On June 14, 2023, the Santa Rosa Public Safety Subcommittee convened but was immediately adjourned due to a lack of quorum. In consultation with the city attorney and city manager, the subcommittee proceeded with an informal presentation of the Independent Police Auditor's (OIR Group) 2022 Annual Report. No official action was taken, but public comment was accepted. The presentation focused on the first year of OIR's work, including community outreach, case reviews, and recommendations.
I'd like to ask the interpreter currently on the Spanish channel to commence translation of the meeting. For those just joining the meeting, live translation in Spanish is available, and members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in Zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. All right, good morning, everyone. Uh unfortunately, due to a lack of quorum, we're not going to be able to hold an official public safety subcommittee meeting. Um in consultation with the city attorney and the city manager, what we're going to do is our office of uh our OIR is going to give their report. Um we'll take public comment on that. Uh I, as a council member, cannot give any ask any questions, cannot do anything about it. Um it's just basically having an opportunity for OIR to give the report publicly. Um, giving the report. But this is no longer, it is not going to be a public safety subcommittee meeting. It is simply to hear the OIR report. So we appreciate that. I'm sure I'm sure the chief will take time to talk to you after it if you have any questions. I'm ready. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Alvarez. And so now we're going to move directly to the item on the agenda 5.3 with a discussion with the independent police auditor. And the description is the Santa Rosa Police Department Independent Police Auditor will discuss the 2022 independent police auditors annual report and will solicit feedback on the program and methods to engage the Santa Rosa community members. So now we have uh joining us our independent police auditor uh Mike Genaco, uh Steve Connolly, who is does the day-to-day uh work working with our professional standards team and uh their team member uh Brian Korr. So I'll turn it over to them for uh further introductions and for a review of the report. Chief, before we actually turn it over to OIR, um OIR, if you in the sake of transparency of this item, since we do have uh union representation and we also have our professional standards team. If you want to go into questions, maybe with individuals um from the professional standards team and maybe um our union representatives, I don't mind a little bit of back and forth. Um this is a very uh important item. We do want to show transparency, and while we cannot actually um ask questions from the dais and the public, we do uh want the public to know that we take this item. Uh we we heard your feedback, we heard the community uh support for this, so we do want to be able to show our support and show our transparency. So if you do have maybe some back and forth with the team or how you have engaged, um please feel free to to to do that. Thank you. Okay, we'll turn it over uh to you, uh Mr. Dunaco. Uh thank you, Chief. Can you all hear me first? Yes. Great. Um we um are presenting our uh first report, first annual report uh after year one of the work that uh you have been assigned us to do as the independent police auditor. My name is Michael Chinaco, and I am a principal of OER group and have been uh affiliated with the team since 2001. Uh I have Stephen Connolly with me as the chief indicated, and we also uh uh calling in remotely have Brian Kore of our team who um was um very involved in the outreach that we conducted last August, and uh he will talk to you about that. Um look for appreciate the opportunity to present today, uh understand the circumstances uh uh regarding this presentation, but am pleased to know that we will actually have an opportunity to be uh with you all next week in person uh for various presentations, including uh presentation to the full council next week. Could we go to the next slide, please? As indicated, uh our team has over 20 years of experience in law enforcement oversight. Uh we do specialize in the independent evaluation of agencies and their internal review systems, and what that means is um taking a look at taking a look under the hood with regard to the way in which um the department responds when a complaint is received about potential misconduct. Um, how robust that response is, how objective the investigation is, and um whether or not uh with regard to outcomes, whether the outcomes are evidence-based and principles uh based on the information that has been received during the investigation. Um with regard to Santa Rosa, um we have uh four individuals that are primarily assigned to the task. Um as the chief said, our boots on the ground, uh at least boots on the virtual ground, as generally Stephen Connolly. Um he has been most involved in uh the work this year, but he's received help from the rest of the team as well with regard to various matters. Can we go to the next slide, please? This is a reminder to the public about the timeline that got us on the Santa Rosa planet. We first got started in Santa Rosa in earnest as a result of a special assignment that the city and you all um endorsed and authorized us to do, which was uh an outside review of the investigations that stemmed from uses of force and other concerns related to the demonstrations in Santa Rosa following the George Floyd murder, and we were actively involved in that invest in that investigative process. And what I mean by that is that we weren't brought in uh after the investigations were all completed and then asked to evaluate how the police department did. That is how we operate in some of our jurisdictions, but not in Santa Rosa.