And the little hill.

All right.

Good morning.

And welcome to the next session of the budget review committee of May eighth, twenty twenty-six.

Our committee later on Natalie Kessler will go over instructions for today's meeting.

Natalie.

Thank you, Council President.

As previously mentioned, the budget review committee will convene for one continuous meeting starting Monday, May 4th, 2026 through Friday, May 8th, 2026, beginning each day at 9 a.m.

The meeting will continue until the entire agenda is complete.

Department budgets will be heard in the order of the agenda, subject to the chair's discretion.

Throughout the continuous budget review committee meeting, public comment will be taken during each sub-item.

The public may also comment on any departments not listed for a formal presentation on the agenda during subitem S additional department review.

This information and instruction is also available on the budget review committee agenda on the city's webpage.

While the public is allowed to attend the meetings in person, this meeting is also being televised and live streamed on the city's website, and council administration will continue to make arrangements for the public to comment using the Zoom webinar platform.

Additionally, members of the public who wish to provide virtual testimony must enter the virtual queue by raising their hand before the queue closes.

The queue will close when the last virtual speaker finishes speaking or five minutes after in-person testimony ends, whichever occurs first.

This will allow for better meeting management between the two platforms and ensure the council is able to manage and conduct city business.

For sub-items containing more than one department being discussed, members of the public will have one minute per department listed with a maximum time of three minutes total.

We appreciate the public's cooperation.

Chair.

Thank you, Natalie.

I will now call the budget review committee meeting of Friday, May 8th, 2026 to order.

Natalie, please call the roll.

Council President Lakava.

Present.

Committee Member Campbell.

Committee member with Committee Member Whitford.

Here.

Committee member Von Wilbert.

Council President Pro Tem Lee.

Here.

Committee member Campillo.

Vice Chair Moreno.

Committee member Ila Rivera.

And Chair Committee Member Foster.

Also attending the meeting today, Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Todd Gloria, Nick Serrano, Associate Fiscal and Policy Analyst Sergio Calde with the Independent Budget Analysts Office, Deputy City Attorney Laura Easton from the City Attorney's Office, and Chief Financial Officer Rolando Charbell.

If you're in person, please complete a speaker slip located at the entrance of chambers and place it on top of the box indicated at the speaker's lecturing at the front of the room.

Please do so in a timely manner to ensure proper meeting management.

In-person testimony will conclude before virtual testimony begins.

And you may join the webinar by computer, tablet, or smartphone by accessing the link listed online in the preamble language of the agenda on the city's website.

If you need to participate by phone, please dial 1669-2545252.

The webinar ID is 160-332-690 pound.

This information is also available on the agenda and will appear on the screen during the public comment period for each agenda item.

If you're watching via City TV 24 or online, there may be a delay.

Please participate via the audio on your phone and mute your TV or computer when it is your turn to speak.

And if you wish to speak on a particular sub-item, wait for that site sub-item to be called and then raise your hand to speak by tapping the raise your hand icon.

Or if you're a called participant, press star nine on your phone.

If you raise your hand during a non-comment period, your hand will be lowered.

Council President.

All right, thank you, Natalie, for reviewing those instructions for the benefit of the public and just confirming we do not have any council members online or participating room.

Okay.

So a quorum is now present.

Five.

We will now move to committee members, mayoral staff, city attorney, independent budget analysts for any comments before we begin.

Not seeing any.

So with that, we will now take up our information agenda.

As a reminder, these are informational items only during our budget review committee hearings.

So no motions are required.

As Natalie mentioned, public comment will be heard after each sub-item.

Sub-subitems have been categorized to follow areas or branches of the city.

Therefore, several sub-items include multiple city departments.

For these sub-items, the department official will introduce, we will hear a presentation or presentations regarding all the departments included.

And after each department's presentation, council members will have an opportunity to ask questions.

At the conclusion of the sub-item and after public comment, council members will have the opportunity to provide concluding remarks.

And with that, we will begin this morning's hearing with sub-item one.

No, that didn't get updated.

We will uh begin with sub-item.

Uh Natalie, please introduce sub-item M.

Sub-item M is communications.

That was a pretty easy introduction.

So with that, I see the staff is sitting there ready.

Please introduce yourselves for record and let us know how much time you will need.

Thank you so much.

Good morning, Council President and members of the budget review committee.

I'm Nick Serrano, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Mayor.

I'm here today with uh the Director of the Communications Department, Nicole Darling, as well as Deputy Director Maureen Hugar to present the communications department direct budget for fiscal year 2027.

We will need about 12 minutes for our presentation.

As you will hear from Nicole in a moment, the communications department provides an essential service to both members of the media, members of the public, and city departments as it pertains to providing public information and open government access.

The fiscal year 2027 draft budget as this department, like every general fund department, to do more with less.

And Nicole will walk you through how the department is looking to meet that challenge while preserving the essential mandatory services this department carries out.

With that, I'll turn it over to Nicole and Maui for the remainder of the presentation.

Thank you, Nick.

Good morning, members of the committee.

Thank you for having us.

Again, my name is Nicole Darling.

I'm the director of the communications department, and joining me today is Maureen Hugar, our deputy director.

Also joining us is Alex Handy, who oversees our creative services division.

To start out, our goals in the communications department speak directly to the work that we do every day.

We provide strategic communication support to city departments, offices, and programs with the goal of informing and educating our residents.

Our team supports 25 operational departments with their communication needs.

We also collaborate with independent departments and the offices of our elected officials.

We seek to bolster openness and transparency in city government.

That includes our dedicated team at City TV, who have been ensuring the successful broadcast of these budget review committee meetings all week, along with some council meetings as well.

Shout out to the team up at City TV.

We deliver public information that is accessible to all San Diegans, making managing the citywide language translation and interpretation services contract, and we love to showcase city projects and employees at work in our communities.

Looking at our proposed reductions, communications is largely a general fund department.

We also have an internal services fund, which we'll show on the next slide.

For the general fund portion, our proposed reductions include four FTE.

These are three program coordinators, which are filled positions, and one multimedia production coordinator, which is a vacancy.

In the May revise, it will also be reflected to include a program manager for the public records administration program and the next request contract, as that function is proposed to transfer to the Department of IT.

On the non-general fund publishing services section, we are proposing a reduction of a half-time position.

This is an information systems technician, and this position has been vacant for over a year.

Our operational accomplishments and operational efficiencies include an increase in revenue that we receive through our service level agreements.

We have these agreements with six enterprise fund departments to provide communication support and offset the general fund portion of our budget.

We've expanded outreach through Inside San Diego, which is our news center.

The website currently receives 37,000 average page views per month, with a total of 445,000 page views last year.

We manage, as I said, the city's translation and interpretation contract, and we're expanding language access.

Last year we fulfilled more than 700 requests for translation and interpretation in 26 languages for the city's operational departments and offices.

Our team has invested a great deal of time in upgrading the city's print shop this past year.

Through our publishing services fund, we've invested in updated equipment.

We're currently in the process of installing a new print management software, which will allow us to update our pricing schedule and bring more of those printing jobs in-house for our team.

And then during the legislative recess last month, or back in March, the team over at City TV completed a camera replacement project, both here for City Council Chambers and for the committee room.

This involved a great deal of complexity and coordination with our partners in legislative affairs and the city clerk's office and general services and ESD.

The project was planned for and completed on time, within budget, and without any impacts to our public meeting calendar.

On our budget equity impact statement, these are just a few of the ways that we've championed equity as a department in the current fiscal year.

These actions connect directly back to our tactical equity plan that we updated recently.

We're sharing information on a variety of platforms to reach San Diegans in every community.

This includes our news platform inside San Diego, which I mentioned earlier, our social media accounts, which reach millions of people each month, printed materials like flyers that we post in our libraries and rec centers, are also key to our outreach on topics including storm preparation, the city's new trash and recycling program, and that included mailers and proposition 218 notices, which were sent to hundreds of thousands of homes.

Last year, we responded to more than 2600 news media inquiries.

Responding to the news media is a mandated function for our department, and it's key to building trust with our residents and with the media.

City TV broadcast 160 public meetings last year.

The team also developed a creative solution to ensure that planning commission meetings could be broadcast from the new Mission Valley public hearing room after the development services department moved their offices out of the downtown core to Mission Valley.

And through our public records program, our team closed out more than 10,000 requests for public records, which was a 17% increase over the prior year.

Looking more closely at our significant budget adjustments, first we're proposing a reduction to our public records administration program.

This would eliminate two positions and move the remaining two members to the Department of IT along with the contract for next request, which is the public PRA portal.

The impact of this will hopefully allow for new efficiencies and technology solutions to improve our process and reduce the staff time involved in responding to PRAs citywide.

Reducing one City TV multimedia production coordinator will impact our ability to support all of the video and production needs for our city departments and offices.

However, we will continue, of course, to prioritize the broadcast of public meetings.

We want to note that a program manager position from our department was reduced in FY26.

You will see a program manager position as a proposed addition in the fire rescue department budget for FY27.

This proposal would transfer the budget for this filled position, which is currently 100% supporting communications for the fire rescue department.

Our goal with this budget proposal was to preserve our department's mission of serving the residents of San Diego by providing them access to information about city programs and services.

Our core functions include public information, communicating across our many platforms on issues impacting San Diegans.

That includes street repair, water and wastewater services, recycling programs, permitting for home construction and affordable housing, homelessness, parking, special events, library programs, park improvements, emergency responses, and public safety.

The people doing this work are public information officers or PIOs.

These PIOs work with our other sections, creative services and publishing and our leadership team.

They also handle internal communications to our more than 12,000 city employees.

When you do a breakdown of the FTE for each function of our department, the public information section includes 15 FTE, and this includes our translation services coordinator.

Considering that we provide communication support to 25 operational departments, this adds up to less than one communications person for even our large departments like public utilities, environmental services, parks and rec and engineering and capital projects.

We are under resourced given the size of the city that we serve.

Looking at our other functions, we have a full service graphic design team that produces assets for both printed materials and digital platforms.

We operate a full in-house print shop, providing publishing and production services for mayoral and independent departments and offices.

And the city's government access channel, City TV, ensures compliance with our council policy on the city's use of cable television and PEG funds.

Finally, in our zero-based budget review, we looked at our contracts, and we have a limited number of external contracts.

One of them is to support our audio and video engineering equipment and maintenance for City TV, and this contract is already paid through our use of public education and government or PEG funds.

And this is a cable franchise fee that the city receives.

And with the transition of the PRA team to the Department of IT, that contract will move into the IT fund.

So that concludes our presentation.

Thank you.

We're here for your questions.

All right, thank you for the good work and thank you for the presentation.

We'll turn it over to the office of the IBA for comments.

Thank you, Council President.

Sergio Alcalde from the Office of the IBA.

Our review of the communications department's fiscal year 2027 proposed budget as outlined on pages 124 through 128 of IBA Report 26-11.

Communications has two budgeted funds, the general fund and the publishing services fund.

Expenditures across all funds are approximately $8.6 million, reflecting a decrease of about $785,000 from fiscal year fiscal year 2026.

Proposed revenues total approximately 2.6 million dollars, which is largely unchanged.

And the proposed budget also includes a total of 36 FTEs for communications, which is 4.50 FTEs less than fiscal year 2026.

Since Nicole covered communications budget changes, I'll just provide some highlights on a few select areas.

First, regarding the Public Records Act or PRA program.

Currently, the PRA team consists of three program coordinators and one program manager as a budget mitigation for fiscal year 27.

Two field program coordinators are being reduced.

Additionally, the proposed budget intended to transfer the PRA program along with the remaining staff, the remaining one program manager and program coordinator from communications general fund to the IT fund.

The proposed budget, however, only transferred the remaining program coordinator.

As you heard, DO communications has indicated that the transfer of the program manager to the Department of IT will be included in the May revise.

Next, I'd like to point out the budgeted expenditures for the publishing services fund exceeding budgeted revenues by 153,000 dollars.

This means that should fiscal year 2027 actuals equal budgeted levels, the general fund would have to cover the difference.

Council may wish to ask the communications department and the department of finance to clarify how they plan to address this projected revenue shortfall.

Lastly, I'd like to note that during the fiscal year 2026 budget adoption process, council reduced a media service services manager and a media services coordinator from communications.

The incumbents of these positions, however, currently continue to serve in these roles as supplemental positions.

The department considers these positions critical to its operations and request their restoration for fiscal year 2027, but this was request was ultimately not included in the proposed budget.

I do want to note that the fire rescue department's proposed budget includes the addition of one program manager to cover fire rescue's communications needs.

Since these responsibilities are already handled by an existing program manager within communications, it is anticipated that the staff member filling that existing position from communications will be transferred to fire rescue.

The vacated program manager position within communications will then be backfilled by the incumbent of the supplemental media service manager and continue its duties such as managing the city's social media and marketing program.

This concludes my comments.

I'll now hand it over to Ye Morales to discuss equity implications.

Thank you, Sergio.

Good morning, Council President Lacava, and members of the budget review committee.

My name is Ye Morales, my pronouns are they, them, theirs, and I'm with the Office of the IB Division of Race and Equity.

I'll be providing a summary of our analysis of the communications department's FY27 proposed budget as included in the IBE report.

As part of our analysis, we reviewed all proposed adjustments and identified two adjustments as significant equity implications.

Both proposed adjustments are personnel reductions, and their full descriptions can be found in the IBE report starting on page 127.

The proposed reduction of $542,000, which includes eliminating two program coordinator positions from the Public Records Act PRA team is expected to slow response times for public records requests.

With fewer staff available to process and coordinate PRA responses, members of the public, including community groups, journalists, and advocacy organizations, may face longer delays obtaining information.

These delays can impede public oversight, reduce transparency, and limit meaningful civic participation.

As Nicole mentioned earlier, the additional 119,000 reduction affecting City TV team would eliminate a multimedia production coordinator.

Responsible for producing video content, live streaming city council and committee meetings, and supporting communications with social media functions.

With decreased production capacity, residents who rely on City TV for accessible local government information, particularly individuals with limited digital access, lower English proficiency, or in an inability to attend meetings in person, may experience reduced coverage and slower dissemination of public updates.

This could widen existing information and access gaps and also diminish the community's ability to stay informed about government activities.

That concludes my comments.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Alright, thank you for the input from the office of the IBA.

We will now turn it over to my council colleagues.

Questions for this department.

Councilmember Ilo Regarde.

All right.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you for the presentation and the analysis.

So I'll start by saying I appreciate all the work that you all do.

And it is it is important.

It's not a nice to have for the city to be able to communicate with the public.

Well, this exact moment when we're in a difficult budget situation, but also kind of more broadly when public trust and government is been eroded and is consistently under attack.

The ability to communicate directly with constituents about what's going on in the city and why is super important.

That being said, the budget is incredibly incredibly challenging this year.

And with other departments, we've heard the Department of Finance and others say that there are savings that can be realized through consolidation of a department.

Why should everyday San Diegans see value in the communication and communications being a standalone department and those efforts not being consolidated?

Thank you for the question, Council Member.

It's a great question.

And first I want to I want to thank our team for the hard work they do every day, and thank you for acknowledging that.

We have a very strong team, and I'm really proud to work with all of them.

The benefit of having a centralized communication department, it really solved a problem that existed 10 years ago when this department was created, which was that communication was fragmented.

There was not one voice at the city.

Some departments had PIOs, some did not.

So there was a different standard across departments in how to communicate in the benefit of responding to the never hearing back from anyone.

The benefit of a centralized department, as I mentioned, we have fewer than one comms person assigned to each department.

So we operate as a team.

When someone's out, there's someone to back them up.

When we have a large uh effort, like with our trash and recycling fee, the one person who supports the environmental services department couldn't possibly handle that by herself.

We were able to bring in support from other PIO teams and our media services folks to step in and assist with all of the public meetings that we were having, all of the printed materials and the sheer number of media inquiries that we were getting about the trash and recycling bin rollout and that huge project.

All of that was happening while all of the other communications were going on within our department, across our many operational departments.

When a member of the news media emails communications at Sandiogo.gov, we respond to them within a few hours.

If they're trying to get a hold of one PIO who works at one department, and that person isn't there, there's no guarantee that they're going to get a response, and I think that erodes trust.

We also, from an accessibility standpoint, are able to look at the communication standards more globally and implement those into all of our work.

The communications department is working with the uh city web team and our accessibility office to ensure that we're in compliance with the new standards under the ADA law that are taking effect next year.

And I don't see um, you know, a decentralized communications group being able to do that type of work in the same way.

Thanks, Nicole.

I wanted there's like two different versions of communications not being its own department.

There's the decentralized version, which you spoke to, but there's also um the consolidation of communications being communications being absorbed elsewhere and not being a standalone department either.

That's an alternative to spreading everything back out.

And I hear you on the downsides of communications not being centralized.

Um I am also curious, though, if that how you avoid adding time to responses, um for very department specific questions.

So, how are you able to kind of maintain that that balance?

There's two very different questions at the same time.

So however you want to take them.

Um let me make sure I understand what you're asking.

Um, on the second part of the question, are you referring to when a reporter or member of the news media contacts us?

Yeah, so let's let's say that there was somebody.

Let's say that there's there's a public information officer in transportation with a very specific transportation question.

That person is working directly with the technical experts to give a technical answer.

I'd imagine there's an extra step or two when communications are centralized that by not having somebody embedded in the department.

Maybe that's not the case, and if it's not, then I'm trying to understand how you all avoid that being the situation.

Um I understand what you're asking.

The all of our PIOs are have a primary department assignment, and they work very closely with the staff in that department.

We develop annual communications plans for every uh operational department.

So transportation as an example, we'll have a communications plan that we look ahead for the fiscal year.

What are the big things that are happening that will be anticipating work from our team and then possibly generating, you know, questions from the media.

And so, as part of that communications planning process, the PIO has specific contacts for different topics within the department.

They may have one person that they work with in transportation or multiple people, and the transportation department knows who to go to, and then there's a backup PIO as well.

So the benefit of the centralization in my mind is then I'm also looking at it with a more global lens.

So many of our issues cross departments.

So things that happen in transportation may also be affecting stormwater or could be impact.

You know, we're talking about streets, that could be homelessness.

Um, it could touch many other departments, and that PIO working with transportation may not have that global view.

This happens a lot with development services, where you know something's a permitting issue.

If it's dealing with the beach, it might be lifeguards, it might be development services, it might be environmental services.

And so we're able to bring in other subject matter experts as needed to make sure that we're answering the full question with the full context.

We all know the city is complicated, and much of the work we do, there's a lot of levels of complexity that especially our members of the media don't necessarily understand.

So we're able to bring that in and hopefully that answers your question.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That answers the question about how you yes, mostly.

It doesn't necessarily answer the the consolidation versus complete um dismantling of the department, and uh the one doesn't necessarily have to be the other.

So has there ever been consideration of consolidating communications department within other departments or other parts of the city to achieve whatever efficiencies are gained when other departments have that that's happened with other departments in the past?

And I don't know if that's a question for you or Nick or or DOF.

Council member, to answer your question, um, there has not been that consideration at this time.

We believe that the the way that the communications department functions currently in terms of the services that it provides uh is uh important and um we think it's still the right thing to do at this point.

Um so there has not been uh consideration of decentralizing it, especially given the historic experience here at the city.

Got it.

Okay.

So the one the one thing I I will say to kind of push back on that a bit is that given where we're at in terms of our budget, I think everything should be looked at.

And we've we've asked other departments to look at everything, and so that in no way diminish is this there's a similar similar conversation with with PANDA, like the work of PANA being super important, and are we analyzing how that work is being done and where it's housed so that we can just make sure that we are operating as efficiently as possible?

I think it's at least a question worth exploring.

Um Nicole, other departments took a look at um potential savings from moving uh unclassified folks into classified positions.

Did that analysis occur within communications?

Uh yes, we did look at that in over FY26 and now our proposed budget for FY26 27.

Um, for those two years, we will actually be reducing our unclassified position number by 50 percent from 14 FTE to seven FTE.

So the move of the PRA team is part of that, that the that four-person team is an unclassified team of people.

Um additionally, the two positions that were reduced last year, which we've addressed, one of those, the program coordinator will um go away at the end of this fiscal year, and we're looking at how we can uh explore options in the classified service there.

Got it, and and and thank you for that.

And then are there the analysis of existing positions and whether or not moving those positions into a classified role would have savings for the city.

We again we saw that in planning, and so I'm it just was an interesting point for us as we were um preparing for budget review committee, and I'm curious how other departments are approaching that.

Um yeah, so I'll say we did look at that and we're doing what we can.

The remaining unclassified positions in our department include um our language services program coordinator um who's you know advising departments on language access, and then the others who manage our media relations and emergency responses, we feel are it's an important unclassified role because of the requirement that they make decisions independently in a fast-based environment and advise our public safety professionals during emergencies on media management and media response.

Okay.

Um appreciate that, and and I do hope that that's something that's continued to be to uh be looked at.

Um the savings for planning weren't insignificant.

Um, and it was without losing the work.

It just was efficiencies gained.

Um last question in in regards to you know, kind of the choices that we make and what we decide to cut and not cut.

The two PRA program coordinators, there's a legal compliance issue there or potential issue.

There's the frustration that members of the public feel when they're not getting responses to public records requests.

And sometimes those can be enormous requests that require a tremendous amount of work.

The multimedia production coordinator talked to us about kind of the choices made and why those are the things that should be cut this year.

Yes, absolutely.

We understand the importance of public records and having a responsive team and working with members of the public when they make those requests.

Often this team is going back to requesters to ask them if they're able to narrow their requests.

Often people don't realize when they're submitting uh requests for public records that it may be tens of thousands of pages of documents that could take many, many months to produce, just given the amount of staff time required.

So we certainly understand that.

So the system is already in place for the liaisons who do the searches.

Our team was providing that kind of secondary additional level of review and reminders.

Is a great system that provides reminders, and I know you all in the council offices manage your own PRAs as well, so you're very familiar with this.

It's a difficult budget year.

Um we were looking at you know what what we could do, and we felt like this was a way that we could make a cut that wouldn't be too dramatic of an impact on the public.

They still will be able to request rest um records, and the liaisons in the departments will still be there to review and submit those.

All right.

Um thank you, Nicole.

Um last question here.

So sometimes members of the public, and I'll be honest, even sometimes us, um, it it's hard to distinguish when this uh communications department is doing just getting information out to the public and then kind of communicating on behalf of the mayor, just to be very kind of blunt about it.

And I I want to understand how the communications department sees that role.

Um I think it's one of the it's one of the reasons why the value of the communications department gets becomes questioned when the messaging drifts from here's what the city is doing in a very straightforward way, and starts to begin to sound or look like political messaging on behalf of the the mayor's office.

We all of us have communication staff who are, but we're single council members, and we're it's very clear, we're talking about our position, so talk to us about that balance and and how you all are not just a big communications team for the mayor.

Thank you for the question.

I'll just start out by saying we are the operational communications department, and we work with our operational city departments.

If you were to ask any of the other um department directors who've been before you this week, they can tell you how they rely on the communications department for many, many things.

They don't want to be answering questions from the news media themselves.

They appreciate that they have a communications professional with the relationships there.

But our PIOs don't just write news releases and we don't just post on social media.

They're doing a lot of work that goes unseen, I think.

Things like website updates, letters and mailers.

They're advising department staff on communications strategy and many other things.

So social media is an important part of our work, but it's also just a piece of what we do.

And we do work closely with the mayor's office.

What we see is the priorities that San Diegans tell us and what we hear from them on infrastructure, public safety, housing, and homelessness, those are the mayor's priorities as well.

And I know it's a lot of your priorities as well.

This past year, we've really been working to collaborate with the council offices more.

I've had some really great conversations with your um chiefs and your communication staff, and we're looking at ways that we can help promote the great work within our neighborhoods, whether that's a park opening or cleanup.

