Good evening and welcome to the public safety committee meeting of Tuesday, February 24th, 2026.

The time is now 6.01 pm, and this meeting may come to order.

Sorry, before taking role, I will provide instructions on how to submit a speaker card for items on this agenda.

If you're here with us in chamber, would like to submit a speaker card, please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk representative no later than ten minutes after the start of this meeting or before the item is read into record.

Registering to speak via Zoom is now due 24 hours prior to the start of this meeting time.

Houston?

And Chair Wong.

Chair, before we begin, do you have any announcements at this time?

Uh no, I don't.

Let's go ahead and proceed.

Okay.

Starting off with item one, approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on Tuesday, February 10th, 2026.

And we have no speakers at signed up.

Okay.

Councilmember Brown.

I'll move approval of the minutes.

Second.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Brown.

Seconded by Councilmember Five to accept, sorry, to accept the draft minutes from February 10, 2026 on roll.

Council members Brown.

Aye.

Five.

Aye.

Houston.

Aye.

And Chair Wong.

Aye.

Thank you.

Item number one passes with four ayes to accept the draft minutes from February 10th, 2026.

Reading in item two, determination of schedule about standing committee items.

And we do have two speakers that signed up.

Okay.

We'll go to public comment.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number two, Rajni Mandal and Asada Olawala.

I know that it is California law that every high school that has an athletic program must have at least one defibrillator and on the campus.

My question is what is the mandate?

I didn't find anything for governing bodies.

A policy for defibrillators to be available at city facilities.

Is there an existing policy?

If not, would it be considered appropriate to put that on the agenda?

I have to say that we have to have a report on how an individual got into this building, got up to the 11th floor on Friday, stayed the weekend Saturday and Sunday, and then and we don't know what that person was engaging in for four three and a half days, and on Monday, you know the that the car was stolen from the mayors and blah blah blah with this.

How did that happen?

We need to have a report, not for you, but for me.

God help us if we have some situation where we had an individual came into this building with intent to do bodily home, which was not the case, but it could have been the case.

So we need to do some reporting out immediately on securing not only this building, but all of our facilities.

So there is a structural scale difference.

The city auditors follow-up report shows multiple separate recommendations still partially implemented, and a new performance audit is forthcoming.

So I'd request that the committee review the performance audit and a comparative capacity analysis before advancing any transition framework.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Chair that concludes all speakers on item two.

Anything from the administration?

AC Phillips.

Good afternoon, Chair.

No, nothing from the administration.

Thank you.

Yes, Councilmember Brown.

Um thank you so much, Chair.

Um I did have a quick question, so either to uh Chair Wong or to the administration, what is the status of the um the overtime item that was supposed to come?

Yeah, so the overtime item is coming before finance and management.

Uh this is gonna be March 10th.

So uh definitely invite my fellow committee members to join that.

And for those of you who are not part of that committee, uh it's at 9:30.

I know.

One of the earlier ones.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Uh that's the OPT overtime.

Yep.

And then I'll make a motion to um move the um item.

Second.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Brown.

Second by Councilmember Five to accept the determination of scheduled outstanding committee items as is on roll.

Council members Brown.

Aye.

Five.

Aye.

Houston.

Aye.

And Chair Wong.

Aye.

Thank you.

Item number two passes with four eyes to accept the pending list as is.

Yes, and it's sorry, as a point of privilege, I realized there was one announcement I wanted to make at the top of the hour, which is that we have a new executive director for the uh CPRA, Antonio Lawson.

So he's been serving as his interim, and I just wanted to congratulate him on his new role as the permanent executive director.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Now reading in item number three.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to enter into a cooperative purchasing agreement with Stryker Sales LLC for the purchase lease maintenance and repair of advanced life support equipment in an amount not to exceed $681,877.80 cents per year for five years for a total for a total not to exceed amount of $3,409,389.

And two, waiving the advertising and competitive bidding process requirements and local business enterprise and small local business enterprise program requirements for the proposed cooperative purchasing agreement with striker sales LLC.

And we have one speaker that's signed up for this item.

Okay, great.

Do we have a representative from OFD to speak on this item?

Can someone from the city administration provide that role?

Through the chair, I would ask if we can delay this item just so I can reach out to OFD to see if we can get someone here.

I don't have enough context on this.

Yes, that sounds good.

Okay.

We'll return to item number three, reading in item four.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to enter into an agreement.

That has occurred to me, yes.

Um this is an item from OPD.

So I sorry, so just to so we've identified a problem, which is that we do not have a representative from OFD right now, so we are going to skip items three and four, and we are moving to item five where we do have representatives from OPD.

Thanks.

Thank you, Chair.

Reading in item five, adopt a resolution accepting the annual reports from the following City of Oakland Police Department Surveillance Technologies.

A automated license plate readers, B, Crime Lab Biometrics DNA analysis technology, C, forward looking infrared, D, live stream transmitter, E sorry, unmanned aerial systems, F forensic logic cop cop link crime track crack crime tracer systems, G, pen register, and two making a determination regarding whether the city should continue uh continue to use each of these technologies, and we have three speakers that signed up to speak.

Okay, all right.

Uh and then yes, the these OPD technologies are a mouthful to pronounce.

Uh, Lieutenant Urquiza, the floor is yours.

Uh, you is 10 minutes enough?

I believe so.

Okay, great.

Uh Lieutenant Gabriel Urquiza from the Oakland Police Department.

I'm the commander of our real-time operations uh within the ceasefire section.

Uh just for a little bit of background.

Uh we s generally try to get these uh reports submitted to the privacy advisory commission or the PAC uh starting in April.

Uh the normal cadence is to try to get those pushed through in April and in May uh to provide time to present to uh public safety following that within the same calendar year.

Uh we did have some issues this year uh where uh for basically started in May.

Uh we started pushing through some of these uh reports, uh, but then there was a priority for the community safety camera system policy, uh, which spent a long time in uh the privacy advisory commission uh and delayed uh many of our reports uh up until the end of the year.

Uh so all of these reports were submitted to the PAC uh and were uh pushed forward uh with the recommendation for adoption uh between April and November of 2025.

Uh and that includes the seven reports that are uh contained here to try to alleviate having this issue again uh this year.

We're going to try to make sure that we get uh everything completed within April and May, uh, which will give us some buffer time if there's more time that those uh annual reports need to spend within the PAC or any other issues that need to be addressed.

Uh so we will be working with that, and I don't think right now we don't have a uh large surveillance policy that I think would take up a lot of time within that commission.

Uh so it is our goal to not have this repeat for next year, uh, but it is something that uh we are keeping in mind and trying to address uh based on what occurred last year.

Uh so there are uh subject matter experts or SMEs for these uh annual reports that are here.

If there's any questions for specific information, uh and with that, I'll turn it back over for questions.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh yes, and I I do have one clarifying question both for this body as well as members of the public, since this is a two-part resolution, both accepting the annual reports as well as making a determination regarding whether the city should continue uh to use each of these technologies.

It is each of these technologies.

If there's a procurement or contract, they will continue to move to come before this body as a separate item for approval.

Is that how this works?

Whereas this is just uh a global direction from the city council that says that we are uh each of these technologies we are okay to use, but if there was a specific contract, it would still come before this body.

Yes, if there was uh if we were renewing a contract or entering into a new contract, we would come to this body.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay, great.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Uh I don't see any flashing mics, so why don't we first go to members of the public?

Calling in the names that signed up for item number five in no particular order.

You can come up to the podium, or if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand to be easily identified.

Rajni Mandal, Tuan Yo, and Asada Olawala.

Rajni Mandel District 4.

Uh these annual reports show that oversight is working.

Uh, the Flock ALPR data was already presented to council last fall.

So there's nothing new in the packet that changes its documented outcomes or policy framework.

Any future changes to FLOCS USAR policy that were recently approved.

Uh, we should wait until the city auditor completes um its review under the new contract before making any changes.

The remainder of the reports documents no mute misuse, no improper data sharing, and no reported breaches during the reporting period.

So and I also support expanding the drone program for first response deployments where real-time aerial assessment improves decision making and reduces risk before officers or civilians are placed in harm's way, all under existing written policy and oversight.

Public safety and accountability are not in conflict here.

These tools are governed, audited, and producing results.

We should not roll back effective investigative capacity based on speculation.

I urge you to vote to continue and strengthen their use.

Thank you.

So it has to be said that of a tremendous amount of time has to be spent by the Oakland Police Department dealing with the mandate of the privacy commission.

When they certain pieces of equipment, they have to uh under certain, I don't know if they do it every time, but they have to reproduce each time that uh a situation arose where the equipment was used, they have to explain the case and the circumstances of uh what happened, and then the body, the police, the privacy commission determines if it was appropriate.

Very time consuming in those meetings to have to do all of this.

Now, if y'all want to continue with that privacy commission mess, go right ahead.

But what you should have found was an NSA commission that would look at the task, stop data, would look at the discipline procedures, all of the tasks that we have to do and go over it, make sure it was done 22 years, and all of a sudden you need a commission to deal with privacy, but you don't need a commission to deal with the issues of excessive force and racial profiling.

Don't make no sense.

Plus, the privacy commission has to deal with making sure that the police department doesn't do anything to collaborate with ICE or the Department of Justice.

And they got to report out every circumstances of what they involve with the FBI.

It's crazy.

All of what they have to do to demonstrate to the privacy commission that they're not violating the sanctuary city status.

But we continue to have excessive force, racial profiling going on that never gets majorly addressed.

When the last time stop data was brought before this body, so you guys have uh seen me organizing with the Asian community, but you guys might not know that I also work uh every day with the Latino community, and I've been working with them ever since I was picking out tomatoes in the fields with other immigrants as a minor underage child illegally.

Um so regarding the surveillance, I'm very concerned, and I was the lone voice at the Privacy Commission years ago, concerned about deportation and the mass surveillance program that is the rent registry.

So what happens to immigrants is at the border when they try to cross, oftentimes they don't succeed, they get fingerprinted.

So ICE and Border Patrol knows who they are, but the second and the third time they successfully cross over, and they're part of our community, they work very hard for very little pay, and they help do essential work.

But ICE doesn't know where they live.

The rent registry says who you are and where you live.

That's the data that ICE needs to deport people and break up families.

