I'm sorry.

So I believe I uh I I left off saying that under the Office of Public Safety, Health and Welfare, we have approximately 750 uh personnel assigned to us, and our budget's approximately 115 million between all departments.

Next slide, please.

All right, so I'd like to take a minute to highlight some of the uh public safety achievements for 2025 since a lot of the things that our departments are doing.

Uh, we're funding uh we're funded out of um these committees.

So I wanted to highlight uh first and foremost.

If you look to the top under ECC 911, uh when I stated earlier that our 911 center is the core of our whole public safety operation, uh I truly meant that.

And you can see we have approximately 186,294 total calls for service that come into that center uh throughout 2025.

Uh 52,085 were emergency calls for service, and 134,209 were non-emergency.

Um what's so critical about this uh department is that all calls for service, public safety related, come into that center, and then they're dispatched out of that center to our personnel to respond throughout our community.

Um like I said, Brian's gonna be presenting after me, but one of the things I like to highlight is um the state standard for picking up a 911 call is making sure that we you average 911 calls getting picked up in less than 10 seconds, and we've consistently uh achieved above that benchmark, and this year we were at 94%, which is a true testament to uh the supervisors and the leadership in that department and the people doing the work in there.

Uh Brian's one of the major things that Brian's been tasked with since joining the team about uh a little over a year ago was refreshing the facilities, and he spent a large um invested interest in upgrading a lot of the technical platforms to enhance our operations.

In regards to the police department, they were just under 100,000 calls for service in 2025.

They were 97,797 calls for service, and that was a 5% increase from the prior year.

Some of the highlights from the police department.

Um, you know, we hear this often that we're the safest city in New England and safest city in Connecticut.

Um, and there's a reason for that.

We we have a phenomenal police department and a phenomenal relationship with our community members.

Uh our Stanford Police Academy went operational last year.

And one of the highlights uh in the police department currently is that we're within almost a year, less than a year, just over a year, excuse me, we're gonna be starting our third academy class.

So that's already proving uh putting out a lot of dividends for our community and making sure that we recruit locally, train our officers in-house, and we have um officers that are coming out of our community, serving in our community as police officers.

This year we just recently were able to get five positions funded.

Um conversation earlier, uh I was asked what are some of the uh one what are some of the biggest issues that I've seen in my close to 30 years in public safety in the city.

And my response was was pretty clear.

Um the city continues to grow uh tremendously, and our departments are not growing to meet the need of that growth to provide services.

Uh so we were able to get five officers funded this year out of the 13 requested, um, and we're gonna keep trying to chip away at that.

And then one last highlight for the police department that I'd like to make is this uh this will resonate with all of you so you can take it back to your constituents is that traffic enforcement was up 34% last year.

Um, and that's something that we uh we take very seriously.

A lot of a large volume of our complaints come in uh from our residents that they're speakers and other traffic violations.

So the police department has done a great job stepping up those those efforts.

Um regards to fire department, uh one of the highlights is they've been going through a major restructure.

Uh we added the second um uh on duty, uh second on duty uh fire chief um throughout the city.

That was a major part of their management structure change, and that new deputy chief uh adds several components.

Now we can handle two large scale incidents at once, which really complements their personnel.

Also, what we're working towards in line with those positions that I just mentioned about the police department and the growth of our city.

Next week you'll be hearing from Fire Chief Morris in regards to them requesting eight new firefighter positions.

And he'll explain in detail how that impacts their operations.

Sims, they kind of touched on all those highlights, so I'm not going to be redundant.

One thing I will say is Eddie highlighted the increase of 25% over the last five five years.

And we've been working very closely to make sure that we get this service out in our community where it's needed, and most of that growth is down in the South End.

So we're in the process of working to outfit a station down at the Leighton Line and Center Wider Center so that they could dispatch directly out of there to make our responses more efficient.

You've also heard from Jody Bishop just uh prior to me.

Uh one thing I'm gonna highlight is the accreditation.

I'm very proud of that team.

They've really worked very hard, and um and that's a major accomplishment for our health department to be accredited.

Um, the health department for those of you who are new to the board, they're pretty much involved in every aspect of our community.

It's really like eye-opening to see um what the health department's role is in our community.

They pretty much touch every aspect of it.

Um, and just to highlight, um, they've responded to more than 1,053 citizen service complaints and conducted with a small staff, I might add, over 800 and 780 food inspections.

And then lastly, that public safety uh citation enforcement group.

This is pretty much our quality of life uh department.

Uh they've responded to more than 1782 requests that they've addressed and 2,977 individual inspections.

They were particularly busy these last couple months because one of the main things they deal with is uh unshoveled sidewalks and things of that nature.

