Good afternoon.

We will call this meeting to order of the Sacramento City Council, a 2 p.m. Council hearing. Please call the roll.

Thank you. Councilmember Kaplan. Here. Councilmember Dickinson. Here. Vice-Mertile Mantes. Here. Councilmember Pleckibaum. Here. Councilmember Maple. Here. Mayor Prattemgera. Here. Councilmember Jennings. Here. Councilmember Vang. I'm here. And Mayor McCarty. Here. You have a form.

Councilmember Gareth. Can you lead us in the land acknowledgement and the pledge?

Please rise for the opening acknowledgement in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people in tribal lands.

We are going to see the original people of this land, the Nisanan people, the southern Maidu, the valley and plains, the Milwaukee and the Wynne Winton people and the people of the Wilton Rancharia.

Sacramento is only federally recognized tribe. May we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today in the act of practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous peoples history.

Contributions and lives. Thank you. Face flag, salute, pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. Thank you. We'll begin today with a special item that I asked a place on the agenda related to the implementation of Prop 36.

health director, a small business advocate, and communities involved in the reentry community to focus on what this measure looks like.

So it's our opportunity to really engage, have a question and answers with our leaders today as far as what this would look like, hopefully for the betterment of Sacramento.

So with that, I would ask that we refrain from asking questions until we have all the presenters. So here's what's going to go.

We have six presenters. Then we're going to ask the mayor and council to engage any questions so forth back and forth to the presenters.

And then we will go to public comment. So with that, we're going to ask our Sacramento police chief, Kathy Lester, to begin and start us off.

Thank you, Chief Lester.

Thank you. Good afternoon, mayor and council. So we're here really talk about Prop 36 and trying not to drop stuff all over the floor.

Our DA is going to be talking about what the law actually is. And I'm going to be talking about implementation, not just strengths, but some of the challenges that we have.

But I have to say this is, I think a huge win for our community and for law enforcement, really trying to get people the treatment that they need and hold people accountable.

I know we have a number of people here in the audience that are scheduled to speak and talk about the impacts that really unfettered crime has on our community.

And then certainly the challenges that we have when people that need treatment can't get the help they need. And I hope that with Prop 36, we can see some significant changes.

Prop 36, which is known as the Homelessness Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, allows felony charges increases in sentences for certain drug and theft crimes.

And the DA will go into some of the reversion programs that are also a big piece of it. But California is overwhelmingly back Prop 36 to lengthen sentences for certain theft and drug offenses and to direct more people to drug treatment after convictions.

So Prop 36, we've done some extensive training and I'm going to talk about what we've done for our department. This is specific to the Sacramento Police Department that I know that a lot of our law enforcement agencies in the county are doing something similar.

So I'll start with what the Sacramento DA did, which was provide some significant training for law enforcement in the region.

And I'm sure Tin will talk about it, but we had about a 20 minute training video and they also have a dedicated page on their website for the public to access information about Prop 36.

Internally, we included Prop 36 and all of the changes because there are a number of laws that change with this with our legal update at the beginning of December.

Prop 36 went into effect on December 18th and we got in front of it by talking about really all the different changes. So this is the first page of about a 10 page document.

It is available like all of our training on our website. So we started with this and then we actually even distilled down further to create a quick reference card and quick reference sheet for officers that are in the field.

And we've broken it down by Prop 36, narcotics and organized retail theft charges just to make it easier to make sure that we're charging the appropriate crime when it's applicable.

And I will say this is a pretty significant change for patrol officers. Most of our patrol officers have five years or less in the field.

And Prop 47 has always been in place prior to Prop 36. This is a little bit of uncharted territory for them. And so it was quite the lift to make sure that everyone was up to speed on some of these new challenges.

I'm also going to talk about strategy. So I think community outreach piece is a big piece of this as well as community input.

Before Prop 36, we did actually have a number of successes. So even though the laws were not necessarily favorable to accountability on low level thefts and some of our narcotics, we worked very closely with our public safety partnership team.

If you remember, I brought that forward in 22 as part of a violent crime reduction strategy. And we've initiated a number of strategic deployments known as stride initiatives where we've seized a large number of narcotics.

I think that's really important because we often talk about homicide and violent crime. But if you look at the number of people that have died from fentanyl in this county over the last three years, it is disturbing and really upsetting to say the least.

Now, we've seen a reduction last year, but there are far too many people that are dying from overdoses in the county. And go to the county website where they track that and show the significant impact that has in our city.

We also have street level teams, including patrol and our violent crime reduction teams that have been very diligent about street level enforcement and doing investigative follow-up.

I have to say our patrol officers and our special unions are phenomenal when it comes to doing that additional investigative follow-up, seeking search forance and pursuing crime even after an initial stop. They've been very, very successful.

And then we are going to be working with our partners in the future. Our DA and I have already discussed doing some joint operations where we dedicate resources to do focused enforcement around Prop 36.

For our strategy development, we really saw input from groups like Arden Fermal, who we work with, you know, quite frequently, Ray Lee's and all of our area captains determined the most common concerns.

And what I am going to share with you is probably not a surprise. Most complaints were that people were suffering from organized and repeat offenders.

And these offenders may not always be part of an organized retail theft criminal ring, but certainly their repeated petty theft caused serious losses and certainly workload for staff and for law enforcement.

And like anything, we'll look at those strategies and see what will help us here. Working with our DA, I think, has been critical. And I really have to commend DA Ho for being on the front line of this issue.

Statewide, talking about the importance of this and bringing voters to the table. I think he's been a strong advocate of accountability and certainly a supporter of enforcement actions.

And it's been a great partner for us here in the county. So with him, we have worked on developing an outline for private businesses and officers to utilize while taking these types of reports to make prosecution easier and hopefully with less fallups so that we can get to prosecution and diversion when necessary.

And also to make this reporting easier for our lost prevention officers. As many of you know, we have been taking part in a regional ORC organized retail crime meeting here.

We've been a part of that for over the last year. We've met with our CHP ORC task force and we're developing ways to collaborate with them to run more operations. And so even though we don't have the ability necessarily to assign an officer full time, this is still a priority for us.

Captain Ethan Hanson couldn't be here today, but I have our lieutenant saying park and I also have Lieutenant McColley with us who have been able to dedicate a detective and a sergeant to overseeing ORC cases.

They will be the point of contact both internally and externally and help develop our response strategy. And we have a detective who has been assigned prolific petty theft offenders in ORC cases. This is full time task.

He will be the main coordinating liaison for our ORC regional group, our LPO's, our commands and the DA's office. And has already done a great job adopting multiple cases.

Our internal initiatives, obviously this is a point of discussion at our crime strategies meeting and we're continued use detectives to help identify any commonly targeted locations, times and days or items and advising our operations to try and deter theft.

The other thing that we're going to do that was very effective for us with our violent crime reduction strategy was to identify prolific offenders and not just let the warrant system.

You know, I've warned you issue then hopefully they get stopped but to proactively go out and seek people that have warranted this issue to try and deter and prevent additional victims and theft.

On community outreach, we conducted a pretty well attended press conference on January 16th. Thank you, Mayor McCarty for coming and speaking at that because I think it really shows the strength of our regional effort here.

And we will be coming to council in a few weeks to look at purchasing a new reporting system. Our current online system is pretty dated.

It's not great. I'll be honest and it doesn't really function the way I would like to see it function. And so we'll be talking about that because I think that our reporting will increase.

Right now across the state, you saw an increase in larceny and theft related offenses. We actually haven't seen that in Sacramento. We've seen a reduction over the last five years.

But we also know that we have a possible under reporting issue. So I'm hoping that this will give us a better picture with more actionable items on what we can actually do and how we can help people.

And then we do have some challenges. I'll talk about some some reductions to service. So we've had reductions to our services since the great recession.

If you remember, we completely eliminated narcotics, financial crimes, our vice, and we really limited our cold property crimes, misdemeanors and non injury traffic accidents.

Unfortunately, those are not services that we've been able to bring back in the last 10 years. And then just additionally in the last few years, we've seen some additional reductions, including the loss of about 34 sworn positions.

So we've centralized robbery and burglary trying to do as much as we can and be as efficient as we can. But we have had to eliminate certain cannabis positions. We eliminated our shots, spot our teams.

We reduced the size of some of our teams. And then we eliminated our mental health unit when we stood up our impact team to help with I am T eliminated outreach engagement and eliminated some supervisory positions.

At the same time, we've seen tremendous and very positive growth in the city. You know, a lot of us were at the state of the downtown breakfast and it's so exciting to see what's happening in our city.

We have great growth, but between 2008 when we were staffed at 804 until now, you know, our populations increased by 14%.

You know, last year's census showed that we had about 526,000 people in our city. And so, you know, it's a challenge. Certainly we've changed the way we've done policing. I'm very proud of that in the last 14 or 15 years.

We spent a lot more time using our resources, deescalating and training our officers to take the time to reduce, you know, negative incidents. And I think we've been very successful with that.

But we have also seen some pretty significant reductions to staffing right now. We're currently sitting on 172 vacancies if you can believe that 82 sworn officers and 90 professional staff positions.

If you look at what we were authorized in 2008 to what we actually have now, we're done about 20% and sworn and down about 44% in our professional staff, which is, is challenge.

And then one thing that I don't know that a lot of people are aware of and all in quickly on this is just our lengthy delays in jail booking.

This has been a challenge for every law enforcement agency in our region. Do the challenge changes at jail over about 50% of our bookings take between an hour and a half and three hours and additional 20% take over three hours.

And we produce a quarterly report for jail intake. This represents about 40% of our rest. So it's a fairly sizable sample.

We've also had to staff that with overtime officers to the tune of about 6,000 or more hours in the last three years. And that's cost us over a half million dollars.

And they're not on the streets and they're not able to respond to calls when we already have really, really strained staffing. So I thought it was important to make the audience aware of these challenges. And I certainly hope the county can make some changes to make that easier for every law enforcement agency within our county.

And with that, I think I'll turn it over to our DA unless you have any questions. Okay, thank you.

We have a moment to set up.

So good afternoon. First of all, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to come here and speak. And also for your leadership in setting up such a forum so that the community can hear what law enforcement is doing in regards to Proposition 36 and your time and the legislature and public safety as relates to Prop 36 and some of the issues that were coming up on the poison pill.

I also like to thank Councilmember Lisa Kaplan and for Pluck and Bob who supported Prop 36 along with the Sacramento Chamber who helped push that across the finish line.

I spent several months last year raising money and campaigning across the state in regards to Proposition 36 because it afforded law enforcement, including the DA's office, the necessary tools to deal with homelessness, to deal with theft and to deal with fentanyl poisoning.

So those are the three main buckets and sort of to explain how that process works and what it is that we are doing at the DA's office and with law enforcement.

I want to address those three buckets. Let's start first with fentanyl. We seized enough fentanyl law enforcement here in California last year to kill every single person on the face of the earth.

That's how much fentanyl we had seized in California. All it takes is a packet of sugar worth of fentanyl to kill 500 people. And last year in Sacramento County we had over 400 people die from fentanyl poisoning.

And that number has been consistent from the year before. So when I took over as a district attorney, my office had not once prosecuted a single individual for murder for selling fentanyl that caused the death of someone.

And so we created a task force at the Sacramento DA's office along with a coalition of law enforcement to investigate fentanyl poisoning from the get go.

The problem is that the penalties involved in fentanyl were fairly minor compared to other drugs and with the changes in Prop 47.

So what is happening right now is that what the task force we have now charged 12 people in Sacramento County for murder for selling fentanyl.

In addition, we are going after the dealers of fentanyl with Proposition 36, we have the tools to do so. And we have seen a reduction by over 40% of fentanyl deaths last year. And we hope to continue that number.

In regards to theft offenses, I was talking to one of the major retailers with the big box stores in Sacramento. And he told me that his particular store here in Sacramento saw a 252% increase in theft in one year.

That that particular store was a number one theft location in the entire region for their big box retailer.

In addition to that, Sacramento was number one in the country in regards to theft for that particular company. And we see a significant maybe even only a third of the theft cases actually reported.

So although we see the number of theft offenses have gone down, the reality is theft offenses of increase. And we see that in terms of different pharmacies and stores closing throughout our region.

And so what are we doing with Proposition 36? As you may see that there is a board over here and a sticker as well.

What we are doing is if you have two prior theft convictions under the law, the third can be charged as a felony. And the way my office is approaching is with a measure of moderation and discretion.

So if you are stealing for personal sustenance, if you are stealing to eat, we will not charge you with a felony. We will instead charge that as a misdemeanor and try to engage in our collaborative courts to get the services necessary.

But there is a difference between stealing one stake and 20 filet mignomes. There is a difference between stealing one bottle of baby formula and $4,000 worth.

And so if you are engaging in repeat theft offenses, we will prosecute you for founties in regards to that. And what I can provide to you is in the two months since the initiation of Proposition 36.

We have charged under the theft offenses 129 different individuals for theft under Proposition 36. 89 of them have been felonies.

The remaining 40 have been misdemeanors when they are related to personal sustenance. So we will continue to actively pursue accountability when it comes to theft.

And what I can tell you is that in my conversation with an owner of a mall here in Sacramento with Mark Freeman, he has told me that he has seen theft offenses, organized theft offenses, drop significantly at his business.

Proposition 36 has a deterrence effect and an accountability effect when it comes to theft. Now in regards to the third category, or the third bucket as it relates to drug possession and drug use.

And I have approached it with a level of moderation. And what do I mean by that? So a few years ago we had three strikes law on the state of California. In particular, we had some individuals that were getting sent to prison for stealing slices of pizza.

And what I want to make sure is that here in Sacramento County that we are not draconian when it comes to the application of our drug laws.

So that it doesn't disproportionately affect black and brown communities. It doesn't disproportionately affect one group versus the other.

Because at the core of Proposition 36, it's about mass treatment and not mass incarceration. So the law allows this and what I would tell you is what we are doing.

So the law allows, for example, if you have two prior drug convictions at any point in your life, the third can be charged as a felony.

So what I have done is a measure of moderation is I have put a 10 year wash-up period. So that the two prior convictions must happen within 10 years of the current offense.

I don't want a situation where if somebody has two drug convictions from 25 years ago and all of a sudden they're facing a felony now, years later.

