Welcome everyone.

Sorry for the delay.

We had closed session prior to this.

I'd like to ask Jack Wien, Logan Reed, Kapper Sharab, Jacob Auckner from members and the members of the Boy Scout Troop 73 to come to the front of the room to present the colors and lead the Pledge of Allegiance.

Welcome.

We're excited to have you.

Audience, please rise.

Color guardship.

Color guard advanced.

Please prepare to post the colors.

Please place your right hand over your heart.

Please join in the pledge of the leaders.

I pleads.

For which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Color guard post the colors.

Great job, Boy Scouts Troop.

73.

Laura, can you please call roll call?

Councilmember Eklund.

Present.

Councilmember Carkle.

Present.

Councilmember O'Connor.

Present.

Mayor Pro Tem Jacobs.

Present.

And Mayor Farak.

I'm president.

I'm going to go over to the city attorney for closed session.

Yes, thank you, Mayor and Council.

There's no reportable action.

Thank you very much.

Alright, moving on to ceremonial matters and presentation.

I'd like to invite the city council up to the front of the room.

All right.

So we have one of the most exciting um awards that we give out during the year, and this is our uh citizen of the year.

So I'd like to invite Jennifer Goldfinger up.

Jennifer has done so much for this community, and she's involved everywhere.

And when I read the proclamation, you all are gonna gas with how many things she does.

So I'll start with it.

Whereas each year, the city of Novato is proud to recognize one distinguished individual who embodies the spirit of community volunteerism and beyond and is selected by a committee made of former citizens of the year.

And whereas this year, the committee has chosen a valuable community leader and a passionate advocate for volunteerism, Jennifer Goldfinger, as the 2025 citizen of the year.

And whereas since mid-1970, Jennifer has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the volunteerism, dedicating her time and talents to a wide array of organization and causes throughout Novato.

She is an outstanding role model and sets the gold standard for civic engagement.

And where Jennifer volunteer efforts span an impressive range of organizations, including the Novato Chamber of Commerce, Novato Fourth of July Parade Committee, Paint the Town Red, the Nevado Historical Guild, the Book Place, Rotary Clubs, and the North Marin Community Services Board of Director, just to name a few.

And whereas Jennifer has expressed a deep belief in the power of human services to strengthen the community, her willingness to step up for the benefits of the community is truly inspiring.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the city council of the city of Novato, on behalf of the residents of Novato, does hereby recognize Jennifer Goldfinger as Novato 2025 Citizen of the Year and thanks her for truly making a different in the lives of others.

Congratulations.

Would you like to say a few words?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Farock, Council.

I'd really like to thank Cheryl Paddock, who is the CEO of North Marine Community Services, who nominated me.

I'd like to thank the former citizens of the air, many of whom are sitting right here, who selected me.

I'd like to thank my fellow Rotarians, Rosh We Club of Ignacio, many of whom sitting right here.

Um I'd like to thank the Novato Parade committee, some of whom is here, including Kevin and others.

Thank you.

Um I guess I love what I do, and as I always tell my kids, it keeps me off the streets.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I mean, you're off again, I think, right?

And then we're gonna we're gonna keep Jennifer here because she has an exciting announcement, and I'm gonna I invite Katie Gaulett, our park recreation and community service director, to present, and Dale Klein to present us with something special.

You want some mic?

Oh, I guess the check is still in my post.

That's an important thing too.

So on behalf of the board of Pete, the town red, um, for those of you are familiar with the organization, we we host the city birthday party every year.

Um, it's not really well, it's just a party, it's not just a party, it's a celebration first and foremost about everything that's great in this town, specifically the citizen of the year.

Um, but we've started doing a couple of new things.

Um, one is each year we try to be to dedicate some of the funds that we raise through it to helping better communities.

So this year we're presenting the city with a check or the parks PRCS department with the check for $2,000 to be used for youth scholarships for students that participate in the youth programs in town that can't afford it.

So next year, stay tuned.

There's more to come.

In addition to that, the citizen of the year gets to um gets a check.

We donate a thousand dollars to the nonprofit of their choice.

The um spirit of Nevada winner gets a check.

We donate $500 to the Novato nonprofit of their choice.

So it's it's giving back to the community because it's been great to us.

Um, and this year on July 17th, March Mark your calendars, we're partnering with Parks and Rec.

Um on this um concerts on the green, right outside the door here on the 17th, we'll be providing free hot dogs soft drinks and birthday cake for the half birthday.

Um that's it's a free event, so anybody can come and enjoy it.

So, with that, thank you.

Yeah, on behalf of the council, thank you all so much.

This was very meaningful and it's gonna impact quite a few of us.

Thank you.

And I'm gonna pass this over to Mayor Pro Tem Jacobs to give the next proclamation.

Marcia Basella, can you come up here?

Marcia Basella.

Whereas Marcia Basella has demonstrated an exceptional and sustained commitment to the city of Novato through years of volunteer service focused on ecological stewardship, civic engagement, and community pride.

And whereas Marcia Basilla has taken a leadership role in organizing and coordinating monthly team up to clean up volunteer events, bringing together residents of all ages to remove litter and foster a shared sense of responsibilities for the community.

And whereas, through her dedication and organizational efforts, these cleanup events have not only improved local neighborhoods and natural areas, but have also strengthened community connections and inspired ongoing volunteerism.

And whereas Marcia Basella served for many years on the Nevada Streets Streetscape Committee, providing thoughtful guidance, insight, and expertise, and notably never missed a meeting during her tenure.

Reflecting her reliability and deep commitment.

And whereas since 2009, Marcia Basella has planted and maintained a wildlife habitat garden on a designated city site, thoughtfully creating and sustaining space that supports nurtures and fosters local biodiversity.

And whereas Marsha Pasilla, long-standing service leadership, and hands-on volunteerism exemplify the spirit of civic responsibility and community care that enriches the quality of life in Novato.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Council of the City of Novato, on behalf of the residents of Novato, express its sincerest, sincerest appreciation for Marcia Basella for her outstanding contributions and years of dedicated volunteer service.

Congratulations.

Two of them were citizens of the year.

And the late S.

Schultz.

And I serve with them on the Nevada Streetscape Committee, and they show the way on how to serve your community and do it the right way.

And he also assisted me with my island option as well.

And one last person was Charlotte, Charlotte Torkovitsky, who's uh is the founder of Nevado's native uh homegrown habitat, native plant nursery and education center.

She provided a lot of plants and guidance and advice and hand holding.

And last but not least, our stalwart volunteers, who are some of them are here today, who show up every month for team up, picking up trash and making the city more beautiful.

And they make this a rewarding community service, this rewarding community service possible.

I know sometimes when I especially when I'm going, I think, you know, not such a good morning or whatever, but I always leave uplifted because it's just it's just the people that make it.

And I just would really encourage everybody to do some type of volunteer work.

It's very rewarding.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to item D, uh approval of final agenda.

Do I have a motion?

I'll move uh approval of the final agenda.

Second.

Thank you.

Laura, can you take the vote?

Uh Councilmember Eklund.

Aye.

Councilmember Carkle.

All right, Councilmember O'Connor.

Mayor Pertem Jacobs.

All right.

And Mayor Frack.

Aye.

Alright, that motion passes.

Alright, now we'll move on to item E reports from the City Council and City Manager.

I will start with the city manager.

Thank you, Mayor.

Two items tonight.

One, the cannabis storefront retail survey is now live on the city's website.

So please take the survey because your your input is very important to us.

It helps us understand where the community's at.

So sharing your thoughts is important to how we take the next step in exploring the cannabis storefront retail process.

And the second thing is the Novato Parks Recreation and Community Services Department invites the community to join us for our annual spring magic show.

That's happening this Saturday right here at Novato City Hall.

And due to popular demand, we're offering two showings again this year, one at 10 a.m.

and one at 11:30.

Admission is free for all attendees, and there are no reservations required, so you can just walk right in at 10 or 11 30.

And more information about this, about these two workshops are available, is available on our website.

So we hope to see you there.

Thank you.

I'm excited for the magic show.

No report this evening, thank you.

Councilmember Jacob.

Mayor Pro Tem Jacobs.

Thank you.

Just a couple things.

I attended the on the February 17th.

I've attended the bid meeting for the DNBA.

And on February 19th, I attended the MCE meeting, which they're voted on a reduction in the billing as of April 1st.

There'll be a 14% reduction of billing from MCE.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Carkle.

Thank you, but I have no reportable items.

Councilmember Eklund.

Thank you very much.

