All right, good evening, everyone.

We have a full, full um chamber this evening.

Like to call you and welcome you this evening to the a Monday, April 20th, 2026 meeting of the Measure U Community Advisory Commission.

The meeting is now called to order.

Will you please, Clerk, establish quorum for this meeting?

Thank you, Chair.

Members, please unmute your microphones.

Member Smith?

Here.

Member Salah.

Here.

Member Cook.

Here.

Member Miller is absent.

Member Johnston?

Here.

Member Ruiz Benitez.

Member Noveo.

Here.

Member Jurofsky?

Here.

Member Pascal?

Here.

Member Fry Lucas.

Member Rosa is absent.

Chair Georgioff is absent.

And Vice Chair McGee.

Present.

Thank you.

We have Quorum.

Thank you.

All right.

Like to remind everyone, members of the public in chambers this evening with us that if you'd like to speak on an agenda item, please turn in your speaker slip before the item begins.

Once the item is called, we'll no longer be accepting speaker slips.

You have two minutes to speak once you are called in.

We'll now proceed with today's agenda.

I'd like to ask if Commissioner Smith would lead us with the Pledge of Allegiance and land acknowledgement.

Oh, excuse me.

Pardon me.

Please rise to the opening of land acknowledgements.

The original people of this land, the Nissanun people, the Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains, Miwok, Patwin peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rangeria, 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 acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous peoples, history, contributions, and lives.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Commissioner Smith.

We have a great occasion this evening.

We are welcoming a new commissioner.

So we are going to give the commissioner a warm welcome and a few moments to share anything.

So we're welcoming to MeasureU, Commission Jose Bernardo, Ruyez Benitez.

And so take a moment to um introduce yourself.

Happy to uh thank you everyone and also thank you for the warm welcome as soon as I got in and got a little late.

Uh Jose Ruiz Benites, uh lifelong resident of District 8, that's represented by Councilmember Maivang, uh right on MetaView.

Um have them now opportunity to work at the state level, uh both as a fellow with the senator from the Central Valley and now from an assembly member over in South Central Um LA.

Not quite South Sac for me, but um, you know, the issues are still the same.

So honored to be here, first of all, and you know, thank you to everyone here.

Once again, welcome.

All right, next we're gonna move to approval of the consent calendar.

Clerk, are there any minute members of the public that wish to speak on the consent calendar?

Thank you, Chair.

I have no speaker slips for the consent calendar.

Okay.

Is there a motion and a second for the consent calendar?

Or do we have any commissioners that wish to speak on that as well?

All right, seeing none, can I have a motion and a second for the consent calendar?

Do we have a motion?

Do we have a second?

I'll second it.

All right, thank you so much for that.

And so we have a motion by Commissioner Salah and a second by Commissioner Novell.

Noveo.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstain?

All right, the motion passes.

We will now proceed with the discussion calendar.

All right.

And so with that, we're gonna be having Brian Pedro, director of the Department of Community Response.

All right.

Good evening, Chair, Commission.

Uh Brian Pedro, director of the Department of Community Response.

And we'll uh make it uh worth your while and as painless as we can this evening.

All right, a little background on uh where I uh came from.

Uh with the fire department for 27 years.

Uh during that time, um I also worked as a registered nurse, and I was also in the uh military, which I retired this last year as a uh lieutenant colonel, and uh so I've been very busy, and that brought me to this job, which is keeping me as busy as those three jobs kept me in the past.

Um this is our mission statement.

I think it's very accurate to uh what we do every day.

So the uh mission of our department is to provide compassionate and individualized support to people experiencing homelessness with the goal of aiding them on their uh path toward recovery, wellness and sufficiency.

I think this is um exactly what we do every day and uh continue to do.

Uh our department is structured uh with um the office of the director and then two divisions the community outreach division, which is our outreach workers that are uh out in the field uh every day uh making connections and uh meeting people where they are, and then we also have our homeless services division, which is uh all of our shelter contracts and shelter management.

Um we have uh 30 uh 38 FTEs, and out of those 38 FTEs, we've offset some of the funding from opioid settlement funding, uh, two positions, and um also um uh almost another two positions for uh there's a HAP funding administration that we can build back and recoup some of that.

So there's about 400,000 in HAP and opioid that supplements our budget.

Uh here's a breakdown of our overall budget.

So DCR's operating costs, um, it's it's about 17 million as a base with uh almost six million in operating, and then the other um 12 uh 115 is for projects, and so that's our base, and then on the project side, we get an additional uh 22.2 million from measure U.

So that brings our project funding up to the 33.7, and then the offsets of HAP 6, which is um 129, and then we carried over 1.6 million from our previous year's savings to give us that 14.5, which gives us a total of 54.1 million for this year.

Um what I will note is that as we as our HAP shrinks year after year, which seems to be the trend right now, um, we're we're increasing our measure you need.

Um so what I am trying to do is offset that by any means that that we can.

Um we do have um encampment resolution funding grants that we applied for and received, which helps uh extend our funding.

Um and then uh this year we were one of the first cities that applied for um I'd say one of the only cities that applied for Callim reimbursement, so medical reimbursement for services that we provide.

Um we just started that within the last couple weeks, so that will help offset some of our costs as well.

Uh this is what um the calendar year 2025 looked at uh like we had uh 1,614 shelters, uh shelter beds served uh 4,457 people, and 41% to uh improved exits.

So improved exits is anything that is in a better situation than where they currently are.

So that can be back home, rejoining them with uh family, or to permanent housing.

And uh calendar year 25, 2025, we had 825 people that went to permanent housing, our city funded shelters, we have our our congregate shelters, our non-congregate, our trans transitional aged youth, our TE shelters, um, women and family.

Um there's also some uh DV in that.

Um we have our respite center, which is our 23 hour overnight, which we also use for weather respite, uh, and then we have our city motel program.

So I'd be remiss to not mention our incident management team, which does have team members and some of our measure you uh funding going towards cleanup and the DCR staff that is also uh part of the incident management team.

We had uh this is these are the calls that come in through 311, any homeless related calls.

We had 37 uh 37,000 calls for service that we received and closed.

Um removed six million pounds of garbage from our streets and uh achieved 9,459 compliances, and uh most of that is voluntary.

There is also some involuntary compliance that goes along with that.

Uh, this is just part of that balance of our dual mandate of trying to help as many people as we can, but also providing uh uh you know, enforcement to our ordinances and keeping our businesses uh viable and trying to reduce our impacts overall in the city, so we're not simply one sided on this.

We're working together to try and keep this balance for everybody.

Um so some of the things that we're doing this year is our Roseville Road campus.

We um did receive uh an encampment resolution fund grant for this project, uh expanding it out.

Uh we purchased a hundred and thirty-five homes.

Uh we were also uh able to negotiate the price of the tiny homes, which allowed us to purchase another 35.

Um the additional 35 will be in place this summer.

We have 135 at the site right now, that'll be 170, plus we already have 100 on the um on the property now.

So this significantly expanded.

I will tell you that those um 135 that went in in February were filled two weeks ago, we had them completely full.

Um so the idea that uh people don't want shelter or don't uh want to come inside.

Uh I can tell you that if we had the 35 that we put in there this summer will be filled up in uh two weeks or less people want to go inside.

Um we also um OID took the lead on this, but we were in conjunction with another encampment resolution fund grant, which was a street to housing program.

Um this was literally taking people from the street into apartments and getting them leased out.

Um that program was uh a year into it.

Um there's 102 apartments that's serving 127, 127 people.

Um so that is a another 100 people, 127 people we were able to get off the street with this program.

And uh it's uh as of this point, we're we're we're 91% of the people that um we originally put in the program are still in the program.

So uh it's been very successful to this point.

Uh what else we have this year is safe camping.

Um safe camping is at baseline uh safe place for somebody to camp and have a bathroom, have a shower, and um have a safe place to sleep at night.

This is our uh least expensive that we can put up, and uh we put this up in in the river district, it should be fully operational hopefully in May, and this is for a hundred uh city provided tents, again with uh bathrooms, showers, and um security, bringing people in as many people as we can to get it off the river district.

And what we want to try and do is use this as our continuum.

So if we can get someone off the street into safe camping, then we can get them stabilized and get them into one of our shelters and try and get them from our shelters into permanent housing.

So this I look at this as one of the many things that we need to have something available to to anybody, depending on where you are on your journey of trying to get out of homelessness.

So again, I'm I'm excited that we're we're getting this up and going.

And then we have our microcommunities, which has been discussed.

If you haven't heard about this, uh there's been plenty of talk about it.

So this is another lane that we've talked about.

We have many of our seniors that are in our emergency shelters, and they're sitting there only because they have nowhere that they can afford to go.

This is that lane that we're trying to create.

Um it's uh communities of up to 40 homes.

They're a little bit bigger.

The the tiny homes that we have in our shelters are 70 square feet, these are 120 square feet.

I'll have amenities, I'll have bathrooms, showers, um, laundry rooms, um, meals, transportation, the case managers on site, and then um uh security uh monitoring on site 247, and so these projects are in the building department right now reviewing plans, and um I'm hoping that we'll break ground on one soon and uh get these up and going because it is another area that we need for the our whole continuum to transition people.

Uh we've been busy, and we're also looking for a safe parking site because there are plenty of people that are living in their in their uh cars uh or their RVs, and uh looking for a safe place for them to park at night as well that has uh security um restrooms, shower availability, and again some uh um services available to support that and try and get them into housing or some better place that we can get them.

Um so we have a couple of locations we're looking at.

We don't have a contract signed, but um, I'm hoping that we'll find something real soon and get it get an agreement and get this moving forward.

Um so funding on this.

We um have been very active in making sure that we're diligent with our funding and our budget.

Um we had an 8.8 million dollar savings this year through our contract negotiations.

Uh out of that eight eight, we use are using six million of that to cover our operations of our new safe camping, safe parking, um, and our microcommunities, and then we put uh we have a 2.8 million in the budget to be projected to actually reduce the funding need for DCR.

Um so with that approval will be 2.8 uh less next year.

Um again, we uh applied for Cal Aim and uh searching for revenues.

We were uh awarded um a site to grant, and that was 168,000 to actually help the program, so we're not coming out of pocket to get this program up and going because there's a significant lift administrative lift to get the program going.

And lastly, I'll leave this um Tom Mitchell.

Um we have been uh we've known Tom for a long time.

He actually got permanent housing last week.

Um and he has had a long journey, and I think the significance of this is the long journey of from beginning to actually getting to permanent housing is not as um, I don't know that anybody thinks it's easy, but um I don't think that people realize how difficult it is.

Um so uh Tom had a long two-year journey.

Um actually went to his brothers and uh wasn't working out there, so we came back to our shelter and we gave it another try.

And like I said, last week we got them into permanent housing, so that's why we're out here.

And uh didn't want to uh make this uh too long and drawn out and uh kind of give you a down dirty of where your money's going and uh I'm open to any questions you may have.

All right, thank you, Brian, and the department of community response.

Clerk, do we have any members of the public that wish to speak on this?

Thank you, Chair.

I do have one speaker slip, Mr.

Lambert Davis.

Uh first of all, I want to give a uh shout out to uh Mr.

Cook.

See, the last time I was at Measure U, Mr.

Cook made a profound statement, and you're seeing the results of that tonight.

The statement you made, which is true because I went to a lot of measure U meetings, and Measure U was not for what I'm hearing tonight.

It was for the underserved community.

But then when they combined it, then it to me it became uh what you would call peculiar.

You don't want any peculiarity when it comes to finance.

It's very simple to do.

So shout out to you because with your courage to make that kind of statement, I've never seen the uh audience as big of an attendance to measure you since I've been coming here.

And I believe it's a direct of what you said and what I said right after what you said that brought this about.

Now this group is is uh I think they should be audited because all of the money coming in and all of the people that are homeless, we're talking about 140 beds.

That's a hundred, I don't know if that's 140 people or what, but it's off.

Um when I really look at it, I I didn't even know they had opiate funding, you know.

Uh HHAP to me, that almost tells me that uh some people don't want homeless to end because if it ended, they would uh not get hat money, they wouldn't get opiate money.

So I mean that's a that's that's actually a recipe for contractors to uh do what's called bid rigging.

Thank you for your comments, Chair.

I have no additional speakers on this item.

All right, now are there any commissioners that wish to speak on this topic?

Or item all right, calling um Commissioner Pascal.

Thank you.

I have um a few questions.

Uh first I wanted to thank you.

Um last time you were here, you invited commissioners to um write along with you and see the work of DCR, and I will admit I I approached it with a lot of skepticism.

Um, but I learned a lot, and I definitely I saw the compassion um that I didn't think I would see in terms of how your team approaches the job, and so I want to thank you for that opportunity.

And if it's something that you still is still on the table, I would really encourage other commissioners to do that.

Um it it really was it was eye-opening.

Um I've also seen uh things in the community that I didn't feel like were so compassionate.

Like I was down here by Caesar Chavez Park, like right after Christmas, it was you know, 30 in the 30s, and I saw people's like you know, those FEMA blankets that look like tin foil to help people stay warm, getting swept into the trash with coats and tents and other things that were keeping people warm, and that was that was tough.

Um I just wanted to I wanted to just express by both sides of the coin.

But in terms of questions, um I got I have two questions I wanted to see if you could shed some light on.

One is what is the status right now?

Like you guys have done a lot of great stuff in recent years.

What's the status right now of like how much shelter we have relative to the need?

Like, have we made progress on getting the waiting list down?

Like, you know, or what what's the what's the big picture?

Like, are we are we chipping away and how much?

And then, secondly, like where do you think is our the best use of our dollars right now?

If you had, you know, if we could write if we could write it a blank check, where would you, you know, where would you put the money?

Or if we could write a small check, where would where would we get the biggest bang for the buck?

Uh that's a loaded question.

Um, so shelter beds.

Um we have uh the 1600, we will be over 2,000 when we get the rest of this um built out.

That's city capacity um between us and the county.

I think we'll be around the 3,000 mark.

Um, we did the pit count in January.

We'll see where it comes out.

Um there is a ratio of what you should have in emergency shelter beds, which you should have in rapid rehousing, permit supportive across a uh a number, whatever your number of your your count is in your city.

And so I we're getting close to the max number of emergency shelter beds that we should have, but I'll caveat that with the entire system has to work for that number to work.

