All right, good afternoon.

The time is now 2 05 p.m.

and we'll call public safety committee meeting to order.

Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Present.

Councilmember Castillo.

Councilmember Spears.

Chair Corps?

Here.

Ma'am, we have a court core.

Thank you.

All right.

We have a few items on the agenda.

We'll start off with approving our minutes from the November 17th public safety committee meeting.

Are there any um updates that need to be made to the minutes?

Councilmember, I don't know if you caught anything this time.

Okay, we'll take a motion on it.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, motion carries.

All right.

So we have three items for discussion today.

The first one is on ACS.

So Maria, if I'll hand it over to you to give a little background on it.

Thank you, Chairwoman.

Um, so today what we have is a presentation by John Gary, our ACS director, to give you a brief update of the animal care services strategic plan and some of the progress that we have made towards accomplishing some of the goals.

But more specifically, we want would like to talk to you about some of the statistics related to uh spaying order surgeries and some of the uh progress that we have made with the two additional clinics that were open late last year, and some of the participation of our community as well as details of the other uh clinics that we have across the city, including some of the um challenges that we still have with uh individuals um in in a waiting list as they are trying to get surgeries in in our locations.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to uh John.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee.

Um, as Maria said, I'll I'll quickly go through um some of the progress with the it's really overall statistics, but we'll focus really on the two of the items that you asked for, and that was about the officer hiring and and then of course the spending or clinics and how they're doing.

Uh so the first uh the first slide that we have here, this is really just those five uh items that we show uh through our strategic plan that are our main focus areas um that we have.

And then uh going into the public safety.

So um in FY24 and 25, we added about 22 first responders that you all graciously funded through the budget process.

Um positions uh were also added to enhance uh bite and dangerous investigations uh in FY24 as well.

That brought that team up to um four dangerous um officers and an eight bite investigators for a total on that team of 12.

Um the hiring status for those positions 100% of the new positions have been hired.

We are actually um overhired by three.

Um and we're uh continue to do that.

We had an academy that just graduated in this last uh September.

Uh and um we'll have the next academy that will be starting uh shortly uh in this after the first of the year, we're probably around the springtime is when that academy will start with hopefully a completion date in late May.

Uh as you can see down there, uh it does say we have 50 first responder positions with current current four vacancies.

That's um that's only shows that way because of uh we have our um trainees that that get promoted up.

So we actually technically we are overstaffed by three.

Those officers will soon um go from trainees to officers, and then that number will be um as you'll see it'll be it'll actually be more than 50 that we have.

Um there are investigations.

We have a total of 17.

We do have one uh vacancy uh in our cruelty team at this point uh in time.

Uh and so we'll be working on on filling that.

Uh, we just got that approval uh not that long ago, just a week or so ago.

Uh and then we have two court officers.

Uh the one is but really they focus on permits and courts.

One of them uh is primarily court, and one of them is primarily permits, but they kind of uh work together to ensure that the both permits and courts are covered, and then the supervisors we do have currently have one vacancy.

Uh we just made a selection this this last week, and so that team will be fully staffed uh hopefully by by next week when we get the approval for that hire.

Uh and moving on to our critical call response.

Uh we really had a tremendous uh year last year.

We made a lot of progress over the year.

We finished um last year at about uh 86.6 percent uh overall critical call response rate.

Uh but we we finished the last three months.

We've had over 96 percent and current currently for this current fiscal year, we're at 96.2 percent for our critical call response rate.

So our goal was to uh to finish that 97 percent by the end of this uh fiscal year.

Uh we we we believe we'll we'll meet that without any issues.

Uh and you can see um over the the through the graph there uh the progress that's been made in that critical call response uh over the last three years.

Uh moving on to our dangerous and bites, uh damage dog compliance rate uh increased from 55% to 82% in FY25.

Um and and our goal for that uh is 80%.

So we exceeded our goal by about 2%.

We know there's gonna be a percentage of animals that um that we'll lose track of.

The owners will move, um, they're pretty good at avoiding us whenever they're not in compliance.

Uh and so there's always that certain number that that won't be in compliance, but um our goals 80, we're at 82.

Um, and our teams actually assured me that they're gonna uh do even better than that this year.

So I'm looking forward to see that progress that they make.

Um and then that that next number down there of our bike cases, uh we 98.5% of the bike cases are worked, uh, and then 99.6% of the severe cases are worked.

And so very proud of the team that they've made in our bike case work.

Um nearly every single bite is being worked, and even the ones that aren't, which is really just a handful, uh, are typically due to the reporting process of it.

There's 10 days within a bite needs to be worked, and sometimes the they're they're either reported late in that in the that 10 days or sometimes even after that 10 days.

So I think the staff does a tremendous job responding to our bike cases, and uh, we've even had a few months where it's 100%, and so they're doing a really great job in that area.

Um if you look at our enforcement and accountability, that was what that was a big uh priority uh for us this last year.

Um we saw a 98.8% increase in citations over FY24.

Uh as you can see by the graph down there, we own we were just under 14,000 at 13,784 for a number of citations written last year in FY25, uh, which is uh and it was 180% increase in the number of criminal citations.

So we are we did focus more on our criminal citations over the civil citations over this last year, and and you obviously you can see that in the data there.

All right, uh moving on to Spain neuter.

Uh so we increased funding for our community spay neuter partners both in FY24 and 25.

Total of 1.76 million uh over 10 contracts.

Uh those uh all still remain, and um we continue to work on um finding new ways to to provide spay needer to our residents.

Um we opened up the two new ACS spay neuter clinics, obviously in FY25.

Uh 21 staff members were um positions were to operate the clinics, and then we have about 540,000 that is allocated to the contracts that we have.

Uh currently have about six um veterinarians uh that are contracted.

We had as many as eight.

Um we've recently uh lost a couple, but we're continuing to find contracts in the new ways, and then over this last week actually, we got some news we'll be working with Bissell to even try to provide even more spay neuter.

Uh last year we were about 39,000, a little over 39,000 spa neuter surgeries.

Uh we believe we're gonna easily hit our goal, the 41,459, as long as we can keep uh veterinarians.

Veterinarians are always gonna be the biggest uh struggle.

Uh there's nationally there's a veterinarian shortage, so as long as we can keep those contract veterinarians, uh, we're in good position to hit our goal this year.

Um here's kind of a breakdown of those spay neuter clinics.

The West Side Clinic opened in March, uh, and then the East Side Clinic was a few months after that in July.

Uh, like I mentioned earlier, there's six contract veterinarians that are conducting surgeries right now out of those two clinics.

Um so far in FY25, we were at 1789, and then this year our goal is to do 6,000 surgeries uh between the two clinics.

And again, as long as we can keep our veterinarian staffed, we'll we believe we'll hit that target.

Um both clinics are fully operational, opening for surgery Tuesday through Thursday.

Uh we do uh also uh are gonna be opening up out in January to do some on Saturdays as well.

We uh just recently um recruited another veterinarian uh with some Saturday availability for us.

Uh the capacity at both clinics is somewhere between 15 to 30 surgeries, depending on the veterinarian.

We have some that they're capable of doing more than their 30, and then some that are a little less than that number.

Uh currently we're averaging about 20 surgeries a day.

Um, and then the appointments are actually uh booked through the end of February.

Uh one of the biggest uh hurdles that we have right now is is the large number of uh females.

Female surgeries take longer than the male surgeries, and so um a veterinarian um can't physically do all female surgeries, so we actually have to uh schedule those accordingly to try and ensure that the veterinarian can handle that workload.

Um there's to the right there, you see there's that surgery breakout as far as uh how percentage of dogs, um, male, female, and then cats, male and female.

Um, and and you can see the majority of those are uh about 31% as the largest number, which is male dogs.

They are much uh easier surgery for our veterinarians to perform.

Uh moving on quickly now to our placement.

So uh last year we finished about 86.3 percent.

Uh that's about one and a half percent increase over the the prior year, um, and that was despite a 7.3 increase in intake.

We had near almost 2200 animal increase in intake last year, and still we're able to uh raise the live release rate.

Um proud to say currently right now, this fiscal year we're at about 88% live release rate for uh the pets entering our shelter.

Uh adoptions again, we did just over 5,900, uh, another increase, about 8.7 increase over FY24.

A lot of that has to do with our focus that we did on large scale events.

Uh, we're doing a lot more uh smaller scale events, and then also our enhanced marketing.

Our our new marketing team that was created uh over the last fiscal year has just done a tremendous job.

Hopefully, all of you have seen uh the difference in through social media and the other marketing that that we've done uh with that team.

Uh and the other good news that we have is just uh shortly after the first of the year, we will be doing uh regular uh off-site adoption events at places like Pet Smart, Petco, and other organizations as well.

We're happy to kick that program off shortly after the first of the year.

Uh our return to owners, we had uh just under 8,000 uh return to owners, again, another 15% increase over FY24.

Uh we actually just met with uh PETCO Love uh trying to increase that number.

Uh one thing we did find out in that meeting though is that we're we are doing better than most people in the country.

We are higher than the average.

Uh so we're doing a really good job in our return to owners, and something that we're very proud of, uh, especially that 29% increase in over-the-counter RTOs.

Um, those are the hardest ones.

Once an animal enters our our shelter, the likelihood of it getting back from an owner is not very good, and and it's something that our staff is actually really, really good at.

Um, so we did see that 29% increase, and that also tells us that the vast majority of strays that we have in our community and that are entering our facility are owned.

Um, and then the transfer numbers.

We uh saw uh another increase in the number of transfers.

We're just over 12,000 animals were transferred uh in FY25, and again a 7.2% increase um over FY24.

Uh and then our community outreach efforts.

This is something that we've really ramped up over the last year, and I've spoken about uh these programs a few different times uh throughout the council and some of the committees as well.

Um, this pet care connect program is our boots on the ground out in there.

I I think every council member here almost that we've done one in has been present during our pet care connect uh and doing the block walking, providing the resources.

Um, and really this is a this is a really staff effort.

Almost every part of uh division from our department uh participates in this in some way, whether it be just the prep for it or actually out there physically doing the block walking.

Um our residents uh are very appreciative of this program, and I think over this next year we'll be able to start to compare some data and really see the difference that this program makes.

It's probably one of the few other than spay neuter, it's it's really one of the few proactive programs that we have.

Um as you can see, over 3,900 homes were reached uh in FY25, uh 629 direct resident interactions.

So those are 629 people we actually were knocked on the door and were able to uh speak to them and provide resources to 1,540 pet resources, so that could be anything from dog food to microchipping to dog houses, uh, just any type of resource that that resident may need, items to keep their animal confined, as well as we did over 129 uh free microchips during uh this last uh year.

Uh 400 plus free vaccinations uh that we will partner with Spay Neuter Network to provide, and then 300 plus spay neuter referrals, and that's a that's a big one.

These are uh Spain Neuter actually uh Spain Network actually goes on these block walks with us.

Um they're there for our residents to provide booking appointments right there on the spot for them.

Um, and then through our partnership with Daisy Care, is over 100,000 pounds of pet food was distributed.

Um that's a huge program that we've had with them, and we'll continue to partner with them on various different items.

But each neighborhood that we go into, we we also come back and do a food giveaway where we give away uh typically it's about 30,000 pounds of food at each neighborhood that we're in.

Uh 75 uh pets returned to home, and uh one of the things that we're really really proud of is six dogs were freed from chains, and we were able to provide proper resources so that they can house the animal uh in a more appropriate manner and get those animals off the chains.