So I attended the Ring County Council of Mayors and Council Members Legislative Committee meeting.

And we are now meeting at the Centerville City Hall, starting at eight o'clock on the fourth Monday of the month.

If folks would like to join us, we talk about pieces of legislation that are affecting cities and residents, and we decide whether or not we want to support or oppose those pieces of legislation.

I'm on the Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

We had one meeting this month, and um I have uh presented that summary to all of the Marin County mayors and council members in the report that went before them at our uh MCCMC meeting on Wednesday night.

Um I also uh participated in the Association of Bay Area Governments Administrative and Legislative Committee meetings and I also um uh wanted to highlight too that I also are participated in the Association of Bay Area Association of Governments Housing Committee, and unfortunately I need to announce and I would announce that we're gonna be starting to work on the next regional housing needs allocation, which means that in another um three and a half years um we will be getting new numbers from the state of California and what we need to achieve in terms of approving and um uh housing in our community.

So um we are working on achieving this arena, it's called the regional housing needs allocation allocation.

Um most cities are behind, including us.

Um, and so um we're hoping that we're gonna be able to make it by the end of the um of the term, which is a um eight-year period, which will be another three and a half years, and then we'll get a new number.

So um we continue to um try to achieve our goals, and um, it's getting harder and harder as we go along.

So I just wanted to make sure that the council is aware of this.

Uh we are going to be getting new numbers, and uh we can need to start preparing for that as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um and I do not have a report.

Um, so moving on to public comment.

This is general public comment for items that are not on the agenda or for items that are listed on the consent calendar, and there's a three-minute limit.

Um if you'd like to speak, please fill out a yellow card and hand it to the city clerk.

SBA Joe Fairens.

He can come up.

Good evening.

Thank you for having us here tonight.

We're here because Moran County was added to the disaster disaster declaration CA2141.

With that declaration, there was an authorization for a disaster loan outreach centers set up.

Right now there's currently one this week in San Rafael.

There are customer service representatives available to assist with disaster loan applications.

Explain loan eligibility and terms, provide mitigation and refinancing information, and answer questions about economic injury disaster loans.

Their hours of operation is 10 30 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

The following week they will relocate to Stenson Beach with the same operating hours, and the week following that will be in Quota Madeira.

Loan highlights for the community.

Real property, up to 100,000 for personal property, for renters and homeowners.

Interest rates are as low as 4% for businesses.

There is no payment and no interest accrual for 12 months from first disbursement.

A lot of people will utilize the small business administration disaster loans to assist with while waiting for insurance coverage from the disaster from the storms that came in early January, the end of December, early January, the King Tide, King Tide floodings.

If you're still waiting on uh insurance to come through, you can use the loan while waiting for that and then pay it off within that first year before, and there's no penalties for um use of the loan for that.

The physical damage deadline um loan is for April 6th and for economic injury.

Um, the idols it is November 3rd to apply.

Um my name is Joe Farns.

I'm the public affairs for the area.

This is Sean Evans.

We are in the area to March 13th time frame.

We are here to assist, and we are really asking the city of Novato to assist us in getting the information out to the public, and let the residents, homeowners, and business owners know what they're eligible for.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Joe.

We appreciate you coming out and talking to us.

All right, that's closes public comment.

Uh moving on to the consent calendar.

Do I have a motion?

I'll make the motion to move the consent calendar.

Do you have a second?

I'll second.

Laura, can you call vote?

Councilmember Eklund.

I councilmember Carkel.

All right, Councilmember O'Connor, Mayor Pertem Jacobs, and Mayor Farak.

Aye.

All right.

Now we are moving on to general business.

I'd like to call up our chief of police, Jim Nigel to present the item.

All right.

Thank you, Laura.

Welcome.

My pleasure.

All right.

Good evening.

Uh, Mayor, Mayor Protama, members of the council.

It is my absolute pleasure to be here today to present Novato's uh annual report for 2025.

Um, it was a great year, and we'll get through the things, but to this is my statement as always is in there.

And um, a couple things before we get started is anytime you do your annual reports.

You know, you sit down and you wonder, like where we're at compared to where we were before and things like that.

And I will say, in going through numbers and stuff this year, and I'll I'll highlight some of them as we go through.

It is amazing how consistent Novato's numbers are throughout the years.

Um, which is a testament to the work that they're doing out there because you know, anecdotally, agencies around the area, everything tends to rise.

Crime is on the rise, everything's, you know, in flux.

But I I went and looked at like you know, five to six-year averages, and and they have not changed much.

So, you know, I'll I'll touch on the ones that really there's a couple areas that that did deviate some, but most of it is like it's really almost creepy how consistent the crime in this city is.

And maybe it's a citizens who really locked it down.

Um so yeah, so this year it was a great year.

Uh, one of the biggest achievements we had this year is we are, and I hate to say it because it'll jinx us, we are officially at full staff.

We don't have any vacancies at this moment.

Um, that doesn't mean that we're fully deployed.

We still have four in the field training program and three in the field uh in the academy this year, but we are very very close to having a full contingent of people out on the streets, and that that's exciting to us, one because you know it's it's easier on our staff, they're not working as much overtime, but it also opens up opportunities for us to get back into things that we want to do, you know, put people back in investigations back into traffic and the specialty units and stuff like that.

Um so we're looking forward to that over this next year.

Uh I'm not gonna talk about SAFE too much, but I will say that SAFE was absolutely our crown jewel of this last year.

Getting them implemented and on board with with our agency has been just an absolute um honor, really.

And and the reason I'm not gonna talk about it is because you have a presentation right after this where they'll come and really dig into their numbers and everything, but just that's one of the biggest things that we did this last year.

And then the thing I'm really excited about is we launched our strategic plan for the next three years in about the middle of last year.

So hopefully we're shooting for April.

I'll be back in front of you all with our with our fresh, clean new three-year strategic plan.

Give us some direction and some goals over the next three years.

Uh, the nice part about that is uh the firm that we hired to help us, it was very inclusive.

They did community surveys, uh internal surveys, leadership surveys throughout the city, um, and and so a lot of really good feedback and some some good stuff coming out of that.

So we're excited to see uh where we're headed.

Obviously, this is our leadership team still intact.

Um I'll have the title leading with purpose.

That's one of the things we're really trying to strive to do now is not just make decisions for the sake of making decisions, but why are we doing it?

What are we what are we actually trying to accomplish?

You know, I think sometimes you know, as leadership, you get in the mode where we, you know, we're we've got a solution looking for a problem, so to speak, where it's like, okay, what are we doing?

What do we need to do?

And that's really what that strategic plan is going to help us do over the next next several years.

Um, this is this is our our org chart.

Nothing has changed here.

Um, this year we will be having an ad that I'll talk about in a little bit, and that's gonna be a position on the auto theft task force.

Um, and that's you'll see that right now it says 59 sworn staff, that will go up to 60 once we get that position up and running, which is which is good, seen as how we have need more people to hire, so we've got to have a spot for them.

And so this is our mission, and then our values and all of that.

This these are some of the things that we've already reworked during the strategic planning process.

So, this is still um, these are the finalized where we're at, and this is these are the things that we're gonna be working into that plan as as time goes on.

And then this is just a snapshot of the numbers, and we'll dig into them a little bit more as we go on specifically.

But these are the numbers that that I pulled in, and it's incredible how consistent these are throughout the years.

It's I mean, one year I think there was like a calls for service was too different between one year to the next.

Like, it really really was interesting to see.

Um, and then some of the things that are different that we continued this year is you used to just get us blanket.

Hey, here's the reports we took, which was this huge number, and now we're breaking it out into the reports we take and the supplemental reports.

So, as you may know, the supplemental reports, those are just a follow-up on cases that are open.

So it's not a new case, it's not a new report, it's just doing work on the case that's already open.

So we felt it was important to separate those to be a little bit more clear on the kind of work that's that's being done.

And then one of the areas that did go up again was the online reports.

Uh, that's something we put in place last year, and so that did go up a little bit, means people are learning about them and taking advantage of that opportunity instead of calling us.

So, this is our uh use of fourth page and the different crimes.

And again, um, so out of 31,000 calls for service, we had 1,241 arrests, and only seven of those resulted in a use of force.

And you'll see those are anywhere from tasers to a takedown is what we call a takedown with force.

We're taking them down to the ground, and sometimes injury happens, and then pain compliance.

And then again, the numbers on the side for the crimes, again, all very, very consistent.

Um there's really no deviation significantly between the years, which is which is pretty good, I think, considering the whole the whole scheme of things.