Like if you have an emergency shelter system that will move people out and get them into uh interim housing, transitional housing, permanent housing, then that number works.

Uh, if that system is slow to because of availability, then obviously you'll need more capacity.

Um so it's kind of a convoluted answer.

Uh none of these answers are are if someone's giving you a direct answer.

Uh I can tell you that they haven't been doing this work because there is no exact science to dealing with uh with uh homelessness and every aspect that's related to it.

Um then where our money would be best spent.

That is the challenge of what we're trying to figure out, and again, it goes back to um every person has a specific need.

Um, and I'm not saying like we need to meet the thousands of individual needs of every person, but everybody falls into some need category, and trying to have something available is what we're trying to balance.

Um that said, I said I would say probably services is where we need to focus.

And the challenge is and this is not calling out the county, this is actually probably being more transparent with it, is that behavioral health services.

Everybody says we need behavioral health services and we need substance services.

Yes, we do.

There are many people that have behavioral health concerns and substance use concerns.

The challenge with that is we could have all the behavioral health clinicians in the world out and and making those contacts.

Um, but if somebody does not want that service, then we don't have a mechanism to force you to take that service, and so that is a big big challenge.

Um we can have the all the behavioral health we we want, but if people aren't accepting the service, then what and uh so I would say working on trying to shore up that gap.

Um I mean, there's there's a we can I could talk all night about where we should put our money.

Um but here's what I will tell you, and and and this is something that um I I I keep you know foot stomping, is that um we look at our 54 million of what we spent this year, and it's seems like a lot of money, it is a lot of money, but when you start dividing it out amongst the number of people that we are helping, it is not that much money.

And I'll give you an example of we pulled some numbers.

So dollars per homeless person for Sacramento, we're at 9,000 per person, is what we're spending.

San Jose is spending 33,000 per person, San Diego spending 29,000 per person, Los Angeles is spending 20,000, and San Francisco spending 101 per person.

So we're way under, way under what other cities are spending on their per person dollar, and our homeless budget are 50 million, and I will add in another 10 because we have the ERF that we got, so that gives us a little more spending power.

So our budget with saying uh 1.7 billion total budget and 60 million being spent, it's three and a half percent of our budget.

Um San Jose spending three and a half percent, but their budget is 216 million.

So uh San Diego spending 315 million, Los Angeles, 950 million, and San Francisco 846 million.

So uh what we're doing with our money and how we're keeping our our homeless count to where it is, is um, I think something to at least put in context of how we're spending our money.

And I will tell you that I have combed through and we will comb through again all of our contracts, and that makes sure that we are spending the more money that we can save, the more people that we can help with the fixed amount of funding, and that's the way I look at it.

And uh like I said, 8.8 we saved this year, we saved that last year too.

It's going back in to build out more capacity, and uh we will continue to make those dollar stretches best we can.

Thanks.

Commissioner Smith.

Thank you.

Um as you know, the uh city has projected that they're going to have a deficit, and um I think the last number I heard was something in the order of six, seven percent.

Uh and everything costs more these days, um, with a two percent inflation rate that puts you at roughly a nine to ten percent um deficit in terms of real dollars going to people.

If you had if you experienced realistically a 10 percent cut in your funding, which of these programs would would remain viable?

And um if all of them are, how are we gonna make the cut?

Where where does it make the most sense to to make cuts?

Yeah.

Um so on our budget proposal, our budget cut proposal was um 3.2 million for our um city motel program.

We because I always like to project and look ahead and look at the future of not having funding.

Um we had already started working on the city motel program two years ago, and um that program was over nine million for it's uh for our families only, and it's 200 rooms.

It was over 9 million when we started a couple years ago.

Um last year we renegotiated our contracts, got it down to 7.8.

We renegotiated again and got it down to 6.5, and then we restructured the program uh just recently we'll start it in June, and it's a city motel voucher program.

So even with the 3.2 million from that program that we projected for our budget cut, um we can still keep that program at capacity by the way that we've restructured it.

Um so that was one of the things that we looked at.

The other one is X Street is also on our um six million dollar budget cut proposal.

Um I think that there is room to even with that give back for that.

Um I think that I'm looking at ways that we can shift around and still keep capacity.

Um so there will be a point where I can only lean us out so much and keep capacity.

Um I think we're getting close to there.

Uh, and then at that point, then it will be shutting down something.

Right.

Um that is you know that's uh that's a question to Mayor Council and uh how much they want to support.

Right.

But effectively all the programs would still function as of the 10 gadget right now.

We're gonna be functioning.

All right, Commissioner Salah.

Yes, um, thank you for the presentation, and it was um very informative.

And I just want to say it a few years ago, you the city consolidated the efforts into your office of community response, because before it was very siloed, and I think it was costing the city a lot more in resources to do it that way, and so that's consolidation, because I've I've seen it over a couple of years, has effectively reduced the kind of money that's being spent and increased, and I and I could just speak to district three in my community, which mainly I live off of Northgate and Garden Land.

And um a year ago, I would say we had a real problem with um homelessness on the streets, the garbage, there was a lot of issues, and your office has done a phenomenal job in cleaning it up, so so much so that you don't see it on Northgate anymore, even in Gardenland.

If I go to Gardenland Park, I don't see what I used to see where the garbage, the homelessness, and the community generally is very pleased.

I mean, you still there's work to be done, no doubt, but it's made an improvement.

I'm not even the under the bridge coming here on 16th, because I I go from Northgate and I I travel down no 12th.

Um I was so great to see last week it being cleaned up.

It was really sad to see it so much garbage and homeless there because it's a it's right next to this beautiful mural that unfortunately has been damaged.

Um that it's cleaned up, and so those little gleamers of hope is it's not it's still far from solving the problem because the homeless problems didn't open overnight, it didn't happen overnight, and it's complex, and I appreciate all the work that you're doing to address it and the city's doing to address it.

It is a costly endeavor, and um, and if we don't want if we and it has to be a comprehensive approach.

So I have two questions.

One is I I really um council member a couple years ago kept saying, and I think we brought it up last year, is um when someone the longer someone is homeless, the more costly it is to get them lifted up, stabilized and into ultimate permanent housing.

It's very difficult.

So the after a year the need becomes greater when they're homeless.

So prevention, prevention is key, is not key, it's one of the tools that we really need to focus on is how do we prevent individuals from being homeless because we'll save money.

And then how do you identify someone who's been on homeless, like recently homeless and intervene with those individuals?

Because again, the longer they're homeless, the more the need has increased.

That is one, and then the other one is I know you mentioned that the county's responsible for behavior health because they get all that behavioral health money.

How do you how do you work with the county and get the resources to provide in in these shelters and um temporary shelters, permanent shelters to address, and mainly it's the the mental health is is I think mental health and substance of you go hand in hand.

So how do you how do you get the county to step up?

Do you have county work working with you?

There are they they give you reason how did the resources come from the county to help support what you're trying to do?

It's not it's not linear and trying to separate, well, we only do this part, and county only does that part.

Can't be that way because it's never gonna work.

So I'm just interested in how how that works.

Um so both really good questions.

The prevention piece, um, we're we have always had a prevention program.

Um it uh originally started with some definition that um wasn't uh reactive enough to catch people or you're catching them so late that that they're falling into homelessness.

Um we have um two million dollars of PAP that we're putting this out of the city funding towards prevention to uh along with all the other funding that's in prevention from the COC's uh funding.

And so we're really digging into prevention this year.

We have had um a lot of success with it thus far.

Um and it's it's looking at um there are a lot of factors because with prevention, unless it's very targeted, then it's just supplemental income to help somebody stay in their home.

Um it has to be targeted, and you have to look at who is not likely to fall in homelessness, but you know is going to fall into homelessness.

Um otherwise your prevention dollars will get sucked up quickly, just trying to support everybody.

Um so it's uh it's a very targeted uh group.

Um there's been so many studies to determine what that looks like.

Um there is um, you know, a one one way is to look at who's already using a lot of social services.

Um, if they're on uh um CalFresh and they're using a lot of social services, then their likelihood of needing services to stay housed are uh higher, and um also um any um interventions with um the court system jail more likely that they're going to fall into homelessness and those are just two of the many categories, but um we have a a pretty robust program right now, but we're digging into it even more to look at trying to help more people quicker further upstream, but not so far upstream that that uh that you're spending money on people that aren't necessarily going to fall into homelessness, and that's the challenge.

That's the balance on prevention.

Um behavioral health.

So we have a city county partnership.

Uh we're three years into a five-year city-county partnership, and within that partnership we have um behavioral health clinicians that are assigned to the um city.

We have them in uh originally they started with clinicians in the outreach setting, and trying to provide behavioral health services in an outreach setting is uh as you can imagine challenging.

Um so we shifted them and into our shelters, and so we have clinicians in our shelters, and they've been uh just in looking at it over the last six months of data because we did it um a little over six months ago, but now we've looked back for six months, and that shift in itself has been significant in making engagements and referrals.

The challenge with it is we can find the individuals, we can get them to accept to go into a program, we can make the referral, and then that's what we can see on our end as a city of visibility of making those referrals to behavioral health, and then once they're referred, then they're on the county side with uh the behavioral health services, and that's the visibility that we don't clearly have, and they do report out on their behavioral health services uh with our city-county partnership agreement, but that is just in that scope of city-county partnership.

So that's that's the visibility that we don't have, and part of it is the system itself.

Once you um get into treating somebody uh there's a certain amount of HIPAA involved in that and and personal information on the treatment side that can't just be liberally shared with everybody.

Okay, I just have um a follow-up to the do you work because CBOs, they're their front line, and they um a lot of times they serve those communities or individuals that they become aware of if something's not done, this person's gonna be homeless.

How do how do you interface with CBOs that like I and I know for Stanford settlement, oftentimes I'm hearing them say there's an individual or families that they need support, and if not, they're gonna be homeless.

How how does that how do you interface with the CBOs?

Um, well, as far as and this is the challenge of what we're trying to do with the whole 211 system is that we we aren't getting requests from everybody, and so getting them into the two on one system and doing as an assessment as they come in is the best way that we have currently to try and sort out the needs of everybody that we have that needs support and determine if this person from because there's no shortage of people finding people that are going to fall into homelessness or are in homeless, uh most of the times they're already in the system and we're already seeing them and down the road on some program.

Um so really, I mean, two on one, of course, they can always reach out to us, and and they do.

We get phone calls from the back line, so to speak.

Um but yeah, we're open to anybody contacting.

Thank you.

Just a quick time check for commissioners.

We do have four departments presenting at this meeting, so um, we're at kind of the 45 minute mark for the first department.

If each department takes 45 minutes, that'll get us to the full three hours of the meeting, and obviously that would get in the way of your discussion on your budget recommendations.

So I'll just leave that to you all, is how you want to manage your time, but just wanted to make sure everyone was aware.

Additionally, we do have uh many public speaker slips as well.

Thank you for that.

That gentle guidance.

With that, um, Commissioner Miller, Commissioner Cook, the last item discussion.

Thank you.

Is offering shelter treatment place and placement and it being declined.

Do you have any data on outreach attempts and individuals who decline to seek help treatment shelter?

If so, what is that data?

Um, we do.

I don't have it on me.

I can uh send it to you.

Um, but we do track that.

And there the challenge with that is breaking out why they're declining.

Um, and there's a million reasons why someone would decline shelter.

Uh some don't want congregate shelter.

Many have more pets than we can take in our shelter.

Um, they have more storage than we allow in our shelters.

So there's barriers to it, or the shelters not in the location.

Uh if they uh became homeless and have family in the north end of town, they don't want to shelter in the south end, and vice versa.

Um, so we do have that data.

I can send that to you.

We have even broken that out over the last year and a half to ask more questions of the why why uh of not accepting.

Um, and I'd be happy to send that to you.

I think the challenge is that addressing the homeless population is probably the largest issue within the city of Sacramento.

I'm sure you see this live every single day.

And there seems to be this idea that individuals are being offered treatment place and treatment placement shelter, and it's being declined.

And you see like the manifestation of this, like just homeless camps that continue to persist week after week, month after month, despite the repeated three-in-one attempts.

Like you see it in How and Feroaks, you see it all across Arturn Del Paso, you see it in Del Paso Heights, Northgate, Roseville Road, etc.

So I'm trying to reconcile this desire to meet these individuals where they are, while also acknowledging that is not okay to camp in these public communities, while also acknowledging that there's a persistent budget deficit.

How do you like think about all three of these categories together when determining who to reach out to?

How do you serve these people?

And is it even okay to let an individual who's offered treatment placement or shelter to decline that help to begin with?

What are your thoughts?

Um these are the thoughts that run through my head all day every day.

Um there's uh I I can tell you that if we had capacity, there would be a lot more people off the streets.

Um I can tell you that we are re-looking at how we determine how successful you are in the shelter.

Um if if you're coming into the shelter and for lack of a better term, if you're in a shelter spot and you don't want to improve and you don't want to accept any services, then where's our cutoff point on that?

Where we say, I'm sorry, but you're you're gonna have to leave and let's get someone else in that that wants to help and move forward.

Um so that's the challenge on the other side of that.

Then you have the challenge of if we continue to do that, then who's gonna be left on our streets or our most difficult?

And what do we do with that group?

Um, so trying to help the many.

We're in triage right now, as I look at it as triage as we our budget gets tighter.

Yeah, we're gonna have to re deliver something different and figure out how we can help the most with what we have, and um kind of leave our old way of thinking that we're offering to everybody, and and you don't have to help guide your way.

So, what is the department's current position on individuals who are being offered treatment and then it being declined?

Like I'm trying to the reason I'm asking these questions is that like I I see through the city of Sacramento.

People are submitting three in one tickets for homeless assistance, like homeless cap in my neighborhood, homeless cap in my park, etc.

etc.

You can see the 301 tickets, they're getting closed as complete.

But when you look at the details, like they're complete because the individual is being is declining help, and then the ticket is just getting marked as closed, which you know we can debate whether that's right or wrong.

But the idea is like what is the city's current position on addressing this population?

Because I think the challenge is that within measure you specifically, homeless and homeless adjacent spending is now the largest category of spend.

It's like 40 million dollars out of 137 million every year, and we're gonna deficit every year, and it's because of homeless spending.

So I I guess my question to reiterate to you is what is the position now, or maybe said more directly, if a person is offered treatment, shelter, support, and they decline it.

What happens next?

