The San Antonio Public Safety Committee met on August 31, 2026, at 2:08 PM, with a quorum present. The meeting covered three major items: a "Love and CCR" to protect transgender, non-binary, and intersex residents; a pilot diversion center program for low-level offenders; and a clarification of the graffiti ordinance regarding chalk. All items were approved and forwarded to the full City Council for action.
All right, good afternoon. The time is now 2.08 p.m. and we're gonna go ahead and call our public safety committee meeting to order. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Councilmember McKee Rodriguez. Present. Councilmember Castillo? Here. Councilmember Spears. Councilmember White. Here. Chair Core. Here. Ma'am, we have a quorum. Okay, great. The first item on the agenda is approval of minutes from June 16th, 2026, 2026 meeting. Any uh comments or changes that need to be made to the minutes? The motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No abstentions. Motion carries. Okay. Second item on the agenda is a briefing and possible action on uh city council action requests the Love and CCR looking out for our vulnerable impacted neighbors. We know we have a lot of stakeholders here, so we'll get to public comment in just a second, but we'll hear the presentation first, and then um folks that are here for public comment will have three minutes to speak. Good afternoon, Council members. My name is Dr. Jennifer Matha. I am here to present on the looking out for vulnerable impacted neighbors or the Love and CCR. It was assigned to my department, the Compliance Opportunity and Access Department. The Love and CCR was submitted by Councilman Jalen McKee Rodriguez on April 9th, 2026. The CCR request seeks to protect transgender, non-binary, and intersex Sanitonians from discrimination and barriers to services. The request includes exploring programs to allow for both self-selected name and self-selected gender options and ensuring residents can obtain accurate forms of ID. Also, ensuring city personnel protect personal health information or personally identifiable information of transgender, non-binary, or intersex individuals seeking health care or access to public facilities and services. Lastly, it encourages the addition of more single-user restrooms and changing facilities in city-owned and privately owned buildings and spaces, which benefits all people by creating additional spaces where people can use facilities privately and safely, in addition to ensuring that city policy reflects that every person is able to access public facilities. The CCR was assigned to COA, and we will need to include coordination with departments that oversee specific items in the request. These include DHS, Metro Health, HR, BESD, and ITSD. COA presented the to the governance committee on May 13th, 2026. The governance committee recommended referral to the Public Safety Committee. Privacy and protection of personal and health data. Metro Health protects all protected health information or PHI in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 or HIPAA and the HighTech Act. Additional protections include AD 4.67, equal employment opportunity, anti-harassment affirms the city's commitment to foster a work environment free from employment discrimination, harassment, and sexual harassment, including but not limited to gender identity and gender harassment, gender expression harassment. This AD also stipulates that all persons shall be addressed according to their expressed gender preference, including chosen names and pronouns. Refusal to do so may be considered a violation of the city's AD. When an employee's chosen name differs from their legal name, the city will make every reasonable effort to keep legal and former names confidential. AD 7.12 data governance, a comprehensive establishes a comprehensive framework for managing, securing, classifying, and sharing data across all city operations. This directive sets clear standards to ensure the quality, integrity, usability, and accessibility of city data while emphasizing the protection of individual privacy. AD 7.12 also provides structured protections for personally identifiable information or PII and sensitive personally identifiable information or SPII, including medical. These data types are classified and confidential data and safeguarded under federal and state laws such as HIPAA, HITEC, and the Texas Medical Privacy Act.