Community focus.

So, yes, that is me on a horse, and that is real.

Um, kind of the funny part about that picture is is my staff didn't know that I was born and raised on a horse ranch.

So that whole thing started as a dare.

Like, oh, you we dare you to ride in the parade with the sheriff.

And I played all right, I'll give it a try, you know.

So it was a lot of fun, it was great, and probably something we'll do again every other year with the sheriff because we got on and and it just it was good to work with the sheriff's office with that.

It's it's a relationship that's critical for the city and us.

Um, and just snapshots of all the different things we're doing.

We have tours all the time of people coming through and just really trying to get out and be engaged in our community.

Uh one of the other things that we kind of I'll call it a revamp, is we we no longer have um the explorer program, so to speak.

We just weren't getting kids that were interested in committing that much time to the program.

So we basically re-imaged it to a youth academy type thing where it's it's once a month for um what is it through May?

And so it's one night, we don't take roll, you don't have to tell us you're coming, you don't have to sign up.

You can come in, your kids can come for one, they can come for two, they can come for all of them.

And the idea being is just making it a little bit more accessible for the youth to come in and see what we're about, what kind of things we offer, and it's it's been a hit anywhere from you know, 14 to 20 almost kids coming on once in a while for that.

So that that's been been good and something we'll probably keep going.

Uh chaplain program is another program that I'd say we re-invigorated.

It was a program that was here for years and years, went away with COVID, and then just um over the excuse me.

Last year or so, one of our sergeants, uh Derek Young, had a passion for it and and started rebuilding it.

The thing I appreciate is he he took it with purpose, right?

He didn't just say, Hey, we want a chaplain program, go.

You know, it really built it from the ground up, very selective with the chaplains that we brought on board.

We wanted them to be local, you know, and and really as the program started, we really wanted it to be focused a lot inwardly with with our people and the things that they're dealing with to try to support them.

Also being available to the public if we needed them to come to calls and stuff like that.

And then as time goes on, you know, we hired another chaplain, and then now they're asking us, okay.

Now can we start expanding and kind of driving it out more so it'll become more of a public resource as well for us, and and by that, you know, they come to us and calls like death calls and things like that.

That are just hard times for people, and you know, when you need people to be there and spend time with them.

PD partners, obviously, you know, we can't do anything we do without partners, and and this town, I'll tell you has been great.

How many people we have supporting us?

You know, there's a list of just a few that doesn't even begin to so does that video come up or no, Laura.

You don't get to see it.

Um, if you missed it, we actually partnered with the fire department and with park and rec department to build uh to video uh e-bike safety video, like a no before you buy thing, and we rolled that out right before Christmas time to try to educate parents on hey, don't just go out and spend money without knowing what you're buying.

And so it was a great video, look it up.

Um, I think it turned out fantastic, a lot of really good feedback and some good information on there.

Upcoming events, um, don't worry about writing them down.

You can follow us on our stuff and and we put it all out, but this is just some of the things we have coming up at the remainder of this year.

You know, again, we're super busy in the public just because I think it's important, right?

To to meet people many times sometimes before you actually get to hear what they really think.

And so we just try to be out there and give lots of opportunities to do that.

And and you'll notice Battle of the Bells, that's on December 12th.

Yes, we did win this year.

It's when we go against the fire department on the um ringing the bell for the Salvation Army, and and we smoked them this year.

So not that we're keeping track, but we are.

So this is just a quick slide on the patrol division and all the things that they're doing.

And again, it's been fun to watch patrol grow.

We are a very, very young department on the patrol side.

Um, but it's also great.

We have a lot of good energy, a lot of young people that want to go out and work and do a good job, and and it's and it's been a lot of fun to watch.

And those are just all the different things that that we offer through patrol.

Traffic stats.

I apologize for the red, it's a little bit hard to see.

Um, and again, traffic stats are fairly consistent citations and all of that.

Um, one of the stats that really is is interesting to watch is you'll see we had 189 DUI arrests this year.

That again is up from last year, and our traffic DUI accidents are remaining low.

So when I say there was a spike, we are 50 above the five-year average on DUIRS, and then we're way below the five-year average on DY collisions.

And what that tells me is our enforcement is making a difference.

And the cool thing is is this 189 DUIs came from a skeleton crew.

We were had staffing issues all year, and so as we get up to speed, I would just say, if you're a one that likes to partake and drive, I'd probably be a little bit more careful coming this next year because um we're gonna have a lot of young people out there ready to go.

And so, and and the the stats speak for themselves, and you know, I I just think it's great work we're doing, and it's fun to see that that it does is making a difference.

Uh, last year we got our new canine team.

I I'll tell you right now, there is no way to compare the stats of this dog to years past.

Um, you can see 63 utilizations, 39 searches, and seven suspects surrenders.

Um, the dog is killing it.

Over the last weekend, it found I think two more guns now, if I'm not mistaken.

Two more firearms that were that were thrown in ditch that that he's located.

Um, it it far exceeding our expectations, and and not one of those is a bite.

Um, you know, he's he's a very handsome and loud dog, and those seven surrenders were people that heard him and went okay, we'll hate them in it.

I don't wanna let's think this through.

So, you know, really, really good dog.

If you've never seen him work, it's it's pretty impressive what he's doing.

Special services, our investigations unit.

Um, again, all their this is all their stuff, all of that is is right on par with what they've been doing for years.

And again, they're a unit that kept their numbers up very low staffed.

They were down to two detectives and one sergeant for for a better part of this year, and just really kept it going.

Um, the one thing that kind of jumps out at least to me is this 85 undercover child predator investigations, and what that is is um not to oversimplify, but we sent our detectives off to a school, and they work with a task force that actually goes online and proactively tries to bait these child sex predators to contact and then if they get them on the hook, if you will, and start interacting, then they'll actually try to set up a meet and get them arrested.

So, all eighty-five of those were viable suspects.

Obviously, not all of them actually show up, it's actually about 20-25% that actually show up for the meeting, but um, but they're doing a lot of really good work there too.

Obviously, ours fire mitigation ranger continues to be um super active.

His numbers spiked on the yards of debris removal.

I think it was 200 the year before and 890 this year, but that's obviously all the stuff with uh Lee Gurner and that going on.

So it's a little bit of a skewed stat.

And then our school resource officer continues to do what he does, and again, that's also a nice stat because his stats are very consistent, and he's a team of one, you know, whether we used to have two school resource officers, so keeping those numbers up with just one person is pretty impressive.

And also we we're continuing with uh, you know, we're encouraging it's it's we're calling it our school engagement program that we started where our officers, their expectation is that they know the schools in their zone beats, they make contact, they're on campus, and they're continuing to do that as well.

Our crisis response team this year uh we folded in Central Marin, so it's uh now a Novato San Rafael Central Marin team.

Um they're doing a really good job.

It's great to have the extra resources because throughout time with staffing shortages and stuff.

Everybody kind of has enough, and then they don't, and so it's just nice to be consistent.

Uh we had three missions last year, all extremely uh positive and good.

We were just out this morning um serving search warrant on that last latest shooting out on highway 37.

So we're narrowing that one down.

Um, and so this has been just a great resource as well.

And you know, you will get into details on that when we do our 41 report.

We'll get you all the the details on the call-outs and stuff like that in a couple months.

And then obviously, like I said, the Crown Jewel of the Year is safe team.

That's just a quick rundown of their numbers, but I'm not gonna steal uh Lieutenant Bates and Aziz's Thunder too much.

I'll let them talk to you about all that stuff.

Uh another huge improvement over this year is is the build out of our drone team.

We now have several drone pilots on patrol and and a handful of drones to where they went to on a hundred different deployments last year.

And the nice thing is they're out on patrol.

So if I'm a patrol person and I have my drone pilot license, I can throw a drone in my trunk and these calls for service, you know, missing people, area searches, you know, perimeter things.

We can pop those drones up quick.

You know, there's no helicopter necessarily readily available for our county, so it's just these things are fantastic.

They're not loud, they're mobile, they have all the same video equipment that that those helicopters have, and they've been a really good resource for us.

And then obviously our bike team.

That's one of the units we hope to really get going again over this next year as staffing stabilizes.

Um, there's nothing better for enforcement in parks and down the streets than than a bike team.

So we have plenty of people trained.

Now we're gonna have time to actually send them out and and do work.

Technical services, this is the backbone slide of the of the presentation, and this is our records people, communications, property and evidence, all the ones behind the scenes doing the work.

