Okay, it's 6 31.

I'm gonna go ahead and start the meeting.

Of course, good evening, everyone.

Um, Representative Tom Bouchard.

I am the chair of the uh public safety and health committee for the Stanford Board of Representatives.

Uh so I now call the meeting to order at uh 6 32.

Uh like to take attendance for those uh on the line.

Uh first, obviously, with the committee members.

Uh please sound off with present.

Uh once I call your name.

Uh Representative Terry Adams is vice chair.

Present.

Thank you.

Uh Representative David Blank.

Present.

Uh Representative Matthew Didat.

Present.

Did I say that right?

Diddle.

Did aloe.

I'll try to do better next time.

It's all good.

It's a tough one.

Uh Representative Michael Field.

Oh.

I saw him on the line previous to which.

Um Representative Cara Gilbraid.

Good evening, Chair Bouchard.

Good evening.

Uh Representative Chanta Graham.

Present.

Representative Eric Morrison.

Uh Representative Morrison.

All right.

Representative Kendra Walstron.

Okay.

So we're missing uh Representative Morrison, Representative Walstron.

So we do have a quorum.

Uh, and if there are any other board member uh present uh as ex officiers, uh appreciate your participation.

Um before we actually start the uh formal uh meeting and start working down the items on the um on the agenda, I wanted to quickly uh recognize um uh Lou DeRubis, uh, give him an opportunity to speak.

Uh so do I have a uh motion to recognize Mr.

DeRubis?

Motion motion is second.

Second.

Thank you.

Uh so I know I turn over to Mr.

DeRubis uh for your comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Bouchard.

Uh good evening, representatives.

Thank you for your time.

Good to see everyone.

Uh seems like it's been a few months.

We haven't uh been together since December.

So I hope you had a nice holiday.

Um seeing the agenda tonight, I see we have Jody Bishop, our director of health, who's our first presenter, then our 911 director, Brian Fonden as our second uh presenter this evening.

I just wanted to take a minute before we got into the actual agenda and congratulate uh Jody Bishop and her team.

Um we had a little celebration today to uh celebrate the fact that our health department was officially uh accredited this month, which is a huge deal for our health department to gain that national accreditation.

And it's been an effort that they've been working on for several years.

Um it's very painstaking, and it truly is the standard of excellence uh when it comes to health department.

And I'm very proud of uh Director Bishop and her leadership team and all the work and all the uh partnerships that were involved in making that happen.

So I just wanted to publicly acknowledge that.

Um and for those of you who have spoken with me, that I just wanted to to um to to remind you that that was one of my goals coming into this role as a public safety director about three and a half years ago to get all of our public safety and health departments accredited.

Um so within that time, uh police department is be has become accredited.

Um Sims is accredited, our EMS provider.

Uh Jody is now accredited, and uh Director Fawnan is currently working on getting national accreditation for a 911 dispatch center.

So today was uh definitely a day to celebrate uh all that hard work.

Jody and her team put into it.

And I just wanted to make sure that they were recognized for all that hard work and all their dedicated service that they continue to uh provide our residents in our city.

So thank you.

Thank you very much, Lou.

And uh, I all extend our congratulations uh to Ms.

Jody Bishop and um Poland and her efforts to get certified and validated.

That's uh that's a tremendous accomplishment.

And um, we appreciate your ongoing services to the city.

So uh on the agenda today, we have two items.

Um the first item is uh we're gonna have two.

We're gonna have uh as mentioned um Miss Jody uh Bishop Pullen speak, and she will provide us uh an overview of health and human services for the city of Stanford.

Brian Fonan.

You're gonna have to correct me.

I pronunciations are horrible.

So Lou or Brian, could you correct my pronunciation of your last name?

Brian Fawn.

Fawn in Okay, thank you, Brian.

Uh Director of Stanford Emergency and Communications Center.

Um I've asked both of them to provide an overview of their respective offices and the services they provide to the city of Stanford.

Um obviously both leaders, as as Lou has mentioned, critical to how the city operates and the services they provide.

Um and so it's it's important for us as members of this uh committee to be familiar with each of the functions of their office.

Uh and that is why I've asked them to give presentations tonight.

Um so I've asked uh Ms.

Bishop Pulland to go first and then um Mr.

Fawn and after that.

Uh so now I'd like to introduce item number one, which is PS32.002 from the agenda, which is a review overview by of the Stanford uh Department of Health and Human Services Services by Ms.

Jody Bishop Pullen.

Uh I'd like to entertain a motion to take up item one, please.

So moved.

Is there a second?

Back in.

All right, thank you.

Uh so I will now turn the floor over to Miss U Bishop Pullen for her presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I appreciate being here.

I really love talking about the department.

And I think uh many times it's a lot more than anyone ever knew all of the responsibilities we have and how we uh intersect with all the other departments.

Um we provide services that cover many, many different areas, and therefore we are working very closely with and providing support to many, you know, most of our departments in the city in many ways.

Um I'm very fortunate to be uh working under the director of public safety, health and welfare, Director DeRubis, and I thank him for his kind words about our um recent accomplishment.

Um I can I I I'll just uh be able to go quickly over that slide.

But um we um you know, we we did work really hard to get that, and that does uh give us a really good standing within the state nationally, and uh we think it will be uh a you know very good uh standing uh for us to be in for the city as a whole.

Um it's very uh very good that we also work very closely with public safety because um I feel that emergency response is one of our primary um you know activities and being able to be uh in such close partnership with them and uh it is very um advantageous to how we can best respond to meet the needs of our residents should there be a public health emergency.

So with that, I'm going to uh share my screen.

I do have some slides to uh show you uh an overview of our department.

I also want to introduce Ibrahima Job.

He is the assistant director of health and the director of environmental health and inspections.

Environmental health is such a key part of our our uh work um with uh 17 mandated programs that they have to um provide.

And uh I thought if there were any questions that were specific to his division, it would be helpful to have him here.

Um let me see about pulling this up.

Um I think that how does that look, uh chair?

That showing?

Okay, all right, thank you.

So um let's see, I have to do slide.

I haven't done a slide presentation on Zoom in a long time.

Um so the department is charged with delivering the 10 essential public health services.

That is our key role.

That encompasses really all of the work that we do.

Um, and everything can be broken down into one of those services.