Um, with current laws and ordinances, there is nothing that happens next because that individual still has their rights as an individual in this country to make their decisions if they're not breaking an ordinance, if they're not on private property, if they're not blocking a sidewalk, if they're not excessive storage, then they're a person that is in whatever location they are.

If it's not a violation, then they have their freedom of choice to decide they're going to be there is nothing short of um 5150 uh involuntary enforcement because they can't take care of themselves that we can force somebody to take shelter.

Does that happen today?

Pardon?

If it does 5150 happen today, yes, yeah.

So we have some avenues for 5150s.

Okay, this is my last question.

I realize we have a lot to cover.

I I think I'm I'm trying to reconcile what's happening in the city of Sacramento versus what's happening in other cities in California.

Even if you look in San Francisco, over the past six months, they've been able to dramatically or materially turn around their homeless population.

They live in California, so I don't understand why other cities like San Jose, like San Francisco, we can go on and on, are able to more effectively manage the homeless population.

But in the city of Sacramento, whenever we bring up this issue, the answer is always, well, there's nothing we can do.

It seems like that answer like doesn't make sense, and I I can't reconcile that given I see what's happening in other cities in California and they're able to handle it.

So why can't Sacramento?

Um so quickly, um, I can tell you that every time that we talk to any other city, they ask us what we're doing.

Um, so that is an outside view of looking at what that city is doing.

Um, when we have conversations with them, they're it we call them for questions, they end up turning around and asking us what we're doing.

And I will tell you, I'll go back to the reason San Jose and San Francisco are doing such a good job.

Uh San Francisco spending 846 million dollars on if you gave me 846 million, you would not see somebody on the street here.

We would be able to by far place everybody.

So there is a budget component of this, and there's a perception component, and the point in time counts of populations for those cities and ours are almost identical.

And like I said, we're spending 50, they're spending 850 million to end up with the same result.

I think they have a larger population.

So if you look at it on a on a per person basis, it's actually not the same, but but I'll leave it there.

Thank you for your questions and your time.

I know, I know we got a lot to cover, but I I could not um I'm trying to squelch myself in a box, so I can't, I just can't.

Um so I'm asking this question as disc District One Commissioner, but more importantly, district one um community member.

Um I I love district one.

Um, specific to the micro community that's coming to 3511 Del Paso Road Boulevard, which is right adjacent to my community, which is West Shore.

Um, in the presentation, it was presented as being done in 2027.

I know there is some uh public discourse and actions going on in regards to that, so I'm trying to not be biased in answer asking this question.

But what is the current state?

Because as presented, it looks like it's a hundred percent a go and that it's going to be built, and that's it.

But I I know that there is a lot of um community discourse and action happening.

So I just want to kind of get an idea of is it a go final or is it a projected?

Because looking at the presentation, it looks like it's a very final, and that we're just waiting for it to be built out and staffed and funded.

Um another load of question.

Nothing is final.

Um, but we uh have all intentions of moving forward.

Um there was a temporary restraining order that uh was placed from the community, some some of the community members, um, and that was um seen by a judge on last Friday, um, and it was denied.

And um we have uh our we're waiting for environmental report.

Once we get that completed, um we have all of our reports that we've done for the site, and then um building will look at the design review again.

Um it's been back and forth a few times, and once building puts their stamp on, they're good with the design.

Um, as far as me as a director on this project, that is our point to move forward.

So, unless somebody else tells me to stop, we're we're moving forward on that project.

Thank you.

Um, Commissioner Miller, Commissioner Cook.

Um, a follow-up question.

On on the presentation, it said that there were around 4,500 people sheltered in 2025.

How many of those were exits to permanent housing?

And how many were returned to homelessness within six to twelve months?

Um so permanent housing for calendar year was a um eight hundred and twenty five.

Um, and then I would have to get you the numbers of um negative exits out of there.

So over the 4500 people who were sheltered last year, 825 went to permanent housing, which means the other 3200 are still sheltered or into positive the 2825 to permanent housing is just permanent housing.

Yeah, there is still a large amount that were to improved locations, whether that be back to family or uh someplace other than shelter.

How many of those were homeless in six to twelve months?

Do you track that?

Um it's a challenge to track it because uh we we can track it, but it's when we see them back in the HMIS system for um needing service again and contacting them back out in the streets, but we do track the people that are fall back into homelessness.

Five percent, twenty percent of the population from the 4500 people who were sheltered last year.

Oh, I I'd have to pull numbers, it's way it's way more dynamic than 4500, 800 went.

The shelters are continuously serving people.

I'd have to get you numbers.

Okay.

Thanks.

All right, seeing no further comments from commissioners, we are moving forward.

Thank you to you.

Um, and the department of community response.

So moving on to item four on our discussion calendar, we are calling the Sacramento Police Department.

Is there anyone present to present?

Welcome, Chief.

Hi.

Sorry.

Good to see everyone.

Thank you.

No, it's fine.

I know you had lots of good questions, so I was observing from the back.

Um get my presentation ready here, and um and we'll get going.

So good evening, everyone.

I am Kathy Lester.

I am your police chief.

It's great to be here tonight, here to talk about measure you funding um and what we um fund.

At the police department with that.

So essentially uh the measure you authorization funds our hiring pipeline, which is our student trainees, our community service officers, and our office of violence prevention.

So a number of years ago, right about the time I started in 21, um, we actually incorporated the Office of Violence Prevention under the police department, which is a little bit unusual.

Most and most cities, it's in the mayor's office, or it's a standalone.

But we have a really great relationship with Dr.

Clavo, um, her team, and a lot of the community-based organizations that are here today.

And I just um did a presentation on our violent crime reductions over the past several years, and we've seen consistent year-to-year double-digit reductions, which I'm really really proud of.

So here are the finances.

Uh, the total um actually I should tell you who is joining us tonight, obviously, Dr.

Uh Clavo.

I also have um Sang, who is Lieutenant, he's filling in for Ethan uh Hanson, who is uh back at Cap to Cap, and then I've got Deputy Chief uh Bales, who will be your interim police chief in about three weeks.

So I'm glad to have him here tonight.

And in the back, we also have our finance team, Natalie and Brenda.

So if there are questions about funding, I can't answer.

I brought in the A team.

So right now our hiring pipeline is about 61.5 FTE and under an OVP are three full-time FTE with a number of different programs that we fund for a total of 9.1 million dollars.

Our hiring pipeline, we've got 28 and a half student trainees.

Those are part-time positions, so it's actually twice as many.

We do have 23 community service officer twos, which is a program that we brought back in order to have really a pipeline so that we had people that were prepared for the police academy.

It's been a great program for us, but you'll notice if you were here last year, we did see a reduction with last year's budget in the number of community service officers.

We were actually authorized 46 last year, which is why we um and we've seen a reduction of about 50 percent, so 23 this year.

And the community service officer three, those are actually permanent career classification uh community service officers, and they're there to support you know, patrol and our officers as a full-time non-sworn classification.

And then, of course, in the Office of Violence Prevention, we have our special projects manager, we have an admin analyst and admin technician for a total of 64 and a half FTE.

Our hiring pipeline really the purpose of that is to recruit young people to uh come into the police department.

We recruit from our criminal justice academies, our police uh cadet programs, our local colleges.

Uh, we're about to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the law enforcement college scholars program at SAC State, and certainly from our high schools, um, and to try and get them into law enforcement careers.

I'm really proud of our diversity.

Um I spoke about this last year when I was in front of you.

Our student trainees are 94% diverse, our community service officers are 83% diverse.

And so when you're talking about diversity and public safety, our pipeline has been a great way to help diversify our department.

And also very proud about the number of people in this pipeline that have transitioned to sworn positions.

Last year, this number was 40.

I'm proud to say it's 48 of our pipeline candidates and employees that have transitioned into sworn positions since 2019, and 16 to full-time professional staff.

And professional staff are just as important as about 30% of our department.

And while you usually see us in uniform, there's a whole machine of people behind the scenes working in support roles that are really important to what we do.

For the Office of Violence Prevention, the three FTE are funded with about 493,000.

And um, and Dr.

Nicole Klavo can answer any questions on this, um, but really OVP really oversees our measure you funding and all of the awards to our community-based organizations.

Um, primarily we focus on community violence and prevention and youth gang involvement.

And so we've got um some great um stats and um and work broad from the last few years.

Um, one of our major programs is the GPIT program.

This is the gang prevention intervention task force.

Um it's funded at 1.4 million dollars.

And this is really uh to help support our community-based organizations that do a lot of work with our at-risk youth, which are clear like you know, very uh proven to have been disproportionately impacted by gang violence.

Our partners are academics for athletes, brother to brother.

I know I saw Merv here.

Still here.

Oh, it's Mercil.

Hi, there you are.

Okay, I saw him in the back.

Um, Hawk, reimagine, MACROD, Rose Family Creative Empowerment Center, Sacramento Youth Center, the Victory Outreach South SAC, and they do things like mentoring, conflict resolution, youth engagement, tutoring, and what I think is really also important is career and workforce development.

And we primarily serve Del Paso Heights, Fruit Ridge, Valley High, Meadow View, and Oak Park areas.

We also, um, as part of our violent crime reduction efforts, um, stood up a three-year grant program called the DRIP program.

This is a one million dollar per year program, and it was really to provide um community-based organizations and uh their members and employees to do on-scene and follow-up disruption intervention, which is probably the most difficult thing that we do in regards to violence and prevention services on you know, very focused in individuals.

Again, our partners in that are all in together, brother to brother, which is uh the one community-based organization that does both of those programs, helping our people eat, hope, um, self-awareness, and recovery.

And uh if you've watched my violence um my violent crime strategy presentations, we talk about the disproportionate uh concentration of crime in three areas in Sacramento.

When we first really ran that data back in 2022, we found that almost half of our shootings occurred in about seven square miles of the city.

And so we've got a lot of disproportionality on where crime occurs.

But what we know is that it's um concentrated in small geographic areas and often committed by a very small number of individuals.

Um, and so we've focused our efforts on those individuals and in those areas as part of our citywide uh reduction strategies.

And I'll just give you some stats, really proud of this.

Um, our Measure Uh GPIT grant, um, over 6,000 participants.

Um, their youth, they're 10 to 24, um, almost 150,000 program service hours, and um obviously very diverse.

76% are black or Hispanic.

And based on the surveys taken by participants, the following the information we received is that 91.6% do better in school, 91.2% make better choices, 90.8% feel like they're doing a better job staying safe, and 91% believe in a better future, and I think that's really important.

Those things are really tough to measure.

Um, and then I'll get into DRIP.

Um essentially, they've been able to provide 33 critical incident responses.

So, you know, if we have something really critical uh in our community, we have um you know a violent event, uh, whether it's a significant shooting, um a homicide, uh we can uh request our partners to come out for an immediate response to provide support in the community, and they've done that 33 times over the last year.

They also have helped us with disrupting uh potential violence, and we've made 80 referrals uh directly to those community-based organizations.

So this is a smaller program, but 426 participants received one-on-one support.

And then this is um, and actually, I know we've got uh Yipsey with us, um, the family and youth investments.

This is 1.3 million dollars, and it was actually eliminated in the restored for one-time funding last year, and I'm sure they can answer questions.

But this is essentially the pop-up funding that provides for SAC Town Youth Nights program, which is um just Fridays and Saturday nights.

They provide events and activities and partnerships with our CDOs.

Um here's some stats that we received.

This will be my last slide, uh just talking about youth and family investments.

Um, 1700 events, over 13,000 participants and 20 CDOs that were funded there, and just some great feedback and testimonials that we got from the participants.

So, you know, while our portion of the measure you funding is small, um, you know, we certainly try and make the the most of it.

Um obviously the DRIP uh program that was a really a three-year one-time program that will be ending in October.

Um, and then we received a really robust grant from the um from BSC on our prevention efforts, which at this time of budget needs and how difficult things are could not have come at a better time.

As you know, all of the departments had to propose a 15% reduction in our um in our in our departments and um and the amount of funding that we have.

And for the police department, over 90% of my costs go directly towards labor.

You know, we don't have a lot of other things.

We pay for people, not a ton of programs, and so we've seen year-to-year reductions for the last three years.

We did just present um about a month and a half or so ago uh to council, and obviously the city managers proposed budget will be coming out at the end of the month with discussions by council uh for the choices that they want to make in May, and budget adoption is scheduled for June.

So, with that, um I will step down.

I think you probably have some speakers and we'll be available for any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Lester.

Clerk, do we have any members of the public that wish to speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair.

We have several members signed up to speak on item four.

Our first speaker is speaker is Crystal Gonzalez, followed by uh apprentice Wilson.

Hi, thank you guys for giving me a moment.

My name is Crystal Gonzalez, I'm from the SAC Youth Center.

We are one of the many amazing organizations that get funds through the Office of OB OVP and the GPIT funds.

And I just want to give you just a little highlight of just what our organization is able to do with those funds.

And so we are located in Del Paso Heights, and but we reach all around the city of Sacramento, and we mostly reach those that have been deemed high risk for violence, gangs, homelessness, all the other things that we've been kind of talking about today, behavioral and mental health issues, and we serve about 2,000 plus unique students indirectly every month.

That's through our outreach.

And we serve about 300 students with direct services monthly.

These are unique students.

We have programs based on the eight dimensions of wellness, emotional regulation as prevention.

We offer transformational experiences, camp, week of service, workforce development, field trips, et cetera, with these funds.

We've also been able to respond at Notomas High School right after the shooting.

We were able to respond there.

We're already there every day of the week, but we were there even at a higher level to be able to meet needs, provide uh things, supports to students.

We do prevention long-term and intervention and sports programs like Grant High School, Intercom, Notomas High School, and we also help at-risk students in Del Paso Heights and beyond with emotional support, wellness, and all their physical needs.

If those students aren't getting it from us or from other programs, many of them don't have family members to provide that.

I believe that we're reducing crime by helping those students to get those things that they need, helping them to see other better ways to meet their needs than to go into gangs or other uh negative areas.

Thank you very much.

I hope you continue the funding.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Mr.

Wilson, followed by Ebony Hall.

Hello, committee.

My name is Prentice Wilson.

I'm the executive director for Academics for Athletes.

I'm really glad that Crystal hit on most of the hot points, so I don't have to rehash those budget cuts.

We understand we're making them as well.

They're tough for everyone.

I'm gonna say, as a group, as a part of the collaboration, our concern is that we're adjusting and we're making cuts.