Um, you'll see, yeah, we had 31 calls for service, but over 62,000 business calls.

So these are extra calls that they're getting on a regular basis, handling reports, dealing with with different things.

Um, and so they're they're invaluable crew.

This is some of the awards we handed out this year.

There's our employees of the quarter and employees of the year.

Yes, I understand there aren't five quarters in a year.

We did split it between a professional staff and a sworn one year because they both did such incredible work and just in completely different ways that we felt like it was important to honor the two of them.

Um, and then our employees of the year obviously um are those two for doing what they've done, and then also in March, we're gonna have our awards ceremony that that we'll let you guys know about where we'll off that we'll have some additional awards to give out or that are all on a nomination type basis.

So coming to this year, um sorry you can't see that at all.

Uh we're hoping to have a new canine in around September again.

Special thanks to the foundation because they've raised up enough money for the second dog, and the idea of that dog is it will be about an apprehension and then a narcotic dog, and so we'll have balance, and then what we'll do is we'll be able to have you know seven-day-a-week coverage with with the two dogs instead of calling in the dog when we didn't have it.

Um we've built out a cadet hiring page, we're looking for cadets, you know, 18 to 21 year range.

Um, it's a paid position, and they learn all the really basic stuff about law enforcement.

And like I said earlier, we are uh in the works of getting a uh officer on the auto theft task force that's been kind of dormant for several years, and what we're finding is way too many things right now are associated with auto theft.

All your retail theft is in a stolen car.

You know, it just so it makes sense, it just brings a whole different resource to the city for us having someone on that team.

And then obviously our our recruitment page that got built last year, is still up and running, join Novato PD.

And you know, fortunately, we're not in big need of it right now, so we're gonna kind of enjoy this time.

But um that's all I have for you guys.

Is there any questions?

Thank you so much.

All right, council, if you have questions, let me know.

Councilmember O'Connor.

Thank you, Chief.

That was that was terrific.

Um I had a couple of questions.

You did a good job of summarizing the DUI enforcement work that you're doing.

Can you talk a little bit more about the work your team does in that area?

So checkpoints are well known about, but I'm assuming there's a lot more behind those numbers than just checkpoints.

Yeah, and one of the things I failed to mention is we did qualify again for the OTS grant, the transportation grant, which is I think just over 100,000, and what that pays for are the DUI checkpoints that we put out, and then also saturation patrols that allows us to put post-overtime to go out and and specifically work on um DUI enforcement.

Thanks.

So there's there's a lot of people out on the street aside from just checkpoints, so it's a year-round effort.

Yeah, it's your round, and and our in like I was mentioning with the younger crew, you know, the MAT award goes out every year, and that's if you get a certain number DYs, you get a pin.

If you get the most, you get honored.

So it's it's a pretty good competition going right now that like I said, you know, for our numbers to go up to that degree with the the light crew that we had is significant.

I can only imagine once we get everybody out there full staffed what what kind of havoc they're gonna wreak on the.

And then I had a couple of questions.

So the last few months there's been a recent number of somewhat high profile shootings or incidents, right?

So like the Coast Guard event and then 37 and the downtown shooting earlier this year.

We have no homicides reported this year.

Have you seen an an intake, like any uptick in that in that area, or do you think it's just pretty consistent timing or?

That's what I was telling you.

I mean, that's one of the reasons I pulled those stats and and I was hoping to see something, but it really is consistent.

I think the thing that's significant this year is it feels like they're clumping up.

Like we have like two or three at a time, and then we have a period of none where I think if it's spread out a little bit more, then you don't quite feel it as much.

Um, but yeah, there's no significant trend.

You know, and again, having having the dog that smells guns and having some more aggressive cops out there, I think you know that will make a difference too, just keeping on top of all that kind of stuff.

And then finally, it's not a question, it's just uh it's great to know you have no vacancies.

I do want to give you a lot of credit.

One of the things I hear from your officers is that you're a wonderful leader, you do a really good job of making them feel happy at work and that they really enjoy the work.

They're working with you, your leadership team, and the and the department as a whole.

I heard nothing but positive from folks that work with you.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you to all your team for everything you guys do.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Mayor Patem Jacobs.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation.

It's wonderful to see that.

Good good information.

Um, question.

I took it about seven years ago.

Citizens Academy.

Are you doing that still?

Yes.

Yeah, we will do that once a year again.

Okay, good.

It was a great program.

I enjoyed it.

I in fact, I don't can't remember if we did we not do that this last year.

I did we do the Citizens Academy?

I think we took this year off, yeah, because of staffing.

Okay.

But that's another one of those things once staffing gets up, we'll absolutely get up and running again.

Okay, and coffee with the cop I think is wonderful.

It's a great engagement with the community.

Um, your SRO program excites me.

I think it's great.

I pushed for it years ago.

Um when they were talking about cutting it many years ago.

I called my son up, and you know, he's 42 now, but I called him up and said, Hey, do you remember this substantial?

He said, Oh, it was wonderful.

You know, it was great engagement with kids.

Yeah.

Um, your fire ranger is wonderful.

I spent a half a day with him.

Um, very educational for me.

It was really wonderful.

But another question electric, your bicycle team.

Are you gonna get electric bikes for them or are they using electric bikes now?

They're using electric bikes.

Good.

Yeah, that's great.

All right, thank you very much.

That was a great presentation.

Thank you.

Councilmember Eklin.

Uh great presentation, Chief, and really admire your leadership.

And um, all of the folks that serve in your department, they do an outstanding job.

Um, a couple of uh questions.

Um school resource officers, we used to have two.

And um we actually worked with the school district where they actually paid for one of them.

Have you had a chance to talk with the school district to see if they're willing or able to help us pay for another school resource officer because they at least uh during my tenure, they have averted several difficult situations by having a close relationship with the um students.

Yeah, and and I'll be honest, I've had many conversations with the the superintendent, and it is not a desire issue, it's a funding issue.

It's a funding issue.

Yeah, and and unfortunately, that's towards the end, that's why we lost the second one is because they changed the parameters on the tobacco grant is the grant we used to use where it had to be towards tobacco enforcement specifically.

So no, we didn't lose the second SRO because of a lack of interest or support from the school district.

It is just a funding issue for them.

And so that's why we've maintained ours from the city end.

And I think if they had the money, they would definitely do it.

I just don't think they have the means.

And that's why we came up with that school engagement program just to kind of offset that so that we still had a presence, it just looked a little different.

Yeah, I just I know that we need at least two to really because the number of schools that we have is um really dictating that desire.

But um, so I don't know, it'd be nice if we could find some grants.

Um, but um I really appreciate you keeping the program and doing what you can.

The other um uh question I had was about the canine department.

Um I'm glad that we're getting another one.

Is that also from a grant, or is that just straight from our um our fund?

So we already have the allocation for the team to pay them.

Um it's buying the dog in the initial training that becomes problematic, and that's where that the Novato Canine Association has come through.

They raise the money that we use to buy the dog we have now, and they're either at the amount or very close to them what we will need to buy the second dog.

Okay, great.

I I really support two canines.

We've had two for a long time, and would like to continue that.

So thank you very much for all your hard work.

Of course.

Council member Kirkle.

Uh yes, thank you very much.

Uh Chief.

Uh great report.

Um, my um congratulations to a great year, both for you and uh PD.

Um, so that I just actually, you know, kind of don't have very many questions offer my colleagues here uh asked, but I do have one maybe Todd, and it's uh basically um and I realize it's not an apples to apples uh comparison, but how do we, you know, when we look at the statistics here, how do we compare or how do we do we do any benchmarking against um you know neighboring communities different like so eastern to the north south of us and stuff?

How does that how does that work or how how does that shake out?

Yeah, and that's a tough one to say because every community's different, you know, and and I think it it really isn't apples to apples, and that's what's hard because you know the makeup of the community is different, the support of the community is different, you know, the tolerances of communities are different, and I think I mean you can try to make comparisons.

I I will tell you, we're not off the charts high or off the charts low.

I mean, we're doing it, you know, we're right right there.

But I mean, there's some cities that are higher crime rates, but it's it's hard to tell what the reasons are behind it.

Yeah, I realize it's uh kind of a tough question to answer, but I was just trying to get a kind of a sense of how we rank, so thank you for that's a thank you.

Thanks.

I have a couple questions.

Um so the business calls this what were 62,000, 52,000.

Um is there any way we can decrease that by like automation or providing more information on websites or using technology?

Yeah, I I think you could.

I just know whenever I get in a phone tree or some AI, my blood pressure goes up, you know.