So they're they're really busy for a three-person team, especially two of them being part-time.

Uh Barbara, next slide, please.

All right, so as it pertains to the budget and looking ahead into 26-27, uh our goals and priorities.

Um, you know, it's most important, the most important thing we have in public safety is is our resources, our personnel infrastructure, uh, and equipment and tools that we we ask uh or we provide our personnel to go out and do the jobs that we're asking them to do when we're at our community.

And you need all three of those to make sure that we provide the highest level of public safety services possible.

Uh and as you can see on this slide, I'm not just referring to emergency uh responses, but also non-emergency.

Uh, as I stated, I've been in public safety uh with the city for close to 30 years, and I know we really excel in emergency responses, and I think the latest example of that was all of our departments coming together for the uh major critical incident we had back in December on Oaklawn Avenue.

These are the things that we prepare for and that we are prepared for through training, um, through personnel, um, through through our equipment acquisitions.

Um, so yes, we like to say that we're the safest city, but we need to prepare for anything, and we are prepared for anything.

So just keep that in mind and look through uh that lens as we move through this budget presentation.

Um emergency and non-emergency services, like one thing I like to say is non-emergency person uh calls for service are just as important as emergency services, in my opinion, because when somebody calls, whether it be for an ambulance, a fire for a fire situation or for a law enforcement incident, that might be that resident's only interaction with the public safety team.

So we need to make sure that our people understand the importance of every interaction that we're having with our community members, and that how important that is that that that person is receiving the level of service that we're expecting them to provide our residents.

Public safety uh technology initiatives.

Uh, this is where we have been spending a lot of time.

It's a force multiplier.

As you all know, we launched our DFR program, which is very exciting back in October 1st of 2025.

It started off our public safety drone as a first responder program with two drones, one located out of North Stanford and one located more central Stanford.

And this is really an amazing tool.

If it meets a certain criteria, our dispatch supervisors are able to click on a pin and these drones deploy uh autonomously to that location and wait for either a pilot from PD or FIRE to pick up the operation.

And it really kind of gives valuable intelligence and reconnaissance to the responding commanders and officers so that they could make decisions much more quickly in how we're dealing with particular situations.

Our citywide critical infrastructure sensitive location camera and blue light program has been another area that we've putting a lot of resources into.

And then lastly, the EOC and ECC upgrades programs, platforms, and emergency services.

As I stated earlier, Brian has uh been tasked and been doing a phenomenal job with getting some of our technology uh platforms up to speed and uh putting us in a better position to respond to emergency situations.

Our EOC has been utilized much more often just this past year with our new structure and our emergency management team.

Um we've had over 12 uh um 12 uh events that we we opened our emergency operations center for, which is much more in past years than in past years.

And then the last uh goal and priority going into 26, 27 is our community partnerships.

Um it's very important that uh you know, as I stated, we have approximately 750 personnel.

That that's a lot of people, but that's not enough to keep our community safe and healthy.

So we try and partner with our private partners and private agencies as much as possible.

And one example, um, you know, I want to thank the board last year for approving some funding for a shower trailer, um, which which uh is going to be going operational within the next month or two.

And this is just an example of when we come before you and ask for these things.

Um there's a lot of thought and planning that go into these requests and to into these resources that we're trying to acquire from a public safety standpoint.

Um, and that trailer is going to be going out to supplement our emergency sheltering.

So we have facilities, but the shelter, uh, the showers at shelters for prolonged incidents was a concern because we didn't have that capability.

So now we have that capability with this trailer, but it's also there's a community outreach component to it that's going to be being utilized through the health and human services department and partnering with our um a lot of our clergy and private partners to have this shower deployed out in the community so that people who don't have access to showers uh the homelessness population throughout our community, they'll have an opportunity to go and and and uh and clean up accordingly uh based on shelter capabilities and and through that shower resource.

Uh last slide, Barbara.

All right, so the reason why we're here for budget highlights.

Uh so really the for my department, which is the administration for public safety, health and welfare, I really have minimal operating budget.

It's basically salaries and some uh ancillary uh costs associated with uh supporting the citation officers, um, our emergency operations center and our CERC team.

Um my main request for the public safety initiatives that I support all the departments with our capital uh requests, and that first one there is our public safety emergency blue light program, and it's on page 121.

And the original request had gone in at 250 and it had gotten cut, so we're requesting 125,000.

Currently, that program consists of 21 total blue light cameras out there in our community.

15 which are active, six are going to be active, six additional will be active in the next month or two.

These are a vital part of our safety throughout our community.

We average about 100, 120 calls a year.