So there's a lot of collaboration with all of you that I've seen, especially over the past year.

Um but I I understand the question.

I think really our goal and our task is to promote the city programs and services that Sandy Ingans need to know about.

So whether that's trash and recycling or water bills or park improvements and construction in the right-of-way, that's our primary focus.

Thank you.

Um I won't belabor that point.

I just will note that it's a question that comes up as asked to us, and the times we um we ask ourselves.

I would acknowledge also that we feel the um the additional efforts being made by you to communicate with council offices, and that is appreciated.

The last thing I will just end here is I would hope that we can um lean a little bit more into that analysis, just asking the question of um again, not whether or not everyone should go back into PIO roles, that's that's a somewhat separate question, but the the question of um whether or not it makes sense for it to be a standalone department, and then the second piece about um the that shift from classified, excuse me, unclassified to classified and whether or not those positions have to be unclassified.

Um I know that there are that communications world is a dynamic one that requires long hours and odd hours at times, but that doesn't necessarily that is not necessarily a mutually exclusive with a position being classified, and if there are savings to be achieved there, um I think it's an important um thing for us to take a look at.

Uh thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Nicole.

All right, thank you, Council Member Yula Rivera.

We'll go to Council President Pro Tam Lee.

Thank you, Council President.

Um thank you for the presentation and update, and I'm only able to piece together what I can thus far, and so perhaps there's an opportunity to get additional information as we move forward.

Um, I do see communications as much more than just a uh single department.

Think of it as an effort to frankly um touch upon every department and every piece of work that the city does, um, and it especially connects to every public-facing employee.

Um, I often uh talk to our team about how every single individual on our team is frankly at the end of the day, someone who's doing communications because they are engaging with the public, answering to questions, having to relay a message that we try to maintain some consistency of, both for our office but also with the city.

There are a lot of functions of the department that uh I think we all agree are extremely valuable.

There are core services that you are providing when it comes to things like language access, City TV, um, PRA responses, et cetera, that I think reflect the need for transparency when it comes to engaging with the public and giving them opportunities to engage with us.

So just right off the front, I I want to note that those core components I think are critical no matter how we look at communications in the city and we need to ensure that the public continues to have that kind of both communications and access to the work that we do.

I think that's part of what I heard drives your argument for the need for a centralized department to try to ensure that there is clear cohesive messaging and to reflect a vision that ultimately is the city's vision and then to try to tie that to individual collective efforts.

What I don't see and this is reflecting off of council member has noted is whether that's actually happening.

And I don't know that that's all a function of the department necessarily where that isn't being accomplished but perhaps also a question of whether we are actually delivering a vision that is clear and cohesive that matches where the city is as a whole and frankly that matches the needs of what the public needs to hear.

And I think there's a difference there's a difference between the message that we decide to put out versus what the public is needing from us.

When we're looking at the PIOs that are supporting various departments and I know the structure has changed over time.

They used to be embedded more so within departments now we have this sort of centralized function when they are supporting individual departments what what does that look like are they each individually assigned to one or two departments I know you mentioned that there's backups that are available.

Yeah how can you describe sort of the day to day yeah absolutely so I mentioned you know our team it's about 15 or so folks mostly that is largely classified employees.

Each of those awesome PIOs is assigned a department we could use maybe public utilities as an example.

They also have a second department most of them that's probably smaller so maybe DOF or compliance they don't have as much of a need to communicate externally but there will be projects that they have that come up so our public utilities department is you know they're working on a rate evaluation and our PIO is working with them on developing the proposition 218 notice reviewing that copy editing that they're also updating web pages they're drafting materials about construction related to pure water or other projects when there's a water main break this person is getting that information responding to media inquiries as they come in or proactively notifying that there might be a traffic impact we're posting on next door and sending out communication through many newsletters so our those team members are writing articles about various programs that events that come up and those articles will go into the newsletters that we write we often share toolkits with your offices so that that information can be communicated within your office newsletters as well to your constituents that get those emails I mean that's just a piece of it you know the PIOs are kind of the comms they work with the graphic designers and City TV there might be a need to capture photos or video and so a large department will have more communication needs some of our departments are very public facing others are not but even a department like risk management does have a lot of need in terms of how are we communicating to employees every year about our benefits and and copy editing and writing, any communications related to that will fall to our team.

So I have a list, I'd be happy to share with your office of all of our city departments and some programs.

And there are some independent departments as well.

We work closely with personnel on a lot of their needs.

And so every department has an assigned person and then a secondary if that person is out.

And then the larger departments, we may have, you know, combination of folks supporting them.

So transportation, for example.

We have one supervising PIO supports transportation, but we have another senior PIO who helps with the urban forestry program.

They've been doing a lot of events this year that have required, you know, media notifications, flyers, a lot of really fun social media.

I know some of you all were out at Arbor Day, so that person was helping coordinate that from a media standpoint.

So, you know, then there's someone who's kind of back up to them, and that person would be the primary on a different department.

Are there corresponding individuals or teams within these departments that sort of serve as the liaison, for example, to the PIOs?

Yes, in some cases, and some departments do have staff members who do a level of community engagement that frankly my department's just not resourced to do.

There's a lot of urban forestry is a great example.

There are many meetings that they're attending in out in the public in the community, either advocating for that program or working with community groups and organizations, and that is department-focused work that really more of a subject matter expert can do.

So with transportation or you know, another example might be environmental services.

A lot of the recycling specialists are doing community engagement or or community work educating classrooms, giving tours, that kind of thing, and they work very closely with our PIO on all of the other things that our team does.

That's actually interesting to hear.

So, part of the challenge is that that from the community engagement standpoint.

So the PIOs don't do much directly on the communication standpoint.

I mean, on the community engagement standpoint, it's mostly to try to pull information together to get out to the public on the channels that we've got.

Community engagement is an important part of what the PIOs do.

It's um, you know, the amount of time that is needed there is often more than what half of a maybe FTE can handle just given the schedule.

So if we were resourced in a place where we had multiple, a team of people as an example who could support a department like parks and recreation, we certainly could do more of that function ourselves.

I imagine you would hear from council members, I'll just speak for myself that the community engagement piece to me is often the most important part of the communication that we do, because we could post things on press releases and social media posts all day highlighting the work that we do, but if we don't actually have a way to engage directly with the public and get their feedback, that is oftentimes where a lot is lost.

Given how much you described is on sort of the plate for some of the PIOs.

I can understand with some of the smaller departments that there is a need to try to tailor to different functions in what I think is a very internally focused communications model.

But for some of the larger departments in transportation, for example, engineering capital projects, parks and recreation, etc.

What would be the difference if someone was actually embedded in that department?

If you already have in some cases one, if not even more than one individual that is almost fully dedicated.

Well, I think if if the PIO was embedded within the department, they would need to still do the work that they're doing now because that that work wouldn't go away.

Um I don't from a you know getting the work done standpoint.

I I think it would still need to get done.

There just might be, and you know, this is hypothetical, but I could see a scenario where if a PIO is within a department, they might be doing more of what that department sees as a priority versus from a communication standpoint what is needed.

So if you have a PIO working within a team communication professionals advising on media deadlines, or as you're saying, listening and responding to members of the public, which we do, and especially on our platforms, social media is a great example.

You know, we don't just post something when people are commenting or asking questions, we have the opportunity to respond and reply.

Some of that may not happen anymore.

And prior to 2014, before this department was created, there were PIOs embedded in departments, and um they, you know, there may be other tasks like customer service focused um roles that they played at that time, um, some departments under that model had multiple PIOs, some had none.

So it was really an inequity in how the departments were supported from a communication standpoint.

I mean, based on what you've described, it it to me it sounds like if they were embedded in departments, much of the same work would be done.

I I think the connection I'm trying to figure out is what benefit do they have existing outside of the department as opposed to because as you mentioned, resource-wise, they're not very heavily engaged on the community engagement front, not directly because that is still counted on by the department itself.

And so I would actually see a benefit of day-to-day collaboration within departments with the teams that already exist on this front to actually bolster what I think is something that can be missing.

And I think we see that it's missing often because I've noticed that there's a bit of communications and community engagement work within departments that often ends up being contracted out.

And um I I can think of one major project in my district where a the communications that was being received about that project to the public was coming from an outside contractor tied to the project and not from the city.

Um I won't name it all here, other than knowing that I was able to work with staff to try to figure out how to bridge what was actually a significant gap in what information we were getting to that to the public, and to some degree misinformation because it did not match up with where the city was operationally, and to me that it is a disconnect between what the department has and its ability to respond, especially a very large department versus like what we look at centralizing.

So I think it's worth asking the question of what components really do deserve to be centralized and what components really should be further embedded in departments to expand their ability to communicate with the public because I think that is that is very valuable.

Um I do see in the organizational chart, and I appreciate that there have been um some reductions in several of the program coordinator positions.

Um I think this council would benefit from a full breakdown of every single unclassified management team member in the department and what they do, and I'd really like to understand why they're classified as program coordinators the way they are.

Um, you know, is there work exceeding the 40 hours a week any more than a public information officer is because I would imagine that our PIOs are also doing a significant amount of work, and you, as you mentioned, already uh sort of capped in terms of resource, and so to Council Member Leo River's point, why are we not why don't we have more folks who are serving in that ground level position as opposed to even when I look at the org chart today, a significant number of managers coordinating certain projects?

Is that something that you could provide, I guess in the week or two ahead?

Yes, absolutely.

Uh Council President Pro Tem, we provided that information to the IBA already, so it'd be very easy to share with the council.

Um, and I will say we have a very small number of unclassified um looking at FY27.

I think compared to the org chart that you're probably referencing.

Um, but we can provide that absolutely.

Um and some of the I mean the individuals in those positions are tied specifically to departments as well.

So again, it's just hard to looking at the chart and not ask the question where what is work that's being done there that can't be done by a PIO, or supervising one at that end.

Um on the PRA side, uh I too would like to understand why they've all been classified as program coordinators and why again PIOs can't be doing that similar job if if again it's connected to public engagement.

And then I know that IB went through the positions that were cut by the council last year.

I think you've shared that there's going to be changes to that.

I guess I'm curious how are those supplemental positions carried this year in the budget?

How are they paid for?

Um I may defer to Department of Finance to answer that question, they are being charged to the general fund council member.

Uh one of the positions uh was transferred to the fire department um to generate some savings, uh, but the department is carrying the cost uh for the for the remaining position.

So if last year was determined that these positions couldn't be eliminated because they were 100% necessary.

Why is one being limited now?

Why is one being transferred?

Can I, Nicole, can you answer that?

Yes, absolutely.

So the positions last year were not part of our proposed reductions and were um reduced uh much as a surprise to us at the um end of the budget process.

Uh the decision was made to um keep the people in the positions, but the budget was taken, and that has resulted in those two positions being supplemental.

We've been told we can no longer carry them over into the next fiscal year.

And so what you're what you see with the budget being transferred to the fire rescue department for one program manager, the other program coordinator will be reduced at the end of this fiscal year, and those are both filled positions.

Um, appreciate the answer.

I just I don't know how that answers the fact that last year somehow it was determined that we could not cut those positions and now they're easily cut.

We are fighting over what feels like to the public hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep individual branches of libraries open or to keep hundreds of staff that have been proposed to be cut across the city in parks and libraries.

Um I don't know how we argue that any one of those is less necessary than um any of the positions that the council cut last year.

Um I know I'm over my time, Council President, so let me just close with one final thought, which is I in my three years, three and a half now years in office, we've held numerous town halls uh with the public, uh, a lot of community meetings that I attend, um, meetings in individuals' homes and on their driveways talking about streets, etc.

And a constant frustration that we have often received is that I share is what we consider to be the failure of communications from the city.

And if you ask me, I think part of the reason why the public has such a distrust of the city of San Diego is because of our failure to correctly communicate.

And I don't think Nicole, that's on you or your department and the work that you do, which is as every other department in the city limited in resources, and so you're doing the best that you can, but I think it speaks to what the vision is as to what we communicate to the public.

And I think we look at everything from trash rollout to Balboba Park parking, and that vision and strategy is it's missing.

And I didn't get a chance to ask about this, but I'd really love to understand.

Last year in this budget review process, there was a press release released every single day during that process to highlight the items in the mayor's budget proposal last year.

I want to know which staff worked on that.

Because it doesn't sound like it's any of the PIO's attached to departments.

And so I think there's a clear distinction between what is core functions of communications and how we communicate with the public, how we're transparent with the public, how we function for city TV and more, versus what ultimately becomes just a public relations arm for the executive branch.

One is absolutely necessary, one is absolutely a nice to have.

That concludes my time.

Alright, thank you, Council President Pro Dam Lee.

I hope you don't have any lunch plans because we're going long again this morning.

So Councilmember Von Wolford.

Thank you very much, Council President.

And yeah, we were here till about 10 p.m.

last night.

So maybe we should just uh start sleeping at City Hall.

And many of the staff were here.

And guess who else was here till 10 p.m.

last night is our City TV crew, who is a huge part of the communications department, and we very much appreciate them and their work.

I have, I do have to relay some of my constituents have said that City TV is not getting through on the AT ATT provider again on the television.

I know we had that problem before, so we'll fix it again.

But it is online, people are still watching it.

But you have a lot of fans out there who write to us and say we need to be able to see it on our TV.

So if you could look into ATT one again, that'd be great.

Also to the public service announcements, the PSAs, you know, I really appreciate the work on those.

I recorded a couple of them, so have my colleagues, especially around combating hate crimes in the city.

Another one around wildfire preparedness, and so thank you for getting those out to the public.

They see it, and it's very helpful.

Um, you know, we all could actually do more.

Each of us could do more of those public service announcements because we have the budget for it, and we can communicate better to the public.

So can you tell us more about how those work and what you do with them?

Yes, of course.

Thank you, council member, and we appreciate working with your office as well.

Um, so in addition to broadcasting on City TV, when there's a public service announcement, whether that's a video or it could be a stagnant um message that we can include anyone watching the live stream, which Monday we had um three more than 3,000 views.

Uh so people are tuning in.

Um we also have an agreement through our corporate partnerships office with Cox Communications, and they provide us some PSA inventory on their cable networks.

So there are some requirements on you know link and specific um technical things, but yeah, it's a great way to get the message out citywide on important issues like fire safety, as you mentioned, hate crimes, um, things that impact all San Diegans.

So we have that opportunity.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, um, we're the eighth largest city, and our social media platforms reach millions of people each month.

So, when there's a public safety or important messages like that, we can share them on our platforms as well and amplify those messages.

We can provide the data on you know, views.

Um, a lot of those are San Diegans, a lot of them are also outside of San Diego, but may have an interest in what's happening in San Diego.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I appreciate that, and thank you to Cox for their partnership on that.

Um, I my colleagues asked a bunch of questions I had, but I want to make sure we are still gonna be able to respond to the public records act request.

So, what will the transfer to the IT department do functionally for the public?

They'll still get the same response.

The public will still be able to use next request or request public records through any method that they would like, whether that's emailing, asking someone in person.

Um, our team uh created a citywide training that all city employees take once a year, and that um in collaboration with HR department is available through uh success factors, and it's a required training for all city employees to understand their obligations under the Public Records act.

Liaisons in departments have another training that they go through.

And so our team really um is providing that, you know, with the four staff members, that secondary um support in the portal and also for the liaisons and the departments.

Um scaling that back will um impacts you know just some of that communication with the liaisons really, but um they will still be the ones in next request uploading the records.

The members of the public will have the same interface and um communication with our team.

Okay.

If I could add that there's currently a pilot program going on between the Department of IT and the City Clerk's Office on using artificial intelligence because a lot of these records are digital, obviously, right?

So we are really excited.

I think there's going to be an opportunity to really bring a lot of efficiencies and be able to respond faster as the technology continues to improve.

So that's also part of the strategy of why we move those two positions or to um IT is with the technology and with these HL2 resources, we think we're gonna keep be able to move that ball forward and actually be able to be more responsive as that technology continues to improve.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

And speaking of that, I know that this is not a department IT, so I won't go down this rabbit hole this hearing, but we do need to keep very transparent citywide policies on the use of AI in any department.

And I know we have one that the R IT department is fantastic in defending against cybercrime in cyber hit to the city, which is getting worse and worse and worse.

But we need a lot of transparency for every department on that.

So I appreciate that.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Um my colleagues asked most of my questions.

I just really appreciate uh the work you're doing to, you know, get multi-language access out to folks and for City TV, just incredible work every day to get this up and running.

And those are all my questions.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Von Wolpert.

Uh, Councilmember Whitburn.

Thank you, Council President.

I'll uh try to be brief here.

I uh just really appreciate all the different aspects of what the communications department does, both in terms of responding to inquiries, uh, communicating what the city does, uh furthering transparency so people could actually see what we're doing here.

Uh and I appreciate the inquiries uh that council members Ilo Rivera and Lee uh put forward about consolidation, uh, and some of the other questions they had around that.

I think those are the right sorts of questions that we should be asking of all of our departments.

But I will say that I think when it comes to communications, so the communications department, that there is real value in having one stop shopping for the news media.

My first career was in the noobs business.

Uh I covered city government in a couple of different cities, and it makes a real difference if there's one place that you could turd uh to try to get answers to your questions if you uh want to do a story on something.

I mean, for instance, if you want to do a story on flooding in San Diego, you know, good luck finding the flood department.

Uh you know, you wouldn't necessarily know that there's a stormwater department that is the department that you really want to talk to about that, or maybe it's emergency services, or maybe it's transportation, but a one-stop shopping could help to identify what it is, what story is it that you're really looking to do, uh, put you in touch with the right people.

Uh back in the 70s when you had more embedded city hall reporters, and the people covering city government knew everybody in city government knew exactly who to talk to about everything.

Maybe that wasn't such a big deal, but these days when these days when media is so diverse, you've got so many different forms of media.

You've got reporters that are covering multiple different things.

Most of your reporters are gonna know exactly who to turn to within the city, they won't necessarily know what department to call, whereas uh a communications department that could provide that clearing house service, I think really does provide a lot of value because you want, frankly, if you're the city to steer a reporter in the right direction so that they get the information they want so that they're not assuming things because that's what you get really you get misinformation of mistakes and bad stuff out there.

Um in terms of decentralized, I again, I also think the communications really is its own thing.

Uh when it comes to uh a department.

There are so many communication specific best practices, uh technology, specific expertise.

And I will tell you, I've seen this elsewhere.

Bad communications will really mess you up.

You do not want to go there.

Uh you want a professional team that understands what they're doing.

Uh you may not necessarily always like the message, but you want the you want to be you uh you want professionals handling that.

Uh and the last thing I'll say is anybody trying to communicate to the broader public uh has a real challenge these days with how diffuse the communications streams are.

I mean, back in the day when you had, you know, a newspaper or a couple of TV stations and a few radio stations.

It was really easier to get a message out because everybody was sort of getting their information from the same places.

Uh these days you've got your traditional media, you've got social media, you've got YouTube, you've got uh just a million different ways that people get their information.

And it is a struggle for anybody, uh, including our council offices to reach everybody uh in our districts with the information that we would like to share.

Uh and I'll just close by saying that I also would agree that there are different types of communications, but I also think people want both.

I think you know, for my standpoint, I think people appreciate it.

Speaking for my council office, people appreciate it when I provide information on factual stuff where there's gonna be a street closure because of construction.

I think that's an important thing to communicate.

But I think my constituents also appreciate knowing uh what I'm doing, and knowing what I'm thinking about a specific uh topic, and I think that they want to know that about our mayor as well.

And I think uh him having the ability to communicate where he is on certain things.

I think that's just as valuable as it is for uh our council offices.

So uh my perspective on that.

Thank you, Council President.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Whitburn.

Um, everybody's had an opportunity to speak.

Um I'll just wrap it up and say thank you for the shift that you started to share the press releases um with us the day before, so at least we know what's going out before we hear it from a constituent.

Uh that's very much appreciated.

Uh, and you know, I'll speak more broadly.

I think there's been more effort in the past year to make more elements of the operation side visible.

Um, and you know whether it's enough, you know, can be certainly debated, uh, but not just showing up in budget review and but kind of on a regular basis uh has, I think, been a positive change across the city, not only in communications department.

Um I think it can also sometimes be confusing between what the mayor's office communications team is putting out versus what you all um are putting out.

Um, you know, there's there's a line there.

Uh people can disagree where that line is uh going forward.

Um I've appreciated the occasional opportunity to partner in some of the messaging that really is a city wide, not just a district quant or just not the council president in my current role.

Uh so with that, thank you for taking the time this morning.

Thank you to my colleagues for I think very good questions uh during budget review.

Um, and uh well, excuse you.

Oh, not sorry, I always get ahead of myself.

Natalie, please proceed with public comment.

Thank you, Chair.

The public comment period for sub-item M is now open, and we have received three speaker slips from individuals in chambers, and there are currently eight hands raised in the virtual queue.

We'll begin with those in chambers.

Blair Beekman, please approach the lecture, and you'll be first, and you'll be followed by Corinne Wilson and Samantha, if they could please make their way to the front of the room.

Hi, Claire Beekman.

Happy Friday.

Um, nice to hear this item.

Uh everyone's comments were really interesting.

Um, I like coordinating better, learning how to consolidate better.

That would be interesting.

Um, how um the mayor uses the media compared to how it can be used uh as a full community process uh was very interesting words uh by council person Lee and Councilperson Whitburn uh offered a really nice idea that uh in those media organizations.

I think actually it can be a good way that the public can have better facilitation as well, and it can be a stop for the public to better ask questions.

Councilperson von Wilbert and Campbell worked a lot to help the public utilities commission become a more accessible public process.

Good luck on accessibility with the public in communications.

Thank you.

Good morning, Corrine Wilson with MEA.

The inferred description of unclassified positions as making managerial position decisions in a fast-paced environment, etc., and that that's what separates them from the classified positions is problematic.

This describes many positions in the classified ranks.

Classified employees are not dumb or inept, specifically.

Specifically, the job description for supervising PIOs states this classification is reserved for those positions in departments having the most complex and extremely high-profile public information programs.

Responsibilities include supervising a professional public information staff.

Let's remember the purpose of the classified service.

The civil service was created over 100 years ago as a response to the political spoils system.

The attack on the unclassified service, whether through creating unclassified positions or contracting out services, weakens the protections that public service needs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And our final speaker in chambers for sub-item M, Samantha.

Good morning, Council members.

I just wanted to say briefly thank you to Councilmember Ilo Rivera and Councilmember Lee for asking those more specific questions about the public information officers and how the funding is arrived to and budgeted for.

And I would highly hope that you take a closer look at that because I don't think that the fire department should be the only department that is shouldering the weight for any of those expenses if none of the other departments are, especially if the police department, which has quite right now a much larger substantial proposed budget, does not have to.

Um I hope that is looked at.

And as well, I also appreciated the point.

Oh, thank you.

There are nine hands raised in the virtual queue.

Gambler, I've asked you to unmute.

Please provide your comments to sub-item M communications.

You'll have one minute.

Gambler.

Okay.

We will move to Katherine Rhodes.

Please unmute and provide your comments.

Hello.

This is Catherine Rhodes.

IBA report page 47 states serves 28 employees consisting of 19 union members and nine non-union members, though 30% are non-union.

The number uh that the communications director just gave to Shawnee Rivera didn't match IBA report 47.

Why not?

Whose numbers are wrong?

Of the nine non-union exempt employees, six are middle managers that can make up to 293,000 according to the city's 2025 employee compensation report.

The solution is to fire the nine non-union employees, including middle managers, and allow everybody to be hired back as regular union members at lower cost.

Why are there any nonunion middle managers and communications instead of regular MEA employees?

How many of these were created post 2013 when I mayor Todd Gloria first used um the loophole to get around the five-year pensionable pay freeze?