And so I I don't know.

I I it's something we've talked about.

We've talked about improving the phone tree and doing different things.

I think personally, I think sometimes police work at the end of the day is interactive, you know, and so I I don't know.

I haven't really dug in too deep just because I don't I don't know where I stand on that yet, you know, as far as that goes.

Um it's a lot, but they handle it, you know, they're they're doing it.

Um yeah, I I haven't really looked into that to be.

I'm just thinking if there's like I don't know, most of the Carl's they're asking for an email address, and we could do a better job of like marketing the email address, so like you know, low-hanging fruit um to kind of automate that and um create efficiency there.

Um, and then I I think I always ask this question every single year.

Um, but grants are a priority to me, like capitalizing on money that we can get for free or do a matching.

Um, how many grants have we applied for?

And then how many were we awarded?

So the police department has applied for two, the that OTS grant that we typically get every year, and then we also applied for a cannabis enforcement grant.

And we don't know if we got that or not yet.

We're still waiting.

But those are the only two so far this year.

But you know, now that we're eligible and everything, I've got uh a management analyst that is actively looking for grants just to see what's out there, you know, because obviously if there's a lot of things that are available, it's just whether or not it fits.

You know, and and so just we just gotta keep looking.

Okay.

Well, thank you for all your work and your team's work, and we're really lucky to have you all making Navado safe.

So thanks for the effort there.

Um now I'm gonna bring it to public comment.

Um, if you want to fill out a card, please do and hand it to Laura.

Laura, do you have any cards?

No?

All right.

Um, any additional questions from the council?

All right, then we will move on to item J2.

So this is uh receiving a presentation on and consider accepting it the 10-month progress report for the SAFE program.

So I'm gonna call on Lieutenant Alan Bates to open the item.

Welcome.

Madam Mayor, members of council, thank you for the opportunity.

I'm Lieutenant Alan Bates, Special Services over at the PD.

Well, I'll let him introduce himself eventually.

But uh sitting in the audience also, uh, my buddy director of Safe Team, Aziz Majid, uh, here to present for you progress report on the specialized assistance for everyone, the SAFE team.

Excited to get this to give this presentation.

Uh actually I've been very hopeful and excited to provide this presentation.

I uh we we looked into doing this at the six-month mark, and I'll explain more later about that.

But unfortunately, with the passing of councilmember Milberg, we pushed that back.

Uh wanted to, you know, from a personal note from the department.

Uh the department mourned with you in the lossing of in the loss of councilmember Milberg.

And I think that if you were here today, you'd be very uh heartened to see the benefit to the community that is this program.

So wanted to put that out first.

As you're aware, November 2024, this council unanimously and very quickly approved a five-year pilot program for the specialized assistance for everyone through Petaluma People Services Center.

Uh, from November to April, we revamped and trained and hired and uh got a van upfitted, and we went live on April 1st, 2025.

So the presentation I have for you is from Go Live to the end of 2025, so December 31st.

And what the SAFE team is is a mobile crisis response team uh comprised of civilian crisis intervention specialists and EMTs.

Occasionally some of those employees are cross-trained as well, but what you have is two folks riding in a city-owned van responding to calls for service.

One will always be trained in crisis intervention in crisis intervention, and the other as an EMT.

Primary focus is mental health, substance abuse, homelessness, and then they conduct proactive research uh proactive outreach as well.

The purpose of these alternative response teams is to avoid utilizing traditional first responders for issues and crises that don't necessarily require them.

So they provide the safe team provides a trauma-informed and compassionate care tailored to vulnerable populations.

I think what you'll see later is that this team is targeted for our vulnerable populations, our youth and our elderly and others.

And the benefit, the ingrained benefit in this is that it keeps traditional first responders, police, fire, and medical, available for emergencies and used appropriately.

So as part of the agreement with council and with the city, Safe Team functions five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday for 12 hours per day.

So they function 60 hours per week, 8 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

And what's most important and unique about the safe team is that they're they're embedded with the police department.

They have an office in the department.

They respond to calls for service based on our 911 dispatch system.

They're equipped with police radios, and they use our computer-aided dispatch system.

So when a call comes in, depending on what that call is, the 911 dispatchers have the opportunity to triage that call and determine what the best resource is, and often that's the SAFE team.

They have a dedicated phone number, 8997000 for folks that decide that instead of reaching out directly to 911 or to our non-emergency business line that we just spoke about, they can call a line dedicated to the SAFE team.

The office inside, or excuse me, their office inside of our building makes it possible for them to interact with our staff on a daily basis.

They attend briefings, they interact with our dispatchers, and they become more familiar as as you would a part of our team because they have in a uh embedded with us and and are naturally a part of our team.

So much like traditional first responders, the SAFE team responds to emergency calls, non-emergency calls, and then conducts proactive outreach, much like our police department and each of our officers.

Emergency calls including health, health uh mental health crises, uh addiction, and homelessness.

Non-emergency includes things like conflict resolution, welfare checks, and low-level medical aid, and and it's important to note here too that conflict resolution doesn't necessarily mean some kind of criminal conflict.

This can be as simple as two neighbors that are in a spat and disagree, not necessarily a criminal act, which traditionally would have brought a uniform to try and mitigate, but now you have a crisis intervention specialist who can dedicate resources to these people and help them get through the issues that they're dealing with.

And then when time allows, and time often sometimes doesn't allow for the SAFE team because we keep them busy, they're out doing proactive outreach to the vulnerable parts of our community, those are that have mental health concerns that are experiencing homelessness, and able to establish and maintain those relationships with the members of our community.

And you'll recognize some of these names, but because of the SAFE team's ability to provide resource, they're already listed and they're already ingrained with uh a continuum of care programs that are sometimes city and sometimes county based.

Ritter Center, Marine Community Clinics, Adult Protective and Child Family Services, Emergency Mental Health Centers, and then the SAFE team also has what's known as a navigator.

So back at their headquarters, once they assist a member of our community, they can put them into uh get them connected with the navigator so that whatever needs are necessary uh whatever's necessary for that particular client can direct them to appropriate resources.

The navigator uh not necessarily a boots on the ground, but provides a service that's very unusual and and very unique for a first responder type situation.

So the highlights 2025, January 1st, or excuse me, April 1st through December, 1340 calls for service.

That represents 7% of all calls for service handled by our dispatch center.

And it's interesting to show the transition from the first half of the year to the second half and how the call volume has increased because it's becoming a norm and it's becoming a regular service that we provide, and and people are utilizing that direct line and are requesting safe directly.

So it's clearly becoming part of our team.

And if I may, I'd like to introduce Aziz Majid to come up from SAFE team.

Alright.

Good evening, City Council.

Thanks for having me.

So as you see under on the projector, I'll start with the map.

And I just wanted to highlight a couple things.

Uh, for one, for confidentiality reasons, the dots are not exactly at every address we responded to, but within that range.

First thing I wanted to highlight was that if you look at the map in Novato, it shows that the SAFE team's being utilized in every part of Novato.

The blue, the blue dots uh signify each school in the Novato School District.

And it shows that we're also responding to the schools and in the surrounding areas of the schools as well.

And with that, I also want to highlight, we didn't put it up here on the slide, but you know, 55% of our calls for service are to individuals that are actually housed.

And there's you know some misconception sometimes that Safe Team is a homelessness only team, only doing outreach, but the stats and the map and the data show the whole community of Nevado is using us as a resource, which which is a positive thing.

So, in terms of call types, you'll see 32% are public assists.

Public assists are sort of an umbrella term that are defined as when the safe team is being utilized to assist the public or business or or an individual with a suspected or known need.

Some examples of that would be an individual that may be intoxicated and may need to engage in some services, and when it's out and about maybe in a downtown area, and you know, traditionally you just get the fire department, and that individual's gonna go to the hospital and take up a hospital bed.

We can go out, we can provide some additional services.

We have an EMT and a crisis worker, so we can uh obviously monitor vitals.

We can assess if they really need the hospital or not.

We can get them connected to detox, Helen Vine.

We can even problem solve, have a friend or family member come come pick them up.

Uh we also have psychiatric emergency, so that's defined as someone that uh is maybe off of their meds, someone that's manic, maybe someone that is having a mental health episode, whether in their home or in the public, someone that can use de-escalation, safety planning, uh connection to services, uh medication adjustments.

Local business inquiries, those are usually uh most commonly uh move-alongs.

So usually businesses open up at eight in the morning and there's an individual uh camped out or sleeping in front of the business.

