All right.

The time is now 208 p.m.

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

Danielle, is that is that the is that her name?

Destiny, sorry.

Welcome.

I know it's your second meeting as clerk for us, so thank you for being here.

Would you please call roll?

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Councilmember Casillo.

Councilmember Spears.

Here.

Councilmember White.

Chair Corps?

Here.

Chair, we have quorum.

Thank you.

Okay, first item on the agenda is the approval of minutes from the April 21st, 2026 public safety committee meeting.

Are there any adjustments?

And if not, I'll take a motion.

You have a motion and a second?

Motion and a second.

Any other comments or feedback?

Alright, all in favor?

Any opposed?

Okay, motion carries.

The second item on the agenda is a briefing and possible action on the animal care services performance metrics for fiscal year 2026.

And we do have a individual stand up for a public comment.

Should we take public comment first?

Sure, we can do that.

Okay.

Kathy Vale.

Good afternoon, Chair Kerr, City Council members.

Um I want to thank you for the opportunity to come before you, specifically my council member, Sukor, who has given me a lot of time and worked with me and personally invited me to be here to give public comment.

I've left a copy there for you.

It thrust me into my first experience with personal danger and public safety and trauma regarding dogs in San Antonio.

I've never had any experience with it.

Nobody I know in my family or my large circle of friends has ever experienced.

So I am still learning, and I'm not going to uh read the op-ed, just give you a few highlights.

Um I live in D1 in the Shearer Hills Ridgeview neighborhood on my childhood street, which was a reason why I bought that house six years ago.

I lived as a little girl on that same street for 12 years.

And it's a beautiful neighborhood.

These are all homes that were built in the 1950s, clustered around the intersection of oblate and McCullough.

And um I love living there.

Um it was a dream come true.

And on Good Friday, that dream was shattered for me.

I um uh I was walking my dog home.

We were two houses away from my home, and a dog that had been roped in the front yard, um, carelessly roped, broke free, jumped on me, bit me on my arm, knocked me to the ground, then went to my dog, picked up my nine-pound dog.

That dog was a great Dane mix, huge.

Picked up my nine-pound dog, threw him up in the air, he fell on the concrete driveway, his brain was damaged, his spine was damaged, his abdomen was punctured, and uh neighbors immediately came out, called 911.

I'm running to my home, two houses away.

That dog is following me all the way to my front door, jumping on my back, ripping the back of my shirt, and I barely made it inside the front door without the dog coming into my house.

Um, and I want to right now take the opportunity to recognize the emergency response that I received was excellent.

Within five minutes, there were three SAB SAPD patrol cars, there were two ACS vehicles, there was an EMS vehicle, all providing me emergency trauma care.

My arm was bleeding, my dog was severely wounded.

That dog who attacked me was continuing to walk back and forth on the street.

Um, when I was given the immediate care I needed, given the ACS policy, you know, the number for my case, given the SAPD number for my case, I said I'm leaving, I got to get my dog to the vet.

And when I returned, the ACS officers were still there.

They told me they had captured the dog, they're taking it into quarantine.

A number of days later, I found out that the dog was in quarantine for 10 days.

The owner never came to identify and show a desire to get the dog back.

That dog was euthanized.

In those immediate days, I spoke with my own council member.

I spoke with Councilmember Mungia, Councilmember Galván, Councilmember Ivalise Gavito Alderete, Councilmember, who else?

I spoke with a probably half of the members of council.

Councilmember Iva Lise contacted the chief of police who called me, and I had several conversations with him over the immediate three to five days, and he connected me with the ACS director.

I had a telephone conversation with him.

So in the aftermath, the services that I received were exceptional.

And still, you know, I was left traumatized and grappling to understand how this process now works.

My dog is dead.

There were four citations issued.

There was an elderly gentleman who was in charge of that home that was a recent sober living home on my street.

And a man who was one of the recent sober living residents was now doing all kinds of work preparing the house to be on sale for sale.

Four citations were issued to him.

My understanding is they are all at a maximum $2,000 fine given the gravity of the attack.

But you know, my first recommendation is to you as a victim, it would have been very helpful to have someone hand me a sheet of paper that says, okay, this is these what's going to happen to you now.

This is how the citation process is gonna work.

This is if you have any questions about this, these are the resources that were making available to you to help you navigate this process because it is traumatic.

I consider myself a very mature, well-educated woman, and it brought me to my knees.

And so this is why I have made the effort.

I had to take my anger and my grief and put it somewhere.

I wrote the op-ed, and the paper decided to print it, and I still want to make any effort I can to highlight from a personal uh perspective representing hundreds of residents, not only in my neighborhood, but from neighborhoods all over.

I have had so many people contact me after reading that op-ed, sharing their story, their frustration.

A lot of people experience this trauma with dogs, and they do not report.

So, whatever numbers you see before you on annual reports, they are not a true reflection of the serious, what I believe is a red flag public safety emergency in San Antonio.

So that is that is why I am here today.

I want to, you know, recognize all the members of council, the chief of police, and the ACS director who were very caring and very helpful in that immediate aftermath.

But I have thrust myself into this world of understanding how it all works, where what data is there, what data is missing, and um one of the strongest impressions I have is that there is not enough connection to public safety with the work of ACS.

It's about dogs.

You go to the website for ACS and it has all the wonderful information about adoptions vaccinations um uh chipping microchipping um and that's all good work and it all needs to continue but there what's missing is the public safety component and information on the ACS there should be a dashboard by districts that anybody could identify and see what is going on in district nine where are the hot spots have there been attacks are there repeat offenders I'm sorry to interrupt Ms.

Bale if the time expired uh a bit ago I I recognize that there probably you all didn't hear it they could hear it so it just past time so perhaps submit the rest for you can just wrap up your last thoughts believe okay okay well my last thoughts are what one very specific recommendation I I did discover that as council members you are not receiving a monthly status report a quarterly status report on what is happening uh in your district and a citywide kind of overview you get the annual report but I recommend to you that you strongly consider the city manager requesting ACS provide you with a monthly or quarterly status report so you get that information in front of you on a very regular basis so you can see exactly what's happening in your district.

The last thing I want to say is um a former council member Roberta Carlos Travino lives three blocks from me he's a good friend of mine and he told me that when he served there was a public citizen position on the public safety committee and I don't know if that position is still on the committee if it's vacant if it is I present myself as being interested in serving that.

If it's if it has been removed I ask you to consider reinstating it there is a role for public citizens to be serving on the public safety committee and that concludes my context given the the time commitment thank you very much.

Thank you Kathy for sharing your story and we're sorry about your loss.

We'll take items two and three together if that's okay with my colleagues it the item two is the report performance metrics for fiscal year 2026 and then item three is the briefing of what happens in these dangerous dog cruelty cases and how does it move um from the all the way through the kind of process through the court system so John we'll go ahead to you.

Alright thank you committee uh John Gary the director at ACS and um we'll go through the uh the presentation you all uh had to see the memo and and obviously I'll go through the presentation on the dangers of cruelty and then we'll uh you all I'll be available as well as uh municipal courts is here they've got a couple of slides at the end of the presentation that they will uh present some of their data on on citations.

So uh so just real quickly this is kind of the agenda for the presentation where first we're gonna talk about neglect and cruelty investigations dangerous dog investigations and then again we'll wrap up the the presentation with Mr.

Court talking about a couple of slides of of their data that they have for those citations.

So this first slide is uh talks about our cruelty investigations team we have five cruelty investigators and then one supervisor that over that that team this slide demonstrates kind of the the how we separate out cruelty there I mean I have to say there's two levels of animal cruelty but there really is one uh falls under neglect which is going to be your um less serious type cases and then um of course we have actual cruelty which is going to typically be the physical abuse uh torture dog fighting um cock fighting, those types of things.

And so uh those are the two levels that are kind of broken out.

When we have neglect cases, neglect is more of uh well cases where there's more minor, something such as um, you know, lack of uh shelter um uh minor veterinary care, uh, abandonments, um, and any of those could rise to the level of cruelty depending on the severity, right?

So if something if an animal's been abandoned for a long period, then uh that it rises to the level where now it's it's suffered physical harm due to that abandonment, then that that rises to a different level.

So any neglect dependent on the severity could end up being cruelty.

And so uh at the bottom there, it's kind of quickly uh gives some data on the information as you can see.

This year we've uh issued out about 898 uh notice of violations so far.

Um notice of violations are simply uh uh it's just a piece of paper that we give to that resident stating you are in violation of this ordinance, and these are the things that you have to do to correct them.

We typically will only notice violations are are for instances that are something that the resident can fix.

Some of the more minor things, such as improper tethering, uh shelter, um, sometimes food, depending on the circumstance of the resident, we're able to actually provide those resources to the resident and to help them uh resolve the issue on the on the minor things.

Um the next step is our civil citations.

As you can see, our civil citations are we we do uh quite a few less of those than what we did.

