It secreted and passed a

century back.

All righty, call this being ordered please, Sacramento City Council.

Please call the roll.

Councilmember Kaplan.

Councilmember Dickinson.

Vice Mayor Talamontas.

Councilmember Pluckybom.

Councilmember Maple.

Mayor Prodem Gera.

Councilmember Jennings.

Councilmember Vang.

Mayor McCarty.

Here.

All right, you have a forum.

Thank you.

Councilmember Dickinson, will you please lead us in the pledge and land acknowledgment?

Please join us and stand as you are able.

This is for the opening acknowledgment in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and

tribal lands.

To the original people of this land, the Nisanan people, the southern Maidu valley and plains

Miwak, Patwynn Winton peoples and the people of the Wilton Rancherilla.

Sacramento's 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 active practice

of acknowledgment and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous peoples history, contributions

and lives.

Thank you.

And now if you would please join me in the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic

for which it stands one nation under God in the visible with liberty and justice for

the nation.

Okay.

First item, Madam Clerk.

Mayor, we have the only one item today.

It's the Department of Community Response, Fire and Police presentations on operational

program planning and deployment of strategic resources and budget.

Okay.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

I am Mario Lara, Assistant City Manager for Public Safety.

And it is truly my honor and privilege to introduce the Department heads who will be presenting

this afternoon.

We know that public safety, public protection remains among the highest priority and

core services within the city.

This afternoon you will hear from Department of Community Response, who is, the Department

is led by Director Brian Pedro.

You're also going to hear from the Fire Department, which is led by Fire Chief Chris Costa Mania,

Police Department, which is led by Police Chief Kathy Leicester.

I also want to acknowledge and recognize our Director of Emergency Services, Daniel Bowers,

who is in the audience.

He will not be presenting this afternoon.

He oversees our emergency preparedness, which, you know, provides the training and tools necessary

to ensure that the city remains resilient and has the response capabilities in the case

of emergency.

We also have many members of the Department staff in the audience who will be able and present

to be able to respond to questions you may have.

With that, I will turn it over to Brian Pedro to start presentations.

Thank you.

All right.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.

We'll give you a quick rundown of what our department does.

I'm sure you're well aware at this point, but we'll remind you of some of the great work

that we've done over the past year.

So I truly look at our department as part of the public safety three-legged stool.

What we have in place now is we have a 3-1-1 phone number that people can call for our

homeless concerns.

And those calls would have been without the ability for us to have the instant management

team to respond to these.

They would have been 901 calls.

And I can tell you that the 39,000 calls we received this year, I'll show you later in

the slides of how that's impacted some of our other 911 responses.

So our department was originally brought up as an alternative response department.

We do see a little glimpse of that.

Currently within the incident management team, we have the street overdose response team

that is a combination of a Fire Department Paramedic and DCRNRC, one of our outreach workers.

And that is responding to provide suboxone for opioid withdrawal treatment and also

to leave behind kids that have fentanyl test strips and Narcan.

And so that we are already showing a model of alternative response along with our homeless

response.

This is a view of our mission statement.

I believe this is really accurate in what we're doing, the mission of the department

community response is to provide compassionate individual I support to people experiencing

homelessness with the goal of aiding them on their path toward recovery, wellness,

and self-sufficiency.

Quick by the numbers of our office, we have three offices within the department.

We have 37 FTs, 30 programs in contracts that we manage.

Our overall budget is 51.9 million.

We have 5.9 million operating and then 46 million in other projects.

This is what that looks like in a breakdown.

Again our operating fund is the 5,800.

We have an annual projected fund of 11.4.

So our overall budget base is 25.4 million.

And then we get to our final number by adding in half funding, some one time funding from

last year and then a little bit of operating savings from the previous year as well.

But as you can see here, 75% of our funding is either one time or short term or some kind

of external funding.

My office, I'm constantly looking for ways that we can be more efficient, more cost effective,

trying to create programs that have a more sustainable model to them.

And then on top of that, I'm also looking at well-being of our staff.

We did have this year, we had our first annual staff party during the holidays and we have

some other events to try and help staff break out of the day-to-day challenges that we face,

providing outreach in our streets.

It's a very real stressor for our employees and we're trying to put some programs together

so they can have a little fun every once in a while.

Here's a picture of our current team.

We are staffed up to 16 right now, a year ago.

We were at eight.

So we've been successful in our hiring.

And we have just a great crew and a great cross-section of staff.

We meet in the office every morning so I get to see them every morning and we have our

little morning pep talk to get them ready for the day.

Keep them motivated.

I let them remind them of the great work that they're doing every day.

These are some of the few of the things that our neighborhood resource coordinators do.

So obviously enrolling people into the homeless management information system.

This is our HMI S system that tracks everybody by name and allows us to GIS where we last

contacted them.

So not only do we have the information in the system but we have a point of last time that

we actually spoke to them.

This keeps track of someone else comes upon them, punches their name in the system.

They're able to see what services they've been provided, where they've come from and

what we have to offer them.

Some of the other things that we have here we can refer directly into our Roseville Road

Center and into our outreach and engagement center that we see.

We can real time refer into the crib which is a well-spaced crisis receiving center.

And also connect to veteran services.

So we did a, the VA really did a push this last year.

They came to Sacramento with their teams.

They did a, what's called a VA surge.

They contacted us and said, hey, we want to do a surge in your neighborhood.

Can you help us out, find our veterans?

We connected them with everybody in our HMI S system that we have has a veteran in that

system and they were very successful in the surge.

They saw 56 unsheltered veterans.

17 veterans obtained same day housing and 15 veterans were offered a voucher in the VA,

the VASH program.

And so they were very excited about that.

And then two weeks ago I was contacted by the local VA homeless outreach coordinator

and we have been working with them.

We already have a veteran connected with her that looks like we're going to get housing

for that veteran as well.

The city outreach work that over the calendar year 2024, so we had 15 FTs at this point.

8,478 services were provided.

We did 1100, over 1100 rapid placements and then we were at 9,773 unique locations during that year.

So our office of homeless services, office of homeless services is, I've been pushing on

this office this year to look at our contracts, renegotiate our contracts, get accountability

on our contracts, find ways that we can reduce costs, finding revenue opportunities and then

preparing actually all of our contracts that in itself is a fair amount of work.

And so we've done some great work and we're going to continue.

Here is a look at the 30 contracts that we have within this office and many of them are

annual.

So it is a fair amount of paperwork just to get these through the system.

City funded shelters.

We have congregate shelters.

We have non congregate shelters.

TAYs shelters are transitional age use shelters.

Women and family are respite centers and then the City Motel program.

Each of these have different services and different setups for providing to across the cross

section of our homeless community.

And every once in a while if you see a shelter list opened and it shows there's beds open.

The only reason they're opened is either they haven't been filled yet because there is

a turnover period or they are very specific in that reason why that bed is open.

It's for a specific population and that bed hasn't been filled.

Our shelters we have 18 shelter sites.

And for calendar year 2024 we had a total of 1,375 beds.

We sheltered 4,769 and then exits to improve circumstances.

This is 47%.

And this metric here to improve circumstance that is anything better than where you were.

If you're from the street to a shelter, from a shelter to more secure housing then that

falls into this category of improved circumstances.

I'm dual-hatted and also manage the incident management team that responds to homelessness.

These are all the departments that are involved in this along with some contracted partners.

And this is essentially that dual mandate providing outreach engagement and then also

the compliance and enforcement.

This is really that responsibility that we have to all of our citizens, housing unhoused

to provide that balance of enforcement and then providing that compassionate service

and care.

And we've done a lot of work and I'm very proud of the work that we've done and continue

to do.

We send out our incident management team based on 301 calls.

Everybody has heard the mantra of putting in 311.

Everybody has learned that.

We are receiving about 120 calls per day.

It was up to about 150 or 60 at one point.

We picked and came back down.

We're steady at about 120.

When we first started, we had about 3,800 backlog calls in our 311 system.

We currently have that down to around 500 claims over the weekend and we start all over

again on Monday.

Our response times to our rapid calls and our general outreach calls originally started

16 to 20 days.

We have it down to 24 to 48 hours and these are specifically our general outreach calls

or a priority rapid call.

Some of the challenges that we face, we now know just about every piece of land that's

in the city and who it belongs to.

We have many agreements.

We have reached out to every department in the city to invite them to come join our Wednesday

incident management team meeting, meet and greet and we have made connections with just

about everybody at this point.

Helps us with so we're not just pushing back and forth on each other.

We can coordinate any kind of assignments that we have and then Elk Grove Police Department

just reached out to us this past week so we'll be reaching out to them and just helping

with that coordination and communication between departments.

This is a little bit of work that we've done with our teams.

This was on Broadway.

Again, this is that storage on public property violation, camping under a critical infrastructure

violation and so that is why you see a clean sidewalk.

This is something that is not what people call sweeps.

This is where encampments will be moved from this area.

There are a few ordinances and operational ways that we will move people is someone in critical

infrastructure within 500 feet of schools or somebody that refuses to comply with the ordinance.

Other than that, as long as they are compliant with the ordinance, they can stand and stay

where they are.

So the sweeps are not completely accurate in what they say.

If you want to call this a sweep, this is just compliance for critical infrastructure.

This is our dashboard that we have for this management team.

For the year 2024, so we had 37,000 calls.

We closed 39,000.

Some of the calls create calls.

So we closed more than we actually received.

Did over 14,000 outreach.

Compliance and enforcement was 5,900 and then 9,000 pounds or 9 million pounds of trash

and debris collected.

And this is just within the IMT, our entire outside of this is about 15 million pounds.

This is some of the benefits that we are seeing with the use of the IMT and our response

to homelessness.

Like I said, the 3-1-1 is now an availability to call for that concern that I think would

have gone to the 3-1-1.

So decreased the sack pd calls related to homelessness is city wide by 8% and then in the central

city specifically down 19%.

And I think we will continue to see this as we maintain our teams out there.

For our homelessness for this last pit count, we decreased over homelessness by 21%.

We decreased our unsheltered homelessness by over 40%.

Unfortunately, the state model is no good deed.

And so they reduced our funding because we reduced our count.

And so now we are trying to shore up that situation.

And as you can see again, our budget challenge here is that 25% of our department is funded

with city ongoing funding and 75% is what we work on.

We continue to apply for a camera resolution fund grant.

Half grants, hopefully that keeps coming in.

And then cutting as much as I can off of our budget, our strategies decrease contract

costs.

We have trimmed a significant amount in the millions of dollars.

Unfortunately, when we lose 11 million in half funding that stings a little bit to try

to get ahead on this, we are identifying new funding.

We get the $18 million this year from the income resolution grant.

And very conscious when we look at those grants that it doesn't put more of a liability

on the department as we take in these grants to create these programs.

And then optimizing efficiencies for IT.

We have been working with 311 to improve the efficiencies there.

One of the models that we are rolling out in June, July is for the user to be more selective

on what the call is so that we can send the appropriate team.

Currently we will send the team and it's not necessarily a call that that team would

have responded to.

So then we have to put it back in the queue and send the correct team.