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Our next speaker, Viet Voices, please unmute and begin.

Okay, we will move to John Stump.

Please unmute and provide your comments to sub-item M.

First comment.

The council spent 90 minutes on this relatively fly spec budget.

I hope when we get to police and fire, we spend proportional time looking at the expenditures in those departments.

Next one of the council members said all of us have communications staff.

Why?

That's one of the positions that should probably be cut.

Finally, what's the idea here?

Look at communications like a lawn.

Do you want one solid single species lawn, or do you want a lawn that's got Bermuda grass over here, a different kind over there, weeds here?

It's a lawn.

That's what's trying to be done.

A single lawn for the city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Phone number ending in 8700.

Please press star six to unmute and begin.

Joy Sanyatha.

Excellent work, communications department.

Thank you for City TV check upgrades and coverage.

Not clear on reduction of program manager 2026.

I want to send congratulations to Chair Foster the Third and his entire family.

Chair Foster, I have missed your presence in these meetings.

Thank you to all who have guided us without our chair.

And to all of you, the conversation has been robust.

Five stars to all on this excellent communications.

The collaboration has been really, really good.

Love to all.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Bradley.

Please unmute and begin.

Thanks a lot, Brad.

Yeah, the communications with the city, it's total propaganda on the city TV with with Todd Gloria.

It's always reruns of him opening up a park and stuff.

But on the communications things, how about if we have once a week ask the council person a question and answers?

Question-answer, like one hour a week on YouTube for the mayor.

You can ask them a question, you give you an answer, maybe.

That would be a good thing to use the city TV for.

And then have other guys just use the city persons.

They used to have a channel where guys could use it for the city or the county, and it's canceled now that it's no longer available, but they'd have guys talking their own business for the city, but that would work cool.

And then we slash the guys, the employees, do the guys that just got hired.

Because if they're gonna have to start paying their student loans, they're gonna be really they're gonna be homeless, Matt.

If they lose their job and the student loans do, it's gonna be tough to both go.

This does conclude your time.

The five-minute timer has concluded.

We have five hands remaining in the queue for sub-item M, which is communications.

The original, please unmute and begin.

Yeah, PIOs can be used as gatekeepers, just like any kind of media personnel or communication personnel or whoever you're sharing or what information you're sharing with the media.

You get to pick and choose who you want to give that information to, and you know the media can be used to manipulate a message or the reality that we see, which happens on City TV.

Um, and you know, you even have the police being gatekeepers who to who whether whether or not someone gets a press pass.

Um, and it's kind of scary to think about AI technology for records requests when it hallucinates.

Um, it could potentially be giving false information, and unless you guys are keeping up with it, this is something that people who create AI are very concerned about.

And if you really wanted to get a message out across social media or anything like that, there's back ends that you guys can set up.

I go live to many different platforms.

It's like you have your own uh media outlet with at your fingertips and disposal, but I don't really think you guys want to get the message out like you claim.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Francine Maxwell, please unmute and begin.

Francine Maxwell, Southeastern San Diego resident.

I would like to know how does the city council legislative branch envision communications because although you send out a newsletter with print a lot of pictures, we really don't know sometimes what you voted on, which is very important.

And I was confused when someone said we don't know between who's sending what out.

The mayor has a logo.

So the community is very clear when the mayor sends something out because his logos on it, and when it's not, it's not from the mayor's office.

We get it from other people.

I do believe in cutting and slimming down some middle management, of course, and also as far as who's making the uh videos, um, community engagement makes a lot of videos, not only for the council people, but for the mayor.

And yes, people have communication chiefs making money, but um community engagement don't make chiefs money, but the videos look the same.

So let's be cognizant of what we're putting out across the airways and see um the TV team.

You guys know you rock.

Because you love you come out on Sunday.

Thank you for that concluding remark.

Tasha Williamson, please unmute and begin.

Tasha Williamson, I've asked you to unmute.

Yes, okay.

Can you please begin your comments?

Yes, sorry about that.

Um, I just basically want to say because I am a constituent um and a voter, and California law, California Public Records Act, is a mandatory constitutional duty, not an optional service.

Cutting the staff or resources required to fulfill this these requests doesn't just slow down the process, it creates a non-discretionatory discretionary legal violation that will cost the city significantly more in the long run.

The fiscal trap savings versus attorney fees.

When the city cuts records technicians or paralegals to save a few hundred thousand dollars, it opens doors to millions in legal liability.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And one final opportunity for Viet Voices who still has their hand raised in the queue.

Okay, Chad, this will conclude public comment on sub item M communications.

All right, thank you, Natalie.

Uh we will now move to any final council member comments on sub-item.

Not seeing any.

Um, then I'll close this item.

Thank you again for your appearance today and your response uh conversation with the council members.

Uh, and we'll move on to the next item.

So as they step out item, uh Natalie, please introduce sub item N.

Thank you, Council President.

Sub item N is police.

And if you're watching on City TV or the live stream online and would like to call into the meeting to speak to sub item N police.

Please call one six, six nine two five four five two five two.

The webinar ID is 160 332 6900 pound.

Council President.

All right.

Well, give the department a few minutes to appear.

All right, I see you're settling in, so if you could please introduce yourselves for the record and let us know how much time you need.

Good morning, Council President.

I'm Scott Wall, Chief of Police, and I'm joined today by Kyle Mukes, Assistant Director.

Good morning, and we'll need about 15 minutes.

Good morning, venture chair Foster and honorable council members.

Since I became chief, I've talked a lot about the importance of running a fiscally responsible police department.

That was an early commitment of mine.

It's what taxpayers deserve, what our city should expect.

And I want, I want all of you to be confident that when you invest in our police department, we're going to be responsible with those taxpayer dollars.

This year, for the first time in recent history, the department is on budget.

Getting there required some very tough choices, and none of them were free.

Every cut affects someone's priority: a unit, a service, a program, our staffing.

As chief, I have to stay focused on making the decisions that I believe are in the best interest of our city and police department.

Most importantly, I have to be able to stand behind those decisions.

My team and I took that responsibility very seriously.

Like many departments across the city, in fact, all the departments across the city.

We're now facing cuts for the third straight year.

Over the last two years, we've absorbed almost $18 million in reductions.

After successfully absorbing those reductions and maintaining the same high-quality services, we're not trimming around the edges anymore.

So this year, we had to be especially clear about our priorities.

First academies.

After years of high retirement, staffing is strained.

The good news is we are turning the corner of a retirement wave, and we're beginning to rebuild our staffing, sworn staffing levels, but only if we continue hiring.

Maintaining our police academies and the pipeline must remain a priority.

Second, training.

Since the beginning of my tenure, I've talked a lot about developing inspiring leaders and improving outcomes for both our police officers and our community.

High quality training is essential to that mission.

It's not optional.

Third is overtime.

Every day we start about 60 police officers short of what we need to handle our calls for service.

Overtime helps us bridge that gap.

Improving response times and keeping our police officers safe.

Or our ability to respond to emergencies, especially when our response times are already below where they should be.

Finally, our core services.

This department provides critical services through patrol, investigations, quality of life teams, community partnerships, and emergency response units.

Our challenge this year was finding a way to reduce $6.7 million in reductions while protecting those services as much as possible.

This department is made up of roughly 2,500 employees, both sworn and civilian.

Every role matters.

Every role matters.

We are one team with one mission, and it takes both professional staff and our uniformed police officers to provide the level of service this community relies on.

What we're presenting here today is largely a budget built around freezing middle management positions, the same strategy many of the departments are using, and one that this council has largely supported.

It's an approach that helps keep officers in the field and professional staff in critical functions while we work to stabilize our staffing numbers and rebuild responsibly.

Today we will walk you through the choices we made, why we made them, and how this budget keeps us focused on both public safety and fiscal responsibility.

In closing, I want you to know I'm focused on helping this police department deliver the highest quality services that our city wants, deserves, and expects.

And I'm committed to doing it for nearly $7 million less than we're doing it for this year.

Now I'll hand it over to Kyle Mukes for the presentation.

Our police department's fiscal year 27 draft budget fund general fund includes 719 million and includes approximately 2,699 positions.

Compared to fiscal year 26, this represents an overall budget increase of 15 million in 19 positions.

The budgetary increase is primarily due to salary and benefits, non-discretionary adjustments such as SDGE costs, fuel for our vehicles.

This is not a service level increase.

The budget increases are partially offset by approximately 6.5 in $6.5 million in department proposed reductions, to be discussed later in this presentation.

The overall increase of 19 positions in the fiscal year 27 proposed budget includes an increase of 18 parking enforcement positions, one police commander, and one deputy director.

These increases are offset with reductions of one police captain, the freezing of 11 lieutenants, 13 police sergeants, four front-counter officers, 10 civilian police investigative service officers.

Some position adjustments will also be described in more detail in the following slides.

This slide provides an overview of our special funds.

These include seized assets and SACOPS funding.

These funds are intended for initiatives that enhance policing and not for ongoing budget commitments.

They are allocated at the chief's discretion.

In summary, we have $7.3 million in special funds that we intend to use primarily for our new CAD system, body warrant cameras, helicopter expenses such as fuel insurance, flare camera maintenance and training.

This slide covers some of our key accomplishments from this year.

First is overtime.

For the first time in recent history, our department is on track to meet its overtime budget.

This was achieved by implementing a new management approach that reduced costs by an estimated 6.5 million compared to last year.

Any overages in cost recoverable categories, meaning they don't impact the general fund.

Second, we continue to improve our data-driven staffing approach by using call data and trends.

We are able to better approach and match personnel where they need it most.

Third, we launched several leadership development programs to help prepare our next generation of leaders.

These focus on things like management, strategic thinking, wellness, and community engagement.

Developing inspiring leaders is one of the chief's top priorities and is essential to the department's long term success.

Finally, we introduce mobile training teams to expand hands-on field-based training for patrol officers.

These teams focus on critical critical skills such as use of forced decision making, defensive tactics, and high risk stops.

This approach keeps training ongoing, practical, and closely connected to worldworld real world situations.

Many of our efficiencies also support our broader equity goals.

Bringing overtime under control helps us stay on budget, and a stable budget supports reliable public safety for every community we serve.

When resources are managed well, it makes it easier to deliver consistent services across neighborhoods.

We expanded community engagement through efforts like our Spanish language Citizens Academy.

The program is taught entirely in Spanish and is designed to build trust, strengthen relationships with Spanish speaking residents.

We've seen similar success with programs tailored to other communities, including our Haitian community.

We also launched a mentorship program for new officers.

The academy is challenging.

This program pairs recruits with experienced officers to help guide them through training and early career challenges.

The goal is to improve retention, support officer success, and build a stronger, more prepared workforce.

Overall, these efforts reflect a commitment to equity, not just in outcomes, but in how we invest our time, resources, engagement across the community.

As the chief mentioned, most of our reductions impacted our middle management ranks.

We made these decisions carefully to avoid impacting frontline services.

Patrol staffing is already tight, and promotions takes officers off to the streets.

Every promotion leads to one less officer available for patrol.

Because of our retirement wave, we have some open sergeant and lieutenant positions.

Instead of filling them right away, we're holding them open to keep more officers in the field.

We're also combining some roles with Hispanic Patrol that is very small.

In one case, a supervisor was only supervising one employee.

So we can streamline that without weaken weakening effectiveness or oversight.

We also froze 10 vacant civilian positions.

We had to be careful how we cut civilian positions.

When civilian roles are reduced, the work still has to be done.

That often involves cutting services or shifting work to the more expensive officers.

On the addition sides, we're investing in an e-ticketing system that will replace paper tickets and make the process faster and more accurate.

We're also adding 18 parking enforcement positions.

Over time, these positions are expected to bring in double to triple the revenue that they cost.

This budget focuses on protecting some of our most important services.

It maintains patrol staffing, training, our academy pipeline, and necessary overtime.

These careful cuts allow us to keep service level steady, even with about 7 million less.

This budget helps us stay within our means while continuing to meet public safety needs.

The department conducted a zero-based budget review of contracts and services as part of the budget process.

The department's contract and services budget is 48 million.

However, only 18 million or 37% is discretionary, and even that funding goes to critical services.

A list of the department's largest value contracts can be seen on this side.

These include critical services such as funding for the recovery and bridge center that helps serve individuals with substance use disorder, delivering time-sensitive and legally mandated forensic examinations, and providing a firearms training facility in Powway to ensure required certifications and training.

These critical services provide officers or resources and equipment necessary to keep them safe and the public safety services, all the city of San Diego deserves.

Given their critical nature, these services cannot be reduced or eliminated without impacting operations.

In many cases, they are mandated by law, contractual obligations or binding agreements with labor organizations.

The remainder of the contract's budget of 30 million or 63% is considered non-discretionary.

This includes items such as fleet vehicles, SAP support allocation, and information technology services.

This ends our presentation, and we're happy to answer any questions.

All right.

Thank you for taking the time this morning and the presentation.

We'll turn it over to the Office of the IBA.

Thank you, Council President, and good morning, committee members.

I'm Baku Patel from the IBA's office.

The proposed budget for the police department, which we review beginning on page 262 of our report, includes $719 million in expenditures and 76 million dollars in revenues.

This represents a $15 million or 2% increase in expenditures and a $2.3 million or 3% increase in revenues.

The overall increase in expenditures is predominantly due to non-programmatic factors, including pension and workers' compensation cost increases, as well as non-discretionary adjustments primarily associated with IT and fleet vehicle and fuel costs.

In terms of programmatic adjustments, as you heard, the proposed budget includes a hiring freeze on 28 sworn positions as well as 10 civilian police investigative service officers or PSO positions that are either currently vacant or expected to become vacant before the start of the next fiscal year.

This is a budget mitigation intended to produce ongoing personnel expenditure savings totaling $6.3 million.

As the department will be precluded from filling these positions until funding is restored through a future budget adjustment adopted by the city council.

That reduction in expenditures is offset by certain additions to the police department budget, two of which were discussed by the department in their presentation, including the enhancements associated with the electronic citations as well as additional parking enforcement positions.

Aside from these, the other primary adjustment is to the department's overtime budget, which is increasing by two million dollars.

Most of this, approximately 1.7 million dollars, is to right size the budget for reimbursable overtime for special events in alignment with FY26 year end projections.

The other $300,000 is associated with homeless encampment abatements and outreach on the state's right-of-way, which will be reimbursed under the city's contract with Caltrans.

With this increase, the department's proposed overtime budget totals 47.2 million dollars, though it should be noted that this does not include any potential salary adjustments that may result from pending labor negotiations.

And for context, a hypothetical 2% salary increase would require approximately $950,000 to maintain a similar service level.

And lastly, I just want to confirm that funding for the No Shots Fired program, which was prioritized by six council members in your budget priority memoranda is maintained at $250,000 in the proposed budget.

With that, I'll turn it over to Kim Desmond from the Division of Race and Equity to discuss equity implications.

Thank you, Cool.

Good morning, Council President Lacava and members of council.

I wanted to start out by as a division that is created to advance equity and address systemic racism, it's imperative to frame the historic context regarding the relationship between our police department and our African American community, our Latino community, and our indigenous communities as it continues to shape how our community members interpret the budget for our police department today.

And so as an office focused on that, had to just provide that framing.

Individuals experience policing interactions differently and nuanced within that historic context.

And so, with this implication, we notated that the freezing of the positions for community in youth services.

It has equity implications for neighborhoods within youth services, community engagement activities as it pertains to the impacts to our school interactions and the way the department addresses threats.

Also, in a way, just in general, how the department continually engage with the perspectives of how folks experience policing interactions.

So this reduction is in that context.

It's hard to talk about community engagement without talking about the historic context for the real experience in the racial inequities that folks come with daily.

And so to not talk about that, we would be disingenuous as an equity office around the reality of what community engagement is a nuanced conversation.

Also in the conversation around how our community perceives the budget in addressing upstream conversations around addressing racial inequities.

So providing that context for any of this reduction, our team was happy to fill any questions.

Also, any questions related to how we have provided training for the department in the past.

Thank you, Council President.

Those concludes my comments.

Alright, thank you both.

Always appreciate the input of the office of the IBA.

So we'll turn it over to City Council members, and we will start with the chair of the public safety committee, Councilmember Von Wolper.

Uh thank you, Council President, and thank you very much to our police department for the presentation.

My first question actually is to our IBA.

You know, we noted earlier that the police department is getting an increase of 15 million, which is largely just in workers' compensation, fuel costs, you know, things are not actually going to increase the number of police on the streets.

But I also, so that's a 2.1% increase from last year.

But I also am reading on page 232 of the IBA's report under parks and recreation.

That our parks and recreation department is actually getting a 3.2 increase from last year.

So parks and recreation is actually being funded at a higher percentage year to year than our police department is.

Is that what I'm reading correctly, Baku?

That's correct.

Okay.

And I know parks and recreation is also going to be suffering cuts in services because this increase is largely defined benefits, things we have to pay.

But I just want the public to know that other departments are also getting increases in this budget, it's not just the police.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's the same for libraries, but uh okay.

So I also want to to start by reminding everybody what how big our city is.

You know, the police department answered approximately 1.4 million phone calls last year.

More than half of those were emergency 911 calls.

And I just looked up the statistics from April last month, April alone, San Diego PD received 97,000 phone calls.

Over 52,000 of them were 911 emergencies.

The month before that, it was even higher in March, probably because of spring break.

And we still have 237 sworn staffing vacancies.

So we are hiring.

I hope that people will apply.

I also want to remind everyone that SDPD who works so hard and put your lives on the line every day that you also don't do this alone.

You know, public safety is really a group effort for this whole city.

The anatomy of a 911 call shows us that it's built on teamwork across departments.

You know, our 911 dispatchers who receive the call from the public, whether it's a car accident or a heart attack or a stroke or domestic violence call, those are MEA representative employees who we need desperately.

When a car has to leave the station or leave wherever they're on patrol, we depend on our ASPE 127 employees to make sure your cars are functioning and work and that there's fuel at the stations.

Same thing with the fire department, and uh so there's there are people across the city who are helping PD get to these calls and then prosecute the offenders.

I mean, we this your safe place, domestic violence shelter does an incredible job with alongside PD and detectives to take reports sex crimes.

The crime lab prosecuting holds crucial crucial evidence, and then our deputy city attorneys, you know, prosecute.

I'm sure our PD would like that higher.

I've heard many times that they wish they how did I get green sheeted on this?

Our senior, our retired senior patrol volunteers, go to calls that no one else can answer.

They're often checking on seniors, no one's heard from in days or weeks, and help are in their their ears and eyes in the street.

So I just want to thank everyone who holistically helps with public safety.

Our parks and rec departments provide programs so kids don't have to be on the street.

Our gang unit responds incredibly well when they need to, but it'd be great to have a park and rec department that provides basketball so students don't have to be involved in gangs.

So this is a holistic effort, and to me, public safety requires everyone, and it especially requires the police.

Vehicle theft decline by 27%, sexual assaults decreased in the city by 7%, and hate crimes fell by 32%, which is incredible.

However, we are projected to lose 150 to 170 officers a year due to retirement, some leaving for other departments, and academies are only producing 120 to 140 officers per year.

So I want I want to know what we're gonna do to continue to recruit and retain officers so we can respond to these 52,000 901 calls each month.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh when I started, I discussed we were headed towards a waterfall with a massive retirement wave in my first year.

Uh our hire to retire or those that came in versus those that went out in my first fiscal year.

It was negative 90, negative nine zero.

Uh we absorbed that big hit to our staffing.

Uh as it stands in this fiscal year, we're plus eleven as of today.

The point I'm trying to make is we've slowed that retirement wave or we've weathered that retirement wave.

Uh and we're beginning to turn that corner.

I'm anticipating by the end of the fiscal year, we will be somewhere around negative 15 to negative 30, somewhere in there.

Uh I think closer to negative 15 for the year.

It's a far different number than negative 90.

Uh our recruitment is stable.

Uh we are not filling our academy classes fully.

Uh we refuse to bend on our uh standards.

Uh we have a long tradition of hiring the best of the best, and that we don't plan to change that.

It is gonna take us years to recover from this the staffing hole that we're in.

My goal is to one, build trust in the community and win the community back.

We've been doing that in large part.

Uh I want to focus on uh key priorities, which we have set out, building trust, developing aspiring leaders, and being efficient and effective with what we have.

One area where we can improve uh those coming to our organization is by hiring a marketing or recruiting firm like we've done in the past to help us canvass uh different media platforms, uh help us to advertise in different parts of our community, uh as well as having a reach outside of San Diego.

I am committed to hiring from our own backyard because I want this department to be a reflection of the city we're serving, and so I want to have a key focus in that in that regard.

Uh we're working on plans to be able to do that with what we have.

I realize there the money is tight, but it is a mission critical um need for us to have a marketing firm that helps us recruit more and better talent.

Okay, I mean I agree I want us to continue recruiting um people who reflect our community, you know, including recruiting young families, women officers, people of color.

I'm glad to see that you started a Spanish language academy, I mean of Citizens Academy, that's fantastic.

But I'm also concerned about what to do until we get more folks in the recruitment academies.

So I'm looking at our KPIs, our key performance indicators, responding to you know, priority priority zero calls, the absolute emergencies, officers are able to arrive on time, but priority one response times, the goal is 14 minutes, and right now we're at 38 minutes.

Um and also closing the front desks, it's some of the uh, and I'm gonna need a little more time, please, Council President.

Um, worries me greatly.

Could we have and I don't ever think that a civilian can never replace a police officer ever?

And so I would love to see a police officer at the front desk, but if not, is there anyone who could just open the door?

You know, two or three years ago, we had a 16-year-old girl walk into Northeastern Division and report a horrible sexual assault that her uh driving instructor had committed against her.

And she walked in because she was too scared to make the phone call at home in front of her parents.

And it turned out 17 other victims came forward, and that man is in custody.

But I just don't ever want someone to ring the doorbell at a police station and not have someone to help.

So can you talk more about that?

Sure.

Uh, we were very specific about the locations that we're looking to close those front counter positions.

Uh in a perfect world, we'd be open 24 7 at every one of our stations.

Uh but as we try to run an organization of our size to provide services to commute to a city of our size, tough choices have to be made.

Uh our ability to have somebody call the police and meet at a station, meet at a designated location that is neutral or comfortable, or to the uh liking of the reporting party is always an option.

When we're trying to balance our staffing crisis that we're in, everything we take to fill somewhere else pulls out a patrol.

Everything.

If I have another management position, I'm pulling out a patrol.

If we create another detective position, it's ultimately coming out of patrol.

There's always a pull that comes out of patrol.

And so the challenge that we have is as we continue to stretch and stretch and stretch and make our margins thinner and thinner.

The delicate balance that we have to make sure that this organization delivers on the expectations that all of us have, we have to keep a mindful eye on those response times.

My first year I came in, I talked about maintaining the services we provide and keeping an eye on those response times.

They've been progressing the wrong direction for years.

We went through a ton of change in my first year and into this second year.

I've been very careful and strategic about the changes that we're implementing while also watching the response times to make sure that there isn't an extreme imbalance that spikes the response times so that I could dial things back if that happened.

It's like trying to coordinate an orchestra.

It really is.

We have to pay a mindful attention about it.

I'll apologize up front, but we have a weird system.

Our highest priority is zero.

I'll change that if I can in the future.

I'd love it to be one, and then the next level down two, three, and four, and then five.

But we do it with priority zero.

That is our highest level.

We are at the threshold of that, and we are always right at the very top of that.

And the reason that we're able to do that is because everybody drops what they're doing and goes when those calls come out.

Those are the absolute highest emergency call, no matter whether you're eating, whether you're typing a report, whether you're doing something else or on a traffic stop, you stop what you're doing and you run.

The next level priority one and two, those ones, ones are still uh an emergency, and we're double the expectations.