We have our criminal citations, which this year we're at about um 401 so far, and then cruelty case is filed with the DA's office, we're at about 36.

So as you can see, we're seven months into the year, we've already surpassed the number from last year, and then equal the number from the year prior to that.

So this next slide just kind of walks us through um how the cruelty investigations and and and what those look like.

So, first obviously first thing is we're gonna get that call for service.

Um it's gonna be assigned to an officer.

Typically, that first response is gonna be one of our first responder positions.

So that those officers will then go out.

If it's a minor infraction, then they would issue that notice of violation that we spoke about.

If it's um gonna be the more severe, then um it's going to then be referred to our cruelty team.

Um, if an NOV is issued a notice of violation, then the officer will then follow up that the next day, the a cruelty investigator will, and then determine what route goes from there.

Um, and so as you can see through the process, um, if if we go and and the complainant is not um or the the owner of the animal is not cooperative, then there is a there is a situation where we may have to get a warrant in order to remove the animal if they're if it comes to that point.

If it's not something that we can work with that resident on in fixing.

Um and then if if cruelty is determined during that um uh once we're able to get the animal into our custody, we can request a hearing, and during that hearing is where we we basically present evidence to show that a cruelty took place, and then we're able to take custody of that animal.

Um if if custody is awarded during that uh or custody can be warred uh to us during that during that time during that hearing.

Um the second piece of this is where we actually file the case.

The cruelty investigator uh determines there's enough evidence, they'll come they'll compile all the evidence, they'll issue the citation.

We actually have to request a number from the Bear County portal.

Uh the case is filed electronically through there, and then DA's office will then make a determination whether an actual case, and those are the cases that rise to the level of uh as I spoke about earlier as the that felony level cruelty cases on our neglect, um again, these are more um less severe instances depending and and these are ones that are typically are the type the ones that you see where we work with the resident to resolve the issue if they're willing.

Uh, some of the residents are not, and then if that's the case, then there is a process we follow again going through that that warrant where we issue it, try to get custody of the animal and then get it back to the judge in front in front of a hearing.

So the process for that is basically a first responder will be dispatched to the scene.

Um the citate the they'll determine whether it's going to be a minor or something that can be handled by a municipal court where we just issue a type of citation.

Uh something like um improper tethering, for instance, we would we'd probably give them the proper tethering, issue the citation, and then um it'll be you just put it'll be closed out and then pushed on to pseudomisciple courts.

So that um if we give them the proper um type of uh tethering, then then there's no follow-up needed.

So those that's a one example of of what could be that happened there if this can't be uh done on scene, then an NOV uh again is issued um and then it's referred to the cruelty team to follow up and then each morning the NOVs are then assigned to the the cruelty investigators and again those those cruelty investigators would then go out and determine the next steps whether it's going to be something that we continue to work with the owner or and we can continue to give them notice of violations to correct things or whether it's something that we need to uh work with to get a warrant to impound or to go ahead and bring in so moving on to our dangerous dog investigations so our dangerous dog team is we have uh four dangerous dog investigators and then one supervisor um well actually have two supervisors that supervise that team that does bites and dangerous um and so these are some of the stats from our um from our dangerous dog investigations uh so far year to date we're about 82 compliance rate um 82% compliance rate for our dangerous dogs uh our goal is eighty so we are uh surpassing that as of right now I will say that is kind of a moment in time it can change dramatically depending on uh the time even from one week to the next so but as of when this was made through the end of April we were at 82 percent uh and see we're about 348 uh dangerous dog cases that have that have been worked so far this year um again that's a that's a little bit of an increase than what we've been seeing if we're on pace right now to do just under 600 which would surpass the number of dangerous causes that we did last year um that the next few numbers actually breaks out how what those look like so we have 88 that were deemed dangerous um we have 68 that were deemed aggressive and I will say the difference uh we get a lot of questions about the difference between dangerous and aggressive dangerous is going to be an attack on a on a on a person and and the easiest way for me to describe is dangerous is going to be attack on a person where aggressive is going to be attack on another animal.

And then we have our SBI cases those are the more severe type bite cases that um that can rise at level SBI those those cases will go to to the court to decide whether or not it's SBI that's not something that's deemed there at ACS those ones those will all go to the courts as you can see we're about 22 of those and then about 77 were unfounded or incomplete sometimes we'll get an affidavit turned in with with this just lacking enough information and so it's an incomplete affidavit in those instances we'll reach back out to the resident give the option to provide more information fill out a new affidavit.

And then we had again some of those were unfounded and then currently we have about 93 active cases.

Now that that's 93 um individual cases and in each dog is a case so basically we have 93 dogs that are active right now.

Those 93 are actually in 52 homes so we have 52 owners 93 dogs that are currently being investigated this again talks a little bit about that process some of the key language that I do want to point out is it is unprovoked attack outside the dog's closure or threatening behavior.

That unprovoked is is one of the things that we have to educate a lot on because if no one witnesses the attack especially on the aggressive type dogs it's it's very difficult for us to deem them aggressive.

If no one saw whether the animal was provoked or unprovoked and so sometimes well when we don't have witnesses we had a very similar case just recently actually in D1 where no one saw the actual attack but we did have an animal that was killed and we weren't able to deem that dog aggressive because no one saw the the attack actually happen.

After we have the incident obviously it's reported to 91 or 311 that victim or witness our officer goes out gives them the option to fill out the affidavit.

Once the affidavits is filled out, we'll impound the animal for the for public safety.

And then the officer will begin all the investigation that goes along with that.

Collecting evidence, speaking with the owner, speaking with any witnesses, obtaining photos of the animals, all of that is part of that process.

And then once that's done the it comes back, and then as ACS, I actually review either myself or a designee, which is usually would be the assistant director, would review that case, and then we would determine whether or not if it meets the legal definition of dangerous, then we would deem it dangerous.

And then that owner would be issued a letter as well as the complaining that the person that filled out the affidavit.

They both receive letters with whatever that determination can be.

If they file appeal, then they'll have a hearing with the court.

If they don't file an appeal within that 15 days, then the dog is officially deemed dangerous, and it will go on to our official registry or aggressive, depending on which the case may be.

So every dog that was deemed dangerous from the prior month will be added to that registry on the 5th of the following month.

If the owner does file an appeal, then the courts will give it a hearing.

The court will decide if they decide that to withhold the then the animals then again deemed dangerous, and then they're required to have come into compliance.

The owner gets their dog back, and then that's the process.

If the owner comes into compliance, then the court will order the dog can be returned to the owner.

If they don't come into compliance within that 11 days, then the court has the option to order the animal to be euthanized.

And so those requirements there, those are the 10 requirements that all dangerous uh dogs uh owners are required to come into compliance with prior to us returning the dog to them.

So when we return the dog to the owner, they're they are in compliance, and so that when we talk about non-compliance, it's really that that year follow-up because it's a it's a lifelong determination.

So we have to they have to annually they have to meet these requirements, and we verify that they meet these requirements annually.

Uh this sheet really this shows what that affidavit looks like and what the um the person is required to fill out and turn into us in order for us to initiate a dangerous dog investigation.

Any dog, any dog that's involved in a severe bite, the officer offers this affidavit to them so that they have that opportunity and then kind of goes over that process with the with the victim.

Uh, once we get that affidavit, then that's when we start that process.

At the bottom there, it talks about our website there, and then it basically gives guidance on our website is what defines a dangerous dog, has a link to the dangerous dog registry, as well as a link to that affidavit form.

And then we also have a video that they actually can click that watch that they can watch that goes over how they can how to fill out that affidavit so that it helps that the victim understand um what that affidavit needs to include and all the information that they need to provide.

This last piece of our presentation, this is actually on our website, and this is uh referring to bytes.

There were some questions about the bite process and what that can look like.

These are actually episodes from our website that you can go to where basically a bite has to be reported through 311.

I will tell you that a victims of bites are required by law to report the bite, as well as if they go to a hospital for treatment, the hospital is required to report that bite.

And so we typically will get a the report will come from the victim, but if they recruit um receive hospital treatment, then the hospital will also contact us.

Once again, when they make the report, they need to include any description of the animal, any owner information, really anything that they have available to them that they can help us identify the animal that um that committed uh the bite, and then we uh we go out, we impound the animal.

The animal the animals required to have a 10-day quarantine, um, and then we recommend that they uh consult a physician uh to to um so let them determine what the process is for them as far as whether they need the antirabies treatment or not and then again the bites investigation officer will do the investigation our goal is to get the but the animal into uh quarantine as quickly as possible um the again if it has to be within that 10-day window uh sometimes it does take a little bit longer to track down owners but the goal is to get them in there as quick as we can towards that 10 day and then again on the right there it just kind of shows on our website where residents can actually go or victims can actually go to learn more information about if they're bit or if they're attacked and then uh I'm gonna have municipal courts come up and they're gonna go over the the last couple of slides of the presentation.