The number of families that are people that would be deported by Flock, zero.

The number of criminals that are taken off the streets every day by Flock cameras, 2,200 about the number of communities that have yanked Flock cameras over ICE concerns, 20.

The number of communities that have used Flock, over 5,000 communities, do not lunk math.

That's 99.5% or more of communities use technology.

The mayor got her SUV back because we use Flock.

So follow the data, follow 99.5% of communities out there knew what's right, protect our community, public safety is important.

Keep Flock, keep public safety.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Chair that concludes all speakers on this item.

Okay, thank you.

Um, and then one question I did have as well is just around the timing of this report.

So this is a 2024 uh report.

We are now at the beginning of 2026.

Can you just explain the delays uh why we're seeing this report now and how do we get this more expeditiously going forward?

That's correct.

Our normal cadence is a start in April.

Um there's a number of surveillance-related policies, and there's actually one additional one uh that we will be hoping to get to get on the agenda for next month.

Um but we start in April with the intention of going through April and May and getting all of them through uh and then being able giving us time to then present to public safety and then full council.

So with that, I think we because we had such a large policy that had a lot of attention, uh spent a lot of time in PAC, and then we had a number of meetings that were canceled uh that were uh related to not having quorum or um that just ended up not getting um we didn't end up having that meeting uh and that kind of slowed the process completely down, and then that December meeting where we intended to present these policies that was completely um taken up by the uh flock ALPR contract and then the uh community safety camera system policy.

Uh so that's why we got delayed into this year in February was our first uh opportunity to present these particular annual reports.

Our hope is to uh really focus on this year in April and May to get those policies um two-pack, through pack, and then to the uh commission with plenty of time in buffer before 2027.

Okay, thank you.

Uh and then another question I have is it's noted that there were three technologies that were not in use, or OPD did not possess this technology in 2024, uh cell site simulator, mobile ID, GPS tag tracker slash star chase.

Why were these noted in the report and what is the nature of these technologies?

Is this something that you all are seeking to uh adopt these technologies in the future?

These are technologies that we had policies for, but we don't currently utilize um Star Chase.

We discontinued I think last at some point in 20 and 2023.

Um but there is a potential that we would seek out another vendor for that.

I don't think that's our intention at this point.

Uh but we if we have a policy that covers a technology that we don't utilize, we still report that to the privacy commission.

Gotcha.

Understood.

Uh Councilmember Brown.

Excellent.

Um, thank you so much through the chair to Luutenant Orchiza.

Um, of course, thank you always um for you know coming and presenting to us and and all of your work in this you know technology space.

Um, and so I I understand the delay um in getting the report to us, and so of course I'm I'm looking forward to um, you know, I guess the 2025 right um report um that hopefully will come to us much sooner.

Um I am interested in uh just kind of reading through the the reports.

Um I I would uh I guess through the chair also to the administration.

I think I would be really grateful for uh the next time that you're able to come in to present to us uh to even like walk us through like maybe like a compare and contrast of like hey, like having these particular technology technologies has um you know increased the following, right?

So one um item I'm gonna just kind of zero in on is the crime lab um biometric um technology, right?

And um can you actually shed light on like um have you all been able to see like an increase in in some of like the backlog cases, cold cases, etc.

Because you have this technology?

Uh someone is here as an SME for that, so I'll have them uh present on that.

Excellent, thank you.

Good evening, I'm Bonnie Chang.

I'm one of the biology unit supervisors for the crime laboratory.

Um we've made a lot of progress in the last few years, especially with buying um, excuse me.

Please uh I would like to hear from the speaker, so please proceed and please order in the chamber.

Thank you, Mrs.

Sada.

Ms.

Asada, I I will I am I will use security if please.

Okay, you that's the first warning.

Okay, you will have three warnings before I asked people to exit.

No, yeah, I mean police are the first.

Ms.

Sada, that's your second warning.

I can't hear you either.

Okay, I think again, I think we're all going to go back.

Please.

Speaker, if you could please go ahead.

Um, in the last few years, we've um purchased instruments to help us with automation, uh robots that can help us with higher throughput instead of doing it manually uh processes that we would hand um hand pipette instead of having a robot do that.

So that technology has helped us um put through more samples in the same amount of time.

Um that has helped us process more cases.

For example, in 2024, we processed um I think it was 300 and 52 cases.

Uh in 2025, we did 414.

So it is helping us.

Um, what we do have our drawback is uh manpower.

We have hiring fees and we do have vacancies, and that is not helping us, but the technology does help.

And so when you um kind of recount those numbers, uh, is that resulting in cases closed?

Uh they're resulting in uh us completing uh requests from the investigation unit.

I see.

Um okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

And if I could through the chair, um related to your question that we've I've had conversations with the chair of the PAC related to inter reports, and if there's a way to kind of modernize how we've been presenting uh to have information like that readily available and using kind of a different format than six pages of words and maybe having more uh graphs, images, um, but simplifying it so it's easier for us to uh get these you know reports completed, but in a way that provides uh meaningful information uh to the public and to the to the uh council.

Yeah, go ahead, Councilmember Brown.

Um thank you so much.

And so just I guess just to put on the radar, I know that there will be some requests that are uh being made via like the measure in in funding.

And so I guess I'm curious if somewhere in there maybe there's a position for like a data um analyst or something.

I know we've been talking a lot about you know needing that that skill set.

Um so maybe this is also a place that it could land as well, right?

Within OPD to help with some of this reporting.

I don't have a vote, but I support that.

So I'm just putting that out there.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Houston.

Do the chair, how are you doing?

Lieutenant Gabriel, how you doing?

Good, how are you doing?

Good, good.

I know it's probably gonna be hard to answer this one, but I just I'm just gonna ask it.

Is it 29 USA deployments in districts?

I mean it says six, but I know that's seven, so that's area six, so that means seven.

Do you do you know what the results were from those 29 of uh deployments?

And it seems like in 23 district seven was the highest of deployments.

We have 40, and in 24, we had 29.

My district is just hot.

Um, and that's why I'm saying this for my council members to hear me.

Help me, help me.

I'm gonna say them to my council members just watch it.

Help me.

So do you know what the results were from that from that those deployments?

I know it's this it's I know you're not gonna beat it.

I think they there's probably an overall breakdown.

I don't know if it does it by district.

Um, specifically, we use the technology generally for yard searches, um, where we've seen the greatest benefit or for barricaded suspects.

Um so that's where we usually utilize the drones.

So if we have someone say flee from a carjacking vehicle and they jump into the yards, where traditionally we were holding a perimeter and then doing a hand search, which can be potentially extremely dangerous, or uh utilizing a canine, we're you utilizing UAS systems for that.

Um but I don't think we get into this report that specific down the district.

Does that answer your question?

It sure does.

Thank you, thank you.

Um if we could have, I think it was Bonnie, was that her name with the crime lab up come up again?

Hi, thank you.

Um, I have a couple of follow-up questions, especially since the types of crimes that these are solving.

I mean, this looks like this is for homicides, sexual assaults, and kidnappings, which are all you know, incredibly important crimes for the city of Oakland to solve.

Um, I'm just wondering if you can comment since I my understanding is some of the technology underlying DNA analysis has evolved over the last couple of years, and um if you could comment on where is the police department in terms of our uh our capacity on uh this type of technology.

Um we're pretty pretty advanced, um, competitive with our other local laboratories in the Bay Area.

The as far as instrumentation um software, we are validating uh a software called Star Mix, which will help us uh deconvolute um uh larger person mixtures, uh mixtures of three, four persons, which sometimes we cannot interpret at this point.

Umidation, then we can implement it that may be able to help us provide more answers to the department.

Um as far as instrumentation where we purchased the last two starlets, um, we're validating those instruments to get them online and um returning some of the smaller robots for these larger um liquid handlers so that they can handle a higher capacity.

So robots, that's how this works.

This is fascinating.

So um interesting.

Okay.

Is that it?

Yeah, that's helpful.

And then uh just uh Lieutenant Urquiza just hopping on a comment that my uh council member uh council member Brown had said, are there other technologies just generally speaking where it's because I I see technology with civil liberties as a force multiplier for the police department and um as you know we are uh understaffed and this is important.

Uh is there are there technologies, however, where we do need like a civilian analyst, something like that.

That that it's important, otherwise we're not actually fulfilling the full potential of that technology.

Uh we currently in my office have uh two analysts who are dedicated both to ceasefire and then also for the real-time operations, which involves a lot of the technology aspects.

Um they are probably at the limit of what their bandwidth is.

So we would benefit, I think, overall of having someone to assist with that analysis and a lot of the work that we're seeing with these annual reports.

Um, and I think if if that's their dedicated job, uh we'll get a more in-depth picture of what what these technologies can do or what were we lacking and we could uh whether it's additional technology or different technology to fill those roles.

Okay, thank you.

Um ACA Phillips, do you have anything to add there?

Um thank you through the chair.

I just want to let the body know on members of the public that we are working on a data strategy manager position to go through uh our class and comp with human resources.

So that's something that we have identified as also an area of need to ensure that we have comprehensive data analysis to help to support this work.

Um, and then through the chair, I do have a request additionally if we can go ahead and dispose of the OPD items and then go back to our OFD uh items.

Okay.

Um I would say um I would like to wrap up this item first and then we can go back to OFD.

Um Council Member Fife, go ahead.

Yeah, I want to try to um agree to the terms of both the chair and to ACA Phillips, but I I have a quick question around um attachment D, that states that OPD shared FLOC ALPR data with close to 50 California law enforcement entities in 2024, and that there is uh that OPD is working with Flock to distribute the permission form to agencies who haven't received it.

Do we know which agencies haven't received that permission form through the chair?

Uh at this point uh we were, I think at the we had distributed it to the agencies or at least the opportunity to uh submit their form uh and we expanded I think to around 80 agencies.

Uh then during the process of uh the uh DGOI 32 or community safety camera systems, we reassessed some of those agencies and pared it down, I say to 60.

Um but like I said, this this annual report captures the 2024 data.

So this was I think it's 51 or 52 agencies through 2024, so it's not reflective of the agencies that uh entered in or provided the sharing uh form after that, if that makes sense.

You're way smarter than me.

Can you say that again?