So working on some strategies to make it more efficient on our responses.

Some new approaches and models that we will discuss at some time in the future.

I'm hopeful of shifting our models that we currently have.

Looking at some new models such as microsites, some ADUs and some really scalable, affordable

permanent supportive housing models.

And looking into clients paying into the program to maintain the sustainability of the program,

try and reduce some of our liability out of pocket on this.

And then looking at public and private partnerships.

And then our last story is never losing focus on why this matters.

So Crystal and her 10 children were kind of shows how quickly things can unwind.

So she got a divorce and having trouble making ends meet and working at Amazon at the

time couldn't make ends meet, lost the house, the family was living in a motel and a

vehicle.

They survived for a while.

In those conditions we ended up eventually pulling them into the OEC.

We had them in our outreach engagement center for a while.

Did a lot of work with Hope Cooperative and eventually got them into a house in Carmichael.

And so it was a lot of work from a lot of people making this happen.

And we have a little quote from Augustine Ramirez who was with Hope at the time.

He is now one of our NRC's.

Happy to have him on board.

And this is just showing the work that can be done out there.

We don't celebrate this enough, but it is happening out there.

And that is the end of my presentation if you have any questions.

Next.

Do you have any questions here?

Next.

Do you have any questions here?

Any comments?

Hope we are coming.

We do a lot for your presentation.

Next presentation.

Thank you.

There is no questions here.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

My duty to ensure the safety and well-being of our communities.

My responsibilities include overseeing daily operations and emergency responses while strategically

planning for our future allocating resources to enhance our department services.

Our services exist to safeguard our citizens.

The property, the economic vitality of the city, and we achieve this through efforts of

our executive team city behind me this afternoon.

During the budget process, our priorities were clear while planning for up to a 15% reduction

which would be 23.4 million for the fire department.

We also had to make sure that we were able to provide tools, training, staffing effectively

and responding to the citizens and the communities.

This is our challenge with large numbers of retirements.

The daily staffing in the department.

Thirty years ago we started on an adventure with providing EMS in the city of Sacramento.

We had two academies a year at that time when we were up staffing the department for the

EMS in the city.

Now, 30 years later, we're seeing the retirements as part of that.

So we work on staffing consistently.

With that, we prioritize community engagement.

Our outreach and recruitment efforts are in our communities, recognizing that our future

lies in the communities with the future Sacramento firefighters here, homegrown in the city

of Sacramento.

By budgeting carefully and thoughtfully, we can continue to support our hiring initiatives

and build a resilient and well prepared department.

Firefighting and emergency medical services are important to the community and adopting new

technology as important to the department as we try to deliver this to the community.

Some of those opportunities we've seen in the future are drones in place of first responders.

We've tested it, the police department tested it.

We know that it can work for us.

It doesn't replace a fire department though.

We need the men and women in the fire department to handle all the calls we have.

So daily, we have 178 men and women staffing the stations and the equipment.

We've also successfully tested a squad trial last year.

Squad is a fast-light and mobile piece of fire equipment.

You'll see a picture of it here in a second.

It's something that, if you're old enough, Johnny and Roy used it, it worked.

It's not a new thing, so we're willing to try it.

We also have a private partnership with medical ambulance.

It provides more BLS ambulance on the street so that we have more advanced life support

ambulance available to our communities.

The issue we're facing is the growth of the city, which is great, is outpacing the growth

of the fire department.

The Sacramento Fire Department responds to numerous calls, annually highlighting the

immense demand for our services.

Each year, we hand approximately $7,000.

We can round up to $80,000 this year.

Medical calls averaging one every four minutes.

With that, there's 5,700 fire calls a year or one about every 90 minutes.

Here's how we match up on population growth, too.

As the population of the city grows, so does our call volume.

In 2017, we ran about 91,000 total calls.

Last year, we ran 110,000 calls.

I'll see this right now, the fire department's geographics are bigger than the cities.

We're 146 square miles that we provide service in because we have contract areas.

But those companies in the contract areas also respond into the city, so that helps us.

That bolstered us.

So what do we do?

We've set up some goals to address key issues of the department.

First, it's the continued investment in the department.

We must prioritize our firefighters overall, wellness and our facilities.

We're actively seeking programs to support physical and mental health and healing after

long days of demanding work with little rest.

Volume reductions.

We seek innovative ways to collaborate and reduce overall call volume, working with other

city departments, DCR, the police department, regional dispatch centers.

We have a regional fire dispatch center, but we also work with all the law enforcement

agencies and private businesses.

Again, I spoke about medical ambulance, helping us with the private ambulance service.

We need to invest in the infrastructure and equipment for our future.

Our firefighters have the best possible working environment and can actively re-energize

after calls for service.

Modernization.

We continue to evaluate methods to enhance and deploy our models.

The squad was a first try at that, and we keep looking at new ways to do that.

Again, medical ambulance started in January with us.

They're picking up on average about 1,000 extra calls a month that would have gone to

other entities or agencies in the county.

Adding more BLS units is helpful.

And next month on April 4th, we'll graduate 23 recruits from our first single-role academy.

We'll be marking the start of the next evolution EMS and Sacramento.

Renew our future will be involved combining all these strategies and new ones that we

haven't explored yet.

We have to do this as the city grows.

The population is growing out and infilling neighborhoods that we've never seen before.

You have the rail yards that will be the largest infill project in America.

You have a city that's going vertical to, which has demands on the fire department itself.

All right, this one is death by PowerPoint slide.

This is the department overview.

This is our org chart.

It's a complex org chart, and it illustrates the complexity of the department and what we

do.

The structure of the org chart, though itself, ensures that we are equipped to manage

various emergencies.

For medical calls to special operations calls to fires.

We have operational functions that are listed in blue, and that's one of our biggest sections.

You know we have firefighters and we're deeply steeped in firefighting, but we also have

the emergency medical services section, which is in the red or orange color.

Our EMS teams deliver crucial medical assistance addressing high volume of medical calls.

We receive every year meeting the community at their time of need and providing alternatives

to their needs.

Prevention.

Prevention is focused on the proactive measures.

Sometimes it's not talked about, but prevention is a major part of any professional

modern fire department, and we have a great prevention division in the city of Sacramento.

You'll hear us talk about the number of arson fires we have in the city of Sacramento.

This investigation unit conducts a thorough investigation of every fire, cause and origin,

pulling criminal arsonists off of the streets not to let them repeat the crime.

Our support functions.

Logistics.

They ensure that all necessary equipment and supplies are available, properly maintained,

communications facilitates a seamless communication between different units, external units across

the city and across the county.

This is all done 24, 7, 365.

You'll hear me say this a lot.

We're here around the clock every day of the year.

IT support.

We become a technological driven department.

We're not IT support 24, 7.

We go to notepads and radios.

Human resources.

They manage the recruitment.

Our recruitment takes six months now to background a firefighter to get them ready to go to the

academy.

Fiscal.

The smallest section you see up there in green for the money that they help us save.

They're small but mighty department.

I have to thank them.

They help us every year.

So I'll conclude with this slide just to say that it's carefully designed to help us balance

everything that we have to do and deliver.

This slide is what we do.

It shows both traditional and non-traditional emergencies.

It illustrates how our team is prepared to handle scenarios, anything that you throw

at us.

I've said it before.

There's nothing that we don't go to.

There's some things we just don't do.

We don't handle down wires.

But we'll stand there in the street and make sure nobody gets hurt.

We don't fix broken water mains.

But we'll stand there and make sure somebody doesn't hit it again.

Everything else you can see up there, we do.

With the one off technical rescues, it's flying people to floods with the military, a

train trussle fire, protests, and even concerts.

We responded to the eat and fire.

We responded with both fire engines and a rescue team that looked for lost level ones.

Here I'm trying to show you the kind of the immense part of the city that we have.

We take care of it.

It's the whole city.

It's the contract area.

And 178 firefighters and 24 stations watch over the city 24-7-365.

The population on the charts larger because we do have the contract areas.

This I think this site also highlights the geographical scope and logistical intricacies

of the operations, underscoring the extensive infrastructure that our team supports.

Safety and efficiency is vital.

It also safeguards the city's economic engine.

So all the building we've done the last ten years, you need a fire department, a police

department, and DCR to protect what we've built.

And we're all interconnected and sometimes cut off by Sacramento's unique geography

with the two rivers, the railroad, and two interstates that flow through the city with

our neighborhoods intertwined in between.

This map right here when it plays shows you the last ten years of growth.

On the left you have North Sacramento on the right you have the southern part of the city.

I'll let it play out.

But this is a challenge we're faced with.

As the city grows and builds, we still protect it.

But we haven't added a company since 2016.

And before people ask, we have added Medicaid units.

But we have not added a fire company since 2016.

So by the numbers again, these are our challenges.

We have an urgent need to modernize.

And I show this station because it was built in 1933.

It runs ran last year, 5700 calls with the fire engine.

The squad that's sitting there during the trial ran 2,000 calls.

And the Medicaid unit that's not pictured ran over 4,000 calls out of a two bay station

that was built in 1933.

Again, the volume of the calls is outpaced.

This is an apartment.

And I'm focused on that today because watching nationwide, this is a focus.

It's going to be hard for the city of Sacramento to plan for the future if we don't plan today.

There's land available in the city today that won't be available ten years from now.

It's also crucial for us to address the well-being and work load of the employees, balancing

load more equitably among the companies.

And that takes the infill of companies as well.

Second, to me, expanding and modernizing our facilities that we have is a way for us

to work as a city together.

It helps us provide more resources to the community and update operationally obsolete

buildings.

Finally, investing in technology and equipment will enhance our operationally efficient

department, but it'll also help us with response times, knowing where the closest unit is,

coastal's available unit is.

We do this today.

We still could enhance it more.

It also helps us provide alternatives.

This slide's important.

If you know the 19th and X street fire, it's public housing.

This fire does, it's different if the wind was blowing that night.

It's different if engine 12 wasn't out on a medical aid and saw it in the sky.

And if you know where engine 12 is compared to 19th and X, there are long ways away.

Engine 5 was out and they saw it.

I want to show you here, our engine companies and truck companies are busy.

They're out in the middle of the night when this fire starts.

But because of their training, their capability and equipment, they stop the fire, they save

the building, and they save the podium of the building that burned.

Had the podium been destroyed, it would have been millions of dollars more for that foundation

system to be replaced.

This is just one fire.

So, what do we do?

We see this as opportunity.

We see this as an opportunity to work with the council, the community.

Not every fire is something that we can't handle, but we need to get in front of the things

that we can't handle today.

Thirty-four of our companies, but we have 34 companies.

Fifty-fifty percent of those companies, 17 companies run over the national suggested

average of 3500 calls a year.

Eleven of those companies run over 4,000 calls a year, and five of those companies run over

5,000 calls a year.

At the end of the day, the companies just aren't available when you need them.

When you have a fire like this, one that you have in front of you right now, we're calling

multiple companies.

You hear us call multiple alarms, so there's drawdown really quick in the city.

I'm going to go back one.

So what do we do to help modernize the apartment?