Uh we do have um a vision of promoting and protecting the health, well-being, and quality of life through advocacy, collaboration, practice, and education.

We have a mission, achieving healthy and safe outcomes for the community we serve.

And then we have values, and it's really um interesting that these values align really well with why we're accredited because we do um uh hold these values true and um and maintain this work.

Um for a uh staffing overview.

Um we do have several divisions, which I'll go into more detail about.

We have, you know, about 88 to 90 employees.

Some are most are full-time, but we do have some part-time staff who aren't listed on this chart and some grant-funded staff.

I have two health educators, for example, that are on grants and aren't listed on here.

But for the most part, this is our staff.

So in the divisions, we start off always with our administrative division.

They are the folks that I always like to say keep our lights on.

So they keep us all working, get our bills paid, keep all our revenue coming in, and manage sort of the day-to-day, you know, what happens in the department.

And also just taking care of people who come in, who call, and making sure that they all get to the right place and get their questions answered and their needs met.

From everyone knows about food establishment inspections, but also housing, housing code uh enforcement is one of the major programs.

If you look at our city and see how many multifamily dwellings we have, makes sense.

Septic pools, beaches, daycare inspections, weights and measures, making sure that when you go and buy a pound of baloney, you're getting a pound of baloney.

Making sure that when you're putting in a gallon of gas, it's a gallon of gas.

That's something that not everyone thinks about.

Refuse trucks, make sure they're all permitted inspected, and our eviction storage program, which kind of dovetails in with some of our other housing services.

And zoonotic diseases such as rabies.

So he facilitates that and also assists the nurses very much with a lot of the vaccine management and making sure that they have everything they need to run their clinics.

Our school and nursing and dental hygiene program is very large.

That's one of our largest number of employees.

And there's many, many students that have to be managed.

They offer services in public and private parochial schools and then you know, just make sure that children are healthy and safe while they're in school.

For community nursing, those are the ones that we all know give our flu shots and COVID vaccines.

Their focus really is infectious disease management when it comes to STD tests, STD testing, TB management, and other infectious diseases.

For example, if we were to get a measles case in the city, they would be the ones that would be managing that.

Child uh they do also childhood um vaccines and physicals to make sure children can get into school.

Um newer to our programs is um director Sharona uh Cowan in charge of housing services.

Um, and that's uh really looking at how to facilitate housing retention, helping people get into housing.

Um she responds to landlord tenant inquiries and facilitates fair rent complaints.

She's holding a big housing fair this weekend, so that is something that she implemented last year and was very successful in terms of getting out information, bringing together many partners around housing services to make sure people have access to information that they need.

This is also a good way for them to connect with each other, the providers.

Um the next person, uh Brittany Dubay has uh many different roles.

One is an emergency response, one of our uh most important programs.

Um, and we make sure that the department has plans, uh training and partnerships to be able to respond to emergencies, delivers uh PPE to community organizations, assists uh residents and getting preparedness information.

We've had a very successful emergency go bag giveaway in the last couple of years, and we're planning more for this spring.

So it's really important that people know how to respond in an emergency, what they're supposed to do, where they can get information, and then we also provide sheltering if the city needs to open shelter for those in affected areas.

Health promotion and disease prevention is another area, making sure that again people have access to information, educational programs, and they also serve as very important roles on our community coalitions.

And then also she has some of the human services staff under her supervision, and they facilitate access to insurance enrollment, which in turn gives access to care, health care for people, help them navigate the system, navigate health care and both health care and insurance.

And then we provide support to seniors and making sure that seniors and adults with disabilities have some of the social support that they need.

Some of our highlight programs and grants is man are managed by Dipica Kushalani, and we have an air quality monitoring program right now, a breath of fresh air indoor asthma program, wastewater testing both for diseases and substances, which is new, local heat and air quality response planning, which is now we have a grant for that that is coming before the board.

We have a grant with some other partners, a gun violence prevention grant with our public safety partners and others, uh workforce development, quality improvement, and performance management falls under that.

So, in terms of performance, we've uh we're able to get a lot of work done so far this year.

Um we gave 481 flu shots this year.

Um the school nurses have been busy busy completing their mandated screenings, um, and also the dental uh program had been uh doing screenings and offering sealants uh as a preventive mechanism.

Um the lab collected uh a lot of water samples this year, um, as well as the ticks because you know um Lyme disease is always uh an issue as well as other tip boring illnesses.

Um we've made sure that we're very visible in the community.

So we've been uh attending community event and we've been getting requests in frequently now for the spring.

So that looks to be very busy.

Um question persuade refer uh trainings are very popular.

Those are suicide prevention trainings, as we've done more work in mental health in the community.

And then the environmental health inspectors are always busy.

They respond to complaint after complaint after complaint, um, making sure people have access to usually those tend to be more uh a lot around housing, but can be in other areas such as noise and other you know, other types of complaints.

Um, and then the food establishments.

It's another thing we have a lot of in the city is food establishments from the little bodegas and delis to the large um sit-down um eating food establishments.

Um so I I like this slide because it tells us a little bit about what's happening in the community and gives us sort of like, you know, this it just gives us a you know kind of a snapshot.

Um so compared to last year, so 2425 and a compared uh 25 um 2425 to the previous year, 2324, and we had uh more, a lot more complaints.

Uh the number of housing violations doubled.

As I said, many of our complaints are around housing.

So we need to make sure people are in safe and healthy housing.

Um 150% increase in the number of clients relocated due to housing code violations.

Um, then uh the number of fair rent complaints more than doubled.

That gives you a little bit of idea what's happening around housing.

And then the increase in request for housing services information.

We had a 29% increase in tick testing.

We distributed more radon tests.

And we had an increase in our STD program.

The nurses in the schools delivered 4,000 more medications.

So that tells you what the acute acuity of need is in our schools and why we need to make sure our school nurses are well staffed and can respond.

The dental referral rate and some good news decreased that this past year.

So that was good.

That means children are getting more care.

And that's due to the case management that they provide, making sure kids that are identified do get into care.

And then we did have a 66% increase in the number of events we attended.

And we made many social media posts.

So those were two pieces of good news.

And then again, talking about what what we are seeing in our community.

This is done every three years with Stanford Hospital, Stanford Health.

And we work in partnership with them.

And this does guide our work.

So the three top issues have not really changed.