No, no, couldn't so these are the agencies that are listed here are the agencies that had um entered in or provided a sharing form to us uh up until basically January 1st, 2025.

So it's not reflective of the agencies that entered or provided a sharing uh form following that time.

So it's not reflective of the current uh state of the sharing.

Okay, I guess sharing status with other agencies.

Okay, well, it because the report says that OPD is working to distribute the OPD permission form to agencies.

When can we get an update on the agencies that we've shared that permission form with?

So the 2025 annual report, I believe is slotted for April, and that will have the updated sharing list.

Thank you.

Councilmember Houston?

Go ahead.

Yes, through the chair, I'd like to move it.

I'd like to move it, but what I wanted to ask you just real quick, real technical, um, does area six, which is district seven, but it blends in with district six, right?

What part of district six does that cover?

Because it's it should be a small part of district six, right?

Area six.

Uh if I'm more familiar with our police districts, so I might I don't want to get this wrong.

I'll look it up.

I just want to know, since you asked that, you you smarter than council member five, you're smarter than me too.

I was gonna ask that question, so yeah, just get that to me, let me know.

Okay, okay, thank you.

So I want to move that.

Okay, second.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember Houston, seconded by Councilmember Brown to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the March 3rd City Council agenda on roll.

Council members Brown?

Aye.

Aye.

Houston?

Aye.

And Chair Wong.

Aye.

Thank you.

Item number five passes with four eyes to put to forward this item to the March 3rd City Council agenda on consent.

Um, noting the modifications made to the agenda that we will hear item number six next.

Now reading in item six, receive an informational report from the Oakland Police Department on the role of Skelly hearings in OPD's discipline process, current challenges in managing Skelly hearings, and options to address the backlog of discipline cases awaiting Skelly hearings, and we do have five speakers that signed up.

Uh sorry, we had a back, we had a discussion here.

We are going through the OPD items, and then we will go to the OFD items.

Uh, I see Chief Beer is here.

Will you be delivering the presentation?

Okay, um, please come up.

Can I speak first?

Good evening, Chair.

Thank you.

Oh, um, yes.

Uh Councilmember Brown did introduce this item, so uh you can go ahead and uh say if you.

Excellent.

Thank you so much, Chair Wong.

Um, and I just wanted to give some initial framing.

Um, thank you.

Good to see you, um, Chief Beer.

Um and so one of the reasons why um I requested this item was um earlier in 2025, um there was a report that came to this body um where um it was outlined, it was it was showcasing just some of the the backlog of the Skelly cases.

I would say it was upwards of you know, well over a hundred.

Um don't quote me on the exact number.

Um but as you all will be able to see in this presentation and the report that there have been huge strides that have been made um in this area, and one of the reasons why you know we were really focused in on this because we know um that uh when you have officers that are awaiting like Skelly hearings and in this process, um they're also on administrative leave, right?

And so that also will impact um you know uh uh the you know our budget as well.

And so this was just something that um was on the radar, and so I just really wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to engage on the Skelly hearing process and receive updates on the status, and so thank you all.

Um, thank you to everyone that was able to generate a report and really uh work um literally for an entire year to bring this number down, and so really looking forward to hearing the um official report.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

All right, Chief Beer, take a look.

I appreciate it.

So I'm here to introduce.

Um, I'm gonna give a higher overview uh of what was requested, and then I'll introduce Captain Hubbard to expand on it and answer questions.

I will stick around because it sounds like there's going to be some additional questions regarding admin leave that weren't part of the report, so I'll I'll remain here for that.

But um, you are correct.

There was well over a hundred, actually 169 Skelly cases that were in backlog, and that was October of 2024.

As of January 2026, we were able to reduce those to 46 Skelly uh cases pending, and 24 of those 46 have already been assigned.

There's 22 that are outstanding.

Historically, the issue uh was compounded by several factors, uh lack of staffing at the time, um, up until we started to address it.

There was only one professional staff member that was assigned to coordinate, create, and schedule the Skelly hearings.

Currently, we have a professional staff member, a supervisor, and a lieutenant involved in the process.

And since I took over Deputy Chief Smith and myself, who he's my chief in charge of internal affairs, meet every two weeks, and we specifically review the Skelly cases and triage them while prioritizing the most immediate ones that need attention.

Um there was also an inability to advance with technology.

This the professional staff member who is responsible for compiling all these Skelly reports was doing it by hand.

So they had to actually pull all the documentation, which is extremely difficult to do uh and consume time very time consuming.

It's a difficult endeavor.

And then in 2023, Captain Tedesco, now Deputy Chief Tedesco, started to digitalize all of IAB's files, and since we've done that, that's helped streamline the whole process of gathering all the materials that we do need to provide to uh the officers that are gonna have their Skelly hearing or the representatives.

Um that saved a lot of time.

Also, with the advancement of technology professional staff member, um we now are able to integrate the vision, and we use that for tracking notifications and deadline reminders.

Also, back before we started making the our efforts to change the the problem, the backlog, there was an a very limited amount of Skelly hearing officers available.

Um typically, actually, previously there was only one executive team member that was responsible for the most serious cases, anything with 20 days of suspension or more up to termination.

So that really caused a backlog there in the most serious ones.

So now deputy, like I said before, deputy chief Smith and I review those, and when necessary, we assign additional serious cases to the assistant chief or on involved deputy chiefs.

Typically, the reason the past practice was deputy chiefs were used um either in the review process for a lot of these investigations or they were part of the discipline hearing process.

So immediately when I took over, I excused all the deputy chiefs from that process and just retained Deputy Chief Smith since he was in charge of Internal Affairs Bureau and Director Suttle since she's in charge of her personnel.

Those were the only two executive members that I kept with me during the discipline process, which freed up a number of deputy chiefs.

And in addition, I'd like to thank uh the city attorney's office as well as the city HR.

Um they really came together and worked collaboratively with us.

Uh, City Attorney's Office helped train 18 uh more Skelly officers, which uh contributed to that extreme uh reduction in the backlog.

Uh and Captain Hubbard's when he gives his presentation, he's gonna also discuss additional efforts going forward where we're going to double that number even more going into the near future.

What this meant really was when we freed up the deputy chiefs previously, you would only have captains that were available, and they would shoulder that the lion's share of the Skellies.

Now you have the deputy chiefs' captains, and with the additional training, we've incorporated lieutenants as well as other managers within the department are professional staff.

It's really helped us be able to like spread load the work and carry forward.

I would say, even though we do have 46 standing, 24 of those are scheduled, and I'd imagine those other 22 will be assigned here pretty shortly.

Also, one of the things that we struggled with in the past is members and professional staff members weren't given the opportunity to waive the Skelly process.

So we've started education pro education with our own members and now we're seeing professional staff as well as sworn actually waive the Skelly and accept their discipline.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Captain Hubbard to present the actual report.

Thank you.

That's okay, Chair.

Thank you, Chief Beer.

Good evening, everyone.

I have a presentation.

May I have control with this?

Thank you.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Brian Hubbard.

I'm the acting captain over internal affairs, and thank you for this opportunity to present this today.

In this presentation, I have five things to cover.

First, I'll explain the Skelly hearing what a Skelly hearing is and why it matters.

Second, I'll describe the specific challenges that created the backlog.

Third, I'll share the progress to date.

And fourth, I'll walk you through the concrete process improvements we've implemented.

And fifth, finally, I'll outline the path forward, including additional strategies under review.

What is a Skelly hearing?

Skelly hearing is a pre-disciplinary due process hearing required under California law for non-probationary civil service employees facing suspension, demotion, or termination.

And when I say suspension, it's as low as a one-day suspension.

The name comes from the 1975 California Supreme Court decision Skelly v.

State Personnel Board, which established that civil service employees have a constitutional property interest in their employment.

The law requires three things before discipline can be imposed.

First, a written notice of the proposed action and the reason for it.

Second, a copy of the charges and the supporting materials, and third, an opportunity for the employee to respond either orally or in writing before regionally impartial or non-involved reviewer hears it.

So it's important to understand that a Skelly hearing is not a full evidentiary trial.

For sworn personnel, there's a right to representation, including an attorney, professional staff have union representation.

In neither case is there a right to cross-examine witnesses.

It is a procedural safeguard, a check to ensure the department process was fair, the investigation was adequate, and the proposed discipline is just given the circumstances and the employees' record.

Chief Beer already covered most of this, but I want to be direct about the challenges we did face in October 2024.

OPD had 169 Skelly cases pending.

I understand that there was some confusion on the dates.

I think we misspoke in another uh public meeting.

It's not October 2020, it's October 2024, where we had 169 Skelly's pending, and we recognize, agreed that it was an unacceptable member uh number.

So we did some core uh changes just to reduce the backlog.

First, structural uh, I'm sorry, there are three core issues that drove the backlog.

The first is the structural capacity constraints.

At any given time, only a limited number of personnel are eligible to serve as Skelly hearing officers.

Uh, there must be a sufficient rank for certain cases.

For example, serious cases involving termination, demotion, or a lengthy suspension must be conducted by a deputy chief.

And as the chief mentioned, in previous hearings for internal affairs cases, the entire almost the entire executive command staff were there, and that automatically set a recusal in place, and it really made it difficult for us to find someone who is not involved, if you will, in that case.

On top of that, speaking of recusals, they were strict.

So an officer cannot be a witness, cannot have a role in recommending discipline, cannot have been involved in the investigation, cannot have served in the subject's chain of command, and that further reduced the pool of individual cases.

Second, administrative workload, preparing a Skelly file file is labor intensive.

It requires compiling investigative reports, body warrant camera footage, personnel records, and other documentation.

The most probably time consuming is the redaction of sensitive information.

I'll talk about that here pretty soon.

And then third and final, the competing operational demands.

This is not a full-time Skelly job that one would have.

These are executives, commanders and executives who serve as Skelly hearing officers on top of their other responsibilities, and they are running bureaus managing patrol operations overseeing critical functions.

Progress to date, as reported in the agenda report, from October 2024 to January 2026.

We reduced the Skelly caseload from 169 to 46, and that is a 73% reduction.

I want to be clear about the timeline, as I just said, it's October 2024 to January.

And this was not an overnight fix.

I mean, this was many months uh in the works.