We're not making programs go away.

Um, Chief Lester, Dr.

Clavel, they've done an amazing job with us working with us.

The numbers speak for themselves.

Um, and we keep coming before you.

So my main concern is that when you are going through and when you are making those tough decisions, we all understand, for lack of better terms, we have to cut some fat in some places.

But because this was a three-year project, and we've made so many advances that it won't just go away in three years from now when we're addressing some of these same needs.

We're not taking three steps forward to make three back, and we're starting all over from day one.

You guys have done an amazing job with measure you.

Everyone's done their job.

The numbers speak for themselves.

All I ask that when we're making when we're in difficult times, we're making these decisions together and not just making it so easy that we're just gonna, the easy way is to eliminate programs.

Thank you guys so much.

Appreciate all that you do for our kids.

Thank you for your comments, sir.

Our next speaker is Ebony Hall, followed by Michelle Gladney.

Good evening.

I'm Ebony Hall, single mother of six, two daughters, four sons.

I would like to start by saying thank you to Brother Brother and Glow.

I'm not here just to speak, I'm here to testify.

Because Brother the Brother didn't just impact my community, it saved my family.

There was a time when my children were going down the wrong path.

Some of them became involved with the system, even incarcerated.

As a mother, that's a place no one ever wants to stand in.

It's heavy, it's scary, it's lonely, but we weren't left alone.

Brother the brother stepped in, they made sure my sons got to court, they helped with holding them accountable and kept them on track.

They connected them with counseling and real healing for everything that they have been through.

Brother the Brother didn't just see my children for their mistakes.

They saw their potential.

My sons gained work experience, opportunities to grow, learn, and believe in themselves again.

And they didn't stop with my children.

They showed up for me as well.

They connected me with mothers that was in similar situations and resources that I needed.

My sons needed male guidance or male figure to talk to, brother-brother stood in the gap.

And when our environment became unsafe, they helped my family relocate from a violent neighborhood to a place where we could breathe again, where we could live again.

That's not just support, that's life-changing.

Brother to brother gave my family something we couldn't give ourselves at that moment, and that was hope.

They remain reminded my children that their past didn't define them, and that they still have purpose, and they still have a future.

And when families rise, communities change.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Mervyn Brookins.

Or sorry, our next speaker is Michelle Gladney, followed by Mervyn Brookins.

Hello, I am Michelle Gladney, and I'm the founder of Glow Girls Leading Our World.

We are a youth organization in the Del Paso Heights area, and we mentor girls to prepare them for life after high school.

I would like to thank you guys for all that you guys have done and will continue to do for the um not only the young men but the young ladies of our community.

Um basically thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Mervyn Brookins, followed by Edric Brown.

Good evening, my name is Mervyn Brook, and I'm the founder of Brother to Brother.

Um excuse me because I was a little emotional after uh Ms.

Hall spokes.

You know, um yeah, we we we create relationships and help people change lives.

Uh you guys are familiar with the work that uh intervention and prevention does, and thank you wholeheartedly for your support over the years.

Um when you look at the audience and you see these young men and these young women in the audience.

If our funding is cut, if you took a picture of these young men and young women, and our funding is cut, and we took we looked at that picture in a couple of years.

It's a damn good chance that several of them won't be there.

Those are the people that are impacted by what we do.

I know the city is struggling, we're all struggling.

Prevention is not the place to look to shave a dollar.

When you do that, it's gonna cost lives, real lives.

So I'm here to say one thank you for the support.

I'm asking that you just continue the current funding for the drip and prevention, and it's critical.

Prevention works with the young men and young women before they get into it.

Intervention is just critical, it's just as critical because that's when we're taking the guns out of their hands and they go hand in hand.

And the progress we've made over the past couple of years due to the Office of Violence Prevention's leadership and and the chiefs' brilliant data point uh and the inroads we've made building relationships with law enforcement.

We're in a really good place.

But if we take step backwards down, we lose this funding.

Take a good look because a lot of those young people won't be here in a couple of years.

So again, thank you, and please continue our current status of funding.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Edric Brown, followed by Talia Caravale.

Hello, my name is Edrick Brown.

I'm the founder of the Public Bridge.

I have not received a single penny for any of this funding, but I must start by saying I apologize to everybody in here in the year of 2003.

I made a terrible decision.

I discharged a firearm at a vehicle after a heated dispute that led to me receiving a life sentence.

I wind up doing 23 years of incarceration.

I got out of a prison because I wrote a curriculum that gained the attention of my victims.

I sub I submitted that curriculum to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation of the year 2020.

It's been running ever since consecutively, granted three times.

And then I came out of prison because the judge that gave me a life sentence seen that everything I was doing, he came out of his retirement, he authored a letter to the Sacramento Court System, and they actually gave me freedom immediately overnight.

So I brought these programs out to the out to the community as a preventative service because I know that you have to rewire these children's brains in order for them to demonstrate better behavior.

So I got out of prison without any funding, without any help except for through Impact Paris.

Um I've been able to partner with Folsom State Prison, and I currently take the youth in Sacramento County up to the prison for educational youth tour.

It's not a scare straight, it's just to show the youth that every decision you make, you better take this in consideration because you could wind up in these places.

And I say all that to say that funding is important for these opportunities because I talk to these kids right here.

Most of them are the same age that I was when I committed the crime, and I did 23 years of prison.

I'm reminded I'm reminded by that every time I see my mother.

She, when I left, she was whole, perfect.

She can't even say my name.

So I think that it is very important to fund these kind of initiatives because you can stop people like me that didn't have the knowledge that I have now to stop being a nuisance to this community.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment.

Our next speaker is Talia Cal Caravaleo, uh, followed by Alfred Kirk.

Thank you.

As the Program Director for Victory Outreach South Sacramento, it is with urgency measure you funding continue for the nonprofit organizations represented here.

They've been impacting the lives of countless youth, many youth present here today.

Youth that are vulnerable to violence.

We've created a powerful student impact testimonial video that captures in their own voices the real life outcomes of our community-based programs that are serving to address prevention and intervention.

This video is simply not just as a supplemental.

It's essential for your viewing.

It provides firsthand accounts from the very youth these programs are designed to serve, demonstrating the tangible impact Measure U funding has had on their lives, their safety, and their futures.

At the time when our communities are facing increasing challenges with youth violence, mental health struggles, and instability, many of which the first uh the first gentleman shared about with housing.

Our youth are also going through the same thing.

It is critical that decision makers like yourself hear directly from those most affected.

I hope that you will take the time to view the video.

I wished it would have been able to be shown tonight so that the commission members here could make a fully informed decision grounded with real impact that you have a choice to make for our community.

These youth programs are not abstract initiatives.

They are actively transforming lives, preventing violence, and creating pathways for hope and stability.

Continue funding through Measure U through our GPIT through our DRIP programs.

It's vital for sustaining the work that we do here.

I really want to encourage every person here that is a decision maker to look at the eyes of every single young person here.

You can help these young people become successful.

Your decision tonight makes that change.

So we as CBOs, we would love to have partnered with that first group.

Thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Our next speaker is Alfred Kirk, followed by Zarana.

Hey, how are you guys doing today?

My name is Alfred Kirk, and we're brother to brother.

And today we've we had a gun take from school today.

So we need this funding for all these kids right here and all the kids around Sacramento.

And that's all I gotta say.

Thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Zariah Marshall, followed by uh Samara Marshall.

Good evening.

My name is Zariah Marshall.

I am the violence prevention program manager at Impact SAC.

First and foremost, I want to say thank you to the City Commission, OVP, police department for investing in our youth, as they are the center of everything we do at Impact SAC.

They don't just influence our work, they inform it.

For starters, we partner with UC Davis Center of Violence Prevention Research Team to make sure there is methodology behind everything that we do.

This year, the youth are included in the research development process, creating the very questions that drive this study.

So the data we collect reflects what young people are actually experiencing, not just what adults assume they are.

And this is gentle foreshadowing to the key takeaways, by the way.

Our process makes sure that your funding becomes evidence-based work, not just another program.

The research informs how we design our develop and develop our violence prevention strategies from start to finish.

With your help, OVPs help the police departments help, ImpactSac and UC Davis can continue to develop the tools and guidelines that inform our work.

So far, we have gathered that they need safe environments that address emotional well-being, not just physical security.

They thrive in cultural sensitive spaces.

They need accessible and sustainable sustainable mental health support.

Young people trust messengers like us who share backgrounds and lived experiences.

Social media is where we need to meet them at, and they need transparent systems where adults are accountable for their needs.

Programs must censor youth as experts and encourage peers-to-peer with peer-to-peer support.

These aren't assumptions, this is what they told us from themselves.

I can go on and on about our strategies and about all the work we do and about all the numbers we have, but instead, I'm gonna open up the floor for them because their voices are the most powerful.

Thank you.

Good evening.

This is an event where schools bring a selective amount of students and people of power hear them out about their community.

My experience working with them has been much more enlightening and super important to me.

I had been pushed beyond to think about my community in ways to help other people like me and even very different from me.

Being able to be a part of this has truly made me my voice feel much more valuable and heard.

People see us as people that need more guidance and we need to be taught more.

But I have realized that from Impact SAC and this research group that we have been through many experiences.

We have much knowledge and we have many ideas that matter.

This made me feel trusted, which led me to be more confident about what I'm doing to help those around me.

Thank you.

And it inspired me to do to be that the same way for others.

Speaker is James Jeans, followed by uh Zoji Blackburn.

Um good morning.

I am Amia currently in Impact SAC.

Impact SAC has supported my mental health by giving me a place to talk and people who actually listen when I'm stressed or dealing with things I don't feel alone.

Without that support, I probably would have um kept everything bottom and felt more overwhelmed.

Having check-ins where people ask how you really doing, learning coping skills like breathing, journaling, or talking about things about being grown up, minded that it's okay for having help, having someone notice when you're not okay, getting support during stressful times like school or personal issues.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Josiah Bonds, and I'm also with Impact Sack.

Impact Sack has shown up for my mental health by giving me a safe space where I can actually talk about what I'm going through without being feeling judged.

They connected with they connected me with mentors and people who listen, which held me less alone and more understood.

Being around others who are working on themselves also pushed me to open up more and take my mental health seriously instead of ignoring it.

Without that support, I probably would have kept everything bottled up and tried to deal with it on my own.

That could have led to more stress, feeling isolated, and making worse decisions because I didn't have guidance or people to lean on.

Impact SAC gave me structure, encouragement, and real support when I needed it, and that made a big difference in how I handle things now.

Thank you.

Umpact SAC gives us the opportunity to make money.

They also do pop-ups and other little events for the kids to attend, especially the ones that can't afford it.

They'll be there like to pay for you.

Every single program of the day.

Every single day of the program, they made sure we were fed.

Even for Christmas, they helped us get gifts for our loved ones.

And there are not many programs out there that will help us like they do, so we really appreciate them for what they do for us.

Thank you.

And what was your name so I can make sure I got the speaker slip for that?

Thank you.

I think you called me up last.

Go ahead, sir.

Okay.

Um, so as you can see, this is representation right here.

Everybody standing up.

It's very hard to talk in front of people, and I'm so proud of you guys for coming out here.

Uh only got five minutes, five seconds.

I was gonna restart.

Okay.

Um hello, my name is James Demas.

I am a youth mentor and a program manager here at Impact Sack.

Umpact SAC, we only require you guys to do one thing when you guys come into the program, and that's show up and represent.

Now I know that's two things, but uh just follow me for a second.

Um I'm very bad with numbers, by the way, too.

So uh by a show of hands, how many people think violence prevention is very important?

Audience too, audience too, audience two, and council members.

By show of hands, how many people think mental health is very important?

All right, and by a show of hands, how many people think showing up in representation is very important?

Okay, easiest activity I have ever had to do.

Thank you.

Um dealing with funding and budgeting is hard.

You have to make the hard decision that can potentially stop the youth from getting that talk that may stop a crash out, or having a safe space where all the kids can come and hang out.

So, like I said before, I'm bad with numbers, but when it comes to funding cuts, the one thing that I think of is something that's least the least important, and by a show of hands, it shows that everybody has an important in all these categories.

Um we're putting together a 5k.

Uh log out and lace up.

Um, following log out and lace up is a voice against violence rally.

Um, this is to promote mental health, violence prevention, and opioid awareness.

June 27th at the state capitol.

This is our chance to show up and represent.

Peace.

Thank you guys.

A few more speaker slips.

Uh, Zochi Blackburn.

Hi, my name's Akiria.

Being a part of Impact Sack has helped me understand and appreciate who I am.

Growing up, I always feel like the new girl, and it was hard for me to truly feel belonging.

Feel like I belong anywhere.

Through this program, I have found a space where I can be myself without feeling judged.

Impact SAC has helped me see that my identity and my background is something to be proud of.

Being around people and culture has helped me open my eyes and help me learn from others and become more confident in myself.

Now feel I now I don't feel lost or out of place.

I feel like I belong.

I see my community in a more positive way.

It is it is I see strength, diversity, and support, and I know that I have a place in it.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Uh the Jaden Talbot.

Good evening, members of the city council, Sacrament City Council.

My name is Genie Elijah Talbot.

I'm sitting here today because what you're deciding is not just about a budget, it's about access, it's about safety, it's about whether or not young people in Sacramento have somewhere to go or nowhere at all.

Because programs like Impact Sac, the Mutual Assistance Network, Sacramento Youth Center, boys and girls, boys and girls clubs of the greater Sacramento, Sacramento Area Youth Speaks, and many more, not just programs, they are lifelines.

They got a difference between a young person being mentored or being alone.

The difference between being guided or being lost in systems that are never built to customer catch them early.

And when funding gets cut, let's be real about what happens.

Doors close, mentors disappear, safe spaces vanish.

And young people don't just magically find another place to go.

They adapt to whatever is available.

Sometimes that means the streets, sometimes that means isolation, sometimes that means falling through cracks that we as a city could have prevented.

So when we call these programs non-essential, what are we really saying?

What we're really saying is that prevention is optional, that support is optional, the opportunity is optional.

But the consequences, the consequences are not optional.

They were still, you will still see them just later, just bigger and just harder to fix.

So I'm asking you to think beyond the numbers on the page.

Think about the student who stays at the school because it's the only place they feel safe.

Think about the kid who finds their voice through a youth program instead of losing it in silence.

The future of a leader who just needs one opportunity to start.