Good afternoon.

So when an individual's uh animal is considered has been deemed aggressive or dangerous and they are not complying with those requirements a criminal citation is filed in the court and this is just a brief overview of just those cases that are filed in municipal court as you know there are a number of other animal citations that are filed in the court but we are just focusing on these three citations right now.

And as of FY24 the majority of the cases filed at municipal court have been filed criminally instead of civilly and you'll see that on the next slide I do want to point out because it probably looks pretty um concerning about the dismissals under uh FY24 and FY25 a lot of those are companion cases that have been dismissed as part of a plea bargain for an individual to plead on one type of offense usually the aggressive dog requirements and then an exchange the remainder of those cases will be dismissed in exchange for the plea it also includes cases that are dismissed because of a missing witness maybe the dog has been uh euthanized um just various reasons that the prosecutor will recommend a dismissal so I know that that probably looks pretty concerning to you but there are a number of cases we usually when a person receives a citation it is just not one citation that they receive they can receive four or five citations at a time on the next page you'll see the civil citations and as I mentioned the majority of cases since FY24 have been filed criminally the civil process is more of a compliance docket so the ACS officer makes a recommendation to the administrative hearing officer on whether the case should be dismissed if they should be given more time to come into compliance or if an individual should be found liable for whatever reason.

So it it's it's again it's just a snapshot of the cases that are have of outcomes in FY24 and FY25 and it's just a small snapshot of cases that are animal cases that are actually filed in municipal court so thank you.

Okay we're obviously we're both here to answer any questions that you have.

Thanks John and is there anything you wanted to highlight from I also wanted to mention for item number two which is the memo that shows ACS statistics is now printed for public in next to the water bottles in case anybody wants to see it is there anything that you wanted to highlight from that memo we all have it so we can also just provide comment on yeah sure.

Just real quick.

So the um you know how our critical response rate a few years ago was about 40 some odd percent.

What is it right now?

Right now we're right at uh 92, 90, not just under 93%.

Thank you.

We did have two other people that believe the Senate for speak for speaking online but did not get added to my list.

So I'm gonna go ahead and give them time if that's okay, and then we'll continue on with council discussion.

Leah Laporte.

Several years ago at a public town hall budget meeting, I spoke about ACS basically turning the average citizen into de facto animal control officers because they were not responding to the majority of aggressive and dangerous dog calls.

I said at that time, mark my words, there will be a fatality.

Several months later, DEPLA happened.

In every single fatality in the city of San Antonio, the dogs have been known to ACS.

They have a history, and so every time somebody is killed, someone loses an arm or a leg, city council is reactive, you buy the lies that the ACS directors feed you during the public session.

But after that meeting, former ACS director Shannon Sims came up to me, and Miss Villa Gomez was at that meeting as well as the ACS chair.

But Shannon came up to me and he said, Kelly, you and I often disagree on how I run ACS, but I'm in agreement with you on dangerous dogs.

And he said, so much so that I had a meeting with Eric Walsh because municipal court was telling us we're issuing too many citations and they were dismissing them.

And Eric went, or rather, Shannon went to Eric and said, When something happens, when the shit hits the fan, ACS is not going to take the fall for this.

What I will tell you is that a significant number of these cases for dangerous dogs are dismissed as noted here, and they're kind of bundled together.

Oftentimes, the same dangerous dog owners appear over and over again.

There's never any accountability.

This is just one current case.

Darcy Avalos, since 2024, has required multiple appearances at municipal court for failure to comply with dangerous dog requirements.

The last one in April was also a no-show.

There's multiple warrants out for his arrest or to hold appearance.

Nothing's being done.

Now we fast forward where just recently ACS director John Gary stated that serious bite injuries are up more than 50%.

If these serious bite injuries are increasing by more than 50%, then this committee should be asking why ACS is not using every enforcement tool available to prevent these attacks.

If a dangerous dog owner can ignore court orders for years and keep their dogs, and or own multiple declared dangerous or aggressive dogs, the dangerous dog laws are mean meaningless.

In a recent D1 attack, the victim suffered severe facial lacerations as well as lacerations on their arm.

The owner was known to ACS.

ACS never successfully quarantined that dog.

ACS did not hold a serious bodily injury case.

More recently, ACS knew about the dog that had attacked a small child in D6.

That dog went on to attack and maul an 80-year-old woman.

The same thing.

ACS failed to quarantine the dog after it attacked that child.

As a consequence, that child had to undergo the rabies series.

I know from personal experience when ACS failed to quarantine the dog that attacked me, those are very expensive series.

So the pattern is clear.

ACS keeps ignoring the dangerous dog issue in conjunction with municipal court.

None of y'all care to understand down on the Mac on the micro level what the real issues are.

And until you do that, this issue is not going to be resolved.

There are going to be more individuals that are named, more that are going to be killed.

And each time, every single one of you will buy the lies that ACS keeps telling you.

And I want to by stating that when you asked about the response rate for the critical calls, ACS is now telling you it's 93%.

That is a manipulation of the stats.

Number one, none of you all know what is considered to be a response to a critical call.

They can close out a critical call by saying, attempted to call the 311 caller, but the person didn't pick up the phone.

And therefore the critical call is closed out.

Oftentimes, most of the calls are just closed out automatically.

And the 3-1-1 records prove this.

So hopefully y'all will show a little bit of interest and understanding the process.

Instead of advocating for the city to trap dogs and release them back to the streets to maul and kill humans and thank you so much, Kelly.

Okay, we'll go ahead and start with council discussion.

Does anybody would like to start?

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

So obviously, uh big issue here.

Thank you for the presentation.

Thanks for the memo.

Over the past few years, I think we've received two prime two types of primary concerns from residents.

For several years now, residents have packed public comments, spammed our emails, created and joined national Facebook groups, and more to express that San Antonio's shelter needs to be no kill.

So folk have emphasized that ACS isn't doing enough to improve outcomes for healthy, adoptable animals that come into the shelter.

And so to fix this, they've expressed that there's a need to prioritize spay and neuter services and figure out how to mitigate the population growth of animals and expand awareness of existing spay neuter laws, services, and resources.

To that end, we've since established two new spay neuter hubs, which are expected to increase the number of surgeries we can do.

And we've vote broken ground on a new veterinary hospital we hope to open by the end of next year.

We've also implemented canvassing efforts and door-to-door outreach to directly reach residents to connect them with resources, education, and opportunities to fix their pet.

And we've also increased the number the amount of kennel space to expand capacity just a little bit.

We've also heard from residents, particularly in recent years, that laws are not being followed or enforced.

So when residents call about animal abuse, neglect, hoarding of animals, we've seen homes with 40 plus animals, and they just keep coming back and getting more animals.

And that removal of these animals is not happening.

And the burden of proof is falling on neighbors, but even when they present proof, including pictures and videos or sharing times that ACF officer ACS officers should stop by when incidents are occurring, that is not being used ultimately.

And it feels as though there's a limit on ACS's capacity to respond to the need and a breakdown between what ACS is doing and how the courts are handling the cases.

It's also been shared that recently ACS has stopped taking in or picking up animals, which is counter to our animal control goals, even if it's improving our live release rate.

So I will ask you to address that because that was news to me when I heard it at public comment.

And to that end, we've improved our response rate to critical calls pretty drastically, as we heard a few years ago, we were responding to responding to 40% of critical calls, which is disastrous.

That's a F by any metric.

And those are again the cruelty and neglect that people are reporting.

And right now we're at 92%, which was shared earlier.

929, yeah, 92%.

I'm also happy that we're moving forward with the needs assessment study and feasibility study that will help us determine how we may expand ACS's presence and response by creating a second campus on the eastern sector of town.

Even so, you know, we have a long way to go to adequately meet our responsibilities as a city with regard to animal welfare and outcomes, and I'd like to see a more concerted and coordinated effort with ACS, the municipal court, and the DA's office.

I also need to know explicitly what do you all need to make this happen?

What we've heard, you know, we've heard from these same residents, right?

Is ACS doesn't need any more money, they don't need any more brick and mortar.

I do believe that that's categorically false.

ACS has never had the resources that it's needed to resolve these issues.

And just a few years ago, 2021, ACS's budget was 15 million dollars.

It's now about 30 million dollars because we as a council asked to more adequately resource the department, even though the department itself was saying, ah no, but you know, we don't think we can hire this many people.

And we're still not where we need to be.

So ACS has, I I want to emphasize ACS has hard working, compassionate employees who put up with name calling, yelling, and they're just trying to do their job and they care about these animals just as much as the rest of us, but they themselves are limited.

So is it do we need higher pay for ACS officers?

Will that help with retention rates?

If we have a second facility on the east side, will that improve our response in the inner city?

Uh and I really want to know similarly to how we've explored how we get to a 60-40 goal with SAPD uh and what resources are necessary to do that.

