Santa Rosa Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting - January 28, 2025
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Santa Rosa Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting - January 28, 2025
The Public Safety Subcommittee met on January 28, 2025, at 9:00 AM in the Council Chamber. Chair Jeff Okrepkie and Committee Member Eddie Alvarez were present; Natalie Rogers was absent. The meeting focused on a proposed Drone as First Responder (DFR) program, the police department's new five-year strategic plan, and updates from the police and fire departments. The meeting adjourned at 10:09 AM.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Jim Duffy (oversight practitioner, NAACP and ACLU member speaking individually) spoke in opposition to the DFR program, urging the city to adopt a surveillance technology ordinance before expanding surveillance. He raised concerns about data retention, sharing with ICE, and lack of published policies for the real-time crime center.
- Annette Arnold, a Santa Rosa resident, spoke in favor of the DFR program, stating it would save money, time, and lives, and support an understaffed police department.
Discussion Items
6.1 Drone as First Responder (DFR) Program
Police Lieutenant Josh Ludtke and Chief John Cregan presented an overview. The DFR program would deploy drones automatically to emergency calls, aiming to reduce response times from about 6 minutes 31 seconds to under 2 minutes. Drones would be launched from a central location, with a 40-minute flight time and automated battery swap. The program would be funded by grants, not the general fund. Key features: no facial recognition, no listening devices, public flight dashboard, and policy prohibiting sharing with ICE. Subcommittee members expressed support but raised concerns about future use and policy guardrails. Chair Okrepkie noted majority positive feedback and supported moving forward with preferences for recording on arrival and U.S.-made parts.
6.2 Santa Rosa Police Department Strategic Plan (2025-2029)
Chief Cregan presented the five-year plan developed with input from internal staff, a citywide survey (945 respondents), a community meeting (65 attendees), and the Chief's Community Advisory Team (21 members). Six pillars: fostering community safety, organizational excellence, enhancing technology and innovation, organizational wellness, facility and equipment needs, and community engagement. The plan includes 35 objectives and is publicly available on the police department website. Subcommittee members praised the focus on organizational wellness and community engagement.
Department Reports
Police Department Update
Chief Cregan reported on 2024 crime statistics: shooting incidents down 52% (from 361 to 173), illegal firearm seizures up 51% to a record 390 (including ghost guns up 125% to 124), homicides down 80% (from 10 to 2), homeless-related calls down 14%, priority one response time improved to 6:31. However, injury collisions up 19% and fatal collisions up 200% (from 2 to 6). So far in 2025, five homicides reported. The department is focusing on traffic safety and collaboration with Transportation and Public Works.
Fire Department Update
Fire Chief Scott Westrope reported staffing: 165 FTE, three vacancies with an academy in progress. Fire Station 5 construction pouring pad, expected completion April 2026. Fire Station 8 in design phase. Fleet updates: five Type 1 engines on order, two delivered in December 2024; two Type 6 engines expected soon; a ladder truck ordered for 2028. Squads (funded by sales tax measure) running 100-130 calls per week, with a comparative analysis to be presented next quarter.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken. The subcommittee received the DFR presentation and provided feedback supportive of continued exploration, with an emphasis on policy development and community transparency.
- The strategic plan was presented and noted; subcommittee members expressed approval.
- Department updates were informational; no action required.
- The meeting minutes from October 15, 2024, were adopted as presented.
Meeting Transcript
All right, good morning. We're gonna go ahead and call this meeting to order at nine A.M. Can you facilitate roll call, please? Yes. Uh Committee Member Alvarez. Committee Member Rogers. Absent. And Cheryl Kropke. Here. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have no remote participation. Any announcements? Excuse me, would you like me to do the interpretation announcement? Yes, please. Okay. All right, thank you very much. Uh we will move on to uh approval of minutes of the October fifteenth, twenty twenty-four regular meeting minutes. Any amendments to make to those? Seeing none, we will adopt those as presented. Uh we'll move on to public comment on non-agenda items. This is the opportunity for anybody in uh the room to say anything under the purview of public safety that is not agendized. Seeing nobody move towards the lecterns, we will move past that on to new business. Item six point one drone as first responder program. Take it away. I'm a lieutenant center of the police department. Uh as a uh as preparation for this program, uh we've done some research with uh companies that um we're just connecting the PowerPoint stuff showing you want to take a pause for a second or two while we do this. Um, as I was saying, as part of our preparation for presenting this program, we've done a lot of research with some vendors and companies with drone as first responder solutions, as well as speaking with a number of uh public safety agencies that have employed or are in the process of deploying drone as first responder programs. In addition, we've reached out for feedback in our community. Uh we recently had a community meeting with over 30 members uh who voice their concerns, and uh we're able to provide some information about drone as first responder programs, uh and the goal is to build a drone as a first responder program that benefits the needs of our community. So uh that's some of the things that we've done thus far in uh in presenting this program. Um so, first of all, let's talk a little bit about what drone as a first responder is. So um I will refer to drone as a first responder as DFR through most of the uh presentation. Um drone as a first responder is is essentially a system that allows drones to be dispatched immediately to emergency calls. Uh the DFR was developed for public safety officials most importantly to reduce uh response times and to give better situational status to calls for service and emergencies. There's some key differences between traditional drone programs and a drone as a first responder program. Center of the police department has had a drone program since 2018. Uh in our drone program, we currently have uh five drones that we deploy uh for different situations, calls for service, uh such as finding missing people for situational awareness, also for processing scenes when we have crime scenes or traffic accidents, we can deploy drones to quickly uh assess, measure, and uh process crime scenes. Some of the differences and limitations to the drone program that we currently have and the drones first responder program is that those drones are limited to the flight time, they're limited to the amount of situational status that they can provide. So in those situations, uh a drone pilot or the drone spotter uh is able to access that information, but they have to they have to deploy that information through either the radio or other means in order to get that information out to either responding officers or dispatches. That that means that they don't see real time what uh what the what the pilot is seeing. So as I mentioned before, some of the traditional uses for drones, we use them for pre-planned operations like uh tactical SWOT deployments, search and rescue evidence collection, uh, but they're not suited for real-time uh sensitivity. Um DFR are immediately deployed to emergency call for service, and they allow a pilot or a drone to be on scene, usually within two minutes or under from the time that the the drone is deployed. So the DFR pilot uh can be a dispatcher, it can be a police officer, it could be a public safety uh personnel, a real-time crime center specialist, uh, and they are able to fly and uh deploy the drone as needed. Uh that information is also transmitted to uh computer screens that can be viewed in dispatch, it can be viewed in our real-time crime center, it can be given to officers on their phones or on their MDCs so that they can see real-time the situational status of the call that they're going to. So, kind of the workflow in the DFR process is an emergency call is received, such as a 911 call. The drone is launched from a strategic location. The drone is remotely operate operated, providing a live aerial feed to officers, dispatchers, and supervisors. And then that real-time data helps first responders make the f make decisions before arriving on scene to ensure they're better prepared and to take action. Also that we can make sure that we're deploying the right amount of resources and the right types of resources to the calls for service before that either an officer is deployed or they get there.
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