OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Public Safety Committee Meeting Summary - December 16, 2025

Council Committees — Tuesday, December 16, 2025
BodySan Antonio, Texas
SessionCouncil Committees
DateTuesday, December 16, 2025
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 2:08:40

Transcript — Verbatim
0:03

All right, good afternoon.

0:04

The time is now 2 05 p.m.

0:06

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

0:09

Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

0:13

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

0:15

Present.

0:15

Councilmember Castillo.

0:17

Councilmember Spears.

0:20

Chair Corps?

0:21

Here.

0:22

Ma'am, we have a court core.

0:24

Thank you.

0:24

All right.

0:25

We have a few items on the agenda.

0:26

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

0:33

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

0:36

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

0:40

Okay, we'll take a motion on it.

0:44

All right, we have a motion and a second.

0:46

All in favor?

0:47

Aye.

0:48

Any opposed?

0:49

Okay, motion carries.

0:51

All right.

0:51

So we have three items for discussion today.

0:54

The first one is on ACS.

0:56

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

1:01

Thank you, Chairwoman.

1:02

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.

1:19

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.

1:52

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

1:56

Thank you.

1:57

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee.

1:59

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.

2:13

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.

2:25

And then uh going into the public safety.

2:28

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

2:35

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

2:42

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

2:52

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

2:56

We are actually um overhired by three.

2:59

Um and we're uh continue to do that.

3:02

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

3:05

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.

3:18

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

3:24

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

3:30

So we actually technically we are overstaffed by three.

3:33

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.

3:42

Um there are investigations.

3:43

We have a total of 17.

3:44

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

3:50

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

3:52

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

3:57

Uh and then we have two court officers.

3:59

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

4:03

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.

4:13

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.

4:25

Uh and moving on to our critical call response.

4:28

Uh we really had a tremendous uh year last year.

4:31

We made a lot of progress over the year.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Public Safety███████████████████████████████████████████43%
Animal Welfare█████████████████████████████29%
Mental Health Awareness███████████████15%
Public Health█████5%
Procedural██2%
Public Engagement██2%
Technology and Innovation██2%
Community Engagement██2%
Summary of Proceedings

Public Safety Committee Meeting Summary - December 16, 2025

The Public Safety Committee convened on December 16, 2025, to review the Animal Care Services (ACS) Strategic Plan progress, analyze deep-dive crime statistics for property crimes, and update on mental health and wellness programs for first responders. Key discussions focused on the feasibility of zero population growth for stray animals, the efficacy of proactive enforcement in reducing crime, and the capacity of the department to provide mental health services amidst staffing shortages.

Consent Calendar

  • The committee unanimously approved the minutes from the November 17th public safety committee meeting.

Public Comments & Testimony

  • John Fockman (Public Commenter) expressed skepticism regarding the feasibility of achieving zero population growth for the city's 350,000 dogs and 350,000 cats without significantly increasing spay/neuter surgeries. He argued that the current staffing and contract costs for the East and West clinics make the goal of 200,000 annual surgeries unrealistic, urging the committee to start budgeting for the new hospital equipment and personnel at least two years in advance.
  • Councilmember McKee Rodriguez (referencing a constituent) highlighted the need for consistent communication and clear informational guides for robbery victims, noting that inconsistent updates from different officers caused distress for victims awaiting case resolutions.
  • Councilmember Spears emphasized the importance of mental health support, citing constituent concerns regarding the hiring challenges for psychologist positions and the need to ensure adequate staffing to retain current first responders.