It's sustainability.

It's providing fire stations that are equipped for the city's future.

It's resilience with ongoing investments in both infrastructure and our firefighters.

It's innovation, leveraging technology, fostering partnerships, and implementing adaptive

response models.

How do we do this?

It's collaboration with local businesses, educational institutions, and civic organizations.

It'll help us enable, or we will be able to leverage a collective expertise and resources

ensuring comprehensive and the unified effort.

Our vision for the future is ambitious, yet attainable.

By prioritizing sustainability, resilience, and technology, along with innovative thinking,

we can build a department that meets or exceeds the community's expectations.

Together we can create a safer, efficient, forward-thinking model for others to follow.

Budget reduction would be speaking about budget reductions.

It's great for the fire department.

Our future is centered around growth and innovation.

It's essential to address current financial constraints that pose significant challenges

to our operations and our community safety.

It's my job to highlight the repercussions of the budget reductions that our department

or the broader community would be facing.

If we were faced with a full 15%, it would look like closing or shuttering eight companies

in the Sacramento Fire Department.

We wouldn't be able to protect the robust economic engine that we built over the last ten

years.

We'd have delayed care to emergencies and medical aids, resulting in more significant

loss of life and property.

To summarize what I need to say is we've provided the overview of the impact.

The reductions are dire.

I want to emphasize the urgent need for strategic investments to ensure the safety and prosperity

of the Sacramento residents.

I'd like to give options to.

Option A is simple.

It's an investment.

It's a full investment.

It's going to require a detailed study into the Fire Department and the data that backs

up the words I've been speaking about today.

Option B, it's some improvements, leaving manageable risks.

And option C just leaves us with a slower response, year over year, and higher risks not

only in the community, but for the firefighters.

That's my presentation.

Thank you, Chief Custom on you.

I appreciate your presentation.

We're going to be doing discussions at the end, so we'll have Chief Lester next.

And then-

One thing, real quick.

I have to thank all the firefighters and the staff behind me today.

There's 178 firefighters out on the street right now.

Protect us.

And I can't stand up here and talk to you about what I just did without thanking them

first.

So thank you.

Thank you very much.

Welcome, Chief Lester.

Hi everyone.

Good afternoon.

Good to see you.

Okay, we've got it up.

I know I'm going to ask Mindy or Kami for some help with the- we have a quick video.

So just want to say good afternoon.

Thank you very much for having us.

You know, I always really appreciate the opportunity to come before and talk about not

just the budget, but give a department overview because we can talk about the great work

that's been done in the past year.

So I'm going to be covering some of the highlights and achievements of the team.

I've got all of the captains, a few lieutenants and our professional staff with me today.

I'm also going to present to you our 2025 priorities, some key initiatives that we are

going to be embarking on or currently engaged in technology because I know how important

that is.

And then we're going to wrap up by addressing some of the challenges that we faced, including

prior year's reductions.

And I know we're going to be talking about the proposed strategy.

So I'll touch on those as well.

So we'll start with just a brief video.

It's only about two minutes long to talk about some of the programs and achievements.

And it'll give you a visual of some of the things I'm going to talk about.

So Kami, can you help me?

I don't think it's going to play if I click it.

Oh, thank you.

So thank you for letting me share that.

So we had over 600,642,000 calls come into the comm center last year that resulted in almost

160,000 calls being dispatched and our officers additionally initiate almost 60,000 calls on

their own.

This call volume equates to almost one and a quarter calls to our comm center every minute

of every day.

That's an average of about 437 dispatch calls for service and our average staffing each

ship is about 36 officers.

We took 60,000 reports last year and what we saw was actually a pretty significant increase

in our online reports.

Those reports were submitted for crimes that we don't typically have the capacity to respond

to to include things like auto burglaries, catalytic converter theft and shoplifting crimes

that have already occurred.

So out of necessity and I thank you for helping us approve this.

We will be investing in an upgrade online reporting system that we much easier to use by

our community and be available in multiple languages.

I'd also like to, I tried to condense our crime stats really to one slide and I remember

last year at Council Member Kaplan's request we had talked about showing more than just

a year-to-year picture.

So we provided five years of data here and taken a five year average.

Based on the five year average we are down in every category that we report to the FBI

which is consistent with agencies across the country.

And I want to note because many of you were here that when we start our violent crime

reduction strategy in 2022 that came on the heels of some huge spikes as you can see in

violent crime.

And since that time we have seen a 45% reduction in shot spotter activations.

We've seen 29% fewer shooting reports and 48% almost 50% fewer victim shot reduction

from 256 in 2021 to 133 in 2024.

Still far too many but those are significant reductions.

And we've also seen reductions in those years to homicide, 17% decrease, rape is down

40%.

Robbery is down 18%.

Agribate assault is down 25%.

Burglary is down 21%.

That is down 18%.

And motor vehicle theft is down 23%.

Just highlights the great work of our officers.

I'd like to talk also about one of our flagship programs in 22 after we announced our violent

crime reduction strategy we were awarded the public safety partnership grant that was

only given to six cities across the United States that year.

And it remains only given to five or six cities every single year.

But this year we've entered our third and final year of that engagement.

Through the first two years we've had five federal indictments by the US Attorney's Office

of the approximately 13.5 pounds of fentanyl seized within our engagement areas.

That's approximately three million potential lethal doses of fentanyl that is no longer

in our community.

And we have the US Attorney's Office helping prosecute those offenders.

In 2024 while working with our federal partners we see over 2,000 pounds of narcotics and

no less than 200 firearms.

These seizures really were a culmination of months long investigations by our officers

and partner agencies.

And these seizures really do serve to disrupt criminal activity and contribute to the

deterrence of violent crime in our city.

We also, I'm very happy to report secured a $500,000 capacity building grant where we would

be able to continue the work that we're doing with this into our fourth year once the engagement

ends.

Talk about firearms enforcement.

As you can see in 2024 we took 827 illegal or illegally possessed firearms off the streets.

And in the past three years we've taken almost 4,000 firearms off of the streets including

500 that were turned in by community members as part of our multiple gun buyback programs.

What's interesting of note is that we have seen about a 40% increase this year in the number

of rifles and machine guns that have been confiscated but we are seeing significantly fewer

ghost guns.

We're down 61% compared to where we were in 2021.

Spot spotter activations are also significantly lower in the past few years but still we only

have in about 90% of these shootings nobody calls in so we don't have any citizen callers

with that shot spotter technology and that's how we actually come to find that these shootings

occurred.

And then special events and demonstrations.

You know we are a busy city, we are the capital city, we have great things happening

here.

We had 1258 special permanent events that was a 24% increase over 2023.

And we also had 61 large scale operations that required big formal plans which include

things like kings games and various political demonstrations or protests.

So I think this is just a sign of great things in our city.

We also responded to 228 side shows which continue to be a challenge for us.

Of our specialty units we have 15 full time spot officers and they had 99 critical incident

deployments last year.

We only had two uses of force which was less than 2% and we engage in 48 community events

which included active shooter training for a lot of our nonprofit organizations.

Of our crisis negotiators we have 35 police negotiators who do this as an extra assignment

and they responded to 101 calls of people in crisis.

For UIS or drone teams we have 21 officers that are FAA certified pilots and serve in

other full time assignments throughout the department.

But notably they took 345 calls for service, they flew over 900 flights, 901 flights and

they assisted with the apprehension of 119 different suspects.

On traffic enforcement this is one of the biggest complaints I am sure that you get and

we certainly get at our community meetings and we know it is a significant challenge.

We did see a decrease in traffic collisions across the city by 6% last year but what I

think is remarkable is the significant reduction in fatalities.

We saw 38% fewer traffic deaths this year and 31% fewer fatalities.

Our traffic enforcement team is small but mighty they have 8 officers and those 8 officers

made over 6,000 traffic stops last year which is about a 14% increase of the year prior

and issued over 4,000 traffic citations which was about 24% higher.

Our department has a whole made about 22,000 traffic stops and issued over 7,000 citations.

On hiring in 2024 we had 840 applications for police officer that is down a little bit

from the year prior but we did see that a similar number met the minimum qualifications

which is 537.

We conducted 185 backgrounds for sworn officers and hired 28 new police officers.

We hired 12 CSOs and 8 student trainees.

Then additionally because it is not just sworn that makes up our department we conducted

about 320 backgrounds for professional staff and we hired 63.

New members of our department.

Sorry I clicked too far.

Oh no.

Can we help you go backwards?

Do I just click here?

Back?

There we go.

Sorry.

One too far.

Thank you.

Okay.

On investigations, so investigations is a big division within our department.

They handled almost 3,000 cases.

As you know we have really put some effort towards human trafficking.

We investigate 65 separate human trafficking cases and that resulted in the recovery of 37

recovered sex workers and we've also joined the DOJ and the District Attorney's Task Force.

Our detectives have on-call responsibilities and throughout the year responded to 115

callouts many of which occurred after hours.

In 2023 our homicide clearance rate was 80%.

That's well above the state average of 62%.

And while we don't know what the homicide clearance rate will be in 2024 statewide we're

already at 73%.

Our clearance rate just speaks to the level of cooperation really.

As you can see, I believe we have in the community as well as our detectives being very

dedicated to finding justice for our victims.

Very proud of the work that the Office of Violence Prevention does.

We could have a whole council meeting just on that work we presented at Measure U last

night and talked about the work of this office.

We're currently engaged with 11 community-based organizations.

This last year they engaged over 1,300 youth and they provided over 37,000 program hours.

This program has been able to provide $2.1 million in grants and an additional 20,000

in community grants this past year.

So I'll talk about our 2025 priorities just like the fire chief and DCR.

I think it's very important to have goals and have structure when you're leading an organization

and look at the things that are important.

So every year we establish our department priorities to ensure that we're really effectively

using our limited resources to meet the needs of our community.

This is definitely a line with our long-standing department mission to work in partnership

with the community to provide life and property to solve neighborhood problems and to enhance

the quality of life in our city.

So I'll start with the very first one which is operational readiness and response.

This is maintaining a constant state of readiness and preparedness so we can respond to not

just the everyday needs but also exceptional situations within our community.

On crime reduction we have been a champion of data-driven strategies to identify trends

and allocate resources to prevent crime and certainly to mitigate crime.

This also requires us to continue to maintain and foster strong community relationships

and being vigilant in our efforts to proactively address crime and apprehend criminals.

Employee investment.

On employee investment I have to say really it's our members that make this great department

and it's the people of our department that make us great.

So we have to ensure a very positive and supportive work environment that values their contributions.

I think public safety, public protection as a whole, we have a lot of challenges and

it's very wearing on the people that step up to serve.

So it's our job and certainly our obligation as leaders to ensure that we're doing everything

we can to create and foster a positive environment.

Quality-police service, not a surprise to anyone.

I'm very service-minded and customer service-minded.

I believe that what we do and how we do it is how we are viewed by the public and it has

everything to do with how we interact within our community.

So giving great customer service is a key tenant of how we provide public safety.

And then finally strategic governance.

We have, as you know, we're required to meet a lot of mandates and deliver a high level

of service with diminishing resources.