Behavioral health rose to the top again, access to health care and housing as the third.

And you know, what we tried to do this year was to kind of, those are really big buckets, and we want to be able to do something, not just know it's happening.

So, you know, we identified areas that we thought could make we could, you know, make some headway in.

That's youth mental health because we are working around that, and access to services, um, you know, mental health services and the adult alcohol use were issues that we thought we could really hone in on and make some um headway.

Um access to health care, we know that insurance and cost are two major barriers, so we can work very diligently, especially with the changes in some of the federal guidelines around insurance to make sure people are not losing their insurance coverage, which will impact their ability to get health care.

Um access to preventive and specialty care, making sure those networks are working well, um, and then uh navigating the health health system.

And then under housing, affordable and deeply affordable housing are important areas, access to shelters, housing for seniors, senior um housing, you know, unhoused folks is right is a rising issue that we need to pay close attention to and um and then housing quality and safety, which falls uh falls to us.

Um so under the community health improvement plan, we are uh that was just approved by the Stanford Health Board.

Um, and our staff participated in focus groups related to building that out.

Um, and we have opportunities to support those goals and tactics, which we are all now going to be meeting in work groups to discuss and how we're going to divvy up that work.

Um, so that's uh where we are with our uh community health needs assessment and our chip.

Uh our department has a strategic plan uh of our own.

We have three um strategic priorities, and that's maintaining and improving programmatic excellence through continuous quality improvement and accreditation, and now we'll be looking at reaccreditation, um, increasing the capacity of our public health workforce, and that's focusing on development and training and growing our um our human services workforce, and then um uh enhancing our community engagement.

Um, when I came uh into the role uh oh nearly five years ago, um we really needed to do a lot of work to reestablish our community um relations.

Um we already had this announcement.

We were accredited, wearing my sticker, we had a celebration today.

Um it was awarded on February 12th, uh, and it took about a week for them to uh give us that result.

Um we have achieved a standard of excellence.

We are um uh um, you know, it just it's it's national guidelines that we're being compared to.

Um those are evidence-based and practice-focused um guidelines.

We had to meet uh um compliance with 140 measures um and submit 203 documents across 10 domains, and that met um the 10 essential public health services.

Um we it took a long time.

We started the work in the fall of 2021 and had to start all over with the new community health needs assessment and chip back in 2022, uh a new strategic plan, and then just building it out from there.

Um they we submitted everything in January of 25.

It was reviewed by their uh uh board, and then um it was uh sent back to us.

We had to resubmit some documents and do some further refinement, and then they did an on-site visit on December 11th just to make sure we were doing what we said we were doing on paper, and um, they were quite impressed.

Um there were strengths identified as our infrastructure and governance, um, emergency preparedness, which is really really important, uh, workforce development and training, and our community partnerships.

So we can see we were very successful in getting uh those things done.

Um I thought it was important that you know how to contact us.

Um our main number uh by phone is 4399, and we have a pretty good system of getting you to where you need to go.

Um, and then after hours, uh you can call uh dispatch and dispatch will call us if needed if there is a public health emergency.

Um if you have a resident that calls you and says, you know, I have no heat, I have no water, something like that.

We can get um we can get someone to respond.

Um and then um these are my phone numbers, um, a Brima's phone numbers, and then our um email.

I uh call attention to the email because um emailing us individually on the weekend.

If it, you know, if it's me or a Brima, it's usually works, but if it's someone else on the leadership team, um they may not be um uh cut, you know, paying attention to their email as closely as we as the 24-7 people do.

So it's important to um email that and then someone will see it and um hopefully respond.

But don't be afraid to call my cell phone number at any time if you really need to reach me.

Um I'm as I said, I'm 24-7.

So I'm I'm happy to uh to help wherever I am needed.

So I didn't know if there was any questions or yeah, we'll uh we'll open up for questions and thank you very much for the presentation.

Uh very thorough.

Um I'm sure there are there are folks who have questions, so we'll open it up right now.

Um entertain a motion to open the meeting for questions.

So thank you.

Uh so now open it up.

Uh so raise your hands virtually.

Um, I do see uh uh David Blank, uh representative blank.

Uh please go ahead.

You're on mute.

There we go.

Sorry.

There you go.

Um thank you.

Uh congratulations, uh uh Ms.

Pulland uh to uh getting the accreditation.

That must be uh a big uh weight off your shoulders.

Uh what is the um re-accreditation process, not process, but what is the the number of years or is it annual or how does that work for you?

Right.

It is it is five years that we have to submit for formal reaccreditation, uh, but we do have to submit reports annually.

And already they emailed us and said, we'll be meeting with you, so we'll tell you what we expect to see in those reports.

So yeah, yeah.

It was like, hey, you're accredited.

Oh, by the way.

So I do have a second question, uh if you wouldn't mind.

Um, and uh this goes to you and your team on uh we've had a lot of uh discussion on the board uh about air quality.

Um and I know that's uh sore subject to some in the in the community, um, and I know there's very little you can do about it.

Um, but has that process continued, that study continued.

Um, and is there a way we can as the board uh see that study or the report thereof?

Well, there is access to the data on the on um on the public safety dashboard and our dashboard um any time.

And you can also sign up to follow the um monitors and get alerts if you know if there is a bad air quality day.

It was interesting um that there was a bad day on this not this past no storm, the snowstorm before on the 24th.

It was the same day that there was the bus fire, and there was also a bus fire at um the PAL Center at the old Chester Addison building on Selleck Street.

So it picked it up right away that there was poor air quality and sent out an alert, um, which you know, I think is important because uh even something like that bus fire, you might not think about it, but that occurred.

And if you are in a sensitive group and maybe wanted to know you shouldn't be heading out right then, not that anyone who's going out in that snowstorm anyway, but you know, if it wasn't a snowstorm and it was another kind of situation, I think you know that's important.

But um, we are um in fact, the um one of one of the grants um that just came through was to have a um an emergency response uh plan for heat and air quality.

So what do we, you know, like what is our plan for responding to these situations and the data that we're collecting will be key because that's what we'll be be basing our response on.

And then how I also see it is how we are going to work with um, you know, the comprehensive plan calls for taking that data and and how what how are we going to use it to do some mitigation strategies?