It's unclear what we need to do to improve outcomes at ACS.

And so I need a little bit more advocate advocacy from the department on that front, especially as we get into this upcoming budget cycle.

So uh to that end also, what do the courts need?

What does the DA need and how do we help ACS provide that so that we can improve these case outcomes?

And then to the earlier point, right?

How do we improve outcomes at the shelter, and how do we accomplish all of those goals and those challenges that residents uh are not just demanding of us but expecting and oh and our and are owed.

Um so I have I guess I made several points there that I'd like you to respond to.

Number one, starting with are we no longer taking animals at the shelter and if why does that misconception exist if it is one?

Well, I mean, I will say there's been no change to our state process in a number of years.

So I'm not sure how far it goes back because it goes back prior to me.

Um and so I think when people um our residents are are making the comment, they're they're referring to when we're when we don't have kennel space to bring an animal in, and that animal is not sick, injured, posing a public safety threat, um, we're we're not bringing them in every time.

Um our officers' number one goal is to get them back to their owner when possible.

Um if it's the right thing to do, obviously there's certain situations, especially if the animals have been involved in attack or things like that when they're not going to do that, but that's their number one goal is to try to get it back.

Um and then one of the reasons why we implemented our pet care connect program was to try to get into these areas of high um call volume, high instances of of intake, and get resources there to prior to those instances happening, right?

So lower the number of animals that are running free in those in those particular neighborhoods where we run that program at.

So we do have capacity constraints, and we we there's no doubt about that.

Um so there are instances where uh if someone calls in a stray dog, for instance, right now we collect those for data uh purposes, and then once we uh we use heat maps to recognize when there's particular areas that um are where there's a high noticeable call volume for stray animals.

And so what we do is we take that information that that tells us where maybe pet care connect needs to go, or our sweeps team may need to go.

We have a sweeps team that actually will also go into those areas of high call volume.

Now, those are particularly just someone called in and said, I just saw a roaming dog.

It's not a this dog was attacking anyone, those types of those instances we respond.

So it's it does uh determine um you know, our response is determined by the the complaint that we receive.

And I think it would be resolved, or the perception would be a little better if what is it that again residents are feeling as though they are def and it was said earlier, de facto ACS officers.

And if a resident calls in, they say, hey, there's a roaming animal, we know that that should not be the case.

What is ACS doing to get that animal back at their home?

And is that actually happening, or are they often just being, you know, left there, left to what to wander the streets, and then ACS goes handle handles a more pressing concern?

Yeah, at this point in time, our focus has been on uh critical call response when additional officers were added a few years ago.

It was to address the critical call response, which it has.

Again, we're we're above 90 and have been now for uh for quite some time.

Uh and so there are instances where animals uh are reported as stray that we don't we do not respond.

And I think that's where the problem is, right?

Is a few years ago, finally um, you know, this the council said, hey, we want to prioritize ACS, and it was largely because of a modeling that happened.

And that's not the that's not how we should be responding to things.

That's not how we should determine our focuses.

We do obviously want to prevent that from happening, but it starts much sooner than that, right?

When those dogs are roaming, what are the if they're unfixed, what are they doing?

They're they're expanding the population, and then when those animals start to congregate and they become packs, then they become dangerous animals, and so the root of the problem is much further down, and it starts at those low-level calls, and so what is it gonna take for ACS to respond to those before they become bigger issues?

What is it that ACS needs?

And it sounds like you know, we need the off we need the ACS officers who are gonna be responding to the critical calls, but we also need ACS officers to respond to the quality of life calls that are being received.

Uh yes, that would that'd be correct.

They're just an officer we see were to address the critical calls, and so um, I mean, that is a that's what you just said is absolutely correct.

Um, we would need additional officers to respond to every one of the calls that we receive.

And and and to second that, if if we if we picked up every single stray dog that we got called in, we don't have anywhere to put them.

Um it would take us a matter of days to fill the shelter up to capacity, and we couldn't even euthanize our way out of it because of the number of everybody beyond all the dogs would be on a stray hole.

And so it's a that's a that's a particular issue that we have too is we only have a certain amount of capacity to hold animals.

And the challenge there is that it's not just ACS that has that problem, it's residents who are being asked to essentially foster animals or hold animals in their home until ACS has space or until one of our partners has space.

But I think there's an opportunity there or a gap in connecting residents with those with other shelters, with other nonprofits with organizations, and then for us to play a supportive role in expanding their capacity as well.

I understand what is it, Animal Defense League has they have a project they're working on, they would like to expand their services, and I think we would do well to play a supplementary role in that.

It's just concerning to me.

I like I had to kind of goad you into we need more officers to respond to those things.

What is it that you need?

What is it that and I know it may be a hard position for you as a director who ultimately answers to Eric Walsh and we're navigating a budget deficit and uh departments are being asked to um to make cuts and to be ready for that and to really minimize your ass, but this is an area of concern that we can't afford to skimp out on.

So, what is it ultimately that you need in order to prevent the problems that were being named earlier by our residents and have been named by dozens and dozens of residents prior.

Well, I mean, again, I think it would take additional officers and and I we'd have to run some data to to see what that exact that number would look like.

Um, but also it would take additional staffing to be able to to handle the that that larger number of animals coming in.

Um I think that's a big concern uh too.

Again, it's it's not just about where we put them, but there has to be um, you know, we've invested a lot in bringing animals into the shelter, but um there's still resources needed to get animals out of the shelter, so additional adoption staff, uh additional uh placement team, those types of resources.

Medical is another big issue.

Obviously, the hospital's coming along and and we'll have some needs uh when it comes to the hospital as well to be able to do everything it was designed to do.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember White, would you like to go next?

Thank you, Chair.

Um, thanks for the presentation.

Um I echo a lot of the the comments of of my colleagues uh my colleague, Councilman McKee Rodriguez.

You know, response times are one thing, but I think that um residents still don't feel safe in a lot of these neighborhoods where uh these animals are are roaming around.

Um but I but I appreciate ACS bringing uh this little level of detail uh to the committee today.

I just have a couple of questions.

Um criminal citations nearly doubled from 24 to 25.

What was that too?

What was that due to uh additional officers getting more offers or being announced, as we were able to respond better to the calls of citations went up?

What is the average time from an initial report on one of these instances in a district attorney's decision?

Do you have you know what's what's the life cycle there?

Oh, that varies quite a bit depending on what the charge is, how quickly we're able to get the animal.

I mean, there's a there's a large, there's a pretty good gap of how long that could be.

Do you all track the DA's rate of accepting these things?

You know, prosecuting them versus declining the cases.

Uh no, it's not something we track, but I could definitely look into that.

The dangerous dog affidavit.

Um we noticed any um issues there with elderly folks or or people not being able to uh you know get a notary to to sign one of those things, anybody having difficulties there?

Well, we do offer resources for that, so we actually are officers.

We have people on on our staff that are notaries so that we can actually help do that for them if they if they need to uh as well as walking through filling it out if they're a resident that that needs that assistance.

Okay.

I think we're certainly making improvements there, but there's more to be done.

This is most definitely a public safety um issue.

Uh I also agree with with uh with the councilman on the need for at least a satellite ACS facility on on the other side of uh town.

Um the councilman and I I guess we did a CCR looking at that um a year ago or so, and we'd love to find a spot to do that.

So I think we just need to keep pushing in this area because there's a lot of improvement we can still make.

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Spears.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh I have a few questions here.

I I appreciate that this is a complicated issue and it's not easily solved.

Um can't be the only answer.

There's a lot of prongs to this this issue, and I know you work really hard.

Um, how are you working at all with the county on anything to do with with dangerous dogs?

Uh uh just occasionally if we have cross, you know, cross-terse distinct things where we have animals over there, but other than that, no.

Same with maybe suburban cities too.

Yes.

Um I I feel frustrated with it because I don't it's not an easy answer.

Um is that let me ask you this too.

Is it true what Ms.

Walls said about the fatalities all being linked to dogs that we knew were prior offenders or prior aggressive?

Is that true?

Uh I mean there are some instances.

I don't know the exact like how many have priors, how many don't uh off the top of my head, but there are some instances where it is true, yes.

Okay, go ahead and go right.

I feel like we've got to think of something, innovative things that we're we're not doing.

I know we have a lot of laws on the books.

We put a lot of money here and how we can better support you.

Um, I could be supportive of a registry showing where these dangerous dogs are by district, so we know I use the sex offender registry because if my kids, I would like to do the same.

If there's a dangerous dog, I kind of tend to know when I'm walking.

Um realizing my district has different um urgency in this area, and knowing that some of my colleagues have more urgency in this, uh, I think that could be extremely helpful.

I don't know that that would be terrible to set something like that up, terribly difficult, but um, and I'd like I I feel like as much as I like carrots, I think this is a stick situation where um maybe we look at really high mandatory insurance if you've got an an aggressive dog, like hundred thousand dollars, hundred thousand.