That means we have to not only develop and implement a comprehensive strategic plan

to guide our department's future direction, but we have to make sure that what we are

doing currently is meeting the expectations of our community.

So these priorities are going to be outlined in a strategic roadmap, which we will, which

we really plan on releasing later this year.

Our key initiatives.

So pretty proud of this.

We have actually invited the Department of Justice and the COPS office to come and do a

full organizational assessment.

This is about an 18-month engagement.

And I really say it's because we are a learning institution and an learning organization.

We had to apply for this assessment and they've sent the acceptor application and have

sent a team out to take a look at how we're structured, how we're conducting our operations

and give us recommendations on how we can be more efficient and provide better service.

And I'm very excited about the outcome of that assessment.

And then we're finishing the CRETAQ assessment, which has helped us to build out our strategy

and compliance unit.

I recently did a presentation here about Prop 36 enforcement and the opportunities that

that will enable us to use.

We've also looked at doing some enhanced traffic enforcement and implemented some strategies

around that last year, which I believe have shown to be very beneficial based on the numbers.

We're also going to be working on non-fatal shootings.

We had partnered with the California Partnership for Safe Communities in the county.

We'll be working with them and our investigations team is taking that on.

We're working on a pilot with the county community wellness response team to use as a resource

for officers in the field and potentially divert calls from our 911 center to 988.

Along the lines of employee wellness, really looking to develop enhanced training for

sworn and professional staff.

Talked about the public safety partnership.

We have civilianized our lead in our media relations office.

We've improved our complaint process.

We're working with the police executive research forum on a project.

We've converted our digital records for the DA for race-blind filing.

And we have established really great partnerships with the University of Chicago and the Washington

DC Police Leadership Academy.

We have stood up the Office of Strategy and Compliance in the last year.

We're in the very early stages of working with Sac State to talk about a community mediation

program.

And then also with our legislature on key legislative changes, especially around traffic

safety.

And as I said before, we'll be working on the strategic roadmap.

Our technology projects this year, we launched the Public Safety Camera Network, which has

been overwhelmingly positive.

We have some great success stories.

We also piloted Drone as a first responder.

We will continue to use the Spider-Tick Survey software and we're using technology to enhance

some of our recruiting strategies.

We're looking at an AI-powered traffic management system as a pilot and potentially an AI-powered

document reduction software pilot for the number of parades and documents that we release.

We think that could be a huge savings to staffing.

And then at our communication center, as you saw, we take over 600,000 calls a year.

Many of those don't result in a call for service.

So we're working really hard to build the best possible interface between our community

and the services that we provide.

So with technology, we're hoping to find improved call processing where we can use technology

to assist with call triaging, redirecting, translation and location services.

Challenges, not a surprise to anyone sitting here.

We have a limited staffing.

I'll talk about some of the reductions over the last few years and the modification of

response protocols and the impacts of potential cuts.

So about us, we are at just over 1,100 authorized positions.

We have 735 sworn staff and 384.5 professional staff.

So we have 87 sworn vacancies and 95 professional staff vacancies.

And I'll go in and explain that and what that actually looks like.

So I know this is a busy slide and Chief Costa-Manya kind of covered the growth of the city.

We've seen some really exponential growth in the last few years.

And I'm comparing our numbers now to where we were in 07-08.

That was when we had a higher level of staffing than we currently do.

So at that time, we were close to being fully staffed.

We had 804 sworn officers and 468 professional staff.

And then as you can see, that number has been reduced.

So this slide is really to show from a historical perspective that we, like many organizations,

made cuts in response to the recession.

We certainly have not rebounded completely.

So to put into perspective the population growth, we've grown by over 65,000 people.

It's up 14%.

And to put it into perspective for every square mile in our city, that means there are 559 more people.

And from 2008 to 2023, we added almost 28,000 housing units.

We are currently authorized for the 735 sworn and

in addition to the 356 career professional staff, we're authorized to have 28.5 part time student trainees,

which is where that 0.5 number comes from.

We rounded up for the purpose of the slide to 385.

And as of March 14th, we have 87 sworn and 95 professional staff vacancies.

We do use some of those career sworn and professional vacancies for our pipeline program.

So for example, we're currently holding 23 sworn vacancies for police recruit,

CSO 2's that have graduated the academy, and police prehires that are waiting to start the academy.

And for our professional staff, we have 261 of those positions that are currently filled.

In regards to the non-career staff, we have 17 CSOs and 18 part time student trainees

that are on those positions as well.

And we have some frozen positions like all the partners that we can't fill.

So when you're comparing apples to apples, and you look at the authorized sworn number of 804 back in 2008

compared to what we currently have, which is 648 officers, that's a deficit of about 156 officers.

And in just the last two budget cycles, we've reduced our sworn staffing or authorized sworn staffing by about 34.

And I think we've all talked about it.

We've got great things going on in the city, the building of the Golden One Center, a build out of Delta shores.

We're going to see the rail yards.

You can certainly look at the density maps where all the housing is going.

So there's great things happening in the city, but it's certainly a challenge for public safety,

because we really haven't changed, well, the city has as far as trying to maintain our growth.

And I know that I think pretty much there was no one here when this happened.

So I'll just talk about some of our reductions.

The recession of 2008 to 2009 led to really significant staffing reductions.

At that time, we reduced our staffing by approximately 175 positions.

And that loss of employee ease also meant significant impact to services that we provided to our community,

which we really have never fully recovered from.

These include things, and I have a list here in front that increased response time to emergency calls for service.

The reduced ability to respond to certain property crimes, reduced capacity and forensics.

We closed most of our public counters.

We also saw reductions in records property.

The communications are administrative support services, and we greatly reduced over time.

We eliminated units that were never restored.

So in addition to the services, some of our important specialty units and core services were

actually eliminated.

Some were restored on a limited basis, but for example, during the recession, we eliminated

our narcotics division.

We still do not have a narcotics division.

We have no crimes, vice and the high profile offender teams.

And even now, unfortunately, we have not been able to add sufficient staffing to respond to non-injury traffic

accidents, many misdemeanors, and many cold reports of crime.

In 2023 and 2024, always looking even prior to significant budgetary challenges,

always looking to see what we do, what we can do more efficiently.

In 2023, we embarked on an efficiency reorg of the department.

We ended the hospital contracts between Kaiser and Sutter to put more officers on the streets.

We cut the RT contract in about half.

We eliminated some unfunded positions.

We eliminated a number of the cannabis positions.

We eliminated the shot spotter teams, although we did keep the technology.

We reduced the size of the pop teams.

We eliminated the mental health unit.

We significantly reduced the size of outreach, and we shifted that work to the commands.

We combined the magnet and the SRO sergeant into one position.

We eliminated the sergeant in recruiting and shifted that work to a lieutenant.

We centralized burglary and robbery, and we eliminated sworn positions so that we could

add a special events lieutenant, which we desperately needed.

And then last year, we eliminated our civilian emergency comm manager, a captain, now takes

on that workload, as well as two professional staff, two positions in our transparency unit

and five sworn positions.

So the proposed strategies with those are 15% reduction is 32.9 million, 213 full-time

positions.

I'm sorry.

Let me go back.

Okay, I think, okay, sorry about that.

I clicked too quickly.

So with the exception of shot spotter technology and overtime, the really the remaining elimination

strategies are all people who deliver core services to our city.

So it's a total of 213 positions, even with 195 vacancies if all were to be adopted.

We would lay off 21 people, but we would also lose multiple programs.

So we would lose the mountain and marine unit, which is loss of coverage to old sack, and

have no coverage on our waterways or the ability to remove abandoned boats and watercraft.

We would lose our community service representatives that took on the work about reach engagement.

We would eliminate the office of violence prevention, which has done fantastic work.

Our recruiting unit would go away, and that pipeline has 94% diversity for student trainees

and 77% for our community service officer and has gone on to create permanent positions,

career positions for a number of people that have started in that pipeline program.

We would eliminate the human trafficking team, which would eliminate the specialty work

and causes to forfeit our partnership with the DA's office and DOJ, and lose a significant

number of clerical positions, which are really critical for our department to run.

Of the additional elimination strategies, we would lose 13 records positions due to

already, and really due to already critically low staffing just last week, we had to shift

duties from records like the reporting of missing persons installing vehicles out to

patrol.

We would lose the training captain position, and with that a lot of the recommendations

from the Department of Justice, Phase 1 and Phase 2 reports, we would lose the day and

the nighttime traffic enforcement teams.

We also would not be able to support the IMT.

We have 14 officers assigned to DCR to help with enforcement and to help with connectivity

for our unhoused population, and we would have to eliminate that.

For our pop teams, we lose the ability to coordinate with the City Attorney's Office and

really resolve long-term problems in neighborhoods.

We would eliminate the internet crimes against children, eliminate executive lieutenants, which

would restrict our interface between the commands and the community.

We would eliminate both SWAT teams, which would make Sacramento one of the very few large

cities that didn't have a permanent SWAT team.

If you remember, we responded to 99 critical incidents this past year.

We would still be responding to those.

We just would not have a full-time team to do that.

And for reduction strategies, force investigations and AOT are both DOJ recommendations.

We would lose 50% of our community service officers.

All but one of our magnet school officers, and that's a great program.

We have five schools in the last three years, had 100% graduation rate.

We lose our three-ever air ops positions, and we would take our violent crime reduction

teams.

We have three city-wide and reduce those two one.

And I firmly believe the work that they're doing with OVP is how the significant impact

on our violent crime reduction numbers over the past few years.

So I realize that was a much more abbreviated presentation than we typically do, but I appreciate

your time.

And if you have questions on anything I've presented or anything outside of this presentation,

involving the police department, I'm here as well as the team to answer any questions.

So thank you.

Public comment now, and then questions and suggestions from council members.

We have ten public speakers.

The first is Matt King, and then Christina Rogers, and then John Freys Morales.

You could line up in the aisle.

Hello, everybody.

Council, Mr. Mayor, staff.

Thanks for being here today, and thanks everybody for the presentations.

I'm here to ask that we please protect core services, police rangers, fires, parks, water,

sewer, garbage.

And maybe take a look at some of the more poorly performing NGOs and non-profit city vendors

who might be overcharging.

I know we spoke of audit by the mayor during his campaigns and stuff, so maybe that's something

to look into as ways to cut as well.

Rory facing a critical shortage in public safety.

Any activists portray a bad sense of urgency to further deep fund departments throughout

California will never truly be rid of crime as we are at a pivotal stage in turning crime

around with Prop 36.

We can't afford to take away the tools needed to bend the curve.

I'm no expert, but I do know how criminals and addicts think being one.

We've done enough to pacify a small minority of voices.

We've given them marijuana and massage parlors and basically free reign to destroy the city

with no consequences.

Let's be known as the best city in California to live in.

With the addition of the A's coming to our city, it's time that we make it a safe, clean

welcoming space to attract lots of revenue, businesses, and get the people of the city

in overall sense of euphoria, well-being, and security.

We implore view not to cut our officers or Rangers or Fire Department or any other of our

core services.