And then of those 46 cases as of January, 22 are waiting assignment for a Skelly Hearing Officer, and that is the true backlog that I do want to address this evening.

I also want to note uh because I know this question may come up that the composition of the um of the 46, 12 include professional staff members, the rest are sworn.

Uh the other thing I want to make clear is that Skellys do not equal admin leave.

Okay, so I know that that I think was misunderstood that if we have the X number of Skellys, then that means that those with the same number of personnel who are on admin leave getting paid to sit at home.

That's not true.

Okay.

Actually, we have 16 people on admin leave right now, and 12 of those 16 are pending cases, they're actually still under investigation, rather serious.

Only four on that list are being scellied for termination and are actually at home.

Still on uh still on uh on the payroll, waiting for the Skelly to be concluded.

I'm you didn't hear me.

Okay, I'm sorry about that.

Uh we have 16 members who are on admin leave.

That number changes daily.

We had a big discussion on risk management today about it.

Of those 16, there are 12 who are being investigated for serious matters where the chief decided to put them on administrative leave.

Okay, but that case, their cases have not been resolved.

Four of the 16 are the ones who of discipline has already been rendered.

It's their their recommendation is termination, but we are waiting for the Skelly hearing before it's finalized.

Yes.

So I'll just go back for the ones that are uh pending termination.

So it it takes throughout the process, they had to go through the presentation of the IA, the internal affairs investigation, which then is presented at which point they're terminated, and that's when they start the process of processing them out of the police department.

Um, just to clarify a little bit more on those numbers.

So of the 16, actually, two are not on administrative leave, they're on critical incident leave.

So that number's actually 14.

Um, and that that's a huge reduction.

Uh, when I took over in December, there was 38.

Deputy Chief Smith and I went line by line, looked at each case individually for where it was at, and either we returned them to work or we found them a place within the police department that was suitable for them to work.

And as Captain Hubbard just explained, of those other 14, they're cases are serious enough where until the investigation is complete to prevent a liability issue for the police department of the city.

That's why they remain on admin leave.

But of note, that admin leave list has been reduced by 57% since December of 2025.

Thank you, Chief.

Process improvements.

The department implemented a series of targeted improvements, and I want to walk through each one.

And this, of course, helped us achieve the 73% reduction.

First, expanded the Skelly hearing officer training pipeline.

We brought in the eligibility so all trained lieutenants, captains, chiefs, professional staff managers, and directors can conduct Skelly hearings, subject to the required recusal assessments.

IAB is Internal Affairs Bureau, excuse me, is constantly working with the training division to immediately train acting lieutenants, captains, chiefs, and managers upon promotion, or when they're assigned to that position.

We have one coming up in the next or within this quarter in our command retreat.

I just talked to Deputy Chief Osmith today about that.

And Skelly training is part of that onboarding process.

This provides additional capacity, although there are limitations, such as city uh executives have their own competing demands, of course, with their regular assignment, and they do require training on police and professional staff practices.

Digital format transition, we moved from a paper-based Skelly file to digital.

This absolutely reduced a lot of time just in itself because the files are already within the system.

Officer waiver option, and we want to elevate this more.

Uh, there are times where staff choose not to contest proposed proposed discipline.

I'll give you the most common example is an officer backs their car into a pole on accident.

Let's say they received a one-day suspension, and they admit to it.

Like, yeah, I messed up.

I didn't, I didn't adhere to my training properly.

Uh they may want to waive their Skelly hearing, it's like, yeah, I'll accept the one-day suspension.

Okay, so that's an example.

I want to elevate that more.

Uh vision integration.

Uh we have a vision system that tracks our internal affairs files.

Uh we we have within it timelines, we have a cron log, we have all these measures that help us track these things efficiently so they don't get lost in the pile and additional personnel like the chief mentioned.

Uh, IAB has added personnel specifically to address the Skelly backlog.

Uh, we also utilize light duty officers and professional staff as they come up to help with the Skelly process, even if it's a brief uh transition for them.

Some strategies under review, just long-term vision here.

Uh batching scheduled, uh, uh I um Skelly hearing.

So, for example, let's say three officers were sustained and they received a one-day suspension.

They used to go out to different Skelly officers, and it didn't make sense.

So we batch them, as in all three of you will see the same Skelly officer because that Skelly officer would have an understanding of what's what's going on.

Uh uh looking at tier hearing assignments due to discipline severity.

Uh, it was kind of funnel through one, let's say uh deputy chief, and now the chief has really allotted now all the deputy chiefs who are eligible to hear these cases.

Uh we're also working to better coordination with the CPR on case timelines, aligning investigation completion dates to reduce delays between sustained findings and Skelly schedule scheduling.

Uh exploring automated redaction software.

Yes, we do redactions by hand, and there's a lot of software out there that can uh facilitate that.

Uh and then finally, just a better way that we can do file pre uh preparation.

Uh, just again, we have to provide all the files, and this is a collective effort from the investigator all the way up to the top.

When the case is submitted for final review, we want all of the evidence to be included in the vision file.

So once discipline is rendered, we are ready to go with Skelly.

And finally, just solicit community safety.

We want a timely resolution on misconduct allegations, and this is essential to maintaining public trust and ensuring officers who violate policy are held accountable.

Delays undermine the department's ability to address misconduct, and when necessary, separate employees whose conduct warrants it.

And then finally, responsive trustworthy government.

We want to eliminate the backlog.

It shows that we are taking employee accountability seriously, managing its processes efficiently.

Uh, and there are direct uh fiscal implications.

Officers on administrative leave, waiting hearings, uh, for example, receive salary.

So there's an there's a financial reason why we need to make this more efficient.

I will open up to any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

And I I will just say I want to commend the department for really forcefully taking on this backlog.

Um, I know that this is um, there's still more work to be done to be clear, but this is this is significant progress.

Thank you.

Um, I see council member Houston has his link.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Captain Hubbard, and thank you, Chief Beard.

How you doing?

Um, I wanted to find out what's critical incident leave.

You mentioned critical incident leave.

What is that?

Uh thank you, Councilmember.

So critical incident leave is uh leave that's mandatory after say um a level one use of force.

For example, an officer involved shooting.

Um so those officers are mandated by policy to have a minimum of 72 hour um period where they're not at work.

A part of that is there's a uh process that they have to go through, which is meeting with a mental health professional to ensure that they're in the right uh state of mind and that they're they're supported enough to come back as well.

And also through the chair, um you had mentioned four were automatically going to be released.

Is that true?

Will we will we be able to hear what the reason why they're going to be released in closed session?

Will we be able or is that private?

You're you're referring to the four officers that are pending termination, yes.

Because I like to know, yeah, we would have to consult with the city attorney on that one, Councilman.

Are you able to comment on that, Patrick?

Uh I would need to consult with the attorneys on that okay.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Uh one more question.

One more question.

When you said the digital, everything was written by hand, and when you said it was digital, and you mentioned Tedesco, I knew you know it was gonna happen right.

You know, I knew he was gonna make it happen.

So why was it all?

So the police department did not carry forward with the times, and up until 2023, all of the documents were paper documents, and it was one professional staff member that had to retrieve all the documents related to any case that was that was going to be turned over to a Skelly hearing officer.

But those all those documents we compiled, and it would include the internal affairs investigation, any statements made, photograph uh photographs of that were related to the actual investigation, any piece of evidence or paperwork related to it had to be compiled and turned over to the officer or their legal representative as well as the Skelly hearing officer, and there's timelines for that as well.

So once the Skelly hearing officer receives it, they have 10 days to review it and actually schedule the hearing officer that that actually wasn't being enforced uh previously either.

So just from the onset, the the endeavor to gather all of that information and make sure it was in that packet in its entirety was intense and very intense, and it was for one person.

So when Captain Tedesco was assigned to an internal affairs, one of the first things he did was he identified that as being the choke point and starting to modernize everything, make sure all the previous cases were scanned and uh uploaded so that way they'd be easily located and that there was a tracking system, and then with the you know um bringing vision online, it was a lot more of uh organizational and tracking to allow us to make sure we were meeting those deadlines and timelines.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Captain.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember five.

Yes, I was thinking along the same lines as council member Houston about what happened with compiling all of those documents, but I have to ask through the chair do you all not have Adobe to do the redactions?

So now we're using vision to do the do you want to actually get into the specifics of the technology?

You don't have to get into I see you should um you have the software needed to do redactions because that we do now, we do now.

Before it was manually lined out, how is okay?

Yeah, it's it's not just it's not a straightforward line about it's not the necessarily how to redact, it's what to redact that's challenging.

Uh I'm sure that there's other software that you can plug in keywords.

I want all this redacted, it's not like that.

So I have to look for names.

Adobe can redact.

So it's just it's not as quick as we want it to be.

But yes, we do have Adobe.

And to that point, is because this was a this scelly case in 1975 went all the way to the Supreme Court.

I assume that there are standards that are national perhaps with who can do this work.

This sounds like work that an entry-level paralegal could do with the appropriate training.

Is there uh I I see in in one of the slides the the cross training um with other executive staff.

Is that something that can be completely 100% transfer to other staff in perhaps like HR, so that higher ranking law enforcement officials can focus on other more important things.

I've seen uh Tedesco in the field just as recently as a couple weekends ago, and it really it just these administrative tasks seem so daunting and time consuming.

I maybe they're all done by now.

Maybe you can answer that.

But is there a possibility that the that these tasks go strictly to administrative uh staff versus high ranking uh police officers?

The we we do have policy in the city charter about scelly hearing officers and their role.

I don't want to discount, but the hardest part is actually the material gathering and providing it to them, they then take it and review it and then have the hearing and then write a report that is not as elaborate as the investigation.

To answer the question directly, there's nothing that says it has to be a police officer or someone under the umbrella of the order in the chamber.

Yeah, under the umbrella of the police department.

When we say cross training, we have been working with employee relations because they have been helping out, so yes, that is possibility.

I would like to help on the front end of getting these packets together and just having these assigned within a couple weeks of the discipline hearing.

That's where we want to be.

And to my colleague's question around HR personnel, I do see Director Howe is in the uh maybe she can also speak to this item.

I do before she comes up, Chair.

I do like to add though that the push has been to incorporate our professional staff members as well.