And then the other 40 are for uh assistance, whether it be uh emergency assistance or for general questions.

Any questions on that particular item?

I I'll just make a comment if I could chair.

Yes.

I just wanted to say thank you for putting that request in, even if it doesn't directly affect my district, but because I know that there's been so much interest and request for the blue light uh safety program and in the South and Arbor Point area.

So yeah, it's uh it's it's really a tough program to manage because we're trying to do it um very methodically so that we don't grow it too much, but there's a high demand from a lot of parts of our community.

This program um it kind of impacts very isolated areas where people might not have cell service, so they have a place where they could uh go to and ask for emergency services, but it also is out there very dense areas.

Uh so like just taking a walk one block out from this building, you know, run into like two or three different blue lights that you could access and get some emergency services.

I know that we have the students out of South Then uh from Yukon.

So uh that's some place to but by the way, the page numbers you're referring to now.

You switched capital, but yeah, yeah, these are the operating.

So for those of you that are searching through your operating budget wrong book.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lou.

Is that the end?

Uh I have three more that I wanted to kind of hit on.

Oh sorry.

Uh I mean I could just kind of put them out there and then I could take questions if you want.

Uh the next one is on 122.

Um, the email that Barbara was referring to uh was a packet that went out from the mayor today with supporting document documentation for this public safety complex.

Um it's something that we've been it's been in the works for three years now, and we're ready to move on to the uh next phase, which is the architectural drawings.

Um that request is going to be for 1,469,000.

So it was interesting because uh Replicine had kind of mentioned in the last presentation in regards to end of life of facilities, and that's exactly what we're trying to get ahead of.

Um, and that request is is um dealing with some of our fire structures that have been in service for 50, 60 years, and that there's they they're needing major, major structural uh repairs in which we would have to throw millions of dollars into.

Um, so if you go through that budget request in that packet, there's a lot of information in there.

Uh so this might not be the best form to address you know every single question on it, but please I I'm available.

Uh I try and make myself as accessible as possible to all of you.

If anybody has any questions or issues that you want to kind of address with me on that, uh I'd be more than willing to get into detail with you on those.

Um, the next one is our public safety vehicle replacement on 140.

Uh, this particular um this particular request, my budget through public safety.

I work very closely with um the patrol, the police department, and I support their uniform patrol fleet.

Um, and the original request was for a million nine five five, and that got cut to a million and two.

Um, that a million original million six uh was allocated for 20 patrol vehicles.

So just to give you a little insight into this one, the patrol fleet for the police department is approximately 80 vehicles, and each year we try and replace a quarter of that fleet, which would be 20 vehicles.

Um, but we we haven't been getting funded for that in in quite some time.

Um, so we're doing the best we could with that.

Um so that would that request of 1.2 million would uh go towards uniform patrol vehicles.

It would also fund uh fire marshal vehicles in this particular budget.

I had requested three.

Um our marine division, uh police marine division, one of our boats.

of that fleet which would be 20 vehicles um but we we haven't been getting funded for that in in quite some time um so we're doing the best we could with that um so that would that request of 1.2 million would uh go towards uniform patrol vehicles it would also fund uh fire marshal vehicles in this particular budget i had requested three um on our marine division uh police marine division one of our boats um it's a long conversation but one of our boats needs uh new motors uh we had we have three but one of them is is not in operation right now so we're trying to make sure that we have redundancy to cover our coastline for emergency uh issues and then lastly uh public safety support vehicles for the fire department uh they were requesting a couple different different uh ancillary vehicles so that's basically the vehicle request and then the last one was for 425000 which is our public safety equipment um under this account I support all the departments uh and this supports mainly supports our our critical infrastructure camera program our drone program uh we support the police department medical bag and safety trauma kit program so every one of our police department vehicles has a AED a trauma kit and a PPE kit that gets funded out of these funds just like we do with the fire department we uh fund a lot of their ancillary equipment uh such as hoses and ladders um in that 425 thousand dollar request uh 80 000 would be allocated for 125 uh kilowatt portable generator which we currently don't have available to public safety anymore so that's kind of something that we're looking to uh address and then lastly uh there's a 25 thousand dollar request for our bomb squad explosive ordnance tactical vest so that was uh that was all I have if there's any specific questions we could try and address them now or do it to you chair uh reporter questions comments if we could kind of go back so um I was looking at it looks like the under uh I'm on page 140 your capital request which is related most of your vehicles yeah so the the number of vehicles and things that you have in the project description relate to the original million six what are you gonna drop what are you gonna go to what are the numbers so is it all coming out of police vehicles or how is that allocation going to change?