Did I say a hundred thousand?

Yeah, hundred thousand dollars to have that dog after you.

I mean, I I just don't understand why you would want a dog like that after they have been aggressive and dangerous.

There's no, and maybe I lack awareness why you would want to keep that dog, but um, it just doesn't seem like you should be I I I don't know all the answers.

I'm very open to suggestions here.

I can't see a way where we just throw a ton of money at it because we do.

I I want us to do what we need to do, but I want to see more collaboration with the county because they're doing theirs too.

It shouldn't be independent of each other and suburban cities.

Um we need to support you.

I see that, but um I just feel a lot of frustration here because I don't I don't know that we really move the I I don't know what all we can do to move the ball forward here beyond um I mean I think the registry would be helpful.

I think it would help me personally just to know and other people walking.

Um I don't have a lot of comments, but I do need more information here.

I would like to see the heat map.

Um I think we just really need to strengthen our ordinances and strengthen um enforcement and maybe expedite hearings if we have to just really hold them accountable because it's so serious.

I mean, we keep hearing about these kids and it's summertime now, it's gonna be even worse, and it's hard on y'all.

Y'all work really hard.

I know you do.

So I appreciate your presentation.

Uh I know you're doing a lot, and I appreciate that.

We had a good tour of ACS.

Um, I just think we're gonna have to get everyone to the table, all jurisdictions around us at the table for this.

And if we need to go to the legislature, then maybe we do.

So thank you for your presentation.

I did want to mention that uh we actually do have a registry that you can go on our website and look uh and actually shows those little dots on the map that shows you where the animals live, uh both for dangerous and aggressive.

And then also if a dog is deemed dangerous, the owner is required to get a hundred thousand dollar insurance policy.

Is there, I don't know if there's a way in the back if we can pull it up.

I'm not sure if you can go to the website and just pull up the dangerous dog registry in the meantime while we go through comments with counseling.

There is a slide that kind of shows you how to do that.

So then is this an education problem?

Like we need to educate the public about what all is happening and you're doing and we have available to them.

I think we can make yeah, we could probably definitely do a better job of that.

Maybe we need to do uh I can get with our team and just make it more prominent on the website too, so you don't have to click four places to get to it.

You can you can go directly to it, and so I can um I can work with our team on that for sure.

Okay, and however you we can be helpful media kits or promoting that have you out to the district and come to meetings we have.

We're welcome.

We would love to have you.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And I just to that point, and I'm gonna go to Councilman Castillo, but just to because she brought this up, um, the point that was brought up about how to get this information.

You even the slide shows the screenshots of how to get there, but it's not where you land.

So when you land on the ACS website, it's volunteer opportunities.

This is the point that was being made.

Like volunteer opportunities meet our adoptable spay and neuter free vaccination.

And it took me several, like, uh I had to figure out where to go because when you click on the menu tab, it I wouldn't I didn't initially think the bite would be under animal control.

So I had to click through all of them and I was like, oh, I don't see where this would be.

Like I was trying to go back and find that, and I couldn't figure it out.

Um, and I had to click on all the tabs to then get to, oh, this is where bites live, and it lives under animal control.

So I think that should come to the front page so that someone that is experiencing that.

And I also think it is important to clarify the difference between I understand the difference between um dangerous and aggressive, but the pro when you click on um the dangerous dog the dangerous dog, it just talks about animal bites for humans.

So there's not really a process that it says like, oh, your dog has been attacked.

This is what you should do.

So I think there needs to be a more clear, like that it says, like, um, right now it gives you dangerous dog, and then this is what the process is, but I think we could even make it even more clear and bulleted, uh where it says, was your dog just attacked or was your animal just attacked, or were you just attacked, and then a process for each of those, rather than just defining what those two different categories are.

Um David, would you like to say something?

Excuse me, gentlemen.

Hi, I'm David McCarey, assistant city manager.

A couple of things I wanted to make certain that y'all have as a takeaway.

Starting off with the child that was bitten and attacked by the dog, and then later on, it was an 80-year-old lady, same dog a week later.

What's important for y'all to know is that the owner of the dog is the granddaughter to the 80-year-old lady, the lady that was attacked.

What you heard is true about the same dog attacking the week before.

The owner of the dog took the dog into the county to hide the dog.

We actually went to the media, made certain that was shared as well.

That not only did they hide the dog, but on the 80th birthday of the grandmother, the granddaughter brought the dog over to the home, and the dog attacked the grandmother in her own house.

It wasn't on the street running loose, it was in the backyard.

A couple of things that I think are good takeaways for you.

One is as we track on our side what's happening with ACS, we need to align what the outcomes are in the municipal courts.

So we need to do a better job of figuring that out together.

Also, we have to also figure out the best way to bring the community in because there are eyes and ears and capacity is a premium.

Kennel capacity is a premium.

What John said is very accurate there, so I wanted you to know that.

What he hasn't shared with you yet is that he's currently working on a dashboard.

That dashboard is going to probably the next 90 days for draft.

We're looking for reality checks for each of your council districts and what's happening with calls, be it aggressive calls, priority calls, critical calls.

But what you'll see is that the number of calls are trending down.

Each of you should have had a memo that was sent out last week with that latest update.

As a part of that, it's also important that we recognize that even dead animals that are on the streets, all those calls are going down, but the impact of regular calls that are still coming, we want to be able to respond and manage that.

So we're gonna continue to look for ways to improve our quality resources that we have we've utilized to the fullest extent.

There are still data, things that we can help the community better understand, that I think at the end of the day would be extremely helpful to all of us.

So expect some more things to come.

We'll continue to work with ACS to get that timely response to all calls.

And you know, it's just one of those things that we're not gonna look the other way, we're gonna continue to work it and try our best to improve it.

Thank you for those comments, David.

Um, just really quick while this website is up, and then we can go back to the presentation.

Could you just click on one of those dots so that you can see?

And if you click on the three uh the the label on the side, you'll see the filter, so that each caller represents a different level.

Um, well, those are the the top filters where you're on right now.

You can filter by a type of level, so aggressive level one, two, three, dangerous, and then um if you go to the next one, you can filter by council district and by neighborhood.

Then if you go down to the actual map, there's um three dots on the right side, which alters is just gives you the labels of what the callers are if you want to just look at that.

But when you um sorry, if you could click on a dot again, the thing I was gonna ask is this doesn't if there if there would be a way to say if you scroll down on their profile to say like what was the last why are they labeled, like was there a dog a bite case?

Like, is that legal to be able to say you know, bit um like the details about dog bite or dog bite or dog attack or dog and dog on dog with the dates um that way we could see oh this this one has had multiple issues on it, um just a little bit more information.

I don't know if it's if that's a uh opportunity to provide that.

I'll I can definitely work with our our team and with legal to to make sure we're only putting things where allowed to put but I think we can we could definitely probably give you more information on what's there now for sure.

And then that way we could also filter by multiple attacks so we could kind of verify some of that information, and I don't know if there's also a way to say where.

So for example, you know, it might be where this person lives, but they may have attacked someone somewhere else.

So it I don't know if it can um and I I don't know if that's relevant information, but might be also good to look at.

All right, I'll go to Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

McCarry and uh John for the presentation.

Um during public comment, we've had a district five constituent Catherine come and raise a couple of concerns and offer a few solutions.

So, for example, on slide seven, uh, what she's shared at public comment, right, is that there's no animal care without animal control, and what she's asking is that if we can explore how to train if they're not uh our 311 operators on what next steps could be for filing a dangerous dog affidavit.

Um so from her experience, she's called 311 and she wasn't offered the option or what next steps would be to file a dangerous dog affidavit.

So can you share a little bit of what is the process in which someone calls 311, they're concerned about an aggressive dog, um, and what is 311 walking the constituent through in terms of what next steps would be with filing the appropriate uh documentation?

So currently the with 31 uh will do is take the type of call, and so the it'll come in as a as an aggressive or or potential dangerous, and then it's referred to us and then we contact the residents to provide that information.

But I can certainly work with 311 to see if um if they're able to provide a little more information depending on what the resident says, but they they usually typically would defer to us just so they make sure that the residents getting information that's that's that's accurate.

Yeah, and what Catherine's also offered, right, is uh a public information campaign that shares that uh there doesn't necessarily need to be bodily injury for someone to uh submit an affidavit, and uh her concern is oftentimes uh it's until there's an accident that someone files it, but there's still opportunity if you see characteristics and or behaviors with an animal that may qualify um for um an aggressive affidavit to be filed.

Um so that's something that she's offered.

I do believe there's value in exploring that.

Um but I wanted to go back to again the 911 or 311.

Uh uh a general concern as well is what happens after 311's closed, right?

And there's been instances in which they do call 911, but it's kind of this back and forth.

Can you walk me through like in practice?

What should be the practice be um 311's closed?