So I'm you know, very interested in working with the folks on the on the tree planting and different things like that that are going to be happening in the city so that um you know, and and just thinking about rolling out the electric vehicles and things that maybe, you know, then there's some advocacy we can do around the with the state in terms of you know the nine to five corridor and all so I think we have, you know, I don't while I don't think we have concrete ways of what we're going to do in the end.

I think the fact that we're collecting the data is going to inform what we might be able to do and then be able to see if there's any um change going forward.

Well, thank you for your input.

I appreciate it.

And uh, we look forward to working together with you guys.

So I can um also uh for anyone who's interested, and I can send it to the chair if you want.

I can send we do get uh full reports of you know that shows like day to day on what's happening, so I can send those as well.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you, David.

Uh recognize uh Matt Didla.

Thank you.

Um I did have just a really quick question.

Like I think more broadly is what are we most like as representatives most likely going to be reaching out to you about when it comes into regards to working with the health department?

You know, is that going to be someone you know having something about a neighbor or something in their home going on, or is there something different that usually that we would be serving as that liaison between the constituent and uh the health department to make sure that their needs are fulfilled?

And I don't what your opinion was on that would be great.

Well, I think like it I think you're the eyes and ears in the community for us in a lot of ways.

So you're hearing things that um that we may not come to us, may not come to us.

Um and it's just good to check in to say, you know, a resident said this or is seeing this happening.

Um, you know, is there what can you do or can you respond?

Um that you may know that we already can respond to, or you may be wondering if we can respond to.

Um so we have people, uh even I had um one of the emails I got from one of the reps was about um an encampment that was occurring.

Um, you know, because we have our cold weather protocol in place, um, and what how we're responding to that with our public safety partners, I could respond to that right away, get it to the director, um, director DeRubis, and he and make sure that it got to the right partners so that there could be an immediate response.

So that it could be something like that.

It could be, you know, someone's leaving a lot of garbage around and in a certain neighborhood and we need to, you know, check on that, or um, there's no water or no heat somewhere, that's really important to get to us right away.

But but even broader than that could be um bringing to us things that you think are issues in the community that you wonder if we could provide response to, you know, some of our work around mental health has become as was because we know we were hearing from the community that this was a need to address.

You know, some of our work around mental health has become as was we were hearing from the community that this was a need to address.

So, you know, so that we can make sure we're hearing what you're hearing.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, answered it.

Yeah, thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Any further questions uh for Miss Bishop Pullen.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much, ma'am.

Um, again, congratulations on your accreditation.

Um, that's terrific.

Thank you.

Uh so at this time I'd like to shift uh and move to item number two, which is PS32.003, which is a review overview of the Stanford Emergency Communications Center.

Um provided by Mr.

Brian Fonan.

Uh at this point, uh, do I have a motion to recognize Mr.

Fonan and his presentation?

So move.

Okay.

Second.

Uh so moved and seconded.

I now turn the floor over uh to Mr.

Brian Fonan.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thank you for having me.

I'll just give you a quick overview of the 911 or the emergency communication center here in Stanford.

We're a standalone operation where we supply um first responders with the information we gathered through 911s and through administrative calls.

We're located in the government center.

I'm staffed with 29.

I'm supposed to be staffed with 29 dispatchers.

I'm currently at 26.

I have five civilian dispatcher supervisors, and I have three intermediate supervisors that work the floor and we'll back up my supervisors.

When you come into the ECC, you'll come through a secured uh dedicated access door that only provides entrance to the EOC and the ECC.

I came here in December of 2005, 2004, and the center was a little bit outdated.

I was able to with my staff go through and freshen up the area.

It hadn't been cleaned or taken care of in the last 20 plus years.

So I'll show you some.

That's a April of 2025.

We removed all the staff from here and put them in our backup location, which is located at Sterling Farms.

It's a temporary area if there's an air issue here at 888, or if we have tech technical issues inside the ECC, we have a backup station where we can go and dispatch.

And then we would also use Greenwich 911 center.

We cleaned everything up, and the city was able to come in and provide us with new flooring with painting, and we modified the ECC as best we could with new technology.

We took a storage room and made it a dedicated training room.

Um that's now where we in-house our personnel that we onboard.

Currently, I have four brand new trainees that we hired in December of 2025.

They spent a month in there and they are up to speed, and by doing that was able to cut back on our training time.

That's a break room for the dispatchers for their breaks.

They need a quiet time due to a traumatic call or incident that they had to deal with.

That's also what we I would refer to as my roll call room where they come in at their shift and their supervisors greet them and hold roll call and provide them with pertinent information from the prior shift or what is actually going on currently in the city.

The now to get into it would be when I got here, we were short staffed.

I had three terminations at the beginning of the year.

And how we did that is my supervisors came up with QR codes.

They went out to the Yukon University over here, posted it on all social media, and we accepted 125 applications for the testing, and we took four in December.

I shortened the training that we were doing here.

Most dispatchers would go out onto the floor and spend six to eight months with a trainer, and they would go from station to station.

So for you that are not familiar with the ECC.

I have a minimum of five dispatchers.

We have a call take, we have multiple call taking stations.

That's where the initial call comes from, whether it's a 911 or administrative call.

The dispatcher would take the information gather and enter it into the our system, and then they would determine whether or not it was going to a PD response, fire or SIMS.

And then I have a dedicated fire dispatcher that assists with Stanford's FIRE and SIMS for medical and obviously fire issues.

And then my two dedicated radio person are for PD, where they provide information that PD is requesting for history, criminal checks, and a main dispatcher who dispatches police cruisers or personnel to locations.

So with that with the training room, with upstaffing my PSDs or my dispatchers to certify trainers, we were able to have a larger training pool and cut back on some of the mundane training that was going on here by putting them on all three shifts.

So now I a new trainee will go midnights, days, and evenings after they do their four or five weeks in our training area, and it'll speed them up as they go from one position to another throughout their training.

Each day they get graded by their CTOs onto it.

And if there's an issue, we will slow it down, or we can extend their training to it.

The four trainees that we have, they're ready to be released on their own, so that they will now take over a console or position sometime around May 1st, May 7th, that first week of May.

And a lot of this is being able to be done because prior to me getting here, this was run by the police department.

I received five civilian dispatchers as supervisors when I came here in December of 2024.