Obviously, the business needs to open, needs to have a clear pathway.

Uh, businesses love to utilize us because uh, you know, instead of calling an officer or two out, which you know sometimes brings more eyeballs, um, they can call the safe team, and so we can engage with individual.

Half of the time we already know this individual, so it's a pretty seamless uh ask to have them move along.

But we also stock uh closed food and water in our van too.

So it's kind of a good way for us to break ice with that with individual, um, start off uh with a water bottle, a card, a snack, you know.

We can wake them up gently, uh get them to move along, and also in that process, connect them to services if needed.

We have a lot of different uh networking with different housing services, not only in Marin, but in Sonoma County.

Uh, client requests, so these are individuals usually that are reaching out and calling in just for general support.

These are individuals that uh are dealing sometimes from symptoms of depression, um, someone that doesn't have anyone to turn to, someone that's looking for guidance, uh, which also kind of ties into that counseling request right there as well.

And so a lot of those we handle in person, but we can we can also handle those over the phone too.

We do have some members of the community that uh you know want to build trust with us, but before they fully trust us, you know, they'd rather talk to us on the phone, or this individual is uh maybe schizophrenic and paranoid.

So sometimes we do start those interactions over the phone.

27% welfare checks.

So generally, a welfare check is a call that would always be handled by law enforcement if the safe team wasn't around.

Well for check, an example would be someone calling in and saying, Hey, I have not heard from my grandma in three weeks.

She usually calls every Sunday.

Can someone go check on her?

Uh, there's not always necessarily something uh criminal or medical in nature, there can be, but we found nine out of ten times when we handle welfare check uh that individual is most of the time okay or or is okay, but maybe need some additional services, such as maybe APS or CPS.

And for the one out of ten times that we come across someone that you know may have overdose or is suffering from medical emergency, we have that EMT out of out of that uh out of the pair that can jump into action while a crisis worker stands back and calls out fire for additional assistance.

11% community gauge uh community engagement and outreach.

And so, like Lieutenant Bates shared, the team's very proactive.

So we have very we have a really uh strict proactive policy on our team.

So the team's very busy every day for the five days we're here.

But when there is lulls in downtime, they're asked to be proactive in the community.

So that can include uh foot patrols through downtown where they're handing out business cards to local businesses, water bottles to shelterless clients, or they're going directly into uh any encampments as well and engaging with individuals, whether their service was assistant or not.

8% the police fire assist, that's any type of call where uh police or fire may have been sent out first, and then upon uh going on scene, they discover that the safe team would be either better equipped to handle the call or assistance some capacity, whether it's a transport, assisting with de-escalation or just general connection of services.

Uh then you have 5% uh suicidal subjects.

So it's anyone that is uh expressing any type of suicide out uh suicide ideation or action, we're usually involved in that alone or with uh police presence as well.

Less than 1%, you know, every once in a while we'll get uh you know, little first aid or or bandage care requests, mostly from uh house this client.

So going off on the stats a little bit more, 96% of all calls handled that safe team handled was was resolved alone without requesting police or EMS or fire assistance, and that's just to show that while we are taking on roughly you know, seven percent of the call volume that the that Novato PD has traditionally handled, we're also not causing uh additional strain on the police department by calling them out for calls that they don't need to be involved in.

In fact, if you look up under requests, we've only out of the uh roughly 13 to 1400 calls we've handled, we've only requested Novato PD assistance 21 times out of all those calls.

So it's less than one percent.

And 11 times we requested for Nevado Fire.

That's usually when there's some emergent medical situation that our EMT uh can't handle in the field, we're not an ambulance, but uh any type of medical situation co-response.

So eight percent of our calls we respond uh with the police department, and usually sometimes we're asked to stage a couple blocks away.

There may be a threat of violence or some weapons, and uh law enforcement wants to clear that scene first before they allow us to go in.

Uh, then two percent with the Novato Fire Department.

Speaking on uh diversions a little bit, so one of the aims of uh PPSC and the SAFE team is to divert individuals out of greater institutions if necessary, specifically gels in hospitals.

Um so we've found, you know, with our four and a half years uh operating out of PPSC and working with different agencies, you know, the the cost and burden and strain on the healthcare system of having individuals in the in the ED in the ER, taking up hospital beds that don't necessarily need to be in the hospitals, right?

It's the straight it's a strain on the hospital, especially you imagine someone that's maybe suffering from a mental health issue or feeling suicidal, and they're sitting in this hospital bed for seven or eight hours, their lowest priority in the ER, right, when you're dealing with medical emergencies and traumas.

So it's a strain on the hospital, but also that client's not getting uh the best care either, right?

Because this might be the first time they reached out for help, they're feeling suicidal, and they're in they're in a hospital bed for seven or eight hours without the care that they need.

Uh so when the team is able to divert individuals out of the hospitals, right?

Very minor medical issues, mental health issues, even sometimes, like I said, intoxication, substance use issues.

Uh, we do try to divert those individuals, individuals out of the hospital beds if we can.

Uh, cost analysis we did a few years ago was a uh average hospital bed without medicine and overnight stay is roughly five to six thousand dollars.

And then down there under referrals, we we've successfully connected 143 clients, can uh citizens of Novato to a service, and that's more than just a basic referral handoff or warm handoff.

This is we saw it through to the end, they got they received housing, they are now connected to CPS or APS, they're now on meds, they're getting counseling.

Uh, these are actually services that they were connected to and actually started receiving services from case management is another common one as well.

So, like I kind of described earlier, as well as uh Lieutenant Bates, SAFE functions as a system stabilizer by absorbing non-emergent calls.

So those 13, 1400 calls that we handled, if safe team was not around, those 13 to 1400 calls would have been handled by the police department.

Um, we've had longer time with other police departments and other areas to do uh more further analysis on how that positively impacts the departments, and what we've seen time and time again is that their priority two and party three call response times have increased because of the sheer number of calls that the safe team has been able to take off their plate, right?

Um if there is a suicidal individual at Novato High instead of taking up two officers out of their beat and unable to respond to other calls for maybe an hour or two hours, especially if we're talking about transportation, you know the safe team can handle that call, and so that frees up those two officers to uh patrol their beat, engage with the community, respond to other calls that they're uh you know they're trained to handle, uh report writing.

And so we do look at ourselves as a third branch of public safety, like Lieutenant Bates mentioned, you know, because traditionally individuals call 911 and you're you either get the fire department and EMS, which are very important, but there's only so much they can do, and they can only transport you to the hospital, or you get the police department uh who's overburdened as well.

And so what we found is a lot of the calls that are coming into the 911 system don't necessarily fit in those two buckets, and sometimes we have you know, like these conflict mediations and whatnot.

Law enforcement shows up, there's nothing citable, no one's gonna go to jail, there's only so much time they could spend on scene.

We have a little bit more uh reach in terms of connecting to resources and also the amount of time we can spend on calls.

Uh you know, I personally came from working out in the field and on the van, and you know, I've I've had to spend two to three hours on a call sometimes, and you know, sometimes officers don't have that time because they're so busy.

So you guys some some key year one outcomes that I mentioned is 96% of calls are resolved without assistance from fire or police, just to really highlight that uh we can solve a lot of our calls on our own without involving law enforcement, and then the combined uh 40 ER ambulance and jail diversions.

Some lessons learned.

Uh early on last year, Lieutenant Bates was amazing and uh really key part of getting me introduced to all the different community networks and partners in Navado and and this region that was very helpful.

You know, uh chamber comrades, we had uh community action brand, a lot of different uh resources that I was connected to that I also was able to connect my team with as well, and the school district has been a really big supporter as well.

Uh demand for expanded coverage.

Um, what I hear time and time again is you know, when can you guys go seven days a week?

Um we've had a lot of amazing calls with all the local businesses with uh the school district.

We get utilized a lot from our local businesses, a lot from school, a lot from the uh from the schools and a lot of members of the community as well.

And um, I wanted to highlight that as well.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um, really impressed with the accomplishments and the numbers and everything like that.

Um so we'll bring it back to council for questions.

We'll start with Mayor Putum Jacobs.

Thank you.

Um thank you for your presentation.

It was very detailed.

Um I've heard from a couple residents, they see your van around town, they're very excited about it.

And I know PD was very excited when this program started.

We talked about it quite a bit, and I just want to thank you for everything.

Thank you.

Councilmember Eklin.

Uh yes, I wanted to again thank you very much for everything that you do.

And so you talked about um that there is a demand for uh expanded coverage seven days a week.

How many days a week do you do it now?