So I I wouldn't make that decision now I obviously I would work closely with the department heads on these decisions um if it's stand the way as it is I would try and displace that amongst all three so we would try and you know get 10 12 police cars uh you know maybe one less uh fire marshal car this year and really assess so you have to do the boat motor that that's what I'm saying so you know like right now it's kind of hard to talk in hypotheticals but I would displace that that lower cost amongst all the requests in all the departments.

Yeah and is that one motor is 85 grand or two that's for the the well all three of the police boats have two motors got it and you've got one boat that's not operational now because I guess it's motors network.

No one boat is uh is out of service right now and that was unfortunately our newest boat um there was an incident that took place that didn't involve our personnel it was getting out for service and um it's gonna be out of service for a while because there was some structural damage done to it while it was getting service so okay we're not gonna have to pay for no no that's all it's all insurance and it wasn't our fault but you know that's all that's all well and good that doesn't help us with our responses so we're trying to make sure that we have that capability out on the water because a large percentage of our population is out on the coastline so that's why we've been spending a lot of time and and effort and resources trying to bolster our responses out and our presence out on the coastline through camera coverage through making sure that our our uh our uh our marine fleets are are are operational so that we can have people respond out there and then also with our drone coverage.

Okay.

Nothing else particularly exceptional uh in your capital plane from what I saw I mean it's more the same nothing really popping out I mean you sort of save all that for this one little document.

Um, and then the for the mayor's direction, you know, we did a fight a site feasibility study and a needs assessment, um, which started three years ago, and now that we've completed all that phase of the project, uh, we have conceptual drawings done.

Um we're ready to move on to architectural.

We're trying to move on to the next phase, but this process is gonna be a two-three-year process minimal while they're doing the architectural designs and the engineering designs.

Uh there's a lot more discussion to be had, a lot more uh public uh public participation and input into that project.

So I remember us discussing this last year.

So I'm just gonna I'm just gonna ask some questions I probably asked you last year just to refer.

Remind me what facilities you're planning to uh decommission to move into this building.

So again, everything this is the plan as it stands today.

Right.

Um so as the proposal stands today, what we were looking to do is consolidate station one, which is really in in terrible condition, right?

Um, and station five on Washington Boulevard, which is located in a flood zone, right?

Um, and consolidate those two stations into this new facility.

Right.

Um and then what are you gonna pull out of government center into that building?

So our 911 center would be a new center that's stationed out of there, emergency operations center, and then the health department would also have a footprint in there with all of our community outreach services.

Okay, they will move in.

And what about your office?

Are you staying here or are you moving down there?

Um right now there I don't have an office assigned for me, but you know, again, whoever's in this role, that's you know, they would have to evaluate it at the time when the building's completed.

It's gonna be a long road for this project.

So have you got so how much room are we gonna create in government center for for growth?

So the the thing is is as far as the emergency operations center goes and the emergency communication center goes, those spikes would be kept intact because right now it this if one of the reasons why we're looking to move forward with this project is that for a city our size, we don't really have uh you know a very solid secondary location to serve.

Right.

God forbid this building goes offline, and um this building is in a flood zone as well.

Um so that's that's real big concern.

Um so it would be kept in place as a secondary site, and that would be our primary site located up in that facility there.

I got you.

Okay, I did not pick up on that last year that you were going to keep this as a backup and so on.

Yes, okay.

All right.

Well, I guess more to come.

And by the way, this the capital, you've built in a little bit of a buffer, I assume, on the construction site work for inflation, or is that a current number?

So that was a current number that they provided us.

So that's what we're working off of based on the conceptual drawings.

Um, so the request itself, though.

So this is what I want to clarify for the last three years.

Um, when I started the needs assessment and the site feasibility study under the guidance of engineering, they had suggested that I had put in for a $500,000 request so that we wouldn't have to fund this project all at once when it went to the second phase.

Um, unfortunately, the last three years, uh we weren't able to get it secure any funding for this.

So now we're ready to move on to the soft cost, which is 2.5 million.

Out of that 25.5 million, uh, we're very happy to report over the last month.

We would have been able to secure um 1 million 31,000 from Congressman Hines office's support uh through the federal airmark.

So we're that's why we're only requesting 1.469.

Um, and once you start getting into that package, uh, in addition to saving on a lot of the uh structural repairs that you would have to do on our current facilities, um, you know, we would also we're pretty fairly confident that we would be able to uh secure approximately a third of the expense of this building through grants.

And then also we would have the option to explore these properties.

Um the city would have the option to look into seeing if it would be worth our while to sell to absorb some of the expenses to create this new facility.

I'm just laughing because you know we've got some great land in a flip zone.