So there's a 10 year wash-up period that I put into place that those two convictions have to be within 10 years.

The very first conviction that is eligible for a felony for possession of drugs, I charge as a misdemeanor.

And then we put a warning not only on the complaint but also in court notifying the individual that you are given an opportunity to accept treatment.

So if you successfully complete it, it will be dismissed. But if you proceed and you are unable to deal with your drug addiction and you pick up another offense, then what will happen is we will charge with a felony.

And the purpose of that felony is not to send people to prison or to incarcerate them but to use it as a means to get the treatment they need.

And I know that when our mayor here was in the assembly, we had worked on Sacramento Hope, a program that uses non-violent low level offenses to get them the treatment they need.

And we actually have the tools to do so when it comes to drug addiction.

And as that measure of moderation, what I can tell you is that in the last two months since the initiation of Proposition 36, we have charged 51 individuals with misdemeanor related to drug possession and two felonies.

But individuals who were in the throws of addiction will continue to pick up those offenses and we will utilize them in a humane way to get treatment.

And I know that somebody here from the county will speak in a moment about the treatment services that we have.

We have treatment services that are both in and out of custody. We have revised the assessment protocols for the county to make sure that if somebody is getting the treatment and getting released from custody, that they do so only after a thorough evaluation so that they do not present a public safety crisis.

And so we are going to be dedicated to implementing Proposition 36 in a fair way, but a way that is also accountable to ensure that we have a safe and clean community.

And with that, I do want to let you know that I know that our chief talked about future and collaboration.

In the next 30 to 45 days, we will be initiating a collaboration in which we are going to be focusing on Proposition 36 offenses.

And how do we hold drug dealers accountable? How do we get people under the influence of drugs into the treatment they need and also help our small businesses recover from death offenses? And you'll hear from them soon.

So with that, I want to thank you very much and I'm sure you'll have plenty of questions later. Thank you.

Next, we have Joel Hockman, owner of Pucci Pharmacy with a small business perspective.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, council members and guests. Thank you. I am Joel Hockman, owner of Pucci's Pharmacy 95 years old this year, not me, the store.

And I also own Eddie's Pharmacy in Los Angeles. We supported this proposition wholeheartedly.

We have been broken into, we've not fortunately been robbed, which is we're just continuing to knock on wood that that doesn't happen.

But we have been burglarized at least 25 times. Those are often happening in the middle of the night.

They seem to be very coordinated when we look at video footage and compare video footage from other pharmacies.

We see the same perpetrators, same clothing, same weapons. We have seen the same perpetrators in our store multiple times.

And we know that they're not the ones that are, you know, taking the drugs for use. They're taking those drugs for resale.

We have since put in a lot of security protocols. And since January 2023, we have not experienced a, a, a, a, a, burglarie since that point time.

We do know that what we hear from a lot of pharmacies and even the big box stores and CVS is in the Walgreens because we're kind of in some of those conversations and being alerted to their closures is that the reason they're citing it is organized crime.

That's why. This is a huge problem. It's a huge problem. We continue to face. It's a problem that we know is going to come back to us at some point being a small pharmacy.

We don't seem to be the target for some of these organized activities. But the cost is, is significant.

Any one of those events costs us a minimum of $5,000. We've been, you know, during 2020 during the civil unrest over $80,000 in losses that we've experienced due to this.

We have camera footage from the street where you would think we would get a license plate. Nope. They remove the license plate from the vehicle before they pull up.

So it's just nearly impossible for us to capture them. So, you know, we really do support this. And we hope that we can apprehend more of these folks.

That's kind of one side of it. The other side of it is it's the end users. How do we stop the end users from wanting to acquire these drugs, you know, whether it's, you know, social, recreational use, what have you.

How do we, how do we prevent that from happening? We have to stop the demand. And then hopefully that will also stop the suppliers from going in and trying to get, get the stuff.

I know that a lot of these smashing grabs, they're taking that product to resell so that they can then go on and acquire the illegal substances, which are often valued even more and resell those things.

Not sure what our answer is here. I don't know that any of us have figured that out yet, but it is definitely something that has to happen.

You know, from our perspective, we're going to continue to do everything we can to protect our store, protect our customers, and protect, you know, these products from getting in the hands of the public that don't have valid prescriptions for those things.

So anyway, thank you.

Thank you, Joel. Next, we have Joseph Osorio, who's with the Anti-Restidivism Coalition.

Good afternoon, Mayor. And thank you for this opportunity.

On behalf of the Anti-Restidivism Coalition here in Sacramento and in Los Angeles. My name is Joseph Osorio. I am the Associate Director.

I'm going to be sharing some information regarding our community, some of the concerns and many of some of the ideas that many of our community members and actual members who are really on the other side of the coin, some of these offenders have shared with us since the passing of the past.

The passing of Prop 36 full transparency, ARC was not for Prop 36. However, that has passed. We are here now, and we're really just trying to work with police officials, district attorney, community partners, the city to figure out a way what's the best way to assist our community.

It's definitely a tall task. We understand that the smashing grabs are a big concern. We understand that there's federal issues and nowhere we try to downplay that and we recognize the severity of it.

But what we want to do is find out the reason why these unfortunate situations are happening. We want to do our best to support the community and also support the folks who are struggling with many of these addictions.

As you can see here on the screen, we've shared some components that we believe are very important and discussing not just with officials, not just with the district attorney, but with community members as well.

The biggest thing is prevention, how do we work together to prevent these issues? I think that's a really big question.

We want to focus on incarceration and focus on treatment. We also want to prevent this from happening because we understand that many folks are being victimized. It's causing taxpayers a ton of money and we really want to do our best.

I know we don't have all the answers but if we can brainstorm and figure out ways to prevent these issues, whether it's providing alternatives here in the community, making sure that folks are given the opportunity, economic availability, employment availability, which are some of the biggest drives for a person to go to these extreme steps.

It's not making excuses but these are just flat-out facts and we've seen it time in time out. What opportunities do these members actually have?

How can we support those who are affected? It's unfortunate that these businesses are struggling and victims of these fentanyl or drug cases are having these horrific events happen to them.

How can we also support them as well? The partnerships, I think we're all here at this table to make sure that we can straighten local partnerships here in Sacramento, investing time and financial means into our community-based organizations.

That's what we do. We're the boots on the ground. We're not only in our community but we're also in many of our state and local institutions, county jails and juvenile halls.

We're the folks who are going in there and understanding what's going on, what these individuals and doing the rehabilitative work.

Straightening these partnerships, I think, would be a huge plus for not only prevention but for assisting folks in their rehabilitation and eventually their reentry back into society, specifically here in Sacramento.

We've been utilizing our credible messengers, so folks who have linked experience, who have, once upon a time, been the folks who are the perpetrators, who are now business owners, professionals and trade unions working here at the state capital.

We've got folks who have lived experience that can help many of these individuals who are struggling with their addictions, resources, the keyword, providing resources and that's what we're here about.

Alternatives. So, what we understand that many, much of the language that's represented in Prop 36 is about possibly longer sentences.

There is an emphasis on providing treatment for folks who are struggling. We definitely want to have that conversation and see what other options we have. Education is very important.

I think many of the communities that are struggling with these issues, there's a lack of education there, there's a lack of employment, a lack of housing, which is a driving factor for many of these things to happen.

And so, if we can talk about alternatives other than incarcerating individuals, how can we work on these treatment facilities, how can we roll out therapy for individuals who are struggling.

For the community, I think a big part of it is the fear, right, the unknown. I would say it's fairly early to discuss what the rollout has been for Prop 36 since we're only a few months in long-term effects we're uncertain of, but our community is talking about it.

And they want to know if they're really going to be safe, right. Folks want to know if there's going to be over-policing.

Now, I'm not accusing the police department of that by no means, but these are just some of the concerns that folks have, right. There's big trust issues.

And so, our community is asking, are these concerns that we should have? How do we pay for this? I mean, it's bad enough that many of these small businesses here in Sacramento and across the state are being vandalized, robbed.

But now, I believe that business orders are assuming that the folks who get incarcerated, it's going to change something, but now not only do they have to be incarcerated, but they're going to have to pay for this person's incarceration.

So, where they're losing money at their business from, you know, the vandalism that's going on, now they're also having to pay tax dollars to incarcerate these individuals.

And so, it's a difficult situation. So, we want to make sure that the income or the financial part of it is being directed for services that are really going to help individuals, or is it going into community-based organizations?

Is there actual process for folks while they're inside to receive these services?

Resources were stretched very thin, and I know this because I work inside of many of our CDCR facilities, and I work inside many of our county jails.

And there are waiting lists for individuals to receive therapy, to receive treatment. I can only imagine what that's going to do now with the implementation of Prop 36.

And so, our community wants to know, are these folks really going to have access to these things? And that's something that we hope to have a conversation about.

Do DAs and police officers have too much influence? That's a big fear in our community, right? I think folks don't truly understand the ins and outs. They hear long-term sentences. They hear they're cracking down on folks.

And so, I think it's very important for district attorneys and police officers to meet in our communities, and to educate, not only business partners, but educate the folks who are in our communities that don't know what's happening, and reassure them that they're in a good way.

And so, I think it's important to have a conversation about the organization and the organization that we're here to help them.

And so, here today, my hope is that we can strengthen our partnerships. We can work together collaboratively. Our organization is here in Sacramento. We have office off of G Street.

We work with these individuals who are currently and formerly incarcerated. And if there's any way that we can assist in this process, more than happy to, we have a wealth of knowledge.

Outside, directly out of our office, we have connections with transitional housing. We help folks with treatment plants through our office. There's one on one mentorship. And there's also career opportunities for folks who need the help.

And so, we're simply here today to reassure our community that we're going to stand with them and that we're also going to do our part to assist with the concerns in the community.

I want to thank you all for this opportunity. I appreciate it. And thank you.

Next, Nicole Cable with the Sacramento County Behavioral Health Department.

Hi, I'm Nicole Cable. I'm a health program manager with our Sacramento County Behavioral Health. I will see our court and Justice and Mold Programs.

Next slide. So, one of my programs is what is currently our mental health diversion collaborative courts program.

And if you could go to the next slide, we are currently already providing services or assessment and linkage to those individuals who are being considered for mental health diversion.

At this time, it is our expectation that we will continue to provide those same referrals, linkages and services to the individuals who are being considered under Prop 36.

So, our current process is we have screenings and assessments for both mental health and substance use treatment that we are providing for all of those individuals.

We are providing a level of care recommendation and a linkage to one of our mental health and or substance use programs within the behavioral health plan.

Our current program support mental health diversion, mental health treatment court and our misdemeanor and competent to stand trial.

We will be also now including the Prop 36 individuals as they are referred to us through their public defenders or the conflict criminal defenders.

We complete these in custody for and for misdemeanors who are out of custody. We do allow for walk in assessments down at the jail diversion treatment and resource center.

And it's capable of I might interrupt you the clickers right to your right. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Prop 36. So, as our district attorney stated, we're getting very few of those yet for any felonies and that explanation provided that information of why.

And so, we are expecting an increase in our misdemeanor referrals. We're being having reports from our public defender that there are 32 potential, Prop 36 eligible clients between 12, 18 and 218.

And we should be expecting to get referrals for under our diversion program.

That's really all I have for you. I'm happy to answer questions about our system of care, both for our mental health and substance use programs. Thank you.

Okay. That concludes our panelists. We will have public comment, but we want to now allow members of the council to ask any questions, provide any feedback.

Now what's going to do councilors?

Councilmember Kaplan.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, everyone, here today. I mean Sacramento County overwhelmingly approved Prop 36. So that was the easy part.

I think as we're hearing the implementation is the hard part. And I think mostly we just want to hear from our chief and potentially our DA because there's the challenges of this was written.

Now implementing where we know that you've said the challenges are we have budget constraints. How does this all fit in or are you still working on the process of how do we allocate staffing?

Where does priority come from? How do we make sure that what you're doing is in alignment so that the DA actually has cases that they can prosecute?

Because what I'm hearing from my community members and my small businesses. Great. We've been reporting for crimes. Great. Nothing's happened. What's going to change now? Because I know the city has a budget deficit.

So yes, this is the law, but how does this really make a difference?

The budget is going to be a challenge for everybody. I don't think we try and hide that, but we're status quo right now. So we haven't changed from last year. I think the difference is there's a couple of differences.

Number one, your patrol officer gets the call to one of our retail establishments where a petty theft has been committed. Prior to Prop 36, it most that would have been a citation likely, unless it's a certain threshold.

What happens when it goes to the district attorney's office, I think we're on the same page, is that if people need treatment, they should get treatment.

If you're stealing because you're trying to feed your family, that's a different situation than someone who is stealing thousands and thousands of dollars worth of merchandise to resell it for some type of gain.

There's also been a challenge for us for a number of years where we will come across someone who has what is clearly stolen items. Right?

But unless we could find a victim that said yes, that is stolen from our store, that's the person that did it. I'm willing to file charges.

That was not a tool for us before and now under prop 36, that's a change as well. So, you know, I think the certainly prop 47 was well intended in that the voters wanted to get treatment for people that had addiction issues.

Unfortunately, I don't think it has played out the way we had all hoped it would. So, well, Proposition 36 does provide accountability tools that also provides, you know, hopefully some treatment for people so that we can stop some of the cycles that we're seeing.

On the other side of things, this is why we've actually used, I mean, we have limited resources, but we know how important this is, how important is to our community.

You know, quite frankly, this has been only in place for a couple of months.

So, don't have it solved yet.

Don't have it solved, no. But I can tell you that, you know, we are, as you know, I'm a big data person and we will continue to track it and work with our district attorney.

I know who's also going to be very good at reporting out on what works and what doesn't.

And like anything, when we make changes, sometimes you do have to sort of tweak the process to see what works.

You know, we've done that with other strategies moving forward, but we do have lessons learned from prior strategies.

So, we've seen significant reductions in violent crime. And that was focusing on prolific offenders, you know, a very small population that were committing crimes and serious crimes that that and focusing on that small group of individuals.

So, not painting this with the wide brush, but I think education, the community outreach piece, doing everything we can.

I mean, you know, I am always honest and will tell you where we have challenges and staffing is certainly going to be a challenge.

If I had an extra 150 officers, there would be a lot more that we could do, but that's probably not reasonable.