Because right now, you are not just voting on funding, you are deciding what kind of Sacramento, what kind of city Sacramento chooses to be.

A city that invests in its youth before problems begin, or a city that waits until it's too late.

Youth programs are no extra.

They are the foundation.

And foundations are not the thing you remove if you expect something to stand.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

I have Paris Dye.

I am the proud mama of all these babies up in here.

Umpact SAC.

First of all, our shirts, suicide prevention can begin with a what's up.

We're really big on connecting young people to the power of their voice.

When they walk in a room, we want them to greet each other.

It's that simple.

If you just say hello to somebody, this bump James, then everything works out.

You know, it's it can begin some good change.

Our student voices report.

We have two years of reports.

We make copies for all of you.

It is directly from UC Davis's Office of Violence Prevention.

We have copies for you.

The key takeaways that Zaria spoke of are what we hold ourselves accountable to.

We do target students that we do not know.

That is our target audience every step of the way.

Who don't we know?

Young people we don't know.

If we've known you for a while, you're great.

That means you have to go target someone that we don't know and bring them to the group.

So we're standing here today.

Number one, to thank you for your commitment that you make to young people that you make to ensure Sacramento is a safer place.

We know that it's not always that, that's not always the case, but you have all made a commitment.

You step up and give your time to that.

At Impact SAC, we have core values, and that's heart.

It's our heart value system, and that's what the Office of Violence Prevention Fund.

Heart stands for hearing youth, empowering youth, advocating for youth, restoring youth hope, and taking action with them.

That's why the system in the Sacramento Children's stuff, they say nothing about us without us.

That's why you won't see us here without our young people.

Tonight was optional for most of them, and some of them needed to come because they need their money that they earned through another program that you fund.

So thank you very much for having us tonight.

Thank you for your effort and just keep going, you guys.

You're doing a great job.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

And do we have Ms.

Blackburn?

Still have one speaker's seeing none.

Uh Zochi Blackburn.

Chair, I have no more speakers on this item.

All right.

If you're an adult in the room and I'm gonna say over 30, I want you to give a round of applause to these young people.

We can take space.

We can take space for that, but I just want to say to the young people, thank you for coming out and sharing your voice and your perspective.

Keep looking for spaces and places to elevate because there are spaces and places that need your voice, but you gotta show up.

With that being said, and no more public comment slips, we are now turning over to the commissioners.

Call in Commissioner Johnson.

Yeah, just echoing what you just said.

Thank you so much for coming out today.

If we look a little surprised, it's because we're not used to having anybody else in this room except for our one friend who's here often.

And I really want to take a step back and maybe give a quick overview of what measure you is, because I think there might be a little bit of misconception, but I think it's really important so you have this correct filter and kind of our questions and our discussions going on in the future.

So we are an advisory body here to oversee and be a voice for the community on how a certain set of funds called measure you funds are being spent.

That is a one-cent sales tax.

If you spend a dollar in Sacramento, 10 cents or one cent of that is gonna go into the measure you fund, and that fund then goes into a wider fund called the general fund.

And so the general fund kind of is spent on a lot of different things in the city, and there's no specific requirement on how the measure you funds are supposed to be spent.

There is a lot of language around the ballot propositions and around the various things that were passed in the city resolutions on how the community believes that the funds should be sent, but ultimately at the end of the day, it was passed by above 50% of the majority, and so there's no legal requirement on how the funds are spent.

But we take our job very seriously here, and our dictates are to represent the community and advocate for what we think is the best use of funds and how people voted for measure you.

And there's been a lot of tension and discussion that we've had as this board figuring out what does that actually mean.

And we've done that into a silent room largely, and so it's really helpful for us.

We've been really trying to, especially uh Commissioner Salah and some other members get community involvement to hear firsthand what it is that the community wants measure you funds to go to.

But at the end of the day, our job is to be an advocate for the community and representing what we think the community wants and needs for the measure you funds, and so that's kind of what our position is here and our our roles and responsibilities for volunteers, just doing our best to look at numbers and spreadsheets and talk to our city staff that come in and spend their Monday nights talking about what they uh use measure you funds for.

And so I just want to reiterate what our vice chair said, and thank you so much for coming out because it really does help us inform our position on on what the community thinks and how this money should be spent.

But the hard part of our job is to kind of figure out where is measure you money actually spent, and is that right with the community?

So I do have a question for um Chief Lester if we can.

Thank you so much again for taking the time.

I noticed going through the numbers on the budget that police budget went up incrementally from 228 million to 246 million to 256 million, but the measure funding kind of bounced around, right?

It went from six million to 11 million to 9 million.

So that was like 2.7% to 4.7% to 3.6%.

And I wanted to kind of get a sense from your perspective.

Is that a reflection on what you think the city sees the police value, police department value is, or specifically the police department value towards measure you, or do you think this is just kind of a counting of like we're gonna increase police and kind of measure you is just a number, and we're gonna then tack that up to make sure that we can fill in the blanks.

How do you see measure you in your budgeting process?

Yeah, and actually you gave a great explanation and dialed what the measure you committee does, like in a nutshell that was great, thank you.

So, you know, it has changed over the last few years.

My first year as chief, um, there was uh they moved a lot of funding actually out of measure you and transferred it just over to the general fund, and so it looked like there was this large increase when in fact it was just a like really a transfer of funding, it was the same dollar amount.

Most of what you've seen, because we have seen year-to-year reductions um at the police department.

Like when I started, we were authorized, for example, 769 sworn officers.

Um, we now have 733 authorized, and when we did our budget presentations with the proposed recommendations, we are looking unfortunately to lose about 40 additional um sworn positions and um some additional professional staff.

I you know, I can't speak exactly to how measure you, like how the council decides to attribute what funds to measure, what programs to measure you versus the general fund.

We really do look at it as general fund dollars, and historically measure you specifically has gone to support OVP within our department as well as our pipeline hiring programs.

So those are the two um really kind of the two buckets I would say.

Last year you saw a reduction, which is why it went down because we eliminated those 23 vacant CSO2 positions, and then for this year, uh we also had to make the recommendation, unfortunately, to reduce seven additional CSO2 vacancies and five CSO3 vacancies.

Now, of course, that was just a proposal.

It's what um you know we had to do to get to the number that we were required to get to, not obviously um where we want to be, um, and it will be up to mayor and council to decide clearly what they want to continue to fund, what programs they want to fund, and then where that funding is going to come from.

But um, and I don't know if it's gonna change in the upcoming year, and if anything is going to move from those two back to the student um, I'm sorry, um, our hiring pipeline or OVB, but traditionally the last few years, that's what it has funded.

Yeah, and that's what I figured, and I know the city council ultimately makes the budget decision, but your perspective is very helpful.

I know we have a lot of questions and a little bit of time, so I'll conclude my questions.

Thank you so much for coming.

Thank you.

All right, Commissioner Novello, can we share where you guys can it has?

Yeah, my question was also for you, uh Chief Lester.

Um, and then I was just I got a little bit fixated on the whole uh community service officer.

I saw that there was numbers between a community service officer one and a community service officer three.

Uh it was like 28, 23, I think roughly 50.

Um, just curious for measure you funding, does that cover their salaries?

What else does it cover besides their salaries?

Is what I'm curious about.

Uh it sure does, yeah.

So there is some service and supplies, and actually, this may be where I asked for some finance help.

Um, Brenda's nodding because I don't want to give you uh incorrect answer.

But with everyone we hire, there is um some supplies that come with that.

There's certain parts of the uniform that we purchase to make sure that they have the right equipment, everyone's issued a radio.

So there is um a supply cost to that.

Um, and then it does cover their salary, and then as you know, um there's additional you know, benefits and requirements that um are attached to the employee that the employee doesn't realize but are part of the city compensation package, and measure you does fund that.

Gotcha.

Would it also fund like you know, I knew you mentioned some of the supplies, but like also like more vehicles for you know these people to write in.

Does it also cover that?

I'll have Brenda come up because um we typically do make fleet requests, so I'll have her answer that question.

So my name's Brenda Delgadillo, uh, police administrative manager.

So fleet is handled separately, it does come into our general fund, but then it goes into a multi-year operating project that is uh managed by the city fleet department.

So that goes to a different pot.

And while we have like a replacement list of you know of what is going to be replaced in the following year, um it it's it is part of the budget process, and City Fleet has a certain program where they get assigned points and it's based on like mileage, total cost of ownership, age, different things, and they come up and give um scores to each vehicle, and then um that's how they decide what's replaced, but that that money's handled completely in a different separate project and by City Fleet.

Got it.

Yeah, that's that's super helpful.

Just curious back on the supplies piece.

I know you'd mentioned there's like two main buckets where measure you is spent with between you know OVP and the pipeline.

Um, is there any way that the resources that are spent like for supplies and stuff like that are used outside of OVP and pipeline operations because it'd be that these supplies are then also used for like you know, general SAC PD operations?

No, they're in two separate funds, even though it's all the general fund, uh, they're tracked in two separate fund numbers, and um the the stuff that's the stuff that is put into the charged against the measure you fund, it tends to be just for OVP or um the hiring pipeline and the program funds for all of the GPIT and uh the DRIP program, those are in separate projects as well.

So those are called multi-year operating projects.

So all of that's all of that funding is spent solely on the programs and is uh tracked separately in two different projects.

Okay, I think that was really helpful.

Just want to know if there's like maybe any indirect uh spending for that.

So thank you for thank you, Brenda.

Commissioner Drakowski.

Hi, um I just want to very quickly make a comment.

Thank you all so much for coming out for all the community organizations for coming out, the work that you do.

I'm gonna have a question for you, so don't sit down quite.

I didn't want to stay here so you can talk to me.

I felt like it was right with you.

Um, for all the work that you do, you know.

I I do this work on a statewide level, working with young people who have been previously incarcerated, um, and almost all of them say that having access to programs like the ones that you're doing would have prevented them from ending up there in the first place, or is what's preventing them from ending up back there over and over again, or have said that they have friends if they had had access to those programs would be alive today and they're not.

Um, and so the work that you do is really meaningful and it's really important.

Um, and I also want to say to all you young people who are sitting there, we have a seat open uh for youth on the measure you committee for someone between 16 and 25, I believe, in um C L.

So if you're interested, you can apply for that and come join us.

So thank you all so much for coming out and doing that work because I know how busy you are, and to come out um on a day like this and do this is really important.

Um, and then I just have a very quick question for for our police um here, and that is based off of what you said with the hiring pipeline.

Then I know um you said 48 sworn officers in that pipeline since 2019, that number was 40 last year.

So that means that in this last year it was 4.9 million dollars spent to hire eight people.

No, not at all.

Um, because that 4.9 the money that you're talking about covers programs, we're just talking about individuals within those programs that have been, it wasn't 4.9 to hire um the eight individuals.

Good.

Thank you.

No, what we found, uh, just to uh give some clarity to that.

A couple of years ago, uh we were sitting at an academy graduation.

We had lost about 40% of the recruits that had started to the end because it's a very demanding program, and uh, you know, no organization can afford to make that much of an investment into hiring new employees just to not to be able to get them through.

And so the student trainee program for our college students, and then the community service officer program, which is how I started after being a dispatcher, is a really nice way to sort of step up the skills level so that you can be successful in the academy.

So uh there was a lot of thought that went into these pipeline programs so that we could have police officers or professional staff as well, and so um that's really kind of the the data behind it.

Okay, thanks for cleaning that up.

Commissioner Miller, Commissioner Cook.

Um but you mentioned uh you were talking about GPIT and you meant you uh mentioned several different measures that showed improvements for the participants over uh and I'm I'm wondering, you know, you said better than they've done better on this and better on that.

Uh so better than what, I guess is what I'm asking.

Is it uh is it a point in time in the past that they've improved, or is it a is there a control group?

How do you what's your sure actually um I can bring up Dr.

Clover to talk about that and the metrics that we um have taken?

So we do data reporting.

Um we use their office, well, their department of community um outreach and do all of our reporting, they help us and they do it for free for the city so that we can give all of our funding to um the community-based organizations, but they collect that data and do an annual report.

Uh so I'll have Dr.

Clavo come up and talk about the results and how we measure them and some changes that we've seen over the last few years.

So uh I believe the the better part, I don't know if I would use the word better, um, because our numbers and the data goes off of how many incidents we have, how many disruptions we have, how many um them stopping retaliations, things of that nature.

Better is um relative to how many youth they connected with in 2025 versus 2024.

How many youth that they've helped raise their GPA scores, you know, um it could they could have been 0.0 students and now they're 2.0's, they're 1.0's.

We celebrate all achievements.

Better is the youth coming in and saying, I need this program.

Um, better is the parents, you know, the outreach they do with the parents and the community that are wrapping their arms around them, and and now the parents are coming in, and they are you know, becoming part of the support roles of these programs that these youth are involved in.

Um, as Chief mentioned, we are partnered with CETAR Health who um LPC consulting does our data.

And so our organizations are required to submit every month on the to on the 15th of every month what their contacts with youth have been.

And so they have to state to LPC what those numbers look like.

Mid-year we get a report, and then we get a year uh yearly report on all of the the numbers that Chief had up on the PowerPoint.

Um that the 6,000 plus youth contacts, those all that information come from our CBOs.

The hundred um I'm gonna misquote the number, uh hundred and whatever uh plus thousand, hundred and forty-seven thousand plus, I think, on um hours of service.

Well, those are all the hours of service that these mentors in this audience are putting into the youth.

This isn't even a a touch of the youth that these organizations, our 12, our 11 organizations are interacting with on a daily basis, especially those organizations that are in our schools.

As you know, some of the organizations that stood up here and spoke to the fact they're in intercom, they're in Atomas, they're in Grant, you know, and there it's we have organizations that are in Kennedy.

We have, you know, so we have organizations that in our many of our schools.

That's the data that we're collecting.

That's the that is the better that we are in more schools, we're in more communities, that we're growing our outreach, we're growing our reach, we're being able to contact more kids, more key more organizations, more community know about the organizations that sit here in this audience and those that are not in this audience tonight, but that's what better is.

I hope that answered your question.

Uh, before we move on to the next um the next uh commission speaker, uh we will need to uh take a motion to extend the meeting past two hours.

The time is 727.

Uh is there a motion.

I have a motion by Member Salah.

A second by member Smith.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

Thank you.

The motion passes, and the meeting will be extended for an hour.