It's past five.

Um there's an aggressive dog, call 911.

What should be the constituents' expectation of next steps following calling 911?

So if if it happens after 311 is closed, the the then if it's emergency as an aggressive dog or something like they need to call 911, and then we work with police department closely to get our officers uh dispatched out to that.

If it's a non-emergency, they can either use the app and use the 311 app and fill it out, or they can um call during the following day during business hours.

Um, yeah, someone's in it.

As the police department, if they can help with that question in terms of what happens when somebody calls 911 or the non-emergency room, I'm sorry, the non-emergency number after uh ACS is close, because we have ACOs that are working after hours, and of course, we have our police officers as well that can respond.

Sure.

Uh Robert Blanton with the assistant chief of the police department.

Um, after ACS is closed, if it's a dangerous situation or or somebody's in danger, then our patrol resources will respond to that call.

Um again, we're kind of in a hypothetical, but uh you know, they they could.

I believe you have after hours, right, John, that we can call and uh so.

Yeah, I mean that's typically how it works.

They'll if they call 911, typically a police officer will respond and then they'll contact.

We do have officers that work 24 hours a day.

So they'll we will have an officer that responds with PD.

Okay, I I appreciate that.

And then uh I know there was uh uh data from municipal courts, but do we know what um the percentage of owners seek an appeal for the county courses over with the district attorney's office?

I know uh Mark asked for some of our questions, so if that's something we could get offline, um that's something I would like to see.

Um, but also if I'm remembering correctly, some of the documents from ACS are physical documents that are then manually entered by the clerk.

Um, is that still the case, or is everything now digital in terms of going to municipal court?

No, it's all it's a very manual process.

We actually have to take them down and turn them in.

Our officers do.

And I think that's a conversation that we should prioritize in terms of uh the budget conversation of how we can digitize those documents, um, because it is um very laborsome to manually enter the documents and uh I understand that folks at the clerk's office have a large caseload, so I think it would help streamline uh that process and then accountability as well.

So I'm hopeful that during the budget conversation um that we prioritize public safety and looking at investing in technology to to streamline those cases from ACS to municipal courts, so on and so forth.

Um but in addition to that, I just wanted to thank Karen and Rita who keep my team uh up to date on things moving on within the animal care service board and of course working closely with district five constituents uh in terms of what are the the needs, where are the gaps, so on and so forth.

Uh and recently um there was an unfortunate story of animal cruelty in district five.

Um so can you walk me through um what that partnership with PD looks like?

When there's like I believe this individual was like uh killing animals, right?

So um the reports made, is it animal care service officers and PD going to the home?

Is it ACS first?

Uh and then PD.

Can you walk me through like what that process looks like?

So uh that particular incident uh incident, which I hate to speak too much on because it is an active investigation by the police department.

Understood.

But I can tell you that the owner did contact A ACS to surrender the puppies.

He did not mention any mention of those animals being sick or any of that, and so what we did is we we were working with them to get an appointment to bring the puppies in at a later date.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, council member.

Um, I'll just conclude the comments by uh thanking you for this information.

I actually wanted to talk a little bit more to Judge Robledo if that's okay about some of the municipal court stuff, because I know we've I'm actually don't sit on municipal court committee, but I know some of my colleagues do, so they get to hear some of this information a little bit more.

The thing that I have a hard time doing is like following the whole case in my head, right?

So it I and because of the fiscal years, we talked about this last time, the way that you guys track fiscal year data is not necessarily the one it was so fiscal year 25 could be cases that were actually cited in fiscal year 24.

Right, exactly.

So is there a way to show um the actual cases versus like the fiscal year data information?

I don't know if I'm being clear on like kind of what I'm asking.

So you want to I want to see like the results of like instead of just saying like these are the number of uh like the case actually following the case cycle rather than just the like the numbers like so these dismissal after um probation, so for failure to comply with aggressive dog requirements, those five cases, how long were those in the cycle?

Where did they start?

What how did how long did the whole process take for those to be dismissed?

Okay, so do you do you want to see all five of those or just kind of random cases?

Anything that would get us better understanding of what the the case cycle looks like.

So what I'm trying to figure out is like if we do want to be better at communicating with residents that are f on the other side of the situation, right?

We better need to understand, hey, you're you're calling about an aggressive dog.

This is how long it's going to take for a aggressive dog affidavit to get into place.

After that, it's going to go to court.

It's gonna potentially write this, right?

This and so all of the options, what would be the time frame?

So when I'm on the front end of it, I can better understand what this whole cycle looks like, and that potentially these are all the options that you would go through, and this is how much time it would take.

So if I've gotten attacked by a dog and it's a dangerous dog, what is going to happen and how long?

And then what are my chances?

Like what it what do we think the options, the outcomes are going to be?

Kind of what David was um mentioning about like outcome alignment.

So that's what I'm just trying to better understand.

Okay, so just a very general overview.

So if if ACS will turn a citation over to the prosecutor's office, they'll review it, they'll decide if there is enough there to actually file a case with the court as councilwoman.

So are those dismissal prosecutor, is that are those the ones that are dismissed?

Those are after the cases are filed.

So what we're talking about is pre-filing.

So ACS is writing a citation handwritten, just as Councilwoman Castillo had mentioned, handwriting a uh citation, turning it over to the city prosecutor's office.

They are reviewing it.

If it needs any additional data, they get with ACS.

If they feel like there's enough there, then they turn it over to the court to our data entry section.

Our data entry section enters the case into the system.

So that usually takes about a week.

We do place a priority on domestic violence cases and animal cases.

And those are the cases, the majority of the cases that are well, there's a lot of cases that are handwritten, but those are the ones that we place a priority on.

After that, we give individuals about 30 days to appear in court because when it is a criminal filing, as soon as that case is filed, all the constitutional protections attach.

Your right to a jury trial, your right to rep be represented by an attorney, your right to face your accuser.

All those attach.

So we give an individual a 30 days to come to court.

If they don't come to court in 30 days, we are required by law to give them another reset.

If they don't come in that second time, then we issue a warrant for their arrest.

So if they do come, we have opened up more dockets so that we can see people timely.

We're not I don't want to wait 60 days before somebody has to appear in court on something.

So we are constantly moving dockets around to see if we can get folks to come to court because that is one of the challenges that we have.

We have challenges getting people to come to court.

We they receive the citation.

If we have a good cell phone number, if we happen to have an email address, we will contact them electronically.

But if we don't, we have to use whatever physical address we have.

Got it.

So I think my you want to add something more.

I just wanted to say sure answer to your question is yes.

In the Office of Integrated Community Safety Office is working with the court and ACS and code enforcement to get those outcomes that you're looking for.

In terms of technology, I mentioned by councilwoman Castillo.

Um, this is part of that e-citation process that we presented to committee.

So we are looking to figure out how we can get those citations issued by ACS in code enforcement electronically to the court, so we eliminate that data entry.

Okay.

Uh Councilman McGee, you guys is mentioning we need to move on.

I'll end by saying, um, yeah, and I'll end by saying, so like what I'm trying to say is like slide three, where it shows all of those violations, like these are all of the things that are occurring.

Sh in my mind, I'd like to see this in my district tied to slides um 11 and 12.

So they're not two separate data sets in my mind that I cannot follow, but that it I can follow it all the way from this is the amount of citations that were provided, these are the types of citations that were provided.

These are the all these citations broken up, how many were taken, how many were not, for what reasons, and then from those, what were the results of that?

Like, I'm thinking of like a flow chart in my mind, so I can kind of follow the whole process from beginning to end.

Okay, but you want to see it for specific cases.

Well, I whatever way that can be presented right now.

I'm it's just like making an ask to see.

Because these two every time I see this information, it's in two different formats, right?

I'm getting what ACS is doing and what the courts are doing, and I'm looking for what the connection is.

Okay, and our numbers will never match.

Our numbers will never match with ACS's numbers.

But we could track.

Well, let's think about with Maria's team, and I'll I'll pause it.

Let's think about with Maria's team how we could actually track the cases to be able to make them follow.

Because like right now, I think what you're what's happening is you're just pulling the numbers from your fiscal year versus actually tracking the cases.

Okay, okay.

We'll get together so then we can get clarification so we can get you exactly what you're asking.

Thank you so much, Judge.

I appreciate it.

And Councilman, did you have something?

Yes, um, I just wanted to add I do believe there would be value in a animal care service strategic framework refresh, right?

What has been accomplished with the framework, what's moved, and where is their opportunity for us to recalibrate?

Uh, for example, I would like to understand in terms of what is the average weight to uh this is for John.

Oh, uh like what is the average weight to surrender animal currently, and then what is our goal and what's it gonna take more space, right?

Um, so I think uh having that metric and what is the goal which we're reducing the cost, and then also what is uh the communication and uh collaboration.

Like I'm thinking about with our safe officers.