Um, our dispatchers do a phenomenal job of trying to filter through which ones we have to have somebody go to right this minute and which ones are not as hot of a call or more of a cooler call, but still a high emergency that could uh escalate if we don't get somebody there quickly.

And we have supervisors in the field that are watching the board to see and filter through some of those calls so that we can prioritize them and get to them in a timely manner.

Uh I'm not gonna come up here and pretend or try to tell you that our response times are great.

They're not.

They're not.

Uh but without completely collapsing services, get rid of it of a traffic division, getting rid of neighborhood policing and not dealing with homelessness anymore, totally cutting off uh engagement with with our youth, completely cutting all of these services and throwing everybody back into patrol, that wouldn't even get us the 60 officers per day total.

We would just barely be short of that mark.

And we wouldn't be providing those services anymore.

So it is a very difficult and tough thing for us to balance maintaining those services, maintaining the things that are important that keep up keep the gears flowing over time, training, recruiting and keeping people in the academies, and then really watching with a keen eye those response times.

And that's that's that is the the dashboard that we're watching.

Okay, well, it sounds like we need to do more recruitment nationwide and in our own backyard, so continue to help to pursue that.

Um I also want to talk about our training budget.

So even crime rates are down, which is fantastic.

Um, people are are calling the 911 they need to, but we also have incidents where we could always do better, including reducing excessive use of force in certain times.

So what are we doing to address that and address liability?

Thank you for that question.

Police training is arguably one of the most important things that we should be investing in, but historically, has been one of the first things we cut during tough budget times.

Uh I've made a commitment since day one.

I refuse to cut in training, and I have not cut in training.

I've asked for more money in our training budget this year.

Uh it doesn't look like we're gonna get that.

So I can I can only control what I can control.

What we have done with what we have is created a couple field training teams that allow us to have a more rapid uh deployment cycle with current trends, current types of incidents that we're seeing in the field, and addressing any types of patterns that may or may not be uh what the community wants to see or or outcomes that that portray our officers in a negative light when even in reality they might be well within policy.

So, are there approaches and ways that we can train more frequently shorter duration and pivot those training uh cycles from an 18-month process, which is the bare minimum level required by post, and implement them immediately when we see them.

So these field teams are out at lineups, getting doing again doing training in a very short duration, hour or two after lineup, getting higher repetition and going through what our policy is, what our training uh practices are, and allowing for that repetition so that we can have officers that feel proficient uh and aren't having to think in a moment that is that is uh somebody that is that is combative or fighting with our police officers and just respond and do it in a way that is within policy and and an appropriate level of force.

I appreciate that.

I will fight to help you in the budget with better training and more responsive training because our officers are having to make life and death calls and they're stretched thin already.

And I've been to the police uh shooting range because we're hoping to get one for the city, so we don't have to continue paying an outside contractor for this.

Um but when I toured it, I just I couldn't believe how quickly you have to make decisions.

And the citizens get to come to an academy every quarter to learn what you do, and they can see the tasers, they can see the other things that police are working with, they can learn how to approach a car.

It's it's incredibly hard work, and I thank you for it, but we do need to continue rapid training.

So our officers are supported too.

They don't have to be out in the field having no idea, you know, what to do with the latest trends and what's happening.

So I appreciate that you're doing a more rapid deployment of that.

Um, and you know, very critically important.

So citizens feel comfortable continuing to call our police department given the national politics going on in our country that you have no control over, we are still stringently upholding the California Values Act and SB 54 and not in any way cooperating in immigration enforcement.

Is that still correct?

That's correct.

And if you get called by immigration to a cover now 911 call, you often have no idea what you're running into, and it's costing us time and money to have to deal with issues that they cause in our communities.

So, just for the record, you are not by any means cooperating with SCPD, and people can feel safe calling SCPD and reporting crimes, and that they're not going to get tied up with immigration because they called SDPD.

Yeah, first, we are absolutely 100% within compliance with state law.

What we've been trying to message from day one is above and beyond state law.

Understand at a local frontline policing level, what is important for us to have is trust that we are not interested in your immigration status.

What we're interested in is fighting crime.

If you are a victim, if you are a witness or if you have information about crime that is being committed in our state, we want you to come forward free from the belief that we're gonna have any issues with your immigration status.

So we don't even ask your immigration status when we're interacting with uh our community members.

So if you understand the ethos behind what we need to have a strong, safe community and not create an underworld where people don't come forward and then they're repetitive victims of crime.

Uh we get that, we understand it, and hopefully it'll allow you to have some level of trust that we're we're in this to fight crime, not in this to to enforce immigration laws.

Correct.

Uh I have heard from district attorneys who are having trouble prosecuting actual crimes, homicides, because witnesses are too afraid to come to court, and it should never be that way.

Um anyone who's present threat to our community, no matter where you're from, needs to be prosecuted.

So no matter what we do, what technology, anything, it's just people need to feel safe calling our police department and preventing crime.

And I'm gonna need an extra minute if that's okay.

Um, thank you.

Uh you know, I have so many more questions I could ask in the answer, and we know we have our public safety hearings every month to go over things like this.

I'm glad that No Shots Fired program is being fully funded.

They came to our public safety committee to explain how you're doing violence interruption so that we don't have to respond all the time to to shootings that have happened, you can prevent them from happening in the first place.

So we had an entire hearing to hear about your program.

Thank you for what you're doing.

Um, you know, we have the commission on police practices providing oversight and transparency.

We have hearings on that as well.

So this is not the only time for the public tuning in right now.

The simple budget hearing is not the only time we do a lot of work explained to the public how we keep everyone safe.

Um, and I finally uh, you know, it's it's it's really challenging time to be in with a budget deficit this big.

You know, we're gonna have the fire department come up next, and who knows how many wildfires are gonna happen that we can't control.

Um, but I do want to ask uh, you know, we're gonna hear from the public as well.

You know, Chief, how could we be helpful in promoting public safety in this city?

You know, we often don't ask you that question.

We grill you with questions about the budget and what you're doing, but how could we be helpful as a legislative body?

It is difficult for me to answer, ma'am, to be to be honest with you.

Uh I understand the reality of the financial situation that the city is in, and uh understanding that half of the general fund pays for public safety.

Um, I am thankful that uh these cuts are not worse, uh, from where we started it.

It's uh considerably less.

Uh I'm confident that we can deliver the same level of services that we're delivering this year, we can can deliver it next year for seven million less than what we're doing this year.

Uh that is a sign that this department is becoming more efficient and more effective because crime is at historically low levels right now, uh, and we're seeing improvements in important areas in the community.

Homelessness, for example.

We have two straight years of reductions in homelessness.

It is a tough challenge to allocate resources towards arguably one of the top concerns in the community for quality life, from that lens at least.

But I've been doing that work enough to know that law enforcement is an important stakeholder in that area, and the investment that we've made is showing positive improvement.

So, my my short answer to your your question, I'm grateful that the mayor is kept our cuts to the level that they're at.

I wish we could get more back.

But I understand that we also have to be a part of trimming in order to make this budget balanced and and try to give some level of funding for important programs in our kids in the inner city communities that are taking taking a hit.

What about the youth services?

Why are we cutting that?

I think we need to do more engagement with youth.

Well I agree.

Um there are a lot of reasons why I chose to cut management positions in our neighborhood policing and in our community youth services.

Every time we pull somebody to fill a management position, we're pulling from patrol.

Most of our investigative commands have a full plate at the management level.

But areas where there is a span of control that was below what we'd like to see, we could spread that workload to other supervisors in those areas.

So we're maintaining the same level of service, but the level of oversight is being reduced for the time being when we begin to grow this organization again.

At the start of this next fiscal year, if things stay the same, and if I can figure out a way to get a marketing firm in uh in here that'll help us with that recruiting, I'm confident we're gonna start seeing positive numbers fiscal year after fiscal year, and we're headed in a much better direction.

And then we begin to expand those positions again and fully fund them in the future.

Okay.

I mean, I want people to be able to promote in our department.

It's often the smartest, most ambitious people who pass these incredibly hard sergeants and lieutenants exam, and I want them to be able to promote, so I am concerned about freezing their positions, but I do understand that you are in a budget cut and you'll be asked to make cuts.

But just I I am concerned about that.

So I'll have more questions at the end of all the public comment, I'm sure.

But um, something that I wanted to highlight is also uh the month of May.

You know, each May uh our nation comes together to actually honor the courage, sacrifice, and dedication of our law enforcement officers.

And usually I am at the county memorial, usually I'm at the city memorial.

You go to Washington, DC.

We helped fund Officer Machita's family and friends.

We helped them get airfare to go to recognize their son's sacrifice.

And I couldn't go this year for a variety of reasons, but um, you know, National Police Week actually was started in 1962 by President John F.

Kennedy, and because I couldn't go to recognize them, and many of us couldn't be there.

Um, I wanted to recognize them today.

I've been to two line of officer uh line of duty deaths of officers that's been elected, and so I don't know if uh now they can put on the screen.

One of these officers is sadly not from our department, but she's from right next door, and many of us were there.

Uh her name is Lauren Craven, and she was only 25 years old when she was killed this year in the life uh in the line of duty helping others.

She was a La Mesa police officer.

She actually failed the police academy the first time by nearly one point and went through the entire thing again, just become a police officer.

And she was killed less than a year into her service or a couple years into her service.

Um, it was late at night, and she stopped her car and turned on her lights and sirens on Interstate 8 on October 20th, 2025, and ran towards the wreckage of a help where unbeknownst to her, a 19-year-old driver later identified as Devante Morris was at the scene dying.

While she was helping on the scene of this incredibly risky freeway, another driver veered off into both Officer Craven and Devante Morris.

That man was arrested on suspicion of junk driving, but we went to her funeral this year.

And then we all know about Officer Austin Masuchar.

We're gonna honor um, we're gonna honor some folks who are at his scene at the promotion ceremony with life-saving awards and um uh in a medal for for Zach who's back on the force.

But uh Officer Austin Matchutar was killed in a vehicle crash at 11:30 p.m.

in Claremont, Mesa Boulevard.

And the CHP report finally came out uh showing that the driver who killed him was going 125 miles per hour with no headlights on, the pursuit that he was fleeing from lasted 47 seconds, everyone's asking us to reduce police pursuit times.

He was a 47-second pursuit, and then in seconds, Officer Machita was cars was engulfed in flames and he was killed.

So I wanted to bring that up today because I know we're in a budget crisis, and I know that there are people here and the entire POA is here, and the police department is here, but at the end of the day, we have a shared mission to protect the public, and we have a shared mission to make sure that we all go home at the end of the day.

So we're gonna have a big budget fight coming up.

I just hope all of us here can approach this with some gratitude for the fact we have people willing to put their lives on the line, we have civilians willing to back them up, and we're all in a budget crisis.

We're gonna give RIF notices to other unions that are not gonna have to happen to the police or the firefighters, like actual layoffs, but this is the hardest sacrifice of all to make.

So thank you for the extra time.

Thank you, Councilmember Von Wilbert.

Um, don't see anybody else on the line.

Councilmember Rivera.

All right.

Um thank you, Chief.

Um Baku and Kim.

Um, appreciate the the deep dive that Councilmember Von Wilpert um did.

Um, I want to start by acknowledging the clear efforts that you've made um to rein in um and gain some control over overtime spending that quite honestly in years past didn't even feel like was treated like a suggestion, so much as just uh a number in the budget that was inevitably blown past time and time again.

Um you've not treated it in that way, and I want to acknowledge that and say that I appreciate it.

Um the the context of this conversation is important, right?

The the budget situation that we're in, the cuts that um departments are facing, the impacts that those cuts will have on folks across the city.

Um so I want to start kind of big picture, and this is probably more for Coda than for uh the chief, um while it is true that inflationary effects um are part of um what has led to the increase in the budget.

Um it is also true that those inflationary impacts have hit all departments.

Um and I I appreciated Councilmember Wilpert, you know, noting that um parks and rec had a slight increase.

That being said, the police budget is one that has grown and grown and grown and grown over the years.

Um it is a massive part of the city's budget.

It's been the best funded department in the city.

It's the only department that was spared um whose workers were just were spared the attacks on public workers uh that happened in the 2010s.

Um that includes fire, that includes lifeguards.

No one else was spared from that besides um PD.

So the comparison, it's not even apples and oranges, it's different categories of food altogether.

Um when the police department sees a 15 million dollar increase, and parks and libraries use a 3.4 million dollar decrease, or even the slight increase that Parks and Rec saw, we're comparing comparing the budgets of uh Elon Musk and everyday people.

And that's just in the con, like I think that's how you know a lot of people in my district and in the communities that I represent think of it, and even folks who are not in any way anti-police but just want to know why other things are not being invested in.

And so, Coda, if you can help me understand from a big picture perspective, why with all of those other departments experiencing the same inflationary impacts, it was the right thing to do to grow the police department budget by 15 million dollars.

Yeah.

I'll take a first stab at it and then turn it over to CFO Sharbal Nosak here, but I think the biggest driving force here is that public safety is a charter mandated requirement.

And I agree with a lot of the comments you made this week that public safety is a lot more than just police.

It does incorporate safe spaces and community amenities.

However, when I have finite number of resources, and I need to address the most immediate public safety need, which is public, which is police and fire, that is why the investment was made.

I do want to state though that there are additional investments made.

Park and rec is still receiving over 250 million dollars.

Library is still receiving um you know over 70 million dollars.

And so it's it's difficult.

I wish I could fund everything to the full resources that they deserve, but with the finite number of resources that I have with the immediate public safety needs that police and fire rescue provides, that was the decision and the actions and the path that we took forward.

There's a technical component to this as well, Councilmember.

The pension payment, as you know, it's it's a mandated payment we need to make because and workers' compensation as well.

Those are two non-discretionary expenditures.

Because police has such a large proportion of the cities' employees, those costs get allocated to them.

So that's a large portion of the $50 million increase that you see there.

Um, so it's it's it's nothing that it's not an increasing level of service, it's basically an allocation of causes the city has to make regardless.

So I just wanted to make that clarification.

Understood, I understand the technical component.

At the end of the day, it's I think also speaks to why it's important to look for other ways to improve safety and and maintain safety because again, this city has been, is and has been uh amongst, if not the safest, big city in the country for a long, long time.

Um, which I'm I'm happy about.

Um Chief, I'm gonna pivot to you now.

Um, you've heard my opinions about this, um, you've heard some community members' concerns about this, about the the impacts of surveillance and why that is so concerning given the federal environment that we're in.

Um flocks' own history of of betraying the trust of municipalities and government entities that they have contracts with and other parts of the country.

Um there was a report published last week about uh SDPD's contract for Flock Nova.

Can you talk to us about why we learned about that through the media and not other ways?

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember.

Let me let me start by saying uh I take accountability uh for not communicating uh better with all of you.

Uh it is uh a very simple situation, but you have to understand that when we started looking at this piece of technology, it was before Flock was recognized nationally as a uh a vendor of concern.

Let me just put it that way.

Uh I have my staff here to explain a little more details about it, but I want you to know that we have never turned on that technology.

It was not installed, and we do not have any plans to utilize it.

So with that, I'll have my staff here if you want to get have some specific questions about how that came about.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh good morning, council member.

My name is uh Erwin Manansella, I'm the assistant chief of planning for the Stanley Police Department.

Uh my unit oversees the uh real-time operations center, which uh oversees a lot of the surveillance equipment for the entire department.

So, to your question about Flock Nova specifically, when we turned the real-time operations center online uh about a year ago, uh, our job is trying to look at efficiencies throughout the entire department, and part of that for that real-time operation center specifically, was looking for some type of software that is a data aggregator and analytical tool.

So uh Flock, while I understand the concerns from the community uh with the LPR side of it, has a variety of other different products, if you will.

So they were not the only company out there that that had this type of uh capability.

We were looking at another company uh called Force Metrics as well, that is another data aggregator.

So when we entered into an RFI to to see what these uh these software's capabilities are, uh that's why we we put it out into various companies, and Flock happened to be one of the the companies that was that put in uh uh put in a bit.

Got it.

And so I just will speak to the transparency piece and the trust piece.

Um what I would consider a loophole was created in the in the uh trust ordinance around aggregation, I know that.

And we were literally in the midst of a very high profile public conversation about whether or not we should even continue with the use of of Flock as a contractor because they were violating the trust of communities across the country.

So I just it we can't do that.

We can't do that and maintain trust, and and um I appreciate you acknowledging that, Chief.

Um, but it also is it's damaging and it it raises even more concerns about um Flock and the way Flock does business and the way that um STPD does business with Flock to be quite frank.

Um I'm gonna pivot quickly to Baku.

Again, recognize that I've been in the minority on this, I do think it's worth just asking the number.

What would be the savings if we were to cancel our contract with Flock this year?

So, as I understand it, the contract with Flock has a uh clause that it can be terminated for convenience for the city's convenience uh with 30 days notice.

Right now there's two million dollars budgeted for the contract itself, and then there's another about a little more than 200,000 related to electricity costs uh that are tied to the equipment.

Um depending on when that 30 days occurs, uh, most of that savings could be reduced if the contract um was terminated.

Most of the two million dollars.

Yes, okay, got it.

So, Coda, in that in the context of agreeing that there is more to public safety than uh just arresting people, um, help me understand how not using that nearly two million dollars to give people in our community, especially young people, a positive opportunity, the places to play and be safe and learn and grow, why that is not a better use of funds than literally watching their every movement via a untrustworthy multi-billion dollar corporate entity.

For this administration, ALPR is a priority technology, it is a force multiplier for a already depleted department that is hit facing a significant staffing shortage, and so I get the attempt to try to compare these two, but we still stand firm that the investment in ALPR technology uh wins the day, and we make that decision every time.

Would you agree that safety is created when young folks are playing after-school sports and um participating in recreational activities?

Yes, and I think that's why the parking rack budget includes investment and parks after dark, that's why the library we're pulling we're pulling back, we're pulling back, right?

And would you agree that um that people are safe when uh folks are learning in the library when they're spending time together at community events, yes, I think.

Is there a need to watch people when they're participating in positive activities?

So I I understand I understand the mayor's position on this, and I just am going to make the point that in a moment when we're making brutal decisions about how to spend, telling the community we'd rather spend money watching you than giving you positive opportunities, sends a terrible message to the community about about whether or not we trust them.

It certainly sends a terrible message to our youth, and it's why I continue to bring this up.

Because in a in a moment when we're making choices, choosing to surveil people, instead of investing in positive opportunities for them, is I think a wrong-headed approach to safety.

Councilmember, you you know, we were we had we spent 18 months going through the use policy debate, the impact report.

You know the guardrails that ALPR has, where nobody is watching anybody.

It is intended as an investigative tool.

One API.

But are you opening the door to this?

That is not true.

It is not true that they're not watching people.

Are the cameras turned on?

Yes.

Are the LAP LPRs turned on?

Yes.

And how can you say that they're not watching people?

Because the only way you can access that data is with a uh police report or an investigation case number.

Um so it is not constantly monitored, it's only used when we have a crime that we are trying to solve.

And I would argue that that promotes public safety.

You know the kidnappings, the stolen vehicles, the other crimes that this technology has helped solve and apprehend that.

And we know that the San Diego police department was amongst the best in the country at solving those crimes before we had that technology.

All right.

Um Chief, one of the questions that I get from folks on a relatively consistent basis is about helicopters.

I had a friend reach out to me last week, and they said, if helicopters flying in my neighborhood, I couldn't hear what they were saying.

I looked into it, and um a kite was flying too high.

What is the procedures and protocols in place for when a police helicopter is is used and deployed, and how are we keeping the reins on those costs?

Our helicopter air support unit uh is mission critical for officer safety, for helping us uh safely apprehend uh criminals who are trying to flee, uh or lie in wait.

Uh they've got capabilities uh that help us at nighttime, especially uh as well in the daytime with the FLIR system.

So when people are hiding in bushes and canyons in dark corners, our air support unit is able to identify them.

Uh they are up in the air during certain hours of the day, and they respond to calls for service like a patrol officer would.

Uh we are as strategic as we can possibly be with those hours of operation and the level of staffing that they have in order to provide that level of service and safety.

Additionally, when you have uh missing children, uh missing seniles, you they're a very effective tool.

And one more quick one more quick thing.

Uh I will say an area where we can improve in an area that we are looking into improving uh is that level of communication when our helicopter is overhead so that everybody can understand what they're doing.

Uh and so we're looking at a way where you can text uh a line and get immediate feedback with what that message is and what what they're what they're doing, so people can understand better why they're hearing that helicopter.

Understood, and and council president, I'll wrap up in just a moment.

I just have two uh last points to make.

First, understood, I don't think anyone would question why we should have helicopters for emergencies and get to them.

I think the thing that we get questions about or why they're just circling at night, and they're the neighborhoods who feel that impact.

Um, again, the message we are sending, uh, the concerns that raises it's palpable, and uh I've I've watched you rein in efficiency in other ways, and I I it I think it it'd be worth um paying some attention some additional attention to.

Last thing is we circle back to youth.

I code, I heard an agreement from you that there are other ways to provide for for uh safety, that youth is an important part of that.

Chief, I know that's important to you.

So my question is around the potential of using vacancy savings that could be that then allocated uh to support youth programming.

Yeah, council member, you you have my commitment to uh you know work with uh my assistant director here to to find funding to help support uh in that area where we can.

I appreciate that.

Again, and we we're talking about the messages that we're sending to the community.

Um, investing in youth is one of the best, not it's one of the best investments we can make, and one of the best signals that we can send to the community.

So I appreciate that effort.

Um I look forward to to digging into that.

Thank you, Council President, for the additional time.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Ila Rivera.

Uh, before I go to Council Member Campio for a little bit of meeting management, um, we're gonna push fire rescue till after the break.

Um, that was getting pretty obvious earlier in the morning, so my apologies for not giving you more advanced warning.

Um, and then we're going to work with my colleagues to figure out whether we can come back from recess before two o'clock.

Uh, and hopefully by the time we get through with the police segment, we'll have that locked in, and I will make um such an announcement.

But uh we're gonna power through and get through police and the public comment, both in person and remote, take a recess of some yet undetermined time, uh, and then take fire rescue when we return.

Uh so with that, um, we'll go next to Councilmember Kempio.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Chief, for your team presenting today.

Thank you to the public for being here.

Uh, I just want to correct one thing that was said earlier.

Uh, police were not spared from the anti-worker practices of the 2010s.

They had prey freezes for six years, they were browbeat, basically threatened by city leaders into having their new hires have lower quality retirement plans.

Uh, so that while they wouldn't face the same uh practices as the five other REOs, they were not spared from uh city leaders' wrath.

Um I want to speak to the reality of the budget this year because I know people are very frustrated.

Residents are seeing proposed cuts to libraries and recreation centers and youth programming, uh parks and arts programs.

They are asking how we got here.

Uh, and I know that the uh San Diego police officers who have children that use those resources are also asking how did we get here?

Uh those concerns are real, and I share them.

And frankly, I'd prefer that uh the police department along with the fire department uh were left off the list of departments that were asked for percentage reductions because contracts and other efficiencies on the non-personnel side on things like that, I'm always open-minded to.

Uh, but when it comes to the uh personnel freezes, when it comes to the uh the uh what do you call it?

The um the sergeant and lieutenant freezes.

Uh I think that uh we can do better than that.

Uh further, I do respectfully disagree with some of what the public has said at different points throughout this week uh when we see cuts to really core services, core responsibilities, uh, to get an extra two million dollars from the ALPR program.

I don't think that that is the answer.

I understand why people are searching for places to redirect funding, but I do not believe that uh taking off a tool that has solved uh several hundred significant crimes is the way to go.

Uh libraries and parks and rec centers and youth services and policing are all part of that same mission, which is create a safer city where people can thrive.

You need one and you need the other.