Currently, five days a week.

Uh so Tuesday through Saturday.

And so, what um uh what would it cost to allow for seven days a week?

That's something that we can certainly look at if that's if the council's interested in expanding services.

And and have we started looking to see if there's any kind of grants that might be able to cover the expansion of time because I think your services are not only helping the police department do and focus on the their expertise on the subjects that they're dealing with there, but but you're helping a lot of people that um really need help.

And like I'm trying to well, yeah.

I mean, all of us are trying to do it, but you guys are going the extra mile, um, in order to do that.

And so I I really think that we need to look to see if there is any grant opportunities for us to expand it to seven days a week.

Do you do weekends or just during the week?

Well, Saturday.

So Tuesday through Saturday.

We're off Sunday and Monday.

Tuesday through Saturday.

There's a lot of people that are Sunday and Monday as well.

100%.

So I I really think, and I don't know what we need.

This is not um, we don't have any option in this agenda item for us to provide direction to staff.

No, I guess we need to put this on a future agenda.

Well, I think that this is something that we can, if council um is interested, this is something we can fold into the budget process, which is going to start um in a couple of weeks.

Then I think we definitely need to have that discussion, thank you.

Council member O'Connor.

Thank you, and thank you for the presentation.

I just had one question about your report.

Um, in referrals, you mentioned 143 successful connections to services.

Could you define what a successful connection to service is?

Yeah, so it's a successful connection to service would be an individual that we connect to our service navigator, and so it's kind of a three-step process.

So we usually when the team's in the field with an individual, if we can get them connected directly to a service in the field, we can't.

So for example, if uh someone's having some type of suicidal homicide ideation and we can directly connect them to the county CSU, we'll transport them to the CSU and get them connected.

Uh a lot of times we have individuals that maybe start out service resistant aren't ready to uh accept services in the moment, or maybe you know, it's 7 p.m.

or they need a specific service we can't connect them to.

So we first we connect them to our our bilingual resource navigator, they start um uh kind of a basic case management process to uh to assess what that individual needs, and then that navigator will then reach out to the different uh networks we have and we're in in Sonoma County to get that individual connected to one of those services.

So, for example, we also have services within PPSA.

So if we run across uh a client that specifically needs therapy or family that wants family therapy, family counseling, we will connect that individual to our navigator, and then our navigator will then connect that individual and reach out to our counseling department within PPSC and get them connected so that they're all set up and signed up and they start receiving services such as counseling.

That's great, thank you.

And I just want to echo my colleagues' works.

Thank you so much for everything you guys have done.

Um, your tie in with the school district and the families of the kids has been tremendous.

I've I've heard about that probably more than anything else.

So great.

Thank you for all your great work.

Thank you.

Council member Kirkle.

Uh yes, thank you both to the P and to your team for all the work that you do.

Uh and great presentation, by the way.

I do have a couple of questions.

Um, so when we talk about expanded services to possibly seven days a week or so, um, can you talk to maybe any resource constraints you may be able to have?

Because I understand you're, you know, you do work in a lot of other communities too.

Do you have any concerns about any resource constraints you might have and being able to provide that sort of um seven-day a week service?

Do you think?

No, not at all.

Okay, no.

If we had the funding, we we we'd be able to staff up within a couple months.

Okay, so finding the right people and the qualified people is not not a big issue.

No, not at all.

So we do have we have team in San Rafael, we have teams in Sonoma County as well, and so we we're all still one program and we do shared training and everything, and if we need to you know pull team members from other cities, we can do that.

Okay, so it's a pretty flexible setup then being able to move people around and find resources and allocate them.

That's good to hear.

Um, the other question I had was one of the bullet items in the presentation earlier was proactive outreach.

Um, and I get it, and you know, you've you've been contacted for services, but what do you do outside or do you do anything outside of that in terms of you know rather reaching out to the community with um you know kind of the availability of resources that the community could utilize from from your group?

Yeah, so speaking to the field team themselves, when they're not on calls, they will engage in their productive outreach, like I said, usually whether it's just being visible in the community and driving around, uh and sometimes from that we do get these proactive contacts of individuals flagging us down, or we see someone that needs help, um, or sometimes we're going into an encampment or we're doing uh you know foot patrols through downtown to engage with businesses or clients um and then on our and on management um we also do like for me I've done presentations to the school district um I've engaged with uh multiple businesses and done presentations presentations to the chamber comrades in order to spread the word uh on my end from for the team as well um but a lot of the a lot of the field team from day to day is staying really busy out there in the field okay and then if I may suggest that that all sounds great and uh if I may suggest we have we have a lot of service organizations in this community and I know for instance my club would love to hear from you in terms of you know what you do around here as well so just a talk yeah sure thing thank you thank you thanks um just a couple questions and comments um I think just piggybacking off of council member carkels um we have like the most amazing or the police department has the most amazing like social media and community engagement and I think sharing some of these numbers would be absolutely fantastic um for your success so if you guys could make a note of that and maybe do a post or something for the safe team I think that would be awesome.

Question as far as um it looks like we're helping the hospital this program is helping the hospitals as well as like Novato Fire have we um reached out to them about partnering about potential funding opportunities.

Yes absolutely that uh there's a great question earlier council member eklund and just to follow up on that this is something we're focused on quite seriously our funding sources grants were mentioned that's certainly one partners with other agencies whether it's Novato Fire County of Marin really any and all that can be part of this and and capitalizing off of safe's um experience in other communities is also quite helpful so yes all of those things are on the radar.

Well and I think the data speaks for itself too right like hey we're alleviating alleviating these money calls for your team so they're not you know running 247 and then as far as um you know KPIs and benchmarking of the program long term do we have any in the next like six months of targets we want to hit um this is all very impressive so I'm not saying you need to do better but is there any like golden goal you have.

Well one thing one thing that I was able to roll out over the past year was to make sure every shift had someone that was bilingual in Spanish.

So we do have a team member on each shift that can speak Spanish and we've actually found um you know uh not a negligible amount but we we a handful of calls that have required uh full Spanish which has been really helpful and so also our our resource navigator is bilingual Spanish as well.

So I'd say that's one thing I'd say in terms of call volume it's it's it's very busy especially very comparable to our uh our partnering cities in Santa Phil and Petalum and up in runner park um and the and the outreach numbers are pretty high too so I mean we're always happy to do more outreach and more community engagement and I think obviously with uh with just five days and a little less than a year with with a full service you'll see a lot higher numbers.

Great well thank you for your work think the police department's work and then also I commend our council to you know putting the funding forward to to do this great program and execute it so thank you very much.

Thank you all right moving oh I did not ask for public comment is there any public comment okay see none um and I think we do have to vote on this um so do I have a motion to I'll maybe I'll make the motion to accept the report.

I'll just second the motion.

All right.

Laura, can you take the vote?

Councilmember Eklund.

Aye.

Council member Carkle Councilmember O'Connor.

Mayor Pratem Jacobs.

Alright.

And Mayor Farak.

Aye.

All right.

Now I can move on.

All right.

So now on item J three we're um gonna receive a presentation from the downtown Novato Business Association for revised 2026 budget and adopt a resolution.

So I'm gonna call on Katie Scarping Sherping, the Economic Development Director, to present the item.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Tonight you'll be receiving a presentation on the Downtown Novado Business Association's revised 2026 budget as well as an amendment to the operations agreement between the city and the DNBA.

At the City Council meeting on October 28th, 2025, as part of the annual bid reassessment process, the council directed staff to work with the DNBA to update the 2026 annual budget with the removal of responsibility for maintenance of the white tree lights and planters in the bid area.

So we're returning to now with this updated budget.

In addition to the revised budget, this item includes an amendment to the agreement for the administration of the DNBA bid district to update insurance and indemnification requirements to meet the city's current standards.

Both the revised budget and updated agreement have been adopted by the DNBA board.

On this slide, you can see a rolled-up version of the revised budget.

And I'll note the complete version is in your packet.

The revised budget reflects DNBA's focus on downtown activation and marketing.

The city and bid assessments remain the foundation of DNBA funding, each contributing about $70,000.

Additional revenue comes from community events such as Rock the Block, Nostalgia Days, the holiday tree lighting event, and Bouncy Ball New Year, with a proposed total revenue of about 280,000.

The revised budget also shows reduced expenses as compared with the version you saw in October due to the city's management of the Grant Avenue Planters and Tree White Lights.

The total proposed expense is 239,495.

Administrative expenses represent approximately 10% of the total.

Payroll expense and taxes and insurance represent about 38%.