Um and and to follow up at um to wrap up uh community outreach, we have our wellness clinics.

Um, this is something that is just uh I think our community should be extremely proud of.

This is not something that you see in every community that um that we're able to provide this this much wellness to our to our residents.

So over 7,700 animals uh received uh were served at our wellness clinics.

Um that included some large-scale events where we did nearly a thousand.

Uh, we're gonna continue that work moving on to this next fiscal year as well.

Um the services include the microchips, vaccines uh for both dogs and cats.

Uh and then we're seeing about 33 percent of the animals that come to those um those wellness clinics are are sterilized.

So that's the number we're where our goal is to get up, right?

We'd rather we want to see that number much higher than that 33 percent.

But that is giving us somewhat of an idea of about a third of the pets are sterilized in our community.

Uh marketing, our pet networking teams just done an incredible job uh on marketing.

If you look at our social media, um every their goal is to get every a photo retaken of every animal on day one or day two.

Um they do focus on the most at-risk animals, which would be our large uh mixed breed type dogs.

Um about 80 that we found that about 87.7 percent of the animals that get that photo and they get highlighted get adopted.

And so uh we we actually just uh recently applied for a grant that we're hoping that we get to add to that team uh because we need that we want to get every dog featured.

Uh if we can get every dog featured, that's just gonna increase the odds of them being placed.

Um right now we're about 70, 80 uh animals per month that are on social media.

Uh about 88% of the pets uh again found positive placement.

Um, and again, our goal is to increase that number with our current staffing to 100.

Uh, we do believe that if the grant comes through and we're able to get the grant, we'll be able to increase that number even more.

So that is uh that is the end, but I'm happy to answer any uh questions that you may have about uh what what we went over today.

Thank you so much, John.

We do have one um individual signed up for public comment on items two and four, but we'll go ahead and just do items two right now.

John, if you want to come up.

Slowly sure.

We will call you back up for item four.

Thank you, Dave.

Okay, I've uh just got a few things.

I've passed around a thing, a calculation which I've handed out before, which basically just shows what was probably really doable five, six, seven years ago.

Now it looks like it's probably undoable with uh over 350,000 dogs and 350,000 cats, and 40 percent I gave them more credit.

40 percent are on our vaccinated, I mean spay and neutered.

Um you'd have to do about 200,000 spay and neuters a year to get to for three or four years to get zero population growth.

We know that's doesn't look feasible now as far as part of that is getting vets, facilities, staffing to support vets, and uh a good example of that is the east and west uh clinics that were opened, and though they're having to uh man those with contract vets who get 1,350 a day.

That's equivalent to about 350,000 a year.

So but if we have to pay that, we've got to pay that because there's 10 stations in the east and west.

Basically, the numbers show that essentially two equivalent of two are actually being used.

So if we could fill that up, that those clinics could do probably 50 thousand a year.

Um the other thing is that I'm sure glad that a lot of things are happening at ACS.

One that was mentioned was the mega adoption events, which there's one coming up Saturday and Sunday, which I'm sure you're all invited to, right?

And uh, and that's been a very good positive, and the outreach is looking good, but it's just the spay neuter that I worry about that just but also it you've got to start planning on that.

The new hospital won't be finished for two years at least, and then probably a few months after that to get operational.

So you've got to now start budgeting and planning to get the equipment to get the personnel to get plans in place of exactly how they're going to operate, and uh gets don't we're lead time budget session uh things are starting in March.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, John.

Okay, we'll go ahead and move on to council discussion.

I'll ask my colleagues if anyone would like to start Council McGustillo.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, John and uh John Fockman for the public comment as well.

Um, in some of the data that you presented, I'm pleased to see that with the uh adoption rate, live release rate, and return to owners, we've seen an increase.

And I think one thing that I hear from constituents, right, is your social media and the marketing team and the great work, and to see that 88% of those uh posted on social media have found a safe placement, uh, it is a huge uh success, right?

So just want to highlight the work of you and your team uh in ensuring that those folks that the folks, the dogs rather, uh, that are placed uh on social media are getting uh a safe placement at 88%, which is uh really high.

Um and to John's point, right?

I I think in terms of planning and um just the outreach that your team does with pet care connect.

Uh I I know these are pilots, right?

I think I guess my question to staff is when do we um have this part of animal care service and no longer a pilot?

Uh and I think that's showing that the data is successful and it should be uh integrated into department beyond a pilot and start uh preparing in terms of budgeting, right?

And what it looks like to have that long term within animal care service.

Um, of course, with enforcement and accountability, um, there's just so much concern.

Well, I'm I'm grateful of the work of uh your team and of course the city for ensuring that we're holding irresponsible pet owners accountable.

Uh and this is something that we still continue to hear from our residents, um, but we're grateful that if there's a case that we connect to your team or if ACS is present in the meeting, they address that concern for residents.

So um just thank y'all for y'all's proactive engagement.

Uh and it's great to see uh I remember during my first term, it was typically Officer Smith who was making her rounds to every community meeting running back to back, and now right ACS has enough staff to where they can share that workload and it's not falling on uh one ACO.

So I'm just saying that to emphasize the need to invest in ACS so that way the employees uh also have a manageable workload uh in terms of meeting the needs of our constituents.

Um I appreciate that uh you all are potentially going to expand or are going to expand to provide Saturday spay and neuter services in our community.

Uh that's one of the questions and concerns that I've heard from residents is you know, it's not accessible for me.

I work during the work week, have to pick up kids, so on and so forth.

Um so grateful to see that you are going to provide accommodations on Saturday.

Uh, and of course, extremely grateful for Rita uh and Karen for their service on the board, uh, again, present in every community meeting, uh, ACS meeting as well.

Uh, a couple of questions that I do have, and I'm happy to uh get together offline in terms of what that looks like, but I'd like to understand in terms of per day how many animals uh are ACOs bringing to the ACS facility, and then also I'd like to understand when an owner wants to surrender their pet, what is the typical timeline uh that that individual has to wait if they if there is a wait to give that animal up?

I don't know if you have that now, but happy to discuss and get that offline.

Yeah, no, I I mean I can answer a little bit of that now.

As far as the owner surrenders goes, uh their priorities based off a need.

So obviously, if the animal has um if it poses a threat to the community or if there's a medical concern, uh we prioritize those and we try to get those in as quick as we can.

If it's just uh an owner uh needing to just rehome their pet for for whatever uh reason that's just uh that that's not an emergency, then uh typically that right now they're booked out a couple of months.

Um, our goal is to typically just try to work with that owner and find other placements so it doesn't have to come to the shelter.

So that is um really the the biggest point with those owners is just working with them.

Some of the new technology that we actually had meetings with today uh uh will allow them to place the owner up for adoption or place the place the animal up for adoption, not the owner, the animal up for adoption, and um so it doesn't have to come to us, you know, they can rehome it on their own, and that's really what we would prefer, right?

So it doesn't in the safest animals one that doesn't come to us to begin with, and I think that's a priority for us this year, and looking at ways and some of the newer technology uh and free websites and things that we're able to use um to help that owner because there's so much out there now available to them that our staff can help them work through to try to find placement outside of ACS.

And I'm sorry, what was the other well, I did have a follow-up question.

Uh, in terms of the owner surrender, does ACS track why they're being surrendered?

Is it because they're aggressive, they can't afford food, or is it tracked and what are those buckets look like?

Yes, it is uh tracked.

I would have to get the exact data.

Uh we do it's uh most of the time it's behavioral.

Um and um, but I can get the exact data so break that out even further.

So if you want to see some of the other ones as well.

It's and then my uh last question was uh in terms of uh per day, how many animals are uh are is our ACLs picking up in the community, like the average.

You know, it's somewhere between 50 and 70, it can vary pretty greatly um depending on the the day.

Um some days we're lower than that in that 30 range, but typically it's somewhere between 50 and 70.

Wow a day.

It's a lot.

All right, those are all my questions.

Thank you, John.

Thank you, Chair.

I can go if you guys want a couple more minutes too.

Okay.

Do you want to go ahead, Council?

Um, I understand more on what a critical call.

How do you define that?

So uh really a critical call is anything.

Um it's probably easier to list the non-critical calls than it is the critical, because most of our calls fall in that critical category.

The non-critical ones are going to be strays, um, just the lower priority critical calls typically focused on uh human uh is obviously top of that list where people may be in danger.

Uh so that includes dangerous bites, aggressives, any of those uh type calls, and then uh also includes our uh animal safety.

So our cruelty cases is probably the typical one, uh sick or injured animals uh that maybe uh stray falls into that category as well.

Um so really if you look at it, it's if you look at uh basically whenever it becomes an issue, health uh or safety issue for people or animals, those all fall into our critical call response categories.

Okay.

Um so I heard there's not an X-ray machine right now.

Is that true?

That's correct.

Yeah, we will have one in the new hospital.

How are you handling that?

Uh right now we if we need an X-ray, we have to contract it out.

We work very closely with uh um the animal emergency center here in San Antonio.

They do some for us when we need them, and then we have other partners that we're able to, and actually just uh ADL just recently actually has volunteered theirs to us as well.

So we'll start partnering with them to do some as well.

I get that question so often, so I'm glad to hear it.

There's a solution.

We see a lot of trauma, so it's important.

That's why it was so crucial that it um we added it in when we when we built the hospital.

Are they how much would I know this is off my how much would that cost?

How much is an X-ray machine?

Uh they vary quite a bit, but typically around anywhere from about 40,000 on up to 100 plus thousand, depending on what type you get.

That's a range.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, it's they they do a lot of different things now, so yeah, there is a pretty good range from a very basic one to a high-end one.

Um, I am interested in integrating y'all more into district nine.

I think maybe our needs may be different, and I'd like to talk more about what that is.

I I think we experience a lot of dumping of animals out in District 9, and I and I'd like to um you know participate in the pet care connect program and see how we can be more supportive and and have y'all come talk to our district more about what responsible pet ownership looks like and and and what we can do to help out in district nine.

Um I'm happy to see you applied for the grant um for photos.

That's you know the marketing is super important, and I do see hear a lot about that in my district too, that people are seeing that.

So I think that's really a great effort.

And I did hear about your mega adoption events.

I do not need more animals in my household, but I'm happy to come.

Uh we have an we have our limit, and um, but I'm happy to come be supportive anyway that we can.

Um and then I had something.

Okay, so this is a different question.

Are there do you see any potential partnerships with the county that we could be taking advantage of in their programs?

I mean, I think potentially we could they are currently um you know revamping their their uh the county and uh they got a new shelter, um, some new leadership.

Um so I think there'll be some opportunities there to partner when we can.

Maybe they have an X-ray machine we can buy.

So yeah, I'm not sure if they did that in their new shelter or not.

Okay.

Um so an issue that I do have a lot of concern with is the deer and the hogs out in our district.

Um is there anything we do with the game warden or or what are our undomestic, how are we handling our non-domesticated animals?

So uh as far as hogs pertain, we do actually have a contract with a uh a hog trapper that uh will go out and take care of those uh situations when when needed.

Okay, the deer.

The deer's another issue, yeah.

No, I mean obviously.

And and you know, we uh we typically don't do wildlife.

The hogs actually are an invasive species, so we do uh work with a contractor to handle those, but when it comes to wildlife, we typically refer to the State Department.

Okay.

Okay, well, we would love your media kit and we'd love to be helpful, however, we can to help push forward on adoptions and the programs that are offered and do the Pet Connect.

But um I just see this trending up, so I think it's good work.

And uh thank you for the presentation.

