced on the ground in particular.

We have videos, we have photos, we have personal experiences of what the abuses of federal law enforcement has done to our constituents here in Minneapolis.

We know that our neighbors in particular have been directly impacted.

They have witnessed multiple times the cruelty and disregard of public safety by ICE and federal law enforcement in this city.

This is an occupying force that has literally disregarded the law of our constituents.

We know that constitutional observers have had their vehicles destroyed, even murdered by law enforcement officers at the federal level.

We know that peaceful protesters were repeatedly gassed and beaten simply for exercising their First Amendment rights, and our neighbors have been kidnapped based solely on the perception of their race, the skin color, and who they are.

And speaking for myself in particularly, I was present for many of these unlawful activities by federal law enforcement, and I feel speaking, I feel comfortable speaking on behalf of many of my constituents, folks that are represent folks across the city, uh, and saying that we are disappointed that the Minneapolis Police Department hasn't done what it should be doing to protect our neighbors.

You know, I think it is important that we are documenting the legal actions by ICE and federal law enforcement officers, and we should be doing everything we can as a city agency, as a city department, as the Minneapolis Department to hold federal law enforcement accountable.

Um so I just wanted to at least mention that.

I hope that one you mentioned those comments in December about what the Minneapolis Police Department should be doing should we see the legal actions of ICE.

I was very excited because I felt hope that as a department we were gonna be taking these actions and holding ICE accountable, and I feel like that hasn't been met.

So at least I'll finish it there.

That was just a comment I wanted to make.

May I respond, Chair?

Yes, go ahead.

And Councilmember Chavez, just so you're aware, like we took off the speaker limits so we can use the full breadth of the hour, so council members can ask their questions.

Like obviously there's a lot to discuss in this matter.

Go ahead, Chief.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh Councilmember, the the duty to intervene is specifically what I'm speaking about.

Uh, is very well established in Minnesota about what that is.

Um an officer has to have an opportunity to intervene in what appears to be a very egregious and ongoing and an unlawful use of force.

That's what the duty to intervene is talking about.

We've got a very complicated situation with uh the manner in which federal law enforcement uh conducted a lot of this stuff.

There's no question about that.

If there are specific incidents, of course we can file reports, we can conduct investigations, we can do the best we can to try and help report things to the appropriate entity, try and identify some of the folks who have been involved.

But even take away the fact that it's federal law enforcement.

Um you're dealing with law enforcement officers that are taking action in the performance of their duty, um, it is very complicated and difficult situation to try and prove that a crime occurred.

Um and then when you add in the fact that this is a law enforcement agency operating on a under a totally separate set of laws that has different case law about what they're permitted to do, different policies and things, um, and isn't necessarily cooperating with us, telling us you know who who some of these folks are.

Um it is a very complicated and difficult situation.

So that's just to level set trying to go after someone criminally for something that they did.

What happens typically in law enforcement when someone has an interaction with the police that they think you know may have been forced that was appropriate, somebody got shoved or spoken to a certain kind of way or whatever.

What typically happens is there's an investigative agency that can go through that and is generally resolved by an administrative action against the employee, the law enforcement officer, because it's a much lower burden of proof to try and prove that there was an excessive force or an inappropriate use of force administratively under that agency's rules, trainings, and procedures, then it is to try and prove that a crime occurred under state law.

Um and that's not an excuse, that's just stating the reality of the way things are.

If you could find an incident where you could get a federal agent or law enforcement officer that did something off duty, it's a whole different story to try and prove that a crime occurred.

It's a whole lot less complicated.

But it's important for people to know if people do have things that they want to report, uh, that we will take the reports, they should reach out, uh, and we'll do whatever we can to try and work towards uh you know referring it to the appropriate uh entity, investigative entity, and trying to get uh some level of of identification.

But the the duty to intervene thing is specific to what it means under state law and what it is well known to function uh as in law enforcement.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Chugtai.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um I have several questions for you, sir.

Um let's start with the weekly memos that you've apparently been writing about the overtime situation or um where do these go?

Can I can we can we see them?

Chair, vice chair, um I believe the council president is copied.

I think council president is copied.

It goes to the commissioner um and to the mayor.

Huh.

Okay.

Council president, will you double check and if so, will you please send them to all council members?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That would be very helpful.

Um I actually want to shift gears for a little bit and then we'll come back to um some really specific incidents that I have some follow-up questions about.

But um yesterday uh the Hennepin County attorney was in our chambers and and presented on the uh her office's response to um Operation Metro Surge and a few themes emerged from there that um uh I have some follow-up questions for you about, uh starting with whether there are uh any cases or if you can just tell me uh how many cases of illegal activity by federal agents that MPD has uh submitted for uh charging decisions to the city attorney's office or to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office?

Chair, Vice Chair, so there's uh there's none that would go to the county attorney.

Uh there's at least two misdemeanor assaults that if they were established as assaults and we could provide the identity of the person, it would go to the city attorney.

Um but again, if there's others that are out there um we would we would take the reports and assign them, uh, but it likely would would have the same challenges.

Okay.

So okay.

Um the the county attorney spoke pretty extensively about their office's um transparency and accountability project.

I'm wondering um, you know, and then she spoke about uh uh trying to engage with the city on this.

Um but I I just want to hear directly from you.

Um are you working with uh the county attorney's office on the transparency and accountability project right now?

Um and if not, are you willing to commit to working with her office on this project?

Chair, vice chair.

I learned about this uh on Monday um through the commissioner.

Um I have a plan and we would very much like to be a full partner uh for any cases that occurred in Minneapolis.

Um but I have to meet with the commissioner first uh before we move forward.

Okay.

Well, um so you'll be meeting with the commissioner, and then perhaps we'll know more about what comes from that.

Chair, vice chair, um, I I believe we should be uh if there's any cases that are potentially uh criminal misconduct uh that uh could rise to the level of involving the county attorney, which is you know, felony level misconduct, we should be taking reports for that.

We should be assigning an investigator, we should be working fully uh through those issues.