As of last December, we know that we've recovered from more than 440 stolen vehicles, uh, seen a reduction of roughly 20 percent in car thefts, uh almost 50 percent in the core of the city, uh, ghost guns uh that this city and uh council member Von Wilbert led on banning here being recovered, uh solved hate crimes, assisted in human trafficking investigations, prevented kidnapping, solved hit and runs, and helped identify murder suspects.

And many, many, many of those victims who had justice provided to them uh were from low resource neighborhoods from moderate resource neighborhoods.

Those numbers don't even include the last several months of operation.

So uh I'm not going to frame this as we should save two million dollars on that program to open up uh other libraries.

There's a better way, and that is a false binary of its own.

So, of course, while ALPR is not perfect, and I share some frustration about the new technology that was signed on to uh and am eager to learn more about how that all unfolded.

Uh, this isn't about any certain company because people can can and should debate privacy protections and audits and retention policies and safeguards, and we've done that.

Those conversations matter.

Uh but the benefits far outweigh the negatives, as we can see right here in the city of San Diego.

I know that in Linda Vista Park, Ruben Rimorin was tragically beaten to death, and ALPRs found the four people who killed him.

At Fashion Valley.

Two little girls that were five and six years old were nearly kidnapped.

And another person was also nearly kidnapped by the person who just pled guilty last month to 10 years in prison.

The evidence that was collected was from an ALPR.

Multiple felony charges, including attempted kidnapping with the intent to molest, and child of child pornography in his possession.

So communities like Linda Vista, working class communities, immigrant communities, communities that have historically been underinvested in aren't asking us to get rid of Smart Street lights and ALPRs.

They want us to have the guardrails and then use them to protect them, just like every other neighborhood.

So I support ensuring the police department has effective tools to focus on violent offenders while reducing unnecessary interactions.

Because we are over 230 officers short, and we expect another 150 or so to go, and we don't have the money to hire that many more.

I know that some folks have said that this is wasteful spending.

244,000 searches, but only 361 cases.

Helped means a case every single day in the city every for the year.

So I I would encourage us to continue to use that technology because it ultimately saves us money.

And I said last December, insurance rates would be higher, all sorts of damages to people's property, all that sort of stuff.

ALPRs are two million dollars to stop serious crimes and to put money back in your pocket.

With that, I have a few questions.

Chief, um, as I look through the budget, I appreciate your presentation.

Um very first slide, 19 more full-time employee slots last year to this year.

Can you detail what those slots are?

And I saw that mostly the parking, mostly parking enforcement, but other than that, uh so we added a commander position, uh, which helped finish up uh the reorg that we went through in the first 60 days when I took over.

Um the chief's office uh before I did the reorg was largely uh unbalanced as far as how we divided the labor.

We had one assistant chief that had as many as 14 people reporting to her.

Uh we had other chiefs that had one or two people reporting to them, and so the way that we did the reorg, uh we also kept in mind a business-minded approach.

Uh we created some assistant chief positions, one of them focused on operations.

Police operations are highly complex, from patrol to investigations to special operations to community uh engagement and community services.

So creating a commander position that is focused on all of the captains and commands that are assigned in their area of responsibility or functional responsibility was keenly important.

Uh we we traded in uh we basically upgraded a captain position to that commander, and then uh also traded in a captain position to make that financially make sense.

Uh and again, balance that that division of labor so that everybody has close to a three to five direct report uh ratio.

Got it.

Understood, thank you.

Um looking at the police budget very directly, it's the numbers on the bottom of the page are as it relates to the entirety of the budget.

So when I say the numbers, if you bring up the PDF on the website for just police, it'll be there's only like 17 or 18 pages, but at the bottom you'll see page 322 of the police budget.

Everything is large everything as you point out is largely the same.

But can you just explain why we're taking why there's a difference from dispatcher two to police 911 dispatcher?

That's like 80 roles that are swapping over.

It's just a title change that's going on there.

Um, what page was that on?

Uh 322, uh, when it lists out all the different roles that are in the police department.

I'm just wondering, it seems like they have the same role, but just changing the title name.

If you look at uh dispatcher, it goes from dispatcher two goes from sixty-four FTs last year to 3.5, and then it's I think it's backfilled just.

Is there is there something important I should understand about the title change for police dispatchers?

Sorry, I'm trying to find that right now.

Apologize.

That's sorry.

Police lead dispatcher is increasing, it looks like uh police 911 dispatcher goes from 19 last year to 86 this year.

Is it just a title change?

That's what my assumption is.

We'll have to get back with you on the confirmation.

Okay, all right.

It seems like there's a new PCN number or something going on there.

Um I'd like to know why that's changed.

Um the only financial substantial change I see besides that is um there's one more program manager.

Um I see that two years ago we went from 10 program coordinators down to eight, stays at eight this year, program manager goes up to one.

Those are non-sworn officers, right?

Correct.

All right, because all right.

Um page four of your slide deck says non-general fund expenditure summary, and it talks about asset funds being seized.

Um, how do you predict that?

That how much is going to be seized and how much money that brings in?

Because it seems like it's going down this year, and that's like eight to point four million dollars in seized assets.

How do you actually calculate that?

Seems like we have to kind of seize it as we seize it.

Correct.

So what you're looking at is the expenditure budget um for asset seizure.

As far as revenue goes, we cannot budget the revenue side of the house because we don't know what we're gonna see.

Um so the 8.4 is actually the expenditure budget, and we base our expenditure budget based on what's available in fund balance.

So whatever we have in the fund is essentially what we budget, and then we plan our expenditures based off of that.

But as far as revenue, like I said, we we uh we don't budget any any revenue, and then we only will budget what's in fund balance after we've received the revenue.

Okay.

I I heard you use the word on that page four of your slide deck about the C's assets discretionary, and I thought I heard you say the chief, is that discretionary for your use, Chief?

Uh correct.

So the use of seized assets, if you pull up the guide to equitable shared funds, it explicitly states that these funds are to be used at the sole discretion of the chief of police, and that's what I was referring to.

Understood, okay.

I think that comes out on page 324 of the budget where it shows all the different seized assets.

There's a California fund, there's a DOJ, federal DOJ fund, federal treasury fund, and the state cops fund.

Um Chief, what do you use the discretionary fund?

That I mean, I I don't have that big of a discretionary fund.

No one does, I think, but what does that go towards?

Yeah, I can highlight some of those for you.

So the biggest expenditure out of that is gonna be our computer aided dispatch.

So we're moving to a new computer aid dispatch in the upcoming in the in the current year.

Um, and we're spending approximately three million dollars in fiscal year 27 on that.

Um we're also spending 2.4 million dollars on our body worn cameras.

Um, air support fuel we pay for, um about 400,000 for that.

Um we do helicopter insurance, helicopter flare maintenance, um, critical incident videos, um so there's quite a few of of items that we use that funding uh to pay for.

Okay, in the within each of those categories, there's typically it'll say chiefs operations office operations and then operational support.

And then for treasury fund it says background in recruiting and then chief's office operations, and then it says state cops fund is chief's office operations and then operational support.

So out of the chief's office is where those things that you pointed out is going.

Correct.

Okay.

That just that seems as a strange way to account for it.

I don't know if the department of finance, because it seems like that would go to non personnel funding, or it would go to fleet, or it would go somewhere else.

Is there a reason it's allocated that way?

Yeah, no, so what you're looking at is the cost center.

So you're correct.

So we have the general ledger side of the house, which is where you'll see the contract, supplies, things of that nature, but what you're referring to right now is what's considered a cost center, which is the unit level.

So anything below that will funnel up into those ones you just named right now.

But those expenditures actually do occur out of contracts, information technology, supplies, things of that nature.

Okay.

Any staff paid for out of that?

There is no staff funding that comes out of our special funds.

Okay.

Last thing, page nine.

Sorry, I know I'm very close to my I'll get it done in five seconds.

Page nine, draft contracts and service discretionary budget.

Like another key word for me.

It says other is 3.2 million.

I think that's a pretty high other.

That's page nine of your uh slide.

So the very last line of the entire graph.

Um I like I people will tell you I asked about the other line in budgets in years prior.

What is that 3.2 million dollars other for contracts and services discretionary budget?

Correct.

So this is gonna be any item that basically we didn't summarize above, which is the larger dollar amount um contract items.

I'm grabbing that spreadsheet right now.

In the meantime, I also have Martha Barrick, who's our lead on contracts, if she can get to it first.

Hold on, this is Martha.

Go ahead, Martha.

That it's a it's uh various other contracts, including bets, including um investigations, um, so it's other minor um various other items that are combined, but they're smaller amounts, so just some examples is like tree trimming services, heating and ventilation, um asbestos abatement, print shop services, um parking stamps, um, uh wireless stipends, uh legal fees, um, legal fees?

Correct.

Is that not part of a city attorney's budget for you?

Or we actually pay.

Okay.

It's an interdepartmental transfer.

Correct.

Okay, understood.

Um, Chief, just last question for you since so many departments are have had the um the conversation go around proportionality of classified versus unclassified.

How did you approach proportionality in this budget when the mayor's department mayor's office and department of finance said you gotta hit this percentage?

Yeah, well, thank you for that question.

Uh council member.

We we approached uh this moment trying to incorporate the many different uh perspectives and uh interests of all of our workforce and their their labor uh negotiation uh groups.

Uh first of all, we're 25 percent uh professional staff, 75% sworn staff, which is a three to one ratio.

Uh the cuts we made were uh actually a little bit in favor of our sworn side.

If we'd cut 30 sworn uh positions or froze 34 or 30 sworn positions, it would be an equal three to one ratio, but we we froze 28 of them and uh froze 10 civilian positions.

So we kept that three to one ratio, uh we have 28 unclassified positions, 10 of them are sworn.

So we have 18 non-sworn unclassified positions.

Our unclassified positions represent one percent.

We're the lowest department in the city for unclassified positions.

So we're well within a healthy balance, those positions cover critical uh mission critical functions.

Uh and without them, that work has to be done by somebody.

And what typically ends up happening is we put sworn members back into those positions.

So they help us oftentimes with an expertise that they have, for example, a crime lab, somebody can be an expert in that field, versus bringing a police officer in there and then trying to help them learn science.

Um that's how we we went about carving those positions.

Understood.

So again, uh I'll wrap up.

Thank you for the extra time, Council President.

Obviously, this is $600 million.

The I hear that proportionality, and I'm I what I'm trying to read between the lines from what you just said, Chief, is that it's more expensive to have a sworn officer in one of those positions as opposed to an unclassified.

Is that is that what I'm getting what I hear you saying?

Correct.

Especially when you begin to elevate in rank, you start having to put a lieutenant in a position or a captain into a position, you're really paying double or more for that sworn person.

Understood.

Well, as I said, first out the gate, um, I think that your department, along with fire, should have been left off the list because of how lean you've been, how how much uh much more you need to get the job done.

And uh I look forward to hearing what members of the public have to say and um reserve a few more questions for after with someone else's time because I've gone well over my time, Council President.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Campia.

As you said, these are the moments to really dig in for the importance of the department uh for the challenges we have in trying to develop a balanced budget and right size it.

So we give you the clock to give you a clue, but uh we need to we need to have these conversations.

So we'll go next to Council President Pro Tembly.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh Chief, thank you.

First off, I uh I want to start by acknowledging that when you were first brought forward to us that you made a commitment to address um what I think we all saw was a constantly increasing overtime budget, and that in this current fiscal year's budget thus far, um, it was proposed that you not only reduce overtime, but that you actually did so below the prior year's actuals.

Um, and I know that nuance is missed by a lot of folks, um, uh, but that that was actually a significant reduction, and we should at least recognize that thus far you are um largely meeting that effort.

I I especially understand why many residents are frustrated uh seeing significant reductions that are being proposed for libraries, rec centers, arts, neighborhood services, uh, while uh on the face of it, the San Diego PD budget remains largely and comparatively protected.

And so I will open by stating that I think it's appropriate that every single department, including SDPD, undergo meaningful scrutiny during the structural deficit, and at the same time also recognize that you are dealing with operational realities relating to staffing shortages, retirements, and the need to meet uh emergency response.

And so the question for me has never been about whether your department is reviewed, but whether we are distinguishing between the core deployment needs of the department and the areas where efficiencies, uh civilian use, technology, overtime management, administrative costs.

Those things should not be under question at a time when we are literally questioning that about every single department.

And so I do appreciate that in this budget, there are areas of reduction that you have put forward for consideration, because I don't I don't think we could be honest with ourselves in the fiscal crisis that we're facing without every single piece of the city being open to scrutiny and consideration.

Last year we spent a lot of time talking about where overtime funds are allocated, and for example, I think we discussed a bit about where overtime was allocated for patrol needs and the actual response to emergencies that we have every single day versus uh neighborhood policing, where we see a significant amount of response for homelessness.

Can you walk me through how we account for overtime when it comes to neighborhood policing and how that overlaps or is separated from what you consider to be to the day-to-day priority responses coming from patrol?

Thank you, Councilmember.

Uh let me first start and say our neighborhood policing division uh is a specialty division.

There are a tremendous amount of stakeholders that are focused on the area of homelessness.

We are one spoke in that wheel.

Understanding deeply that we are taking from patrol to address a massive community concern.

Overtime allows us to minimize the amount of people that are assigned permanently to that command.

It's about 25% of our staffing for the job and the mission that they do.

To give you an example of some of the complexity, we have abatements.

We work very closely with our partners in environmental services.

We work very closely with service providers that go out and do cleanups, having the crews there to work side by side to help with that when we address folks that are in encampments.

So it really allows us to be precise with the job that they're doing.

It's done on an overtime function, and it's not done with a full-time officer that would at the end of the day come out of patrol.

It's complex accounting to try to understand how how that actually plays out in real life.

Because homelessness response is not coming in that list of priority calls most of the time.

Correct.

I mean, incidences where, for safety reasons, someone is calling and a call that's ranked with those priorities is matched up with being a homelessness response.

I imagine, but when we're talking about neighborhood policing and the need to address encampments and et cetera, my understanding is that a lot of that follows reports that are coming in through get it done.

That's correct.

And so it's time that's spent outside of our day-to-day patrol efforts to address.

Well, not necessarily.

Most of those encampment calls are going to be a very low priority call, but there's still an additional call in the queue.

So going through get it done allows us to pull those call that call volume out of our dispatch system.

It's less phone calls for our dispatch folks to answer, and it's less calls on the board that need to be addressed at some point by somebody.

It puts them into an arena that we can have some level of accountability and monitor our response to that community complaint and concern.

It is very difficult to say that they're all non-emergency.

When you have an encampment in the middle of the summer in a canyon and they're lighting fires, that's a big problem.

When you have homeless folks that are acting, they're neither high on drugs or they're acting with suffering from mental illness and they're acting in a violent way, we need an immediate response.

Patrol would handle that part, but certainly going out and addressing the complaint to begin with could alleviate that call from coming in if it's handled in a timely manner.

I so I I certainly understand because every single one of our offices gets requests relating to homelessness, and they always vary, and we do our best to try to distinguish between what is frankly a nuisance to some folks in the community versus what presents a safety concern.

And certainly with canyons and other spaces, understand that there are direct safety concerns related to that from health and safety standpoint.

Um I would ask, do we have data on repeat homelessness related calls for service?

Whether it's involving the same individuals or the same encampment locations.

Good morning, sir.

Uh, we do not necessarily keep track on repeat individuals and a database on how much they're contacted by us, but what happens is because we have dedicated personnel in neighborhood policing or with our homeless outreach teams or intervention services team, they interact with a lot of the same people repeatedly.

You know, whether we actually track an individual, we don't necessarily do that, it's about building a relationship, which often with our homeless folks is required to get them to accept to go into a shelter and then into permanent supportive housing.

So long answer to a short question.

And I ask this because frankly, at the end of the day, I'm sort of trying to figure out where operational effectiveness is if we see a lot of repeats, and I imagine that if if it's not being tracked necessarily, that does make it a little bit difficult.

Well, so let me let me jump in here a little bit.

So uh there's a delicate balance with maintaining a file on somebody that's not necessarily criminal, right?

So if I'm interacting with one homeless individual because they're homeless and tracking that, it gets a delicate balance.

There are service providers out there that can provide the data of frequency of interaction that are doing the outreach work day in and day out.

They would probably be a better resource as far as number of non-criminal type contacts and interactions regarding uh seeking shelter.

So understand that component, it's not a we're not asleep at the wheel here when it comes to that.

What I would what I would reference and point to uh as far as getting value for our effort, uh, the the process and the program that that Captain Sablosky is responsible for leading, and he's doing a fantastic job of doing it, is his the last two years we've had reductions in our homeless population.

He's only been doing this for two years.

He's got a great track record.

Uh but the three years that I was doing it from 2018, 2019, and 2020, where we were doing the same thing, those are also three consecutive years where we had reductions.

So sticking with a consistent uh the consistent plan of approach that has a progressive enforcement model that allows folks to take the help uh at any time of that we're interacting with them, and being consistent uh with that approach helps reinforce and support all of our service providers so that we have that number continuing to drop and we get folks to the help that is available, uh I would point to that as a level of of our performance.

I think I'm bringing up this topic because in part because it comes up regularly uh on this council, and frankly, we we get it from the public as well, which is that much of the response that folks see on homelessness, they feel like is very temporary, and it's it's becoming more and more obvious to folks that it's very temporary because an encampment moves, oftentimes comes back to similar locations, and that is a harsh reality that we need to address with the public in terms of how we communicate with them that when shelters are basically completely full at any given moment, that there are limited options in addressing folks who are unsheltered, other than in many cases moving them around.

And and I I note this because we just had a audit that came out about the success of encampment enforcement.

Um, and I'm sure it's being framed in many different ways, but something that really stuck out to me in it was a note that suggested that in public spaces that some of our our policies were dedicated designed to address, that we really see no necessary uptick in the number of cases that are reported there, which seeing fewer people in public areas, but one of the charts in that audit specifically noted that while we've seen a significant reduction in downtown numbers, that the numbers of unsheltered homelessness outside of the downtown area has risen dramatically.

Yeah.

So that's you you bring up an excellent point, council member.

That is why it is so important that we have a consistent approach.

There are so many factors that are going into what is truly happening on our streets.

Uh yes, the problem will one day be in this neighborhood and then the next day be over in this neighborhood.

One of the reasons why our uh a homeless population can grow in a community is if you don't have that consistent approach.

It's very similar with with graffiti, and I'm not trying to equate the two in any way, other than if you don't address the issue, it will breed more of that issue.

And so really having a consistent approach to making sure that folks that are in uh a bad place in life, uh, are encouraged and and know that there's there is pressure to accept the help that's available.

So without that pressure, and that's what the police department presents, uh service providers oftentimes struggle getting acceptance to take the help, and that's where you see that repeat effort and kind of the spinning of the wheels.

If we keep that consistent approach, we're gonna see that number continue to decline, which is gonna save us money in that we have to invest in homelessness, and it's gonna at some point allow us to get officers back to doing police work uh instead of having to deal with this very complicated problem.

I think this is the, and thank you for you don't feel free to feel free to sit back down so that you don't have to wait for any questions.

I think the difficult discussions we've had this week have often been about what is the correct balance within the city of what we're expending our limited resources on, and this is one of the areas where I'm I've just been challenged to feel like we are expending the right balance.

Um I know the mayor has added to his vision for the city uh over recent years that homelessness is one of the four core pillars of a city's response.

I think there are plenty of people who would argue that that is not the core services that a city provides.

And I note that because again, we're making significant cuts to parks and libraries, and that's not listed in our core services, apparently.

Um I think we just have to we have to acknowledge that.

We we talk often here about how if we're making responses here on homelessness, that I don't think we should be utilizing sworn officers as that primary response when there are many other ways in which we should be doing more to respond to homelessness, both from the prevention front and from an outreach standpoint.

And you have already explicitly noted that we are short officers and hours for patrol needs on a day-to-day basis for responses, and so this balance is is hard for me to grasp.

Um we have an agreement with Caltrans at the moment, for example, uh for clearing homeless encampments on state property.

Uh I believe that reimburses PD for about 80,000 uh sorry, 300,000 in overtime, is that correct?

That's correct.

Do we spend any additional funds beyond that 300,000 to respond on state property?

Uh no, we do not.

Does that 300,000 last throughout an entire fiscal year?

Yes.

So I drive home every single day getting back on the freeway, and there's encampments that I think we've cleared that have just returned back to that same spot.

Is that through how effective is our use of over time on that?

We can't control what decisions people make that are living on the streets.

Certainly we would love it if on the first interaction they take the help that's available.

The point I'm trying to emphasize and and really drill home here is the consistency of our approach.

If the tempo with which we are interacting with our homeless community is on a daily basis, we get a much a far better acceptance of help versus if we contact a homeless person once every six months or once a year.

They're never gonna take the help in that in that regard.

And you're gonna have a very low acceptance rate for all of the service providers that are out there doing the frontline work.

And you made a comment uh a few minutes ago that I want to make sure that I'm distinguishing.

We should not be the front line to addressing homelessness.

I think we're in complete aggressions, but certainly we're the bottom line.

At the end of the day, if everything else is failing, then the police officers are representing that bottom line.

And the next step from there is is we have people dying on our streets, we have uh prior history of pandemics uh uh or epidemics at least with uh disease breakouts in our city that we're trying to prevent.

So we are the we are the bottom line.

I I will just say that for the we've we've spent a lot of time as a city going back to communications, touting this partnership with the state, and at the end of the day, uh, as much as we've celebrated that agreement, I also can't help but wonder why we're taking that responsibility away from the state um with very limited funding when you're already limited on officers and hours we would love it if they would do more and I I think we'd rather spend those we'd better spend those dollars elsewhere um council member campio asked about the city's contract with axon for the taser time devices and how that was funded out of um out of uh seized assets previously I I think the only thing I would add to that is at a time when we're analyzing every available resource in the city why are we making the choice to now move that funding out of that I I can address that council member so unfortunately our seized assets funds do not have enough funding in them to support that contract anymore so we either go without it or we had to move it to the general fund.

How much is remaining of the C's assets fund?

So the 7.3 million that we have is fully allocated out of our special funds.

How much was in there last year?

Last year we had 8.4 million dollars and we were able to fund the 1.9 out of it correct unfortunately we're not able to fund that anymore though because our we have our CAD system that we're continuing the fund that went up a little bit more than it was last year when we funded it the first year.

Is that just a matter I mean this is just following up on council member compute but is that just a matter of choice of where we allocate the it sounds like there's 1.9 million dollars in there we've just chosen to spend it elsewhere correct so right now I I gave the breakdown earlier of all the funds that we're planning on doing so the biggest one is the CAD we have the body wear and cameras we have air support that we're paying for so there's there's a list of a variety of items I can provide that to you if you would like but ultimately all those funds have been allocated for other for other uses okay we'd appreciate getting that list um to understand uh final I think I'm way over my time as well right council president uh final question I would ask following up on council member Ilo Rivera was is about the it was classified as the contract with Flock and and we have had extensive discussions on this so I I just want to make sure that we are being as uh transparent about this as possible even turning back to you the contract is not with Flock and I know you answered it that way but yeah the contract is with ubiquia and flock is a subcontractor as I understand it.

Okay so if we're if we're asking questions about that contract we're talking about the full contract with Ubiquia my understanding and conversations we've had so far is there has not been any additional update on our ability to separate out the Flock component not that I'm aware of I I suspect you would imagine uh require some negotiation with Ubiquia to separate out that service.

My understanding is uh when the contract was signed with ubiquia uh it was uh it was a a bundled component so the smart street lights with ubiquia and uh the uh ALPR with flock are all combined within that contract so uh as it stands right now since they're intertwined um I'm not sure uh what the mechanism is to to separate one from the other in this current contract.

Well uh as everyone is well aware the council president and I put a request out immediately after the last discussion about putting out an RFI for that contract specifically relating to LPRs and Flock.