Oh, thank you.

We we're happy to come to uh your district and talk any time um that that you need us to.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilmember, are you ready?

Uh thank you, Chair, and thank you for the presentation.

Congrats on the end of this fiscal year.

When did you when did you join officially?

Uh December 30th of a year.

Okay, perfectly.

You're you're right there, so happy anniversary.

Uh there are a few things that I really wanted to take away from this presentation.

Uh, I'm of course we know that we have a long way to go in terms of addressing the Australian roaming animal crisis in our city, uh, as well as improving our live release rate toward becoming a true no-kill shelter.

Um, but there have been some drastic changes over the the past few years, and rightfully so.

Uh when I first took office, uh, animal care services was a top three priority for me and for my district.

Uh, it wasn't quite that for everyone.

Uh, but ACS wasn't equipped with the resources that the department needed to do the job that our community expected of them, especially in the thick of the pandemic.

Uh, we know that there are a few things that need to be done.

One is ACS needs to have a community presence and be responsive.

Uh, we need to increase the number of span neuter surgeries as that happen.

Uh, and we need to improve pet owner behavior.

Uh there's more, of course, but that's a basic three that we'll hear over and over and over again.

So this presentation takes a look at several of the improvements that have been made, uh, and the data should tell us if we're on the right track with these investments.

And so what I hear sometimes at public comment is uh we don't need any more brick and mortar, we don't need any more staff.

ACS has the resources that they need.

We're just not doing enforcement is just is the is the main issue.

Um we know that in 2023, critical calls were being responded to only 44% of the time, not even being resolved, just the response rate was 44%.

And we're now on our way to 100% next year, which is incredibly exciting.

Uh, we know that citations have tripled over the past two years, and while I want to note that citations are alone are not enough, justice does require acknowledgement of wrongdoing doing, and this is an area where people are being hurt, uh, and there has to be consequences for uh for these actions, right?

Uh so at municipal court and at the municipal court advisory committee, uh, we'll be looking a bit deeper beyond ACS to the outcomes of these cases and when we're appointing our municipal court judges in a couple uh in a couple months.

Um, we want to be sure that they're treating the issue with care, innovation, and thoughtfulness, uh, especially such that the issue requires.

Beyond that, we need to be proactive and stop these cases from happening in the first place.

And so uh we look at your community outreach, uh, which you have outlined, which includes direct contact, uh, resource distribution, microchips and vaccinations.

We also see the wellness clinics, the mega adoptions, all the things, as well as even the the social media presence that I feel has improved uh uh over the past few months, several months at least.

Time is time is uh a little tricky right now.

Uh and the metrics that you shared were nice to look at.

I don't remember what slide they were.

Uh but I would love to compare the fiscal year 25 uh outreach metrics.

Um I would love to compare across years what outreach has looked like and what has you know our reach been this year versus previous years.

Is this an area where we've improved?

I get the hunch anecdotally that it has, but it's important to see with numbers, uh comparing how many people have we reached, for example, uh with direct contact.

Um you then also look at our span our spandewer efforts, and we were incredibly limited just a few years ago.

We know that of course brick and mortar and more staff alone aren't a solution, but strategic implementation of resources like a clinic and more veterinary staff have yielded results, and so in just a few years, we anticipate doubling the number of sterilizations that we're performing when compared to 2023, and that's a direct result of the capacity created with our East and West Side Clinics and the additional staff and veterinarians that we have.

And so I anticipate the veterinary hospital will be an equally, if not more so, tremendous asset.

Uh I am also uh uh echoing what Councilman Castillo mentioned.

I am anxious to expand on our pilot programs.

To me, a pilot is used to determine if a program can work and serve as a baseline for a more permanent program.

And so I look forward to the one in one, two, three, and five, what was it called?

Pet care connect.

Pet care connects.

Looking forward to seeing that, you know, fully ingrained within the department and expanded so that folk in districts eight, nine, ten, four, six, everyone can uh benefit.

Uh I also do look forward to the feasibility study coming forward shortly to really assess the opportunity that an AC Eastside ACS campus could provide to accomplish goals that I mentioned earlier, especially, you know, if I go to any neighborhood association meeting, any town hall, and I ask, well, okay, raise your hand if you've ever been to uh our ACS campus.

There might be well, say it's 200 people in the room, you might get four or five hands.

And so we really want to increase the number of adoptions that are happening from ACS.

We don't need people adopting from street breeders or from their neighbor.

We don't need any of that.

We need people to come in contact with pet owner education behavior, with the shelter.

We need uh and we need a presence.

We need it to be easy for animal care officers to address the needs of the community, and that a part of that is a permanent presence.

Um, so overall, I'll um I know this is basically an update on the 2023 strategic plan and where we're at and some of those metrics that we established.

Uh something that's always missed a little bit from these conversations has been again a commitment to um to true no-kill status.

And so for me, it's important that as we look at each of our programs and all of our goals, we're figuring out how do we maneuver them in such a way that that's what we can we can achieve that because we can.

We do have a uh a lot of resources, we just have to uh use them in the right way.

And I know that um Mr.

Bachman gives us a sheet like this almost every time he comes to speak.

Uh it's really it's not complicated math.

I know that the minds at ACS can tell us, hey, what are the what are the shortfalls of looking at it in such a simple way?

Or is it really this simple?

Can we do it and why don't we?

Um so I would love to get us there.

That'll be my feedback for today, and I look forward to many more conversations and many more years of uh working with you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember.

Um, I'll start by echoing some of the things that I think my council colleagues said that I really I think majority of us have shared the same sentiment on.

And the first one is Pet Care Connect.

We worked with your team closely earlier this year in the district one, the Dellview neighborhood, and had some of very similar numbers, hit 1,500 homes, were able to give out uh 100 bags of cat and dog food and um serve over 280 families with 100 vaccinations.

So I think it was a huge success for uh uh concentrated effort for two weeks in that area.

So all of that to say, Councilwoman Castillo and um Councilmember McKee Rodriguez mentioned it, and Councilmember Spears was like, I want it too.

So we should just shift, we should come.

I I hope we can bring back in a couple of months y'all's plan to what the budget will look like to make this a full-time program so that we can incorporate that for the summer sessions.

Um it's been a huge success, and you have a great team leading that work that and they're also bilingual team members and also members who understand the communities and the culture that they're going into.

So I think you have great people that you can expand on to build capacity there.

Uh the second thing that Councilmember McKee Rodriguez mentioned, and he the citations have gone up specifically.

And so I thank you for gathering this data.

I have a couple more data questions that I'd like for us to do diligence on if we haven't.

The first one is do we know of those 180% increase in citations?

How many of them are actually getting paid or showing up or getting resolved?

Like it's one thing to give someone a citation, but are are they really feeling the full accountability of it?

And I know you mentioned you're gonna be looking um into that in municipal courts, but do you guys track that as well?

No, no, that's that's tracked by municipal courts, yeah.

We don't track it.

Okay.

So maybe it would be good if I guess uh if we could get that data from the municipal courts just to see what it looks like from uh um how many of them, and then maybe also how many of those folks that are getting citations are repeat citations so we can see if they there's multiple uh on folks as well.

Um the second piece of data that I wanted to talk about is the Spay and neuter site.

So I'm super excited about this.

But there's a couple things that I was trying to figure out as to barriers, right?

Why are we are we only open the three days a week and council member mentioned the Saturday upcoming because of that shortage or because of budget shortage, or I guess both?

Uh it's it's definitely a vet shortage.

We're budgeted for four days a week at both at both facilities, but the veterinarians is what's made it challenging to not be able to do it those four days.

Yeah.

And as far as demand data, do we know?

I know you mentioned that there the female dog was something that you guys are having a hard time with, but do we know if there is demand where if we were able to find the vets or pay more, which I know to the point we're already paying a significant amount for these contract surgeries, but um what would we uh have the demand to serve more?

Uh absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

Well, well, as you can see, the the clinics are booked out for months.

I think the last count I got we we had as many as maybe 500 residents that we know are waiting for our services when you look at how far in advance they're being booked out.

Um we are exploring some other options though through uh some uh certain some there's some national rec groups, missiles, one of them that we've actually been having conversations with.

Uh they actually just got news yesterday that they had a couple veterinarians here locally that might be able to partner with us.

Uh so they're willing to try to help us um do more spay neuter as well.

Um so I think there's some opportunities there that we're really gonna be looking at and focusing on over this fiscal year.

Okay.

I we started looking into and we asked uh a couple uh months ago about what could we offer a vet incentive program where we pay back tuition for folks, but we don't even have enough vet schools, is what we found, right?

And you the closest there's one in all of the state of Texas.

So I think that's uh UTSA.

We need we have a challenge uh for UTSA to set up a vet school for us.

But um, and then I'd like to see the um the surgeries being done in a map, like a heat map of where folks are coming from.

So um the z I'm basically trying to see if the West Side Center that was supposed to be combined with like the look location of it, is it getting to the folks right around the in the neighborhoods around?

Yeah, and actually that's just some data we started working with our team this week on.

I should have that.

Um actually uh um actually councilman uh Castillo's district uh asked for some data yesterday, and we were able to provide some uh preliminary data on um zip codes, uh and so we're gonna continue that work and try to get some more information.

But I can actually uh we supplied um um her office with uh some data yesterday that I'm more than happy to share with the rest of you.

And then as I was like searching, so I think we do a good job on our city website of like listing out all the different places where you can get a free uh spay and neuter, but you have to click on every single one and go through every single separate process.

So ACS has a process, uh SNAP on the south side has a separate process and a separate website.

So it's kind of cumbersome.

And I went through the ACS one, and it's like I there's a lot of information, like you would have to have a lot of information ready to go to be able to even get on the registration wait list, I guess is what it is.

And so I just wonder if there is an easier way that we could build uh an uh an easier way to do a considered effort around how you can make a spay and neuter appointment across all of our partners.

I know that would be a little bit more difficult and need to be tech based solution, but I think that would be uh a good thing to explore.

No, absolutely, I I agree with you, and actually one of the things we've reached out to our partners, we've recently been meeting with Spain Neuter Network to see how how do we do a better job of that.

Um, and they've actually volunteered uh to uh work with us.

They actually have a new uh system that they're that they just launched that I think will help improve some of that.

And so there's still a lot of work to be done because like you said, there's there's many options out there.

Another issue that we had come up, and and that the advocates will always tell you we had a mobile spay and neuter van before uh COVID, and I bring it up every year because folks bring it up to us every year.

And I have been I have been it has been shared consistently that if we can't get vets to work in buildings, how the heck are they gonna work in a van all day?

But it was shared that transportation was being addressed where if someone needs transportation to one of our clinics, we would make sure they get it.

Do we have record of how much or how many of our constituents that were able to provide that transportation for?

Right now, Spain Ender Network is providing that service.

I think they do uh track that data, so I think it's something that uh we could definitely get.

I I would tell you that that's where I would advocate for is try to provide more transportation.

Um why mobile spainater clinics are are great, but they're also kind of inefficient, and um, which is why a lot of why they've kind of gone away.

But um I do think that's kind of where our next goal would be is trying to ensure that people that need our service can get to us.

Okay.

If we can find out from the network how many folks are actually getting access to it and what's the way that they promote it, I think that would be helpful because I get constituents asking me about that sometimes.

Um, and then just the last thing for the breakdown of which clinics can can you just confirm to me which would be in-house are our east side west side.

This is slide um six.