Um mentioned before, and I know the the county attorney is very well versed on the issues that she would have to deal with, you know, uh with what court it lands in and all that stuff.

The issues we have to deal with on the front end, what I'm concerned about is being able to establish that a crime occurred and being able to try and identify the person.

Um and our, you know, our investigators have a very good relationship with the prosecutors in that office that are doing that.

Um and we would very much like to be a full partner in that effort.

Yeah, this this actually leads me to just two follow-ups.

Uh the first is is related to the police report slide in which you talk about the two fatal shootings which are not investigated by the police department.

They are by the that that's where you called the BCA in, but the non-fatal shootings, the abandoned vehicles, misdemeanor assaults, um, chemical sprays, vehicle collisions, um are all of these um incidents that are being investigated by the police department currently.

And um is are have you do you plan to submit any of these for uh charging decisions to either the city attorney's office or the count uh or the county attorney's office?

Uh Chair, Vice Chair, I think of everything that we have, um I think there's two potential misdemeanor assaults in in the world of everything that we have that could be submitted.

Um but again, it's getting over the initial uh difficulty of when you have someone working for a law enforcement agency acting in the performance of their duties, proving that that action was a crime, number one, and then number two trying to identify the person.

So in those cases, we'll work with the city attorney if we don't uh if we're not able to uh we get to a point where we cannot move forward.

Um but yes, we would very much like to be able to work with the county um on whatever information they have about other cases.

Yeah, so I I just saw that a couple days ago the there are two incidents that the county attorney highlighted um uh when when the transparency and accountability project was announced.

Um the first one was the the gassing of of children and educators at Roosevelt High School.

Um and the second was uh uh around Greg Bovino and um the the tear gassing of protesters.

So those are two really concrete examples of things that are that are being um that are being pursued by their office.

Yesterday the uh county attorney spoke about um you know the incident involving uh Mr.

Um Mr.

Julio uh Sosa Solis um and potential charging decisions that that she's planning that that she's considering right now.

Um and uh and a few of these other incidents that you've highlighted uh in your presentation as well.

So in in those cases, um have you have you given their office things like any evidence you may have, you know, like police department the the police department was um on scene the night Mr.

Uh um Mr.

So uh Sosa Salis was shot in the leg.

Um you have you probably have lots and lots of evidence.

Has has that been kind of submitted?

Chair, vice chair, um we have the evidence from uh when Mr.

Sosa was shot, and that was provided that night to the BCA.

And I think the evidence uh likely it's part of evidence that I would think would have made a difference in that case.

Okay, so as as the county attorney is making charging decisions, are you planning on like submitting it to her office as well?

Chair, vice chair, it would go to it's gone to the BCA.

And when the BCA investigates the case, I mean they probably they've seen it already, but formally when they present the case, it will come with everything.

Okay.

I'm sure they've they've seen it already, the prosecutors I think I want to talk about a little bit about um Judy to intervene here and and the two examples um that that really struck me, or or one example that really struck me in your presentation was the hotel demonstration slide.

And as you were describing the incident um from that night from the perspective of the police department, so helpful to hear.

Um really appreciate it.

Um you described, you know, when when the police department arrived on scene, um, federal agents, you know, it it was a pretty tense scene.

You were you were thinking about um showing up to help de-escalate the the demonstrators that were um present at that site.

And so um when you arrived, and as this is, you know, there's there's federal agents and then there's there's community members, protesters, um, that as you're arriving, you see federal agents pointing their weapons towards towards you guys, towards I would presumably like where the crowd is, and as you're trying to enter into this scene, and so at that time you made the determination to leave.

Those weapons though still remain pointed at the community members, and you did not feel a duty to protect or serve them?

Chair, vice chair, um it was clearly a scene where there were property, there was property damage happening to the hotel.

Um deal with that to clear them out.

Uh they were not able to get there until federal law enforcement began clearing out the crowd.

Um my recollection uh was that the uh the supervisor on scene actually uh spoke to or tried to speak to uh someone from federal law enforcement uh to do it in some coordinated way, um, and they they were not able to.

Um and so it it the supervisor made a determination that they were already engaged in clearing the crowd, and it just wasn't possible at that point.

I think I'm struggling to find the words to like really describe like the sense of disappointment that I feel right now.

You show up to a scene, you see federal agents pointing their weapons at people, and you don't feel a duty to protect the residents of this community and instead choose to leave the scene.

Chair, vice chair, um however we all feel about federal law enforcement, they are uh a lawful uh government agency.

We cannot prevent them from uh enforcing federal law in the city.

Um if there is some you know concern about something specific that happened, we could review it.

Um but I I we would have preferred to have handled that scene ourselves.

That's what we had been trying to do since the first shooting in the city.

We tried to get them to leave.

Uh we were unable to do that uh at times afterwards.

Um we cannot physically obstruct uh or stop federal law enforcement from performing a function.

Uh and them simply you know being present, doing whatever it is they do with crowd control, um, which we are not trained in, both their authority or their procedures or that kind of thing.

Um again, unless something egregious was observed that is readily apparent that is unlawful, there wouldn't be an opportunity for us to try and do anything differently.

So but you left the scene, how would you have possibly observed something egregious happening?

The chair, vice chair, they disengaged from the scene um and and staged until they left to move in uh and uh you know right, so you were no longer there to observe what was happening.

Chair, vice chair, um that has been what the police department has done throughout all of this.

We have not uh responded to monitor what federal law enforcement is doing.

We developed a policy prior to this uh that very clearly defines the incidents that we will get involved with.

Um but no, we can't um we can't stop another government law enforcement agency from enforcing the law.

So everyday ordinary people should just do that with their whistles and their bodies.

Chair, vice chair, that was very clearly a scene where the hotel was damaged.

Um it was unlawful what was happening there.

Uh I would have preferred, again, I would have preferred for us to be the people to deal with it, uh, but we were unable to do that at that time.

The night that Mr.

Sosa Silis was shot, um, you know, when I arrived on scene, it just it like it was right as uh the Jackson family with their with their babies in their vehicle had tear gas uh canisters thrown into their vehicle.