So managers have been brought into the fold, and it's not just deputy chiefs, it's captains and lieutenants, and we have reached out to other departments to help us with certain scellies.

I do think it's extremely important though that when you have a Skelly hearing, that the Skelly hearing officers should have the greater knowledge of how policies are done in the police department standing operating procedures.

There's a historical knowledge piece to this too, and that they will actually bring a different lens to that.

Uh, I am confident though that in the other cases that we do farm out that we were able to bring those um the directors or uh deputy directors up to speed, but ultimately for us, I think it it's it's an internal knowledge thing as well.

You want the commanders to understand what's going on, you want to have them see what the issues are, whether it's going to be something that was sustained, they can get to see basically the trends that are occurring within the police department, the trends that are occurring out in the street.

Um, but we are looking at that, and that's why we've doubled or more than doubled bar our scale officers up to 18.

And I'm pretty confident as we do our next command command retreat, it'll be closer to 30.

So there is a little bit more, I believe, that we actually get to absorb as commanders, and not only that, but we get to understand policies and how our our own uh policies and standing operating procedures are used uh as the officers are engaged in their duties, but I'll definitely turn it over to Mary.

Thank you.

Good evening, committee members.

Uh Mary Howe, Director of Human Resources.

I did want to uh through the chair make one clarification to Councilmember Fife.

This is not a U.S.

Supreme Court case, it's a California Supreme Court case.

And so uh there is no nationwide standard.

Thank you for that.

Thank you for clarifying that.

That's important.

Um I do have a question, but Mary, I think we're good.

Thank you.

Um, this is this is through the chair to the chief um or or Mr.

Hubbard, either of you.

Can you help me understand?

I thought before discipline was rendered that a Skelly hearing had to occur first, and it is well, you can answer my question by is that true or not.

Well, so how the the internal affairs investigation is presented, at which point if the investigation is sustained and it's found that the member or professional staff uh had violated an MOR or a criminal statute, after it's sustained, then it's brought to a discipline committee, or it's presented directly to the chief for discipline.

Then once discipline is then issued, it is served to the member, and then once the member has then been served, then that's when we start the process of creating the Skelly packet, and at which point it has to go out to the officer or their representative, and then it's scheduled with the Skelly hearing officer, and they get the packet as well.

So it's just part of the officers' due process, which in the past was um I would say it was it was pretty much pushed even on certain members because they weren't educated to the point that they can actually waive it.

And we've had Scelly hearings waived as recently as the last two weeks.

So it's um it's part of the officers' due process, uh, but they still have to they still get served the discipline.

It's proposed discipline to them.

But a Scelly hearing could reverse that potentially, potentially it could.

If so, new evidence is presented to the Scelly officer, the Scelly officer generates the report, and what wasn't taken into account is then brought back up to the chief, and then the chief can either agree with the Scelly officer or continue upholding what was the proposed discipline to begin with.

And so who makes the final decision?

Well, if it's if it's just OPD, it's the chief of police.

If it's a concurrent CPRA case and OPD, then the chief and the director of CPRA have to agree.

If there's no agreement there, then it goes to the discipline committee.

And so there's four that are pending, but that have not received Scelly hearings yet, correct?

There's four pending termination.

So one of the things that we started to do as soon as it took over is Deputy Chief Smith and I scrubbed each list, and the termination uh Scelly packets are now prioritized, and they are um scheduled out to be heard by a securing healthy officer.

Previous to that, the only Scelly hearing officer for termination cases was the deputy chief in charge of our CID.

But what we did was I removed the other deputy chiefs and the assistant chief from participating in the internal affairs presentation of the investigation.

So now they're not involved in it, and now they're open up.

Because other it then they wouldn't, they would be excluded because then they would be in the chain of command then that would make those.

Well, so they would have been part of the discipline process for the initial case when it was presented.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

I know it's a little complex.

It's very complex.

Uh Councilmember Brown.

Excellent.

Um, well, thank you so much for um, you know, putting together um a very robust um report, and just for the leadership on this matter, right?

Um, whether we're looking at October 2024, I know that there was a report that um, you know, former Chief Ms.

Joel came and he was he he may have said a hundred and you know, forty-six Skelly, right?

We know that in 2025 it was still high, and so in this moment to see that in 2026 we're now down to 46.

I think that that is you know definitely something to be applauded, and it really speaks to the leadership to bring it down.

Um, and so I I guess one question that I have in this moment is how do we?

Well, two, well, actually, three.

So there's a supplemental uh that was added to the packet, and I really appreciate you all taking the the time to answer some of the questions that I submitted.

Um, and so I am curious.

One, like, how do we ensure that this number remains low, right?

Um, because at the end of the day, during that time frame, it was well over 100, right?

Um, so I am curious around like what you know, I understand what got us there based on what the presentation said, but how can we ensure that the number stays low and maybe um i um let me know if I'm if I'm wrong, but uh is it do you all routinely report to the police commission the this number actually of where we are like with the skellies?

Um and so then what would be the process to ensure that also us as a body also has had have that information routinely?

Yeah, so um it was actually way more than 146, it was 169, I believe, in tw in October of 2024.

And I and the reason why I bring that up is because it shows although we increased the number of 18 Skelly hearing officers, we were able to reduce it over 70 percent in a short period of time.

It's the use of technology, it's having more Skelly officers available, and I think how we get ahead of that and continue to gain momentum and maintain that as we go into the future is exactly what Captain Hubbard's proposed, and that's training more officers and bring that number up to 30.

I think one of the issues in the past is it was it was marred with retirements, it was it was set back with lack of people being available because of practices of overutilizing deputy chiefs so someone would have more advice or more perspective in in an IA setting when it comes to the investigations.

I think now that we streamlined it and we're holding our executives accountable to include the chief of police and the IEB deputy chief, um, to be more hands-on and more involved in this process um to meet regularly and go over it uh individually for each case, is going to continue to make sure that those numbers stay low.

We do report these very uh consistently to the police commission, and they're reported um every time we have uh meetings within the police department with stakeholders related to the negotiated settlement agreement um as well as high uh well the internal affairs uh updates we do go over which cases are pending Skelly as well as those that are on admin leave.

Excellent, excellent.

Um, okay, thank you so much.

And then my other I just a clarifying question.

So one of the questions that I had in the supplemental question number four what happens to officers while they await Skelly hearings?

And so the answer here says officers on administrative leave awaiting Scelly hearings continue to receive salary and bill benefits while not performing operational duties.

Um, but did I hear from Captain Hubbard that that is actually not consistently the case, or can I just get some clarity because as you were talking, I think you were making a distinction around when that happens and when it doesn't.

So I'll just answer the first part and I'll turn it over to so you can address what he was speaking to.

Um the administrative leave process.

There initially there were a lot of officers on admin leave up to 38 at one point.

So there's each case has to be again looked at for the actual um circumstances around it, and there are incidents where officers could be brought back to work.

Some can be brought back to work and go back to patrol per se as their full duties.

Others, because of the nature of the allegation and it hasn't been proved or disproven, have to be put in a place where potentially no contact with the public and highly supervised, but can still help with uh duties within the police department.

Um, and then we were able to actually look at that number and bring them, like I said, down to actually 14 right now.

Um with regards to all Skelly's, not all scelly, not all officers are waiting Skelly are on admin leave.

So I think that was kind of probably the misconception is there was a belief that if you had a Skelly pending that you were on automatically admin leave, and that's not the case, and that wasn't the case before.

But if you're on you're on if you're pending a case that's potentially criminal or could result in termination, or there's other concerns with it, we have to protect the community in the city and make sure that they're not put in that place, but they also still have their due process, and that's a California labor um issue.

Can you remind us how many are currently on admin leave?

So listed there's 16, but it's actually 14.

Um, two of that 16, they're only listed there just because that's the reporting process, but those two are uh critical incident um critical incident leave, and from the update I got today is they're scheduled to come back to work full duty here pretty soon.

The the minimum is 72 hours.

Understood.

Do you have more questions, Councilmember Brown?

Um, no more questions, and then I think maybe the last thing I will flag is I know that um director Lawson is also here from the and I was planning to have him present as well, but I have a couple of questions before we turn it over to uh director Lawson.

Um I'm just wondering just in terms of the current backlog, did you all address the Skelly backlog sequentially, like for the 46 that remain, are they the most challenging cases, or it's just a matter of seek sequence and uh when they when they were initially the IAD process initially uh finalized and came to the Skelly step?

So for me, uh one of the things that stood out was the most serious cases.

So I sat down with Deputy Chief Smith and we looked at anyone that was facing termination, or if they had multiple cases with multiple suspensions pending, those were risen to the top.

Um I will turn it over for Captain Hubbard because there was an another uh vetting process for those that had been waiting quite some time, um, but those typically weren't people that were on admin leave.

So uh members that are staff professional staff members that are admin leave were given priority, and then within that priority, it was the most serious cases, and then I'll turn it over for the management of the the least serious cases.

Yeah, pretty accurate.

Just uh the we want to address the oldest first.

Uh there are some, like I'll I'll use the again the vehicle collision backed into a poll, easy.

Uh, if we can get the easy ones out, also we will uh just but we want to address the oldest first, and then of course the the ones pending uh termination also.

So those are the two avenues we use.

So, just to summarize, is it fair to say that the current backlog is a mix of both newer cases and it sounds like maybe some of the more complex cases?

Do we have that right?

That is that is accurate, yes.

Okay, okay, great.

Um, do you have any data too on just how long it takes for um the Skelly hearing officers, how much time they spend on these cases?

I was hoping you wouldn't ask that question because my answer is very generic of it depends.

And it depends on the complexity of the case.

Uh I'll give I'll just give you an anecdotal one that I had uh many years ago is is the officer didn't activate their body warrant camera in a timely fashion and they receive suspension a suspension day out of it.

Easy.

It was is like one day for me to review everything, easy, and one day for me to write it.

Uh, I would say the most challenging part, I guess, is like scheduling the time for the scaling because they are in title representation, so balancing that.

But some of these cases, if you look at that binder on the table, is as thick as that binder, just the amount of of evidence that one has to review, so that of course takes a little bit longer.

Yeah, can I add to that, council member?

Sorry, Chair.

Sorry, Chair.