So um if you look at side six, our our in-house is gonna be the um orange um and then the the city facilities, which is our two off site clinics, uh and our um not just our off-site clinics, but are also the ones that we that we own that are contracted and ran by Spain Eater uh clinic and SNAP uh is that kind of teal color there in the middle, and then our free community uh uh spay needer surgeries that we do as well.

That's kind of a combined joint effort of all of the free spay neuters that we offer to our community, which would um include uh our two offsite clinics.

Yeah, I'll just double down on the point that I made earlier about more alignment on between all of those and just like the big red sign when you open SNAP's website of beware, you're not gonna get an appointment anytime soon.

I just think is like so deterring.

And then lastly, I the this happens to me on other city websites, not just the ACS pet one.

But we should look into IT because on when you're on SA guests, some of the higher uh band, like when you need higher speed internet, the websites don't work on SA guest.

So the I can't see the adopt a pet website on SA guest.

And so it happens with some of our other GIS websites as well, but it just in case you're if it's not working on SA guest, maybe it's also not working on other lower speed uh providers as well.

So we we could just look into that with ITSE.

And it happens on other city uh, I think it's just because there's so much on our city website that if it's a lot of data, it slows down and then it breaks.

But I could see all the other information, and as I was doing a quick search between us and Austin, we're a lot more affordable to adapt a pet than Austin is for about half the price of Austin, and they actually have a separate price for um a lower price for big dogs than they do for puppies.

So I guess because like you mentioned, those are the ones that are harder to adopt, but it just made me think about whether we need to look at our pricing, but at the same time we want people to adopt, so we're like trying not to make it too high, right?

But I didn't know if you had any thoughts on that that you wanted to share.

Yeah, that's been one of the things obviously through this last budget year that we really we looked at, and it is difficult, right?

The if we raise our adoption fees, we're probably gonna lower number of adoptions, and so we that's why you see so many creative ways.

I mean, we do a lot of fee wave to adoptions, we do a ton of fee weight adoptions, and um, so it is it's it's kind of one of um it's very tricky in in trying to figure out there are those more highly adoptable animals that you can raise the fee on.

You do see that done.

Um most of those animals in our case are actually transferred to our partners, though, that are that that are that would be in that category.

And so we would have very few that we would be able to try to offer that higher price for.

Okay.

I know I said last thing three times, but last thing for real.

Um I maybe for a future session, we could do a little bit of a comparison.

We I don't know if I've seen a cross-city comparison on like ACS services previously, and just like number kind of councilman Castillo mentioned outreach statistics, or maybe it was council member too, about different years of outreach statistics, but also just statistics in general.

Sometimes we do that for our other departments, so we could try to compare and contrast, and then also at some point, you know, we're almost hitting we're hitting three-way mark for the strategic plan.

So um coming back and seeing what the next phase uh what the next part, like whether we need to do a refresh or how we're performing on some of those metrics.

I would love to do that because I can tell you in the state of Texas, we're beating them all.

And so uh we are we are doing uh it's uh it's amazing what we're doing here.

I I really think it's important that our city recognizes and our community recognizes that uh I I just met with best friends last week, and and and honestly, he he's our regional director, and he said, y'all are doing more here than anyone else in the country.

Wow, and so I think it's important that we recognize that.

Also, he reminded me that we are the highest intake single campus facility in the entire country.

Uh barely ahead of Dallas for that, probably not so great category, but um, but it just tells us that a lot about what we're doing here, and and uh I think it's important being in this business as long as I have and been able to be fortunate enough to travel all over the country.

Um I I know that's what got me here.

That's what maybe when it comes to San Antonio, is that we are doing more than anywhere else in the country and very proud of the team and and honestly, thank you, council and the city manager's office for supporting us in the way that you are, because there's no other community support in animal care services like San Antonio.

Well, I think all of us agree that we've really appreciated seeing you, your leadership in this role, and I think you we we think you've done a really great job stepping in, so we're glad you're here too.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

All right, thank you so much, I'll pass it over to you, Maria for item number.

Oh, sorry, is there anybody else that wanted to say anything else?

I know I talked a lot.

Okay.

Item number three.

Yes.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Item number three is our crime statistics for the police department.

And we are doing something different uh this time around, uh, at the request of the chair of the public safety committee.

So what we are what you're gonna see is what we have typically done, which is just a very quick overview of our overall crime in San Antonio property crime, uh uh violent crime and and crimes against society, which are the numbers that we provide to the FBI on a monthly basis.

Um, but also what we're gonna do, the different uh part of the presentation is that we gonna uh take a uh deep look at a couple of um crimes within property crimes, which is one of the areas that um um we we have we have seen some improvements over the past few years, but we want to take an opportunity to share with the committee what happens when somebody calls 911 all the way to the disposition of that investigation.

So um we can get started with Chief McMahon is doing the overall presentation just for crime statistics, and then um uh Chief Salome is going to do the in-depth review of uh those two crimes within property crimes.

So, Chief.

Thanks, Maria.

Madam Chair, uh Council members, good afternoon.

Uh so I'm gonna go over uh FBI reporting requirements, uh crime stats for 2025, and I'm also gonna touch on um response times and calls for service.

And then uh as Maria mentioned, uh I'm gonna flip it over to Assistant Chief uh Salome, and he will talk about property crimes and um investigative uh matters pertaining to that.

So FBI uses uh for nationwide crime reporting, they use the NIBERS or national instant instant-based reporting system, national instant incident-based reporting system, uh as opposed to what they used to use, which was UCR under the UCR program.

And the difference is that up to 10 offenses in one event um are recorded and not just the most serious crime, as under the UCR program.

And offenses are split into group A and group B categories.

Group A is the most serious.

Uh they are crimes against person, property, and or society.

And there are 24 categories and 50 plus types of crime, and group B offenses are only reported if an arrest occurs.

So an offense category would be assault, for example, and the offense type would be types would be ag assault, simple assault, or intimidation under that heading of assault.

And that goes uh for all of those 24 categories.

And overall, our call volume has declined over the years, past few years.

Emergency calls declined from 2023 to 2025 from January through November.

In 2023, we had 1.4 million, 2024, 1.2 million, and in 2025, January through November, 1.1 million.

Non-emergency calls also declined with the largest drop in 2025.

In 2025, totals reflect only January through November, yet it still shows a clear downward trend.

Emergency response times have improved every year.

2023, they went from 6 20 6 minutes 20 seconds, 2024, they went from uh down to five minutes 56 seconds, and in 2025 is pretty significant decrease down to 5 minutes and 29 seconds, and that's nearly a one-minute improvement since 2023.

Non-emergency times also trending down, trend down or trending downward in 2025 year to date.

Our emergency response time is 18 minutes and 35 seconds.

Arrest activity has remained stable uh year over year.

In 2024, our arrest increased over 2023 by almost 1,400 arrests.

2025 figures covered January through November only, uh not quite a full year.

Even without December 2025, even without December 2025 was on pace to meet or exceed prior years.

And the reason I talk about that is that it shows that patrol officers and specialized units have been consistently proactive.

So our NBR and and a NIBER's crime stats uh January through November comparison looks like this.

Overall crime is down 13.4 percent.

Crimes against persons declined by 9 percent.

Property crime saw the largest drop uh down 18.1 percent.

Crimes against society increased by 15 percent, driven by proactive enforcement.

So these figures reflect reported incidents, not final totals, and may adjust as cases are reviewed.

Um I'm gonna turn this over to assistant chief Salome right now to talk about property crimes.

Good afternoon, Chair, members of the public safety committee.

I'm excited to talk to you today and do a deeper dive into burglaries and robberies.

Before we get started, I'm going to start with a definition, but I want to make it just because it's important.

Often heard people say, My house got robbed.

Well, houses don't get robbed, people get robbed, houses get burglarized.

So we'll start with a couple definitions first.

In the Texas Penal Code, a robbery is a person commits a robbery if, when committing a theft, or intending to obtain or keep property, they cause bodily injury to another person, or they threaten or place another in fear of imminent body injury or death.

Robbery is a very serious crime for us.

It's a violent crime.

We'll call it a simple robbery is punishable as a second degree felony.

When you start adding aggravated uh circumstances where you cause serious body injury to someone or you use a deadly weapon, that goes all the way to a first degree felony, which means life in prison, up to life in prison.

And we're talking about burglary.

A person commits burglary if without consent they enter a building or a habitation with intent to commit a felony, theft or assault.

They can sometimes remain concealed with a criminal intent.

Other than theft, uh, you can get up to life in prison.

And so uh that that is a first-degree um felony.

Looking at both in comparison, um, this is interesting to me, and it's something that's changed since the time that I came on.

But uh robbery, now and the chief alluded to it according to uh NIBER's, is a prop is a crime against property.

Uh under the old uh uniform crime reporting, robbery was a I think it was a part one violent crime offense, it was a crime against person.

So it was considered a a crime against person, and and it was um because you know a person was was robbed.

Um's uh categorizes it or classifies as a property crime because the goal is to obtain property, and again, that distinction is is from a robbery to a burglary, is there's a there's a requirement of force or a threat of force against a victim in order to be a robbery, and a burglary is is against the location or a property, and it just requires the unlawful entry um without consent.

But again, those are the big differences.

But I think the key again the thing to remember is is robbery is essentially a violent method of committing a property crime.

So now that we've talked about the differences between burglary and robbery, I'm gonna walk you through the processes of how both cases are handled from the time we get called to the scene, when a detective would get involved, how cases are assigned, how they are investigated, and how we use data and technology to assist our case solving and crime prevention efforts.

We'll start at the very beginning.

A call for service uh is received from dispatch.

Somebody calls in and says, I just got home from work today, and it looks like somebody has broken into my house.

The officers will respond to the scene.

Uh their first order of business is to make sure that the scene is safe.

They will contact the victim and witness and confirm what exactly happened.

Um, then they do an initial investigation.

They might take some preliminary statements, they'll document the things that they observe, they'll identify any pieces of evidence, and then they'll notify the follow-up unit.

Another key distinction in robbery and burglary cases is the role of the CSI, the crime scene investigator.

In robbery cases, CSI is dispatched when there is a need to process, recover, and document evidence.

That's an automatic dispatch.

In burglary cases, CSI is dispatched only when, only with the permission of the property owner or the agent.

There's a number of reasons why many people do not want uh CSI to come out, some of which is that they don't want any more intrusions into their personal property.

Um they don't want to deal with the paperwork, they don't feel that the loss is substantial enough, um, and they just prefer to document and deal with on their own with insurance.

And and some people quite frankly don't feel confident that there's gonna be any resolution and that they don't want to waste their time.

We got the sec the second part of the process is we talk about case screening and assignment.

Like I mentioned, robbery cases because they are a violent property crime, they are automatically assigned to a detective for follow-up.

And so we've got uh 21 detectives and a crime analyst that are assigned to the robbery uh task force unit that get an average of about six cases, six robbery cases a month.

When it comes to property crimes, again, burglaries included in that.

There's a number of different things that they investigated, investigate.

Um those are assigned based on solvability factors.

Um again, they we've got two competing realities.

Every burglary case matters.

If you're victimized, you want you want to feel like there's justice.

But the reality is our investigative resources are not infinite.

We have finite investigative resources.

So the property crimes are screened by a supervisor and assigned based on solvability factors.

So we talked about is there a suspect?

Is there is there a ability to identify a suspect?

Is there a familiar uh MO method of operation?

Uh do we have video evidence?

Do we have forensic evidence?

Does the victim want to cooperate?