I don't I we let's not get that full update now other than I it would be nice to get an actual update on that entire request.

Yes sir I'll conclude my time.

Alright thank you Council President Pro Tam Lee.

Uh we'll go to council member thank you uh thank you for the presentation and thank you to the IBA for their analysis um something positive in this budget uh which is the department's meaningful progress in reducing overtime cost I think that's the kind of fiscal discipline that should be recognized and encouraged um across all departments, not just in the PD.

But most importantly um I want to take the moment to thank every man and woman of the San Diego police department who answers the call every single day to keep our community safe.

I want to start with something simple.

When a San Diego resident is in danger uh when something goes wrong in the middle of the night and they pick up the phone and dial 9-1-1, they're not thinking about budget line items.

They're thinking about is somebody gonna answer the call?

Someone going to show up.

And that is what this budget, in my opinion, has to protect.

The ability of this department to answer the call every single time without hesitation.

And I want to make sure we've done everything we can to protect that before arriving at the cuts being proposed today.

We're losing 13 to 14 officers every single month.

We have 237 swarm vacancies today, and we're projecting a net loss of officers in fiscal year 2027, even with academy graduates coming in.

This is the reality that we're operating in, and it's in the lens through which I'm about to review every decision in this budget.

Across every department in the city, we're scrutinizing middle management, we're questioning administrative growth, and we're asking whether every position justifies its cost, especially during this deficit.

I want to make sure we've applied the same standard here before moving to the frontline cuts.

Now, Chief, I understand that you have a political relations team that is relatively new to this department, staffed in part by former mayor staff.

Can you help me understand the role that that team plays and what function they perform that existing staff were not able to fill?

Uh good afternoon now.

Uh ma'am, thank you for that question.

Uh, when I started, uh, the first thing that I did was I went around to all of our neighborhoods and listened.

I listened to community members' experience with our police department.

I went around and I spoke and listened to all of our police officers from throughout the department to their concerns.

Uh I met with all of you, and I listened to your concerns.

Uh one of the things that was abundantly clear to me was that this police department had to make a different approach if we were gonna succeed in the future with having trust at the forefront.

One of the benefits of being from the inside of this organization and being here for 28 years in specifically being uh a spokesperson for three years assigned in the chief's office under Shelley Zimmerman.

Uh being an assistant chief under the previous chief, Dave Nisley.

I had the opportunity to look at how the chief's office operated.

And what I observed was we have assistant chiefs that are surrounding the police chief and providing input, and their input is valuable and important.

They have an understanding, a keen understanding of policing to a level that's necessary to help a police chief make good decisions.

But what was missing was a perspective that covered important areas that in today's world are necessary for us to succeed, whether we're talking to the media, whether we're engaging with the many different diverse community groups we have in our great city, or whether we're navigating through City Hall in all of our council offices in all of the different platforms and things that are important to each of your constituents, making sure that we have a person that's not a trained conditioned police officer, but somebody that is an expert in that field giving us perspective so that when we make decisions about how we're gonna deploy our resources, that we have somebody saying, Have you thought about how that's gonna impact that community?

Have you thought about how that's gonna impact that council district?

Without being facetious here, I don't want to be surrounded by just a bunch of police officers that are telling me how to address a crime problem without understanding the impacts that come from those decisions.

And as you can tell the questions that he's been able to answer that I wouldn't have been able to answer, it is extremely important that I have uh professional staff members that are experts in those fields to provide the input I need so that I can make an a good decision with how we're steering this police department.

Thank you for answering that.

And while we're on the subject of the team, I've been made aware that at least one member of the chief's staff receives a car allowance.

How many positions in this in this department currently receive a car allowance and what's the total cost of the allowance?

So as far as car allowance goes, uh there is no members within the police department that get car allowances.

There are members that have take home vehicles, but not uh car allowance, if that makes sense.

Wonderful.

Thank you for that.

And and I'm zeroing in right now, and it's a question that I should have been asking to be honest, every single department given the budget cuts that we're looking at.

Um I don't think there should be any member of the city of San Diego who gets a car allowance.

So thank you for clarifying that.

Um I also had great concerns with uh Axon my 90 software contract as a potential area of savings, but I think that I think that was addressed if I'm not mistaken, but I did want to put um on the record um that I thought it was an opportunity for cost savings.

Um can I speak about that?

So uh I want you to understand the intent behind that software.

The intent was for better communication for those that are calling the police department so that we can provide uh call information to the reporting party at the same time, allow for customer service feedback as to how we're how people are experiencing us.

So it's it is tied to the commitment that I made to have better communications in the community and and have a better understanding of how people are experiencing this police department for those that are calling us for help, right?

Uh I'll be the first to admit uh it is not providing me and my staff the level of feedback that I'm looking for.

The ratings are good, but I'm not getting necessarily what we could get from other mechanisms.

So I'm willing to look at something differently.

That is one area where I spoke about earlier where we could use that same funding to bring in a marketing firm that would help us with recruiting.

And I think in this moment, that might be a better utilization of those funds for this organization, and that's where we're looking to do.

Okay, thank you for that.

Um, on to another item.

Has the department uh revisited the deployment of two officer units?

Um, I know that this was explored in fiscal year 2025, and given that we have a vehicle uh shortage and that projected fuel savings of 750,000, I wonder, I want to understand um if this has been uh revisited as part of this discussion.

Yeah, the budget discussion.

So when I took over in June of 2024, uh the very next month, I inherited a budget that took 11 million dollars in reductions.

One of those reductions was uh the mandatory assignment of two officer units throughout our city.

Uh working with my staff uh and considering uh the reorganization that we were going through and all of the change that was quickly being implemented.

Uh I had deep concerns that it was going to spike response times, and because we were creating change with the reorganization and uh moving forward with it with a new team uh and implementing some other new commands and shifting personnel around, I wanted to make sure that we weren't able to isolate if the response time spiked where it was coming from.

So that was one big issue.

Uh the way I'd like to uh have this issue addressed is to allow for the commanding officers at each of the commands to make that decision at that level with the with their supervisors with their lieutenants and their sergeants on how best to approach the policing in that neighborhood and delegate that out versus making it mandatory across the board because it would reduce the amount of police cars, which have an impact in and of themselves.

The more cars out there, the more people see that there is police in the area, and so that is really the same thing at this moment.

I would be deeply concerned it would spike our response times.

Okay, and I raise uh these questions because I want to make sure that we've exhausted every alternative before we impact positions in the department, whether it's a dispatcher answering the 911 call or an officer responding to it, uh dispatchers and officers are two sides of the same coin.

Uh one cannot function without the other.

But before we touch either, we have an obligation to first cut what is not necessary and make sure dollars at the top of this organization are justified.

Um, I want to also say something about the police officers association.

Uh union uh leaders speaking up for their members, I don't think is a problem.

Um I think it's their job, and it's an important part of the process.

Um I've heard concerns that the POA felt reprimanded for voicing their concerns publicly, and I want to be clear that that should never be the case.

Uh, whether I agree with every position they take or not, uh, labor representation must always feel free to advocate for the people that they represent without fear of retaliation or retribution, and this is something that I will always defend.

And I I called the mayor yesterday and I text him this morning to get to talk about this because this is obviously bubbling up and it's an issue that I want to put on the record.

Um, I also want to raise a community safety issue that's been persistent in district eight, just hasn't gone away, which is the prostitution along Dalbergia.

Um, it's not a new problem.

I've raised it before.

I've sent memos to the mayor's office, and my constituents continue to contact me because they see it happening in plain sight, which is open air prostitution.

Um, can the mayor's office speak on the current strategy to address this issue?

Yeah, thank you, council member.

Uh I appreciate the memos we've exchanged over the last two years.

I think they've been critical and allowing us to advocate at the state level for legislation change for the law that essentially allowed this to really run amok in our communities.

Uh that new law did pass in uh or took effect in January, which allows us to now go after Johns for the intent to loiter, while previously it just it took a lot of resources to actually catch the crime in action.

Now we can go after um and patrol these areas with just the intent to loiter.

However, one big missing part of this is still our ability to make contact with the victims and the uh women who are being trafficked out there.

That is our next effort at the state level, and so while the new state law that took effect uh in January of this year allows some power and control to be returned at the patrol level, I still think there's quite a bit more work to be done at the state level to be able to really go after and eradicate this issue.

Got you.

So for the residents living um by Dalbergia, what you're saying is we've seen an uptick on the amount of Johns that have been picked up since January.

Yes, I believe PD had an operation earlier this year that concluded.

I imagine the uh data and the stats from that will be released soon.

Wonderful.

Um it'll be a sustained effort, it has to be.

Wonderful.

Thank you for answering that, and I look forward to seeing um that data.

Um moving on, um, the vendor ordinance.

It was brought to our attention a few days ago that PD uh is the one uh that is uh in charge of making sure um hot dog vendors and umal ladies in District eight have their permit.

Um, can you verify that information and um do you does the department think that's a good use of our PD time?

So let me go back to something that you commented on a few minutes ago.

I couldn't agree with you more about the great work that our labor unions do for our workforce.

If you've been paying attention to anything that's been going on with their social media site or any of the messaging that they've put out, it's been very critical of me in my office.

Have you seen a single response from me publicly about that?

I understand the important work that they're doing, and I support them fully in doing it.

So I just want to make sure we're clear there.

When it comes to the vendor ordinance, it is yet another difficult issue for us to deal with.

When it was decriminalized at a state level, you put police officers in a difficult situation because we're approaching a concern in the community that it's not a crime.

One of the tactics that's being used is when we approach folks, they turn and run with their cards.

In today's world, that's a very bad image and of deep concern for me, I'm sure, with our police officers association that we're now putting police officers in a very uh tough predicament where if somebody gets hurt uh or a police officer tries to detain somebody for that's something that's not a crime, we're gonna have problems there.

And so we have been very careful and very strategic with how we've tried to address that issue, and we've done it from a number of different fronts.

We try to work collaboratively collaboratively with our park rangers out in our beach areas.

Uh we're trying to work with uh the health department so that people are properly permitted and we don't have somebody get sick with with the food that they're selling, uh and and we're we're doing our best to try to bring different approach a different approach uh to address this issue.

But at the end of the day, if I could go back in time and advise everybody that made that a non-crime, if you if you kept it a crime at the state level, you could change it to an administrative outcome at the local level.

Then you have police officers protected to detain people so that we can issue a citation if they're not going to comply.

And it could be a the out, the diversion could be administrative, but without it at a state level, we're we're stuck.

No, and and and I recall um asking Chief Nislight if the department had the capacity to um give tickets to our hot dog people, and he put on the record that yeah, we did have the time uh for the record, I voted no.

Um, and um I just question whether, given the budget that we're seeing in front of us, whether that's a good use of taxpayer funding during this time, especially when you know you're talking deep cuts in this budget, right?

In your budget.

So that's why I bring it up.

Um I will say that um since I became a council member, I've always been um very supportive of our PD.

Uh whether it was during budget season or whether it's been me outside of the community, so I have deep respect for the work that you guys do.

I would not be able to do it.

One DV case, and I would be out, right?

So there's tremendous respect.

Um, but what we're facing in the city are cuts that are gonna be deeply impacting district eight.

And it is very clear to me that there will need to be more men in if the cuts happen to park and wreck to the library.

There's no question in my mind and in my heart that the folks that carry the badge are going to be put on overtime.

They're already on overtime, but they're going to be put to work.

There will absolutely be more gang activity, which, as you know, could lead into activity that grows as the person grows.

So this is where my line of questioning is coming.

And I'll conclude there.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, ma'am.

All right.

Thank you, Councilman Moreno.

Uh we'll go back to Councilmember Campillo.

Thank you, Council President.

Just to pick up off one question that Council Member Moreno mentioned about uh take-home car.

Is there an administrative regulation on that we have as to take-home cars, who's supposed to use them, how they're funded, uh just seems to me that take home cars should be for people who are gonna wake up at three in the morning to a 911 call and have to show up somewhere.

Um can you elucidate on that?

Yeah, so I yes, there's administrative regulations.

Uh, I cannot recite them for you based on memory.

There's hundreds of regulations, but what I can tell you is uh my staff that is salaried.

The expectation is that they're available to work for me in this department 724 on weekends and evening events.

Uh, that is that is basically my guiding principle in why I would have somebody issued a take-home vehicle, whether that's 24 hours a day or whether it's just administrative to and from work.

Understood.

I guess plainly speaking, the administrative regulation on take home cars is being followed and that people correct.

Okay, all right, thank you.

All right, thank you, Councilmember Campillo.

Uh, I think everybody that's here has spoken, so um I'll uh kind of conclude before we go to public comment.

Um thank you, Chief.

Um, thank you to the rank and file for what you do every day uh protecting our safety um in all the ways that you do that.

Uh I'm gonna touch on some of the things my colleagues did, but before I do that, um, some thank yous for Northwest Division, which was a bit of an issue last time, but is in the budget this time.

Um I'll repeat as my colleagues have done supportive of overtime to the degree that we have um less officers than we need to be out on patrol overtime is how we do that.

Uh we're not asking officers to work for free uh on extended days to fill those fill those gaps.

Um, so I've always been supportive, but I do appreciate just from a budgetary fiscal point of view to really try to right size the budget, and we've seen that in some of other departments to say let's not go low to make the budget balance and then knowing that we're gonna blow through it over the course of the year.

So uh I appreciate the changes.

I mean I understand the operational changes, but I I appreciate that kind of control.

Uh as uh council president pro tem mentioned.

Uh we did talk about flock.

I know that I've been getting some updates about it from uh whether it's ubiquity or flock about how we can make a change.

Um there seemed to be the last time we had a heated conversation about this here in chambers, there seemed to be more conversation about the entity, the vendor, where there is kind of a mixed feeling about whether surveillance is appropriate or not appropriate.

So I appreciate you doing that extra work um in that direction.

And then I had a chance to see the beach team over the weekend.

Uh and we appreciate that with the extra activity that shows up on our beaches.

District one is can be a kind of a different conversation than the other districts because we have relatively low violent crime, but my constituents complain about the lack of patrols out there, and I know I always try to tell them this is not a budget issue.

We're we're actually budgeting with 237 vacancies.

We're we have about 1,800.

We're budgeting for about two thousand officers.

So it's a matter of recruitment and retention.

Which doesn't really satisfy them, but it does help them understand that the city takes this very seriously.

Job one, as we all say, and if we had the recruitment and the retention going forward, that we could fill those positions and have more patrols out there.

So kudos for that.

So the qu I think I ask this question every year because I can't get it through my head.

And this is probably going to be less of a question for you and more for the IBA, who patiently answer me every year.

So we have 237 vacancies, and the estimate that we expect 150 to 170 to leave over the course of the year.

So how much money are we leaving on the table in the budget that could be allocated for a lot of cuts that people would like to restore?

Does that question make sense?

Because I see a kind of a big gap in there from strictly a budgetary conversation, not a number of sworn officers.

So the budget accounts for vacancies through budgeted personnel expenditure savings.

So it it anticipates almost 200 vacancies there.

There's 24 million dollars that the budget includes to account for those vacancies.

And that just sits there.

See, this is where I get it wrong every time.

I don't want to think oh my god, there's 24 million to play with.

The budget actually, if the budget had fully budgeted dollars for all the positions that are in it, you would see an additional 24 million dollars in expenditures in the police department's budget.

So we are already taking into account as Baku said the knowledge that there will be around 200 vacancies in the police department, and as a consequence of that, we are not allocating twenty-four million dollars that would otherwise be associated with those positions to the police department because we know they will be vacant.

So as to whether or not there is more money to poll, the frank answer is no.

But the dollar amount that is associated with them in the budget is what we anticipate will actually be filled.

So there really is not extra money sitting in vacancies that's being budgeted that could go to something else.

That amount has already been pulled out of the department's base budget.

Okay, and then the flip side of that, if 200 sheriffs and officers from the departments walked in saying we want to join the force, we don't have the money for that.

You would end up going around twenty-four million dollars over budget?

With the assumption that you don't have a reduction in overtime, presumably, if a miracle happens and the police department can become 100% fully staffed in the next year, the need for overtime should decrease to some extent so that the chief can still have his patrol hours.

Uh okay, thank you for that.

I think you explained that to me very carefully in small words every year, and it just doesn't sink in.

Um my colleagues asked a lot of really good questions and deep questions.

Um, as I've said in other departments, one of the tiny silver linings is caught.

It's the the challenge in this budget is cause us to look a little bit deeper at every line item that we may have taken for granted before.

Um, as some of my colleagues mentioned, I think one of the harder things is in communicating to the public about how this is a view of cuts, we're making cuts, and department after department actually comes in, does those cuts painfully, and then walks away with a larger budget than they had last year.

And there's a number of reasons for that.

Roland to explain.

One of the components is that mysterious line item that it is that department's share of these citywide things that every department has to incur in their individual budgets, but it's a tough conversation.

And I think we got comments from my colleagues in a way that I would not have expected this week, because we probably heard more from the public about cutting the police budget more than since maybe 2021.

And these are people that support the police, want public safety, but are so frustrated by other cuts and just trying to figure out where to grab grab money.

Um I think you have done your team has done the same kind of hard work that every department has tried to do to figure out how to contribute to meeting the overall budget crisis we have.

And even if you end up with a bigger budget than you did last year, which can be difficult for us to explain to our constituents going forward.

The way the money flows, the way we budget things, the buckets, the multiple buckets we have.

I think the last question I'm gonna close out with to be respectful of it being quarter to one.

You're increasing parking enforcement in terms of staffing, the net revenue that comes out of parking enforcement.

Is that just gonna cover the cost of the parking enforcement team?

And if there's any excess, does it stay within the PD department?

So the I'm gonna kick this to the Kyle here in just a second, but but understand, remember last year we we increased the area of coverage, the days of the week, and the hours of the day.

So expanded coverage last year without having existing staff to meet that, right?

So we we were right sizing that issue, and as far as revenue versus expense, I'll let Kyle answer that.

Okay.

Um so as far as revenue versus expense, so you have the revenue that comes in from the actual issuance of the tickets that's budgeted within police.

You also have a component that is uh paid for with a transfer from parking district meter funds.

So between the two of those, um, that's essentially what pays for the positions.

In all the the revenue we expect from each position to be two to three times more than what those positions cost.

Okay.

And we also know that historically we don't collect a hundred percent of all the tickets that have been issued.

That's correct.

Yeah, okay.

Um okay, I'm gonna stop there.

I may reach out for other questions, but I think we've caught it there.

Um, so before we go to public comment, um, it is a quarter to one.

I see how many uh folks are either here or online.

I know some of my colleagues wanted to have some concluding comments.

Uh so I'm hoping that we can reconvene no earlier than two, and still hopefully have some time for a little bit of a break uh in between.

So we'll see how that goes.

But um we're not gonna reconvene any earlier than two o'clock.

You guys will be gone and off to other things on a Friday afternoon, but for fire rescue, we're not gonna meet any earlier than two o'clock if we can get five council members in chambers.

So with that, Natalie, please proceed with public comment for sub-item N.

The public comment period for sub item N is now open, and we've received 22 speaker slips here in chambers, and there are 20 hands in the virtual queue.

As a reminder, if you've ceded time to others, all of those who have seeded time must be present in the room and wave your hand when I call your name.

And if the following can please come up to the lectern, Corrine Wilson, and you'll be followed by Lori Lipsman, Jared Wilson, and Josephine Vaux.

If you can please come up to the reserve seats at the front of the room.

And Corinne, you've been seated time by Sam Zerato and Skylar.

Okay, so three minutes.

Please begin.

Good afternoon.

Corrine Wilson with MEA.

MEA represents the non-sworn positions in the police department.

Dispatchers, crime lab, parking enforcement officers, police investigative, service officers, clerical positions, and so forth.

Our members do the work that doesn't take graduation from the academy and that doesn't need a badge.

And for that they get paid less, often a lot less.

Safety is a broad term and it takes a diverse set of positions to fulfill the expectations of the public and also be good stewards of general fund dollars.

MEA came three years ago to talk about the fiscal impact of vacancies in the civilian ranks, which were significant back then.

Back then, dispatchers were working mandatory overtime instead of 10 hour shifts, they were working 12, 14-hour shifts.

And sworn officers were allowed to pick up dispatch hours anytime they wanted to, at their wage levels, not at dispatcher wages, so burn out at premium prices.

Back then, parking enforcement officer vacancies contributed to the mid-year loss of 4.7 million to the police department budget and essentially the general fund.

Each PEO brings in about $30,000 a month in parking enforcement funds.

They earn about $60,000 a year.

So leaving those vacant lost the city vast sums.

And back then, a voice of San Diego article quoted a police captain as saying that sworn officers were being pulled off the streets to perform administrative tasks, again impacting the general fund and response times.

I'm happy to say that civilian vacancies have been being filled.

Filling dispatch vacancies helps with 911 call times.

Filling cry blab vacancies reduce helps reduce and protect against case backlogs, filling PEO vacancies brings in revenue and so on.

And I know many think that getting a parking ticket is a bad thing, but businesses like the turnover, right?

It helps their customers come into their shop.

And non-sworn positions are a good value.

We help provide the services our communities expect at appropriate compensation for the work.

Again, not everything the department does requires a badge.

And I'd also like to give a shout out to Chief Wall.

For years I've heard community members and this council plead for the department to manage overtime, and this is the first time that it's happened.

As mentioned many times today, safety overtime competes with funding for libraries, parks and rags, code enforcement, et cetera.

Services that also contribute to safety.

Again, safety is a broad term.

We should work to meet it in all of its definitions, not just one.

So I urge the council to support moving forward.

Please do not let us go back.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lori Lipsman, and you've been seated time by Lisa.

If you could raise your hand, thank you.

So you'll have two minutes.

Good afternoon.

I'm Lori Lipsman, pronoun she her, District 3 resident.

By the age of 12, I already understood how cruel and unequal the society could be.

I grew up attending Hebrew school and listening to Holocaust survivors, describe how they survived, who they lost, and what happens when governments decide some people matter less than others.

I recognize authoritarianism, dehumanization, and state violence when I see it.

Today, we are watching the militarization of our city expand while resources for care, housing, arts, libraries, parks, and human services are cut.

Policing is not safety.

Mass surveillance is not community care.

I have been in this chambers all week.

Sorry, I've been in this chambers all week.

It's been a long week for all of you.

Because this budget reflects political choices, and those choices will harm vulnerable people and while protecting systems of punishment.

I've personally witnessed people pushed into incarceration, detention, and suffering because of racism and deeply unequal systems.

One of those is my friend Tony, 40 years old and black, whose life spiraled from an STPD stop for not having a bike like light into ICE detention.

You are our last line of defense against the cruelty coming from Washington.

Do not increase police funding and invest in people.

Also, please end the strong mayor form of governance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jared Wilson, you've been seated time by five others, if they can raise their hand.

Nicholas Nguyen, Nicholas, David.

Jeremy Huff.

Jeremy.

Lumberto Praza.

And Jared Thompson.

Thompson's ahead of emergency.

Five minutes, please begin.

Good morning.

My name is Jared Wilson.

I'm the president of the San Diego Police Officers Association and many of my directors are here with me today.

The San Diego Police Officers Association strongly opposes the chief's proposed budget.

At its core, these issues come down to one fundamental responsibility: responding to 911 calls and protecting the public.

Right now we are falling short of that responsibility.

For the first time in years, the department fell below 1,800 sworn officers.

Response times are the worst they have been in history and some of the worst they have been in the nation.

That reality should be driving every decision in this budget.

Instead, this budget protects and prioritizes something else.

A growing political operation within the police department.

Positions created by we believe special funds.

It wasn't answered earlier, that are not budgeted through the proper process.

Positions would take home city cars while our detectives and our officers scramble for vehicles.

No chief in recent memory has maintained this level of political staffing inside the office.