Um and for for the remainder of the night, it was like a constant use of uh of chemical weapons of um L RADs, uh but you know, flashbangs that type of persistent, constant use of force, you didn't feel a duty to intervene in that either.

Uh Chair, Vice Chair, again, if there's a specific instance of a person uh being a very good thing.

So the same officer like shooting over and over and over and over and over and over again is is not terrible, terrible tactics, and I can't explain it.

Uh you know, there's no times that the Minneapolis police officers just stood on these scenes and just threw gas like crazy uh with seemingly no objective.

It didn't make sense to me.

None of this makes sense to me.

Um But was it a scene where uh you know it was readily apparent uh that a person was being subjected to unlawful force being injured in some way?

Uh you know, if something like that exists, you know, we'll deal with it.

Um you were there that night.

I I'm just asking why you didn't deal with it.

Chair, vice chair, we're not capable of uh we're not able to tell federal law enforcement that you know they they cannot they cannot enforce the law.

That was a dangerous scene, partly uh at least partly contributed by the things that they were doing, the tactics they were employing.

I mean, I would argue like almost entirely contributed.

I don't think there would have been a lot of people.

Absolutely.

The shooting happened because of them.

Uh what we tried to do there is what we tried to do on uh Portland Avenue the week before is we tried to get them to leave, and it just so that we could deal with the scene.

Um and we just we weren't able to do that.

Can you explain what standby pay is?

Chair Vice Bear, it's standby pay is when um we need we need to be able to do that.

Or how does it compare to overtime?

I'm sorry.

I just want to know how it compares to overtime or double overtime.

So how much is it?

Chair and vice chair, it depends on what type of standby it is, but there is a certain standby that's a point two five pay and another standby that's 0.5 pay.

So it just depends on what's happening for people to be ready to respond.

That's very helpful.

Thank you.

Um I'm I I am I want to just thank my colleagues for their patience with me.

Um I I will just end with um asking you about barricade response.

Um I I think I kind of want to know if if you if the department had conversations about just trying to understand why people were putting up the barricades and and then from your perspective why you chose to tear them down when uh from my perspective, the reason community barricades started going up is reckless and dangerous behavior from federal law enforcement agencies that endangered the lives of of people, just you know, uh this reckless driving, hitting vehicles that are parked, all of this this type of really, really negligent and reckless behavior that frankly the police department wasn't responding to, wasn't showing up to scenes and and investigating.

So if I'm I'm a resident of the city, right?

Like I'm sitting there, do I want to send my kids outside and potentially get run over only for nothing to happen?

Or am I gonna put up a makeshift barricade?

So I'm gonna make the decision to put up a makeshift barricade to keep myself, my community safe.

Why did you guys make the determination to tear them down instead of trying to figure out how you could set up how you could work with the community on say like the night that you guys put up the the um the perimeter in in South Minneapolis around 26th and and Nicolette that large perimeter so you know I keep hearing about it, you know, um emergency vehicle access, but if you can put up no vehicle zones in and that's completely fine, doesn't do anything for um safety vehicle access, then why why did you make the choice to tear down community barricades?

I don't get it.

Chair, vice chair, the the vehicle exclusionary zone around 26th and Nicholit, part of that was to keep the street open as best we could.

Um, it was like quite literally closed.

I'm sorry.

It's like quite literally closed.

It's a vehicle exclusion zone.

It's not closed because there's tons of garbage and refrigerators and washing machines and drawing, you know, old drying you know, washers and dryers out there, which is what happened on Portland Avenue and places around there, making it completely impassable for ambulances and fire trucks.

I mean, those are the things that were happening immediately after, and there were residents on that block on Portland Avenue that were thankful that the obstructions were clear.

Um I mean, that's why both with the fire chief saying uh, you know, how how serious of an emergency it would be if some of this was impassable uh and with the concerns from the residents, uh yeah, the the obstructions were were removed.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Um next we'll go to council member wandsley.

At about like if you get to the 12 minute time, I'm gonna do a soft check-in with you so we can keep on moving through the queue.

And so I've just asked um just the taking a look at the queue with me.

This is for everyone that's in queue, so we can make sure folks get a chance to ask their questions.

Okay, council member wandsley.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury, just going to the top.

Um, I also wanted to echo some questions related to the duty to intervene.

I think most of us um had lots of concerns around that or the lack of usage of it.

Um in chief, you stated that uh no officers intervening because they weren't on the scene at the time where aggressive uses of force were employed by ICE agents.

Um I'm also curious to know how you all landed at that assumption, especially as council member um why am I blowing.

Chuck Ty highlighted the fact that even at the North Minneapolis shooting where a number of us were at, um we saw ICE agents and MPD be on the scene, particularly shooting a number of munitions, one of which um targeted a family of six um who were driving away from um that particular incident and their six-month though end up being hospitalized.

So I'm very curious to know also where the the um laps of capturing um these incidents, like how that prevail, and more specifically, um I'm I'm interested in in your conclusion that no officer was able to be at the scene when these aggressive uses of force was being employed.

Um did you happen to review video or body cam footage to to land at this conclusion and to confirm this?

Uh Chair, Councilmember, if I can just uh I should have done this earlier.

I'll read what the policy actually says for duty and intervene so we understand exactly what we're talking about.

Uh members shall not interfere with or obstruct federal law enforcement, uh federal immigration enforcement.

However, when it is apparent to a member that federal agents are using clearly excessive force, members shall verbally or physically intervene to stop the excessive force when they have both the reasonably safe opportunity and the means to do so.

So that's the specific um part of the policy that we're talking about.

There have been no uh allegations or complaints that that happened and an officer failed to intervene.

If there are any specific instances, we can look into uh into any of them.

Uh give us a date, time, a place, uh, you know, we'll we'll figure it out as much information as we have.

Oh, sorry, sorry, Chief.

I just want to make sure I'm getting at the core of the question.

The question was have you, I think y'all have a baseline understanding of that policy.