And I just want to call out, because I think it's important for people to hear that I think you stated some best practices that I'm hoping as you figure out some processes.

I think knowing what is a good video and a bad video to that extent is something our small business.

Big retailers have technical people, but I'm looking at how do we help our really small businesses who are most impacted on this.

So, and I think the engagement between SAC PD and our DA is essential.

So, almost when you figure out that process and that sheet, I think that that's what we need to be sharing with our small businesses.

So, they know how to be on top of what the new law is and how they can best work together with all of us.

I would appreciate any assistance we can get in that area to educate people and also to encourage people to report, because I think a lot of people are weary and thinking if nothing's going to happen, why don't I report it.

And we can't do anything if we don't know that the crime was actually committed. So, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Count some member, Maple.

Oh, thank you. I asked you.

Oh, sorry. Yeah.

Thank you. First of all, you know, in terms of my office, we're really downstream.

We can only prosecute cases that we receive. And if the evidence is there, we will prosecute those cases.

And I do want to applaud the Sacramento Police Department, Chief Lester, for the great work that they do with the resources that they have.

But I'm going to implore the people in the audience and the business owners and the victims to report the crime.

And I'll give one very simple statistic from a neighborhood that I just received. This is a neighborhood within the city.

And for the month of December, the police department had only 35 reported crimes.

However, there were other data that we were able to collate after the fact that there were five to eight calls a day for various quality of life crimes.

And so, the fact of the matter is crime is under reported, whether it's theft, whether it's drug dealing, whether it's simple assault.

We were asking the public to report the crime. And what I promise you is that the police department will investigate the case.

And my office will file those charges when the evidence is there. And we will handle it in a way that is compassionate but appropriate with accountability.

So that's what I'm imploring the public and the community to do. And I would also implore that the police department need the resources to be able to go out there and enforce the law so that I can go ahead and prosecute it in a way that is accountable but fair.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Mayer-Maple.

Thank you very much, Mayor. And on that note, a conversation that I often have with constituents in District 5 is next door and Instagram are not appropriate channels to report.

So just because you put it on there, does it mean that it's been reported to the police department, so just a reminder.

So thank you so much for the presentation, the information. This is a really timely discussion after November and seeing the implementation really appreciate this.

I think I have one question I think might be from Ms. Cable. I'm really interested in the diversion program and I'll allow you to walk up.

My question is around what is it may still be in development but what does it look like practically? So you know someone is arrested for a crime.

They're determined through a process of some sort if you could describe that that would be great of that they qualify for diversion and then they are sent through another process. So I'd just love to hear about that.

I can't speak too much for what the public defender's process is. They get a client. There's some issue that may have been determined that they have a mental health condition that would qualify them for a mental health diversion program.

When they've done that, they then send it over to behavioral health to do an assessment. At that point, we're really assessing to find out what are their current needs, what are their ongoing needs going to be, or screening for substance use, treatment and recommendations.

And really what we're extending back to the public defender is a recommendation for mental health treatment, whether it is with their managed care plan under kind of a general lower level of mental health need, or one of ours in within our mental health plan system, which includes kind of our core or outpatient type programs.

They consider it a moderate to severe mental illness range, or even to up to our full service partnerships with this really for a poor severe mental illness.

And so we're referring into those on the mental health side. And then on the substance use side, we're looking at do they need medication assisted treatment?

Or are they already receiving that at the jail and need to continue that? Are we looking at needing an outpatient program, an intensive outpatient program or residential treatment?

And then we're looking at that full array and looking and screening for those to make the best determination for them.

Okay, that's really helpful. And then, so for behavioral health and for substance use, as it relates to homelessness, is there a portion of that program where obviously when people have these issues, they usually have more than one, right?

You might be someone who's struggling with a mental health issue and you're self-medicating with drugs, let's say, and that's two different potential solutions.

And then, people that come in that clearly are in-housed, is that part of that diversion program as well?

It can be. It depends on the program that they're assigned to. A lot of our programs within the mental health side have access to flexible funding or permanent supportive housing that they can help and get some of our folks into as part of their treatment program.

While we do try to get that housing first, it's really their mental health treatment programs. And so that's the goal. But we are looking at always trying to find housing for those that are within our system.

Great. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. And those are my questions. Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Vain.

Thanks, Mayor. I really appreciate you for being with I.M. as an educational work.

I'm going to thank the public and for Mayor and Council. First, I want to take this moment just to thank Captain, Lieutenant and our district attorney for being here today to really provide a high level overview, just given that the voters passed 36 and we're in two months of implementation.

And so really appreciate this high overview. And I actually have some like direction. We'll love some follow up as well as we're monitoring the progress of Prop 36, whether challenges outcomes, but just have some comments and also just some questions as well.

I also just really quickly wanted to say thank you to the business that came today to really just also share your lived experience of what you have experience with the ground.

And that, you know, I hear often from our local businesses in my district as well. And so really appreciate the holistic presentation from the DA PD from our business and then also from ARC Joseph as well. And thank you for just providing insight on the other end of, you know, what our communities are also feeling.

I think that it needs to be a balance approach. So just really overall appreciate all of the presentation. You know, I think I speak for all of my colleagues and our Mayor and Council when we all believe that our residents and our businesses deserves to feel safe deserves to live in healthy neighborhoods and communities, right?

And I think one thing about Prop 36 that in conversation that I've had with advocates is that the success of Prop 36 might heavily depend on the availability of well fundamental health and substance abuse services.

And so I actually had a question not for the DA but really on the county end once the prosecution happens.

You know, I wanted to actually ask Nicole if the can you can come back and sit in the front row Nicole.

If I think my first question is and Councilwoman Maple kind of touched upon it a little bit on the behavior of health, but is our county prepared to assist with the mandated treatment.

I know you had mentioned in your presentation, I think 32 potential and just curious to kind of have a better understanding in terms of rolling it out and preparing for implementation.

Yeah, I know our substance use prevention and treatment program they are always looking for additional providers were constantly looking at ways to contract with more providers in particular for those residential beds, which are such a high need and very, very difficult to find.

I think our outpatient system is well equipped to handle an additional group of people and we are tracking these very carefully just to make sure that we are able to accommodate all of those new Prop 36 referrals that come through.

And I think on our outpatient both mental health and substance use were pretty well situated.

I'm sure you're well aware that residential has always been a bit of a struggle just to get the enough providers that are doing that hard work.

But we have recently initiated some new contracts and so we're hoping to have some more beds coming online really soon.

Okay, great. That's really great to hear because what I'm hearing is that usually it's on the mandated side on treatment that we don't have the capacity usually on the county.

And I think it's great to hear that on the ZAC County and there is that I know other counties are struggling and so it's really great to hear that we're preparing for that.

The other question I have perhaps just actually for a chief luster in particular.

I think there is a real concern from community regarding just incarceration I think overall.

I've had this conversation with you and I do think that as we're implementing this proposition and also ensuring that we're continuing to collect data.

Because I think one of the big concerns that I hear often is that we don't want to see the racial disparities of arrest and treatment.

We really want to know what's really happening.

And so I guess my question is I'm assuming are we collecting that data as we're rolling this out as well?

Are you talking in relation to theft related offenses and narcotic?

Yeah, actually we are and what I hope we can also do I mean obviously bring a better reporting system but we've talked to the team about doing that and some of the just logistical changes that we've made to our reporting system internally and our records management system.

But we should be able to pull that data.

We will have to work with the district attorney on or the outcomes right because when what happens once we have a case and we send it to the district attorney who gets referred what happens in that case.

And so we'll work with our partners on that to see what we can produce.

Thanks, Chief. And then our district attorney if you could just come up real quick.

I know that under prop 36 if a person is unable to complete their mandated treatment, you know they will not only have a felony conviction.

I think you mentioned this before but they can also face up to additional incarceration of three years in jail or present.

I really appreciate your point of how your office is using discretion and the 10 year wash up.

I love to if you can just go and depth a little bit more about just your processes around that because I do think and if you can speak to that because I think that's a bit concerned.

I think you've heard from the community. I've heard from the community as well and I really appreciate your intentionality in terms of using discretion because I do think every case varies and so would love to hear a little bit more about how your office is using that discretion.

What does that really look like?

Before I answer that council member being I'd like to come back to the county issue in terms of treatment because I do have some more information regardless of that.

So in the rollout of proposition 36 in the implementation I spoke to Dr. Lutz from the county in terms of the capacity for the county.

And so what we've done in the county is revamped our screening process to make sure that in individual let's say they get arrested for drugs.

Then they're brought to court. They face their arraignment where they're told what their charges are. They get the public defender appointed to them.

And then at that point they go through the criminal process. You have a prosecutor a defense attorney. We offer from the get go treatment.

And what will then happen is that individual can accept or decline it. If they choose to accept it the public defender can refer them over to be evaluated by behavioral health.

They'll go through a more robust screening program that I have asked the county to do. Once they get that robust screening process if they qualify for it, if they accept the treatment and they do not pose a public safety risk.

Then what will happen is they'll get that treatment. Now they can get the treatment in custody or out of custody. The more challenging aspect is if they happen to be in custody.

The out of custody individuals. There are robust different programs that allow them to get the treatment they need. And if they fail out of it, they're given an opportunity to take it again.

As long as they are willing to do so. But oftentimes until they are incarcerated and until they are in custody, it is then that they reach to the point where they want the treatment, need the treatment or willing to go through with the treatment and we will provide them with it.

So I think Sacramento County is in a good position to provide the treatment that is needed. Now in regards to your question, in regards to somebody going to prison.

In order for somebody to go to prison, first of all, they would have to have the two prior convictions. They would have to have a Mr. Meener conviction. And then they would have to then get a felony conviction and refuse treatment again and again.

Hopefully along this route, they're going to accept the treatment at some point. And that is the purpose behind proposition 36. And I know that there are concerns based upon the drug wars in the 1980s that this unfairly goes after black and brown communities.

But I also think that what we need to look at is that our black and brown communities are disproportionately affected by crime. And just looking at the statistic alone of who is being prosecuted and who is not being prosecuted does not fully capture and may skew the perspective of who law enforcement is focusing on law enforcement in my office.

In fact, we don't look at the race of the individual. We have implemented in Sacramento County race blind charging whereby on a general felony and Mr. Meener case, we have a computer system that redacts the individual's information. And then we go ahead and make the chart the initial charging decision. And then we go back and review the entire case.

But we will be moderate. We will be compassionate in our approach on proposition 36 and continue to do so. And I will reach out to Joe here to see how we can collaborate as well. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think this is really about a balanced approach, but would love for us to, you know, circle back in six months or a year to look at the data to see how we're doing as a city.

Thank you.

I also remember Jennings.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to join my colleagues in thanking you for the time that you're spent to update us on this two months into implementation.

I think my questions are, I'll try to, I won't call anybody up, but I'll just try to ask the question and you can tell me who can answer the question.

And one was just related to, as we find out about this two months into implementation and going forward, how often will we be updated as to the progress that we're making and what else needs to be done?

And so, I'm looking for consistency as far as how often are we going to get updated and I don't know who can answer that question.

I don't know, but look, we pass ballot measures every year. We don't always have an update, but this is a big one. We heard about this loud and clear. It has an impact.

I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one.

I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a big one. I think it's a

big one. I think it's a big one.

the crime, I'm trying to look for more direction like that from this group that we as council

members, and I guess my question is, it's good to know the information, but I'm not a

person that can just sit there and know the information and not do anything about it.

And so it's really, I need like my mom to tell me direction on what it is I need to do

next, right? And so I'm looking for someone to say, what is it that you want this group

to do next to help with this situation that we find ourselves in?

If I can answer that just really briefly, we've worked really extensively with the Metro

Chamber of Commerce, who's also been a big advocate of Proposition 36. And the thing that

we did a few months ago in collaboration with this attorney who I'm sure will speak

on it is to create a one-stop resource so people knew which agency to reach out to

they have a concern or be unfortunately victimized. And so that's available on the district

attorney's website. We also have, if you want to talk about the retail theft.

Absolutely. So I believe each of you have this. It is a sticker with law enforcement and

there's one's available for the public, but there's a QR code on here. And what the QR

code does and you can provide it to your constituents is they can simply go on to that. And there

is a link on there that if you want to report a crime after the fact and get conducted

and file an online report with SPD, with rancher, without grove in our community, you can do

so it'll get routed there. So eventually we can go ahead and investigate the case and

prosecute it. There are resources here about the law on Prop 36 about FETNAL on there.

So this is something and I'll tell you that we've in about less than a month we have received

requests for over 3,000 of this. If you want some deliver to your office, we will deliver

them to your office to give out to your constituents as well. But it's through this partnership

and the Sacramento Chamber, they were key in partnering and coming up with this idea.

And if you want to collaborate, you know, Councilmember Jennings, I know your big supporter,

public safety, and love to sit down and talk with you about it.

Great, great, great. And so then this is the last question. The two of you might be the

perfect people to answer this question. It was said that the resources are too thin

and we need to strengthen our partnerships. And so that means we need to go out to our

community-based organizations, our resources that are outside of this room and try to bring

them in because you're already down in officers. You know, how do we strengthen our partnership

and what role do we play in helping you to strengthen our partnership? So there's more

boots on the street to be able to address this issue.

Thank you for asking that question. It's a great question. We've really tried to leverage

technology, first of all. So you've seen us bring FUSIS forward. We have a real-time

information center. We're going to be bringing forward better technology. So that's easier

for people to report and that we have something actionable. One of the interesting pieces

that we got from our Spiderman customer service feedback is that people do want to report

but they don't necessarily want to wait for an officer for hours and hours and hours.