And with their oversight, their experience, and their dedicated position as dispatchers, they were able to see some flaws and turn that into change the flaws and make it a little smoother here because of their experience coming from outside agencies.

The other thing I did is I took my supervisors and I provided them with direct tasks.

So I have a PIO supervisor as well.

She does what we would call community outreach.

She provides information to the citizens of Stanford on how to enter health information into their cell phones, register their alarms with the PDs through our system, educate individuals on when to call 911 compared to administrative lines, and provide all updates that we can through our exhaustive social media that we increased here.

We follow Jody's department.

We go with PD, FD, and SIMs when they're doing outreach other places, and we cross-train with all three other departments so that the dispatchers know what the uh other public safety personnel are dealing with and how it how they're working out on the road.

It's called Rapid SOS Unite.

We did that to save money and to and to increase our software capability by laying other software programs we have here, such as our drone program, such as our Apple and Google phones, where we can get much clearer GIS or GPS locations as well as health information into it that provides us with an AI translation, either text or phone verbal to it.

And as we gather more software throughout the public safety department, Rapid SOS is increasing their co-workers or co-products into it, and we were constantly layering.

And as we find stuff that works for us, such as first view, which is our bus system here in the city.

We reached out to Rapit and we told them that we want first view on their system.

They will now go out and they're trying to uh proc their first view to come over, and that would now give us a view of where the buses are on our master maps out here onto it.

It's an incredible software.

We're the only ones in the state right now that have their premium package.

We are their flagship for any type of police departments or other ECCs will come here to view what we are doing, how we're using it.

And it's become an extremely valuable tool on Jody's side with elderly people with medical issues or medical concerns at a house.

As they call 911, it alerts us to any type of medical uh condition that may be at the residence or with the person with the phone itself.

There's a uh Stanford has a bunch of different languages in the city.

I believe we're at 72 different dialects.

We only have five.

I'm sorry, we only have four bilingual dispatchers here, and they speak Spanish.

So Rapid SOS helps us to with the translation for Creole, uh Jamaican, uh French, all the other languages, it's increasing our capabilities as a real-time translation to it.

The reason I mentioned the uh the front door, we pushed back our access control.

We elongated it so that now the emergency operations center and the ECC is completely contained on the six on the floor where I have control of it and directed DeRubis, and we now meet state and federal guidelines for governing of the ECCs and as to who can and cannot enter the facility.

You're more than welcome to, as long as we know you're coming in.

It's uh restricted to when we know people are coming or to people that I provide access to.

Like Jody, my boss has tasked me initially to come here and do accreditation.

So I recently joined Calia accreditation.

We were discussing, we had Zoom meetings on Calia today, and that will accredit my entire uh department.

There is no standalone ECC in the state of Connecticut that's accredited.

There's one police department that has a combined 911 center that is accredited, and it's Madison PD.

So we're working with them closely on it, and we're currently working on our EMD accreditation, which is our medical dispatch program that we're using, and we're using priority dispatch with that.

So we will get accredited in multiple levels and multiple software areas to it.

I um big proponent of training since I've been here.

I've shipped out, I believe almost all of my dispatchers out to New Mexico for FEMA funded training at the energetic material training grounds out in New Mexico Socorro, where they get a week-long training on how to prevent or investigate instant response to suicide bombings or terrorist attack.

It increases their understanding for call taking and it increases their understanding to sometimes think outside the box because you don't know what kind of call comes in.

It allows them to now understand the much broader picture, especially with our proximity to New York City.

I have send them out to any type of free training that we can get inside the state of Connecticut, either by going to other dispatch centers or through the state of Connecticut.

The D set will provide us with training or will fund training for us, and it is increasing their knowledge and wherewithal as to what is going on in and around the city, and it's get increasing their confidence with the calls that they are getting, and it increases everybody overall.

We're still in the process of renovating the 911 center as best we can.

It's more now about technology and to that aspect.

Some of the concerns we're we're going to have or are having right now is my end-of-life Motorola equipment, is uh coming to end the life.

That's our primary radio system used here in the city.

That will be coming to an end of life in 2032.

So we'll be looking at that financially through the city to start beginning the process of integration of new equipment.

The consoles that we sit at in here, there's 12 of them.

The consoles are 25 years old, they're very expensive, they're no longer supported by the vendors, they're broken, they're not in the best of shape.

We make it work because we can make it work.

That's my goal would be to start slowly integrating new consoles there.

Um, there has been some physical injuries due to the age of the consoles, but we're dealing with it as we go.

As far as uh my personnel, we're at 26 right now.

I'm down one PSD2, which will be an internal hire probably.

I expect to hire four more uh PSD ones before the close of the before the end of uh 2026, and that may increase because I have the potential to lose up to seven dispatchers within the next three years due to retirement.

I two have retired, one in January and one in October, and I have uh up to seven more that can all retire within the next three years.

One is retiring in July of 2026.

The software is always changing.

It's one of our biggest, it's one of our biggest vendor um areas with AI changing and constantly moving.

We can't keep up with the new technology onto it.

So instead of going into long-term contracts, I, with the assistance of uh Director DeRubis, we've now pushed our vendors instead of doing five years contracts.

We are now trying to get them into two or three-year contracts because technology is moving at that speed that I do not want to lock us into a software or technology that will be outdated in the next six to 18 months.

The rec we reconfigured the ECC so it opened it up and it became more useful for us.

If you come to the ECC, we uh we have mounted new monitors so that we can now see more of the city on our map systems.

We are oversee the drone uh DFR program here.

So we have dedicated monitors to that so that my dispatchers, as my supervisors are flying in the drones, can dispatch to the police or fire what they see firsthand so that we can slowly uh envelop or close on criminal or to see actual fires from structures prior to the fire department getting there, and it's increasing the both the police and the fires response time and alleviating some officers as we start to determine what we are learning from the drone and what we're seeing to it.

Technology at Sterling Farms is my is my Achilles Heel.

It's a it's an old structured facility at the end of the driving range.

And this summer or later this spring, I will be tackling that with trying to update the technology there as a fallback center.

I need it to be able to function and be reliable.

We will use Greenwich, obviously, for our 911 calls for right now.

We do have backpackable CAD systems that the state will provide us, so they can honestly be 911 anywhere in the state.

And I also have a backup facility provided by the state of Connecticut and Meriden where I can send my dispatchers if need be to it.