It's have you review, because I know that's also part of your policy is to do periodic reviews of your body cam footage.

To confirm that no officer made witnesses of that at the time or even retroactively.

Uh Chair, uh councilmember, um the body warrant camera footage gets reviewed for use of force when it's reported, the force being used by the police officers, uh, as well as audits that are conducted with the with the implementation.

Those incidents either have been reviewed or either or in the process of still being reviewed, uh, that is close to being complete.

Um to my knowledge, there's no audit uh has uncovered anything related to this.

Uh and third, I'm not aware of any specific complaint about an incident.

Okay, so summary of that, there has been no audit either requested from the city auditor or you of video cam footage that from officers who were at the scene of these incidents where ICE were present where there could have been possibly captured uh excessive use of force.

Um it sounds like that review or assessment has not happened.

Um that would be something uh further or follow up with this body to our own city auditor um as they're making those periodic um reviews too.

Um and just clarification, those complaints can happen retroactively related to the duty.

Okay, so that means even after let's say uh body cam footage, maybe show something, uh officer or your US leaders could make a complaint.

Not Chair, uh Councilmember one of the reviews, uh it's possible uh that there will be an internal complaint generated.

Um, but that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

It has to do with use of force policy.

Um the all of the footage from the last 12 weeks where all of these things were possible.

No, that footage, not all of the whole world of that footage has not been reviewed.

Yeah, that was my question.

And this is related to again the terms in your the policy.

Yes.

We are saying duty to intervene when aggressive force is being seen by other law enforcement agents.

Great.

Next question.

Um, I'm trying to reconcile some of the uh discrepancies in the data reported in the presentation, and also that was stated in the city's assessment report.

Um all related to operation metal search.

For instance, slide 21 here stated that MPD handled uh at minimum 50,000 calls.

Um, but the assessment report carried out by the city offer substantially lower numbers, even citing that there were only six ICE-related calls made in January amongst East Phillips community members, and we know that's been a neighborhood that's been repeatedly targeted and attacked during this occupation and well beyond uh just six times.

So I'm interested if there's staff here who can speak to why there's differences in the data here of how did you get to the 50,000 and that report not really adding up.

Yep.

Uh chair, council member.

When I say about 50,000, that's everything that's in the CAD for police, the computer-aided dispatch.

So everything 911 that gets referred to police in some way, everything a police officer self-initiates that's in involving police.

Um that's everything that happened in the 12 weeks.

That's not just ice-related things.

Okay.

It's everything the police handled.

And and I just I can't speak to where they're pulling their data from, but I can tell you, I know with 911, there's been such a wide variety of uh of different types of calls that are in some way related to this, but the whole universe of those calls is not uh I know there's been difficulty in in pulling the data.

Okay, so that's um eye-opening of the 50,000 is the entire universe of the problem of nature calls that you could be responding to.

I think for the presentation, we were really hoping to get a more specific breakdown that I would make as a staff follow-up of the problem nature codes that were most commonly used related to Operation Metro Surge.

So being able to separate out those typical um service calls from um the ICE-related calls as well.

Um I also wanted to get clarity and it sounds like that might not in that breakdown.

I think also it'd be good to note um, which might not neatly fit under a problem nature code that's existing when the public called 911 um asking for follow-up from MPD or first responder uh because a ICE agent was doing unlawful behavior.

So far, we haven't been able to receive after multiple requests, and we know residents made those calls, like the breakdown of that, and if that's reflected in this 50,000.

So those are staff follow-ups.

I can also send y'all the questions.

Um, this presentation confirms that OCS and MPD did a lot of prioritization of crisis uh cleanup for ICE, as well as the hotel demonstrations, barricade removals.

Um, I think we're all still trying to figure out again how that relates to now this 50,000 universe of calls that you responded to overall.

Um, and just um think that'll be follow-up because I know folks were wondering also in that 50,000 universe if there were calls being made to help you all to support residents in doing patrols um that a lot of folks did around their neighborhoods to schools, um, also um again witnessing violent behavior by ICE agents.

Um also um again witnessing violent behavior by ICE agents.

So really trying to consider how the prioritization was made amongst you all to focus on those specific um pieces.

Um chair uh councilmember.

Um in the call part, uh as best I can tell from talking to the 911 director, we estimated it was about 10,000 more calls, um, which would roughly be about 6,000.

Um but that's how many more calls total were handled in the period, and not necessarily the ones related to the event.

Um in terms of response, uh the calls related to potential immigration activity were followed in accordance with the policy um as it was revised, um, which generally states that uh officers shall not be deployed to immigration enforcement related activity uh except if there is uh threats of violence, actual violence, life-threatening situations, or destruction of property.

So I think that's the best guidance um that the policy uh gives towards largely um what going into this had um to me it felt like the theme, the concern that was being communicated is uh is not having MPD officers present unnecessarily.

And so that was the that was the the desire towards changing the policy after uh the June 3rd search warrant at Lake and Bloomington.

That was that's what was largely driving that is not getting our officers unexpectedly caught up in these things uh where it can be avoided.

So it uh it prohibits officers from self-initiating uh responding on their own uh to these types of things.

Uh it provides some guidance uh as far as uh reporting requirements, that kind of thing.

But in terms of uh triaging the calls, that's the main issue.

Um and again, the calls come through MECC first, but before a police officer is sent, uh there would need to be violence, uh threats of violence, uh, proper or property damage, like this, those are the main things.

Gotcha.

Uh, just really quickly, I'm gonna just request from the chief and any other council member that's going to speak.

If you can shorten your responses, we are just on a time crunch, and like we want to make sure we get through to others.

We're talking about captioning captioning, but we need to maintain quorum.

Okay.

Back to council member.

Thank you.

Next one, this could be also just uh hopefully more concise response, or it might be a staff follow-up.

Uh can you um essentially share how many arrests were made by MPD related to um demonstrations or First Amendment uh exercises?

Um, Chair, Councilmember, there was one uh mass arrest outside of a hotel.