Uh they wear so many hats, and oftentimes they are responding to animal care uh calls and containing animals, and what is that response for uh ACO to show up with our safe officer to transport the animal, whatever the case may be.

So, one, what is that relationship?

What is the average response time, and how can we strengthen that?

Because uh oftentimes uh again, our safe officers are uh corraling animals as well, uh, and and then waiting on a response.

So just um I would like to understand that relationship.

How can we strengthen it?

Uh, and then of course, how do we reduce the the weight for surrendering an animal?

Uh, because again, the concern is if folks are trying to go to a place that should be safe for the animal in the community, uh, and they're told the wait is 30 days, six months a year, they're then just going to go dump it near the creek in an apartment complex uh near a bus stop.

So I think um that's something that we should continue to explore.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Castillo.

Echo her thing on uh refresh too.

So happy to support.

Okay, um, we're gonna move on to item number.

Those two items were just for briefing.

So we're gonna move on to briefing and possible action on the police safety plan.

And um, I know we have uh a few slides to go through, and then we'll get to council discussion.

Chief.

Oh, good afternoon, Chair.

Can you all hear me all right?

I yeah, I can't appear.

Say again, good.

Uh good afternoon, Chair, committee members, uh, deputy city manager.

My name's Robert Blanton, assistant chief.

Thank you.

With SAPD, and I'll provide the uh briefing and overview on our patrol staffing plan.

We'll start with an overview here.

Um we'll provide some background information, information related to the various staffing models that are out there for police agencies.

The analysis we conducted here within the SAPD, what the findings and recommendations were from that analysis, and then uh our progress to date and managing current demand.

So for background on March 11th, uh council members White, Alberta Gavito, and Spears submitted a request for a resolution supporting the SAPD staffing recommendations.

The next day on March 12th, Council members McKee Rodriguez, Via Grande Mungia, Castillo, and uh Galvan submitted a response memo that they'd be addressed during the FY27 budget process, and on April 2nd at a subsequent A session, the staffing resolution was uh directed for further review and discussion at the May Public Safety Committee meeting, which here we are today.

So when we undertook this analysis, uh we had some goals that we set out in the beginning to determine uh officer optimal officer workload, appropriate number of sworn personnel within the patrol division, uh allocation and deployment efficiencies related to the patrol division, organizational structure and deployment strategies, and uh increasing community engagement also within the patrol division.

Uh we did this kind of recognizing that we had to strike a balance from uh between some considerations here, which is uh increasing population and a growing community here in San Antonio, uh heightened public expectations as it relates to public safety services, and of course uh being fiscally responsible with the expenditure of taxpayer dollars.

So there's several methods out there uh related to police staffing.

Uh kind of one of the oldest is the crime trends model, and it's pretty basic and lacks real strategic uh thought or or quantitative analysis, it's just using crime rates and uh trends to determine police staffing.

Uh similarly, the per capita approach also lacks any strategic consideration, and it's tying officers to the ratio of the population of uh of the area they serve.

There's a minimum staffing model.

This is the model SAPD used previously, which is an estimation of officers needed on duty.

Um we divide the city up into a hundred and fifteen patrol districts, and previously we would have staffed at least every district with one officer.

So we had the full full staffing, if you will, full minimum staffing that way.

Um, another method is authorized level, which ties it to the dollars, what the budget uh can afford, I guess, is and you uh fund the number of officers based on that, and then finally, there's a workload-based uh approach, and this is a data-driven approach that uh looks at officer work time, and it's the preferred method as it provides the best estimation based on that quantitative analysis.

So the methodology our uh consultant used was um first you look at the number of calls, what what's coming in, uh, and those calls specifically we try and remove the proactive calls, and so these are calls coming directly from the community.

You break those down by priority, and and you have an analysis temporal analysis related to the hour of the day and the day of the week.

Subsequently, we look at time associated with those calls, and you have a couple of uh times there, you have the response time, which is the time the officer is uh expending to get to the location, and then the time on call, the average time will they spend addressing the call, and uh you break that out by the calls for service by shift in the service area substation of the city.

Then you look at those shifts, the number of officers assigned to those shifts, the maximum work hours per officer uh taking into account relief days and other time off for training or personal leave type situations, and then you um finally end up with the number of officers needed to achieve whatever your standard is your goal goal there, and ours was a 40-60 on call off-call proactive time goal.

So when we talk about proactive time, what are the benefits related to that?

Um, it's really boils down to enhanced presence and proactivity.

We have a crime prevention benefit where uh we can address uh, you know, it's really the basic function of the police department is trying to prevent crime, and so we uh we have a couple of ways we do that that are sort of our pillars, our violent crime plan and our property crime deterrence.

There's also opportunity to do more targeted enforcement related to quality of life issues, traffic laws, um enforcement and other uh priority crimes, increase visibility.

You know, this is something we hear from residents uh that they tend to feel more safe when they see more officers.

There's a customer service uh aspect to that when um when uh when the calls start stacking up, that's when we start to see protractive holding of calls, and now they're backing up and uh residents are waiting longer for police to respond because uh everybody's tied up.

Also on the problem solving end, um, during those peak volume uh times when calls stack up, uh you know, officers will try and resolve those calls as quickly as possible so they can get on to the next calls, and sometimes that doesn't uh promote the robust problem solving uh approach.

Uh a lot of calls that we deal with aren't necessarily crime calls, but they're um you know uh sort of disagreements or or disputes over various things, and so there's there's a lot of problem solving that goes on, and then similarly with officer well-being and quality of work life uh when officers get backed up and have to respond call to call to call to call, there's there's a certain amount of stress and pressure that goes with that kind of working environment, and um, you know, the officers feel that uh and they try and uh move as quickly as possible to resolve those calls.

So, related to our staffing analysis and the results, um, the results were an estimated 360 new patrol officers needed to achieve a 40-60 split between time on call and proactive time.

Those uh results of that study were presented to council in April of 2023, along with the staff recommendation of adding officers over three to five-year timeframe.

Since then, over the last three fiscal years, we've added 205 officer positions to patrol, and today our current state is roughly, we're approximately 5050 uh as far as time on call and proactive police or time off call um time.

And we review this consistently as we have change within the department, transfers, promotions, etc.

Um, and we looked at you know, shift we look each time we do those, we look at shift averages, um, some deployment analysis and and try and right set that as best we can to achieve um that that mark of improved uh time uh proactive time.

And lastly, here we'll talk about some improvements in demand management.

Um I know obviously the city and uh the police officer association are engaged in collective bargaining.

Um those discussions include some expanded eight-hour and 10-hour shift configuration configurations that will allow us to align um our our staffing across all three shifts to cover not only um transition periods when we're changing from one shift to another, but also to improve deployment during our peak demand periods that we'll see you know based on the time of day and the day of the week.

Um the chair also had submitted previously a CCR that the Office of Innovation uh was reviewing and and presented on, and and it and it was sort of some alternative uh potential for handling minor accidents, uh found loss and found property and noise complaints, all with a goal of reducing the workload to patrol, um improve our response efficiency, and uh give officers time to um focus on higher priority public safety calls uh and that concludes my presentation.

I'd be happy to answer your questions.

Thank you, Chief.

You're welcome.

I have granted candidates member white the right to speak first on this.

Thank you, Chair Um Chief.

Sorry, thank you for the presentation.

So I want to just re reset here for a minute.

2023, the city pays 140,000 for the study, and it says we need to add these 360 new officers based on this data-driven um workload model, which I think is was clearly the right model to use here.

Since that time, and I want to read these, read these numbers.

Since that time, from July 23 to July 24, San Antonio was the fourth fastest growing city in the United States, adding about 24,000 residents, and then from July 24 to July 25, we were the second fastest growing city in Texas, adding over 14,000 residents.

During that time, I guess we've hired um almost 200 officers out of the 360 that was recommended, and we've moved from a 40% reactive, 60% proactive, to a 50-50 situation.

The methodology that was used here, and I point everybody to slide eight.

It showed that we needed to add these extra officers, and the number one benefit here was enhanced presence and proactivity.

At least it's it's slide eight in my in my uh packet.

Crime prevention, which again, I would argue if public safety is our number one priority as a council, preventing crime should be the primary focus of this committee and of this city council and of our public safety efforts.

Targeted enforcement, quality of life issues.

We talk all the time that our job is to promote the highest quality of life possible for the residents in our city.

So we made the commitment that we were going to add these 360 officers.

And we have also seen that the increased police presence on the street works because we have now moved from the 4060 to the 5050, since that time we've had a 13% drop in total crime, a 37% drop in homicides, and a 43% drop in car thefts.

Um data that again showed us when you put officers on the street, visible in high crime locations, crime goes down.

And so, Chief, I'll just ask you: is there any doubt in your mind that if we add additional officers to patrol the streets of San Antonio, is there any doubt in your mind that we'll continue to see crime go down?