And this is the largest chief's office, both sworn and unsworn in the history of the department, while our patrol officers go out understaffed every single day.

While officers are stretched in the response times continue to rise, nearly half a million dollars is being spent on positions that cannot respond to emergencies, cannot answer 911 calls, cannot approve frontline public safety outcomes.

This is not a resource problem, this is a priorities problem.

The police department should not be political.

This budget prioritizes politics over public safety.

A budget is a statement of values, and this budget sends a clear message.

Political staffing is prioritized over getting officers in the field and emergency response times.

There's also a deeper concern over this budget cycle that has been ignored.

There's a growing pattern of retaliation by the administration against union leaders and officers who speak out about staffing, policy, officer safety, and budgetary concerns.

They're met with consequences instead of solutions.

I have seen it firsthand.

When I spoke out about the dismantling of our narcotics unit and bringing in federal agents, federal agents, to take our jobs, place and bring them into our neighborhoods.

When I spoke out about cutting a supervisor and the sex offender unit who ensures the worst of the worst in our society is held accountable.

When I spoke about cutting the graffiti unit, which would harm the quality of life and safety of all our communities, the chief's office tried to remove me from my assignment, wanted to cut my pay, and worst of all, canceled by Kevlar safety uniforms.

I'm legally entitled to in our contract.

This is when the city is already facing a lawsuit with a captain over denying a safety uniform in the same manner for retaliation.

For two budget cycles in a row, Mr.

Wall has proposed cutting the union president, myself, Mr.

Huff specifically, from the budget.

Retaliation is illegal, it's unacceptable, and this is just the tip of iceberg.

In a pro-union city like San Diego, no officer should fear retaliation for telling the truth, advocating for safety, or standing up for fellow officers.

When officers are punished for speaking up, it creates a chilling effect.

And when that happens, problems do not get solved, they get buried.

These concerns are not isolated.

We surveyed our membership about the concerns in the department.

Over 650 officers responded in just over three days, which is unprecedented.

It presents a troubling picture of morale and confidence.

Say the leadership's prioritization of staffing and officer safety is inadequate.

79% say their concerns are not heard by upper management.

Only 22% have confidence in the department's leadership.

Only 15% say the decisions that are made by our chief's office are actually a perception problem.

This is a leadership problem.

You cannot improve response times when officers no longer trust the leadership to make the proper decisions.

At the same time, the department's core mission continues to suffer fewer officers on the streets, slower response times, resources directed away from the field.

It's not sustainable.

The path forward is clear.

Eliminate this political staffing structure.

Redirect the resources to sworn staffing.

This is not complicated.

Our mission statement is to maintain public safety by providing the highest quality police services to all our communities.

In closing, I want to address a question that you asked Councilmember Campillo about the 19 positions.

The chief, 18 of those positions were in the budget presentation.

They're parking enforcement officers.

The other position is not the commander position.

That position is a reclassed position.

The new position is an unclassified deputy director of finance position.

So I will answer that question, honestly.

Thank you.

Josephine Voe and Josephine, before you begin, I'd like to call the next group of speakers to the front of the room.

Robert Wood, Omar Usuri, Blair Beekman, and Alvia Hayes, if you could please come up to the reserve seats.

Josephine, you'll have one minute, please begin.

Hi.

Hello.

Hi.

I'm a member of Council Member Whitburn's district.

I'm here to oppose an increase in the SDPD budget while other community services get cut.

Over the past five years, we've seen the budget increase by 130 million dollars.

And I think it's unfair that they receive another 15 million for 2027 while other spaces are gutted.

I understand that the police department is a high personnel department and very necessary as San Diego grows, but I think our department can do better.

Um I do really appreciate hearing about how we've reigned in over time and how we prioritize training.

But I have seen from some organizations that, and it hasn't been addressed here, so I don't know exactly where this fits into the budget, but that it has cost 40 million dollars to address litigation for police misconduct and police brutality.

And this information makes me feel unsafe and um I don't know how I can trust this budget.

Thank you.

Robert Robert Wood.

Omira.

And you've been seated time by Patricia Serrano.

Patricia, you'll have two minutes.

Please begin.

Good afternoon, Council.

My name is Hamira Yasifi with the Trust SD coalition.

Um a lot of our members are not here today.

Um, but you have heard from them all throughout the week.

When I actually asked many members to come today, they expressed some fear.

They didn't want to be in a room full of police officers with guns because honestly, there was conversations about trust, but there is a lot more we can go to build trust in the city.

The fact that Flock Novo was signed in the dark while hundreds of community members were coming to you all expressing our concerns with that technology and with that company specifically that has a track record of sharing data with federal immigration enforcement, and you all the city just chose to sign that in secret, breaks trust.

I also want to say that I agree with someone who spoke that you all uh this budget is voting your values.

So I really hope that as we have this conversation that you all actually do vote your values, vote for community, vote for trust with community.

Um the fact that we're talking about public safety.

Public safety comes from when our youth have access to safe spaces, when our youth have drop-in centers, when there's an office of youth and success, all of that could be funded if we did redirect in money from Flock and put it into priorities that actually create real public public safety and trust with community.

So I urge you all please to continue to look at the at that item that does that item is not needed.

Um has been 99.9% ineffective.

So when we look at the numbers, this is not a technology that is actually helping our communities.

It is harming us.

It is putting us uh our immigrant communities and our other vulnerable communities, LGBTQ communities in a harmless way.

So I continue to ask you to please vote with their values and um redirect that funding from Flock into all of the other things.

And I have heard some of you never mind.

I was gonna invite you all to uh write along with my family and my kids so you guys can see my time.

Thank you.

Blair Beekman.

Please approach the lector.

All right, thank you.

I wish Councilperson Foster was here for some questions today.

Thank you for questions from council.

Um I think there's an idealism that we can be working towards with our tech that really has to be noted how we can build our future.

It may not be a ton of cost savings, but we can consolidate our tech and still practice public safety uh in neighborhoods.

Um that's a learning process that I think needs to be really respected, and I I think we can do important things with that.

Thank you to the uh police chief for talking about cut trying to find ways to cut seven million dollars.

It was spoken, you know.

You guys have a 14 million dollar uh addition this year that you want to address.

Um thank you.

Good luck in those efforts.

Uh the issue of Andrea Epping.

Uh, is there a larger issue of retribution questions that are going on that was mentioned here today?

I hope the police will really can work on it well.

We need it.

Thank you.

Mr.

Hayes, can you please approach the lectern and you'll be followed by Nancy Bemm, Daniel Negrate, and Ariane Dixit.

If you could please make your way to the reserve seats, all right.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Uh thank thank you for the opportunity of me being here.

Um, I'm Alvin Hayes, and I'm with the uh Shafada Outreach, uh No Shots Fire program, and uh been with the program for three years and a few months now.

Um since I've been here listening, I've been hearing words like uh uh collaborative effort, support team, supportive efforts, and uh I would like to give thanks to the police department for doing those very things with outreach.

Um with them, uh, we are able to in real time uh be able to, whenever there's a gun f a gun shooting, they will uh notify my direct my director, uh Cornelius Bowser, and he would dispatch whatever team available to those scenes.

And it's very important at the times after a gang shooting, there are gang members that's out there milling around the scenes angry because a friend of theirs got shot or whatever, you got family members that are angry.

So when we come in, be able to try to diffuse the situation before it got out there.

Thank you for that concluding statement.

Nancy Nancy here, Daniel.

Oh, great.

Please approach the lecture and you'll be seeing you've have been seated time by Daniel Alejandro Soria.

Are you here?

So you'll have two minutes to speak.

Thank you.

Uh I'm here on behalf of uh the Student Civil Liberties Union and the Ellis Collective, and I strongly oppose an increase uh to the police budget.

Um I just wanted to state that there are zero uh data and research articles and pointing to reductions in crime being attributed to ALPRs, although there you know is a correlation to reductions.

There is zero evidence as to it being linked to the actual surveillance systems themselves.

Uh second, you stated that um you are in full compliance with F 54.

Is that correct?

Can you say it?

Is that correct?

Okay, you were refusing to answer, but um you previously.

Thank you.

Okay, um I just want to let you know that that is not true.

Uh you know, Flock has had data leaks, and it's not just that.

You are continuously providing data to Argis.

Um, for some reason, your deputy uh chief was not aware that immigration enforcement agencies such as CBP and ICE have access to that data.

Um, that is a clear violation of SB 54.

There is zero reason as to why your chief auditing officer has no idea that immigration enforcement agencies have access to this.

If you really want it implement reductions in crime, you have to invest in education, services, libraries.

These are clear factors that lead to long-term reductions in crime and economic activity.

Um I just want to remind the council, um, just please hold them accountable.

And the only way you can hold them accountable is to the budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, Aryan.

And you'll be followed by the following group if they can, the final group of speakers, if they can make their way to the front of the room, Samantha, Castronovo, Michael, Signatari, and Alexi Grossis.

If you could please come up to the reserve seats, okay.

Please begin.

Hello.

My name is Aren Dixit.

I am the president of the Student Civil Liberties Union.

I'm also a resident of Council President Lakava's district.

I'm here to remind all of us about what the city's about and who we're supposed to be serving, because we're supposed to be serving the residents, immigrants, citizens, students who actually make up the city, and not simply the budgets and the pockets of people who have been known to be corrupt individuals or portions of our city, such as the police department.

In the past, police captain Jeff Jordan was a member who like championed this flock and ubiquitous contract and then joined the flock.

Let me tell you, that's what I call textbook corruption.

Furthermore, we've continuously seen how this stuff this police department discriminates and violates laws such as SB 54, amongst others.

And I don't think that we should be continuing to reward bad behavior with more funding.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Samantha.

Hi, I'm Samantha Castronovo.

I have so much to say in only one minute.

So I'm gonna be very brief and try to just touch on things.

Please remember Monday night from 6 p.m.

to 10 p.m.

There were so many members of the community here, including students, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th graders begging, no on flock, no on electronic surveillance.

Please keep our libraries and our rec centers open.

And that's an amazing accomplishment for a city.

Your students want to go to the library, they want to learn and do good things.

Second thing, Chief had referenced resources for the homeless.

Even if every single homeless person said yes to the resources for overnight, they aren't there.

Is the current data?

They're not there, the resources aren't there.

And then uh quickly, if city business owners owners would help more Friday night, over time with the thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Michael.

Good afternoon.

My name is Michael Cimetery and I'm part of the No Shots Fire program.

And what I want to do is I want to thank Chief Wall for being an avid uh avid supporter of this program, as the rest of you guys.

And this program is critical because it focuses on not only preventing violence before it happens, every shooting prevent it means a life saved, a family protected, and a community spare trauma and fear.

Programs like this, use trusted community outreach workers such as myself, violence interrupters such as myself, who can step in, step into conflict before they escalate into gun violence, and that's what we do.

We cannot arrest our way out of every problem.

Real public safety also means investing in prevention, mentorship, mental health support, youth outreach, and opportunities for people who have who are excuse me, who are at the highest risk.

Increasing funding for the no shots fire program is also physically responsible, and here's why.

The cost of prevention is far less than the cost of emergency response, hospitalizations, incarcerations, and homicide investigations.

Thank you.

If you'd like to expand on any comments, you can email councilcommittee at sandiego.gov and we will get those published and just distributed.

Alexi, please approach the lectern.

Thanks everyone.

Um despite ongoing charges of negligence and misconduct, police department budgets constantly increase year over year over year.

Fuel costs are skyrocketing, and police are driving around in a fleet of SUVs and in a helicopter.

If we're looking for a source of our deficit, we found it.

By reducing the over 700 million dollar police budget, we could by even one-tenth, we could show up a significant portion of this deficit without any loss of our quality of life.

This week we've been meeting, or this week is seen meeting after meeting to understand and justify cutting the budgets of high return on investment departments and programs like the library and neighborhood services, funneling our money yet again towards policing, which doesn't prevent crime, but react to it.

This ever-increasing police budget is yet again a divestment from our future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And one final opportunity for Robert Wood or Nancy Ben before we move to the virtual queue.

Okay, this concludes in-person public testimony.

We will now move to the virtual queue.

I've started the five-minute timer.

There are six hands raised in the virtual queue.

Oh, I'm sorry, 26 hands raised in the virtual queue for subitem N.

We'll begin with Jason B.

Please unmute and begin.

Hi.

Uh my family and I are long-term residents and homeowners in the East Village, a neighborhood that is often fear mongering about.

We are not afraid of our neighbors.

What does make us afraid is that every time we step out the door, we see a car running a stop sign or a red light.

It's not just in our heads.

Statistically, in San Diego, we are three times more likely to be killed in a preventable traffic collision than by a homicide.

In terms of preserving human life, traffic safety is the most pressing public safety need.

Police enforcement alone is unable to reduce dangerous driving to a reasonable level.

For that reason, I ask you to please reallocate a portion of the police budget to the transportation department to preserve the multimodal traffic safety team.

This team plays a critical role in designing safer streets that reduce the need for police enforcement in the first place.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Bradley.

Please unmute and begin.

Bradley, I've asked you to unmute.

Well, there it is.

It just came up.

Just came up.

Okay.

Hey, I'm all I'm all for the police.

I'm not for those parking meter guys.

Cut half of those guys down to what there is now, cut half.

It's just raising money on the poor guys looking around for a parking spot.

And then give the money to those black guys that are doing the nose shots fired.

That's critical, man.

It's abomination.

Our mayor is not a king.

He's acting more like a queen.

We need a queen march and get rid of a man.

This budget cuts are abominable.

They're just crazy.

And then we gotta uh we're just one ice raid away from blowing the whole budget away.

If there's a good ice rate coming up at Home Depot, 500 people go out there, and there's the overtime.

There's the liability, we're done, man.

We got to get a hold of the National Guard and have them respond with ice.

Otherwise, our budget is history.

When there's a riot or something, it's over.

Hey bye.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Viet Voices.

Please unmute and begin.

Hi, my name is We General.

I am opposing to the police budget increase for a lot of reasons.

Um, because we cannot balance the budgets on the back of the community, the library, park, and and you think, does that investment?

If everybody else taking a cut, so do the police need to.

This is the time to do it.

We cannot balloon the budget anymore.

Furthermore, actually have a question.

I know that there would have 15 or 20 police officers inside a chamber today.

How much tax dollar being paid to city employees sitting inside a chamber for what?

Are they supposed to go out there and do the job instead of us paying them to sing them lobbying for more money?

Can somebody please do the accounting on what that costs of tackle?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, John Stump, please unmute and begin.

Uh, thank you very much.

Uh, I had a couple of comments.

Uh, first on the taking vehicle and vehicle mileage, that policy should be limited to only vehicles driven within the city of San Diego.

You should not be providing any reimbursement for vehicles driven to far-off places like Temecula, Riverside County, and that sort of thing.

Uh, they're talking about doing a study on recruiting and improvement of process.

That study should be managed by the council to answer the questions you've got you've posed today, not managed by the police department.

They can participate, but you should be managing that study.

Third thing is look at the police department uniforms and cars.

We are have black uniforms like we're the police from Nazi Germany.

Everybody else, look at New York City.

This concludes your time.

Francine Maxwell, please unmute and begin.

Francine Maxwell, Southeastern San Diego.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Thank you to the uh San Diego Police Department POA leadership team for coming and sharing your experiences, your thoughts, and everything else.

The one thing that was not spoken was promotions were still occurring to those people that were um going on social media.

So I think we need to be fully transparent again.

You're going to allow the legislative branch.

You are going to contemplate and consider wasting another two million on making um videos with um uh influencers, hire in San Diego a consulting, hire engagement community engagement specialists that can help you get home grown.

We continue to um not have a pathway for San Diego black police officers, and we are not assured that the race and equity department is having those conversations with the chief.

Thank you.

Kayla, please unmute and begin.

Hello, my name is Kayla Appenzeller.

I uh am in East County, San Diego.

I would I um feel like there's a point of agreement between the what the constituents are asking and what the police chief is saying.

He's saying that he's overwhelmed by the amount of services provided.

I would like to see somebody else provide those services.

I do not feel comfortable to call homeless outreach, knowing that a SVPD officer is going to arise and potentially hurt that person with a gun.

The city respectfully, Miss Von uh council member von uh Wilper.

The problems and lack of trust are not a national issue.

It is a San Diego specific issue.

We have every year a black person die because of police practices.

Every year the budget budget has gone up.

This is there's the la we have flock, that is distrust with the city of you.

This does conclude your time, and the five-minute timer has also concluded.

We have 24 hands remaining in the queue.

We will take no additional callers after these 24.

Karina, please unmute and begin.

Hello, my name is Karina, a resident of District 9.

Um, thank you, Sean, for always speaking up.

I don't understand why the police are being rewarded an increase of 15 million dollars to their budget when they have wasted 41 million dollars of our taxpayer funds for settlement for murder, misconduct, and brutality that we know of.

Why are they being gifted more of our tax dollars to abuse its citizens when it could be given to keep libraries, parks, and rec open, fully staffed and funded, which actually provides services to our community?

The police do not have any constitutional duty to protect citizens from harm.

To protect and serve is only a marketing slogan.

They only serve to protect private property and rights of the wealthy.

Abolish the police, return the money to our youth.

Thank you.

As a reminder, the five-minute timer has concluded.

Tony, please unmute and begin.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hey, how's it going?

Good morning, City Council.

Good morning, SDPD.

I just want to say uh thank you to Marnie Von Wilper and to Raul Campillo who have made it abundantly clear to the citizens of San Diego why we will not be voting for you in your desire for seeking higher office.

Raul Campio, we know you want to run for mayor.

That's not happening.

Martin Von Wilper, you're running for Congress.

That's not happening.

Gen Z will never vote for you.

And you've made it abundantly clear that you are more interested in serving SDPD than your constituents here in San Diego.

The fact that Martin Von Wilbert, you would shed crocodile tears over the dead SD police officers and their sacrifice.

They're doing a job.

They knew what job they were doing when they took that job on.

Just like you did.

And you took on a job to represent your constituents, not SDPD.

I'm so sick and tired of hearing you hiding behind the security that they provide you because you order them, because you legislate them.

We don't legislate them.

It's time for you to have a reality check.

It's time for you to come to terms with the fact that you serve your constituents, not SDP.

Our next speaker, Patricia, please unmute and begin.

Patricia Monragon from District 3.

Year after year, community members come before this council asking you not to cut vital services for residents, students, and working families while continuing to increase the San Diego police department's budget.

There's please continue to go unheard as SDPD remains the city's largest and fastest growing expenditure.

We are told the department is fiscally responsible.

The taxpayers have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime to individual officers and tens of millions in settlements related to officer negligence and abuse.

We are told that any cuts could jeopardize public safety, but the reality is that the city of San Diego has never reduced the STPC budget.

It has increased it year after year.

SDPD is trying to gaslight us by reframing increases as cuts.

Public safety matters, but true public safety also comes from investing in people, housing and youth programs, and community-based solutions that prevent harm.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Layla Aziz, please unmute and begin.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes.

Um, again, listening to everyone talk.

Um, another sad day in San Diego.

Um, you have community health workers who are preventing violence.

You have people in the drop-in centers who are certified as from the Urban Peace Institute and are truly community health workers for public safety.

Um, also it's good to see the Shafat team who's happy hospital-based certified.

Instead of sitting down with these people and seeing how these different um options take care of our community and keep us safe.

You guys have done no really looking at the evidence-based practices and the promising practices, and that's pretty sad because you don't understand why homicide rates have gone down, and you're not trying to study that in order to keep that going.

Um, also, how are we going to keep paying all of these lawsuits?

Yet the police department is hiding all complaints.

80% of the filing category one from um use of force to discrimination, and they're putting them in miscellaneous.

You guys, that 40 million is going to triple because of the systems that should be coming out of the public safety and livable neighborhoods committee to overlook and watch that.

Uh, yes, thank you.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

My name is Eric Anderson.

I live in District 9.

I am a member of DSA and the Trust Coalition.

Flock enables criminals in 1989.

An obsessed fan used driver's license data from the DMV to stalk and murder actress Rebecca Schaefer.

This led to the creation of the Driver's Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits the release of driver's license data without a warrant.

The law still protects citizens today, but there is a loophole.

Perpetrators who are cops don't need a warrant to obtain the same information and more.

Fourteen police officers that we know about have used flock surveillance data to stalk their romantic partners across the country, including California.

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, police officers are more likely to abuse their intimate partners than other people.

In addition to the 99.8% failure, others have spoken about today.

Statistics like this should push your support towards ending the program.

Flock aids and abets crime.

Dozens of municipalities across the country have deactivated flock for good reason.

Listen to the people, stop flock.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Viani, please unmute and begin.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Vianney Rubalcava.

I live in District 3, and I'd like to urge the council to end the flock contract, which has already proved to be unnecessary and mismanaged here in San Diego.

These two million dollars can fund other departments on the chopping block that actually contribute to public safety and strengthen our communities, like the Office of Youth and Child Success Rec Centers and Libraries.

Additionally, I urge you to consider uh reducing the additional SDPD funding for PETCO special events.

I think the Padres can pay for that for their own operation and security.

As DPD is getting budget increases year after year, and they're spinning that as a decrease.

Uh, I don't think that that's uh very fair and very accurate.

Consider other vital departments are getting cut.

Uh thank you for your time.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

The original, please unmute and begin.

We absolutely should not be rewarding Scott and his department for engaging in such gross malfeasance and negligence uh when you know women are being beat up by officers like Anthony Warner, um, slamming their face into the ground, not even uh doing a lawful arrest.

Um, so you guys can't even follow your policies and you don't provide public safety when you're going after the people like that.

In fact, when the city council doesn't have a quorum time and time and time again, and your officers witness that they come after me and claim that I'm disrupting a meeting.

Well, a meeting cannot continue if you don't have a quorum.

So to consider that I am, you know, violating penal code 403.

That is bullshit.

So it's like you guys can't even be trusted to make competent decisions.

So your competency and your ability to provide public safety is in question.

And that's a problem when we're gonna continue to give you more and more money.

You guys need to be defunded.

Okay, thank you.

Our next speaker, S D FA, please unmute and begin.

Hi, I'm the vice chair of the board of the UC San Diego faculty association, and I'm calling to draw attention to our faculty's desire to see in a really hard budget year budget for libraries, but also to draw attention to the ways that flock and automatic license plate readers make our faculty and our students less less safe, despite the safe safeguards.

Our campus is being targeted by the federal government, immigration enforcement, and the FBI, with a really erratic federal government.

A more safe set of safeguards for us would mean that license plate reader data would only be given with a warrant, not a phone call from another department like El Cajon.

Live watching our movements does not make us or our students less safe.

We do not want ALPRs as the means of creative creating safety, and we ask the city to invest in the libraries that our students use to get an education and to build the features that they want.

As we thank you very much.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

And if you are raising your hand and I lower your hand, it's because the five-minute timer has concluded.

So we have an opportunity for 13 remaining speakers to provide their comments.

Megan Day, please unmute and begin.

I've asked you to unmute Megan Day.

I think she just dropped off.

Kathleen Lippitt, please begin.

Thank you for letting me speak.

Uh thanks to you to the police and the IBA for their clear and sustained presentations and answers.

That cannot be said for the division of race and equity.

It is difficult to know what exactly she was talking about.

The verbal political rhetoric used did nothing to clarify why or what the goals of the that department are.

The assertions to contextualize everything and the importance of historic history and lived experience.

I'm sorry, they need to do a better job of presenting what they do.

PD answered more than 52,000 emergency calls.

1794 officers is way understaffed for a city this size.

And yes, a 38-minute response time is unprecedented and continues to trend in the wrong direction.

And that doesn't serve the needs of the public.

However, we need to look at the state.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Our next speaker is phone number ending in 2036.

Please press star six to unmute and begin.

Hello.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Please continue.