The benefits and the improvements here in the ECC abound.

I was not here when the police department was here as supervisors.

I can only speak of what I've seen for the last 14 months.

By having the dedicated supervisors that I've had for the last 15 months, they've absolutely enhanced the operational effectiveness here.

They've increased the speed of response by dispatch because they understand as dispatchers how to dispatch and what needs to go out the fastest and soonest.

Why do we let things hang?

We don't let time or callers hang there anymore for 20 or 30 minutes due to other issues going on in the city.

They have taught and they're training the dispatchers here to maneuver the police cruisers or the district cars from one call to the other, and the PD is adjusting with that.

With that, they've reduced the call times.

They've also we have also not experienced any union issues in 15 months.

There's not been one grievance, there's not been one union complaint since I took over in December of 2024.

Prior to that, there were grievances here, there were union issues here, and I directly reflects on my supervisors and how they handle and how they lead out there on that floor.

The other plus side is the state of Connecticut provides us with funding for training.

They will recoup, we can recoup up to almost 75% of training budget back.

With that, we have to meet a standard.

When a 911 call comes into the center, we have less than 10 seconds to answer that call and start taking in that information.

We have gone in that slide right there that you were looking at.

From 2024, we were answering the call in 91.39 seconds out of 186,000 calls.

We were only 10 calls off between 2024 and 2025.

With the supervisors, they've increased the call ratio to 94 and a half percent.

We went from the 87th position out of 106 uh 911 centers in the state to 54 in nine months.

We only graded up to the third quarter as of right now.

But what is the interesting part is the abandoned calls in the lower columns.

An abandoned call is if the phone doesn't get answered in 10 seconds, it hangs for that.

And it's judged by it's the slide right above that one, ma'am, or sir.

Um, that one right there.

The call hangs until the operator hangs up the one phone or somebody else picks up the phone.

We went from 211 hang times to 66 for 10 for uh 10 to 20 seconds from 760 for 20 to 30 seconds, which if anybody's a volunteer or law enforcement knows that that is a lifetime on the phone call to 120.

That is the most impressive spot there is because we were able to now increase our call volume by adding an unknown 911 call seat in the ECCs.

We went from three 911 seats to four 911 seats now.

So we are accomplishing stuff that is wasn't here in 2023 or 2024, and it's directly reflected by the supervisors and the training that the state's providing to your dispatchers out there.

Your next slide just gives us your calls for where we are and how we've increased over the last two years.

I didn't want to reach too far back.

Um in 2023, we're at 91.9, and we're now at 94.47.

As of today, the latest we have, we're at 97.2% answering time at uh under 10 seconds.

I can't ring the bell out here for anything else.

We are the first responders by being the first people to answer, and I can only that's their go to is are these stats onto it.

And obviously what my dispatchers here on one side of the phone is what they deal with and what makes them the first responders.

I don't have photos or morning reports of arrests or fires that they fought.

I just have that they've answered the phones, they've talked to those people, and they help felt those victims in their ears and dispatch through the emotion to get the personnel there.

That is all I can say about my ECC.

If you have any personal questions or any other questions I can answer, I'd love to.

All right, I'll uh thank you very much.

It was awesome.

Appreciate the presentation.

Uh now uh entertaining a uh motion to open for questions.

All right, so we'll open the floor for questions.

Uh please raise your hand.

Uh IC Representative Adams, please go ahead.

Um, yeah, so my question is um the drones.

Uh, when did nine one one um start using drones?

How long has it been going?

So 911 is only the initiating of the DFR program.

So when the drones came into effect through Director DeRubis on the Republic Safety back in October, we only launched the DFR drones, which are two of them, and those are the drone first responders.

We launched them to the drop pin at whatever call we deem necessary for fire, it would be for a possible structure fire.

So since the beginning, my supervisors and only the supervisors launch those drones to a pin drop, and if they need to, they will operate the drone over an incident until a dedicated pilot for either PD or FD shows up and takes control of it.

What is a pin drop?

So a pin drop is in the map.

If there was a fire call at 123 Main Street in the system of the drones that we use in the mapping system, we would type in 123 Main Street and it would show up almost like your GPS in a car.

We would then click on that house and it would leave a red pin.

Once we do that, we would hit the launch button.

The drone would then launch from its from its location and traverse to that pin area, and then it would stay over 123 until we returned it back to its its home.

So who is getting the information from the drone if you did that and the fireman needed information?

So, how do the firemen get the information from the drone to the fire?

So this ECC has a full-time fireman here, a uh lieutenant or captain who has a 55-inch monitor that sees what is going on from the drone, and he then talks back to his fire department or the fire personnel, or the fire dispatcher, one of my dispatchers can see the drone's footage and can describe what is going on to the fire personnel at the scene.

Same thing with law enforcement.

If we were looking for um a stolen car at Adam's parking lot and it was pink, and we flew the drone out there, the dispatchers would say, Hey, we see a pink, we see a pink car in the back behind the dumpster of the Adams grocery store.

We provide that live information to the officers.

Does that answer your question, sir?

Yeah, answer my question, but uh I remember having this at the state of Connecticut.

So um who keep the law when the drone is being used, so the ability of the zone don't get abused.

So I we the ECC keeps the logs of all drone launches and uses in each department has a policy and procedure as to how their technology video or whatnot is stored and can be retrieved.

Uh Director DeRubis would probably be the person to speak to on that, because that's outside of me my wheelhouse as to that, other than we go by whatever Connecticut FOIA's um case law is or their requirements on it.

Okay, yeah, because um the example you use um for the not uh for the drone going on private property and spotted a car.

Um, how do you get around for your for um search warrant?

So at that point, do that go to law enforcement, laws law enforcement get uh search warrant to go find that stolen car.

You don't know.

So I'm I'm not gonna speak as far as law enforcement.

My background is law enforcement.

Um I was just using that as an example in a public area.

I wasn't I couldn't, I couldn't give you the sir.

I couldn't give you the specifics.

If you lived at 123 Main Street on 50 acres and we flew the drone there and saw a stolen car, that would probably more come under the legal aspect that I am not privy to speak upon I seen um Lou DeRu De Rubis just put his hand up.

Maybe he can collaborate on that.

Yeah, for permission to speak chair.

Yeah, hi Rev Adams, how are you?