Discussion Items

Animal Care Services (ACS) Strategic Plan Update

  • ACS Director John Gary presented a progress report on the strategic plan, highlighting:
    • Personnel: Overstaffed by three officers (100% hiring rate for recent positions) with a new academy graduating in September and another starting in spring.
    • Critical Call Response: Increased from 86.6% in the previous year to 96.2% currently, on track to meet the 97% goal by year-end.
    • Enforcement: A 98.8% increase in citations ($13,784 total) and an 180% increase in criminal citations compared to FY24.
    • Spay/Neuter: Increased funding to partners ($1.76 million over 10 contracts); opened two new clinics (West in March, East in July) aiming for 6,000 surgeries this fiscal year. Director warned that a national veterinarian shortage is the primary hurdle to meeting goals.
    • Outreach: The "Pet Care Connect" program reached 3,900 homes, distributed 1540 resources, and facilitated over 300 spay/neuter referrals.
  • Councilmember Castillo expressed support for the 88% safe placement rate of social media-posted animals but inquired about the timeline for moving "Pet Care Connect" from a pilot program to a permanent departmental service.
  • Councilmember McKee Rodriguez raised concerns about owner surrender wait times (currently booked out a couple of months for non-emergencies) and inquired about the average number of animals ACOs pick up daily (average 50-70).
  • Councilmember Spears questioned the definition of "critical calls" and the feasibility of expanding spay/neuter hours (currently Tuesday-Thursday, adding Saturdays in the future) given the vet shortage.
  • Councilman Castillo requested data on citation resolution rates from the Municipal Court and inquired about the feasibility of a city-wide spay/neuter portal and the functionality of ACS websites on lower-speed internet providers (SA GUST).

Crime Statistics and Property Crimes Deep Dive

  • Chief McMahon and Assistant Chief Salome presented FBI NIBER data showing:
    • Overall crime down 13.4% (Jan-Nov 2025), with property crime down 18.1% and crimes against persons down 9%.
    • Emergency response times improved to 5 minutes 29 seconds (down from 6:20 in 2023).
    • Crimes against society increased by 15%, driven by proactive enforcement.
  • Deep Dive on Robery vs. Burglary: Assistant Chief Salome clarified that robbery is a violent crime against a person (threat of force), while burglary is a crime against property (unlawful entry). Robbery cases are auto-assigned to detectives, while burglaries are screened based on solvability factors.
  • Case Analysis: The presentation highlighted a case solved via data analytics where a serial burglar was tied to 24 businesses across multiple jurisdictions.
  • Councilmember Castillo asked about the solvability rate of assigned cases (approx. 70% for assigned burglary/property cases) and inquired about the privacy implications of the "Flock" camera contract renewal.
  • Councilmember McKee Rodriguez questioned the decrease in total call volume and whether it reflects fewer crimes or fewer calls, and expressed interest in the Office of Integrated Community Safety playing a larger role in preventing property crime, similar to their work with violent crime.

First Responder Mental Health & Wellness

  • Police Department (Chief McMahon): Presented on the Performance Recovery Optimization (PRO) program, noting high demand for services with three psychologists currently booked constantly. A need for two additional Licensed Professional Counselors (LPCs) was identified to manage the volume of referrals and reduce wait times.
  • Fire Department (Chief Frausto): Noted higher rates of PTSD and suicide in the profession compared to the general population. Cited a vacancy for a psychologist position (currently filled by a certified chemical dependency counselor) and the challenge of recruiting culturally competent providers.
  • Councilmember Spears and Councilmember McKee Rodriguez (via constituent feedback) voiced strong support for filling the psychologist vacancy, emphasizing the need to retain experienced staff and reduce the stigma of seeking help.
  • Councilmember Castillo highlighted the value of utilizing first responders with lived experience to fill counselor gaps, provided it does not compromise operational capacity, and reaffirmed the budget priority for mental health support.

Key Outcomes

  • ACS Strategic Plan: Staff pledged to follow up with specific data on owner surrender reasons and a breakdown of animals picked up per day by ACOs.
  • Crime Prevention: The committee agreed to explore expanding the role of the Office of Integrated Community Safety in property crime prevention hotspots and requested an offline discussion regarding the Flock camera contract renewal and privacy concerns.
  • Mental Health Resourcing: Councilmembers directed the chiefs to prioritize the hiring of psychologists for both the Fire and Police departments, considering mid-year budget adjustments or future budget cycles to address the current vacancies and high utilization rates.
  • Community Outreach: The committee expressed strong support for expanding the "Pet Care Connect" pilot program and requested data mapping to ensure clinic locations align with neighborhood needs.
  • Informational Resources: Staff agreed to investigate the creation of a standardized guide for robbery victims outlining the investigation timeline and expected communication frequency.

Meeting Transcript

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.

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