The Peninsula Community Planning Board opposes the 2027 draft budget in part to the city's highly paid employees and the overall high cost of city salaries and benefits, including those in the police department.

According to state control, total city wages and fringe benefits have risen substantially over the past 10 years, while city employment and population have grown a much slower pace.

Our analysis shows employee fringe benefits are 65% in the 65% range while the average Californian received 30 to 31%.

Fourth of the employee 2024 total wages exceeded $400,000 per year, which was more than that of the president of the United States.

10th city employees made over $375,651 with seven of the ten concentrated in the police and fire department.

The average total compensation of police personnel was 156, 326 dollars.

You need to review all staff wages over time.

This does conclude your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Priya.

Priya, please unmute and begin.

Hello, my name is Priya Sunny Boston.

I am with the Student Civil Liberties Union, and I'm a resident of District 1.

I'm here today to formally demand a reduction in the SPDD SD SDPD budget.

I think it is far more valuable for our communities and for the prevention of crime to invest in our education in recreation in our in social services in our people, rather than it is to invest in private surveillance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nancy Bemm.

Nancy, please unmute and begin.

Uh hi.

Um sorry I had to leave.

Uh long meeting today.

Um I am calling to ask you to cut the two million dollar flock contract.

Overall, this budget shows uh the budget presentation today showed how not cost-effective the police department is, and I oppose the increase.

Um I also work in homo services, and I'd say Mayor Gloria's Crusade on encampment sweeps hasn't solved homelessness.

It's pushed a societal failure to address our affordability crisis into the brush and into jails.

I want to know from Marnie and Campio.

How is cutting arts and culture, libraries, use services, parks and rec to fund the SDPD's budget a holistic approach?

I encourage council and specifically Marnie and Rawl, who um, if you refuse to hold fund these things, we will find leaders who well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have seven hands remaining in the queue.

As a reminder, if you are continuing to raise your hand, the five-minute timer has concluded, so we are taking seven additional callers.

Travis Bouchard, please unmute and begin.

Thank you.

Uh, do you want to suck uh near button and disappear?

Alright, there we go.

Uh so Travis District 7.

Uh, it's frankly embarrassing that police are even willing to take an increase while Rec Center's libraries and youth services are cutting.

You're an embarrassment to our community, and you're showing your cowardice.

You want us to trust an agency that employs Daniel Gold, who murdered a 16-year-old by shooting him in the back and cost us $30 million dollars.

Come on.

Cap police OT, $29 million.

Stop Flock.

Don't be Blue MAGA.

Raul.

You have zero chance of being mayor while funding a police surveillance state.

Marnie, you're full of shit.

Look at data on police, not anecdotes.

We all suit you see through it.

You're no better than Trump.

Cut Flock.

Cap police OT.

Don't be Blue MAGA, please.

It's so sad.

It truly is.

It's it's disheartening to me.

It's disheartening to my kids.

It's disheartening to every single person in the city that has a pulse.

Do better.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Katherine Rhodes, please unmute and begin.

Hello, Catherine Rhodes, to the police chief and the financial analyst.

Please contact me to fund more police academies by creating written financial agreements and memorandums of understanding through Sandeg and our city council president Joe LaCava and the other 18 city San Diego County cities as a sand ag agenda item.

And that would require other cities to pay the City of San Diego police academy training costs for any rookie within five years of graduation in the name of justice.

We can actually make money by having more police academy classes region wide and more recruits, with every other city paying their fair share, which is not happening now.

More new police officers result in less overtime for senior officers.

All we need is leadership.

Thank you to the police chief for standing up to the police officer who heard a homeless person and didn't turn on their body worn camera.

Um officer Anthony Warner beat up a woman.

Was that on camera?

The city subsidizes Petco Park using $10 million from the 4%.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

Our next speaker, Claire Snyder.

Please unmute and begin.

Hi, good afternoon.

Uh Claire Snyder with YouthWell, President of District 3.

Um, I really encourage all the council members to look at the flock contract and um cancel that contract.

If there's a line item in the contract saying that if we don't have the money, we can cancel it.

And based off all the long meetings I've been in with you all this past week, it sounds like we don't have the money.

Um so I think we should cancel that contract and reinvest that money into Office Attanian Success, Libraries, Parks Rec, and Arts and Culture.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next caller is phone number ending in 8700.

Please press star six and begin.

Uh thank you.

A chief wall, physically responsible, yes.

Academies, yes.

High quality, yes, overtime adjustment, yes.

Parking enforcement for street cleaning equals healthy streets, a big yes.

Dear public, please listen to what I say now.

Thank you, Council President Pro Tim Lee, for your words this morning about a vision for our city.

Here are the big three: vision, trust, equity.

Dear San Diego Police Department, SDPD, stay safe as you keep us safe.

A great, great morning.

Love to all.

Thank you.

We have four additional callers in the queue.

Liliana, please unmute and begin.

Hi, budget community.

My name is Uliana, Director of Policy at Youth Will.

Today's responses to council questions were heavily framed around working in an overbund overburdened city, especially staff, um, including police.

All while we are in a structural budget deficit, therefore we are our our understanding is that the city cannot afford to fund flock a um agency that is 99.97% ineffective in terms of threats to our vulnerable neighbors in Lindovista.

Our immigrant neighbors have already faced threats of ICE intervention.

If the community truly understood Flock's history of data breaches, then they would not stand behind this technology.

Please invest in OCYS and community services with that two million contract.

Mass surveillance is not public safety, it's a breach of our community trust.

I ask you as parents and leaders to choose people over software.

Let's invest in real safety that comes from supporting thriving communities, not the false security of mass surveillance.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Catherine Douglas, please unmute and begin.

Good afternoon.

One department that's being exceptionally well run as SDPD.

Chief Wall has saved money while increasing efficiency in his department.

Every department needs to follow his great example.

This is a department that is run by someone who is an expert in his field, coupled with great financial acumen.

He has saved the city money while accomplishing greater goals.

Thank you, Chief Wall and those on your team.

I would also like to defend the whole hearing of Lindsay Wingby and Chloe Mexican, who are instrumental in getting the community involved in SDPD uh activity and decisions.

She has these two gals have brought the community into the police department, and I've had the privilege of working with community members around the city, and it has been amazing what it we have accomplished.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Patricia De Armin.

Patricia, please unmute and begin.

Okay, can you hear me?

Yes.

All right, one second.

Um good afternoon, city council.

I'm the sister Christopher D.

Armin, who is egregiously murdered by San Diego police on January 20, 2023.

I want to suggest reducing police department pay, eliminating expensive military equipment being used on victims, ending canine deployments on shot victims, eliminating the uses of toxic devices along with Prop 36 will lead to an overpopulation in San Diego County jails where people are dying from neglect.

Ending pretext stops and police pursuits for minor equipment malfunctions, and instead begin mailing tickets for equipment malfunctions.

As can be seen by the loss of officer magistrar, it is quite obvious that pretext stops are extremely dangerous for both the officers and the persons involved.

Some of the budget should be put towards purchasing AEDs to render adequate life-saving medical aid to wooden victims in a timely manner, and providing oversight boards like the CPP with adequate funding and resources to purchase proper equipment needed for excellent audio and video recordings, adequate staffing needs to provide thorough case reviews, oversee and hold these officers accountable as well.

Thank you.

This does conclude your time.

And our final speaker with their hand raised before the five-minute timer concluded is Angelica.

Angelica, please unmute and begin.

Police need a better response to staffing shortages than expanding surveillance.

It's been difficult to watch the chief frame SDPD as the victims in this hearing while receiving a 1.5 million budget increase.

I want to echo council member Sean Elo Rivera's question.

Are we actually safer with fewer positive community activities and more policing?

Because the long-term effects of cutting community programs will eventually require even more policing until there's no money left for things that actually make life safe, joyful, and livable.

And on the topic of homelessness, we need money for specialized teams providing deep holistic support rather than relying on police to move people from place to place while stretching officers even thinner.

Real public safety means investing in conditions that prevent harm, not just expanding tools uh used to monitor it after the fact.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Chair, this concludes public comment.

Alright, thank you, Natalie.

Uh, with that, we will go back to council members for one last round of comments before we wrap up the sub item.

And I see council member campio is on the lights.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you to members of the public for calling in and being here today.

Um, I appreciate uh our staff answering a lot of the financial questions today.

Uh, Chief, we heard uh we heard some serious allegations.

Um, protective Kevlar uniform for one of our officers, it's necessary in their position cancelled.

So, council member, uh, let me first state uh I realize in this position I'm gonna take a fair share of criticism as part of the job.

Um I understand the competing forces that are at play.

Uh specifically with what the council president is referring to.

This issue has been pushed near immediately to our city attorney or HR to determine the problem that we have is a negotiated position that he negotiated for.

It is a challenge when you have a middle manager, a lieutenant that is the head of the POA.

So all I'm trying to do is make sure that we're doing things the right way.

There is zero retaliation, whatever pay he's deserved, whatever equipment he's deserved, I have no objection or no uh intent to prevent him from having what he's deserved for for the assignment that he's working.

To make sure that this is done properly, I'm having the people that negotiated this sort it out.

So it's done the right way.

The last thing I want is a perspective that I'm actually buying off the POA president.

I am the one that promoted him.

That's uh chief.

Let me just stop here there.

I'm not I appreciate where you're where you're going with this.

I just very plainly, a person who had a very specific tool that they needed to do their job that protects them and their safety either from injury or death.

Was that canceled?

If you if you're not if you're not allowed, if you're not allowed to answer for whatever reason because there is a complaint, I understand.

But if you can't answer it, was it canceled?

It's not that simple, sir.

Okay, I I appreciate that it's not that simple.

But what I need to communicate is that things, while not simple, some things are very clear, and I think you would agree with this because I know you've protected officers in the past because they need materials you've advocated, you advocate every year.

But if a person's life-saving or injury-preventing gear that they need for their job is canceled.

So that's not the circumstance, sir.

Okay.

So as the you answered was no.

So the answer is no, you didn't.

Okay, what I'm I want to be clear, but it's I want to make sure that you have the full context.

As a lieutenant in charge of our motor unit, you are not required to ride a motorcycle.

Okay.

You can drive in a vehicle.

When uh the POA president was stepped down from being POA president, I moved him over to being the motor lieutenant.

He's in the process of getting certified to ride a motor.

I fully support that.

When he got put back in as president, the position that he's assigned to is a presidential leave position.

It's complicated as a lieutenant.

Because you're not a frontline employee.

You're responsible for sergeants, supervisors, which are in charge of teams.

So I'm just making sure that that's being done properly.

One, two, the equipment that uh he's entitled to was and the pay that comes with that assignment.

So, I'm sorry to interrupt.

I just want to really quickly pause and make sure that the city attorney is comfortable with these questions being asked on the record, since we're we're delving into an HR issue at a relatively like, I appreciate it of depth here.

Council Member Elo River, I appreciate you saying that.

That's why I made a very specific question and I tried to tell the chief.

If you aren't allowed to ask the answer this question, then you should say you can't answer the question, but he continued to answer.

So I I appreciate it, can't be a you're right.

You you asked the simple question, please stop.

That's not HR.

I know you've got a lot of information you want to get out there in public because there was public testimony, but um, I think this is not the place for HR grievance or meeting confer or anything like that.

Public is allowed to come and speak and say whatever they want to speak, but this is not a good place.

So, the focus of your question was on point, a simple yes or no, it's not that simple.

Let's leave it at that.

So, thank you, Councilmember Yellow Vero as well.

Yes, thank you, Chief.

I'm just gonna say if it was if it's a police chief or it's a fire chief, or it's a library department director or anybody who has people under their purview when there's when there's risk of injury and in officers and firefighters, it's risk of death.

Uh I take that incredibly seriously because I think as Council Member Moreno said, I would I do not have it, the ability to do what our officers do.

And so uh I really hope that at the end of whatever comes that whether your answer was gonna be yes, it was canceled or no, is not canceled, that the reasons are justifiable.

I take those allegations incredibly seriously, and um I really do uh whether it was moving from one position to another position, it was justified, not justified.

Moving people between positions is oftentimes a prima fascia uh evidence of retaliation.

So I really hope that what I heard at that microphone uh can be shown to be uh a miscommunication.

And I think what I'm hearing from you is I think there's a you're saying there's a miscommunication.

I think that what I heard out there was a very very clear not miscommunication.

So I'm expecting a very clear answer to that problem very soon when a person's life is at risk, their injuries at risk.

Fix this.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, sir.

Uh we'll go next to Councilmember Elo Rivera.

Um thank you, Council President.

I want to just thank the members of the public for um their participation on in a long morning.

Um first I'm gonna just quickly um acknowledge something that was was um raised during public comment.

I mean it had to do with the uh work of the division of race and equity as part of the IBA's office and and why that matters in this um historical context matters in a conversation about policing.

It couldn't matter more.

From hunting down escaped slaves to enforcing Jim Crow laws, denying people the right to vote, violently dismantling picket lines, disproportionate stops, arrests, and use of force against black communities, Latino communities, and immigrants.

That is part of the historical context that the people who show up in this room bring when the a discussion of police budgeting comes up, and to fail to recognize that is a recipe for a failure to create safety.

Understanding that history isn't an attack on people who serve in police department today, it's essential to making people feel safe.

So that's I want to just name that and say why it's so important and the conversations between Kim and the chief are so important to that end.

Um chief and or Kim, if you all could speak to um the way that um we are using trying to use training as a tool to um address disparities and racism.

I'd appreciate that.

You want to talk about the some of the training that we participated in that you've been a part of.

Uh well.

Let me let me say or let me start by saying uh when we looked at going through this uh these budget reductions.

Uh we took an equity approach to make sure that we're looking at any projected impacts in this situation, it's in large part um in-house because we're looking at management positions.

Um when it comes to training specifically, we we have participated with uh Kim in uh her program that they brought over the last couple years.

We were the first department to go through their leadership and equity training.

Uh I'm fully committed to making sure that uh that is at the forefront uh throughout our organization, and and uh it's an important aspect that I fully believe in.

Thanks for the question, Councilmember.

To date, we have trained 3 about 40 officers around our approach with the historic context, unpacking what it means to navigate and understand racism.

And so I'll leave that there, but definitely the number that we've trained is that.

So I have my team pool those just in case there was a question around that, given that's a part of our work is making sure we provide that training.

So Chief, that sounds like a relatively, and I don't doubt that this matters to you, but that also sounds like a relatively small number of and small percentage of the force.

Can you speak to that at all?

Sure.

So first off, I'm we're going back a little bit of time here.

The library uh staff.

I think it was supervisory personnel.

Yeah, the majority of trained staff for that series was actually police sergeants.

And so I think the question could be implication for your training plan around this topic is what is the if I'm hearing your question correctly.

Perhaps what is the, since we've only trained 341, we've only trained majority police sergeants in that.

Yeah, it was sergeants and I believe lieutenants.

Uh I went through a portion of that program.

Uh my deputy chief at the time went through that program.

Uh it was initially intended to roll out throughout the organization and throughout the entire city.

Uh, if I also remember correctly, I don't want to misspeak, so please uh correct me if I'm if I am.

Uh we ran into some budgetary issues last year, and some of that training kind of stopped at a certain point and did not continue on, and that is part of the barrier to getting the rest of the organization through.

But I'm committed as long as we we have the training available to participate.

Just note on the budgetary issues.

And certainly in the current year you don't have issues, but if you go back prior to that, the whole one of the reasons that race and equity with moved under me as opposed to being a mayoral department was it being restructured, moved around as well.

Uh during that time, Kim was not here, so I don't know that that is a fair question to her.

Um, frankly, the department was not under me.

I don't know if that's a fair question to me.

Uh but council member, I'm happy to get back to you on just the overall status of training with them and what will look like moving forward.

I do think it's worth noting that kind of at the mid-level and above staff, the chief is certainly committed to making sure that that training is rolled out.

Ideally, that ends up being pushed down to uh frontline staff as well.

Um, but we can follow up.

I appreciate that, and obviously uh training doesn't like cure racism, but it's an important component of reducing disparities, acknowledging them, getting to a better place.

Um so thank you for that.

Um so I'll just kind of wrap things up by saying I'll just safety is everyone agrees safety is important.

It's like we say it all the time in our office, it's a universal need and a subjective feeling.

Everyone wants to feel safe.

But safety is not just the absence of crime, it is also a senior getting a warm meal at their recenter.

Safety is a middle schooler at swimming practice after school, safety is a family at story time of the library, safety is a kid in an after school arts program, discovering that they're good at something, safety is a community coming together for a free concert or a beloved holiday celebration in the park.

It's people feeling like they belong to something.

Throughout this week, we've heard community fighting for those investments, and we on this diet have told community we agree with that with the importance, and I think that's been sincere, but we cannot wish those investments into existence.

The money has to come from somewhere, and that's where the conversation about choices become so important.

Uh this budget includes $2 million dollars for surveillance, AI-powered surveillance of everyday San Diegans going about their lives.

I think we can make a different choice.

I want to take that two million dollars and put it into parks, and the programming, the community spaces, and the events that actually make people feel safe, not watched.

With that being said, I also want to acknowledge the commitment made today to identify vacancy savings and direct them toward youth programming.

That matters, so thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Coda, for that commitment.

That's exactly the kind of choice that we should be making in this budget.

And it's that it's the right choice because when a young person was has somewhere to go and something to do, they are safer and our community is safer than when that young person is on the street being surveilled.

A community that feels connected is a safer community than one that feels monitored.

There's two million dollars there.

We have a choice, and I firmly believe that investing in positive opportunity will make San Diego safer.

Thank you, Council President.

Uh all right, thank you, Councilmember Yellow Rivera.

Council Member Von Walbert.

Thank you.

I'll be quick.

Um I want to echo my thanks to Kim and the Office of Race and Equity.

Your work is incredibly important.

And I'm glad you're doing it.

I'm glad you're collaborating with our police chief and everyone to increase training.

I think we need to hear um more from what we can do because it builds trust and trust builds public safety.

So I want to thank you both for working together in like I said, we have to protect our training budget.

Uh you know, other issues around uh diversity, equity, inclusion, which I'm very supportive of in our department are multicultural storefront.

It is a fantastic way to bring outreach to the community and to recruit police officers who reflect the community and speak a variety of languages in a variety of cultures.

I got to go see the storefront recently and was very impressed with the amount of community that comes into the storefront to interact with our police and they host safe community spaces and events there.

So that is protected in the budget, correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

Um and another way that we've been working uh to try and bring more young, especially young families in diversity into our ranks of police officers is to the work of a the child care center.

You know, the very first uh police child care center in the nation was launched here in San Diego, and it's a way to bring young families, especially young mothers, into the police force because you know, lineup is at 6 a.m.

in the morning and child class centers don't open till 6 a.m.

Or if you have to go somewhere in the middle of the night, you need to know your child is taken care of.

And so the person who really started that effort to bring more people into our police force, we lost him recently as well, um, Lieutenant Brian Overa, who is um posthumously promoted to captain, and I was at his funeral as well, and it was heart wrenching um to see us lose him so early.

So I want to thank him and his family for bringing all of the resources we did to our child care center.

I have actually been to every single funeral of a uniform personnel since I got elected, where firefighters, police officers, because it matters.

Sometimes I'm the only council member there.

Because there are families every day who are waiting for people to come home, and I will never ever miss an opportunity to say thank you to their families.

So thank you.

All right, thank you, Council Margaret Von Wallburg.

Uh, Council President Pro Tem Lee.

Thank you, Council President.

Um, I'm actually gonna turn to Coda from the mayor's office.

Um next week I think we're anticipating to see the May revised from the mayor, and uh there's been a lot of discussion about items within this portion of the budget.

Um, should we expect anything that the mayor is looking at in particular?

Within PD's budget, um, you will likely see a position swap, um, a current vacant uh deputy director in finance.

Um the commitment for uh exploring the youth services will likely not be able to be done in time for the May revise, but that is a commitment as we go through the May revise or the discussion of the May revise process that we will make um before final budget adoption.

But I think the significant change will just be the position.

And those are the only anticipated changes at this time?

At this time, I believe so, yes.

Um just to ask because some of the unclassified positions that have have come up in the discussions thus far.

Um relating to political and and communications work.

I mean, Chief, prior to those positions being added to to your office, uh, where was that support coming from?

Uh we had uh captain Jeff Shorten that did much of that work before.

Uh some of the work was never was never done, and it was a gap that has been creating friction in the community.

It has been part of the a missing component in our deliberation as a as a team.

And as far as being able to communicate with all of your offices and navigate through city hall those that's work that we struggled to have sworn personnel, whether it's the supervisor that used to be assigned up in the chief's office, we just try to band-aid approach all of that type of work and so now it is being done under a collective team.

It's being referred to as a a uh you know a policy and or political team um I think that's kind of an unfair characterization.

They do policy level work and they do uh a tremendous amount of engagement seven days in some instances seven days a week uh to to try to better this organization kind of who's assigned from the mayor's office to do policy work with STPD uh I am the policy advisor for public safety and you are currently classified in the IT department correct um I don't really have a comment here other than to note I I think that there's seems to be a gap between where some of this work is done or has been done um wish there was a better answer to that we just spent a morning session talking about communications and the value of a centralized communications department and work that's being done on that front to support various departments and then I think here we're seeing an example of where that centralization doesn't actually serve everyone well I think the positions that we're talking about within PD serve a different purpose than maybe my position in the mayor's office yes I'm organizationally within the department of IT but that's because I handle um the surveillance ordinance of the trust ordinance as well um and so I advise the mayor on public safety policies beyond SDPD while I think the two positions that you're referring to within police do a lot more than just policy it is bringing this um more thorough lens to the work that PD does that I agree with Chief all has maybe been a gap in the past.

So the mayor stands by the budget as it is currently proposed.

Yes okay I'll leave it at that all right thank you Council President Pro Tem Lee uh not seeing anybody else in lights I'll offer a few closing um comments um one of the public speakers spoke about Argis which is uh administered currently by sandag there's been concerns raised at sandag and using while there's not been any verified allegations um there is a concern and so sandag is requesting the state attorney general to do an audit of RGIS uh to see if their controls are sufficient or whether there has been any abuse of the RGIS system going forward so uh to that degree that conference anyway I just wanted to uh advertise that um second uh I think this city takes a pretty serious position on retaliation uh the budget review committee which allows anybody to come in and speak as every department is put forward uh is not the place for us to arbitrate or mediate any such uh allegations there is process it is problematic um and I would certainly ask the mayor and the police chief uh to do everything within your role um to address this I think that's the strongest word I can use uh and uh for all parties to take advantage of whatever mechanisms the city of San Diego has whether it's HR personnel uh city attorney's office uh meet and confer that that whole gamut uh we need to get this behind us uh so that the department can focus on the good work so that the rank and file uh can do the good work they do without a cloud hanging um over their head uh going going forward um so to the degree that's helpful, which it probably isn't, but I felt compelled to say that.

So with that um oh, and the last thing I'm gonna say, because that's kind of came up in my colleagues' comments.

Having paid attention to legislation and enforcement over a very long time, I think it is incumbent us to figure out what enforcement means.

We're not enforcing.

And what happens is we make laws, good people follow the laws, and bad actors just abuse it, and then they get the notice that hey, you're not enforcing.

And whether it's the broken window theory that you articulated, Chief, or it is the challenges of doing enforcement.

I appreciate Councilmember Campillo bringing some language about e-bikes, uh, which my constituents complain about, which is just an impossible thing to enforce on the ground.

Um, but I still believe in that.

How we do it, the degree we do it, the intensity of our enforcement actions is what we have to navigate.

Uh, but if we have loss in the books, there should be a mechanism to to do the enforcement.

So uh proportionate to the crime, the condition.

So I'm gonna close there.

Uh we are now concluded on sub-item N.

So thank you for everyone who participated.