But the rain, so we can get a sense, you know.

Yes.

Yeah, we yeah, we'll we'll work on that.

But I do want to say in the past there that the timelines were very skewed.

Um, so one of the things now is we're holding the commanders to the standard and the standard of what's in what's expected of them.

So Skelly officer has 10 business days after notification to schedule the hearing uh with the member or the representative.

Um, and then after those 10 days, they have they'll have 10 days to get to the hearing date.

Once the hearing date occurs, the Skelly officer has 14 calendar days to submit that report to the chief of police.

That I don't believe was actually occurring up until we started enforcing it.

And if they can't make that 14-day period due to the complexity of it, and some of these Skelly cases do have multiple subjects where it may take additional analysis and a lot more writing, then they actually personally have to ask the extension from me directly.

And that the justification has to be provided, and then that way I know personally that there's a delay in that Scelly hearing, and then they'll have to come present that Scelly hearing to me.

Okay.

And what are the cases by which CIPRA gets involved?

Is it a particular subset or all of them?

So if it's a a co-case, like if if it's a CIPRA and a OPD case, they're they're involved in it.

They'll actually, once the Skelly is done, it'll come to the chief of police.

If the Skelly officer is recommending anything other than what was proposed, I either have to agree with it or disagree with it.

If I if I agree with the Skelly Hearing Officer and it's different than what was initially proposed, and it has to go to the director for agreement.

If the director and the police chief do not agree, then it goes to the police commission.

Okay, which ones become the ones that become a co-CIPRA case?

Those are cases that are investigated both by CIPRA and the Oakland Police Department.

Yes, I know.

I'm just trying to figure out like what is the underlying criteria by which that's determined.

This is now a case that needs to be investigated by both.

Let me see if I can do this for memory and custody deaths, use of force, harassment discrimination, truthfulness, those four.

It's in the city charter, though.

So that's that's what we use.

Okay, gotcha.

That's helpful.

Sorry, I was misunderstanding.

Yes, I know.

I know.

I I just have a couple of questions, all right.

I've been patient, so bear with me.

Okay.

So I also am wondering just, you know, I I've it sounds like 18, we have 18 hearing officers, that's fantastic.

I do find the recommendation to hire to train executive level, uh city staff outside of OPD to be the recommendation, the process recommendation.

Why executive level?

So for in my perspective of it, and I do believe we will have close to 30 hearing officers here pretty shortly once we complete the command retreat, but there's there could be incidents where it should go outside the police department.

Say if a high ranking officer may be involved.

I, you know, it there could be an incident where it might be it might need to go outside due to conflict or the need for someone to be recused.

Uh yeah, but why it why executive levels that have lied level is oh executive level for the police department or executive level outside of the police department.

Oh no, I'm sorry, I was misunderstanding.

Yeah, that's um why that just because you know our executives have a lot going on, yeah.

So if I'm if I may, Chair, um, our HR director and ER actually have a training coming up, and I don't know it through the chair if you would like Mary Howe to come.

There are criteria for others who are not executive level, meaning directors to actually be able to be trained as um hearing officers.

I do not recall the criteria specifically, but I do understand your question.

If you want the criteria specifically, um Mary Howe uh is here and available to answer that question as well as uh the questions regarding best practices to your point about who is eligible.

Good evening, Mary Howe again.

Um I don't think it's enshrined anywhere, but I think it's um sometimes at the executive level, there is an organizational understanding and application of this in the seriousness of whatever is being examined, and so uh and we're not suggesting that employees at different levels don't have that understanding, but I think that um most employees do put their nose to the grindstone and know basically their swim lane very well, whereas executives probably have a broader view about implications, for example.

So it it's more of a scope of understanding.

Okay, that's fair enough.

I certainly want wouldn't want to be a Skelly hearing officer myself, I'll say that um I one and then one final question for me is just um uh it does look like there's a number of law firms that specialize in law enforcement Skelly hearings is outside council I'm wondering what uh the police department thinks about that as a is a potential way to get through the backlog yes hi uh while I am not the police officer I think that uh a police department I think to to use a law firm where their billable hourly rate is anywhere from 350 on up to be a Skelly officer I'm not exactly sure uh what what they would add to the process and so then we would also have to contract with them which also takes an extraordinary long period of time to do an RFP etc.

But I also don't know I mean other than having an additional resource available I'm not exactly sure what the the magic sauce is of having an outside law firm do that for us to be quite candid.

So yeah I think the argument being that right now it takes up the time of you know officers that could be doing police work rather than to be doing uh you know a Skelly hearing um but I hear you on the procurement side of things because we're seeing that actively uh all the time so um okay uh did council member houston still wanna ask his question thank you thank you I'm sorry I know you were excited you had a bunch of questions they were good too some of mine are answered so what I like to say is that um how to remain low keep doing what you're doing and I have a question because I know the numbers you said 169 and we got rid of uh 123 46 are left and then 22 are case waiting right that's correct that's a good numbers right so I have a question the person that was doing it prior to to desco when all the technology piece walked in were they sworn or unsworn officer that was doing that.

So Captain Todes Captain Tedesco at the time took over for a previous captain.

Yes.

And it was a previous captain was a sworn officer that was in charge of internal affairs but the Skelly process at that time was one professional staff member that was responsible for creating the packets and issuing them out and scheduling the hearings okay so it was a staff member that was doing it.

Yes not somebody that's sworn is knows the what you guys know.

So that's what there's a there it is right there.

I mean I read it and I heard what you said I heard it between you know you say you read between the lines I heard it so let's keep it that way we need a sworn officer somebody that understands the process and the terms and everything and knows how to move it.

You already see it right here numbers went from one sixty nine to forty six that's a hundred and twenty three cases.

And what is it?

Um 2024 to 2026, 22 cases waiting to keep doing what you're doing you guys doing a great job.

Thank you council member by before we turn it over to Antonio Lawson just one quick clarifying question.

So we've established case it's not a one-to-one ratio for a Skelly case per officer right it could be multiple cases on a singular officer so we're not looking at forty six officers awaiting a decision.

That's correct sure okay thank you.

Uh before we move it I let's hear from uh Antonio Lawson who also has a uh presentation good evening I'm Tony Lawson I'm the director of CPRA and thank you for the opportunity to speak here today and thank you for adding me on as a now not no longer interim, but now permanent executive director um and uh before you get started, Tony, I think some of your presentation is redundant to what the uh OPD has presented.

So I would love if you could just jump it to jump to your recommendations instead of walking through the entire thing.

That's what I was gonna add to that thank you.

I don't need a PowerPoint presentation because it is we've done in terms of what a Skelly process is.

A couple things I want to clarify up front.

OPD is that said that there's now 46 pending Skelly cases, and I have a very different number.

I have uh, I believe 80 approximately 80 or 78, and my number comes from last Friday, most recent.

Every Friday there's an agenda put out by OPD for the following Wednesday's IAB uh presentation, and they identify in that agenda the pending or outstanding um Skelly cases.

And so I have I have from that number, I believe, let's see.

Skelly cases awaiting hearing, and I didn't understand why there's a difference between the numbers we have, but I think it could be because of the batching now.

It's and maybe OPD can answer that.

I think as I understand it now, there are now combining cases, our officers who have the same incident.

So when we're looking at the numbers of 87, presumably that's the total number of officers and not Skelly cases, and I don't know if OPD maybe they can correct me on that, but I'm trying to understand the difference in the numbers that I'm hearing here from the numbers that are coming out in the weekly reports.

Oh, is someone from OPD able to speak to that?

I'm sorry I can't speak to it.

I we have a dashboard that we use by that tracks everything.

Uh we have a very good working relationship.

We meet weekly, and I just like to add this to agenda just when we meet meet weekly to just make sure our numbers are correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, that's it.

Sounds like maybe uh just making sure that systems are talking to each other is important.

Uh Director Lawson, if you can you continue with your presentation.

Yes, thank you.

So then just to clarify, so this is the agenda that we receive on Fridays, and it lists each case, each individual in each pending Skelly, and that agenda as of last Friday had 80s, uh had believe 87 cases.

The waiting Skelly.

Um, as you know, we made a proposal that CIPRA step in and take over the management of the Skelly hearings uh with outside Scelly officers.

Um, and there's several reasons for that recommendation.

Uh first, I want to mention that we recently hired uh uh project manager to take on that responsibility, and part of our budget includes 200,000 directly uh devoted to reducing the Skelly backlog, so we have funding available to get outside representatives to take on the Skelly issue.

And there are a number of reasons.

Well, three specific reasons why I think we should look outside for at least to reduce the backlog.

Um the first one is diversion of resources.

This is a lot of resources that LPD has now dedicated and will have to continually dedicate to reducing this backlog, whether it's 46 or 87, how many cases they are serving as a scaley officer is time consuming.

We have that, we have that now dedicated to uh our high-ranking officers at a time when we are short staffed from the department, and that we have the NSA requirements that we need to fulfill and trying to get out of that.

I think in support that we can devote most of our resources at OPD to policing issues and and then use the outside, whether uh administrative law judges or outside experienced attorneys who can then serve as Skelly officers.

So that diversion of resources I think is important if we and we have the funding now to use outside resources so that our police department can be devoted to policing.

Um, second reason I strongly suggest that we manage this with outside uh at least per at least for short term is for impartiality.

The Scelly process is a due process uh requirement, meaning the Scelly officer's job is to ensure that the proposed discipline is reasonable given the fact given the facts, given a disciplinary matrix.

In this case, we have a matrix, and that it's not the duty or responsibility of the Scelly officer to impart or to inject their own opinion or their own ruling.

They're only there to ensure that this ruling follows the due process and that the chief in making this determination was within their authority.

And the best way to do that is have someone who's outside of the department who are independent from the departments, and I can tell you why we have the problem with this, and this is why a third reason reason is long-term cost.

Right now, well, let me explain back up, explain how Scelly works for CIPRA.

As noted, there are certain cases that CIPRA and IEB jointly investigate and present to the chief.

And those typically are cases involving in custody death, use of force, uh discrimination, or crowd, fourth amendment issues.

In those cases, IEB does an investigation, CIPA does an investigation, and we present our findings to the chief on our recommendation.

If we all come to an agreement that there's sustained findings and an agreement on what the discipline is, then that discipline is then imposed or at least proposed on that particular officer.