I want to thank the mayor and council for supporting our non-spawn programs, like our

pipeline program with community service officers because that's a perfect avenue to create

more staffing at a lower cost to be responsive to our community. So I know 30 years ago when

I was a community service officer that was one thing I did very regularly and so we do

have that program currently. So I think using technology, obviously this is not the year

for our city especially to be asking for more but to maintain the status quo at the very

least and maintain those programs I think are going to be crucial to helping serve the

community here. Thank you, council member Gare. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, DA and chief on this issue. First, I want to thank personally thank Puchee's

pharmacy for their engagement in the community and particularly during the pandemic being

at all of our neighborhood events free of charge and making sure that they were available

for and in need for the community. But maybe this is a question for both the DA and the chief

or if not just at least something to put on for when we reconvene. And I appreciate the

effort of reporting and making sure that we're executing prop 36 immediately and making

it effectively so that we're looking at as you mentioned it a fair and thoughtful approach

at it. My concern though I wonder and maybe not so much on the drug treatment side but

on those that are non-drug offenses. Just from personal experience I know my father was

in the correctional system and he was going to be released from both either whether

it was state or county custody. In retrospect I recognize he was set to fail. Like there

was no there was there wasn't very much in the in the case of engagement and so maybe

this is a conversation with our probation officers or maybe if the DA if you can talk

a little bit about what is that the steps to avoid that repetition of a failure and because

the cost would be borne by the city and by its residents if there is a person who fails

and I do see that there is a lot that's gone into on the drug on the drug offense side

but on the non drug related side where there isn't that diversion. How is how on the prop

36 are we going to make sure that we have that positive next step forward that reentry?

So customer gear thank you for the question and I have been an advocate from the beginning

of prevention and intervention of working upstream rather than just downstream. I think

traditionally a lot of DA's offices we deal with after the crime has been committed and

look I will prosecute the crime after it has been committed and do it to the fullest and

fearless extent of the law but I also think that we can do better and should do better when

it comes to reentry programs and I know that the county has robust reentry programs at

the jail but I would always advocate for additional resources whether it's partnering with

our building trades in terms of an apprenticeship program from the handcuffed to hard hats kind

of approach in regards to it and really in our juvenile system and so where we come into

play I have worked with the Mervyn Brookings from brother to brother to establish a program

especially in regards to gun violence and having the individuals that are convicted of

possessing guns that before they are released from jail before they and while they are on

probation to go through a program to educate them about gun violence and about gun laws to

make sure that they understand the consequences of their action but it also then comes back

to in terms of getting people the treatment that they need if you're committing a child

malice station, rape, murder, a gang drive by shooting I want to send you to prison and

you're going to go away if not for life for a very long time before the vast majority of

people that are in our justice system we have to find a way to create the robust reentry

program and there are some ideas that we're working on right now and I know that the county

is working on that and in regards to unhoused population trying to create and I know that

you're doing it in your district and in other areas as well programs that really triage

and separate out those that want treatment and need treatment and services and are willing

to take them so that we can avoid putting them in the justice system unless they refuse

the treatment and the services I think we need to keep pushing it's not something that

we can turn on a light switch and boom it's going to be better we got here to where we

did over a 10 year period and like an aircraft here you just don't turn that thing around

overnight this isn't going to be a light switch and prop 36 is not a panacea but it's a step

in the right direction and we need to work towards them.

Thank you council member Talamantis.

Thank you Mayor and guess my question might be for our district attorney might have the

best answer here I think I know the answer but is there any state funds attached to prop 36

and do you expect there to be any with the lobbying efforts of the district attorney's office?

There is no direct funding to Proposition 36 and I do not expect any funding I'm being

a realist in this budget cycle I think the fiscal outlook for the state for the city are

bleak the fact of the matter is we do have in place 14 different collaborative courts that

my office is set up we do have in place to the county behavior health system some inpatient

but a lot of outpatient treatment programs so we have here in Sacramento the ability to engage

in treatment which is what I want here of Prop 36 but also have the leverage of accountability

as well where I think this goes in the future I think we need to take a look at some prop one money

I think we need to take a look at some realignment money in order to really put them in the right

spot in the right use to serve Proposition 36 so I think that there there is money and

where you know where there is a will there is a way and so we have to keep pushing but I think

in Sacramento we are in a better position than in some other localities thank you so much and I

just want to appreciate Nicole from the county letting us know that you the county has capacity

to be able to fully implement this and carry on next steps and my next question is probably for

the chief I know we're severely like short staff with our police department everyone's working

a lot of overtime because we don't have so many vacancies and obviously we have a budget deficit

so what would it cost the city for us to be able to fully and effectively implement and do next

step so that our businesses are getting quick response and that we're taking the reports necessary

to be able to prosecute well I think we'd have to define the scope of the problem and the challenge

and then figure what our response should be and then quantify that with the cost and so

that's a big question when I'm sorry I can't answer on the spot you know I can promise you and

I always have will do everything I can be do really efficient with our resources so that we're not

wasting money we're not wasting people's time and we're using you know whatever we can whether

it's technology or best practice to make sure that we're delivering services in the best manner

possible so we can certainly take a look at that I think the question would be you know what type

of service is the community expecting and what is the best way to serve them so for example you

know our pharmacy owner who has 25 burglaries how long did he have to wait and was that a reasonable

amount of time did his manager his staff you know were they held did was there a better way to do

that report and figure out how best to serve the community we're certainly looking at solutions

that can come back with a strategy for you okay thank you so much and yeah thank you so much

mayor McCarty for hosting this workshop with our district attorney our chief incorporate legal

for next steps you know this proposition passed overwhelmingly in Sacramento and us here at City Hall

we're we're the front lines to every single issue that happens in Sacramento with our small

business owners the first person they call us and so we want to make sure that we have the good

partnerships with you to be able to make sure like we don't over promise and undeliver we got

to make sure we're realistic and that we're honest with where we're at at this point in time

and that's the most important thing to me so thank you so much okay thank you those are outstanding

questions I did have a few more I know we've been about an hour and we have public comment but

this is an important topic and so I want to make sure that we have thorough engagement out of the

gate and we'll come back in a year so maybe I'll start by bringing back up our DA at Tien Ho

so district attorney you know you and I spent the better part of two years

law making writing public safety laws debating this and crafting these measures as we noted

working together back and forth so now we're in the implementation stages and so I just want to

acknowledge your engagement on these issues and always trying you know not to be one side of

the other side but trying to find a balance and I'll just out of the gate these two issues that

Councilor Vang brought up about discretion and wash out during the past year we were potentially

trying to forge a compromise on this measure to not go to the voters and these are the two key

issues that we brought up so it is I think heartening to hear that some of the fears of the

opponents is that it would be too harsh there wouldn't be a wash out period you wouldn't you

wouldn't have discretion for a loaf of bread versus 20 filet mignon's you wouldn't take into

consideration the totality of the cases and focusing on strict felonies out of the gate and so I do

appreciate that and I think you've laid it out to the community and they're watching I think that

they will appreciate you following up with your word on that which I know that you will because as

you said it's about treatment not incarceration that being said a couple kind of nuts and bolts

questions maybe you can you can help us understand so the issue as far as capacity for individuals

would they have priors they had a misdemeanor they have another one now it's a felony and so there's

some accountability let's say on the retail theft side not the drug side some counties have

capacity in county jail and some don't so how do you see you you have less than 150 cases so far

so how do you envision if you have to focus on that accountability lever for when would it be

county jail versus state president how does it relate to our overall capacity at our county jail

I think when we look at a case first of all we look at the individual's criminal history

we look at what it is that they're stealing and then we make a decision based on the facts and the

law is this are they stealing for personal susanis or they stealing essentially because they are

engaging a repeat theft offenses in regards to capacity in the jail we do have the capacity we have

the capacity to be able to house people in the jail now we are also here in the county under what

they call the maze consent decree and there was an article recently in the newspapers about that

and about jail capacity which really has not been increased in light of increases in population

what I can tell you is in my conversations with the sheriff in my conversations with Eric Jones

who is the liaison between the different law enforcement partners and the county that we do have

the capacity when it comes to theft offenses but I also think that what we're seeing here and I think

that that Mark Freeman talked about in terms of art and fair mall there is a deterrence factor

that is in play right here because people now know that if they continue to engage in stealing they

will be held accountable and that's how the deterrence factor but we do have the capacity

Mr. Mayor to be able to to house people and then to evaluate them for treatment where appropriate

where they do not present a public safety to themselves or to other people thank you and as our

county representative Miss cable alluded to as we've heard here and in other communities there's

there's not always space to put people if they need treatment in patient treatment but there's

plenty of room in the outpatient we've seen that by what's happened with our drug court programs

so do you envision people that you you know catch here in downtown Sacramento certainly we

talked about this morning at our state of downtown not all homeless have addiction issues not all

dick addicts have homelessness issues but sometimes you see a correlation with public drug use

sometimes right here in front of our city hall so if a patrol officer on multiple occasions has a

call makes makes an arrest when the case comes to you and grand every case is different but it

is the hypothetical do you see a problem having that individual go to to outpatient

programs if we don't have capacity in the inpatient knowing that outpatient may not have works

and the underlying five years leading up to that point well I'll give you a couple of examples and

how we have sort of revamped the screening process is there are two different sort of screening

process there's a very thorough one and there's one that I would describe as less robust one

proposition thirty six came into effect my office approach behavior health from the county and we

asked them to add on additional screening tests to the less robust one to make it more in line with

the other ones so that we can evaluate whether or not somebody is a public safety risk now for years my

office has had what we call the core program a core program if an individual whether their house

or unhoused picks up ten offenses within a twelve month period what we will be able to do is take

that individual stack those cases and hold them in custody stabilize them whether it's with

medication whether it's with treatment what have you and then if they want treatment we will send

them to an outpatient outpatient treatment program so with the advantage of proposition thirty six we

may not have to wait to get to the ten because we now have the tools to be able to hold them in

custody if they pose a public risk stabilize that individual and get them the treatment they need

and a lot of times that treatment after they've been stabilized is out in the community but they're

being supervised by probation and the gift in exchange for that is they get their cases dismiss

that is the encouragement that we give them but if not then they come back and they see us and

they'll have to deal with their cases and we have success stories with that so I'm not a post

to outpatient treatment after they've been screened properly after they've been stabilized and if we

have the supervision in place to make sure that they are not a threat to public safety.

Okay thank you chief just one two questions of you you mentioned earlier that the loss change

a lot of your officers are young ten years or less they're here in the prop 47 world

were lower level retail thefts are misdemeanors and so frankly many times the retail

establishment doesn't even bother calling as we know or if the officers go there it's a misdemeanor

they don't feel like they want to book the individual they be released. How do your officers

aren't making the arrest based upon priors they're just basically on the call so can you explain

what does that mean when officer goes out there they're not let's start looking up past priors

and decide if they're going to make an arrest or not they're focusing on the call. Actually we

have great technology and we're very lucky to have it but officers can check someone's criminal

history from that what you're advising us to do. Yeah we actually came out really strong with

this because we wanted to make sure we've heard the community you know we've been living you know

for the last ten years trying to hold people accountable and haven't been able to and so this

is a really important tool for law enforcement to try and stop victimization also get people

helping need so when this came out we came out very strongly as department really pushed the

training and really talked about you know what our strategy should be and when it's appropriate

we should charge under prop 36 guidelines and that's why we've worked so hard to educate our

officers and to make sure they understood what was there because what we don't want to have happen

is the business owner that calls in is this hey this is the same person that's come in here every

single week and I've called and I've called and nothing is getting done and then you know what we

don't do anything about it like we've got to be able to be responsive to our community as well

and so the officers have been given very clear direction to make sure that again when it's

appropriate they are charging under prop 36 guidelines yes so maybe let me just help understand

this just in plain English so let's say a safe way has two individuals who steal a four-year-old

bottles of vodka right and officer goes out there and somehow loss prevention gets them under

control officer it can interview both of them are you saying that if one of the individuals doesn't

priors they won't that's the same offense they're doing that day so if one individual doesn't have

the priors they would give them a citation or note nothing at all and the other ones if they have

if they have priors they would they would book them it's possible let's say it's the first time

you know your first person's ever stolen anything right then that would typically be a misdemeanor

citation if your other person is a prolific thief and has come into safe way you know multiple times

this is actually a good time talk about a partnership with our retail establishments then yes they

may qualify for enhanced charges maybe they've risen to the level of a felony certainly we look at

aggregate losses and that's where we really work not only with our agency but with our retail

partners like for example we've used the you know railies and target as examples they do track

theft within their stores and have robust loss prevention departments and officers that have a

lot of information that we rely on but certainly it is incumbent on us to do our due diligence for

anyone that we come into contact with and find the appropriate charge I think one of the other

council members mentioned this earlier one of the things that we hear the most from retailers

and especially the small retailers I was as a public safety chair all theft is theft

but I was always partial to the little stores really in store here on real into boulevard I talk

all the times called comfort market and that same day I went to target and they show me about their

massive retail theft operation and cameras and they're a publicly traded company and so their losses

are bad but it's like born across the whole company across the globe whereas this guy here on

comfort market and in your district I I asked him how often do you experience retail theft and he

says every day every day and I said well what do you do and he looked over had his baseball bat

behind his counter and he said it depends like that's a terrible strategy for everybody involved

and so and he said I work here seven days a week like that's his that's his livelihood so

retail theft impacts everybody but this fella it's like this is his bread butter and

paying bills family blah blah blah and we've heard from him and others that they don't

make the calls anymore because it's just like the officers are busy they're not going to come

under 47 it's it's just not going to have any impact anyway so what are we what are we what are we

what are we telling it's like too much sand are we going to more calls like this are people

actually calling more but what's happened on the ground so far well I think it's too soon to tell

really the impact of prop 36 row it's the initial calls for service that we're going to seeing

who's reporting and then what those outcomes are certainly that's something I'm going to be

tracking but I think forums like this where we can really get the word out that you know we are

responsive you've got a DA that's ready to you know file the appropriate charges and we are

here to help using our business partners using our electives certainly using every platform that

we have to talk about it I think is important I know the press conference that we did in January

that was less than a month after prop 36 really took hold which was on December 18th you know that

took wide traction and this was widely broadcast you know amongst the region I think what people

have to understand and I think we've all talked about how weary our community is of being victimized

like this and whether you're a target or whether you're a small business owner everyone has a right

to be safe and to be able to you know operate their business without being fear of being victimized

being you know losing to theft when you go and you have to get toothpaste because it's locked up