So if you go to our public safety website, we have a drone, a DFR tab there that has all the information on our program.

Um, and you know, we before vetting this program, it took almost two years uh by getting all of our policies together, working very closely with with legal, and we made sure that um access control uh and privacy issues are were one of our prior our our highest priorities with this program.

Um so I don't really want to get into the weeds tonight because this was uh a night intended to highlight the 911 services, but if you you know that would be a good starting place um to just kind of um take a look at some of the highlights of that program, and there's a whole section on frequently asked questions.

Um, and I'll be more than uh more than willing to come back at another time to address just that issue.

I think I did, I know I presented uh on the DFR when our can uh and to the camera review committee, and then also I think with the old board under public safety um committee I presented on the DFR program.

But uh if this board wanted it, you know, it's it's a phenomenal program.

Um, and just to clarify, I hear where you're going with it.

Um that is one of our main uh concerns, and that's why we have such strict policies and procedures and redundancies in place to make sure that uh privacy people's privacy is our number one priority.

Thanks uh hey Terry, unless it's a real quick follow-up, you know, we have other questions I get to.

I think go ahead.

I got another question, but uh wait to everybody else and I'll come back.

All right, thanks, Terry.

And we can schedule uh uh uh Mr.

Derubis to come back and present the drone program at another uh meeting in the future.

Um so I'd like to move to um representative Walston, please uh ask your question.

Representative Walstron, did you have a question?

All right, uh go ahead and move to Representative Blank.

I'm here, I'm here.

I just oh sorry, go ahead.

Uh first of all, I like to say hello, Lu.

My favorite, my favorite interviewee, my favorite, my first yes, my first impressive one.

Thank you for still being around.

Thank you for everything you do.

And I just want to say to everyone on the call.

Thank you for your service.

And when I say that, it's like if my mom gets in distress, I can call 911.

Buying department, they'll come.

Some of the people know us.

The police department, EMS, they'll come and you know help my mom get to the hospital.

And I just want to say, it's a you know, it's a thankless job, but I truly truly appreciate everything about Stanford in our public safety and home.

Thank you for always being there for the people in Stanford.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate the kind words.

Uh then we'll move to Representative Blank.

Please ask your question.

Yeah, hi.

Um, I hope everybody can hear me.

Um, my apologies on the video.

I had to move to a darker room.

Um quickly, uh, and I appreciate Lou um being on the line and as well as uh uh Mr.

Fragon.

Um my question is moving towards um the future and uh the uh the facility hopefully being will be built in uh in the old police station area.

Um and I see uh los smiling because he's happy about that.

And uh how does that reflect on Sterling Farms moving forward, and how does that reflect on the current situation at the 911 facility inside uh the the offices that it's in now?

How do how do how do we present that uh you know moving forward?

If you understand what I'm getting at.

I I believe I do, sir.

And if I'll answer it what I think, and if not, just correct me and I'll and I'll try to re-answer it.

Um thank you.

So Sterling Farms is basically our brain for the city.

Um, it's our primary radio location.

We have other locations through it, but that's our primary area.

So currently we have a small house there that we split between the battery rooms and the radio systems, and we were able to fit in there um six call takers.

Going to Bedford Street and the public safety building, what we would do is we would break down 888 and make this our backup center.

We would just leave everything here as is, and then we would update and move over to the new public safety area, and then we would close Sterling for the backup area, but it would have to stay the brain of the operations.

Is that what you were looking for, sir?

Um, yes, that that that is part of it.

Um, and and I guess the the other half of that would be um in hearing that you guys are at the uh end of life for some of your systems.

Um and and I and I'm sure that's touching on that to some degree.

Um I know something about end-of-life programs because I've worked in a lot of tech that's older than I am.

Um and uh sounds like you're there with a lot of that.

Is there um uh I shouldn't even ask this question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway.

What is the um uh protocol for you guys moving forwards to replacing that end of life stuff?

I know that you you've got heavily invested in Motorola, and because they are the they or they were the people of choice back in the day, but I mean, this is we're talking across the city, police department, fire department, all of that is embedded, and I don't even know if EMS is embedded in that.

All of that equipment moving it to a new program is fraught with oh god, and and how does that portray in all of this?

Um in the God willing the move to to the to Bedford Street and and your ability to to move the uh radio system to that.

Because I know there's a heavily cost-effective in the ineffective.

So I don't know what the actual cost is.

We're in the negotiations with the consultant firm to come in and look at it.

I can say that, yes, to your point, Motorola is heavily embedded in the city, it's heavily bedded in the state of Connecticut.

There is three other there's three radio systems in the country that are used in public safety.

Motorola is number one, Kenwood, and then Harris.

We are a Motorola-driven area, as with the state.

We are a state radio system here.

Um we're there.

The city is 50-50 on new equipment that we we were buying as we every year, so it does cut back on that.

The brain of the operations at Sterling, whether we were here or at the new public safety facility, has to be changed.

That is the key component on it.

The consoles here would obviously be updated.

And then if we moved, we would either leave these here and purchase new updated because they have to be the same as the backup.

Um that would be a price point at some point, depending on when the public safety building comes through.

It's a long process.

So Mr.

Blank, it's a very long, it's going to be a long process.

I mean, it's not a long process.

I have two and a half years to change out the brain.

Um that is going to be the primary area.

We're looking at funding and and uh whatnot from the feds and the state and whatever we can get onto it.

There's no way to get around it, as you know, through technology.

Yeah.

If I update here, I have to update Sterling.

If I update Sterling for the end of life at 2030, and then we get the new public safety building of 2031.

I will probably take the sterling equipment and bring it to here, shut that down and move this over to the public safety building.

Um, I see you laughing.

That's uh Matt, but yeah.

Yeah, Matt.

Yeah, I see what you're uh is that helping, Mr.

Blank?

That that is that is close to what I'm looking for, and I appreciate your candor on all of that, and uh good luck with it.

Um and uh the board will stand with you, god willing.

Uh we just found out about this, so this is all very new to us.

It just came to our attention in January.

Um, and it's not just in Connecticut, is it is worldwide, everything with Motorola and their G series.

Uh so it's not just the fact in Connecticut, it's everybody.

Okay, well, good luck there, sir.

I appreciate it, Mr.

Blank.

All right, thank thank you very much, Representative Blank.