Um we've got 54 detectives that are assigned uh to the um to the uh property crimes task force unit, and they handle about 12 uh cases a month.

That's their caseload.

And so the ability to case screen uh helps detectives focus their time on cases that have a realistic uh path to resolution, and this is not unique to the San Antonio Police Department.

This is uh an industry standard across the country for every major uh city police department.

The next step in the process is detective follow-up.

So the detective will be assigned to the case when they are assigned to the case, and they go back and they either take sworn statements from victims or witnesses.

Uh they will do re-canvassing, uh, they will process, collect, and identify digital or forensic evidence.

All of that is is again useful in trying to help identify a suspect.

And there's a number of technology and databases uh that are available to us through the the flock, camera system, cell phone data, um, Mark 43, the axon, the license plate readers.

Our biggest thing still is and it and it's we're thankful for the fact of for social media, the number of people that post about their criminal activity.

We thank them very much.

It's very if it's easy for us, we'll take it.

Um, we rather be be lucky than good sometimes.

So there's two outcomes, right?

The one that we really want is we want to identify a suspect, we want to make an arrest, or we want to get a warrant, we want to send the case to the district attorney's office so that we can prosecute that person.

Um sometimes, despite our best efforts, we get outcome too, which is we don't have a suspect.

Uh we've we've gone as far as we can.

That case goes into what's called PFI status, which is pending further investigation.

That just means that it's not possible to solve the case with the current evidence and information.

If new evidence or information comes to light, we can always reopen it and reexamine that.

Um kind of where the rubber reach meets the road for us in a lot of in a lot of ways.

So if you think of our detectives as the brawn, you think of our crime analysts as the brain when it comes to making the investigations uh work.

Um they examine the who, the what, the when, the where, and the why.

Uh they help us uncover trends, they identify repeat offenders, hot spots, and other contributing factors behind the criminal activity that are important for us to identify the patterns and the drivers of the crime.

Uh, they really support our investigations and our crime fighting strategy by turning raw data into intelligence products.

They create timelines, map, suspect links that really help us to prioritize our cases and guide our enforcement and prevention efforts.

Uh, they're working on a number of things this year, automated uh the ATM uh robberies and thefts, armored car uh robberies, liquor store burglaries, jugging incidents, they do everything for us.

Here's an example of one of the products that uh the robbery uh analyst did.

Um if you take a look at the snapshot, this is for 2024, and some areas of note here is I didn't, you know, just looking at the data, we can see that individual robberies make up the largest share, followed by individual aggravated robberies in 2024.

Business robberies, both aggravated and non-aggravated, are smaller but still significant portion of the of the total robberies.

And I thought this was really interesting.

Uh, shoplifting related robberies, um, more than half of business robberies, so it looks like 54% stem from shop shoplifting incidents that escalated.

38% of those shoplifting robberies were aggravated, meaning that there was threats, force, or injuries.

Um, half of those occurred at convenience or discount stores, which tell us that there's a repeated risk at thirst at those particular retail locations.

Um again, the the big takeaway from this is that many of the business robberies, they're not the planned stick-ups.

They're the shoplifting incidents that escalate it when there's a confrontation when somebody's trying to leave with something, and an employee or a customer uh stops them.

And and that's important for us to when we when we network with our business uh and retail associates to help them to uh talk to their employees and and give us uh some more information to share back of what they're seeing.

Um looking at 2025, um, the big thing here, and I'll show you another slide here in a second is that um the robberies overall are trending downward.

Um they've the so the this and this is through November 30th, so we have a month left, but um the start of the month, we were 253 incidents below the total overall for last year.

So we expect that to continue and to be under at the end of the year.

Uh aggravated business robberies have also declined sharply.

Uh they've dropped from 267 in 2024 to 134 this year.

And again, we got a month to go, but we don't expect to meet that number, uh, thankfully.

So um shoplifting related robberies still remain high, so that's still an issue that we need to work through.

And then this last chart again was pre was created by the analyst.

It just shows that the total robbery offenses are lower in 2025 than in 2024 for every month from January to October.

It looks like November last month was the first month that we were higher this year than we were all of 2024 for the month.

Um both years, not surprisingly, or maybe it is surprising.

April was the highest number of reported robberies.

Uh, there's a lot of stuff going on here in April.

There's a lot of people out and about, and so that's kind of um to be expected.

So overall, what does this tell us?

You know, is this decline and um the result of some of our targeted initiatives?

Is this a broader uh look at what's going on with crime across the country?

Uh, the reality is there's never really one factor that points to crime going down.

There's often a bunch of different reasons where it goes down over the over the course of a year.

I want to talk about this trend analysis.

So, this is a a product that one of the analysts did uh for the property crimes task force.

We had a a serial burglar that was targeting the liquor stores.

Now we've got 54 detectives spread across two shifts.

When you look at this, it's like, how did nobody notice this?

I mean, but they're detect they're assigned to different detectives across both shifts.

So I'm not necessarily talking to the detective on the other side of the room about the the twin liquor store burglary that he got and one that I got.

Um, but this chart is what first alerted us that a single offender was likely responsible for a spike in these burglaries.

So the analysts were able to put that together, and it was there's a clear pattern.

It was similar businesses targeted late at night along the same corridor.

So this able enabled us and the property crimes task force to launch a coordinated investigation.

And throughout all their work that we that I showed you earlier, the the witness statements, the surveillance combing, and uh looking back and doing research online, uh, they were able to find a suspect.

And he had the same way of getting in.

He would break the bottom panel of the front door, he would uh run inside, still high-end liquor, and he'd be gone, and it was gone within like a minute or two.

It was very quick.

Um, so we tied him to 14 of these burglaries.

Additional analytical work found that he was responsible for 10 more burglaries at like Bath and Body Works and Hallmark stores.

So we had them on a total of 24 business burglaries.

He was uh arrested and convicted, and he's now serving seven years in prison for this.

And that's again the analyst put that together for us and really allowed us to hone in on this individual.

Talk a little bit about technology, and you know, we're talking about like the online databases, and this is particularly helpful when it comes to pawn shops, um, secondhand dealers, some online marketplaces that uh so the pawn shops are required to participate in this.

So back in the day before this technology was available, you had like a crusty old detective that would go to each and every pawn shop and look at pawn shop tickets and compare those to inventory that was there, and often you would just it was a time consuming process.

The pawn shops, you'd have to go during normal business hours, and it meant the stolen property was was sold before they even looked at it, or it wasn't recovered at all.

So, with leads online, this has been a game changer for us in the property crimes world.

It lets us search those records electronically.

Uh, the pawn shops are required to enter everything that they take in there to include the identification of the person that is selling that or pawing that item.

The detectives can also enter information into their uh serial numbers, uh item descriptions uh to help us put these things together, and that six-day day mandatory hold gives us enough time to recover that to recover that to recover those um items before they're uh sold.

And so that is a requirement.

Uh the Texas Finance Code requires that pawn shops participate, and that's really been helpful in terms of getting uh people their property back.

And lastly, I just want to talk about again how data drives our crime reduction initiatives.

You know, we look at crime trends, and so there's two different ways that we target these these um these trends.

It's place-based strategies, you know, specific areas and the hot spots where we're seeing a lot of burglaries, uh, um a lot of robberies, uh, and then we look at offender-based strategies.

There's a lot of these folks are not first-time offenders, these are our repeat offenders that are going out there.

The the guy that did 24 burglaries, that wasn't his first, those are just the 24 that we connected them with.

Um, this focus allows us to uh to be uh increase our our resources and quickly identify, manage and reduce the uh probability of further victimization.

And we've got two big task forces that follow crime patterns.

We've got a holiday task force that started uh before Thanksgiving and will go through the first week of uh the new year, and we have a summer task force, and obviously that's just because we've got an increase of people that are shopping, there's a lot of travel, we got a lot of tourists, a lot of special events.

So all those create more opportunities for people to become victims of a theft or a robbery.

And so I think the numbers on the summer uh property crimes task force were really impressive.

We had a over 200 arrest, we cleared 300 warrants.

So these again, these are individuals that uh that were active.

We took 17 firearms from criminals that shouldn't have had them, and recovered 88 stolen vehicles and had a net uh recovery of 1.7 million in recovered property value.

So that concludes my presentation and happy to take any questions you have.

Thank you so much, Chief McManus and Chief Salome.

I appreciate you all working with me to do a little bit of a different format um for this crime statistics.

Those previous presentations just um were tough for me to figure out like so what?

So I thought we could just do this as this uh uh test case to see if it helps to dive into like a specific area that we can learn more about and ask specific questions about.

Um I'll come back to my set of questions, but I'll open it up to we don't have any people's time to speak, so we'll open up to my council colleagues if y'all would like to start with any specific comments or questions.

Councilmember Spears?

Okay, Councilman Casillo.

Thank you, Chair and uh thank you, uh Chief, for the presentation.

On slide three, can you walk me through what some of the 10 categories are for group B?

We have a backup slide uh that has the breakout.

So slide 23.

Okay.

And this is for crimes against property, right, Council?

Okay, and then um this kind of ties into my other question in terms of the detective work.

I appreciate y'all breaking down in terms of uh how many detectives are responsible.

Uh you said it's roughly about 12 cases.

Um, with those cases, do we know how many results in the return of uh whatever was uh stolen or reported stolen during uh the burglary andor robbery?

So I don't know.

So of the cases that are assigned of the 12 caseloads, they've they solve about 70% of those.

And so solving means we've identified a suspect, it doesn't necessarily mean that we've recovered the property, but we did hold somebody accountable.

So with the punishments that I described to you earlier, there's also um a monetary punishment range in those felonies, which is up to a 10,000 dollar fine that the court can impose on that individual to try to make the the victim whole.

Yeah, and and do y'all track when something is returned to victim?

Yes, that should be tracked in the system through either with the on the detectives reports or in the system with the database that helps us to I think there's a way for us to look into the online system at least and track that.

Thank you for that.

And then on slide 20, like for example, with the 88 vehicles that were returned, that's 88 out of how many.

Oh, uh the universe of stolen.

I don't know what the number is of stolen.

Is that on there somewhere?

So we're thinking on that same slide uh 23.

Yeah, it should be.

The number of stolen vehicles in 25 through November was 87.

What 8,794?

Okay.

Okay, thank you for that.

And then um I I did what one pleased to see that there's been a decrease in many of these crimes, and I think you hit it on the head chief that there is a number of uh moving pieces in terms of that trend.

Um, I I did have a question regarding some of the software that we have, and this may be an offline conversation.

Um, but for example, with the flock technology that's being used.

I would like to have a conversation about uh when that contract's up for renewal.

I know Hayes County, uh County Commissioner's Court uh ended that contract, and then San Marcus City Council also did because there was some uh concerns around uh privacy.

Uh so I'd like to have an offline conversation about what that looks like when the contract ends, and then what are alternatives to that software.

Um, can you help me understand uh either of y'all chiefs uh in terms of like what role the fusion center uh plays into this work, and then how how how does it get assigned to the free fusion centers?

It depending on the amount or help me understand that relationship.

So the fusion center with the relationship with the fusion center primarily it relates to the analysts that are assigned to the fusion center that assist uh with the uh with the property crimes unit and the robbery unit.

So there is some cohesion there in terms of the product that they put out.

Um, but the fusion center is not typically responsible for follow-up investigations of this type.

We have the dedicated units, but they do play a role in terms of the analysts that are that is their parent unit, but they are on loan or assigned out to the to the respective robbery unit and the property unit.