Um our next commissioner.

Um to push on the uh on the um hiring pipeline math of 4.9 million, four or five people hired.

I realize there's a lot of like supporting processes and teams that that go into that, but the challenge that is being presented to this commission is that uh measure you fund is spending more than it collects.

It's going up every year, the deficit's getting larger, you know this.

So we're trying to move to this framework that enables us to track outcomes as opposed to actions or tasks.

So I think when you when you do this analysis of oh five people were hired from a hiring pipeline that was given five million dollars, it like objectively, you know, it it's tough, right?

So where is where's the rest of the money being spent in what capacity if it's not being spent directly on increasing the qualified pipeline, given that like the community support role is also being cut, like can you explain that?

Yeah, I because I'm not sure where that number is coming from.

So the measure you funding for the pipeline program actually pays for people in those positions, and what we were saying is from the people that are currently in those positions, a small number, well, actually a good number since 2019 had advanced to even higher positions.

But that funding is going to pay for salaries, it's paying for student trainees to have some funding for supplies with school, and then it's also paying for we only have three people that actually run all of the GPIT and all of the DRIP programs within the within our department.

And so the majority of that money that you're seeing goes directly towards funding the community uh based organizations here.

So when we're talking about that many, a lot of it goes to like existing employees.

We have CSO2s, CSO threes that are working, student trainees, it goes to pay their salaries.

We're just saying one of the outcomes that we're seeing is that the pipeline is successful, and that we've seen a number of people advance to other positions, permanent positions within the police department.

I think that's good feedback because the context is there's a line item, it says hiring pipeline, and then you give it the report that says eight, you know, five people, then do the math, and then it doesn't look so good.

But what I think what you're saying is that the funding that five million dollars actually goes to the CSO rolls, etc.

And that's where the majority of it is.

So is it correct to say that measure you funds that community support officer role in its entirety, or are there other sources of the city?

That um the CSO two and the CSO threes that you're seeing um on the chart, measure you funding pays for their salaries and the associated costs, and then also for student trainees as well.

And so measure you funding pays for that, and you know, you don't get to just hire somebody into those roles and put them into a police academy or or have them become an analyst.

You know, these are developmental roles that sometimes they take a few years in order, you know.

Like I'm a big proponent of education and really try to push youth that are actually in school to try and complete their degree, at least get an AA or get a bachelor's while they're in this program because uh we tend to see more success versus people that stop and start, you know, over the years.

So we really do try and um support education and support people in those roles as well as workforce development, which is one of the um really intended outcomes, you know.

We want to give people a pathway to future public service employment.

I think that where that's where it gets even more complicated because you said there was like 46, 48 CSO roles last year, but like it got cut in half to 23, and then now it's going to get cut X number again.

I I don't understand how like every year measure U collects more money than the year before.

Like it's objectively true, you can see this in like the revenue and expenditures, but the programs measure you is supposed to fund, like goes down every year.

So, how do we collect more money than the year before, but yet we're funding less CSOs, less programs than the year before.

How is that possible?

Well, I don't make those budgetary decisions.

That is really a question for mayor and council.

So the city manager will present a proposed budget, and that happens at the end of April this year.

The mayor and council um will then have discussions during the month of May, and then they make those budgetary decisions.

The last few years um to kind of you know it it's it's been a real challenge for the departments.

Um, every department was required to present a 15% reduction, it was a reduction exercise.

List out all of the programs, the people, the services that potentially we would have to cut to reach that 15%.

Now, the city council then takes um all of those recommendations into consideration and chooses really which programs that they're going to keep, what they're going to fund, um, and uh and what services the city will provide.

Um, how it's allocated to measure you versus general fund is not a question I can answer.

So the allocation to the hiring pipeline in fiscal year 24, that that number is the hiring pipeline funding category was greater last year than it is this year, and as a result of that, you had to cut the FTEs from 46 to 23, and with the proposed cuts for this year, we're gonna have to cut it again from 23 to some other number.

Yeah, that's correct.

And these are your vacant positions.

So essentially what we're losing are vacant positions, and I will not be able to hire into those categories.

Maybe this is beyond you, so feel free to say this, you know, beyond your scope.

But I I guess I just I don't understand how the money is there.

You can see the city is collecting revenue in the form of taxes, et cetera.

So if the money's not going to these community programs that the voters thought the money was going to go to, then where's it going?

Well, again, that would be a question from Aaron Council and where the savings go from those reductions.

Okay.

Commissioner Novello, can I share with as many minutes?

Um, I'm sorry, I didn't see your name on the screen.

Oh, I think it's because you're sitting in um the other person's seat, maybe.

Can I talk now?

Yeah, cool.

Oh, thank you.

Hi.

Good evening.

I want you all to know that I am a firm believer in interventions.

I am here as a result of an intervention called Upper Bound.

It was a program that came along in the 60s that brought me out of the inner city and put me on a path of receiving five degrees.

I have five degrees.

Thank you.

I was told I was told that I would not be the one to do that.

But I did it.

Um I went to the University of Cincinnati.

That's where I got my degree in life.

And my first four-year degree, and I'm happy to say that 2003, I got my second master's and my PhD from UC Davis.

My son is also an alumni from UC Davis.

Thank you.

I say that to say that you uh being inner city and poor can be a state of mind.

It does not mean that that's where you belong.

I've had the opportunity to work with youth for over 57 years, just like you.

And that's what keeps me young, because I've been retired now for 23 years.

So next I want to ask the question of recruitment.

And my question is what does diversity look like in your recruiting group?

They come in, and how are they retained and what does that look like when they graduate?

Does it look like the people in the audience?

Yeah, we've seen some uh increase we've seen some um sizable increases in diversity, and we certainly have those numbers.

I didn't bring them uh with me tonight, but we have a a great recruiting team.

We recruit from colleges, we um do a lot of events within our community.

One of the things I think we do really well is you get really that personal touch from a recruiter.

You know, you're not just a number when you come to the Sacramento Police Department.

A lot, it's a very complicated process to navigate from I mean it's a civil service process from the application, the testing.

Um, I was just out on Saturday, we ran the physical agility, and it's a very supportive environment to help people um, you know, pass these tests.

It's much different than I mean, honestly, when I started 30 years ago, there were thousands of people that tested for 40 spots in academy.

And so um what we've done now is we realize that qualified candidates are out there, they need the support.

We work really hard to stay engaged to work with them because we want good people from our community um within our department.

We run things like the female fitness challenge.

We just did links to law enforcement, um, and so we do a lot of recruiting within our community.

Um we also um actually just changed um the education requirement because we found that we were one of the last agencies that still required 60 units uh to qualify for the position of police officer.

And our numbers really showed that.

You know, we had an academy of only 13 um you just recently, and it's very hard to sustain your staffing numbers when you're putting 13 people through an academy, you know, twice a year, you know, we might get 30 or so people, but we attrit about 50 to 55 every year.

So we weren't really even keeping up with attrition.

I can tell you um, as the chief, um I I've I've been here for 32 years, and I've had a very great career here.

I've had a lot of support.

You know, we we treat our employees well, we really value them, we work on employee development on wellness.

We want this to be a workplace that people want to stay.

We know how difficult this job is and how much it wears on um on folks.

You know, we really put a lot towards wellness.

We have a wellness program and a wellness coordinator.

Um, I push a lot of leadership and education training because I think it can be a very, very robust career and be very, very fulfilling.

And we're finding that uh as we recruit people, they're looking for not just a job, but they want to feel good about what they do and get something you know, really out of it.

The tough thing with diversity is when you're trying to change your numbers, um, it takes a while.

Um, we went through a round of uh layoffs back in 2010 to 2012, and actually had to lay people off several times.

And so when you're laying people off in in our profession, it's based on seniority.

So it's your youngest people, the newest people into the organization, and we lost a ton of diversity back then, and you know, people need jobs.

So they went and they found jobs in other places, and that just slows down your progression as an agency.

We're also part of something called the 30 by 30 challenge, which is um a national effort to recruit more women and more diversity into the profession and gives um departments who participate um really a toolbox uh to uh to to uh reach out to the community, get people into the profession, and be successful doing that.

So we really try everything.

You know, we want qualified people in the department, we also want them to represent the community, and certainly I mean, I think you can see the diversity just amongst us, um, you know, and I think that that attracts attracts people and candidates.

But you're right, you can't, unless you have an organization that supports them, you can get them in the door, but you can't keep them.

And so for us, it's really important to keep our people once we once we get them trained and we've made that investment.

Yeah, again, I guess I had some personal experience with that because I have a neighbor whose father was definitely a problem for us in district eight for some time, and he wanted to um make his career a community service officer.

He was unable to get in, and I'm not sure why that was because he was at community college, which you know, we followed him into other areas.

And let's say, for example, if he's still interested, is there a cutoff of the uh age or what?

No, actually, um, and I I'd encourage them.

And for anyone who has qualified candidates, I am shameless when it comes to trying to recruit people.

I will talk to you anywhere and give you some insight on the department, and that's really what a recruiting division is for.

The other thing, I want to make sure that you know, we're putting people, this is an in you're you're making an investment in us as well.

So we want to make sure we're the right agency for you, that we're the right fit.

I sit on a lot of panels and with a lot of different agencies, and what's important to me is you find the right place to work because you'll be happier and you'll provide better service to our community if you're in an agency that works for you and roll different in a lot of ways.

So if you have, and I would extend this to everyone candidate, please.

Um, I mean, you can go to Jacob or Ash and uh refer them to us, and we will reach out and follow up with them and talk about opportunities.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Sure.

Oh, one more thing.

You guys need to show up more.

I've been sitting here for a year and a half, and this is the most that we've had in the audience besides the gentleman over there by the window.

He's the only one that comes.

And I I being a hands-on educator, I think it's important for our young people to understand when they should get involved.

We're at the end of a process right now.

This is not the I mean, we love seeing you, but we would have liked seeing you and hearing from you much earlier in the process.

So having a government background, I know I can get a little corny and a little prudish about this, but I think also our young people need to know how government works, and they need to know how to get involved at the early part instead of the late part because you don't get all the goodies in the late part.

You have to get there early.

Okay, and but don't stop coming.

I want to see y'all.

I want to see your food, Max and Luther coming down for I want to see y'all around, and I will say something.

Thank you.

Uh I will say this to to those of you in the audience.

You are WhatsApp in Sacramento.

So please stay engaged.

Definitely is your taxpayers' money.

It is your family's money, it is your future.

So keep coming back, keep speaking up and stay engaged.

Um, Chief, uh, also want to thank you.

I know that you announced your retirement and uh the years of experience and the work that you have done in Sacramento.

It's has not only been monumental to all growth, but it's something that I deeply uh appreciate.

Thank you.

It's been an honor.

I have two technical questions, and probably one.

I will hope that you can provide me an answer, and it goes related to the Pop Line program in a fiscal year basis.

Um, how many new sworn officers have been hired?

Um, so we currently have 17 in the academy, and I'm really excited to say we have seen a huge spike in our application since the beginning of the year.

I would expect looking at the numbers right now, we are likely to hire about 30 or so for the July Academy.

We just um I was just uh the fitness test on Saturday, and we actually had to add an additional day in uh next week just to um to facilitate testing, which is a great place because you've got a bigger pool of candidates and and we'll be able to you know hopefully fill some academies.

Um, you know, right now we're uh considerably below our authorized staffing number right now.

We're authorized to have 733 with the folks in the academy.

I've got just shy of seven or six fifty, I'm sorry, but really that's about six hundred and twenty working officers.

Um, and that's from uh down from an all-time high of 804 that we had in 2008.

So um, you know, trying to hire people and fill those positions um is is really important, but we have unfortunately not been able to keep up with attrition.

We're not unique in that aspect.

A lot of major cities are really having a hard time recruiting um and retaining uh people.

I do see that we are turning a corner though, and we are seeing increases in applications in the success rate, and I I really give um credit to not only our recruiting division, but the men and women that work here and set an example to show this is a place that you would want to work.

Um I want to uh ask that question again in a first score basis, 2024, 2025.

Right.

How many new officers were hired?

Uh well we had 13 in the academy and 17 now, so that would be a total of 30 from July of last year when we started the academy.

All right, thank you.

Um on the last uh part of your presentation, you provided um uh slide of uh uh the different outreach um and different uh things that you guys do as a department.

Uh, would it be possible to get a list uh of a breakdown on uh the many events per district um as well as the name of the as uh CBOs um and the amounts uh that were granted?

Um uh some of the CBOs serve multiple areas, um, but we can certainly provide the list of community-based organizations on whether they're GPIT funded or whether they're EbBids um funded.

Um there's also measure ill the children's fund, um, and I'm sure like Jackie and her team can speak to that.

So, yeah, happy to you know provide that information is as far as like um you know, kind of what the different CBOs do.

And what was the first part of your question?

Um the breakdown.

If there's events, uh there was a wide number of events, just want to make sure that I understand from a uh district per district, yeah, um, that there's equal uh attendance and engagement.

Well, I actually did a big present when we did the budget presentation, I believe it was last year.

Um I I uh highlight every area and showed just the dozens and dozens of events that we regularly attend.

This year we really shortened that budget presentation, but happy to provide that.

Um we are based, we're broken into four commands: the north, the downtown, east area, and south, and so we really um kind of uh categorize the different events um by geographic area, so can certainly do that.

But yet we're very active in the community, so thank you.

Want to take a moment commissioner Salah Thank you.

Um I I'll try to be really quick, but I just want to say that I would my heart was full in hearing all of your stories and seeing the impact of a little over two million dollars, which isn't that much, truly, is not that much for the impact it's having in our community and with all of you, and to see firsthand, you know, we we we make decisions, but to know that that money went to something real and had such a profound impact.

And I also want to say that before, and and that is to you, um Chief Lester and Dr.

What was your idea?

Okay, um, the impact that um it has happened when the two of you came together because prior to that it was it was you know hit and miss, and it was only one million dollars, and it was year to year, and I was sitting there with the gentleman from um brothers to brothers, and and it was four years ago, and he happened to mention I was sitting back there with you, and you said what we really need is funding for three years because this one every year having to make a decision is our program gonna exist, is it gonna go go away makes us less effective?

That's right.

So, seeing that decision, that measure you made to recommend that it be funded for three years and seeing the impact it's having on all of you and in our community was is is heartwarming to me.