Um two hotels that were damaged downtown, and several people got inside, it became an unlawful assembly.

And I want to say there was about 27 or 29 people that were cited and released that night.

Uh there was one person um after the Powder Horn Park uh March uh demonstration, there was one person that tagged a significant amount of buildings along uh Lake Street uh graffiti that there was an arrest there.

Um the arrests at the graduate were uh at the we were assisting the university police.

Um other than that, I can't think of were there any others?

There were 41 uh 41 uh total, and yeah, there were a couple people cited uh at the target in Dinky Town.

There was a protest there.

Uh they were cooperative, but they didn't want to not block the the doorway or something until they were cited, so they're just issued citations and they were released.

Uh, but a total of 41 arrests, if you will, including all these people who were cited and released.

Okay.

And then this is a follow-up for a staff memo on the city attorney side, because I know some of those um charges also went further with the city attorneys for follow-up steps.

I would love to have clarity of all those arrests.

Um, which of those are being preceded with more serious charges that requires the city attorney um to intervene.

So that's a staff memo.

Um, and then just quick question around overtime.

So I'm looking at the memo that was sent by council president where MPD racked up at least six point four one million dollars related to operation methods.

I just want a confirmation.

The majority of that overtime was taken for four days between January 7th and the 11th, right?

Chair, council member, um, that was ongoing.

There were multiple times where uh people were recalled during that period of time, the 7th to the 11th, everyone's days off were canceled, everyone was extended.

Uh so there's a lot of money spent during that time, but there were many times, you know, when uh the shooting happened on the north side, there was an emergency recall.

Um, you know, uh uh and then after Predict, there were other times that there were recalls for uh you know hotel demonstrations, that kind of thing.

There was there was it would there was a lot throughout the duration of this.

But January, roughly January 7th through the 29th is the bulk of it.

Okay, the reason why I asked was in the memo you stated um the overtime was spent for operation trust and safety, and in the presentation to mention just those four days.

So that's why I was confused um of why that was listed, but I think that'll be follow-up more conversations around over time as we talk about budget.

But um, I'll email questions over there, so outstanding, just being cognizant of other council members being in queue.

Thank you, Councilmember Wandsley.

I'm next in queue.

I just have a couple questions and hopefully we can get through them quickly.

The first question that I have is in relationship um to our overtime expenditure.

Could you just state what our overtime expenditure is through operation the start of operation metro surge and up until this point or the latest point that you have?

Thank you, Chair.

And just to clarify, all the memos that we sent are that the commissioner sent to the council president.

We titled that.

I didn't know there was a specific time period because there was immigration response, and that was kind of the codes we were using throughout these weeks.

So our memos are all labeled that, not labeled just the four-day period, but the whole from one one to two eight, it's close to six point four million dollars includes the standby, which really gets registered under salary.

Six and what's the starting time?

One one.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then um a question related to that is how many officers do we currently have that are active duty?

Um Chair 500 and uh excuse me, 619 total sworn.

619 total sworn, but many are on various leaves.

There was uh several officers that did paid family medical leave in the middle of the surge.

I mean, they had their reasons for doing that, but there was also other reasons.

So I understand 619, but I know that the numbers lower, so if you have that.

So, Chair 527 uh total active sworn.

Um, which yes, there's a number of officers that are on the PTSD leave, and then there's older few dozen officers, uh 26 officers on continuous leave uh related to the uh state uh PFML leave as well.

Okay, so 527 boots on the ground now doing various levels of work.

Do you think that's a big part of like the huge amount of overtime?

Chair, yes.

Yeah.

Of course.

Yeah.

Of course.

And I I mean, I'll share what constituents are sharing with me and that what I've felt as a council member on this body that 20 million dollars at the end of the year was like very hard to stomach given the budgeting crisis we were in then and now exasperated now.

And then that's 6.4 in addition to that 20 million.

Obviously, understanding the surge, but also a lot of these like questions of connecting the dots between what community expected in terms of officers showing up and questions that I get, which is what what is MPD doing?

I think like the presentation was helpful, and I'll be sharing this out to constituents, but there's like 100% a big tension there, and this is going to be a tremendously difficult budget cycle.

I know that that's not lost on you.

Um the next question that I have is uh there is a point that you named in the presentation where officers were very clearly marked with their badges and like you wanted to make sure that there was a differentiation.

I did not see that occur with unmarked vehicles from MPD.

Um there were several occurrences where there were unmarked vehicles parked at different intersections that scared community members and they thought they were ACE officers.

Why was that?

And can we make sure that vehicles are now marked very clearly?

Chair, yes.

Um we tried to get um it's kind of a unique problem uh that we had.

Uh we tried to get um the magnets uh to put decals on the car quickly.

We just weren't able to get enough uh fast enough.

And we just didn't have enough uh marked vehicles to deploy when we're mobilizing the entire department.

Yes.

There were some instances though where like just like parking on Lake Street outside of um businesses or that, there was an instance also where a church got really scared as well.

And so I feel like those are things that could have been avoidable because like it was happening in like a sensitive area.

Um are all vehicles now marked?

Is there a decal?

Is there a way to identify it?

Uh Chair, no, not all vehicles are not marked.

Um we have a number of the uh magnets that can be used.

Um but no, the the fleet has both marked and unmarked uh vehicles.

Okay.

I guess I'll ask for a follow-up and like what's the plan as it comes to the utilization of unmarked vehicles on city streets while we're continuing to face ice presence in our city.

Like it's gonna continue for several months.

It's still gonna alarm people.

So we'll leave that for administrative follow-up.

The last one I have is that there were several instances where community members, I think there were three instances where community members um told me that there was an ICE vehicle inside of uh precinct parking lot.

What was the response to that?

Chair, there were um there's at least three or four times I can think of um where there was a vehicle in the fifth precinct, at least one time on the second precinct.

Um from what I remember at the fifth precinct, um at least two of those times the agents drove to the station because someone was following them.

Um and then uh one of those times asked the police to arrest the person that was following them.

So they had to explain to them that there isn't anything to arrest the person for.