That officer then has a right to a Scelly hearing.

The Scelly officer's obligation, as as outlined, you know, previously with OPD and with myself is to ensure that due process has been served.

The problem we've had is that in all of the Scelly reports that I received back in my tenure, I think all but one has sought to reverse what the what the chief had recommended.

So the Scaly officers are coming back and saying this is what I think was the best decision in this situation.

So let me give you an example of how this plays out.

And uh Director Lawson, if we could uh be brief, just I'm doing a time check and we have we are at 10 30.

I'll go quickly here.

Thank you.

We'll have a scaly a case that was with, say, Chief Allison, right?

Former Chief Allison, where he decided on the dismay termination.

The scaley officer now disagrees.

So you would have had IAB, the chief and CIPRA agreeing to terminate this individual.

It goes to a Scaly officer, internal with an OPD, I ranking, and they disagree.

And they say, no, this is our recommendation, not termination.

Now it comes back to the current chief, who's not no, you know, Alice is no good.

So it's gonna come back in this case it was Mitchell, and and and it come back to Chief Mitchell, which and I either we have to agree with that Scelly officer, or we have to separately come to an agreement ourselves.

So in some cases that there would be Chief Mitchell would want to agree with the Scelly officer, and I uniformly did not agree because I said I don't I think the the decision by the underlying chief was appropriate.

There's no basis to reverse the chief.

So we'd have disagreement.

If we couldn't agree, then it would go to OPC, but the commission inevitably we came to an agreement.

But the long-term problem you have is this if that goes to arbitration, and you have a case where someone was recommended for termination by uh by the chief, the scale officer then saying no, he shouldn't be terminated, then the chief going back and saying no, they should be terminated.

So I get two chiefs involved, an arbitrar uh a scaley officer within the department who's disagreeing, that goes to arbitration.

As a 30-year planner's attorney and employment, I can tell you that's a hard case for the city to win.

Because not only are you having disagreements within the city itself, you have it within the department.

So arbitrary gets this package where two chiefs are saying terminate.

The scelly officer, who's also a high-ranking officer within the department, is saying no, he shouldn't be terminated.

And in the meantime, that individual has been off and unpaid for a number of years.

I think if I've seen correct, I've seen cases where the pending arbitrations go back to 2017.

If they prevail at arbitration and the scale officer says, Well, I don't know what to do, I'm not going to terminate.

I agree to maybe uh suspension of 30 days.

That individual now has to come back and have correct me if I'm wrong, you got the city's gonna have to pay him back pay, including overtime that they would have earned during that entire period, and bring them back to a chief who sought to terminate them.

And that's why I said this needs to be handled outside by people who are impartial, so that even if they disagree with the chief, the message from within the city is uniform.

So that's why I'm my proposal was that.

Yes, helpful.

That's that's very helpful.

Um, I know that we also have some public commenters that have been waiting for a very long time, so I'm going to turn this over to public comment.

Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item number six, Pamela Drake, Rajni Mandal, Tuan No, and Millie Cleveland.

I'm somewhat disappointed that it you wanted to rush through the CIPRA presentation chair.

Um I want to support the recommendations that are being made by the director of CIPRA.

I think the issue of impartiality is key.

He already described a situation where a Skelly officer finds themselves in disagreement with the chief.

Who is their boss?

So let's be clear, it creates a conflict internal to the department.

I think the best measure is to move Skelly hearing officers outside of the department, which occurs with all the other general employees in SEIU, IFPT, IBW, a Skelly is not convened by someone within the same department.

I also want to raise, based on OPD's own reports, 19 of the sworn personnel on admin leave of the 19th, nine have been off for one to two years, the annual costs cost us two million four hundred and six dollars and two million four hundred and six hundred thousand dollars.

That's almost two million five hundred thousand dollars to pay for people who are staying at home watching Netflix.

So let's be clear.

If you really want to get rid of the backlog, you will remove this responsibility from the police department.

And I also want to say when skill when officers are out on admin leave, who's replacing them?

Other officers on overtime.

So you're accruing even more overtime, so you're being hit.

Rajni Mundal District 4.

I want to focus on structure.

Skelly is a constitutionally acquired safeguard that ensures disciplined decisions are reviewed by neutral, uninvolved decision maker before they are finalized.

That multi-layer review is intentional redundancy, not dysfunction.

The staff report shows the backlog has decreased substantially over the past year, as we uh discussed, indicating that recent reforms are working.

They did not require contracting with the somebody outside and adding extra cost.

So before adding another layer of administrative expense, it seems reasonable to allow the current reforms to continue.

Disagreement between investigators, reviewers, and final decision makers is inherent in a due process system.

It does not by itself signal structural failure.

CIPRA does play an important investigative role and often makes discipline recommendations.

If the investigative body also administers the Skelly stage, even if hearings are contracted out, that reduces the separation between investigation and independent review.

Structural independence is what gives the discipline system credibility.

That's it.

Skelly hearings.

Oakland is dysfunctional because we don't do our homework and we are ill informed.

What worked with the scale of hearing clearing from 169 dropping significantly, clearing 73% to 40 something cases, is because we did something right.

What was that?

That was we moved away from civilian, untrained administrative staff to hiring, and putting in scorn officers to do their job who understood the law, have experience, and are trained.

So using technology and officers doing the work meant we went from a 70-year-old slow-moving process to a toddler.

Who was running around and fishing and finishing the job?

So why would we replace a process that's working with a hair brain, ill-informed idea to get untrained civilian staff with the problem we had before to begin with to using the resources and the competency that we have that we have demonstrated success?

This is a power grab by CIPRA.

Same as when we I showed up in federal court, the mayor was there, the city attorney was there, and the police commission, president, chair, Ricardo Ocata wanted the same federal oversight as the federal monitor.

The mayor ignored him, the judge ignored him, the city attorney ignored him.

I suggest you ignore this hair brain idea and stick with what works.

Do your homework.

Oakland needs competency.

We don't need Shang Tao out there hiring 20 something dedicated full-time, not part-time, full-time officers, look into police misconduct when we only have 490 officers.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is up.

87.

At this time, Chair, all names have been called.

Okay, great.

Uh council member Brown.

All right.

Um, well, I know we want to um we're conscious of the time, um, and I also want to remain focused on like uh the I guess the the concerns and the issues that I have in this moment.

Um I think the first thing I want to call attention to is the discrepancy in the number and seeing if we can get some clarity around that.

Um, hearing 87 versus 46.

Um, like are is that because maybe an officer, this the same officer has a couple different investigations.

Is that why there's this discrepancy in the number?

Do the chair to the chief.

Go ahead, sure.

Thanks, Councilman.

Thank you, council member.

So, the actual numbers are it's a backlog of 46 Skelly cases, and what we discussed previously is not every scelly case is one for one.

So, out of the 46 Skelly cases, there's actually a total of 64 officers.

So that's the actual numbers.

So 46 actual Skelly cases pending, with 64 officers being the subject of those skelly cases.

Of those 64, or well, if you we break it down by the scelly cases.

So of the 64 scelly cases, that's including the total number, 64 officers, 22 of those cases are already assigned.

Oh no, sorry, 20, 24 of those cases are already assigned, 22 are waiting assignment.

Okay, um, and then I guess my next question here.

Um, of the four the criteria.

There's four um kind of there's a scope for CIPRA of four um, you know, things that they're able to get involved in.

How many of these cases are CIPRA involved in?

Like all of them?

No.

Okay.

And so, and so I think I continue to be focused on the data.

Like, I I am very interested in, um, and I think maybe I had a question in my supplemental.

So, like from 2023 to present, of all of the scaly cases, how many of them actually um fit the criteria to which CIPRA can participate?

The actual percentage, I don't know.

Right, and so I think that you know, maybe we can um uh have an informational in the future where we get more of the information because I think, in order for, I know for myself, in order for me to make a really informed decision, I like to see the numbers, right?

Maybe Director Lawson can provide that since it's CIPRAP.

Okay, gotcha.

Yeah, 100%.

Um, but then also OPD has a role to play as far as like hey, what are the other cases that are being considered that are outside of that scope, right?

We consider all of them.

Right, yeah.

Um, but just kind of outlining that though in in a report.

I feel like that that's the missing issue.

And then I guess maybe lastly I'll just uh call attention to what was outlined, and if you want to shed some light on it, right?

Professional staff was um operating and working on this process, but then there was this transition to ensuring that um you know uh officers were working on gathering the information and doing the work and we saw things rapidly progress.

Um is that an accurate analysis?

It is, but I do have to give credit to the other city departments as well.

The city attorney's office did come and uh provide extensive training so we could get more Skelly hearing officers as well as uh City HR helped out, and we've heard from Mary Howe earlier today.

So it was a combination of both adding Skelly hearing officers and modernizing the process and using technology as well as staffing, IEB where they could properly process them and send them out and track them.

So whereas before you had one professional staff member to process everything, send it out, coordinate it, set up the the scheduling.

Now you have a professional staff member, a sergeant, a lieutenant, and then the deputy chief with review by deputy chief and myself to include the use of technology for tracking as well as scheduling reminders.

And I think maybe lastly, just I would do want to just say this out loud that you know um keeping in mind that this this issue that we're tackling, it has to do with um, you know, incidences that the officers are involved in, right?

Um, that we shouldn't take lightly, right?

That's that's what we are um kind of having a conversation around like this process, and so um I don't think we've talked enough about um I guess the role of impartial like being impartial in kind of determining these cases and and um you know uh just making sure that that is also something that's a part of the conversation and how all of the entities basically play play a role.

So, yeah, absolutely.

That was one of the reasons why I had to free up the deputy chief so you would have an impartial view or more access to police officers, not just from the executive staff, but also middle management and at the upper management level as far as the lieutenants.

It's important to note that the Skelly off Skelly hearing officer does not make a determination, they only make a recommendation that then goes to the chief of police.

It's up to the chief of police to make the decision to overturn what they initially issued based on new information that was provided, not on the opinion of a Skelly officer.

I see.

Um but we don't have any data that shows us how often those those um like that recommendation is overturned.

So we would uh it depend on what time period that you would want, but we could uh I'd imagine look at that, but it's going to I would imagine fluctuate whenever you have different chiefs over a different time period.