Right, thanks for that uh understanding, and then um a trend that's interesting is like for example the the stealing of food.

I'm curious if that's because it's being stolen to be like flipped and or is it stolen because of need?

Um I'm sure it's maybe a combination of both, but I'm just curious to the trend of what that may look like.

Yeah, yeah, and and I think most of that is related to they they lump that all in in consumable products.

A lot of that is beer and alcohol, they put the cigarettes in there, those are separate.

Um, but we do have um go try to buy a steak this weekend.

I but people do take that and they do resell it too.

Um I certainly I wouldn't deny that there are some folks that are taking that out of need.

Um I would not I don't have a number for you on that or what that percentage would look like.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Um those are all my questions for now.

Thank you all.

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Councilman Sears.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh as always, thank you so very much for all you're doing.

Um I'm I'm particularly uh grateful and proud of the data that you presented today.

You I saw where you're showing you want the response times to decrease next year.

How are how are you approaching that?

So I've mentioned before that there's two ways to reduce response times.

And one of them is to add more officers, and the second way is to reduce the number of types of calls that we respond to.

So over the last few years, we've added more police officers, and we've seen the numbers go down as those officers get added.

And councilwoman, if I if I may, um you may recall that we discuss a CCR that was um uh put forward by councilwoman core as far as potentially alternative ways to addressing some of the police goals.

So we're gonna be coming back to this committee probably in February to talk about some possibilities that could be a way to also uh reduce those response times.

Okay.

Um I heard I heard you say too on slide five that that decline is is the is a lot and uh in part or do in part to the proactive enforcement.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

So uh crimes against societies typically don't get reported unless there's an arrest made.

So as officers increase their arrests uh on those particular type of crimes, uh the the numbers increase, but it shows that there's proactive and for more proactive enforcement that's happening.

But if they were if they were stale in those numbers, then it would mean that there's not a lot of arrest happening.

Okay.

Um okay, and then slide 16.

15 16, sorry.

So shoplifting, I was happy to see that holiday task force too.

Um I just we had our team attended a meeting from um the target out at TPC.

They're seeing an a huge increase in uh shoplifting and particularly vehicle robberies by unaccompanied minors.

So uh our safe officers came, they were big part of that, and so I think they're working with with the um entire center on what we can do to mitigate some of that.

Um I was glad to see that y'all have the holiday task force.

Is that something?

I mean, is it is we just see that much more shoplifting around the holidays, or is this something that you think would be helpful all year?

Well, we do it around the holidays because typically vehicle burglaries and and robberies pick up during those times.

And so what we do, we we do a couple things.

We target specific individuals that are uh prolific car burglars and other folks that are wanted.

We we speci specifically uh Trisha typically have a target in uh in mind when we go out, and other times we we do come across uh folks who are breaking into vehicles uh while we're out there, but it it does increase during the holidays.

Okay.

Is there anything that we can be doing in our um districts to educate like our HOAs or on best practices or even our businesses that we can share with them?

Um especially well, I guess it's kind of late to be doing it right now about the holidays, but you know, is there anything that we can be doing within our district to talk to our businesses and then also I mean, I know our safe officers do an amazing job with that too, and and they especially I mean, I particularly appreciate my safe officers, but um if there's anything that we can we can do to help with that or training or best practices, um we would love to to do that.

We could always attend a special session that that you might call for for that specific uh topic, and you know, we have things online that uh educational in nature, and you know, we can provide information for newsletters and things like that, and and again, you mentioned that safe officers come out and speak to these topics all the time.

They do okay.

Great.

Well, um I'm just really grateful for all y'all are doing, so thank you so very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilwoman.

Councilman Mickey Rodriguez.

Thank you, yes.

Would you mind going to slide four for me?

Uh thank you for the thank y'all both for the presentations.

Really appreciate it.

And really like the uh the deep dive into uh burglaries and robberies.

I will admit I did not uh know the difference between the two terms necessarily.

So that was good information for me and for so many others.

Um I am interested in so the calls received by SAPD have decreased over the past two years, it looks like um can I do just to be sure is so is 2023 oh calendar year?

Okay.

So we still have one month to go.

Is that all of November or is it just part of November?

Part of November.

No, it's all November, I'm sorry.

All of November.

Okay, so we still have one month to go, but if everything froze December 1st, then that would have been a 21% decrease.

Although I anticipate that during the holiday season.

Okay, I don't want to I don't want to speculate.

Do you see a rise in calls during the holiday sum season in December that makes up a that might catch us back up to where we were in 2024?

It it's possible that that may happen, council member.

Um I'm speculating, but yeah, it it gets busier during the holiday seasons.

And we've seen that every year.

Uh I have to go back and look.

That would be good information to have because it look if I were to just look at this as is and add a couple hundred thousand, we won't say a couple hundred thousand, add tens of thousands.

It would still seem as though we've on a step we've been on a steady decrease for calls received by SAPD, and then that would make me wonder why.

And is it there are less call are there less crimes taking place?

And the stats show that it looks like there is a decrease, but I'm wondering are people calling?

Do we have evidence that folk aren't, or is it truly a decrease in crime?

Hi, Maria Vargas, director of integrated community safety.

I'm just gonna take the opportunity to plug the public safety dashboard online, which can actually show you the calls for service volume.

And if you look at the year over year page, it compares to the past three years and calls uh by month, actually.

It's very interesting to see how call volume is seasonal, and we do see regular peaks and valleys.

And so if you look at December over the past um three years of data, we have two years and 2025 is yet to be uploaded.

You do see a little dip in November and a little uptick in December for the past two years consistently, and you can actually click on that and click on the different types of calls and see what's changing.

You get a lot of noise complaints in December with the mix of loud music and fireworks and gunfire, and so we always consistently see that go up as well.

Um, so I just wanted to kind of pipe that in there that anybody can look at that as well, and and you can download that data and analyze the calls and what kinds of things people are talking about or calling the police about.

Just wanted to take the opportunity to say that.

Thank you.

And stay nearby because I'll um I'll ask generally how this how the data that's been presented today, um, especially those that aren't necessarily violent in nature.

How do those relate to I guess our hotspotting efforts and our long-term crime prevention uh strategy?

I'll ask you that.

Um was mentioned earlier with regard to the CCR that's gonna come forth that will hopefully allow us to uh decrease the calls that officers are responding, uniformed officers are responding to a few years ago.

I know we changed where some of the uh some calls were dispatched, including noise.

Uh there was that was the main one I recall.

What were they?

Yeah, we did several ones, councilman.

We um included fireworks, we included noise, animal care after hours, and also uh mental health.

Those are the four that we that we focus on at that time.

Um we tried fireworks, we send those to the fire department for that year, but we didn't see a decrease plus the capacity of the uh fire department to assist is it was not the same as having PD addressage.

So those are back with the police department for code.

Uh we had code enforcement, we did a pilot, I don't remember if it was six or eight months, and uh one of the things that we found for those noise complaints that were coming um after hours or at night, they identified that the the um uh site uh I'm sorry that the violation was happening, but they called SAPD to actually issue the citation either because there was alcohol involved or they they the employee didn't feel safe with issuing that citation.

So those are back with SAPD.

And then for mental health, we added SA core in that um response contentions today with the teams that we have available 24-7.

So that's what we did back then.

What what we're doing different this year with the CCR is we're looking uh at traffic as a potential area, and and based on the work that we've done so far, is looking promising on some changes that we can do using technology.

Um, and then we're also looking at um parking citations uh and noise as well to see we can come up with some different recommendations, and also using what we learned probably about three years ago when we did those pilot programs for um noise and uh and fireworks.

Gotcha, gotcha.

I guess going back to I mean, just looking at fireworks because that was something that was mentioned for December, is um why were why was humor me?

Why was the fire department chosen to respond to fireworks?

So the the fire department has an arson unit and their um law enforcement at the end of the day, they have the same training that a police officer does.

So we figure that we would have some capacity.

Um however, it's just due to the number of calls and they're spread out those goals across the city, it did not prove to be uh an effective way of addressing those goals.

I wouldn't think so.

I wouldn't think so.

Well, let's think about that some more over the next year, um, especially ahead of the 4th of July and then next uh holiday season.

I'd be interested in ways that we can I I don't want to um I don't want to resign ourselves to the fact that people will illegally uh fire work the the sky and whatnot, uh, but it does feel that way, and so how can we be a little bit smarter so that it's not a burden on our uh police department?

How do we um facilitate it in maybe a smarter way?

Um I don't know, that's something I'll be thinking about for a little while.

But thank you for the presentation, really appreciate it, and then um echoing uh councilwoman Castillo's um point about flock and being interested in that discussion in that discussion.

But I would invite Maria to come back to uh discuss, I guess the what is this information, how is this information utilized within your department and the strategies that we're using to uh prevent crime?

So for the uh specifically violent crime reduction plan, we look at the specific violent crimes and how they're occurring across the city, and that's on a micro level.

Those hot spots for the violent crime plan specifically are the play space, 100 by 100 meter grids, and so it's important to look at the calls for service and the offenses on that micro level, respective to their area, because you don't want to compare one micro spot to the city because that might not be appropriate.

And so we're able to produce the hotspot violent crime um locations for the police department every quarter for them.

And so that's one aspect, and that's uh it's reactive to crime happening, but it's a preventative treatment to prevent it from continuing to happen.

And so that's one aspect in which we use it specifically.

Uh we also use it for good neighbor, which is the chronic nuisance calls.

So we're not looking at violent crime per se.

We're looking at the low priority calls that kind of fly under the radar, and so we use the call for service data for that as well.

Um I think something we're going to use it for focused deterrence, which is offender-based, and so that's going to be criminal history specifically, and the fusion uh in SAPD will be a big part of that.

And those crime analysts that they spoke to you about, there's uh crime analysts that will specifically facilitate the identification of appropriate offenders in the community based on crime data and offense data and arrest data.

Thank you.

Uh uh just a quick question.

Um, the Metro Health Department, I believe, used to have a division of their department that was focused on violent crime.

Is that still active?

Uh yeah, so they have a um unit that focus on interpersonal violence.

And uh, and I don't know if you're thinking the violence interrupters that they're not necessarily, but yes, I'm not they're a part of that, correct?

Are they?

Yes, yes, they are.

So they they still have that component.

And um another piece that Maria and her team are working on is um say location is identified from the hot spots where we were not able to reduce crime, then we have that interdeprimental uh response that includes ACS, mental health, DHS to be able to address crime in specific locations.

We've done two apartment complexes so far.

We are trying to figure out how we can expand that program even more because that comes that addresses the route of why the violent crime is happening through services and other departments other than the police department.

Thank you.

I guess the the reason I asked that question is um when I envision the Office of Integrated Community Safety, um it feels um I appreciate the facilitation of the of the many pilot programs, and I see your work and the and the way that you're interacting with SAPD, and I think that that's important and wonderful.

What I would envision is maybe an expanded scope, because I don't know how long we've been talking about property crime, and we see that it's it's decreasing a little bit, right?

But it's still happening at such a uh wide level and amount that I would anticipate that we begin looking at how can we look at property crime in the same way that we're viewing violent crime from a preventative lens.

And so, what role could MADIA's department play in that?

Uh and how do we do that sooner rather than later?

Um, well, let us think about that.

We have been focusing heavily on violent crime on most of the initiatives that we're handling.

The good neighbor program, maybe we can use that, but let us kind of put our heads together and we can come back to this committee with some recommendations.

Thank you.

Appreciate y'all.

Thank you.