I mean we've we've got a problem in our community I think everybody agrees with that and certainly

we are very empathetic and sympathetic to the small Mrs. Nard that is showing up seven days

a week to run their business because that's really what makes our community but I think that it's

important to recognize that that type of rampant crime is not acceptable anywhere and to to council

member maples point you know we do see people getting frustrated and putting stuff on social media

you know and we need to redirect that to the appropriate law enforcement resources and show that

we've got proven outcomes and I think that when the community sees that people are being held

accountable that we are seeing reduced losses that we're seeing less people die from fentanyl

overdoses than I think that it's going to make a difference but like our DA said this is

uh... trying a large ship very slowly yeah and then lastly do you have any observations or antidote

similar to our D.O.O. gave us a story which you know I found positive and impressive that you know

there is less retail theft at a major mall on our largest taxpayers in the city of Sacramento

bringing in sales tax money mind you are out of the gate our first two months any any observations

or insights you can share stories like that yeah you know I've been doing this job for a long time

thirty plus years and I can tell you know that crisis brings people together and that's not

necessarily what you want but I can tell you that now what I see with our business community

our law enforcement partners our prosecutors I've never seen this tight of a collaboration with

a shared goal and I think that that to have the met her chamber of commerce for example bring

everyone together and have people talk about this and having shared responsibility for community safety

is a huge win I think it says a lot about our community here in Sacramento we're a very big community

we're very you know have a lot of diversity in our community but we're small enough that everyone

knows each other and I think that is a huge strength and I have not seen that in my my career and I

think that's a huge win for our city in our community okay thank you chief for the presentation thank

you for all six of you for coming here today and enlightening us and and we will follow up on

this topic thank you councilman regentings for that suggestion we have you know a dozen or so

individuals for public comment now we we're interested in what you have to say as well thank you

Mary have ten speakers I'm gonna call off a few Christina Rogers Matt King John Freys Morales

Brian Powers Karen Korb is Ed Perez feel free to line up in the middle aisle

hi city council I represent thousands of California citizens who collected signatures to get

proposition 36 on the ballot this effort was as grass roots as you can get and the people have

spoken I've seen prop 47 has failed in its promises to our communities for over 10 years broadways

the perfect example even with recent up street upgrades many businesses have shut down just this

week Zanzibar said they're closing their doors and restaurants nearby are struggling because

customers don't feel safe going there golden one bank is closed and moved to a safer location on

setter fell road and Walgreens is shut down yes we have two new businesses opening up soon little whale

swim school and school of rock which is a customer base of parents and children if drug addicts and

dealers continue to frequent that area how long do you think it'll take before those businesses go

give local businesses a chance and support the implementation of prop 36 which I see that you are

give me a chance to come back to Broadway and feel safe walking their day or night and frequent

those businesses people talk about being treated equally and prop 36 is a great equalizer if you sell

or use fentanyl metham heroin and you're just you're destroying local businesses and tearing up

families there will be consequences this is a new city council and you are a new mayor and I have

some hope here that you understand common sense and how crime has killed commerce and sacrameno

which means it's also hurt the city's tax base please get give our businesses the chance to thrive

support prop 36 and help push the legal drug trade out of our business corridors and communities

thank you very much thank you for your comments Matt King

I'm John Morales did you know the county corner not the salvation army or the x-treet navigation

center has removed the most individuals from our streets 1100 homeless and 1200 fentanyl users

taken off the streets by the corner housing first has failed so the homeless need prop 36 a major

driver of homelessness is drug addiction fueled by the exploitation from gangs like notaynos

bloods and serenios last year alone 45,000 drug needles were recovered citywide yet of the 1600

homeless place into housing through the caste system only 200 completed addiction treatment

this is directly linked to the city issuing a mere 362 citations last year at service resistant

camps if HUD survives the trump cuts expect sobriety and work requirements Damian lives at the G street

underpass he has eight of us for brandishing a weapon violent assault and drug dailing this is

Damian's drug dealer getting gasoline at the chevron on east street because Damian did not pay

his drug bills the drug dealer burned down his tent on east street fires like this cost a city

four million dollars according to the auditor tomorrow afternoon the city attorney and superior court

judge price will decide of Damian deserves mandated drug treatment police citations are the entry

point to mandated treatment by increasing the numerous citations we can provide individuals with

the opportunity to break free from addiction and rebuild their lives street level enforcement

has to be combined with a dedicated narcotics unit to dismantle the network of narco traffickers

and drug dealers who profit from the misery of the addicted and homeless thank you thank you for

comments Matt King hey my name is Matt King thank you all for being here today um

I'm recovered homeless uh methodic and alcoholic um it's because of a program called diversion

um what I do know is a lot of us will know that if you touch a hot stove you get burned you

stick your finger in the corridor it's going to get smashed I didn't know that I had a problem and

I don't think addiction has an equitable factor to it any one of us today tomorrow the next day

could cross the line and I don't remember when I crossed the line I didn't care about the public

I didn't steal to feed myself I would steal to support my habit and if I had five bucks left over

I would get a hot dog from a mpm to feed myself what I do know and what I didn't hear from any of the

people is we've got to have treatment programs that work and they have to include a behavior

modification aspect my behavior is what kept me using my behavior is what got me homeless my behavior

is something I had to totally learn to acclimate back into society I did not know how to live without

using and I did not know how to live with normal people like you and if I would say that I would ask

the city council to be mindful of where the money goes if it doesn't include a behavior modification

aspect to the treatment and also the allowance of the people to go to outside meetings and build a

support group getting a certificate at the end of 30 60 or 90 days means nothing thank you

for your comments your time is complete Brian powers Karen Corbis and Ed Perez thank you as a

citizen of Sacramento I'm very impressed and encouraged by the presentation that was made today

the sense of cooperation among these people really is is impressive to me and it reinforces what I

felt about prop 36 since I first learned of it I think basically prop 36 at its most essential level

really is three things one is punishment even though serial people who are serially going into

stores and committing thefts and burglaries aren't murderers or rapists they do need to be punished

and so that's one element of prop 36 I don't think though it's the most important element at all

because another element is deterrence and that's very important with the increase in the punishments

and the charges it will deter people from committing these crimes and I don't think that the 70%

of Californians who voted yes for this want everybody put in jail they want the chaos to stop they

want to go to the store and be able to have an open aisle and open areas where they don't have to

have people come and unlock things they don't want to have people going in and out they don't want

to witness crimes that's what they wanted the third important element I think is compassion

the alternative treatment mandated felony program is compassion compassion is not letting people

just do what they want to do compassion is showing them the way to change how they live their

lives and get them off of the drugs and away from addiction so this sense of cooperation

is very very impressive and what I would ask of you on the city council is to support prop 36 is to

support the chief and the police department in Sacramento support the district attorney and his

office to whatever extent you can thank you if your comments your time is complete our next

speaker is Karen Corbbs Ed Perez Madeline Noel thank you good afternoon I'm here this afternoon to

express my strong support for full implementation of Proposition 36 it's been set already today but

as you all know over 900,000 Californians signed to get Prop 36 on the November 2024 ballot

and it passed with an overwhelming 70% approval rate every single county in California including

Sacramento had majority support the people have spoken and it is now the responsibility of the city

the county and the state leadership to act accordingly the good news is that Sacramento police

chief Kathy Lester in Sacramento County district attorney Tinho are leading the way in implementing

Prop 36 locally I have full confidence in their leadership and trust that their departments will

do what is necessary to ensure its success Sacramento residents are tired tired of rampant theft

open drug use trash filled streets and rising crime it's time to take action Prop 36 gives the

city in the county the resources and tools they need to restore order and safety to our city we

cannot continue to allow serial shoplifters and repeat drug offenders to break the law without

consequences it's time for a return to common sense if you break the law you should be held accountable

as our DA Tinho has said time and time again and I am paraphrasing here if we fail to hold criminals

accountable for their actions they will see Sacramento as a safe haven for crime that is not the

kind of reputation our city should have I want to take a moment to thank Tinho and chief Lester for

their leadership as well as the men and women of the Sacramento police department who work tirelessly

to keep us safe you have the support of the people and we stand with you in this effort thank you

for your time give your comments Ed and then Madeline good afternoon excuse me good afternoon mayor

member citizen council my name is Ed Pettis I'm a resident of North Natomas and I'm here representing

a group of concerned citizens in my community and we formed a group if you need more information about

it it's keeping north natomasafe.org again it's keeping north natomasafe.org first up mayor thank

you for having disforum I think it's it's a great idea and I actually believe it or not even

I heard a lot of the same information there's some really good information that came out chief

Lester mentioned the capacity issue about the booking times which obviously would be an issue

if we're going to try to hold people accountable issues about getting a new system for reporting

purposes I think that's part of the reason why you have issues about people not reporting it if

you've ever tried to report anything to Sac PD you run into this website and I won't go into

details but you could try doing it so thank you chief for that new new system and also thank you

to the county DA for giving us a rundown on how they handle prosecutions I have some

trepidation though because a lot of the same things I heard here we've heard before you know

issues about making sure you report provide evidence and partnership we've done all of that

and I just hope that this time there's a lot more collaboration particularly with council member

Jenisings suggestion one of the groups that you might want to try reaching out to our homeowner

associations they have money they have list of people and they have dedicated people that want to

solve problems locally so if you're looking for people to partner with that's the one keeping

north to Emma safe dot org thank you thank you if you're comments Madeline Noel John v. Yokey

Matt Quirley than Keyum Blist good afternoon mayor McCarty members of the council interim city manager

Laney Milstein Scott Ford speaking on behalf of Madeline in the downtown Sacramento partnership

property-based improvement district here in the heart of Sacramento many of you were at the

stated downtown event that we hosted this morning and for the first time in a long time we're

feeling a lot of hope in the central city we're going through the renewal process right now of our

organization which we do every 10 years and I'll tell you it's a very humbling experience because

the first issue on everybody's mind is safety and cleanliness and perceptions of safety in the

central city we have benefited from the great partnership with the city of Sacramento over the

past four years the ARPA investments that we've been able to make to elevate our team's response

to clean and safe services in the heart of the city for the first time prop 36 represents a

tool to intervene on those patterns of destructive behavior that we see for chronic individuals who

engage in the behavior that really lead to the destruction of that sense of security in downtown so

I urge all of you to continue to support chief lester district attorney tinho captain Bryce

Highland they're doing tremendous work in the central city and throughout the entire city as we

look at being really efficient with dedicating our resources moving forward we know that we're not

going to have endless budgets for staffing we've got to focus on the individuals who are responsible

for a lot of the behavior that we see down here the destructive behavior and so strategic investment

in making sure that we are empowering our law enforcement partners to utilize these tools get the

individuals on patterns of behavior that it is going to be better for them better for the community

that is what we are here to advocate advocate for you've got our support we're already working out

for the businesses to get them to make sure that they're reporting and to make sure that they are part

of the process you've got our partnership in this we thank you for your leadership we thank

chief lester for her leadership thank you for your comments john vinyoki and mac worthy

good afternoon thanks for hosting this this is an important topic i come here actually to tell you

I was wrong I was wrong about 12 years ago when I supported prop 47 and donated money to the drug

policy alliance at the time I thought it was cruel to put people in jail for smoking marijuana you

fast forward 10 years that didn't mean I voted for allowing people to smoke meth naked in front of

a school or one of our apartment buildings but effectively that's what's happened it's so funny

I find the irony that the democrats effectively neutered public safety in 10 years later we're

wondering why public safety and law enforcement so ineffective when I first heard Jeff rice he

talked talking about prop 36 in march of 2023 immediately knew I had to jump into action and correct

what I figured what I thought when I'd done something wrong it was disappointing to see

the litmus test that brought west prop 36 a lot of people still don't support it I think it's

the most common sense policy to come out in in california and I just don't understand the

controversy of when we're talking about people who are smoking dangerous substances that at some

point those people do need to be imprisoned like I don't care what color your skin is if you're

breaking the law and you're doing self-destruct to behavior in front of our neighborhoods you're

preventing people from thriving you're preventing from people from securing investment getting jobs

that capital is important in our in our economy in our community and this is a core function of

government and I think we're one of the most taxed people in the face of the planet and so I

think there's plenty of money it's a priority it's a will and when we look at we look at how money

is spent on shelter and housing for people who are experiencing homelessness who are addicted to

drugs I don't understand how we justify to people working class people electricians plumbers

retail workers that if you fail in life and you're addicted to drugs the government's going to buy

you a housing unit for five hundred thousand dollars we need to dramatically reduce that by an order

of magnitude if we really want to scale this problem and we can solve it we can solve it for six

billion dollars a year and the state of California spends like nine billion dollars a year giving

illegal immigrants health care I love them immigrants but I'm just saying come on priorities thank

you for your comments I have two more speakers Mac worthy and Keon Bliss

good afternoon I hear the same old shit over and over

people prop 36 can feel your jails and you'll be satisfied that's all I go do

DA go back and think of what you say here brother brother

melt a will a next shoulder's hat and save it pen them against each other and they

your controller but we're gonna move on we're gonna move on to the situation of

odd fair more while only odd fair I was there for 32 years two young black men was killed did

Freeman saw that no why would they kill in that more nobody saw it but we look at the thing of

somebody a mission organized crime organized crime been here I was in the doose dog when I was

crime 1960 in front of my park as a hundred and thirteen some acts there I couldn't go back to

the park so I couldn't get up and work people I can take the average woman lunch

array involvement one hand you got a grain gang here out of Oakland at us send the kids in and show

them what you want you walk out the kid movement you can't solve it people safety is just a word

we cannot use stitches with the DA and that's what Dr brother brother doing wake up now they're

getting a few dollars but we want those what are they doing to be reported I'm gonna be here and we're

gonna look at staff and the police department got to go set you got to come in and still they

control your budget you all can get on and do it just like it kind you got to get on to do it

because see this is what we saw Freeman here against your probation all they do is to know that

the woman's on probation instead of putting that for you and put it against the police department

here wake up people thank you for your comments Kean blesses our final speaker on this item

I keep hearing a lot about retail theft being a problem and what the DA and the police

department is working to do about it which is why which is what they're gonna lead with when it

comes time for the budget this June but real question if retail theft is such a huge problem why

is no one at the California DOJ the Sacramento District Attorney or the Sac PD department or

Sac PD collecting detailed it there you go necessary to craft evidence based responses to retail theft

you'd think that we would do that as a city that is data that is data driven and evidence based

but the lack of demographic data raises significant concerns about racial biases and law enforcement

and prosecution which four separate studies have confirmed in Sacramento that black and brown

residents are disproportionately targeted in every measure of Sac PD service going back to 2001

and California lawmakers and the corporate retailers who donate to your campaigns would have us

believe that shoplifting impedes our ability to turn or clear ability to turn a profit but the best

research we have shows that organized theft cost retailers around seven cents per $100 in revenue

and with billions in revenue organized retail theft is actually a very minor issue for retailers

for most retailers but let's talk about crime statistics too while we're at it by Sac PD's own

measures crime has actually remained relatively stable and continues to decline over the last 20

years with a very small increase in 2022 in fact the police review commission actually analyzed

reported crimes versus a number of arrests and we actually found no tangible correlation between

Sac from mental police departments programs and services outcomes relevant to public safety

such as crime prevention or crime reduction in fact Sac PD's own arrests rates were about 13

percent for all reported crimes in 2023 alone and that accounted for about 6 percent of property crimes

and despite $23 million thank you for your comments your time is complete.