So thank you and congratulations on your retirement, and you will be missed.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Um I want to say, and what I heard is that you would like I I would love to increase your your your budget because I think two million spread out through all of the community-based organization through all of Sacramento, and the impact is having on the thousands of youth in our community is not enough.

But because of the budget situation, unfortunately, that's not or maybe um maybe not possible, but for sure we should definitely fund you for another three years at least at what you're getting now.

And congratulations.

And then my last comment is part of the reason why it brought all of you here, is because what was on the agenda mattered to all of you.

So we, as measure you commissioners and the measure you, we need to do a better job of um having things on our agenda that bring you to our meetings and enlicit your feedback, and I think that's kind of an onus on us.

So I I was really happy to see you all, but I I understand why you were here.

Um that's all that's all I have to say.

Commissioner Miller Cook.

I must ask this because I think it's all interconnected uh with public safety, homeless youth prevention, etc.

What is the role of the police department in addressing the homeless population in the city of Sacramento?

Yeah, so we actually were instrumental in helping stand up the incident management team, and Brian spoke really briefly about that.

There um the idea behind the incident management team was to try and bring resources together versus having departments work in silo.

And um I've seen that work in other cities to where you know we've all got limited resources, so we need to work together.

So right now we have about a dozen or so um impact officers that work directly with the outreach workers um at DCR as well as like our cleanup careers, and they're out in the field.

And so essentially we've got um you know close to a dozen people assigned under um director uh Pedro uh to work on the 311 complaints to officer offer services to do enforcement um as needed, and um you know, they're very skilled um in working in that environment.

So we've been I think that we stood that up in 2023, and so we've been um part of that team since that time.

These are sworn law enforcement officers that work under that team in partnership with DCR?

Yes.

What type the chat because I'm I'm trying to reconcile everything I'm hearing against like what I see out in public as I walk the city of Sacramento, and I'm trying to understand like what type of actions or behaviors would compel the police department to actually get involved in taking proactive interventions and addressing a homeless camp, individuals that refuse to move from certain areas despite multiple three-in-one attempts, individuals that are doing drugs in public that are passed out in public, etc.

etc.

It seems like that like all of those fall under the umbrella of log a ticket with three on one, and then it goes into the ether.

So when does the police department like tactically get involved in addressing those issues?

Sure, for uh there's essentially like three ways.

So if it's a a standing camp, uh homeless complaint, um, a trash issue, tip people are typically directed to 311.

Those calls go into 311 Q and they're sent directly to the Department of Community Media Response where they're managed between DCR and our team.

If you um witness a crime in progress, um, or you see something that an officer needs to be respond to right now, depending on the severity of it, we recommend that you call the non-emergency line or 911 even.

And then certainly the third way would be you know, we have officers that are on patrol, they're out being proactive, observing uh behavior, and working to stop crimes that are in progress.

So those are the three primary ways.

Okay, this is not a good my last question, I promise.

I think what I'm trying to get at is there's some type of quality of life crime that's being committed with an individual who is unhoused, whether it's drug use, they're passed out, they're drinking in public, it it seems just very anecdotally like that does not meet the threshold of direct police intervention, and then that in turn impacts the quality of life across many communities.

There's more on housed people and low income communities than otherwise.

It's like it has a cascading effect.

So I I guess I still don't understand at what point does the police department get involved and take action to eliminate that crime from taking place if it's not a violent crime.

Right.

Well, and I mean, I'll be very honest with you.

We have limited staffing.

And so in a lot of cases, um, our patrol division, which is the front line of our services, you know, they um are dispatched to calls based on severity, based on priority, based on really threat to like uh where people are potentially getting hurt, and then property and some of the quality of life crimes that you're seeing.

And to your point, um, some of those um those more the quality of life crimes are not as high of a priority, and we don't get to those as quickly as we would like to.

And that's really, I think, where DCR can um come in.

I am a big proponent of alternate response, but also this is a product of staffing and reductions from year to year to year to what we can and can't do.

And we've had to make some very difficult decisions about what calls will dispatch versus what calls are sent to like online reporting, for instance, um, versus you know, which ones we'll get to um, you know, when we're able to get to them.

And the way we prioritize those really is threats to the public, like to you know, someone getting hurt, and then to active crimes in progress on property.

And you're right, some of the lower level crimes, um, they're more difficult, and based on the amount of time that may have passed since the caller called in or since that crime has been witnessed, people may be referred to online reporting or the call is uh and is not dispatched at that point.

But what you're saying is there's a lack of resources that are preventing you from enforcing the law as opposed to policy choices where you're deciding not to address a homeless camp in a in a certain area.

No, I'm not I'm not saying that.

And what I am saying is that based on the volume of calls, like for example, our comm center took about 608,000 calls last year, um, and about 160,000 of those were dispatched, 60,000 more were proactive police calls where officers put themselves out on different types of calls.

But what I am saying is that certainly when you reduce your staffing, you also have to reduce um the types of calls and the volume of calls that you can reasonably respond to.

You'll see that over the last uh few years, we've made a very intentional effort to try and staff patrol as efficiently as we can.

So, for example, um over at the end of last year, um, I eliminated our contract with regional transit because that put more officers in the field because that is a primary responsibility.

Um, but I wouldn't say it's a policy decision necessarily.

I'm just you know saying that based on the size of our city, based on the volume of calls, and based on the number of officers we have, all of those things have to be taken into consideration when we're dispatching calls.

Hence the push to really support the incident management team so that we could be efficient, because that was a common complaint that people would call 311 and they wouldn't um have a response.

And what I know Brian is working towards and our team is working towards is real-time response so that those calls aren't sitting in the queue for days at a time until someone is able to respond.

But but that still doesn't like align with like uh you just talked this is very anecdotally, like the feedback is that the police department can't do anything because their hands are tied.

Is that statement true or not too?

I didn't say that.

Is that I'm not saying you're saying that I'm saying that's the general feedback from like the public when interacting with the police department and trying to address the homeless population, can't do anything, call through one.

But I'm trying to reconcile like the just like the experience in the public versus what you're saying right now, and whether the police department does have the mechanisms to enforce the law for all members of the population, or is the department proactively choosing to not enforce loitering laws, drunk in public, et cetera, for individuals who are unhoused.

No, that's not the case, and actually it's not the feedback that I've received.

You know, laws have changed significantly over the last few years.

Um for us in this um environment, there was the Boise decision, which really did prevent enforcement in public places, and then uh with the grants passed decision that changed, and it does now allow enforcement, but I would say it is a comprehensive approach between providing services and and doing enforcement, but there is not, I guess to answer your question, um, a mandate that we won't enforce low-level crimes or things that are in progress or things that we see.

Um, I would say that there are times that there are other priority calls that have to be addressed first.

Okay, thank you.

Welcome.

Commissioner Jadson?

Yeah, I just had a quick follow-up because I want some clarity on this as well, in terms specifically, but even if if we were able to, let's say, arrest every misdemeanor out there, it is an issue of capacity for the local jails, right?

As well.

You wouldn't put someone in prison for, I have never actually heard this term, is um life crime.

Quality of life crime.

Can you provide a little I I work in the justice system and I'm an attorney and I've never heard that term before.

Can you just add a little clarity from that?

And what would be the criminal ramifications of someone that is committing a quality of life crime, and would they likely back up on the street anyway if you did enforce this completely?

Well, there are criteria actually for if you make an arrest of someone for a misdemeanor or an infraction, and um essentially um there's certain criteria that would have to be met in order for that person to be booked into the county jail for for instance.

So, in most cases for infraction crimes or for misdemeanor crimes, uh, the officers are issuing a citation uh to the person with a court date to appear, um, and they are not booked into the main jail.

It's not to say that that can't happen or doesn't happen, but there's certain criteria that need to be met.

They probably have to have a warrant or other maybe history or maybe the violent, or there's some other quality, you know, maybe drug possession or something like that that would have to elevate it beyond just this citation, right?

That's correct.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome, thank you.

All right, we're gonna take a pause and give our city clerk's office a moment to make a statement.

We'll do that once we get done.

All right, thank you for that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Have a good night.

Thank you.

All right, moving on to item number five on the discussion calendar.

Good evening, Chair and Commissioners.

My name is Jackie Beecham.

I am the director of the youth parks and community enrichment department.

I'm joined tonight by a few members of our leadership team.

Thank you so much for having us.

Before we jump in to an overview of what the last fiscal year, I also would like to thank our entire Yipsey team.

They work every day across our city to support the quality of life services that you see in our parks integration system.

Sacramento plays a critical role in the life of our city, Yipse, as we call ourselves.

It's responsible for the daily maintenance of 243 parks, parkways, bike trails, natural areas, and open space that spans across 4,000 acres in our city.

Yep C also supports healthy and safe communities through our programs and amenities that encourage encourages excuse me, active recreation, celebrates diversity, and connects people to nature and each other.

Our total operating budget for fiscal year 26, our current fiscal year is 65.9 million dollars, of which 42.2 million dollars is measure you.

In fiscal year 25, our measure U budget was 44 million dollars.

Our citywide operations are delivered by 678 FTE, which equates to 1,437 individual employees.

This includes a very diverse workforce of full-time, seasonal, and part-time staff.

Our park ranger unit is supported by 15 park safety staff and 2.4 million dollars.

That's just 4% of our operating budget.

Rangers continue to focus efforts on core services across our 243 parks and facilities that include enhanced public safety and park education, responding to over 9,000 calls for service this last fiscal year, and supporting homelessness response with DCR's rapid response team that included over 1,000 rapid response calls.

And includes 125 full-time staff.

In addition to the daily maintenance of our 243 parks and parkways and trails, uh this past fiscal year, our park maintenance team processed over 5,600 311 request calls for maintenance-related service in our parks, and also supported over 41,000 volunteer hours to enhance parks across our city, which was a pretty significant increase of 25% from the prior year.

Yep C operates 15 community centers citywide with an 11 million dollar budget that is supported by Measure U.

Centers provide primarily free programming and access to safe space for over 100,000 visits by youth, teens, adults, and seniors through in-person after school programs and summer camps, preschool programs, teen events, older adult enrichment programs, technology resources, and wellness rooms.

Here we have a list of our annual visits by location from the last fiscal year.

Also in community centers last summer of 2025, over 2,000 youth and teens aged 16, excuse me, 6 to 17 participated in our summer camp programs at both community centers and parks, serving 600 more participants than the previous summer.

Our centers have increased offerings for older adults across the city by providing meals on wheels with over 35,000 senior visits, which was almost 2,000 more visitors than the fiscal year 24.

Yep C also hosted citywide senior special events at community centers in the North Central and South Sacramento and served almost 30,000 participants in our wellness rooms at community centers.

Our department partners with community-based organizations, Sacramento Public Library, and Natoma Unified School District, and many others to provide services and programs that complement our current offerings.

In the last fiscal year, we waived over 245,000 in fees for community organizations and nonprofits through the council approved fee waiver and reduction program, and we booked over 1,000 rental permits for various events happening at our facilities.

Last year, the city hosted over 98,000 visits to recreational swimming, providing a safe place for youth and families to swim and stay cool in a city surrounded by rivers and lakes.

It is so critical for us to be able to offer.

This is a steady increase from 2023 and 2024 summer seasons.

Additionally, our aquatics program served the community with over 9,000 lap swim visits, 8,000 water aquasize visits, 300 basic water safety course participants, over 300 swim team participants, and 82 youth in our junior lifeguard program.

We collect community feedback through survey data at our facilities and through our program participation, and as you can see, it's overwhelming, overwhelmingly positive in our aquatics program.

Equity and access is also important for us, and we are proud to report that over 100,000 in scholarships and reimbursements were given out in aquatics, with over $60,000 of that being through the youth program scholarship fund.

26% of our Aquatics Youth Program participants had their fees waived by qualifying through our youth program scholarship fund that is partially funded by Measure U.

The Aquatic Section also contributes to youth workforce development, having certified over 145 lifeguards last year and employed over 180 youth that all live within the city of Sacramento.

The Youth Development Administration team facilitated the delivery of funding to approximately 65 community-based organizations for grant-funded youth programs, serving well over 1,000, excuse me, 7,000 youth and just in this last fiscal year.

This team is also supporting the implementation of the Sacramento Children's Fund.

Yep C's Youth Workforce Development Program unit provided workforce education programs and paid work experiences for over 1,000 youth ages 10 to 18 years old, creating opportunities to gain skills that lead to successful and employable adults.

This includes stipend-based programs like our young leaders of tomorrow, primetime teen, and our junior recade program.

Over 10,000 older adults participated in programs last year, including daily meals and weekly food distribution and access to safe space at social services and referrals.

The older adult services team also supported more than 80 families and caregivers through Triple R, which is our low-cost licensed adult day program for older adults with dementia at three different locations across the city.

Programs at both Heart Senior Center programs at both Hart and Triple R saw increased participation with visits at Hart Senior Center nearly doubling since 2023.

Our camp Sacramento up in the foothills had a very busy season with 100% of cabins available, available cabins initially being reserved after after our open enrollment last summer.

Camp served over 1,700 campers during our family camp season and over 600 more during our post season for a combined total of 2400 campers.

Last season saw success by simplifying our online reservation system and increase in our overall accessibility by making all unreserved cabins available to the public on a single predetermined date.

As you can see here, this along with a new bonus summer session resulted in a significant increase of new families that had an opportunity to come up and experience camp for the first time.

Access leisure provides accessible programs and opportunities for youth, teens, and adults with disabilities.

This includes adaptive sports and social programs, outdoor recreation and camps, and programs for our veterans, delivering 297 programs last year, with participation in recreation programs increasing significantly year over year.

In fiscal year 25, Yipsey also launched the Access Leisure Fund Pass Scholarship that increased access for many of our first-time participants.

Our community recreation program includes youth and adult sports, the 28th and B Street Skate Park, and the Sacramento Softball Complex.

Last year, more than 1,500 youth participated across the city in co-ed seasonal sports programming, including NFL flag football, junior MBA, and our junior giants program.

We also added three new programs to create more opportunities for active engagement for people of all ages across the city.

Yipsey manages and coordinates the reservation process for more than 225 sports fields throughout Sacramento.

We issued over 520 youth sports permits last year and saw consistent growth in youth league participation, providing over 12,000 youth with a safe place to play.

Some of the signature events that we supported included movies in the park, pops in the park, run to feed the hungry, and food truck events that you've seen in many of our parks.