I will also highlight that we funnel automatic data feeds of call for service for violent crime to the Metro Health uh violence prevention, this the gun violence prevention and for the domestic violence teams as well.

Um, and so that automated flow has really cut down on some of that administrative time for them to get that data so they can go out into the field and talk to those residents who are potential victims or who are potential future offenders as well.

Thank you.

Councilman Castillo, I know you had one more thing.

Thank you, Chair.

I had a follow-up question regarding the trend analysis.

This is really fascinating to see the trends.

But can you help me understand in terms of if there is a trend, how is it escalated?

Is this something that is based upon um prospective detectives saying, like, hey, we're identifying this trend, or is it something safe officers can share with their leadership, or is there something within the algorithm that tracks the trend?

All the above, but I mean the main thing comes down to just being able to communicate.

So SAFE is gonna see things, and if they're not escalating that to the follow-up unit, um, you know, the follow-up unit might take they might figure it out eventually, but how many cases are gonna happen before they do.

So there's there's uh that's an important component, but there's it's technology, it's the collaboration across the department, and then it's um everything, you know, the so the analysts are looking at all that.

There's no such thing as too much information for them because everything that they can put into their to their system to feed their algorithm will then spit out a uh the best product for us.

All right, no, that that's really helpful, and again, it's fascinating.

And you answered many of my questions in the presentation with this specific case that was listed, but um just really interesting uh work, and I think to your point about social media, there's been a couple a quick anecdote.

There's been a couple of instances where I think the media reports on something, or we get a memo, and I look up the individual, and sometimes you see them uh with what they were doing, and I'm like, oh man, shaking my head.

Um, but just appreciate your work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Before I start my comments, I just want to do a quick time check to see if we should let fire go.

Do you guys have a hard 4 p.m.

cutoff today?

I can go to 4 15.

You have a 4 p.m.

cutoff.

So I think we should probably table because the next slide is six, the next item is 16 slides, and I don't want to shaft them for time unless you want to go ahead and leave and we can finish.

I don't I want to be respectful.

If the next item is mental health, it was brought to us because there were some questions about what we're doing to support mental health for our um fire first responders.

So it's SAP and um okay, so we just keep it keep it going.

Okay.

We'll see how it goes.

Sorry, I didn't if we were gonna let them go, I just wouldn't didn't want them to have to wait an extra 10 minutes.

All right.

Um, so my the reason why I wanted to bring this case up actually was because from a constituent call who came in and told me, and actually Maria and I got to sit with her, like her whole experience about uh not burglary but robbery, and so I learned that today too.

And she had a really traumatic experience, and for her, it was jewelry based.

And I I know a lot of folks go through jewelry theft, and so she wanted to explain what her circle what her experience was with the the entire process and things that she wished would be different.

And so, based on that, I'm glad we did a deep dive into this.

I think following councilwoman Castillo's point, I'd like to see a little bit more specificity around the results from the detectives.

So I calculate you said 54 detectives about 12 cases a month or a year?

A month.

So when I calculated that number in comparison to the slide that showed the number of cases for 24 and 25, I got very different numbers.

So are there like 54 cases, 12 a month is about uh a little over 7500 a year or a little less than 7500 a year?

But the slide showed about like 1600 a year for 24 and 25.

I'm sorry, is that the robbery or the burglary?

So the robbery is I think in robbery we've got about 1500 cases a year.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, so they're doing it.

No, 12 cases of property crimes.

Which slide is that 12?

Yeah, it's uh slide 17.

And and I just pull the actual crime statistics of this is helpful.

That includes all the uh robbery and uh theft offenses.

So when we say 12 cases a month, which of these are included in those 12 cases?

Um that's gonna be your burglary, your breaking and entering, your destruction, damage vandalism, uh larceny, theft offenses, uh, those are all lumped together because they're all um there's also some animal cruelty that they investigate.

There's a lot of people.

So it couldn't be larceny, right?

Because that's 40,000 a year.

That would be they won't be able to or they're just not not all of them, but some of them.

No, so roughly uh what the numbers that I got.

So we had just the universe of property crimes in 2024 was a little over 87,000.

Right.

So based on the on the analysis that I talked about the solvability factors, we assigned about 11% of those cases out to detectives, which was about a 69, 70% solvability rate of those cases assigned.

Got it.

Um, and so yeah, based on this the ones that are assigned, it would be good just to get an accurate account of how many were actually uh, and if we could get it broken down by like uh identified suspect um and action taken or you know uh punishment, I don't know what the right word is, um provided for that person, and then uh property returned.

Okay, or like monetary uh monetary wise, and then the other thing that um the thing that came up a lot in this individual's case was just the lack of consistent information and triangulation of data.

And so I appreciated the slide that showed, and this was a uh like I mentioned, uh a jewelry case, so pawn shops.

We started looking, going into a deep dive of pawn shops, which it's a whole I realize now is state legislated, but if wish we could put pictures on them, because I know they just do descriptions and descriptions are hard.

But for um for this case specifically, there's not really even when I go online and I'm like, I've been robbed, what do I do?

SAPD, there's not really like a there is a the packet that you get of all the information that you have to fill out, but there's not like a once you've submitted your claim, here's what you can expect next.

You can expect a touch point from this person every three weeks.

Just someone to like some kind of information for the victim so that they're consistently getting communication.

In this case, she was calling back, and different people I know it's really hard to train folks, but different people were giving her different information.

Someone told her, Oh, it's jewelry, you're never gonna get anything back.

Like, we don't do that.

And and I mean, I understand why that that person might say that, but it also when you're a victim, like and trying to figure out what you can do.

So I just think we just have a little bit more uh clarity for our folks on what they can expect, how much how often they can expect communication, um, and then also making sure that the investigators are communicating what we're doing.

So, like I give this, and I'm just gonna give an analogy to what I do with my team, just because it's only I can only think of it.

When we're working on a long-term case, we'll ask you guys, right?

Hey, do you have an update on this?

Hey, do you have an update on?

If we don't go back and tell the constituent, hey, we asked for another update, this is where we are, they don't think we're doing anything, right?

So oftentimes we have to communicate back every so often to share this is how many people we've investigated, these are the pawn shops that we've looked at.

This is the data from the website that you mentioned that we have seen or the pawn shops that we have visited.

So I just think I for me, I think it really goes back to like communicating and then making sure we're doing our very best, and I get it, 11% of cases they're overwhelmed, but um I just wanted to ask to it or reiterate some kind of process that we could create.

So if you guys would look at a um you've been robbed or you've been robbed now, what kind of guide?

I know that's not uh, but like some kind of guide or something like that that we can inform residents about.

I would really appreciate that.

Yes, ma'am, and we'll definitely look into that.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And um, I think just the last question.

This is just a really quick question.

Going back to Councilman Castillas, this is uh slide 16.

Can you just get us a little bit of an update on so what I'm seeing here is 41% of 40 of all like so 45% of uh shopliftings are these following, and of those 45 percent, 41% of them are related to food.

Did I did I read that?

So yeah, so the of the breakdown, 45% involve alcohol, food, and tobacco.

So I think they broke down the number, and it looks like 41 of that universe of numbers.

Shouldn't that take shouldn't those subgroups total up to a hundred no?

No, numbers it just yeah.

Oh, those are not percentages.

No, ma'am, they're just numbers.

Um the categorization of what was taken.

Okay, okay, okay, thank you.

And then what does IND stand for in that robbery offense charge?

I know businesses individual.

Individual, yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Okay, all right.

Um, I had one last question I remember.

You mentioned 54 detectives, and we talked about the importance of the analysts' work.

How many analysts do we have that work on this?

So we've got one full-time analyst that is assigned there, but there are other analysts in the fusion center that will provide additional work product uh and backup when there's a um when there's a bigger case or a special uh investigation that they're looking into.

Okay.

This so like I again, councilwoman mentioned this, but the trend analysis is so important to us, right?

Because it's like that this is the so what, this is what we can figure out and how we triangulate data.

So it might be good for us to come or you could if a follow-up to say, like how many cases like this is the crime analysts able to solve, and is that something we should be doubling down on in terms of resources if they are able to find more information like this by doing you know some of that analysis.

Okay, I think that's all I have.

Thank you so much, Chief.

Thank you all for the presentation.

We're gonna go ahead and blaze through item four or five, excuse me.

No, it is four.

Okay, so just very quickly, the next presentation is uh Chief McManus and Chief Frausto, who are gonna provide a quick presentation on the uh mental health and wellness programs that are offered to our uh police officers and our firefighters.

So, Chief.

Thank you.

Hello again.

Um, we're gonna go over the officer wellness programs, psych services, performance recovery optimization, critical incident response and intervention, and psychological assessment and compliance.

And with me today are Dr.

Brandy Burke, who is the um not founder, but the inventor, I guess I'll call it of the performance recovery oper optimization program, and Sergeant Tina Barron, who was a supervisor in the wellness unit who who did most of the heavy lifting when it came to putting that program together.

Um Dr.

Burke and uh Sergeant Barron, uh, right here in the front row.

So the department offers several programs and services to promote officer wellness.

We offer comprehensive support beyond traditional models, and we provide family assistance for officers and households.

There are dedicated officer wellness resources, there is peer support to reduce stigma uh stigma and encourage help seeking.

There is volunteer uh chaplaincy for spiritual and emotional care, and there's access to psychological services when they are needed.

And we were recognized back in 2019 by DOJ for our wellness programs.

And this slide is about performance recovery optimization and PRO is a science-based performance and wellness model that Dr.

Burke speaks on a national level about.

They work closely with the wellness unit.

They provide clinical and professional mental health care and referral-based confidential support.

It focuses on early intervention, resilience, and operational readiness.

The services they provide are therapy services for officers and their families, clearance and return to duty evaluations, pre-employment psychological assessments, academy instruction, consultation with units, peer support and family assistance, and crisis intervention with shifts units, shifts, units, supervisors, and command staff.

And they train and work with our hostage negotiating hostage negotiators.

These types of referrals are provided for officers experiencing critical incidents and performance changes, noticeable behavioral shifts, administrative leave or fitness for duty concerns, who are navigating personal crises and or burnout, stress overload or cumulative stress effects, and work-related conflict.

And Chief, for the next couple slides, you can just highlight anything that you want because we can read the text there.

So just be mindful of time.

So we also provide critical incidents response intervention.

If there's an officer that's involved in a critical incident, those services are available to them.

Covers OIS, officer-involved shootings, short-term recovery or long-term impairment.

There's different options for each officer, one-on-one contacts or standbys, small group check-ins, and then there are lastly targeted role call interventions and psychological assessment compliance.

The duties and responsibilities of the doctors include a variety of things to include return to duty fitness, officer concern program, they coordinate with SAP DIAPLEAM processing, and then lastly, they administer uh and interpret all T Call mandated psychological exams for officers.

And lastly, uh our service utilization decreased from year to year from year to date compared to 2024.

Um you see the numbers in front of you, and um recruiting applic uh application processing remains high, but slightly lower than uh than the previous year, and finally, we had six fewer critical incidents call incident call outs, and that's the end of my presentation.

Thanks.

Thanks, Chief.

Chief Faster.

Good afternoon.

Without hesitation, um, I'm gonna go over.

Oh, the presentation.

So I'm gonna first go over the the background and then give you an overview of the mental health programs that we have in place.

Um we will cover the uh types of um crisis response or the type of uh referrals that we're seeing and the incident stress support as well as the uh our goal and commitment.

So with regard to the background, um we know that firefighters and paramedics are exposed to things most people never experience.