Mary I have no more speakers on this item. Okay thank you this was an informational item tonight

no vote thank you all for your participation today an important topic for Sacramento.

Next we have item number two also a discussion item

okay all on second

no

all righty show goes on Mr. Moore okay good afternoon mayor members of the City Council on Ryan

Moore a mere assistant city manager over municipal services as you know our municipal services

arm of organization encompasses the departments of public works utilities and youth parks and

community enrichment or Yipsey I'm joined here this afternoon by many of our excellent managers

from those departments including our three department heads who are going to run through an

overview of their operations at Ironman Public Works Pervani Van here in utilities and Jackie

Beatham in Yipsey so just for a little broad overview municipal services is comprised of about

3,000 full-time hard time and seasonal employees represented by over 2,000 full-time equivalents

with an operating budget of just under half a billion dollars in the lion's share of the city's

one hundred and fifteen million dollars CIP this arm of our government covers provides core

services throughout the city every day from water treatment to traffic signals from youth programming

and our community centers to flood protection from solid waste to park safety we are literally

everywhere in the city of Sacramento every day so municipal services uses a wide variety of funding

to provide operations and capital improvements in the city we are largely dependent on grants

and enterprise funds with general fund and measure you being just about a quarter of our overall

budget and that's almost entirely in Yipsey so we are an innovative and solutions oriented

group of professionals and I think you see that not only in the provision of our day-to-day

services but also in the way that we will address the city's budget deficit that we are facing

so with that overview I'm going to invite Matt Ironman up to give us an overview of Public Works

Department's operations thank you.

Good afternoon Mayor McCarty and members of the City Council I am Matt Ironman the Director of

Public Works. Thank you all for joining us today as we delve into the remarkable work carried out by

the 760 dedicated men and women of the City of Sacramento's Department of Public Works. Public

Works is committed to equality and accessibility in all aspects of our work from infrastructure

investments to service delivery. We prioritize historically underserved communities ensuring that

all Sacramento residents regardless of zip code income or background have safe streets reliable

transportation and access to essential services. Equity is not just a goal it's embedded in how we

plan build and maintain the city's infrastructure. Public Works second largest department in the

city consists of eight division both 768 dedicated employees operates on a 241 million dollar

operating budget. We're only 12% funded by the general fund additionally we oversee 50 million

dollars in capital improvements and our fiscal staff oversees 40 different types of funds adding

a layer of complexity to our everyday work. Public Works also secures grant funding to support

impactful projects across the city recently implementing over 100 million in capital improvement

projects. Our department comprising eight divisions include recycling and solid waste under

the leadership of John Feville general manager fleet services under the leadership of Alison

Kersetter fleet manager maintenance services under the leadership of Jose Sanchez streets manager

parking services under the leadership of Stacy Hovermil parking manager facility maintenance

under the leadership of James Christensen facility manager transportation and traffic engineering

under the leadership of Megan Carter city's traffic engineer engineering services under the leadership

of Ophelia Avalos engineering service manager and mobility and sustainability under the leadership

of Jennifer Dolan Wyant as the second largest department in the city our divisions manage distinct

aspects of public works spanning a growing 100 square miles and requiring three separate

corporation yards to service the entire city the office of the director overseen by Lucinda

Wilcox assistant director and myself provide leadership and a minute straight of support for these

functions although although our employees make up only 15% of the city's workforce they play a

vital role in maintaining the majority of public assets that residents and visitors rely on daily

the public works team is dedicated to keeping the city running smoothly every day

from managing the fast-paced demands of parking services to maintaining a vast urban canopy

of 100,000 trees their work touches nearly every aspect of daily life

they oversee and service 40,000 streetlights ensuring well lit and safe streets and maintain 3,100

lane miles of road responding quickly to emergencies and repairs during storms and flooding events

they manage critical floodgates to protect the city while also monitoring and maintaining 850

signalized intersections to keep traffic flowing efficiently and safely their commitment ensures

the city's infrastructure remains safe functional and resilient

the scale of public works infrastructure across the city is fast encompassing nearly every

everything residents and visitors interact with daily our team is responsible for maintaining and

managing 152 city-owned facilities ensuring they remain safe functional and accessible

we oversee 170 pedestrian islands and roundabouts enhancing mobility and safety for all

road users additionally we manage 46 sound walls that help mitigate noise in residential and

commercial areas our work also includes maintaining 297 landscape medians many in which are being

converted to drought tolerant landscaping in response to recent water conservation legislation

every aspect of our infrastructure plays a critical role in keeping the city operational,

sustainable and resilient for the future.

Public works is responsible for maintaining critical assets that keep the city running efficiently

this includes the daily upkeep of 2600 fleet vehicles ranging from emergency response vehicles

to public service and maintenance trucks in addition to fleet management our team provides

service for 2200 city-owned properties and provide routine maintenance for more than 400

facilities ensuring they remain safe functional accessible for city operations

we are also advancing sustainable transportation solutions by installing 67 public

electric vehicle chargers supporting the city's transition to cleaner energy our fleet operations

play a key role in the city's commitment to sustainability by incorporating zero emissions

vehicles and expanding EV charging infrastructure to reduce environmental impact and improve

efficiency through these efforts public works is not only maintaining essential assets but also

driving innovation towards a more greener and more resilient future.

This infographic highlights the substantial workload

children by each member of our street light maintenance team with one individual responsible

for overseeing 4,000 street lights to add to their workload they also have responsibility for

maintaining 850 signalized intersections and 450 miles of traffic signal network infrastructure.

To put it into perspective Sacramento's 3100 lane miles span a distance roughly equivalent to

traveling from Sacramento to New York City. Additionally we maintain over 400 facilities covering 5.4

million square feet of interior space owner managed by the city equivalent to the office space of

two Empire State buildings. Unlawful dumping is a persistent challenge across the city

and addressing it falls under the responsibility of our solid waste division.

Each year we respond to approximately 1600 service calls related to illegal dumping

collecting and astonishing 5.6 million pounds of refuse from streets,

alleys and public spaces. To combine this to combat this issue our team includes 5 dedicated

code enforcement officers who work daily to identify problem areas and force regulations and

coordinate cleanup efforts. Their work not only helps maintain the cleanliness safety of our

neighborhoods but also support broader health and environmental goals by preventing waste build-up

and contamination. Despite the scale of the issue our team remains committed to keeping Sacramento

streets clean and free of illegal dumping. Despite our dedicated efforts each day we continue to

face significant challenges in maintaining and improving the city's infrastructure. Our roadways

are deteriorating at a rapid rate with Sacramento's pavement condition index currently 55 out of

100 placing it in the ferric category without adequate funding for road rehabilitation the condition

of our streets will continue to decline increasing long-term repair costs at the same time new growth

and development is happening. Yet we lacked the necessary resources to keep pace with the

expanding needs. Another pressing challenge is our workforce shortage. We currently face a 22%

vacancy rate leaving us just shy of 170 fill 170 unfilled positions. This staffing gap limits our

abilities provide essential services conduct timely maintenance and support critical projects.

Additionally much of the city's infrastructure is aging and in some cases inadequate to meet today's

demands. Our deferred maintenance backlog continues to use to grow with an estimated 120 million

dollars in facility related needs and a staggering 1.6 billion dollars in deferred transportation

infrastructure repairs. These challenges highlight the urgent need for increased investment and

strategic planning to ensure Sacramento's infrastructure remains safe functional and capable of

supporting the city's growth. Our transportation deferred maintenance backlog has reached 1.6

billion covering critical infrastructure essentially essential for safety and mobility. This includes

pavement bridges traffic signals street lights trees landscape medians all in which require

significant investment to prevent further degradation. Without adequate funding these assets will

continue to decline leading to a higher repair cost safety concerns and reduced quality of life

for Sacramento residents. Investing in maintenance now is essential to ensuring a safe,

reliable and resilient transportation network for the future.

As I mentioned we're only 12% of relying on the general fund. A thriving economy relies on

well-managed public services and sustainable revenue generation. Among our 40 fund sources

enterprise funds player critical role in ensuring financial stability where enhancing service

delivery. Through strategic management we maximize efficiency optimize cost recovery and invest

in critical infrastructure to support Sacramento's long-term growth. While revenue generation is

not the sole driver of our operations it's essential for maintaining services service quality

and expanding programs and ensuring financial resilience in the face of increasing demands.

For fiscal year 2026 our budget strategies will focus on balancing fiscal sustainability

and improved mobility infrastructure and public service delivery.

Raid adjustments and enhanced service delivery by evaluating fee adjustments both increase

and reductions to ensure financial stability while maintaining affordable and effective services.

Parking meter zone expansions and modernization by strategically expanding meters in high

demand areas and upgrading infrastructure to improve turnover, reduce congestion and enhance

customer experience. Residential permit parking costs recovery by aligning permit fees with

administrative and enforcement costs to ensure long-term program sustainability while protecting

neighborhood parking access. Optimizing employee parking and merchant validations by enhancing cost

recovery while keeping programs accessible and beneficial for local businesses and employees.

Workforce retention and service enhancement by strengthening efforts to retain skilled

employees, reduce vacancies and maintain high service levels across the city. Automated

enforcement for safety and efficiency by implementing AI driven enforcement on 100 public transit

buses to improve traffic safety, enhance compliance and support enforcement efficiency.

By focusing on service driven revenue strategies we can ensure that every dollar generated is

reinvested into maintaining high quality public services, modernizing infrastructure and improving

mobility for Sacramento's residents and businesses. Thank you for your support and attention to

this great work that our team does. We have public work staff here in the audience to answer any

questions. I told you I scratched the surface of what public works does in less than probably 15

minutes. As you know there's a lot more to it. Thank you so much, Matt. Absolutely there's

so much more to it. You and your team, the department, the work that you do is just incredible.

It's a day-to-day operations for the city. That keep our city of Sacramento functioning.

So, City Clerk, is there any public comment? We'll do comments after this.

Okay, we'll do all three. Okay, let's do it. We can do questions at the end.

Chinks.

Welcome, Jackie.

Hi.

All right, good afternoon. Jackie B. Chim, Director of Youth Parks and Community Enrichment.

I'd like to first thank our incredible YipC team for helping to put this presentation together.

I'll be sharing more about our department's role in serving the Sacramento community through

our parks and recreation, including core services and beyond, along with some performance data

and metrics from the last year. So, YipC's mission to empower our

youth, strengthen neighborhoods and provide life and enriching programs for a beautiful

livable community. We value innovation, collaboration, safety, equity, inclusion, and more.

Our department operations support the goals of creating pathways for youth development,

quality parkland and recreation facilities, lifelong learning, and community livability for

and strong neighborhoods. YipC operates a $67 million budget of which $46 million

is funded by MeasureU. This includes 709 FTE that equals 1,593 individual employees,

both full-time and part-time staff. Our areas of operation that are all listed here,

service-ential functions and deliver core services that address many major quality of life

issues across the city. Our administrative and fiscal services team provides department-wide

support for finance, human resources, and lease management, including our city-wide golf operations,

along with support for various commissions like our Parks and Community Enrichment Commission,

the Anne-Land Memorial Commission, and gifts to share.

The Admin team manages over $34 million in grant funding for city-wide programs and projects.

These grants prioritize infrastructure investments in our parks and facilities,

climate and sustainability efforts, and investment in our youth through community-based programs

and services. The Park Ranger Division is comprised of 15 budget park safety staff where we

currently have three vacancies. This team is responsible for the Public Safety Service and

Preservation of all 237 parks, bike trails, aquatics facilities, community centers, and open space.

Park Rangers operate from 6am to 10pm, 365 days per year, with on average two to three

Rangers on shift at one time, and they respond to over 4,000 calls for service annually.

The Park Safety Team also plays a key role in the city's incident management team and

rapid response efforts to address the impacts of homelessness in our parks. They responded to

over 3,000 rapid calls last year. In 2024, we converted to sales force, allowing us to respond

more effectively to these 301 calls for service. The Rangers are also tasked with crime prevention

through environmental design, especially event support, and city-wide park permit distribution.

Our park planning and development services team includes 14 full-time employees that are

funded through capital improvement projects, comprised of measure U, grant, and PIF and Quimby funds.

This team delivers millions of dollars in park projects and infrastructure investment that

directly supports access to safe spaces in our parks and facilities. Currently, the Park

Development team has over 72 active projects valued at $39 million, and has completed $27 million

in deferred maintenance projects since 2020. We are also in the preliminary stages of beginning

a PIF Nexus study. Yipsy has been working diligently to address the deferred maintenance burden in our

parks, facilities, and pools. This includes safety and accessibility issues such as park restroom

replacements, major irrigation renovations, sports court resurfacing projects, and field and playground

replacements. Differred maintenance projects are funded using a combination of grant funds and a

reallocation of measure U funds remaining at the end of each fiscal year. In fiscal year 24,

70% of deferred maintenance projects completed were supported by our carryover measure U savings

from the prior fiscal year 23. So while funding for deferred maintenance is significantly limited,

we continue to focus on projects that prioritize the health and safety, and will also improve the

quality of life for our youth families and older adults. As you'll see here, the total deferred

maintenance across Yipsy facilities, parks, and pools exceeds $130 million, and it continues to be

an area focus for our team. Last fiscal year, we carried over $2.4 million to apply to deferred

maintenance projects, prioritizing safety issues, and benefits for our under-resourced communities.

Our biggest challenge in addressing deferred maintenance, of course, is funding. Piff and

Quimby funds are generated by new development, so areas of the city with development limitations

rely heavily on measure U and grant funds to address any park improvements.