Our team plays a really critical role in permitting logistics coordination and ensuring safe and successful community events.

This includes safety and accessibility issues such as park restroom replacements, major irrigation improvements, sports court reservicing projects, and field and playground replacements.

Deferred maintenance projects are funded using a combination of grant funds and reallocation of measure U funds that remain at the end of each fiscal year.

The numbers here displayed reflect the amount of measure you carry over that we applied to deferred maintenance since fiscal year 21.

The majority of deferred maintenance projects addressed over the last fiscal year using Measure U funds included sidewalk repairs at $3.5 million, the last couple of years, sports field improvements at $1.6 million, sports court resurfacing, and pool and community center repairs.

Some notable projects to include that we used a portion of Measure U funds for grant matching.

I mentioned the Mama Mark's waiting pool conversion, which is a really significant project we're very proud of, and the Ren-Free Field renovation that's going to be coming online very soon at Del Paso Regional Park.

So to recap, I have a very quick one-minute video to show you.

It's hard to capture everything we do in a brief presentation, but a one-minute video of Yipsey in our parks in our Sacramento community over the last year.

Hopefully, a place.

Parks, community enrichment.

Together, we empower our youth, strengthen neighborhoods, and provide life-enriching programs for a beautiful, livable community.

In 2025, Yipsey was more than programs and places.

It was a system of parks and recreation powering opportunity across Sacramento.

Youth stepped into spaces where confidence could grow.

Skills were built for real jobs and real futures.

We invested in the next generation because opportunity changes what is possible.

Showing up, responding, and maintaining safe spaces that welcome everyone.

Community centers became places of connection.

Where older adults stayed active, meals reached those who needed them, and young people found a place to belong.

This work strengthens neighborhoods, builds economic resilience, reduces risk, and expands access.

Yipsey plays a critical role in the life of our city through our people, parks, and programs.

Diverse, dynamic, together.

All right, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Wanted to give you a proper introduction, Jackie Beachum of the Department of Youth Parks and Community Enrichment, because I kind of said item five, and then we had a mass exodus, and I didn't get to give you that honor.

So thank you for coming before us.

Um do we have any speaker slips on this item?

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, we have two speakers on this item.

Our first speaker is Lambert, followed by Mark Jacobs.

The uh the Millennial Army, which I have with me, they're just incredible.

They told me that because they know I'm very fond of Jackie Beachum for many reasons.

One, she thinks outside the box.

And we've seen her in Del Paso Heights at different events.

We usually don't see people from Yipsey.

They send somebody else, but we've seen her there.

Also, for those of you who aren't aware, Grant Pool has been a very contentious situation.

It's very hot in Sacramento.

When I was growing up, Grant Pool was the place where the youth swam and and they were we were really close.

And then for some reason, once the district became Twin Rivers, they cut the pool off from the community.

Can you imagine you have a top-notch pool in your community and you can't the youth can't go there in the summer?

Jackie Beachum was one of the ones that led the charge to make sure that pool was open.

It's very hot in Sacramento.

I consider that inhumane treatment for young people that don't have anywhere to swim.

Wherever you live, your children swim in a pool.

Also, um Max, you hear about her a lot.

I knew her as a teenager.

She was a trailblazer.

Also, it says deferred maintenance.

One of my suggestions is stop putting so much money into quote unquote Wood Lake Park.

Why?

If you go by Wood Lake Park tomorrow, you will see two water fountains, children's apparatus, and a big uh baseball field.

Are you telling me that as a parent, grandparent, children with their combination are not going to want to go to the restroom?

So where are they gonna go to the restroom?

So that's a boondoggle to me.

Thank you for your comments.

Our final speaker is Mark Jacobs.

Hello, my name is Mark Jacobs.

I am founder and CEO of Youth Explosion, a community engagement nonprofit organization and a proud beneficiary of the fee waiver program.

Because of our fee waiver program, we were able to serve over two million people over the last 20 years.

25 years anniversary is coming up for our program, and we look forward to making it a wonderful event.

We all we operate out of the Oak Park Community Center.

We call that Central Sacramento, our hub.

We service communities from all over.

It's far away from the Bay Area.

They come to our Oak Park Community Center to train to understand how to run a nonprofit, and I teach other nonprofits how to elevate themselves.

We are a community engagement nonprofit organization operating as a business incubator and a hub, thanks to the fee waiver and the courtesy of the Oak Park Community Center and the Hagen Woods Center as well in North Sacramento.

We provide relief through food, household items, toiletries, general office equipment.

We help people start businesses.

We uh provide education access.

UC Davis Medical Center, the Oak Park Community Center's number one outreach program is UC Davis Imani Clinic.

Okay.

So they have been our go-to for the last 15 years.

Um I love what you said about UC Davis.

Um we go there once a year, and we have uh a great time, and we celebrate what we do in Oak Park together.

Okay.

Uh community resources, employment services, AOD referrals, personal and social programs.

I also work for the County of Sacramento Employment Services Division, which helps me extend my services through the Oak Park Community Center.

1.4 million people, and uh we move about 37,000 dollars for your comments complete every month.

So I have to say thank you for your comments.

Your time is complete.

Chair, I have no more speakers on this item.

And I will remind members that um the time is now 820.

Uh the meeting started at 535, so the meeting will um need to end by 835.

Okay, moving to Commissioner Comments.

We see Commissioner Fry Lucas, and in the interest of time, we do still have one very, very important pending.

So I will take um Commissioner Fryer Lucas's comment as the only one on the docket.

I'll be very brief, my dear.

My question is how many um uh about senior programs.

Do you know the percentage of your senior programs that our North and South Sacramental seniors take advantage of?

Fantastic question.

We probably have that data.

I don't have it available today, but I would be happy to report back to you.

I and I'm saying I'm guessing I'm more concerned about on site at the Heart Center.

I'm not speaking of the meals, I'm speaking of what you have at the Heart Center.

Um, the other question I have about parks.

I recall a news um briefing that talked about uh Lawrence Park.

Um that uh they wanted to, the young ladies wanted to practice uh for baseball or some sport, and the bathrooms were not made available to them.

How do you accommodate those summer activities that young people have when they need to have rescue facilities?

How do you accommodate those groups?

Sure.

So that is something that we um are often challenged with in our parks is vandalism or issues with maintenance in our restrooms.

Um something that we're regularly dealing with.

Um we try to work very closely with those groups to have some sort of accommodation again across all of our city parks, whether it's rotating restrooms that are open, working with groups to get portable restrooms available, it's something that our maintenance team continues to grapple with on a regular basis, but it's one of those strategies that we have to continue to work through.

Okay, thank you.

For the Heart Senior Center, your question was related to the number of participants that are coming to Hart Senior Center.

My question is to how accessible is that center to North and South Sacramento Seniors.

Thank you.

Okay, Commissioner Salah.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

It was very um clear and concise.

I appreciate that.

So, and just following up with the Heart Center Senior Center.

So there are a lot of senior programs in various communities that like, and I'll just say Stanford Settlement has a senior program, and I know there's many others senior programs that isn't the Heart Center.

So do they get funded?

Do they receive a part of the um Yipse funding for their senior programs?

So the program, the um centers that receive funding from Yipsey are the Yipsey facilities.

So we have a very robust senior program at um South Potomas Community Center, um, several of the community centers that you saw listed here today.

Bell Coolidge Um Senior Center, Coolish Community Center has a senior program at all of our seniors community centers.

We have senior program offerings.

And we've actually seen that our senior programs expand um extensively since COVID.

Majority of our programs used to be centrally focused at Hart Senior Center, but across all of our community centers, our senior program participation has increased significantly over the last several years.

Okay, thank you.

And I was really happy.

I didn't know that the program that you spoke about that you stood up and spoke about that you're you're you waive the fee so they can exist, and that's that's amazing because I don't know if people know what the Mani Clinic is, but that's a student-run free clinic that the community can access on Saturdays that probably wouldn't have any other opportunity to see receive culturally appropriate services in that clinic.

And I and because of your program, they're able to exist.

So that's amazing.

So thank you.

Um and then my last question is we can't, we're not gonna be able to finish everything if we don't extend it for another hour.

Is that not possible?

Uh no, chapter all right, Council Rules of Procedure Chapter 8 D6 um states that uh meetings of legislative bodies shall automatically adjourn after two hours unless extended by two-thirds vote, which it was at 7 30 uh for an additional hour.

Uh it continues to say, but in no case shall the advisory body meeting exceed three hours.

So 8 35 would be the three hour mark.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, Commissioner Miller, Commissioner Cook.

I don't see a scenario where we can go through like the next department plus the measure you budget recommendations in the next 10 minutes.

It's actually like a disservice for us to jam through that.

I mean, we should pivot now while we have 10 minutes and figure out what to do next.

Okay.

So you are removing your comment.

I'm saying that if this meeting has to end in 10 minutes, take the public comment now, pivot the Office of Innovation and Economic Development presentation to next time, pivot the measure due budget recommendation to next time.

There's no way this can be done in 10 minutes.

Yeah, that meet we we know that part, but we do have the um the parameter of the calendar, so having to present the budget to council, and the budget goes to council in May.

So with that being said, we want commissioner comment.

So if you're gonna remove your comment, then we can go forward.

But in the interest of the other department that sat through the evening, you know, I would like to extend the remaining time because it is what it is at this point, but I don't think it's fair to have the Office of Innovation and Economic Development, you know, um, be cut.

So if you are removing your comment, then we can move forward to the next one.

I don't think it's appropriate to have them do a presentation where we can't provide QA.

So I'll I'll withdraw my comment, but I I think we should not have another presentation plus a measure you recommendation in the next nine minutes.

You're now actually wasting the time that we're no, I'm not.

I'm trying to address the questions that we need to address, but for some reason we don't want to.

Well, let us look to the clerk's office for some more guidance in regards to the parameters with the remaining time that we have.

Chair's chair's privilege.

Uh, you can decide to move to the next item.

At this time, we'll call the Office of Innovation and Economic Development.

Well, good evening, Denise Malvetti with the Office of Innovation and Economic Development.

And um, we're gonna see how quickly we can get through this.

We're gonna certainly improvise, and I am joined here with a few members of the team that were gonna be here for QA as well.

Um, but I don't know that we'll we'll get there.

Um so you know, our office, we encourage job growth and investment in the city by retaining attracting and growing um businesses, and really at our core, um, we are charged with inclusively growing Sacramento's economy.

To do this work, we are organized in these um six programmatic teams.

There's also an administration team that I am a part of um that supports all of these.

I was gonna take a little time.

I have one slide on each of these, with the exception of nighttime economy, because they are not funded by Measure U.

But we'll go through this really quickly.

So the um community investment team, as the earlier slide mentioned, they really lead our public-private partnerships that result in transformative projects, like several of those you see here on the screen, Aggie Square, which opened last year, um, involved in you know the infrastructure financing as well as ongoing um support as it relates to business attraction, workforce development.

You see an image of the rail yards as well as uh waterfront.

Our economic development team is more on the programmatic side or neighborhood scale um projects.

That includes the launch of the Business Solutions Center last year in partnership with California Capital, where we provide small business technical assistance, which could result in microgrants.

This group also administers our economic gardening program, a lot of the ARPA, which is federal remaining COVID funding, especially in districts two and three.

This team is administering a lot of that work to support small businesses.

We have a workforce development team that the three primary buckets of work in 2025 were related to Thousand Strong, which is a measure you funded program.

There's youth and young adult training, which is supported by an approximately $3 million grant from the state of California to support youth and young adult public sector and nonprofit career pathways.

And we support support the ECE workforce by way of partnering with Los Rios for an apprenticeship program, but we also provide business development support through child action for family child care homes.

Housing, as you know, housing is a top priority.

It is a huge priority to have a range of housing types from you know employees, workforce housing, employees making minimum wage through executive housing.

We have a small and mighty housing team of two that partners with various other departments as well as outside organizations to grow the housing stock here in Sacramento.

The community engagement team, which is a new portion of our team from the 2019-2020 fiscal year when we realized to do inclusive economic development, we needed to find new and better ways to engage our community.

Lynette Hall, who's here this evening leads that team.

This slide features some of our key programs, including language access.

We hired the city's first language access coordinator last year.

We have a community ambassador program that provides culturally appropriate outreach to the community and a few other programs featured there.

Our budget is about 5.7 million of measure you funding that supports 30 of our 32 FTEs.

We also have funding from the Innovation and Growth Fund, which supports two positions as well as a lot of our programs.

Here's the breakdown by division.

I'll maybe blow through that so I can get to your metrics.

Breakdown between supplies and services.

Again, it's mostly salaries and benefits to support employees that are carrying out these programs and supplies and services to help us do that efficiently.

This just shows the we're a small piece of the general fund pie.

Okay, so to we measure a lot of things, but I wanted to stay true to the metrics you've requested quarterly.

So I first bucket is related to small business.

I mentioned earlier, we launched the Business Solutions Center last year.

This represents work in 2025.

There are 93 businesses assisted.

That is closed cases.

So we interacted with more businesses, but there could still be ongoing engagement.

So in order to accurately count in each report, we you know decided to define that as you know closed cases.

So that resulted in 511 hours of consulting, seven fee waivers or microgrants.

Another small business program that we launched in 2021 is the SHOP 916.

It's a gift card program that we have 130 small businesses enrolled in.

Last year there were over 230,000 dollars of gift cards purchased.

The city's initial investment of ARPA funding in 2021 has leveraged, I believe off the top of my head, about 1.3 million since the inception of that program.

Grant metrics.

So this is grants that our office received in calendar year 2025.

This does not include the housing ones.

It's a little over 9 million, mostly related to financial empowerment center, workforce development, and some waterfront investments.

We distributed 5.2 million in grants.

Most of this is remaining federal ARPA funding in Del Paso and Northgate areas.

Workforce metrics.

So in 2025, we inherited the Thousand Strong program.

It was the last year of Thousand Strong due to budget reductions in the 25-26 budget adopt the adopted budget.

We supported 81 young people.

Which last year we supported about 264 youth.

Housing metrics, you all asked how much you know, measure you for the fee reduction.

That was 3 million in the 24-25 fiscal year, and also in the 25-26 fiscal year.

Um calendar year.

Still waiting to hear on a couple large ones for housing developments.

Recently heard this month about receiving the allocation of HAP, which is about 16 million.

Since the program inception in 2020, the numbers in Perenz are the 2025 metrics.