Lastly, let's figure out how to partner with privatized Haven for Hope community programs

to bring that core program to our community.

Our OMS data showed roughly 73% of individuals experiencing homelessness left or never

successfully completed their treatment.

Thank you for your comment and your time is complete.

Christine or Rogers?

Good afternoon, City Council.

The city of Sacramento needs to go back to focusing on core services.

That's what your job is and that is what the citizens expect you to focus on.

Public safety, maintenance, and parks have been stretched then.

Yet Sacramento's population continues to grow.

During the mayor's listening sessions, I've heard several neighborhoods address serious

public safety concerns such as speeding, stealing, and shootings.

They also want potholes fixed in street lights working and safe parks.

One reason why the city is struggling to earn revenue is because of the cuts to core

services.

I've heard from plenty of people that they don't visit Midtown like they used to.

It's not worth the parking hassle or navigating filthy streets with their children.

People are concerned about being accosted by a dangerous person wandering around without

accountability or heard about the downtown shootings.

I guarantee you, if you have a robust law enforcement and city maintenance team, eventually

you'll see a rise in revenue.

More people will feel safe going to restaurants and shopping.

You can reverse this terrible cycle.

Trust has been broken, but it can be earned back over time.

The citizens have spoken by passing Proposition 36.

We've all made it clear we want safety, justice, and we want accountability for those who

destroy our quality of life and attack our local businesses.

It's time to say no to those who have their hands out for funding, but have no accountability

for how they spend city money.

Core services are your first responsibility, and you'll show us your priorities by how

you handle this year's budget.

I understand the goal is to make cuts across the board, which is fair.

But I'd also like to ask any funding requests outside of core services should be ignored.

At this point, common sense and property proper financial management should be the goal.

And thank you very much for listening.

I know there's just a few of us here, but that's because a lot of the citizens who are here

who have voted for you, who support you, are working right now, and they have very busy

schedules with their families.

So the few of us that can be here are trying to be here today.

Thank you very much.

I support fully funded police and fire departments, and there should be no cuts to police and fire.

Cut DCR.

DCR is not delivering on outcomes.

The homeless commit 30% of crimes and cause 2,000 fires every year.

In my neighborhood, the homeless started 13 fires in the last 2 years.

The auditor said homeless crimes are expensive, 17 million for security, outreach, and cleanups.

16 million went to planning managers, attorneys, and infrastructure repairs.

Only 13% of homeless half funds went towards homeless permanent housing.

Spending so much on administrative overhead by DCR is a waste of money.

In the last 16 years, Sacramento's population has surged 11% with 67,000 new residents now

calling the city home.

But the sworn police patrols that protect us have actually decreased 7%.

There are 78 police patrol vacancies, key units that protect us, narcotics, financial

crimes, vice, and high profile offender teens were eliminated and never restored.

The unhoused are warming up to recovery.

Last year, 379 unhoused, completed addiction treatment in Sacramento County, and that's

because of diversion to treatment.

That's a 22% rate for the unhoused, completing recovery.

By adequately funding our police, we can increase life saving citations.

Our lives saving and offer a general chance for rehabilitation to do those struggling

with addiction and mental illness.

This is not about punishment.

It's about supporting individuals to rebuild their lives.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have Vito Scromo, Jeffrey Tartaguia, and Macworthy.

Thank you Mayor and City Council.

I'm here to again ask you to support the core functions of the City of Sacramento.

I've been involved with state budgets.

I've been involved on planning, long term planning.

As you look at these funds, I understand the crisis we've had your facing, which I

had to face, my role at the Capitol.

It's critical to look at the long range.

By cutting core services and stuff, you're actually impacting future budgets.

I've seen that happen at the state level.

So it's not just one time cut that would have helped your budget.

It's a long term financial restraint and impact to your budgets down the road.

So if you were thinking in the long term and worried about things, you would protect

the core services.

Many businesses and residents have left because of the reduction in fire and the police department.

Which again affects your budget.

So think about the financial impact and what could happen with the reduction in core services.

We've seen that happen at the state level.

Thank you very much.

Next speaker, Jeffrey Tartagia.

Jeffrey Tartagia.

Jeffrey Tartagia and Abdicate.

Why I'm here today is because on the first one, subject matter is homeless.

How your phones are being used.

The second one I can relate to is a fire that occurred right over at H Street.

So question mark will be is what you are eliminating in the way of services.

How drastically the impact will be of those reductions.

The third element we'll say is dealing with on this last comment with the police is indeed

seeing of all the calls what the resolution rate was.

Now lastly, all of these are oral comments.

I see very little of them give you substantial reports or contact information at the end.

You may have had one or two of them, but with the cataracts, I really can't see the screen

to see what you have there in the way of resolution.

The other thing I will also comment is again to Kevin.

Is this you did not put for comments not on the agenda.

And one of the comments I will make is this is that over here on your bulletin boards,

you no longer have a listing of these meetings posted.

You don't even direct that you got them at the north side to go look for them.

Would appreciate if you would correct this.

Having on the outside bulletin boards some degree of comment so that somebody can see

that doesn't have electronic means to look for them on your website.

I will be back after the at five o'clock for not on the agenda because I really think

you need to change that.

Thank you.

Back worthy and after Mac we have Jay Cat, Vanessa and Nikki.

People you are going to have to do some very organized.

Separate the fire department and the fire department and police department should be

you mix and apologize.

You are not telling the people the facts here.

You are saying we are going to do this and we are going to do that just like the oversight.

It reduce any way the police department operate.

No. You humiliated them in one place.

We would like to see every day every police will give a report on what they done that day.

We are going to eliminate the word chief and set up a nine pound to operate the police department.

The same thing to the fire department.

Some of the things that we want to people that was in charge of that.

The one three one one is garbage.

Money is spent.

Now the first presentation you got too many people involved in homeless money.

This is the department of justice coming.

Let's bring the department of justice and do public out audit on that.

You will see where the police department could have got money and you took it.

You don't know what it happened.

You have people sitting here can't even read a really finance for it.

The only hope you got is Dickson.

This will be a shit creek.

I don't know what you are going to do when people start demonstrating again.

You don't have to have a training to operate a fire truck.

What would be if I went out and took a crime.

I would knock the fire down so he ain't got no fire.

No water.

First thing.

If I could run it.

I got a crime, a criminal money too.

All of the natural gas.

What would I do?

That's a 50 pound pleasure going through your house.

A crescent wrench in a highway flat and running like hell.

Thank you for your comment.

J-Cat.

Hi, I'm J-Cat.

I'm here because I guess part of the sweet hope.

The sweet hope that guy is right there does nothing for nobody.

I understand the sweet.

I get the sweet.

They clean up the sweet and whatever.

But you guys forget that the sweet's take everything.

I'm in mental health.

I'm in outpatient rehab.

I'm in.

I do all these things that you guys ask of all the homeless to do.

But the sweet's.

I don't have ID now.

The hope helps me get my ID.

Guess what?

The sweet's come through.

They, they, they, they, they, they're the IDs away.

And now it's garbage and debris.

And then you guys say, oh, well, we don't know what's between difference between trash and belongings.

But the police or friends who clean up or hope doesn't even go through or even take the time to go through any of that.

And I just find that it's not fair or right or you guys should find a better way to get the job done.

It's not fair or right or you guys should find a better way to.

To, to do these sweeps.

I'm not saying this.

I'm not saying the sweet's are bad.

Just you guys should find a better way to do them.

And because it's, it's.

Now I'm now I don't have my mental health because they, they took my laptop.

Now I can't do my mental health.

I can't do my therapy.

I can't do my outpatient rehab.

I can't do none of that because it's all in the garbage now.

What am I supposed to do?

Like, I don't know what to do now because all my stuff is gone.

I guess that's all.

Thank you.

Next we have Vanessa after Vanessa.

It's Nikki, Keon Bliss and then Marbella.

Salah.

We'll try the day in Marbella.

Salah.

Marbella.

Marbella.

Salah.

Can't read that.

Sorry.

If you could light up in the aisle.

Yeah, Vanessa had to take off.

She just went through a sweep yesterday in her body.

She's just in so much pain.

She's a disabled person.

At least three of the folks at that encampment were in wheelchairs.

No notice.

They destroy everything and they don't, they don't give you time.

They're, you know, they're, they're used to be, like, these green

tags that were like 24 hour notices, which was not enough time and

still not following the law because the lear case said you had to give

48 hours, but they were at least like some time notice, right?

I hate that I'm standing here being like, oh god, I wish I could see

those green tags again because I hate those fucking green tags.

Because they mean that the sweep is, you know what I mean?

They mean that everybody's everything is likely about to be destroyed,

that they're going to be forced to be displaced.

But yeah, y'all have totally disregarded all of that and are just

destroying people's stuff with no notice.

So that's, that's just one story.

There are thousands as you've heard them recount all their contacts.

I'll say that budgetarily, you know, in 2023, the previous council

passed what was called the Homeless Response Protocol.

Y'all remember.

And it was allowed for unlimited overtime for DCR, the police department

and code enforcement.

And if you want to try to figure out maybe where to cut back on some

spending, maybe look at that unlimited overtime.

It's maybe even a good question to ask how much is that?

How much are we spending when we say unlimited overtime to terrorize

the people who live outside in our community?

How much have we spent doing that?

The whole community is having budget issues.

It's not just you.

Everybody is struggling.

How are we spending?

Thank you for your comment.

Your time is complete.

Key on bliss.

Thank you.

Here we are again at 3.30 in the afternoon when most people are

working as was noted in comments earlier.

And you just jammed between two of the largest departments in this city

into one single agenda item and given us two minutes to actually give a comment on it.

That's not democracy.

That's not participation in city matters.

It's really just a check box.

It's performative.

And it's bullshit.

You know that.

That's why you jammed this into a special meeting specifically to limit our

ability to actually participate in this.

Which is off agenda comments.

Which you can't do.

Like what you don't have to do on a special meeting.

It's a very important meeting.

It's a very important meeting.

Almost every single week since the beginning of 2025.

So it's written like this isn't a participatory sum.

But I'm just going to lay out a couple of key pieces of information I can get

within the next minute or so as I name that.

The city is funded over 78 new full-time positions for the Sacramento police

department since at least 2018.

The department continuously sites the long-term impacts of the 2008 recession.

And the state is actually staff vacancies are over time pay.

Last year the department reported the police department reported 175 vacancies

among 1100 positions.

A three sworn positions 92.

Now it's 182 vacancies despite the 10 cuts that they made.

Make a seas before.

There should be like it speaks to me of something that's bigger issue which may be

at the culture of the play.

But among the two reductions last year that the council was considering only 130

of those vacant positions were actually offered.

And despite the high vacancy rate the department included 91 full-time staff

positions that were filled which makes me wonder what's actually in there for the

tier reductions this year.

And when we're talking about reducing overtime let's talk about the fact that in

2023 alone 23 million dollars was spent on police just on police overtime which is a

tenfold increase from 2011.

Thank you for your comment your time is complete.

If you have exceeded your speaking time please take your seat.