Yeah, yeah.

So I want to point out that uh at least according to this document, the budget worksheet uh the construction costs were updated in September.

So they reasonably new, yeah.

They may be a little bit more.

Well, they also they have a 7.8 million dollar project contingency, which I assume was also updated in September.

Yeah.

Well, I assume that that was you know inflationary expectations.

Uh okay.

Um the only thing I would say here is as we start moving forward in this, we probably it's not a bad idea to start thinking about a sinking fund, not unlike what we did for the schools.

We'll take a look at it.

All right, I yield.

Thank you.

Uh Representative Dula Cruz.

Uh thank you, Chair.

Hello, Lou.

How are you?

Hi, Rep Delacruz.

Well, look, in the capital projects request for the public safety complex.

The box for sustainability is checked.

Which is great.

I'm wondering, have any sustainability elements been specified for the design of the building at this point?

Well, that's including that's what we are trying to secure the funding for, and I think once the funding is secured, then we could have those discussions with the architect firm that's selected.

I see.

Um propos uh uh um plan of the mayor.

You mean with the executive order?

Exactly.

Yes.

Okay, thank you so much, Luke.

Looking forward to those further discussions.

Thank you, and I yield.

Thank you, Representative Cruz.

Are there any other questions from the floor or uh representative?

Thank you.

Thank you, Luke, for the presentation and for what you do for the city.

Um you asked you mentioned that uh one of our needs is growing our our services in proportion with the population growth, and you talk about five new officers.

And that's a step towards catching up, it sounded like.

What's the gap in your eyes?

So, you know, I was uh talking to the chair during one of the breaks, and I had mentioned, you know, back in 2000, we were our police department was staffed at 314 officers.

Um as the years went by and different administrations uh led our city, we had gone down to 250.

So it's a real concern when our population continues to rise and our police force and our you know, it was was dropping.

Um so in conversations with the chief, you know, and an assessment of everything, all the services that they're providing and the needs of the city, uh, we had proposed 13 officers.

Um, and we had a grant for six new officers out of those 13.

And when it had gone to the board, the board finance approved five.

So we were able to give the five five gain the five slots, um, which you know it it's a step in the right direction, but in these positions and and through our uh lenses in these roles, we have to make sure that we're advocating for safety in our community.

And when we're putting forward the idea that we need to have these resources because of these needs in the police department and in the community, um we're gonna you know have to continue to go back and try and pick up some more positions.

Um thank you.

And that's and that's just the fire department.

I mean the police department scots.

Uh in this particular budget, uh, you'll be hearing from the fire chief next week.

They're they're trying to get an eight additional uh officers, and the way he's looking to um deploy those eight new officers is really um is really interesting because he he's he's trying to keep in mind being cost effective and what we're trying to do.

Uh and instead of adding engines in different departments, he's just trying to bolster up the unit that responds citywide.

So, you know, a lot of thought, like I stated, goes into these um proposals that we put forward.

Um obviously we look out for services um through the city, but we're we're trying to be as fiscally responsible as possible.

Okay.

And then I don't know if it's a uh trend in any sense in major cities, but there seem to be cities where there's private funding for some of these services to fill some of these gaps by buying emergency vehicles through private fundraising.

Do we do do we have any sources of private funding for our for your area?

Not that I'm aware of not for public safety.

I mean, we have donations that are given here and there.

Yeah.

Um, you know, like I know the police foundation for the police department supplements a lot of different equipment specialty teams, yeah, things of that nature, but nothing um you know, programs they'll do.

I know that we've had like a lot of a lot of funding have come in for our PAL building along the west side there to support the police activities leak.

But as far as like for acquisitions, not really.

Um missed opportunity, I don't think it's a real estate pursuit.

I I think it's worth having more discussion on it.

Any help we can get would be uh beneficial.

Okay.

And then last question for you what with with everything you have to focus on now just to get up to where you think we need to be.

What do you worry that we're not worrying enough about now that's it's a little farther out, just not urgent enough at the small.

I think it's in the proposal.

I think it's critical infrastructure.

So these are things that you know it's not my job to sit here and say, no, we're good.

You know, let's just keep things the way we are.

We've we've been good in the past and just keep doing what we're doing.

That's unacceptable.

Like I said early on, that's that's not my uh management style, and that's not uh our our vision for public safety office.

You know, we need to be thinking forward thinking, like not just today, but five years, 10 years, 15 years down the road.

So I've never, you know, I I hear it often that it's a bad budget year.

There's I don't think I've ever heard there's a good budget here.

Um, and I'm not I'm not trying to be facetious.

Um, I'm being serious.

There's never a good time.