No, I mean I think it's much like the discussion previously with the resources in ACS.

I mean, if we have more resources, we can do more.

I think that's a fact.

I I just it um it bothers me that we're even having to have you know this conversation again.

And I understand that we're in tough budgetary times, but if we can stop more of our citizens, if we can prevent more of our citizens from being physically injured, if we can stop them from suffering loss of property, why why are we hesitating to add more dollars in our budget to do so?

Again, I mean it's just it's really to me, it's government malpractice not to add money to get more officers patrolling the streets.

The safety of our citizens depend on it.

Chief, I I appreciate uh the presentation.

Um, I I don't I don't have much more to add other than what we've been doing to this point is working.

We have the data to show it.

And oh, there is one more thing I wanted to add, actually, is another benefit of increasing the force is that when our officers are stretched too thin, and Maria, you and I talked about this too.

One of the benefits of the 60-40 uh ratio that we were moving to, and this model that was used was also the mental health of our existing police force, right?

Yes, counsel.

And if you look, and I've got a uh an article here, it was from the San Antonio current from March of this year, and it talks about these studies done in Washington State and Phoenix and New York, and how officers that have to work, additional overtime in these cities, have a higher percentage chance to be involved in use of force incidents, disciplinary action, get injured more.

So there's a benefit not just to the citizens to add police, but also to the members of our current San Antonio police department.

So I would again thank you, Chief, for the presentation, and I would ask my colleagues to really consider as we talk about the budget over the next three or four months, really consider this information and let's get some funding for for some additional officers in the 27 budget.

Thanks, Chair.

Chair, if I may, um, I just want to address the comment of the councilman.

I think we appreciate the comments related to the staffing plan.

Just want to make sure for the public that are watching the session, there's no government malpractice going on at the city of San Antonio.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Maria.

Uh Councilman McKee, do you guys would like to go next?

No, okay.

Uh, Councilmember Spears.

Thank you, Chair.

Um my colleague said it exactly the things I feel as well.

I I'm at a loss to understand how this is the core function of our city.

This without this, nothing works.

Without it, nothing else works.

And um I just maintain that my residents are telling me they want more police presence.

Uh they're supportive of you, they know that they feel safer when you're around, great at deterring crime to have more police presence.

And um to Councilman White's point, we we have a responsibility to you to make sure that your workload is livable.

And so the workload model uh I think makes sense, and um one of the questions I had was have we is there a way to see if staffing increases at substations has improved or the response times, has that has that improved response times in those areas?

So, overall, our the over the last three years our our uh citywide response time has improved.

Um I haven't looked at it by substation.

Uh I'm pretty sure given the approvement that would it would likely improve by by service area as well, but we we could look at that.

Okay, I would like to see that.

Um how does this staffing plan compare to other peer cities?

And I when I say that I mean in nationally and then also regionally, uh I'm not um real familiar with how other agencies have engaged their their staffing plan.

Um you know, we hired a consultant, obviously, that developed ours.

Um, I'm not aware of any other cities in Texas that that used him prior to us.

Uh Maria, I see you maybe want to add something.

Yes, uh, here in Texas uh councilwoman uh Galveston and Houston introduced similar uh models to um San Antonio, so we can follow up in terms of where they are in their in their progress, but those are the two cities that we know, and we included in the backup memo.

Um, the city of uh Albuquerque also has a similar model to what we have.

I just don't know if any of them are experiencing the same amount of growth we are.

I think that's maybe the differentiation there, sure, and we'll we'll provide that analysis, okay.

Um so, and then also does this model account for infrastructure expansion since we have so much growth and traffic?

Oh yeah, I mean, yes, it it accounts for uh as as we refresh the model, all those factors are taken into account.

Um I thought you were maybe gonna mention uh also the the departmental um infrastructure, and so that's that's important as well.

We have uh new subsection coming online, and as we add these officers, we need that capacity to to uh assign them and whatnot.

And then do you think we're hiring officers quickly enough to keep pace with attrition and retirements?

Yes, we've been able to add officers year over year each year um so I I don't we don't see any issues with that and councilman will happy to provide this information but in terms of comparing ourselves to other cities we have less vacancies than other uh police apartments in Texas that's good to know that's good to know that people want to live here um that's important when we're trying to work on economic development too it's really important it's it's come up in every conversation I've had is how safe is your city and um what are you all doing so when we look at the future and opportunities and even attracting more officers I think that what we the message we're sending and the way we talk about our police officers and the support that we show our police and fire and EMS is paramount and so know that I'm fully supportive I was down I did a great TikTok this morning with y'all and um I just can't I I just I just am very supportive of anything that you say you need is where I'm gonna say let's do it because y'all are the experts and you know what we need to do in this city to move us forward keep us safe make our residents feel more safe you interact with their residents I mean I interact with them all the time but you see them on their worst day and you you handle a lot of mental health health cases as well I mean we I think we have to listen to what you say we need to do which it's obvious to me and um we've got to continue moving forward on staffing and uh the workload model works for me and uh I think you'll all know how I feel but y'all should all go check out that TikTok by the way thanks.

Thank you Councilman Castillo would you like to add comments?

Kara thank you Chiefland for the presentation um I I don't have any comments or questions I just want uh more questions for my colleagues to to think about right if we're talking about uh where we'd like to see increases to the budget right I think with the upcoming budget sessions I'd like to hear in terms of uh how we're going to financially support that right is it increased property taxes is it uh cuts to specific departments if so which departments uh which programs I think that would be helpful to understand uh to name uh the departments that you'd like to see staff reductions in thank you thank you and thank you chief and thank you to my colleagues for um this presentation I just think it's important then we think about data you can really make data look any which way that you want it to and it's super important not to just assume um correlation for causation it's like one of the first things that you learn in statistics where you might see two things happen at the same time but that does not mean that the one is causing the other right that's basic principle of statistics.

So just because we have seen an increase in officers does not mean that is the reason why our crime is going down and so I think it's really important we I think we all agree prevention should be our number one goal but I think we differ on our opinions about how we get there and it's because truly when you look at crime prevention it is not just enforcement there has to be a both and solution enforcement is super important.

We're so grateful for the work that you guys do at the police department but we have to think on a larger scale and that is why I think keep coming back to until we can truly overlay all of the supports that are happening in communities that we can understand why crime in certain communities are decreasing can we understand what those factors are and how much they are contributing so for example when we look at the hotspot crime prevention plan have we looked at the work that Gardopia was doing in their environmental design space there to see what the impact of that was in comparison to all of the other work happening while also having hot spot policing there and so what are all the different things that are going on in a community that are truly providing that full support, which shows why our crime is decreasing.

So I just think it's very important that we think about when we look at numbers, we're um hesitant to jump to conclusions.

And of course, we want to make sure, and this really comes down to I I looked at data.

I look, I looked at um comparisons to other cities.

And Houston is actually not uh even close to to 50 50.

They are way far, and they have more officers per capita or like per population per thousand than we do.

So they have more officers per population than we do.

Nashville has more officers per population than we do.

And again, that's not the model that we use, but I just use it as a comparison, and they still have more crime than we do.

And so if we look at it, obviously there's a lot of work.

I think we can do a little bit more analysis to what Councilmember Spears asked about correlating cities to see what they're struggling with, and also making sure that we can maybe compare some of those demographic factors, economic mobility factors, all the other things that we know that affect crime and see where we actually sit.

Because if we just look at one uh number or metric, I don't think we're gonna get to what our community really is asking us to do.

So I think there's, I mean, for example, there was a TikTok video that caused car theft to go up significantly last year, right?

Who would have thought?

Social media, increasing crime, let's cancel social media.

Just kidding.

Um, that would help us in a lot of different ways, actually.

Okay.

Um I think those are my biggest comments.

Obviously, the on the last slide, the alternative response solution was mentioned.

I know it's not going to get as much traction as we thought, but I just wanted to reiterate as much as we can do to reduce workload so that we can help better support our officers.

I know all of us would be in favor for to help support our officers as much as we can.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

You guys gotta go.

That's okay.

I know he has to go too.

Um, so I'm gonna we're uh we still have quorum in case anybody has anything else.

Okay, go ahead.

I have to leave in six minutes.

So maybe we defer the item five.

I'm so excited.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Um we we can do that next time if that's okay with you.

I was also going to mention before we lost them that our next uh sorry about that, Chair or Councilmember.

Um, our next meeting I'm really excited about in June is going to be held at the Family Violence Prevention Center shelter.

So some of us are on the interpersonal violence committee, and we're gonna do a little exercise with the leadership over there to take us through what uh the experience of being a survivor looks like.

And so they have cards where you walk around and experience all the different ways in which a survivor experiences a system that we've created, and then we'll have a shorter agenda, I promise, and we'll make sure that this gets on that as well, and we'll do our subcommittee report outs too.

Cool.

Okay.

Um time is now 3 55 p.m.

and meeting is trimmed.