Um, we'll move on to Representative Dillant.

We're getting there.

Hey Brian, sorry, man.

I really am.

I'm um, you know, I I think a lot of people brought up those questions, you know, about the radios and technology.

Is are you planning to have more integration across all city services with those new radio systems?

You know, especially think as we're moving post 20 years out from 9-11 is getting that interoperability again, you know, with EMS, fire, police, and everyone else.

Are you looking towards having a radio system that's going to be allow for everyone to be able to work together?

Is that the direction you're planning on heading?

Um, and just kind of looking into that, maybe some insight on that.

So, currently, currently, everybody in the city of Stanford can operate on a radio system.

Sims, FDPD, and the city operations, which would include security guards in the government center, the the uh snow plows, and various other departments that have radios, so they can all operate and if they have to crosstalk with each other by different channel groups or um group settings that we have in our radio systems going forward with this radio system, and what we're trying to do is with the state, they we have multiple channels here, and our channels have to go from what's called an FDMA to a TDMA.

That's a requirement with the new upgrade, and that's where we're kind of going.

When we do that, what that's going to do, it's going to allow us to cross-talk with other agencies in the entire state of Connecticut that are on TDMA.

Uh, currently, uh, I'll use Greenwich for example.

You might know somebody.

Uh, Greenwich is not on the state radio system.

So I can talk when we do this new TDMA.

Uh, the state of Connecticut's going to do two of our channels.

Um, hopefully before the summer, we will be able to talk to Norwalk and the state police and hear their communications there.

So now we have that direct talk to PDs.

We're not going through cell phones or whatever.

Um, works great for regional areas.

Greenwich is going to be hampered, and Dairy Ann, because of their radio systems, that we would have to either use back channels or use what's called the hotline, which is just a basic channel that goes throughout the entire state or the region, depending on where you are.

Or we'd have to go old school with direct phones.

But yeah, everything right now in the city is integrated.

Everybody has one channel they could call here if they had to.

PD and FD can talk to each other on certain talk groups, but the goal is once all we do this T DMA and everybody crosses over, we will have dedicated channels that they can switch to for mass mass casualties, uh mass disaster areas, hurricanes, where they can now talk freely P to F D to Sims so that they're not going through the ECC and slowing down response times or requests.

Was that what you're looking for?

That was pretty spot on.

Yeah, I'm happy to hear that.

That's the direction you're heading.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for the question.

Um, and so uh recognize uh representative Graham, please ask your question.

Hi, good evening, Brian.

How are you?

How are you, man?

I had a question for you, and I'm not sure if it's actually for you or Lou.

But um going back to the data.

Where how was that data stored?

I know you um you guys record a lot and you take an enormous amount of calls.

How is that data stored?

And is there a standard um disposition of uh that the state mandates how long you keep that data?

And uh is it a um is it when you go into contracts with the software uh companies?

Is there a disclosure that you have to sign that you don't share that the data to third parties?

So when you meet, I think it's like two, I think it's two-fold question.

Yes, um, I'll answer the first part and then I'll delve into the second because I think I know where you're going, but I just want to make 100% sure.

Um our calls, our CAD system are is basically a Microsoft word for a lack of getting into it.

That's stored in its own hard drives.

Um back up to another set of hard drives here in the city and at Sterling.

So everything since we went to Central Square, I believe in 2016 time frame is backed up, and I can pull any case or any call that we've gone to that was ran through our CAD system.

Prior to that, we cannot get to it because we no longer have that system.

Our radio transmissions and our phone calls are backed up to a hard server here inside the facility inside 888 and to a backup location in a cloud area, and we have everything, and those are in terabytes sizes of um storage.

The drone aspect of it is stored the same way.

We do not have an end of life on those.

I can go through and I can request through the state of Connecticut on the FOIA, request to destroy some of it, most of it unrelated to criminal activity or um administrative calls and stuff like that, so I can get rid of that to free up space if I had to, but I don't have to free up space right now because it's the equivalent of trying to fill up the Atlantic Ocean with uh that's the storage size we have here.

So that stays indefinitely unless legal or the city decides, hey, we're only gonna keep it for 10 years or whatever they determine for their life on their storage.

Uh law enforcement's a little different out of PD, they have theirs through the state onto it, but here it's kind of whatever FOIA and what director de Rubis and the mayor and legal determined for a length of time onto it.

Your second information when you're referring to a third party, are you referring to a third party entity?

Yes, I mean, like um, for example, if federal authorities wanted to access data that you've collected on incidents that occurred in the city, are is it a process or do or they can reach out to the software company directly and gather that information?

My question is is the software company able to sell to a third party?

So the so once we sign contracts with the agreement with the software company, we become the administrators of it.

They can only access their core software updating, almost like your cell phone.

They can't get into our whatever we have stored.

So, for instance, Rapid SOS is my primary rapid SOS can only update and modify software technology, they can't see what I've gathered.

Good answer.

Thank you, guys.

I appreciate you.

And hi, Lou, nice to see you again.

Good to see you too, Shante.

I don't see any of the questions.

Um Representative Adams, don't know if you want to follow up or we can uh take it offline.

Yes, um, I'll talk to Lou um personally I give you a call.

And educate.

No, I appreciate that.

And with no other questions, uh, I'll take a motion to adjourn the call.

I um before you go, General, I just thank you for you guys for your time.

I didn't provide you with my number, it's pretty easy.

It's 911.

You just ask to talk to me, they'll come get me.

I would invite all of you to come down to the ECC, and I will be more than welcome to give you a tour and introduce you to my staff because these are the people that you don't see on the street every day.

They walk amongst you, they are not wearing a uniform, and it's a humbling experience to speak with some of them.

So feel free to email me, call me, and or just come down.

Thanks for the work you do, Brian.

I would definitely take you up on that.

Yeah, I'll emphasize that I'm actually meeting with uh with Brian on Monday morning and looking forward to it.

What time adjoined 10 o'clock?

Yeah, you're more than welcome to join me if you can, Terry.

All right, thank you all.

Appreciate everybody's participation.

Uh excellent uh evening.

I think very insightful and informative.

And with that, again, I'll take a motion to adjourn.

Thank you.

Second and approved.

Thank you.

Adjourn the meeting at 7 52 this evening.

Thank you all.

Take care, everyone.

See you at all.