Um, so when we put these projects forward, these are the things that we're thinking five, 10, 15 years down the road, where other people in our community really aren't thinking along those lines.

They're worried about the spreadsheets today.

And I understand that because they're looking at things through a different lens.

But myself and the department heads, we're we're thinking through through different perspectives long term and today's needs.

I appreciate that.

And there's never a good time until something bad happens.

Yeah, exactly.

Thank you.

I yield uh thank you very much.

Any other questions from the floor or from people who are still hanging out?

All right, thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

Thanks, Mr.

Next up, Mr.

Chairman.

Yes.

Sorry, I see a hand from Representative Adams.

I don't know if that's up from earlier.

I don't see it.

Oh, there it is.

I'm sorry, Representative Adams.

I apologize.

Okay, thank you.

Um Lou, before you leave, um the first safety emergency blue light program.

Um dike lane, um, blue light included in that.

I mean, so that's that's one of the ones that is on the list.

So uh Coskyusco Park is on the list for one, but again, it it's very competitive, and the funding has been already cut and it's very limited.

So we're trying to stretch that program as far as we can with what we have available to us.

But that is definitely one of our um concerns down at um Cosquisco Park.

We're looking to put one right in the entrance there to start with.

Okay, because I I hate to see something out.

That's one of the parks that there's no eyes on that park after dog.

I mean, there's no it's not surrounded by any houses, um, any function.

So once this night, I mean it's deadly deserted by theater.

So anything that happened, you probably want to know to the next day.

So I think what I will say though, uh, Representative Adams is you know, the blue light is something that we're working on for that location, but we are adding um cameras in that park.

Um that that is part of our park security plan, and that should be happening within the next couple months.

Uh so we'll be having cameras outward facing towards the coastline, um, and then a camera or two in the park um at key areas like around the playground and things of that nature.

Okay, but no, uh another question you made a statement about the government center was in a floodplain.

It's always good.

Yes.

Uh so is the UBS building.

So is the UBS building um, even with the new um report from the uh you know a core of engineer?

Um is still in the flood zame.

Yeah, I was just on a meeting uh two mornings ago with uh coastal resiliency, and it is in the flood okay.

Yeah, I was just on a meeting uh two mornings ago with uh coastal resiliency and it is in the flood okay yeah because I I remember um uh uh conversation about just when the Caesar House was was the was um was torn down and it became the footprint for the middle rule pump when it was in the flood zone zone and it had it retaked by the Corps of Engineers and it wasn't in the flood zone.

And if you look at couldn't else know that would be um Clinton Avenue and Richmond Hill, they're building about 450 units, which is lower lower than the Goldman Center.

So they would be building that in the flood zone.

I I can't speak to Clinton Avenue in that project, but I do know that this building is in the flood zone.

Okay, all right, I double check.

Well thank you.

Appreciate you the floor.

Thank you, Rep Representative Adams.

All right.

Any other further questions?

I apologize for missing your hand.

I didn't see it.

Thank you, whoever knows.

All right.

Thank you.

Uh next is Brian from E915.

Yes, sir.

My name is Brian Fawn.

Barbara has my uh PowerPoint.

I am switching them.

Thank you, Barbara.

I have it up.

I'm gonna go ahead and hit share.

I will ask that you uh just let me know which screen when to change the slides.

Probably start at the second slide.

The executive summary.

Right there, man.

Thank you.

I'm the director of the emergency communications center here in the city.

I work obviously directly for Director DeRubis.

I'll try not to keep this long and move this along as the hour gets late.

It's a 24 or 7 operation.

It's a standalone 911 center here in the city, and it's run by civilians, and it has Stanford fire, all the lieutenants assigned to the area.

Some of my budget issues will be the aging infrastructure and the maintenance requirements.

My training that I require of my of my dispatchers, as well as what's required by this the state of Connecticut, and some of the major initiatives are going to be the implementation of a rapid SOS program, which is my primary computer system software, and moving forward to get Kalia and Pro QA uh accredited through to enhance our abilities here.

Next or might have jumped out.

So the organization, there's me.

I have an assistant director that's not filled.

I have five public safety supervisors, which are civilians.

They came on in December of 2024.

I have four secondary dispatchers who ultimately sit in supervisory position.

One of my supervisors aren't around.

There's currently there's three.

I'm slotted for four.

And I'm slotted for 29 public safety dispatchers, and currently I'm at 26.

I just recently hired four in December, and hopefully they will be solo and on their own come up uh May 1st.

And then I have an administrative coordinator assigned to my that'll that I oversee, and then I have my own dependent IT personnel from the IT section.

The staffing.