By continuing to speak you are disrupting the orderly conduct of the meeting

and are in violation of chapter five of the city council rules of procedure.

These are questions that we need at the last time.

That's time.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I'm here.

I'm a measure you commissioner for district fee but that's not what my comments are

coming from.

I'm here as the president of Garland Northgate neighborhood association.

And I just want to state that for sure the crime prevention is a worthy investment in our

community because they work with the community based organization and prevents our

community from going down the wrong path and it's a worthy investment.

But I also want to recognize because sometimes we forget to do that.

The recognize the work that the police especially North Command has been doing in

Garland Northgate.

They've been incredibly responsive to our needs, to our businesses, to our community

members who are upset with the speeding that happens on Northgate and whenever an

issue is brought to their attention whether it's our businesses, whether it's a

community member they respond and we've and our community members have seen a

difference in the speeding.

Still Northgate we have a lot of issues but at least from the police perspective and

community involvement with us they've been responsive.

They've also been involved.

We're working to minimize how our community sees police officers and police officers

and they see our community and they're involved in our holiday dinner.

They come to meetings, they come to workshops that we organize and I was very,

very happy to see at last night know your rights workshop in Del Paso.

That they were there with the community, Spanish speaking community to say we're

not involved with INS, etc. and that was a great thing.

I also just for last minute the community response team in conjunction with the

vice mayor's office, Northgate Garland we've seen an improvement because they are

responding.

It's not perfect.

They've got a way to go.

Thank you for your comment.

Your time is complete.

No more speakers.

Thank you.

That concludes public comment.

Now it's time for questions and comments from council members.

Start with council member bank.

Thank you mayor.

First I just really wanted to take this time to thank Mr. Pedro, Chief Costa Manga and Chief

Leicester.

Thank you so much for your thorough presentation.

I do have some questions and also some comments.

at 5 p.m. for the public but this is recorded and communities can also tune in but just wanted to uplift that.

A few comments.

I'll start with DCR first Mr. Pedro if you can come up.

First of all thank you to you and your staff for all the work that you are doing to really address homelessness in the city

and working with the county and community partners.

One of the slide that you brought up on one of the slide that you brought up.

One of your proposed strategy is one to decrease contract costs and I'm just curious to know during your renegotiations of these contracts how much money have we saved in renegotiations I'm just curious.

Last year it's been around 5 million.

We still have two or three more contracts, four more contracts to negotiate.

And that's going to be a little offset with the renegotiations of our cleanup contract because we have prevailing wage to work with there.

I see no thank you so much.

I just I was just curious to know what those numbers were.

I really appreciate you re-evaluating those contracts to see if we could be more efficient.

Are contracts in particular are they measure you and general fund or all grant and funding or is it a mix?

Yes they're all a mix of gosh is this a various mix of some previous half funding spending the last end of that to shore of a contract and then we'll put general fund in with it as a mix.

Great. Thank you for that clarity because I do have a follow up question for Pete later on too.

So good to know that the renegotiations not just it's not just our half dollars but it's also our general fund so we're able to free up some of those dollars.

Thanks Pete he's coming up. Okay I'll have questions for you in a little bit. Thanks.

Those are my only questions. Thank you so much. And then I also just want to say thank you to you and your staff.

I've been out there with the DCR team my staff has to be at the various encampments doing translation and I also know that you know this line of work is incredibly hard and the turnovers really hard and so I just want to say thank you to the staff I'm looking at them you know every day showing up because knowing that what we do is bigger than ourself.

So just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you.

Fire Chief Kusumanga your next.

Thank you so much to you and the brave men and women in our fire department.

And so just thank you for the thorough presentation and it was it was great.

I only actually have one questions for the fire department.

I know that police is the largest budget the largest department in terms of budget for measure you and general fund.

Fire is next in line in terms of the second largest budget and just curious to know.

And maybe Pete can answer this but if you know the answer if you don't you could defer to your staff is I also know that fire department.

Also brings in a large revenue into the city of Sacramento and just curious to know how much.

Does the fire department when we compare all departments in the city of Sacramento who generates the most revenue.

I mean I don't know that's probably a question of Pete but just curious if you know what fires numbers are.

What I'll talk about right now.

I don't know yes so sorry we both interrupted you Chief Kusumanga.

That's okay if you guys want to guess you can guess but I would all what all that you know is this year we're bringing net new revenues close to $10 million.

And that's one of our largest strategies for offsetting.

What that cost would have been when we talk about 23.4 million dollars in the 15% scenario.

It was our ability to bring that new revenue instead of cutting companies or staff from operations or EMS sections.

I'm not going to try and give you an exact number of the total revenue that the fire department brings in because we bring it in in different ways.

The three big buckets are our EMS system and Pete will help me with this but $48 million a year in EMS not all of that is.

It's more after the offsets it's $20 million in revenue it's still an offset to the department.

The prevention is about $3.5 million a year and then tax revenues this year the tax rolls brought in about $350,000 and that's largely not in the city but more in the contract areas in the county that we see that growth in the tax rolls.

I appreciate that chief cost the manga. I'm only asking that question because I know that we're going to be faced with some tough decisions up here as policy makers and I think it's also important to look at our various departments in terms of the revenue they bring in because if we do cut staff that is able to support and bring revenue in it could hurt us in the long run.

I think that's just something that's important to consider. That's the only question I have for right now.

Chief Lester.

Thank you so much for your presentation really really thorough also just want to uplift the work that you've done.

You and your staff has done to take guns off the street I think the numbers speak for themselves and really the hard work of your officers as well and so I just really wanted to thank you for that.

And also thank you for presenting your high level proposed strategy I think it's always hard for every department to come forth and we're going to be having some tough conversation but I appreciate you bring those recommendation forward so that we can consider those.

I'm just one question in your presentation I know these vacancy numbers keep changing every year.

Today you mentioned that there was 182 vacancy and you also mentioned which is really great that we recently hired additional officers as well and so just wanted to know what number of vacancies are we anticipating to fulfill next year.

You know it's a great question so we only have 11 police officers in the academy right now but we and then thank you counsel for the support of the pipeline programs because we were able to create a CSO 3 position which is a permanent CSO position and it's essentially a civilian investigator and so we just open the posting for that that's 10 positions but we usually a trip between 32 and 35 sworn officers every year so.

So if we only graduate 11 or 12 from the academy we don't keep up with the tradition and I think the reason that number changes every year is when you change the authorized FTE and then we have vacancies it kind of fluctuates so you know two years ago we were authorized 7.69 and now we have 7.35 but truly we have 648 uniformed officers right now and so you add that to wherever we were a couple of years ago but that's why it's even confusing for me and this is the world that we live in to be able to track it.

But when our FTE or authorized staffing changes every year and with the vacancies that number can seem pretty confusing.

Thanks chief and then just clarification I wanted to ask Pete and our city manager this but when we have vacancy are those vacancy dollars included in our budget or do we absorb them.

Do we absorb them I think that's important because you know as we're engaging conversation the vacancies for example we keep them in the budget.

So we budget for each position so if a position whether a position is vacant or filled it is included in the budget however we do assume a vacancy factor in our budget so we say hey you know based on historical averages we save roughly 2% on salaries savings and so we include that savings in the budget as well.

And just to answer your previous question around fire fiscal year 24 they brought in just over 61 million dollars of revenues and most of that is through EMS and fire prevention.

That's great thanks and thanks for sharing those numbers. Thanks chief I appreciate you answering that it's just for clarity no more questions for you but I think mainly a direction for staff.

This was like super high level and the various department presented on their recommendation and publicly right now we don't have publicly we don't have the list of like levels of impact one to four and I know that's going to be coming soon.

They were public and sent out Friday a week ago last Friday and they are on the city's finance website so all of the proposed reductions.

So do we on that website have we defined because community has reached out to me and I actually haven't been able to find it to have we've defined what level one is level four to level to level four.

It moves from the least amount of impact to programs or service to the most severe so so who's defining that like I'm just curious we.

The departments that report to the city manager we did all of that together so every department came we went through it they go through it first with the budget office and have a conversation and they come back together and they talk with all the city manager and the assistant city managers and the department director and we.

Decide on what we believe is the level of impact and that is how it's published.

Does the level impact varies from definition from department department to department theoretically they should have it.

It may because the level of impact what is severe in one department to a program and service may not be the same in another department so it could be based on department.

Okay and I'm only asking this because I think in full transparency I have community members that have reached out to me like how you determine what is level one two three and four and you know we can't compare department to department like apples to oranges and so.

The more that we can be clear on those definitions in terms of level of impact department by department would be very helpful for me I know we're still kind of the beginning we're not going to be making these tough decisions until later April may but I think having those definitions.

For all of the departments will be important for me as a policy decision maker so just wanted to provide direction if we can get some clarity around that it would help me in terms of deciding what I'm as a policy maker what am I going to cut because I want to know what the department's definitions are in terms of level one two three and four

and I want to have that information so I can explain to my constituent why I made that decision so.

I just have one more question for Pete and then some comments Pete you know I often hear that as a solution to balancing our budget we should just cancel our contracts with CBOs right and some of our contracts are granted funded but just for our general fund in particular our measure you and our general fund if we were to remove all city contracts that were funded by measure you and general fund would we still be in the red.

So I would have to get back to you I don't know the total amount of general fund that is going to all our contracts off of the top of my head I just say in general what we've been trying to do and present a council are here the individual options and here's the impact of each of those decisions whether that's a service provided by city staff or a service that we contract out for and we just want to put them all on the table and then council can have that discussion but I think that's a good thing.

You know as far as what is our general fund going to all the contracts I just don't know that off the top my head that's great I would love to know that answer before our next budget meeting I think that's really important because I've heard from constituents I've heard from people even today that what we need focus on is just looking at our city contracts and so if we let's just say we limited all our city contracts from the measure from measure you and general fund just curious to know who would be in the red that would be helpful in terms of just clarity on our budget.

And I ask that question because for me at the end of the day as a city we are mainly a people budget and I just want to reaffirm that the majority of our funding goes to pay people who are residents in the city who keeps our city running.

And I know that we're going to have some tough decisions ahead and I'm hoping we're going to be able to manage these challenges together.

And yeah there is no no easy choice moving forward and as we're you know we're headed the next month in April and May we're we're going to have to really evaluate all of the reductions on the table and revenue options as well and so again just we really want to thank DCR police and fire for your for your presentation I know there's going to be many more conversations ahead so those are my comments mayor thank you.

I just know that this is our yes now we're like yeah before we get to vice mayor Talimante just want to know to the public to this is not our budget hearing this is our overview department and serious and obviously we have serious budgetary issues and so it bleeds into the overview because of what we're facing with the budget have we had this three years ago or four years ago we probably wouldn't look at in that lens.

And I will say councilmember that we're I think you make a good point that I look at that and all these tears it's it's not a science it's not 100% objective and we're the ultimate arbiter so we have to start somewhere so I think it's fair that we ask city staff and their eyes what are the least impactful things we could do for neighborhoods throughout the city of Sacramento and they give us their best shot and that's up to us to make the final decision so.