So uh, and this is repeatedly you know, over the course of their careers.

National research, as you can see, the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation shows higher rates of PTSD and suicide in our profession compared to the general population, and you'll see the uh statistics up there in the slide.

The job brings long hours, interrupted sleep, traumatic calls, and sometimes the loss of coworkers, and that all of that stress adds up and will often um result in problems at home or uh problems on the job with their performance.

So that's why having accessible trusted mental health support is extremely important.

The next slide, mental health professionals.

Currently, we have two psychologist positions that are uh authorized.

Today I have Dr.

Villigan with me here today.

She uh helps by providing counseling, um, confidential counseling services, uh, crisis response, cadet screenings, outreach, and oversight of our peer support program.

One of the psychologist positions is vacant right now, so rather than let services lapse, we temporarily filled that gap with a uniform firefighter who's also a certified chemical dependency counselor, and he is an intern at this time, but this allows us to maintain continuity of care while we continue recruiting for the psychologist position, or uh possibly even in lieu to uh a counselor just to get the position filled.

Mental health initiatives you'll see listed on this slide.

We uh offer multiple access points because everyone reaches out differently.

There's uh not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to mental health, and in just the last six months, chemical dependency counseling and peer support alone generated over 580 outreach contacts, which shows that utilization is up as well as trust.

We also offer critical incident stress debriefing, chaplaincy, a retired member POW hotline, the EAP, which is the employee assistance programs, and behavioral health screenings that are annual.

All of these pieces work together as a layered support system.

With regard to the types of referrals and accessibility, the most common way members are accessing services is through self-referral, and that's important because again, it tells us that people are becoming more comfortable with asking for help.

Referrals can also come from peers, supervisors, or following major incidents.

Everything is confidential and voluntary.

We regularly communicate about these resources so members know where to go when they need support, and that includes brief reminders, wellness events, station level materials.

Um we also have uh posters and um other items just to help jog their memory that these services are available.

I also know that the fire shift commanders and medical shift commanders um are often including those resources on their daily messages.

The intent is to make help visible, normal, and easy to reach.

The peer support team is often where firefighters start the first and most trusted point of contact.

They're more likely to talk to someone who understands the job and has walked in their shoes.

Peer support helps address stress, trauma, and even suicidal thoughts early.

When needed, they help connect members to professional mental health care, and this model is widely recognized as best practice in public safety.

These are some of the more common experiences that we're addressing.

Our program focuses on the real experiences firefighters face, which are repeated exposure to those traumatic calls, cumulative stress, the lack of sleep, anxiety, depression, and family strain.

We also provide support after serious incidents or line of duty deaths.

Addressing these issues early helps protect both the individual and the department as a whole.

We're focused on being proactive, not just responding after something goes wrong.

That includes early outreach after critical incidents and reinforcing peer support through training and education.

Leaders are trained to recognize warning signs and step in early.

So these are just cover the proactive measures that we're currently taking.

Moving forward, we'll continue strengthening and expanding these services.

Our focus is increasing awareness, reducing stigma, and normalizing help seeking.

We want members to know help is available, accessible, and supported at every level in this department.

This work supports firefighter health, retention, and operational readiness.

It also aligns, like I said, with uh public safety best practices and new state legislation, which is HB 35.

But at the end of the day, this is uh about taking care of those that take care of our community.

Um I would just like to uh to thank our uh peer support lead who is um he's been coordinating with the peer support team for probably about five years, and that's our Lieutenant Westerhof.

Um he has filled that position and and done it with passion and and dedication.

So I wanted to uh to recognize him for for his efforts as well as the the counselor that stepped up, which is the uniformed firefighter.

Thank you.

If you have any questions, I'll be available for to answer those.

Thank you so much.

And um I brought this up because we I was talking with some of the firefighters specifically, and they were mentioning challenge in hiring the psychologist position, counselors, the psychologist slash counselor position, and had looked were looking for alternative solutions, and we had that conversation that council member Misa Gonzalez brought up with the now clinic this during budget session.

So I wanted to be able to follow up on making sure that we're providing adequate support for our our first responders with mental health.

So just real quick out before I pass it over, can you just double down on the point of have we looked because the the feedback that I received was there are some folks in the fire department that are trained to be able to provide that service?

Have we are they already providing it or have we looked into whether they could fill that role?

They have been providing it that um are the two individuals that I specifically mentioned, which is our peer support coordinator as well as the counselor that um his specialty is chemical dependency.

So is the peer support coordinator able to fill that role if they were interested?

The uh you said the peer support coordinator are they actually qualification level or yes, yes, ma'am.

Um he's actually been um uh filled has filled that position for the last five years.

Okay.

Um on a permanent basis, I would have to say maybe the last three years.

So there's an extra vacancy above those two that are currently in those roles right now.

Councilman, and I don't know if you're talking about the psychologist position that is still vacant.

We've had a couple of meetings with the um with UT San Antonio.

Uh we're still exploring opportunities for them to fill that gap.

Um, so that is something that the conversations continue with a goal of having a resolution that is soon, but also not only to fill that gap, but maybe maybe how they can help is fill the pipeline to be able to do either internships or something with their students that can help with those critical positions, both in the police and the fire departments.

Or individuals that like our lived experience with that have our first responders that want to kind of transition into that role and work with them, right?

Like we could be exploring that as well.

We can explore that.

I think we the consideration there is operational capacity because if we pull them out out of from you know from the field, then we would have gaps out on the field.

So but definitely something we can continue to explore.

Okay.

That's all really I had.

Um council member Spears.

Thank you, Chair.

Um this topic's really very very important to me.

Um because it's it's essential we take care of all of you that are taking care of us.

And I too was talking with the firefighters, and I have um I just want to make sure that is two even enough.

And what is the barrier to hiring for this position?

Why why has this been so hard to do you think?

Is it and then how long has it been vacant?

Villigan but the team lead um they've been able to handle a lot of those types of incidents plus we have um a lot of um outside uh partners that we're able to leverage and get them uh referred to a higher level of care so I think we've done a a great job with what we have yes uh no I agree there I um chief McManus do you think you have enough uh professionals in place psych psychologists I know that the that our psychologists are swamped they are and they're booked constantly um uh I like Dr.

Burke want to come up and talk to that yes um I think that with the amount of referrals that we get I mean we're we are really busy and there's three of us as uh full-time psychologists we're also seeing we're coordinating with a wellness unit we're also seeing the applicants as far as their assessment um I've always said if I could have two LPCs that all they do are the counseling services um that would help us out tremendously we do have a great outside network of providers that we've refer to the challenge is we have to find people that are culturally competent um that understand working with military and law enforcement and that is a niche but um people that really want to do this this type of work um and to have a couple of more LPCs master level therapists with us would tremendously help us out a lot stigma has been greatly reduced I mean there's always going to be stigma in mental health but given the fact that stigma across the country has been reduced um in general because you have NFL players you've got you know um uh celebrities coming forward about mental health um the stigma has been reduced to where the point where an article came out a few years ago where there isn't enough mental health providers in the country to address mental health needs um I would say with the wellness unit and the outreach that we've done um I've noticed a a decrease in that for first responders and I think a lot of that has to do with the outreach work that our wellness team has done and our peer support team and our family assistance.

So the trust within psych services has increased so much that you know to get an appointment sometimes can be very challenging because of the amount of people that we see per week.

Thank you for that um that that gives me a lot to think about because I do want to think about our solutions when you say I I I hear you when you say the stigma is down but I want to make sure that any solutions we come up with don't create any real or perceived barriers that would discourage participation in any way.

Because just retaining the good officers and um and that we have is going to be key since you know we're we're in this situation where it's hard for us to keep attaining more we will we got to keep what we got and then I think add more but but but keep what we have and make sure that they're being taken care of and and their families right so um thank you for all that you're doing to support that thank you so much.

And um you mentioned something Chief Fausto about sleep and we know sleep impacts mental health hugely so I'm excited to address this in our risk assessment right Maria how we can we can help with mental health through sleep and circadian rhythms and how disruptive it can be for both for both the SAPD and the SA and this fire department too so um no this is top of mind for me and whatever you need my office to do we're in to help and advocate for you um and then I thought about even decompression spaces um and just I know y'all are doing education programs on how to calm down and clear your mind and I know they do a lot of those things too so um and thank you too to Lieutenant Westerhof and the counselor that's been in place um we're very grateful and I think the UTSA are am I saying it right Jamie UT UT San Antonio yeah uh UT San I don't know how to say it sorry UT San Antonio uh is a great way and you know you mentioned military support too there may be some cross uh some things we could do since so much there's so many correlations between the um traumas that you and go through when you're when you're saving lives like you do and what you're going through.

UT San Antonio is a great way.

And you know, you mentioned military support too.

There may be some cross uh some things we could do since so much there's so many correlations between the um traumas that you and go through when you're when you're saving lives like you do and what you're going through.

So maybe there's some opportunities to look at ways to engage second career veterans to help too.

So anything you'll need, I'm I'm fully supportive of, and I think we've got to find a way to fill those positions with exactly what you you say you need from us.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to both chiefs for the presentation.

And as my colleagues have mentioned, I've heard from both uh officers and fire EMS about the importance and the need to fill this gap in terms of the weight that we're seeing on PDs uh end with getting an appointment, and then of course the the need for more support uh with fire.

Uh and and I understand that there could potentially be a gap created, but I do believe there's value in the lived experience of someone who's been uh in the boots of whether it's PD or the fire department to um have um those employees uh convene and share their experience with.

Uh and I think you know it it's always easy for us to say more police officers, um, but I think it's harder to advocate for the needs in terms of the mental health and the overall like quality of work experience, and I think uh in terms of hearing the need for uh two additional LPCs, I'm hopeful that whether it's the mid-year uh budget adjustment or planning for the upcoming budget that we do identify uh the needs to provide support uh for both fire and PD because I think it's important to focus while we're seeing a decrease in crime uh year after year that we focus on quality over quantity, right?

Um, to make sure that the folks out in the field are receiving the support and care that they need, um, particularly uh right.

I'm thinking about uh officer involved shootings, right?

And what is the aftercare look like and what is the the intake process um for psychological services, right?

And those important key pieces.

Um, but just want to emphasize and add what my colleagues have already hit on.

The priority for us is to ensure that we are filling that gap with fire, and of course, uh doing the best we can to potentially recruit from other cities to provide those uh psychological services, and then of course, uh working continue work with Jamie and UT Health with PD as well, and as the councilman mentioned with the councilman Mesa Gonzalez proposed uh with the now clinic, um, there's there's a need uh to invest in uh the the care, uh the psychological care of our public safety folks.

So I'm supportive of that, and of course, as we talk about budgets, this will be a priority for us as well.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you so much.

And I just want to conclude by saying, like, as much as we can do to de-stig stigmatize the need for mental health, right, in these generally male-dominated fields.

I think it's important to make sure that we are uh ensuring that there are no barriers to whether it's the amount of cases that we're dealing with or the types of cases that as much as we can as possible we're sharing that mental health is good, is asking for mental health support is good for everyone.

And so um, and I I hope we can continue to talk about the education awareness around that in some future sessions as well.

Uh, last thing we didn't do a holiday presentation because I just think we can watch those videos on our own, but um Chiefs, if we all will send out the cute holiday videos that you guys do to protect everyone um during the holiday season with all of the lights and such, that would be great for us.

Everyone stay safe.

Thank you so much at uh 4 14 p.m.

Public safety is adjourned.

Thank you all.