I can tell you it's not commonplace.

Uh it's very rare in my experience dealing with previous chiefs that they'll overturn their initial um discipline uh decision unless there's new evidence involved that wasn't considered before, which is not commonplace and hasn't been that I know of.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Houston.

So I had um moved to accept the informational report, but we got a discrepancy.

Um, just say it's 87.

They cut it in half.

That's incredible, right?

So my thing is that, and I'm just giving the benefit of the doubt, I do respect CIPRA, but they cut it in half.

Let's keep it in the department where it's at.

They're doing a great job.

Tedesco picked it up.

I know the work that he can do, and I trust Beard.

So I'm just saying this like this.

Well, I wasn't talking to you.

Um, so um this move it.

I move to um to accept this informational report.

I want to keep that in the department of the police department.

I want the police to to continue to do the great job that they do, and just say it was cut in half.

That's incredible.

Thank you, Councilmember Houston.

Um, I order in the chamber, please.

I think I actually want to direct this question to ACA Phillips since you sit across both departments.

What is the reason behind the discrepancy?

Through the chair, um, I know that the department started working through their report a few weeks back, so I can think of potentially that's where it is, but I would have to defer to um the practitioners of the work as they did do the supplemental.

And I do know that Skelly um cases can have multiple officers to the chief's point to share with that that information, but at this time I could not tell you specifically where that 20 um CPRA versus uh OPD lies, but I do know that these numbers were polled uh a couple of weeks ago as we started to prepare for this report.

Okay.

Well, I do want an update on this.

Um I do think that uh we should have an update on this.

I'm thinking in six months' time frame to have an update on the progress of getting through the uh additional backlog.

So uh AC Phillips will plan on scheduling that um and uh yes, council member Fife.

Did we have additional speakers?

Public speakers, no, I think we've got I assume not.

So I think we're good.

I just I think this was a really good discussion.

I don't think it was timed well.

I feel like um Mr.

Lawson, Director Lawson was not afforded the equal time to present, and I'm a little concerned, and one of my colleagues did bring up to me how I mentioned to him that being a chair involves managing an agenda, and so we should spend approximately in committee, which we're scheduled slated to be here for two hours, maybe 20 to 30 minutes per agenda item, and we still have to hear from the fire department.

So I cannot be I have a seven o'clock meeting in the morning, and I cannot stay here for another couple hours.

Um, so I want to just ensure that when we are having these deeply important conversations, that all of the presenters are afforded the uh amount of time that they need to get their points across so that we can make informed decisions because now I'm also concerned about the discrepancy that I'm hearing, and I want clarity on that, but um we just need to make sure that we're using our our our time wisely so that we can do our best work.

Um that said, uh, I think there was a motion.

This is an informational report, and I do think six months is too much time in between what we heard today and the fact that we didn't hear a complete presentation.

I would like it to come sooner than six months from now.

Okay, we can make that uh three months from now if this is doable.

Well, we'll schedule that with the departments, uh the respective departments.

And um, I do think that we we have more items to go through.

So, yes, I'd like to have this.

I'd like to call a vote on this.

Well, I'm gonna have to be excused at eight o'clock.

Okay.

Through the chair, um, to council member Brown is two years ago enough time frame to look into uh, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by councilmember Houston, seconded by Councilmember Brown to receive uh sorry, to receive and file this informational report in committee on roll.

Council members brown.

Aye.

Aye, Houston, I and Chair Wong, aye.

Thank you.

Item number six passes with four eyes to receive and file this informational report in committee.

Going back to item number three, rereading in that title.

Adopt a Resolution Authorizing the city Administrator to enter into a cooperative purchasing agreement with Stryker sales LLC for the purchase lease.

Maintenance and repair of advanced life support equipment in an amount not to exceed $681,877.80 cents for five years for a total amount not to exceed $3,409,389, and waiving the advertising and competitive bidding process requirements and local business enterprise and small local business enterprise program requirements for the proposed cooperative purchasing agreement with striker sales LLC, and we have one speaker on this item.

Good evening, Deputy Chief DeBon Simmons, Oakland Fire Department.

Thank you, Madam Chair, as well as public safety committee officials.

Yes, so fire department staff recommends that the city adopt a resolution authorizing city administrator to enter a cooperative purchasing agreement with striker sales for purchase, lease, and maintenance of medical equipment.

1997, the residents here in the city of Oakland passed Measure N paramedic services act that provided seed money to purchase both basic life support as well as advanced life support equipment to provide service at a paramedic level to our residents and business community and visitors here in the city of Oakland.

Since that time, the fire department has purchased medical equipment, including Lucas Monitor Lucas devices as well as EKG or cardiac monitoring devices, and now we are in need of upgrades.

Those Lucas devices are devices that are mechanical air actuated that provided that provide a high level of comprehensive and reliable CPR to patients who are in cardiac arrest, whereas the EKG or cardiac monitoring devices are devices used by our paramedics to provide or obtain vitals from patients who are sick and injured, as well as monitor for various medical conditions such as a cardiac arrhythmia or myocardial infarction, as well as for treatment modalities that fall within advanced life support parameters.

Adopting this resolution is in line with city priority of a holistic community safety community, and once again we ask that you adopt this resolution allowing us to enter enter into agreement so that we can upgrade both our basic life support and advanced life support equipment.

Yeah, I do have one question, which is just what is the funding source for this.

So this funding source will be from measure in and is in November.

Okay, great.

So it is not actually coming from uh general fund dollars, uh most of it will not.

There will be a small portion that may come from um the general fund, but most of it will come from measure in.

Okay, great.

And uh, and is in November, measure in.

Uh sorry, order order in the chamber, uh, council member five.

Yes, through the chair.

Can you explain the need for a waiver of the competitive solicitation process?

Yes, so currently we have been doing business with Stryker.

They are a provider of the equipment, not only to the Oakland Fire Department, but various fire departments here in Alameda County, and they provide based on a demo that we did with several different uh providers of cardiac monitoring, our paramedics, as well as staffers in our medical services division recommended that we go with this particular company based on the devices that they provide for use.

So it's a recommendation of staff who use the equipment.

That's correct, ma'am.

Thank you.

I'll make a motion to approve someone.

I will second that.

Thank you.

Going to the public speakers that signed up for item number three, Ms.

Sada Olabala.

Thank you.

We have a motion, oops.

We have a motion made by Council Member Five, seconded by Chair Wong to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the March 3rd city council agenda on rule.

Council members Brown.

Aye.

Five.

Aye.

Houston absent.

And Chair Wong.

Aye.

Thank you.

Item number three passes with three eyes, one excused.

Houston to forward this item to the March 3rd City Council agenda on consent.

Reading in item number four.

Adopt a resolution authorizing the city administrator to enter into an agreement with Image Trend LLC to replace the Oakland Fire Department's record management system with National Emergency Response Information System.

Compliant artificial intelligence powered fire and EMS RMS software at a cost of $1 million 6,00659 dollars for the term of January 1st, 2026 through December 31st, 2028, with the option to extend the agreement up to two years, and in an additional cost of $362,584 and without return to city council for a contract for a total contract amount not to exceed $1,369,243, and waiving the competitive multi-step solicitation process for all contracts and the local small local business enterprise requirements for the sorry agreement with Image Trend LLC, and we have one speaker that signed up to speak.

We have no speakers to sign up to speak.

Okay.

Would you like to present?

Yes, ma'am, thank you.

Yeah, so this particular item right here.

Going back three years ago, the then United States Fire Administrator rolled out an initiative to upgrade the record management system for all 30,000 fire departments, both in the United States and Canada.

Um at the time we were using a legacy system, our RMS, and through partnerships with with several different entities as well as fire departments and fire service affinity groups.

We came out with a new reporting system nearest national emergency reporting information system.

This particular program, which is a requirement of all fire departments, both in the United States and Canada, will allow us to have access to real-time information as it relates to emergencies that fall under the category of fire, structure fires, vegetation fires, EMS, so that we can make data informed decisions, better data informed decisions, primarily from a preventive perspective.

Secondly, this request will allow us to be compliant with the new national standards, and then third, this request will allow us to be in alignment with other fire departments here in Alameda County who are also using Image Trend as a record management system provider.

Going back eight months ago, we formed a committee of fire department personnel, both paramedics and company officers to test three different systems.

The recommendation to the support services division was to go with image trend, and based on that, a follow-up assessment, fire department, or should say fire administration staff agreed with that recommendation to go with image trend.

Okay, great.

Uh, it's and I'm all for modernizing our various departments.

We know that that is a great need.

Uh Councilmember Five.

You don't have to redact anything by handy.

Never mind, don't even answer that.

I just want to make a motion to approve staff's recommendation.

Thank you.

We have a motion made by Councilmember 5, second and by council member Brown to approve the recommendations of staff and to forward this item to the March 3rd City Council agenda on roll council members Brown.

Aye.

Five.

Houston absent and chair Wong.

Aye.

Thank you.

Item number four passes with three eyes, one absent Houston.

To forward this item to the March 3rd City Council Agenda on consent.

Moving on to open form, we have one person that signed up.

Oh, sorry.

Just noting that item number seven regarding the reaffirming the city of Oakland Sanctuary City Policy has been removed by the February 19th rules and legislation committee agenda and placed on the public safety pending list.

No date specific.

Now moving on to open form.

Mrs.

Sata Olabala, do you still wish to speak?

I take my time to this way.

She didn't understand the time constraints.

I see.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I just wanted to thank Councilman Fi Councilmember Fife for addressing the lack of time that Director Lawson was awarded.

I think that he had a significant contribution, particularly around the issue of impartiality, and why outside council might be better than insight, as well as how it has contributed to the delays.

There is a narrative in the police department that only police can investigate police, and we have to stop that.

So I'm just asking you whenever this comes back to please provide Director Lawson ample time to explain the significance of his recommendation.

It's not just about expediency and the idea.

Your time is up.

Okay, just to respond, I understand we're also about to lose quorum, so in many ways we have I have no choice but to proceed through the agenda.

So, but yes, we will I will ensure that in the next time we address this topic, we have Director Lawson come before first, and then we have OPD.

Okay.

Okay.

And with that, this meeting is adjourned.