Um and ultimately they left.

I'm not uh aware of any times where they refused to leave.

Okay, so they were asked to leave.

Yes.

Okay.

That's my questions.

I know we have limited time, so I will go to Council President Payne.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

I'm trying to manage uh both my questions and Councilmember Stevenson's questions here.

He had to leave a little early.

I think you spoke to some of these questions specifically around um how or managing cases uh but just really maybe just want to put another point on it.

Uh it sounds like officers didn't report any illegal ICE or DHS activity.

Did you is that a correct thing?

Uh Chair Council President, um No, I mean we have we have some reports and we have some uh referrals that were made.

Um but if you're saying something that was self-initiated from a police officer.

Like please MCD officers witnessing illegal activity and then reporting that for follow-up or investigation.

Uh correct, to my knowledge, the answer would be no.

That was self-initiated by a police officer.

Okay.

Because I think there's probably going to be some opportunity to at least do some.

I know that um Councilmember Chavez was asking about the incident over on Portland doing a follow-up on body one camera review of that, but I I'd imagine there's some other instances where we could identify things within our records that reflect illegal behavior.

Chair, council president.

Uh yeah, that the ask is if if you could just give uh give me or give us something specific.

Um obviously there's a lot of chaos throughout this whole thing, and we were doing our best to try and manage to we we still have everything that was happening in the city happening.

People are still getting robbed and calling the police for other things.

Now that we have this time, absolutely we can follow up and look at video and we just need to know specific times and places of concern.

Yeah.

Um and then as far as the accounting of overtime at the 6.4 million, is that specifically is that coded to the operation or is that inclusive of all overtime that was spent over that period of time period of time?

Chair, council president, that is inclusive of all overtime.

I don't know if the coding all over time for sworn during that period.

Um very difficult to parse out um because on a regular day, we need overtime just to fill 911.

Um because on a regular day, we need overtime just to fill 911.

Uh it's that much worse when we're pulling everybody to do all this stuff created by this surge.

So I I would say all of it is related to what was happening in the time period.

Um you smoke you spoke about again the Portland incident where there was just kind of officer needs assistance call that uh led to a huge showing of MPD and how you made refinements to that policy.

But even just yesterday, during our meeting, there was a video of like a bounty hunter right outside a city hall that was brandishing a weapon.

Um and it sounds like a sheriff had driven by us.

Obviously, that's not your agency, but I'm just curious to what extent you could speak to how MPD has refined its protocol when there's a call of uh officer branding brandishing a weapon.

Um Chair, Council President, um there is a call for that.

Um it would go through MECC, but again, we have uh we have a lieutenant that's able to uh would triage that call if for some reason it was believed to be connected to uh immigration enforcement, if it's just somebody is brandishing a gun, that's a person with a gun that just goes out immediately.

Um and it is not unusual.

There definitely have been times where we've had issues with uh you know, bounty hunters and that kind of thing.

There's been calls related to that in the past.

Um and then you spoke to the second precinct.

I'm using the um parking lot.

I called you that morning and you were gonna look into it.

It just didn't sound like there was an officer in the precinct at the time, so you weren't able to get an officer there.

Um what ended up happening in this instance is I I demanded that they they leave, and they didn't really listen to me at first.

Um, but there were enough people there blowing whistles that maybe they were just annoyed enough to leave on their own.

But you had mentioned in other instances at the fifth precinct, maybe others.

Did you were you able to get officers there to enforce our separation ordinance and they they they complied or how did those work out?

Uh Chair Council President.

Yes, that's correct.

Um I I thought we followed up afterwards, but there were there was no one inside the building when you were there, uh, which is why nobody came out.

There's no one there to come out.

We eventually sent a supervisor, but it was gone.

Um there's at least one time I remember, might have been the first time that uh they went to the fifth precinct.

May it may have come in from another council member.

I just I don't remember.

They went to the fifth precinct, they parked in that area that's kind of like a public access parking lot.

They managed to get inside the front door was open, but the inner door was locked because no one was staffing the desk at the time.

So um I think there had been a report that the person was inside the building and we checked on the footage, they weren't able to get in.

There's just there's nobody inside the building.

So at least two other times that I remember at the fifth precinct where they spoke to officers uh and wound up leaving.

Um I think in both of those cases um there were there were you know some civilian motorists that followed them and they wanted the person arrested or something, and they explained.

You know, there's nothing to arrest the person for, and then they left.

Those are those are the times I remember offhand.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Next we have Councilmember Whiting, and then I will just say to the body we don't have a hard cutoff at two so people can get through their questions, but I would like for us not to spend the rest of our day here, if possible.

Thank you, Chair Chowdhury.

I will be quick and thank you for being here, Chief O'Haria.

I think it's helpful and some comments before some questions think it might be helpful both for uh members of this body and the public about I'm just gonna read verbatim our duty to intervene uh policy that was that was uh I believe enacted or updated uh December 18th uh of 2025.

And so uh those listening online reading it, that's where we're pulling it from.

But our duty to intervene for excessive force, members shall not interfere with or obstruct lawful federal immigration enforcement.

However, when it is imparent to a member that federal agents are using clearly excessive force, members shall verbally or physically intervene to stop the excessive force when they have both the reasonably safe opportunity and the means to do so.

Uh the reason I I am kind of reading through that right now, and I appreciate our comments from uh hen and the county attorney uh Moriarty yesterday is like while we do have the ability to intervene and and and are required to do so, uh the question that I asked uh Hennepin County attorney Moriarty was have we seen in any city across this country in in federal immigration enforcement actions or historically have we seen any officer from a municipal uh agency uh actually intervene?

And the answer was no.

All right.

And so while in theory we have this, I think what we are seeing play out is is attention both uh in community of the the practical legal effects or or the the theoretical legal effects and the practicality of that.

And so I think it is helpful to notice that these things are required, but we are asking of our officers to do something unprecedented, uh which I have no problem with asking our officers to do, but I think it is important to note um that it is has not been done in a city across this country.