The park maintenance division is supported by 125 full-time employees and is responsible for the

daily care and maintenance of our 237 parks, community gardens, bike trails, parkways, dog parks,

the Sacramento Historic Cemetery, and open space that spans over 4,000 acres. Last year, this

division supported thousands of organized sporting and permitted park events and volunteer services.

This team is also tasked with responding to over 4,000 individual through

and West 311 request calls annually for additional services, including safety concerns,

environmental sustainability, litter removal, and vandalism.

Within our developed park land, the division focuses its efforts on the core services that you

see listed here, including Boeing, Waste Pickup, Weed Abatement, and more, while above and beyond

park beautification and other non-core landscaping enhancements performed are performed on

as needed basis or with funding availability.

EFC operates 15 community centers citywide where we provide free and low cost programming and

access to safe space for over 20,000 visits by youth and teens. This includes after-school programs

and summer camps, preschool programs, and teen events where we saw a 39% increase in participation

in 2024. Centers also provide essential services for older adults where participation and

offerings have increased with 34,000 visits this past year. In addition to direct program delivery,

EFC works very closely with our youth serving nonprofits and community partners who utilize

our community centers for programs and services last year having waived over $220,000 in rental fees

through the fee waiver and fee reduction program. Here's a quick snapshot of program visits

across community centers from 2023 to 2024 where we saw a 74% increase in an older adult

visit citywide and an increase of course in our youth and teen programs as well. Last year,

over 13,000 meals were distributed to older adults through meals on wheels programs and over 24

100 youth were served in programs where they were also provided lunch or supper.

And our reservation's office is shooting nearly 3,000 park permits and 700 athletic field allocations.

The aquatic section operates 17 pools citywide including the regional aquatic complex with over 100,000

visits to recreation spam each season. Rex swim and other aquatic programs like swim lessons,

junior lifeguarding and spam team support safety for people of all ages by providing access to

supervised swimming environment and drowning prevention through water safety education. Yipsy's

aquatic program is recognized by the American Red Cross as one of the state's top training providers.

Certifying 267 lifeguards this past year. In 2024, we awarded over $62,000 in scholarships and

reimbursements to youth across Sacramento including free swim lessons and lifeguard training.

Here you'll see our 17 aquatic facilities available with Sacramento residents throughout the

region seven days a week during the summer months and 10 months out of the year at North

Antomac Aquatics Complex supporting the core services of access to safe space and affordable swimming,

water safety education, drowning prevention and of course youth employment.

In fiscal year 24, we established the youth development administration team within Yipsy to

more efficiently align resources and support youth initiatives opportunities and relationships

with our youth serving organizations across the city. This team is responsible for the management

of grants that support youth development services and opportunities and that includes the

implementation of the Sacramento Children's Fund or measure L where a panel is currently reviewing

applications for recommended funding to city council that will be coming to you hopefully some time

next month. From fiscal 24 year to date the youth development administration team has supported

$14 million in grant programs and initiatives with over 80% funded by measure you. These grant

support community-based organizations in addressing the priorities of youth safety, violence,

prevention and economic development in under-resourced communities.

Our civic engagement team supports the Sacramento Youth Commission and Summer City Hall programs.

Summer City Hall serves 68 high school students city-wide last year engaging them in education

on local government structure and youth development.

And our expanded learning unit provides before and after school programs for over 4,000

youth across the city and four different school districts and at 22 elementary school campuses.

The fourth are our fee-based year-round licensed child care program serves over 2500 youth at 17

schools providing critical support for working families. We also partner with child action and

school districts through barriers for access to quality child care to over 130 families each year.

The start program is supported by ACE's grant funds and measure you serving over 2,000 youth

annually in free after school and school break programs in the Robla Unified School District.

And then of course our Summer Oasis summer camp program provides low cost summer programming to

keep youth engaged during out of school time. Our workforce development unit provides paid work

experiences for youth creating opportunities to gain skills that lead to successful and employable

adults. Over 1100 young people participate in programs like young leaders of tomorrow,

prime time team, the WIOA program, junior record, and landscape and learning.

Providing over $1.1 million in direct investment to the hands of young people through salaries and

stipends. Next we have our older adult services section that operates the Heart Senior Center

to provide opportunities for adults we like to say age 50 and better. Over 3,000 older adults

participate in programs each month including daily meals and social services. This team also

supports more than 80 families and caregivers through our Triple R program. So low cost

license adult day program for older adults with dementia that we offer at three locations across

the city. And here we have additional community enrichment programs that support

a variety of course services for youth and families of all ages and abilities. Over 5,000 youth

youth and adults participate each year in sports leagues such as the Junior Giants program,

NFL flag football, junior MBA and programs at the Sacramento softball complex. Access leisure

provides accessible programs and opportunities for over 1500 youth teens and adults with disabilities

including adaptive sports and social programs. Last year accommodation requests for inclusion

and Yipsey activities increased 40% from the previous year. And we also operate Camp Sacramento

in the Eldorado National Forest that supports mental and physical wellness throughout our

recreation, nature, and environmental education. The permitting and event section is responsible

for permitting city parks and public right away for special events. More than 600 permits were

issued in fiscal year 24, totaling over 1,300 individual events. This section also issues

neighborhood block party permits and provides event support services for council office events.

This past year we created a division in the Convention on Cultural Services Department

to help streamline entertainment related permits where Yipsey will continue to focus its efforts

on special events hosted in and around our parks. So now we'll move on to an overview of Yipsey's

budget strategies. We anticipate increased revenues with the implementation of strategic fee

increases that will contribute toward reducing our structural deficit while still balancing the

needs of our community. We will mitigate the impacts to youth families and older adults with

the availability of youth program scholarship funds, the heart fund pass, and other fee waiver

and reduction programs that we currently have in place. We will also propose a reduction in total

FTE following a thorough analysis of underutilized positions and existing vacancies.

This reduction proposal will be supported by an increased operational efficiencies across

the department and should produce very minimal changes to key service levels that are currently

experienced by city residents. We are also prepared to implement alternative means of service

to liberate to help cover the structural deficit including collaborative partnerships and contract

services that present cost savings while still ensuring there are no gaps in core services

and service levels. We've been thoughtfully looking at consolidating our citywide community

center customer service operations and recreational swim opportunities to a more regional approach

while still being mindful of and ensuring equitable access to our centers and pools for our

under-resourced communities. In identifying strategies to address the budget deficit,

we do anticipate some impacts to our operations. As we right-size by realigning FTEs and further

reducing vacancies, the availability of funding for overtime and park maintenance and park safety

will also be reduced, as is our ability to expand any youth programs and services beyond current

capacities and service levels. With carry-over savings continuing to decrease the reliance on

unspent measure, youth funds is not a sustainable funding mechanism to address our growing

deferred maintenance burden that again exceeds over $130 million. While equitable access to parks

as a top priority, ongoing maintenance becomes increasingly difficult as we add new parks and

park amenities to our park system with a limited operating budget. One time funding allocated

this current fiscal year has allowed us to expand youth program scholarships and continue

the fee waiver facility fee waiver reduction program, but we anticipate the demand will outpace

the availability of funds over time. Again, as we are developing strategies to be included in this

menu of options that you will see soon, we are focusing on core services, minimizing impacts to

residents, minimizing impacts to our staff as much as possible while still reaching the 15%

reduction plan. And to close, we have a video recap to highlight all of the work of our EPC

team from the past year.

Resilience, innovation, accessibility. In 2024, EPC became a movement. 237 parks, 15 centers,

and thousands of lives impacted because when communities thrive, cities grow stronger.

8,000 plus youth discovered their potential. 800 plus gained workforce skills.

$1.15 million invested in future leaders because opportunity shapes futures.

Safety is our foundation. 4,467 calls answered. 3,210 rapid responses. 45 clean-ups completed,

ensuring every park is a safe space for all. Community centers brought us together. 34,000 plus

older adult visits. 13,000 plus meals on wheels served. 20,000 plus youth engaged because belonging

matters. From lessons to lifeguards, 100,000 plus pool visits. 176 youth employed. $62,000 in

scholarships because water safety should be accessible to all. 23 park projects completed in 2023

to 2024. 19 park projects completed to date in 2024 to 2025. 72 active projects.

$27.4 million reduction in deferred maintenance since 2017 because safe welcoming parks build stronger

neighborhoods. A stronger, more inclusive Sacramento starts here.

All right. Once again, I would like to thank our leadership team. They're joining me here today,

along with you over 1,500 other GFC employees that support our parks and recreation programs and

services on a daily basis. With that, I think we'll take questions after our provony goes. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Pravani Von Dian and I'm the Director of Utilities.

I'm going to share with you at a very high level what we do in utilities and some of the challenges

we face as we do the work within utilities. Today we're sharing what we do in our department as

well as some high level statistics to give you a little bit of perspective. Our services are critical

to a functioning city. Without them, our lives as we know it would simply not be possible.

Utility services are critical to public health and safety for several reasons,

including providing safe drinking water, preventing flooding, and preventing sewer overflows.

This slide depicts our revenue and CIP budget, the extent of our service area and most importantly,

the number of employees we have in utilities. We have 599 employees that are spread throughout

utilities providing our customers the services that we provide. Everything I go through on the

following slides are because of those employees that we have.

We're one of the larger departments within with several revenue streams as depicted on the slide.

We have user fees that are rates that are paid by our customers within the city. We have

impact fees from developments who buy into existing capacity in our infrastructure or they find

infrastructure expansions. We have federal appropriations and grants that are funding used

towards infrastructure needs and this typically helps offset future rate needs. We have loans and

bonds that help us fund a large infrastructure project. We're also funded through Measure U4

Surra which is our Sacramento utility rate assistance program and that is the only

non-utilities funding that we have in the department.

Proposition 218 dictates that rates must be used to provide utility services to all customers.

We cannot fund programs that benefit specific communities or we cannot engage in non-utility

programs when staff time is funded by rates. We also cannot cross funds between water, wastewater

and drainage. They have to be maintained separately.

It's important to note that the services we provide are highly permitted and regulated by

federal, state and local agencies in order to protect public health. This is a depiction of the

major agencies we must comply with. There are fiduciary regulations related to rates, fees,

accounting practices that we must follow. Public health requirements related to drinking water,

wastewater and drainage that are overseen by federal, state and county regulators.

And there are many other agencies that oversee what we do. Unfortunately, there are two

numerous ways to put on the slide of for me to mention, but this gives you a perspective.

Over the years, this visual comparison shows how regulations have mushroomed. In the 1999

we had three areas of regulation covering drinking water, storm water, combined system.

2024 looking at it, we've had introduction of regulations such as PFAS, new lead and copper

requirements, trash capture requirements, electric vehicle requirements to name but a few.

Regulations drop on a regular basis during the year. Often and often must be implemented

immediately with no time for appropriate planning and consideration of rates to support it.

Living in California means that regulations increase continuously which adds to labor and costs

that are challenging to plan for without that advanced warning.

Dear you coordinates with many agencies. This slide shows some examples. We coordinate with water,

wastewater and drainage agencies both locally, regionally as well as statewide and nationwide.

This helps us with planning and we're able to team up to do work on common challenges and

upcoming regulations to ensure that we are decreasing our costs as we coordinate and pool resources.

We're now going to dive into the divisions that make up our department.

Hopefully this will help give you a picture of the size and the variety of the work we have to do.

The first is the Office of Director which provides strategic and operational direction

and management support to the divisions related to median communications, legislative and regulatory

advocacy, safety, security and emergency preparedness, sustainability, employee and administrative

services as well as with IT support. Yes, DOU has specific dedicated stuff within DOU

that supports our information systems to ensure that we're always using information technology

in the most efficient way. They're also helping us delve into the use of AI for asset management

so that we're harnessing the best of technology to be able to hopefully reduce our costs as we

engage in those areas. The next division we move to is our Drinking Water Division.

They help provide treatment and distribution of drinking water within the city. They help monitor

through testing our source waters such as rivers and groundwater as well as our finished

water to ensure that we're always in compliance. They perform research on process optimization

as well as changing regulations to ensure we're always complying.

Here are a few stats just to give you an idea of the size of this operation. We have two

drinking water treatment plants. We have 17 reservoirs spread through the city along with 30

groundwater wells and these all contribute drinking water towards our customers and then smooth

through the city. A little bit of representation on our distribution system. We have 1,600

miles of distribution pipe. For context, the distance from Canada to Mexico via car is 1,300 miles

and we have more than 5,400 pieces of mechanical equipment and we produce 25 billion gallons of

drinking water annually. That is equivalent to one eighth of Folsom reservoir.

Our next division which is our largest division in the department, they are responsible for flood

prevention and wastewater management which largely comes down to collection, conveyance of wastewater

and or storm water, some primary treatment and maintenance of those systems. Additionally,

critical maintenance on our infrastructure and our flood control systems includes our levees,

canals, ditches and creeks in a large year-round operation. Our wastewater facilities spread

through the city include two combined system treatment plants. We have five reservoirs and 50

substations. This slide depicts our storm water facilities that include 109 substations that

help us pump water outside of the bowl that is the city over the levees. We have 71 emergency

generators dedicated to utilities infrastructure and then we have 41 generators that are dedicated

to the city's general services infrastructure including people like PD and IT.

So our systems are wastewater and drainage systems have more than 840 miles of pipe per system

and that's more than the distance from here to Seattle just for one of those systems.

The next division is our engineering and water resources division that provides services to our

drinking water and wastewater and drainage divisions and what they do is they plan design and

construct millions of dollars of capital improvement projects each year. They provide engineering,

policy and technical support. They ensure compliance with increasing regulatory requirements and

mandates related to the wastewater and drainage systems as well as source water protection for

drinking water. The programs protect local creeks and rivers and include flood plain management and

flood plain awareness. They review development projects that ensure that our utility standards are

met through those developments and they implement city water policy as well as conservation programs.

Our last division is our business services division and they handle our fiscal operations,

account management, long range financial planning and customer service. They manage the

management of our enterprise funds including budget, accounting and financial reporting is done

within this group. They work on utility rate planning and development with all of the other

staff supporting it and they work on long and short term financial planning, grant and debt

activities. They also oversee our bullying as well as management of our Sura program.