So I fired four dispatchers back in December.

We increased our training time to decrease their on uh mandated training out on the floor so that we could free them up faster than they have in the past.

Prior years it was about seven to eight months of training before they were on their own.

We've cut it down to four months.

I uh took one of the rooms that was in my ECC and we turned it into a training center, and by doing that, we're able to spend an entire month in there and speed up their training to get hands-on through AI systems and other networks that we've connected with through the software program we're currently using.

All my supervisors, both PSD supervisors and PSD2s are certified as DFR drone operators.

So as Lou mentioned, the DFR program, it gets launched from the ECC at two different locations.

Fire has a set number of parameters that we follow, or that they request that the drone fly out for PD, we have a much broader zone on that criminally based, and on top of also surveillance and observation.

My operators will launch it on their request, or determined by the uh 911 calls or the calls that we're dealing with.

They'll send the a pin drop, the DFR will go there, they'll operate it until an officer either fire or PD takes over, controls it, or they'll have us stay with control, depending on manpower that they have.

Everything's up there, so we have direct communications.

What we're seeing is what we're giving the law enforcement or FD, so they're on scene.

It frees up that frees up personnel, it also increases coverage because of the aerial height onto it.

Uh, since I've been here, one of the initiatives I started.

We uh we launched a community outreach program with the PS with our dispatchers, and what that is, it's to educate the public on when and why to call 911, when and why to call administrative um phone lines.

The 911 calls is what we get graded on by the state.

The more we answer within that 10 that 10 seconds, the we get funded by them through training.

If we fail to meet certain parameters in there, they pull back some of our funding.

So by doing that, we increase decreasing our 911 crawls, increasing our admin calls.

But with that, we've also increased our safety network to it.

Excuse me, as we get away from analog phones, everyone's going to cell phones, and the new software that we have in the ECC, which was one of the biggest pushes we did here, was we're trying now to layer our software.

Instead of having three or four different programs that don't work together, my goal is to let's get one base and then start building into that.

And the particular program we use is Rapid SOS, and they have a very big outreach into other vendors.

With that, we request a vendor or we tell them that we're working with the vendor and they actively go and recruit that vendor.

Um, for example, we have a particular drone program or uh manufacturer company that we use.

We told Rapid SOS, this is who we use, and we want them to be able to work in their system and rapid went and got them to join their system.

So now it's one more layer to that.

The age of the population here, um, everyone is on the 911s, comes through most of most of our calls now come through cell phones, and either it's an Android or an iPhone.

There's a health app in there, and with that, as you enter more information into it, that provides us more information and it helps us respond to the point where if you have an autistic child, you can have that in there.

Your own medical condition, you can have that in there.

And what it does to that is as you call 911 for a medical, we instantly through this program grab your medical history.

That's one part, but what it really does is it pinpoint your location.

So now speed is a factor.

So now we have a much greater accuracy into your location.

We're down to 10 feet by 10 feet through a program called uh what three words and through the GPS locations in your phone.

And it's a it's a program that's comes with the phone out of the factory, it doesn't cost you anything, but people don't know about it.

So our dispatchers, when they go out to these outreach to ADA programs or to the elderly community and assisted living facilities and whatever programs you see on the street where you usually see a police or sims or fire, we usually are there, and we're trying to get people to push into that.

It helps the police because if you have some an autistic child who's agitated by loud noises or sirens, that puts it in there.

We can flag it as a 911 call, and we can tell the officers respond, don't pat your lights or sirens.

So we can kind of start to de-escalate the program to it.

It's great for lost or missing people.

Um, it's working phenomenal, and it's one of the bigger drives right now that we're doing.

With that, we also updated our city website, which was antiquated, and we now are on social media, so everything that PD F D puts out on social media, we do the same thing, and we're just trying to get open up our reach to the uh citizens of Stanford so that they have a better idea of what's going on.

Um Facebook, Instagram for parades, for any type of emergencies for shutdowns.

We were trying to just expand our footprint so that we're bringing less volume for the unknown.

Back when I was younger, you would call 911 to see if the road was closed, and now we're trying to put it out onto social media where a lot of people live on that area.

My budget that I'm looking to increase is is what I consider mineral.

I'm looking to increase my maintenance, my equipment maintenance.

Um as Lou is discussed, a lot of the infrastructure and a lot of the facilities here are aging.

I have a unique system here in the ECC as well as my secondary site.

Our HVAC is not on the city because the city turns off their uh heating and air conditioning on the weekends.

I'm a 24-7 facility, so we have special air conditioning units upstairs that we maintain onto them, and they're they're older.