It's not perfect but I think it gives us a good starting point it will start with the budget audit committee and then we'll have ample opportunity I know we'll have you know very difficult discussions back and forth and just to.

You know remind you this was you know when I sat in your seat 15 years ago is the toughest thing that I had to do is make that those two budget votes back to back years and you talk about people we had to send people notices that they're no longer employed with the city of Sacramento so.

We're going to make sure that we value everything backwards and forwards councilmember by smear telements.

All right i'm good to piggyback off of councilmember veins comments just so that the public knows city manager can you please explain so you know if people saw the charts of.

Level one two three four five and I know the page was like 10 pages of cuts and it was kind of smaller read for.

For some people but can you explain what the process is going to look like and when it's going to come to be an a.

Really as I said the the list of public now they're available on the city's website.

We will be bringing those lists to budget and audit this next week on March 25th and that will be the time that if our budget and audit committee members have questions that staff will be available from.

And all of the departments to answer those questions we can also the information that was asked we will be doing supplemental budget information as part of the budget and audit committee.

Reports as well as anytime we come back for a budget item so when council members ask questions that we don't have ready answers to we they will be included in those next.

Pieces of information and then we will propose a budget that will be released the week of April 28th and that will include the actual package.

Of reductions that were selected to balance the budget and then when you hear from our assistant city managers representing the same groups of departments they will be outlining.

The actual reductions that were included in the proposed budget that were chosen from those lists that we've given you so it they become like a menu.

And then we've made some selections and then council can do what their will is after the proposed budget is released on the 20th or the week of the 20th.

Thank you so much.

And you know addressing this budget deficit is not going to be any is easy for any of us for the residents that came to comment I agree that we need to focus on our core city services to our city staff.

We value you in the service that you do to the city of Sacramento and our community.

And for us as council and leadership of the sat city of Sacramento we need to figure out how to grow our revenues because our our expenditures are all facing our revenues.

And if that means going back to the BOT measure to put it on the ballot again do it right this time.

That means working with our economic development department to make sure that we can have more projects that are bringing money in.

And also mean our sales tax is is down and that's because people are hurting financially you know live in page of the paycheck so people don't have that extra income to go be able to go buy something so we get that sales tax.

You know revenue so there's some things that are in our control some things that are not in our control so just want to privacy with that.

I have a few quick questions and so for the person who's for buying Pedro Mr. Pedro for the timeline for Cal aim is there any dollar amount associated with that or when we're going to be come.

All is a poll to get those dollars so the we've applied we're going to the application process and there's a couple of layers of that we finished that part once we get final on that there'll be some training associated with it and then we'll be able to start billing looking like June July.

Okay.

It's.

I hesitate on giving a number to that.

Average reimbursement for like navigation services around 400 425 per individual per month.

Okay.

We have several individuals still out there that aren't signed up with Cal aim in the thousands.

Okay.

So that'll be a stable revenue source if we'll once we become eligible and we become.

It's so Cal aim is through 26 I believe it is 20 26 I think and then there is a looking at a continuation of that.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's all the questions for you and then chief customer.

We had the rail yards EIFD meeting this morning and we discussed the number like just all the new residents are going to be a

populating that so it's going to add to your map significantly and I did ask about the fire station if they were trigger a new fire station and the answer staff told me was no because of River District fire station would be able to one.

You know to reach that area so I want to get your two cents on that and what their calls for service looks like now compared to the amount of people are going to move moving into the rail yards.

So respectfully I disagree with the River District decision there that you heard.

Station 14 can respond to the downtown but the rail yards is geographically cut off by some streets roads and for years we've had plans to build a larger station to service the downtown and the vertical population that we have downtown.

We pulled station three out of downtown and moved it out to the airport in the 80s and we have not built a station downtown since then and our population has gone vertical.

Most departments are size professional apartments have five person companies and a vertical downtown like we have here we have four.

How do we combat that we combat that by adding companies and a station in the rail yards and it's not just like when I have station to running over 5,000 calls a year on the engine and over 3500 calls a year on the truck company and 6,000 calls a year on the medic unit.

That's just one station downtown. It should have three more companies downtown.

Got it. City manager maybe that's a conversation that we have for the EIFD committee and include your your input on this because that sounds troubling.

We can do we can provide you more data than what I'm just I'm speaking to you right now but it is something that we would be happy to speak to the EIF ID committee about.

Okay and then in terms of mandatory overtime so different question. Was there any updates on mandatory overtime and what can be done to improve the problem that we have.

Yeah I'll clear up publicly mandatory overtime is something that this terminology.

It's staffing of the 178 positions and when we don't have enough people signed up we can't let people go home so that becomes a mandatory overtime.

Can we flatten that out and help the city and the fire department save money. Yes we can and I spoke to it briefly about having to academies a year right now we have one big academy that started in January and it graduates in June.

We'll have retirements all summer long and we won't start an academy again until next January.

What I would propose is that we have two academies a year again like we have in the past. It stabilizes the vacancies that we talk about but those vacancies are part of that 178 that work go to work every day so we'll have fewer vacancies sure mandatory.

You still get we will still have overtime because you have injuries you have vacations time off your covering.

Thank you and congratulations to single role academy graduation that I can't make thank you very much and thank you all for.

The patient with us on that one and chief last year next.

Thank you so much.

I know we don't have an narcotics division which I mean it's painful to us especially with now prop 36 how do those two intertwined.

You know we had an narcotics division obviously pre prop 47 and now with prop 36 what we've done is we've designated detective to take on a lot of the ORC type cases and our VCR teams because

violent crime there's an intersection with narcotics and guns they actually do a lot of work in that area but no we don't have a dedicated team so people have to sort of cross train what we don't have are the experts that we're like your narcotics experts.

You know from 15 or 20 years ago but I will say that we've tried to leverage our federal partnerships. That's why that PSP program has been so beneficial because we've done a number of narcotics like you saw the drugs that we're able to confiscate and sees in this last year.

Has a lot of a lot to do with the VCR teams that are out there but also being able to bring an ATF and the DEA and have our federal partners help us with some of the enforcement.

So we were very strategic about the task forces that we serve on they have to benefit the city locally but we do see some benefits but that's the reality of not having a specific team to do that.

Okay thank you so much.

Thank you.

I guess my last comment is when I first started at City Hall in 2018 and I met with every single department to understand what they do.

Everyone talks about this 2007-2008 like golden era of the city of Sacramento before the recession and how everyone wants to get back to that era.

And I mean the recession happened and we came back and then the pandemic happened and I think we need to be real to ourselves.

Like okay we're not probably going to be able to get back to the 2007-2008 golden era and so where are we going to make those sacrifices as we move forward as a city.

And so I think for next year's presentations I think we'll start doing a reflection of 10 years ago today to today.

So 2015 to 2025 and start reflecting on those numbers moving forward in that data moving forward.

Thank you Mayor.

Thank you everyone.

I just want to agree with my colleagues that I think as we look you present our a lot of core services.

Core services that are built in the city of Sacramento's charter especially for our police and fire that as we look for the budget we have to protect.

I will join in echo vice mayor Talamontes.

I do support relooking at the BOT measure specifically such that it is crafted that it reduces taxes on our small businesses and make those who earn over 15 million a year.

Pay their fair share in taxes like our surrounding jurisdictions.

I'm not interested in further increasing the license fees which tend to be more of our small businesses and I know it's coming to law and ledge in May.

So I'm using my two cents in front of everybody to give some feedback.

Mr. Pedro I want to thank you for your leadership.

One of the things I just want to want to bring up and I don't expect you necessarily to have an answer but I think we do need to call it out.

How can the city continue to spend 25.4 million from our general fund on services to the unhoused when we've been consistently talking about what we've been providing isn't necessarily seeing a positive outcome of getting people off the streets and into housing and having a positive impact on their life.

Yes and that's why I am always a contrarian in the room and people don't like to hear my models because they are a shift from what we are doing now such as charging individuals to see in our programs and changing our service model so that's not.

Current structure we're paying for all services for all people all the time and not everybody needs all services at all the time and so shifting that model of service as needed per individual more of that model and then you know ultimately shifting some of this funding to getting some affordable housing when I say affordable I mean.

We're looking at a model right now in terms of supportive housing model and some other models that are for lack of better term ultra low income housing to get people housed.

So charge a small rate for rent and have them pay and create a sustainable model that the city is not constantly paying out every year to provide mass amount of service so there is a lot of things that we can do with the way we have a structure right now.

Thank you I mean I do want to call out we've had a 29% decrease in our homelessness and Sacramento based on the pit but I do think we have to as a council look at our priorities when we have such a huge structural deficit that is outgoing structural deficit and to me taking the bus the cuts majority on police and fire while keeping the unhoused services which I don't think are running efficiently.

Whole is not something that I'm supportive of I know that this council two years ago asked for and started an audit on house unfortunately we know as amazing as our auditors are it does take a while but I think we need to do things faster which I know under your leadership we are looking at it and I do support that but I also acknowledge we can't continue to have $25 million come out of our general fund when we're not seeing a return on investment when our community members are demanding that are off.

We have we have a lot of resources respond more calls and our firefighters have not increased and building another station yet they're taking more calls in the city has grown over 15%.

I can't even meet the minimum standard of four minutes.

More likely we can't even meet anywhere.

Eight minutes on a call based on the 2016 city gate.

So I appreciate everything you're doing, but I do think as a city, as we move forward, we have to balance where the priorities are.

But I just do want to say thank you because I know you're trying to save money and create efficiencies.

So keep at it.

And I will say to a counterpoint to that is we did show reduction in 901 calls because we have the alternate response that we do.

The instant management team and having 311.

If we pull it off the table, we might get more officers, we might get more firefighters.

They're going to respond to more calls.

It's going to absorb immediately.

So just thinking of that equation, there is some value certainly in having our response.

And I am supportive of IMT, but it's where's that balance as to where data proven that it shows where's the sweet spot that we get the return on adjustment.

So thank you.

Going to go a little out of order, Chief Lester.

Can I clarify one thing too, just so you all know.

We're going to come back and have a whole conversation.

Brian is prepping for that.

We're going to let him go on vacation, I think, in between this and that.

But we're going to come back and talk about a holistic look at what we're doing, how we're doing it, what we could do differently.

So thank you, you said that table.

I think the mayor had asked for it a couple of weeks ago, so we will be coming back shortly.

Awesome.

Stay tuned.

Anybody listening?

Thank you for coming up with kind of like the five year view, I think it really says where we were before the pandemic pandemic and what you are doing.

Again, I support our core services and the office of violence prevention.

So what if anything can our police department do to look at, because we know the fire department can charge certain fees?

Does the police department have that same capabilities?

No, as a matter of fact, people think I think that revenue from citations comes back to the general fund and it does not.

It goes, the majority of it goes to the state, would you get some vehicle license fee money, some Saved True Money?

We get a second.

I need to highlight that.

So you get pulled over for speeding.

Yeah, it's not coming back to the city of Sacramento.

No.

So all of that revenue that we generate, if it's a city code violation, for example, if we were to write a city code violation for a parking violation, then yes, that would.