Uh and so I guess first question for you.

I could be wrong uh with the research that I've done.

Uh Chair, Councilmember, the answer is no.

Um not that I'm aware of.

And the only thing criminally that I'm aware of is the distinction I was trying to explain before is off-duty actions.

Yeah.

I'm aware of the somewhere uh believe around Illinois, Chicago, somewhere in the Midwest, there was a federal officer charged under state law for conduct off-duty.

And that that's a whole lot easier to prove that a crime occurred than it is to prove that a law enforcement officer acting in the performance of their duties committed a crime.

Easy to prove they didn't act according to professional standards, they violated the training, they were unsafe, all those things administratively, it's a much lower burden of proof.

It's very complicated when we're dealing with a whole different government, the federal government, different set of laws, different agency, different training, different court rulings that affect them to try and say that we are not aware of to try and say that their actions constituted a crime.

Uh it's not impossible, but it's just the reality is that is what has to be surmounted aside from identifying people involved, if somebody's gonna be charged with with anything under Minnesota law.

Yeah, thank you, Chief.

And I think it that illuminates a point that I have uh specifically.

I I think it is really hard.

We are asking officers to to kind of deal with uh constitutional issues uh that I think a lot of attorneys are have a very hard time dealing with.

And so I think it may be helpful, um, whether that's our body, uh the MPD, but to figure out ways of of hey, if if you do see this, uh this would be an example of that.

And so there are more kind of concrete uh actions that that officers can see to to maybe intervene in those circumstances.

Um another kind of comment here, and I think and you brought I appreciate uh you bringing up kind of the uh the on-the-scene efforts of all of my counsel colleagues um at the the murder of Renee Good.

And so I think it is is helpful to again kind of give an understanding of that that scene in that situation.

Uh right for many of us and many of my colleagues, it was day three on the job for us.

Uh and that was my first kind of introduction to see how this body worked.

Uh and actually I was quite proud of every single one of my council colleagues, um, those that were there and present and those that um were not, uh, as they were doing uh versions that that were were meant uh and were protective for them.

And so uh want to kind of uh separate out both that scene um with the murder of Renee Good and then the murder of Alex Pready.

Uh and from my understanding it was the uh a large number of us of of my council colleagues and I uh saw you on the scene, uh had conversations with community members, and their biggest asked, I think for all of us was can MP da MPD get ICE to leave?

Yes.

Uh and that was communicated uh by all of us, which I I I really appreciated uh as a level of collaboration and and and was received by you and your officers, and and you've made that ask of ICE and they left.

Uh and again, kind of c contrasting that to the scene of of Alex Predi, uh similar conversations that uh my council colleagues and I had had with you uh and you were told that they didn't even let you on the scene kick you all off the scene.

And so I think question to that point um is understanding that that was helpful, uh and I think I thought it was helpful.

Uh is there a way or have have you all been thinking of of kind of how to build in um some level of formality uh to that process where we can be helpful uh that that you are all are doing it if there's a way that we can be.

Um and so don't know if it's something that's come up, think it's uh an area that maybe we can look into and you all as well of uh some maybe it's like a communication standard or some version of process when when these events do come up so that you know we are able to do something too.

Yes.

Chair, council member, thank you.

Uh you know, happy to have conversations about that.

That would be great.

Hopefully we don't need to employ it anytime soon, but that would be very helpful.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And then last comment here, I think it's I guess we're kinda I don't know what our time is looking like.

I'll go quick.

Um have been looking towards uh because what I am seeing I think a lot of of my council colleagues are are seeing issues with as well is uh kind of this tension, right, between our officers and community, um, particularly as you kind of are kind of that buffer between uh ICE actions and in that instance.

Uh I've kind of been looking into uh I think Portland does it.

I think Boulder Colorado has some uh efforts, so they call them dialogue liaison officers, uh where they kind of uh sit it as in a in a distinct position within community um that are there for First Amendment rights actions, um, other actions that protests otherwise celebrations.

Um is that something that you all have have looked into, kind of these dialogue liaison officers.

Chair, council member, yes.

Uh and that's something that we've tried to employ at different points around the vigils, uh around the the protest activity that was planned for uh Cedar Riverside, and that's absolutely something that we want to uh a strategy we want to be able to use going forward whenever appropriate.

Okay, great.

That's helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Councilmember Palmasano.

Chief, you look and you sound exhausted.

Um I think it exemplifies what everyone in your department is feeling right now.

Um I appreciate your willingness though to come and have this conversation and a pretty exhaustive one at that.

Um I I read your article in the Atlantic.

It was an interview at the time that I think was really important.

Um and it gave me insight to you and your department's approach.

I also made my teenage son listen to it as he was having conversations with his friends um and peers about what was happening and trying to make sense of it.

Um you know, they were processing what was going on.

And I just want to thank you for being so open during the midst of such a chaotic time like that.

I really haven't seen law enforcement do that in times of crisis, and that's pretty unique.

Um that's why it um it jumped out at me actually at that time, as it wasn't about controlled press conferences.

It was really this kind of overnight, I think, you know, ride-along type of thing that you availed yourself to.

It it also shared a little bit more with the public.

Um and I think it helped with that larger national narrative about what was going on here and why.

Um I know there have been a lot of good questions here today, hard questions, and these are things we need to talk about in public, and those are also some of the questions that my office has received.

Um I appreciate the fact that you recognize that MPD response has not been perfect in all instances.

Um this is really uncharted territory, and I understand that these situations evolve very quickly, and that you and your team are doing the best that you can.

Um what I'm especially interested in knowing is how you will take this experience and and learn from it or process it to maybe advance evolve protocols and do it better in the future, God forbid.

But I I do see this as another opportunity for training that we're working so hard on making ever more complete.

Um I I also hope that you can take some of the feedback and questions from my colleagues about specific incidents that you maybe weren't able to focus on during this time.

Um, just to know that that's the frame of an elected official and the things that we hear um coming from the public.

But do you at this point have any sense of how you might take this time, this operation Metro Surge, which is hopefully coming to an end soon, um, and might incorporate that in the future, or like you know.