Event expenses represent 41%, and marketing represents about 9% of expenses.

The revised budget is the first in recent years to show a significant surplus as a result of the removal of those capital expenses for the Grant Avenue planters and tree white lights.

So the DNBA is anticipated to end the year with a surplus of 44,587, which has been identified to go into the organization's reserves.

In the review of the 2015 agreement, during the last year's bid reassessment process, staff determined that the insurance and indemnity provisions were outdated as compared with current city policy.

So the attached amendment to the administration agreement will keep the bid and DNBA in compliance with our standard limits and policies.

Oh, sorry about that.

There we go.

And so we just want to mention to keep this work in context.

In the past year, the city's invested significantly in programs that directly benefit the downtown, including tourism committee funding, the downtown tenant improvement grant program, our shop local program, community sponsorship program, city-run events that activate downtown, and of course, direct support to downtown businesses.

These investments reflect the city's ongoing commitment to the health and well-being of our local businesses downtown.

So tonight's recommendation is fairly straightforward to receive this presentation on the revised budget and adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute this first amendment to the amended and restated agreement for the administration of the downtown Novato bid.

Stephanie Kaler, the DNBA's executive director, is here to speak to this item as well, and we're both available to answer your questions.

Thank you, Katie, for the presentation.

Moving on to council questions.

Councilmember Carkle.

And actually, if not the slides, then certainly the staff report.

On page three of the staff report, you talk about the same points basically.

There's a table in there about the annual investments into the program.

So just as a point of clarification, this the expenses in there, the grand total, including cash and in kind, we're talking about 531,000.

That is an addition to and separate from could you talk a little bit more about that?

Because as the newbie here, I'm still trying to catch up and understand how how all that works.

Sure.

Um you'd like me to speak to the those other investments or the reason for their inclusion in the staff report.

Well, no, just a little bit more about what what's involved and how is that separate and different from the actual budget that we're talking about here, the $280,000.

How's it, you know?

So, because if I'm doing the math, it's $530 plus $280.

So how does how does that work?

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, so the other programs that were mentioned include the tourism committee funding, I'll flip back there.

The funding for the tourism committee, so I guess I'll I'll zoom out and put it in larger context.

The DNBA's budget um relies primarily on the assessment that they get from businesses in the business licensing process, and then there's a dollar-for-dollar city match that goes into their budget.

And so the idea here is just to provide the council in the context of this conversation with some sort of additional points of the other areas where we're investing effort in our downtown businesses.

So the ones listed here include funding that goes to the tourism committee, which of course supports all Nevado businesses, um, but there's absolutely uh a focus on downtown and a benefit to downtown from that work.

There's also the downtown tenant improvement grant program, so that's uh a hundred thousand dollar allotment the council made in the last um budget cycle, that's grants that go directly to our downtown businesses.

The shop local program is one that's run by the city to support and advertise our local businesses, which includes uh website, a social media presence, um, as well as the banners visible downtown.

So that program does support businesses citywide, but the beautification efforts um are absolutely concentrated in downtown and our downtown businesses benefit from that program.

Um the community sponsorship program is one where the city donates time and or um money to the two events that happen largely downtown, which go towards supporting activation downtown.

Um city events are things like our concerts on the green that bring lots of folks downtown and activate the area in a way similar to events put on by the DNBA or the Chamber of Commerce, and then the downtown business direct support is work that we do as staff in our office to be working with businesses, supporting them with navigating permitting or answering questions about other resources that might be available to them.

I see.

So would it be fair to say then that the if you use the term investment uh loosely it's let's say actually the summation of the 530,000 odd plus the 280,000 or so, so that would be the sort of benefit or investment.

Yeah, the 280 doesn't all come from city funds, of course.

But yes, absolutely, that is all being invested downtown.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, Pro Tem Jacobs.

Thank you.

Uh I've got a couple questions.

Um, in the budget, they're showing in 2025 they budgeted 4,500 for postage and only use 721.

And then in 26, you they've got five hundred dollars budgeted for um postage, but in 2025, they had 13,000 budgeted for printing.

And in 2026, they have 13,000 budgeted for printing, but they're still showing a $500 for postage.

Uh this printed items are they not being mailed out?

Are they being handed out or what?

I my s I would turn to the executive director for those details.

Can you just explain?

Hi everyone.

Can you tell me where you see the 13,000?

Um, I know what it is.

I can easily answer that.

Okay.

Um so what we did is we've stopped putting things in the mail.

Okay.

So that's the reduction in print costs.

The print campaign that you're seeing is actually print advertising.

So ads that are in Marin magazine or Marin IJ.

It also is the the print costs for our smart ads, so that the paper that's used to be.

That clarifies it right there.

I knew it had to be something.

Um the other thing I was concerned about is I'm looking at the agreement from 2015.

I believe it was.

Uh yeah, 2015 showed a million dollars um insurance requirement, and it was $1,400 back then.

In your budget for 25, you had $6,363.

And has from 15 to 25, did that insurance of a million dollars go up to a higher amount.

There are several things in that insurance, including things like you now have an employee, so you have that insurance.

So it's really since I've come on board, it's only fluctuated a few hundred dollars, but it's basically six thousand dollars.

I think it fluctuated, I think it was like fifty nine hundred when I first came on 10 years ago.

And okay, but my concern is that in 26 you're going to sixty-six hundred dollars for insurance, but your insurance requirement from the new agreement is gonna call for four four million dollars and a million dollars in auto.

Thank you for that.

Um at the time those changes were made at the city.

I believe Jessica Deekine was actually sitting in that chair.

She came to us and we upped our insurance at the time.

So, so really we've been in compliance all these years, it's just the agreement is coming to catch up language wise.

Okay, so you've had the four million dollars of insurance, but now it's in the agreement.

Yeah, okay.

My concern was you're gonna turn around and end up with a ten thousand dollar insurance bill.

Um and the other question was um you've had two businesses who disputed the bid fees, uh previously.

Do we know why?

Are you talking about like when they really disputed and wanted to get rid of the bid?

Well, no, two of them uh at the last meeting disputed paying the bid, and they they wrote a formal letter for it.

We yeah, we received two formal protests in the last bid assessment process.

Um, and I did speak to those businesses, and what I heard is that they felt like because of the nature of their businesses, they did not benefit from the activities that the bid does, like the events activation and the marketing.

Um that was what I heard.

Okay, all right, thank you.

All right, and I have no other questions, um, and I do not have any questions.

So I'm gonna open it to public comment.

If you'd like to speak, please fill out a yellow card and hand it to Laura.

Laura does not have any cards.

All right, so I'm gonna bring it back to council for a motion.

So I'll move the uh first amendment to amended and restated agreement for the administration of the downtown business association improvement district.

And I'll second.

All right, Laura, can you call that?

Councilmember Jacob, or sorry, Councilmember Eklund?

Aye.

Councilmember Carkle?

Aye, Councilmember O'Connor.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Time Jacobs.

Aye.

And Mayor Farak.

Aye.

All right.

So moving on to adjournment.

Um I'd like to move the resolution of the city council of the city of Nevada receiving a presentation.

Is that uh we have to move that resolution as well?

You already just did in that.

Yeah, yeah, I think the motion and the second was for the resolution, and that's the only action item here other than receiving the presentation.

Oh, because I actually had made the uh the motion for amendment uh attachment three.

Is that being adopted by the resolution though?

Well, it it uh well that's what my motion was to, and I read I read the uh title on that because that's the one that has to be signed, and that's why I thought we had to do the resolution as well.

Yeah, I think if there's any question, you all could take another vote on the resolution if you'd like.

Okay, so I'll move the resolution as well.

Well second, Laura, can you take vote?

Councilmember Eklund?

Aye.

Councilmember Carkle?

Aye.

Councilmember O'Connor.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Jacobs?

Aye.

And Mayor Farack.

Aye.

Okay, now I can move to adjournment.

Um, okay.

So the next regular council meeting will be held on March 10th, 2026.

And I want to ask the council if they have anyone who they like to adjourn in memory of.

Yes, I have.

Um I would like to um ask the council to close in memory of the uh four victims of Avalanche.

Um Green Bray resident, Kate Bitt, um, who was uh 43 years old and a satellite radio executive, Kate Morse, who was 45 of Tibron, who worked in biotech, and um Danelle Keatley 44, a larksburg executive with a wine business.

There were others that passed away, but um those are the ones that live in Moran.

Thank you, Councilmember Eklund.

Um we will adjourn in memory of those three individuals.