This slide is probably the most critical slide in our presentation. As you can see there are many

challenges that we face as a utility operating a water based system. Our deferred maintenance

many parts of our system infrastructure have exceeded its useful life. Thus increasing the risk of

failure and that can lead to expensive emergency repairs. You can see that the degree to which we

are challenged with deferred maintenance is equivalent to $2.1 billion for all three systems

and this is probably underestimated. The cost of homelessness impacts our infrastructure and

is not factored into current rates. This causes impacts to our levies that must be maintained

and that work is often undone. Also there are security risks that we experience in terms of

breakings and damage to our critical infrastructure. We're constantly repairing and maintaining

however that work is often undone. So it's a cycle that just keeps recurring.

In terms of public health and safety we have experienced the impact of climate change with more

severe storms and water quality events. I'll point you to the 500-year storm that we had a few

years ago. We've had various water quality events that we were able to control within our

water systems. However there are impact of climate change. We've also experienced wildfires in

the watershed that influences our water quality as well as increased temperatures and significant

power outages. These are all forecasted to intensify over the years. Our water rights must be

protected considering the challenges of climate change and its impact to reduction in water supplies.

To prevent flooding most agencies use gravity systems to remove rain water but in the city we have

to pump that rain water over levees which leads to a significant power cost using energy

and can also lead to failures and us having to deal with significant flooding.

Maintenance is becoming increasingly costly as we deal with supply chain issues and general

cost increases. Staffing is another issue. We have highly specialized staff such as our

skater and our plant operators. These positions are extremely difficult to fill. We struggle as we

compete with surrounding jurisdictions who pay better than we do. These challenges dictate

increasing rates are needed. Though naturally this is a balance between affordable rates and

maintaining our systems responsibly. We are regularly evaluating our costs and revenues to

help ensure that we are first physically sustainable. According to our planning we have presented

to council that we would need rate adjustments for our water and wastewater to be implemented in

fiscal year 28. Decisions that we make to phase in things like development impact fees or reduce

our rate asks to our customers results in impacts and delays to our infrastructure projects until

we have collected enough revenue to perform those required infrastructure projects.

These create gaps that often cannot be filled in the future. The $2.1 billion deficit we have

for different maintenance is difficult to fill in one five year rate cycle. It is probably going to

take us many many years to fill. Our strong drainage rates have not been increased since the 1990s.

We did implement a new storm drainage fee two years ago but that only covers CIP work and new regulatory

requirements. It does not cover existing system operation and maintenance. Those rates will need to

be adjusted in fiscal year 29. Alternative funding helps but there are no replacement for rate

adjustments. I hope that this presentation has given you a snapshot into our operations. As you

can see we do a lot in utilities. We also rely on support from various departments across the city.

These are two numerous to mention here but you will hear from them in the presentation series what

they do. Without the services they provide within the city we would be challenged to meet our regulatory

mandates for critical services. I think one of the most important takeaway from these slides is just

how much is done unseen. People really think about what it means to be able to turn on a tap,

flush a toilet or the work that goes into preventing seasonal sliding. Our services provide the

absolute critical basics that form a foundation of the city such as ours. Without any of the services

we provide or decreased service levels life would be much different than we know it. I want to

thank all of you for your attention during the presentation. Staff and I are available to answer

any questions that you might have. Thank you. Thank you. Council member did you tell

them on days to be first? No, those were last round. Tickinson. Thank you Mayor. I very much

appreciate the presentations that I assume that the PowerPoints will be available to us.

Someone nod yes. Thank you Ryan. The presentations through Generate Lonson questions but I

just want to because of the hour just I had a couple questions Jackie actually for that your

presentation triggered in particular and I wondered the extent to which you are already contemplating

and your capacity to go after some of the money that's going to be available under proposition

for there's community garden money there's urban forestry money there's and maybe that's public

works and not your domain but there are several two or three categories of prop four money that

that would be attractive to go after so can you comment on your capacity and your thinking on that?

Yeah I mean absolutely we have to be really creative during these times especially to go after

any opportunities for grant funding you saw a report that came to council last week on

on PIF funding and so we've been encouraging some of our offices to hold on to some of that PIF

funding for matches for when we have a lot of these grant opportunities so despite our park

planning development teams small size we are going to be aggressively going after any grant

opportunities that we can particularly and are more under-resourced communities that don't have

those additional fees for to address some of the park improvements and renovations or development

that's needed yeah and there's farmers markets money and prop four I think there's some really as

they said attractive opportunities and I just hope that we will take as much advantage of that

as possible absolutely it's also curious and this is really a question actually for more than

than just you but the extent to which you're thinking about and everybody should think about this

question that we're trying to take advantage of an employee technology to help us do things

maintain levels of service even if we don't have as many people as we would as we would like to have

and I wondered if you had some thoughts about how that could help you in particular and

and I'm sure well our park ranger team for example last year I'm transition to sales force implemented

improved technology to better respond to three on one calls that's an example of I think where

we'll continue to see some improvements in our in our response times as we're evaluating

what our community center operations look like for example and our reliance on customer service

finding more creative ways to be accessible and provide customer service using technology

as something that we're looking at as well so we're going to continue to kind of evaluate that as

we work through some of these strategies and always look for ways to to implement where we can.

Yeah thank you and as I said this is obviously a broader question than just just for you but

you know if you go to the doctor these days the doctor is likely to say are you okay if I have

AI do do the notes for our visits because then I can spend more time talking to you as the

as a patient I mean this has lots of different applications and AI is just one form of technology

that I think we could take advantage advantage of although sometimes government and technology

is an oxymoron I I have I realize the the the other thing I wanted to ask you about was extent to which

there might be an opportunity either to find partners with businesses or foundations for some of

the things particularly that that you do with parks number of years ago we actually we actually

had the county arranged something like a adopt a mile program but for the creeks and so companies

that would donate would got got recognition and signage on on the creeks and they unincorporated

area as a as a result result to that and I wonder if that's something that might might be a feasible

way of augmenting funding with some non non public sources absolutely it's something we're certainly

willing and open to exploring we work really closely with our parks commission and one of their

sort of part of their charter is to help support donations and contributions and volunteerism

in our parks and so I know in working with the parks commission right now on their goals for

this next year that's one of the things that they're going to be focusing on so I think working

with our working with our partners identify more creative ways of funding you know working very

closely with a lot of our associations our neighborhood groups that are really invested in

committed to providing support for those spaces and leveraging some of that support being able

to give them the tools and resources they need to join our our staff and and whether it's performing

big clean ups or volunteer efforts in our in our parks but certainly open to getting even more

creative with seeing what sort of opportunities are out there yeah I mean there's a range of things as

as I mentioned this creeks program but naming rights a whole list of things that for parks are

probably more attractive to folks in the private sector or the or the foundation world then

not to make people want to buy a waste water pipe even if it is going to Seattle so maybe there's

some opportunities yeah we actually are revisiting right now our very outdated naming policy

but are open to engaging with interested partners we just approved council this council just

approved a naming of the last unnamed park ball field at Land Park with a generous donation

to perform innovations at the park and so that's something we haven't historically done but we are

we are certainly open to considering those sort of opportunities knowing how we have to get a

lot more creative moving forward you know years ago the river cats really funded the adaptive leisure

ball park at the Penel Center and I don't know if they still our sense have I mean they they

really covered the most if not all of the capital costs I don't know if their foundation has

continued to contribute but but there are those kinds of things that historically have been

available that I think we just have to try to think about and explore absolutely thank you thanks

thanks mayor councilor Vain thanks mayor I will keep this short because we got five minutes

till our next meeting um first of all I wanted to take the opportunity to think Ryan more

where is he there's oh hi really want to thank you for your leadership and also Matt

Pravani and Jackie for the overview of our various just the departments I mean you are the backbone

of this city nothing gets done without our incredible staff and really I'm always blown away every

year of all of the things that you do for our families our residents all the unseen things that we

don't see as well so really just wanted to say thank you for that I just had one question it was

really around the parks in particular you know last year we also made some tough decisions we didn't

lay anyone off that was one of our goals but because of that we had to figure out how to balance by

either you know making cuts or increasing revenues in terms of community centers and services and

I know that um for us to balance the budget we did actually increase fees and so I know that we

set a size scholarship funding uh for for seniors for youth for families that um might not have the

means to participate in city services and so my question is really um you know the dollars that

we set aside for scholarships have we used them all do we anticipate using them all um what are the

challenges less and learn this year so that as we're moving forward because we're going to have to

make even tougher decisions and tougher cuts so that we can implement those as we're having

conversations about budget and so wanted to really ask about that piece in particular I think that's

really important because it's the first time that we're doing it I know there was concerns that

creating scholarship could be additional barriers because now students and seniors have to apply so

would love to hear a little bit more about lessons learned challenges what's working what's not working

thank you for that question it's a great question um and we'll be prepared to bring back more

information on the progress of the youth program scholarship fund you saw in the presentation

last year we awarded over $62,000 in aquatics program scholarships so we obviously anticipate that

number to increase significantly um because we've expanded the eligible programs that now qualify

for the scholarship fund because it was just uh that budget was just enhanced or augmented at this

this current budget year we didn't start the scholarship program with its expanded opportunities

until September so I think we'll really see um the accessibility to impacts maybe have some

lessons learned after we get through this summer I can tell you right now that we've so far

awarded 254 scholarships which means we have qualified 254 and these numbers are a couple

weeks old so I'm sure the number has grown but we've qualified 254 individuals for scholarships

once you qualify for a scholarship you are eligible to participate in any of those programs you

don't have to reapply so that's again us making our best effort to remove any potential barriers for

families um but you know some of our our programs as part of the our reduction strategies this last

year was to have some nominal fee increases so you'll see that for some of the summer programs

that are coming up this year and we're hoping to see the benefits of the scholarship program there

there's still a healthy balance in both the scholarship youth program scholarship fund the heart

trust fund that supports our heart fund pass for older adults and also the community center fee

waiver and fewer fee reduction relief funding one time funding that our former mayor um added to

the budget last year for us but we do anticipate um as we see a full year with these slightly increased

fees and people are continuing to come to our programs and I'm certain that because much of that

funding was one time we will eventually run out of funding um we'll have more information that

will report back after we see what the actual use looks like thanks Jackie really appreciate that

and looking forward to kind of hearing a little bit more later in the few weeks as we're talking about

budgets some of the lessons learned around the scholarships are really appreciate that and then

and then lastly I just wanted to echo council member Dickinson around pop position

state proposition four I think this is such a great opportunity for us as city to apply for those

grants but um what makes us competitive is making sure we actually have money set aside for matching

dollars and I know that given our budget it will be incredibly hard um which is the reason why I

think exploring a potential park bond and I just want to put that on record is that there's been a

lot of advocates in e sacramono north sack south and to thomas uh met of you um folks have um in the

community have been rallying and meeting to talk about a potential a potential park bond because

we have so much deferred maintenance and so just wanted to just share that with the community I know

I've been in conversation with council member Phil plucky bomb as well about potential park bond

have been uh in beginning conversation with you Jackie and a city manager Laney as well and I

think that's really important because if we don't figure out a source of revenue um we're not

going to be competitive for those state grants and a lot of those dollars are actually for underserved

communities underserved communities um there's language around the state proposition um so uh we

need to figure out a source of revenue to be competitive and so again just really want to say thank

you for your leadership uh uh in parks um and to pervani and mad just thank you so much for all

your heart and hustle thank you thank you

folks I can't I am out of it okay yes no more comments from kept council members this is an

informational item only no vote tonight we do a public comment I have two speakers on

the item Mac worthy and Keon bliss mr. worthy

oh yeah uh some maintenance maintenance can mean a lot of things

uh the maintenance with the interior we see a lot of your buildings as two and three people that

hundreds of scrap wood you know you know the money that you put now you're wondering about it now

you talk of kids working how those kids you know left that and what somebody's else for the

experience they got these are the things when you a program work where that person can get that

move on as that does on our drinking water are we still using ammonia in the street

misunderstanding that's the biggest thing we're using over here in land park is ammonia

you know we see that uh you say it now safe streets we began to throw that word around

any such thing a safe street in America now oboe tea street we got the buses

uh suck up again and I signed the mill left that divided land they knock it down

so who repair that I've seen it knocked down twice in one month and the buses should be trying to

make that time on tea street onto that street but that go to show you the quality of management

you got to get out there and see those things right then look at what's going on while those

wheels have been skinned up against the side curves or the mill divided

because the driver don't know what he doing I drove a five ninety crown right here in Sacramento

but I you know I don't know what you mean by some things here but I tell you you're going to have to wake

up and that many kids and you can't show no statistics where the kids left there and went when

they got older they don't say that rest of their life because that's the program and the old

program designed to play thank you for your comments key on bliss

I wish that these budget conversations and as something I said in the budget

committee were actually supportive and open to the public to actually give comment on it because

as you are seeing we're running up on the 5 p.m. uh city council meeting this is a special meeting

at 2 p.m. when most people most of us are working and you're only getting two comments on

three of the biggest departments in the city among the biggest to like divisions of the city

and I have to really name that this is just a continuing like how little it seems to be changing

within the culture of city management as well as city council that is just grouping all of these

together I mean the Sacramento Police Department item was misleading and saying that it was as if

it was focused squarely on prop 36 when actually the department was giving its overall department

operations and budget presentation uh that members of the community would actually benefit from

participating in oh it is going to be another one fantastic that's good to hear but it would be

easy to confuse it and I really hope that it's actually at a time when members of the public can

participate such as at 5 p.m. when most people are finally off work but you're here like there's

a lot that could be said around that and uh when we're talking about balancing the budget I really

hope that majority of you on this council aren't just thinking about balancing uh expenditures with

revenue uh that you're actually thinking about how we are actually proportioning payments among some

of our hardest work because to me uh 73% of our discretionary spending goes to public safety and

there's nothing balanced in that especially when you have municipal services departments that are

having hundreds of vacancies struggling to keep staff and $1.6 billion in deferred maintenance thank

you. Mayor I have no more speakers you've concluded the business of them council for this afternoon

thank you we will adjourn this 2 p.m. meeting and the 5 p.m. meeting will start in 15 minutes that's

roughly 5 22 something like that if I can't see from here no 5 27 there we go the glasses okay

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