I hope you go on a speaking tour around the country talking about some of the things that you learn from it, but um but importantly here, how will we be able to use it to benefit our department in the future?

Uh Chair uh council member, thank you.

Um there's definitely um it's the things that didn't go well uh or didn't go as well as we had hoped.

Uh and those are the things that um we're looking to improve upon in the future.

Um it was a long uh operational period.

Um and we were not and and all of the other agencies around us were strained um with resources.

Um being better at uh uh being able to recall people faster, um kind of turn on and turn turn things up and turn them down uh in response to things that are happening, responding faster, those kinds of things, as well as just a broader change.

Um and I think there's room for for some improvement there, as there will always be.

But I think um under the strain, um, under all of the mixed demands and just kind of uncharted territory, I think the members of the police department uh performed uh exceptionally well during this.

Um but having talked to and talked to a number of chiefs around the country before this and after this, the LAPD chief, the LA Sheriff, other places that were affected by the surge before us, there's nothing compared to um the intensity of what this community was under uh during this time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we'll go to council member Schaefer.

Yeah, I I just have one um comment that I'd like to clarify around overtime.

But first of all, just say thank you for your time.

It's clear that we have gone through a lot, and it's even hard for me to watch these pictures even today because I think the feelings are still pretty um front and center.

And I think that's true for all of us.

Um wherever we were, whatever, what role we had, um, and hopefully we will become stronger and go through this together.

And and by together, I mean bring us together from our various perspectives.

But my question was around overtime.

And um with your and this is recognizing that this is a core city service, um, your department, and your you have already stated that overtime will be ongoing due to employee employee benefits, PTSD, retirements, et cetera.

Do you foresee any kind of change in the trajectory of spend um when you look at those particular categories?

I mean, it sounds like today we are probably on spend for five million a month.

Um do you see that changing in April?

Do you see that changing in June?

I mean, do you have any kind of forward look?

Uh Chair, Councilmember, thank you.

Um it is changed.

Can't tell you uh what it will be.

February will be kind of a mixed bag because we're still a lot going on in the beginning of the month.

But it in no way is it gonna be five million dollars a month.

Okay.

Um is gonna cost more per month than it did cost per month last year.

I mean, there's just there's contractual things, people got raises, they got step increases, the longevity increases.

So I mean, there's the it will be more of a cost even if we were doing the same amount of hours on average than last year.

Uh but I think we'll have a better sense um by next month or so, what should the norm be going forward?

And then I would expect a spike uh around the summer months as is that season, it's it's it's it's annual every year.

There's a need for increased overtime around the summer.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council President Payne, maybe you're in Q for Stevenson.

Yes, I'm Q for uh Councilmember Stevenson.

Okay.

Councilmember Stevenson, go ahead.

And then unless someone has like a super burning question after Councilmember Stevenson, and I'll give credit to Councilmember Stevenson, he brought this item forward.

Uh we're gonna close the queue and discussion after him.

Yeah, thank you.

Sorry, I I had to run and I didn't bring my computer back with me.

So I missed most of it.

Sorry, I'm I'm really really am sorry about that.

I conferred with my colleague on some of the questions that I had initially that maybe didn't get fully answered, and I I'll definitely be going back and watching uh everything that you discussed.

Um the costs of because of what the Federal Government costs have gone you know through the roof.

What what specifically or do you have anything specifically that you're doing to control cost overruns, get things back within budget?

Uh Chair, Councilmember, thank you.

Um I would say there's a number of things operationally that we're doing to respond better, whether that's uh response times, trying to clear out serious crimes that may not directly impact uh the cost of services, but they are they're necessary uh just to improve the safety of of the community in the city.

Um we're gonna be more efficient.

Um I think, you know, especially with patrol uh the way we handle things, uh you know you do not expect this level of uh overtime to be necessary um for the rest of the year.

But we do have kind of a structural problem uh that we've been speaking with uh commissioner's office, the mayor's office that just needs to be addressed in that we had been traditionally relying upon uh vacancies of sworn personnel to account for a lot of the overtime that was needed operationally.

And um the reality now, Meg I mentioned earlier we hired 125 more people last year than what we lost.

But almost all of them are civilians.

So they're community service officers that are in school anywhere from two to three years, or they're cadets that are in school for several months before they can go to the academy.

So we're we're spending that money um that had been vacancies because we weren't hiring enough people before.

But the reality is we don't yet have the benefit of actually having additional police officers.

So that's a structural problem in the budget um that we've been talking about with uh the administration about trying to right size.

Um I'm hopeful that we can cut cut back even further as this drawdown continues before the summer months because I know uh there's going to be an increased uh demand uh from the community.

But frankly, like the the state leave program, I mean, I think there's close to 50 people that have applied for that.

That's causing an increased strain um uh on people that are available that we just that's a problem we didn't have last year.

The additional leave, you know.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

Um do you have an idea now what additional budget asks you're gonna ask from us to cover uh any shortfalls this year?

Uh Chair Councilmember, I I I don't know because we're we're trying to figure out what what would be normal for this year in terms of operational overtime, because this has been all out of whack since the first of the year because of all of this stuff related to the surge.

I think maybe by next month we should have a better idea of what uh what would traditionally be needed to make up the gap.

Okay.

So we can expect in in the future you'll have a clearer idea of how much additional you're gonna need to ask.

Chair, council member, yes.

It's just it's it's been impossible based on since January 1st, we've been in this surge uh staffing public order stuff.

It's just been impossible to figure out.

Okay, yeah.

All right, well, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember, and thank you uh Chief for the presentation and standing for questions.

Really, really appreciate it.

Um with that, I'll direct the clerk to file that report.

And then uh Councilmember Palmasano, would you like to be marked in the affirmative for the legislative directive?

Yes, the one that I authored.

Yes.

Okay.

With that, you all have made history in the longest committee of the whole meeting.

Um we've completed all items on the agenda today, and hearing no objections, this meeting is adjourned.