It's a smaller amount.

But no, it actually doesn't come back.

And I don't know that you would want your police department to be generating revenue, right?

I mean, I think there can be potentially in here in here, in here, conflict there.

But, you know, so unfortunately we're not one of your departments that make money.

I know we cost the city quite a bit in labor for the services that we provide.

We don't have the same ability as, say, fire does or some of these other revenue generating systems.

I do think there is a benefit to what we're doing with all response since you were just asking about it.

I know we took a, we went to Albuquerque to look at the Albuquerque Community Safety Model.

And I know that combined with DCR and the fire department, that it's not necessary revenue generating.

But I looked at it as how do you save the city money?

How do we reduce some of these calls and not have such an expensive response, you know?

There are things that are difficult like last time when we did the Prop 36 presentation.

I talked about the jail wait times and what that actually costs.

And I don't know that I can actually put a number on it.

I know what I pay in booking over time.

I know how many hours or officers spend down there.

But having officers not on the street is hard to quantify what that is.

So I think there's some efficiencies that can be had.

During the presentation, we talked about legislative changes.

And we're working with one of our assembly members and senators to look at some of traffic improvements.

And one thing that the state has slowly started to take a look at is automated traffic enforcement.

And I would like to see those revenues somehow be funneled back into the city.

I don't know if that's possible or not, but that was our recommendation.

So it's not a police officer, but it's a speed camera or something else to have administrative penalties be routed back to the city.

So we have made that recommendation.

Thank you. Thank you, Chief, because I think that is great.

Because individually, I am supportive of that legislation.

So I know one of the things that I can request is if a city implements this that, you know, maybe there is an oversight fee for the state, but that revenue does come back to the city.

When people do run our red lights, I believe in that added extra accountability, which I think will further make it safer for pedestrians in cars.

When you come back, as we next have this conversation, I think it would be interesting, because I do think we need to hear from how DCR police and fire are implementing an alternate response, because I know we have the single role and I am T and some of the things what is the best practices plan for making sure that our officers may not be the right first responder.

Or we have, you know, our single role amulets is some handling the lower level and what that looks like for coordination, because I know each of you are doing something, but I'm not sure I understand the comprehensive approach.

So where fire, Mr. Pedro and you, Chief, come back and kind of how does this all, how are we all working together to do?

Absolutely. A big proponent. Thank you.

Thank you. That's all I got for you.

Chief Costa Manga.

Can I pick up or see left off? Yes, you may.

I think part of it, part of it, I do want to talk about with single role, the medic partnership that we have.

We have a transport to alternate destination. We have medics that are certified, it's called TAD.

We'll be able to get people to the right place on the first try, meaning that not everybody has to go to the ER that we visit with.

So that's important. And you have the three legs of the stool sitting in here today.

We do work together and we can give a real call for a hints of report on how we do all this.

Some of this is, if the fire department has been the slowest in getting some of these things in place, because we do have a lot of local ordinances that we have to follow as well.

But we have a lot of backing both in the county and the state to do what we're doing.

Thank you. I got to see a lot of that firsthand while I participated in the fire ops 101.

I think as I've indicated, the biggest surprise was going into the simulated smoke filled room and being functionally blind and trying to figure out what to do and how to do it.

And being able to will aware full gear and climb up the ladder, which also brought up understanding.

Can you just briefly talk about in the last four years, how much has the cost increased to get a fire engine?

The increased cost to a fire engine or fire truck has got a 50, 56%.

So basically engine from 600,000 to 1.2 to a certain 750?

Yes. And then what was the average time for getting equipment to what it is now?

It was roughly a year and it's 41 months now. And we've seen that since times were stretching out before the pandemic.

It was really good during the pandemic and then after the pandemic and people started to normalize everybody ordered what they put on hold.

And the factories have not come up and it is not, it doesn't matter which factory you're going to.

Or maker.

They're all have a glut and the one that we work with has the least amount of backup.

And could the tariffs impact this as well?

Yeah, I mean, it has in the past. We had a steel tariff. I can't remember what year it was 2018 or 17.

That have greatly impacted and increased our cost a lot.

We have a looming tariff that we're concerned about.

And there's price increases every year for the companies that build this equipment in a central part of America.

They have to pay their employees to and costs are going up as they negotiate their contracts for their workers.

Are 24 stations enough or a standard to allow for adequate coverage in response time in our city?

No, the 24 stations are, I'll just go back. It's farther back than 10 years.

And I can bring you a more data driven report on this. But when we built stations 60 years ago, what some of our stations are 50, 60, 90 years old.

We built them for two pieces of equipment, an engine and a truck, and men only.

So we have to look at our station stations going in the future for a minimum of three pieces of equipment, an engine truck and a medic unit, and to accommodate our staff into the future.

We have women on every shift in every firehouse. And we can't accommodate them in two every day.

And we have to look forward to that. And it's not just that. It's how we store our equipment to keep from exposing our firefighters to cancer.

It's how we provide work out equipment and rest areas in the station, all things that have changed.

And I can't remember exactly what year, 1982 or 83, the department ran about 15,000 calls a year with 21 stations.

We run 110,000 a year with 24 stations and 34 companies.

Which highlights, I also looked at our 2024 to 29 CIP and just the major long term projects that can't be completed in five years and need to be addressed or finalized equal approximately 561 million, which means new fire stations upgrading our old stations getting new equipment.

Does that sound about right?

Yeah, just the ten stations alone that we have identified as the need to replace or reoccupy would be 250 million.

And then if you add in the ongoing and the additional stations that we would need to build in the city, yes, 500 million.

So based off of those answers, council members, I would hope that you could follow up individually and talk to our city manager in 2016, the city authorized a standards of response coverage report by city gate.

And back then, I will tell you, Vice Mayor Talamontes, Nautomas had the longest response time, 30 and 43 call time took over nine minutes.

Station 15 was the only one that took longer and travel time 30 and 43 took the longest 15 was the only one that took longer.

We know we need an upgraded new fire station downtown. I think we need to look at and update the 2016 city gate report, which please let the city manager know if you support that.

Because I think we need to look at what is what is a potential you saw Sacramento County do a bond measure to update and support its fire stations rebuild modernize and get equipment.

The fact that our fire department gets $3 million CIP a year barely covers an engine and a truck. And we know we need to do more than that, but in order to really understand our need.

And how I think the fire in LA really highlighted that can happen here what it looks like. And I would hope that you could talk to our city manager to say you support updating the city gate report from 2016 to really look at what we need to do to create safety.

In our city, but I want to thank you for answering my questions.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you just a few comments. I think that we've hit this. This is first of all, this is extremely helpful for me as a new mayor.

And I assume council members, Plucky, Bob, and Dickinson getting an overview of departments that we know a lot about, but having the slides and analysis of where we've been and where we're headed, especially coming up to the budget extremely helpful.

Just a few things I want to share.

So first, DCR, thank you for the work that you do. I know some folks earlier said we should get ready and no, absolutely not.

I think you're all doing a great job. I just want to say one thing, kudos for saving us money on contracts, looking to do things carefully. I just want to say every penny that you save, in my view, goes back to DCR to do more DCR work.

And that's not clearing encampments, which I know is a part of your assignment, but most importantly, opening up shelter, especially tiny home shelters.

And we've seen success with these tiny home ones. So every penny that you save through this, I view, goes back to you to open up more locations. So those three and when calls can be effective in getting people into needed shelter off of the street.

And then for PD, I just think it's important to know maybe that the chief can kind of wander up here and comment on these two things.

The vacancies is a big issue and how it's scored in the budget, but I think it's key to say that those monies are key to pay for backfilling and pay for overtime for people to fill when a roll call happens.

So we have a lot of those 30 plus percent down, including ours. And we have 911 call time or 911 answer times that our state required. And so we are able to explain that certainly with a 20 minute presentation, I couldn't bring that here, but we definitely have that I can provide what we're budgeted for what we spend and where we spend it and why.

And I think it's it's a good point that vice mayor brings up that 2008 and nine really six through eight when that big rush all those automos homes were built all that flash of property tax money coming to the city. We're approving new fire stations and hiring new police officers. Those were the good old days. And I'm not sure that's happening again. This is kind of a new normal.

So I get that, but I think it is important to note and it's amazing that we have 65,000 more people and 150 to fewer people who are police personnel.

And I have a sworn so that's wild to take when you tell that to people in the public and I did for a year and a half just focusing on this pure mathematics people are just blown away by that. What are you telling me this.

So how would you describe how we've been able to do that and not have a severe impact on community safety that 150 fewer people working for PD and 65,000 more people.

Yeah, and that's actually and I was thinking about when you made the comment. I'm not typically somebody who looks back and says, oh, we did this way and we always have to do it that way. We have gotten a lot more efficient. You've got an extremely group of various talented commanders in the back. We demand a lot of them. I think a lot of it has to do with leveraging technology, making sure that we use data the right way. Like traffic is a great example of that. If we just sent eight traffic officers out into the city and said, right tickets every day, you would not have seen those reductions.

But you saw those reductions because they track their work with traffic engineering. They look at the high collision intersections. They everyone has traffic complaints. I know in your district that we focus on. So we're very strategic about doing that. So I would say from the reductions, you know, 15 years ago, 17 years ago, we've gotten much better in providing public safety with limited resources.

And I think the reason that we go back to sort of that bar is because I think a lot of us feel like we were keeping pace with city growth and it stopped and, you know, thank goodness for measure you and for the work that the mayor and council have done to really try and uphold a lot of key and core services.

But I do think we're at that point where the city continues to grow, you know, we look at different areas and think how are we going to police that how are we going to provide fire services because we know our staff is not growing.

And I think we would be remiss if we weren't very honest and transparent about that during these decision making processes.

Thank you. And I don't have any other fire comments, but chief, I want to let you know to be ready Friday night. We're going to be out there for 12 hours. I'm not doing the 24 hours.

I know I'm ashamed. I know I'm ashamed because I have literally opening days Saturday morning, but I know my colleagues have said that you don't really count as a right along unless you do a full 24, but we'll start. I'll start with 12.

Mayor, you're going to throw a baseball after doing 12 hours. Yeah, yeah, maybe go on a bike ride with Lucky Bumps. What else I need to do?

Okay, I'm actually going to wear a helmet when they come to baseball. Yeah, and you get a cool jacket.

Thank you.

Okay. So let's adjourn to close session.

We will now adjourn to a special meeting for the purpose of a closed session. We have a quorum of council members in chambers.

There are two items on the agenda.

Item number one, pursuant to government code section 54956.9D, David I,

to discuss matters pertaining to pending litigation.

People of the state of California versus city of Sacramento, Sacramento County Superior Court case number 23,

Charles Victor 008658.

Item number two, pursuant to government code section 54956.9.

D, David I, to discuss matters pertaining to pending litigation.

Prime auctions LLC at all.

The city of Sacramento, Sacramento County, Sacramento County Superior Court case number 23,

Charles Victor 008662.

We have no speakers on any of the closed session agenda items.

And may or you may adjourn to closed session.

We're adjourned.

Thank you.