On top of that, we also have to have multiple air conditioners in our server rooms because our computer systems create so much heat, they have to be running even when it's 30 degrees outside, it's 68 degrees inside where their servers are, and those are starting to age now.

And since I've been here now, our maintenance, instead of coming in once every quarter, now they're in once or twice a month because the systems are just starting to fail to include our generators, which are on the fourth floor, and my other location.

The uh training budget, I'm looking to increase the training budget.

I'm a big proponent from where I came from.

Training is key.

Training helps the dispatchers, it encourages them, gives them the confidence so they understand what's going on during high stress situations.

As Lou mentioned, the Oakland situation, they can control their emotions and they can now function and they can operate to it.

I do a lot uh through the federal government, a lot of it is FEMA based, so it's it's free for it.

I do a lot of state training with it.

Occasionally we do have to bring in some outside agencies or some individuals for unique training with that, but due to our call volume and the fact that we hit the percentages and we're sitting in this this perfect zone.

The state will recoup up to 50% of my training budget.

The problem is sometimes I have more training out before the money comes in, so there's this kind of like a gap to it, but we recoup the 50%.

So it's just that it's just a request so that I don't have I don't go into the red onto it because it sits there and floats.

The blue light cameras that Lou talks about, um, those come into my into the ECC.

So if we go over and you push the blue light, they automatically bring here into the 911 center.

It gives us access to their microphones to video, audio, video to it.

We can see 360, we know exactly where they are.

With that, we maintain the um cellular modems and the fiber connectivity and the repair due to the damage to it.

I'm looking to increase it because we're putting in new systems, but what I'm ultimately doing and what operations is doing that works through the public safety is we're going to remove the old telephone lines that are currently how they're uh interact with us.

We want to go get rid of the land base or the pots, the the uh old phone systems, and we want to go to an internet or an IP-based.

That takes money with that, it's a $6,500 savings once we switch out all the old analog telephone lines and we go to a voiceover internet-based um system.

So it's going to replace 25, I believe, total, 25 total uh blue lights plus the seven that we're looking to initiate and bring in, and it'll be a cost savings over the next several years to that.

Uh office supplies is consumables just because of the amount of people that we now have.

Um my larger budget that you'll see here is uh my radio maintenance.

So my radio, or not my radio, the city has radio, it supports all the public safety, which supports the fire, police, sims, and the city of operations, which is your trash guys, your plow guys, everybody uses that system, as well as the state of Connecticut uses it because we have we coexist with them.

They are now with our system, they own part of our radio, we co-work with them.

Uh the system we currently have is going to come to an end of life in a in a few years.

So the increase I'm looking for is to determine what the actual cost is and to do a phase in and phase out of new equipment, software, and updates.

We have to gather a consultant group.

The state of Connecticut, this uh end of life isn't just to the city of Stanford, it's internationally with the particular radio system we use.

Speaking with the state of Connecticut, they have a vendor or a consultant group that is very knowledgeable in this area.

We're trying to get with them, and we're looking to bring them on.

Should take a few months, hopefully, they would go through inventory of all of our portables or our mobile role of portables, our mobiles, and at our secondary sites, as well as the ECC to see exactly what we need, when we need to do it, and what it's gonna cost and lay it out and phased in time frame.

We're looking between now and 2032 to be completely done, is the window of opportunity to that.

I don't have an estimate for you.

We're eventually going to hopefully go for capital once we get a definitive number from the consultant group or from motor roll itself.

The goal is do it is to do it with multiple agencies so that we can get a little bit of a, I guess it's called a group discount, is the goal.

And so that's kind of why we want to get started sooner than later with this particular consultant group.

New and expanded part, Barbara.

So my technology enhancement, um, what I spoke about was the Rapid SLS program.

And then with that, it comes with real-time language translation capabilities.

That's one of the key things that we had here was a problem.

Uh, when we when I got here, we would call, I was told that there's 77 different languages spoken in the city of Stanford.

So what would happen is you called 911 and you spoke Creole.

I would not understand what you're saying, put you on hold without telling you what you're on hold, and then I would call Arizona to talk to a company who would I'd say, hey, get me a creole.

And they would say, okay, I have no idea what's going on with this one.

They would get a creole, they would talk to each other, then this guy would tell me what he's saying, and it just was not working.

One of the big proponents, uh, one of the big proponents when we went after Rapid OS is their translations.

They have 66 active translations now.

I cannot tell you exactly how many of the 66 are here, but they're increasing.

With that, they're also being uh live feed done.

So it's actually transcribing as we're talking, so we're getting a live feed from what it actually is going on, which we can now give real-time information to either fire or police.

We also do that with text.

So now we can text them.

We can now add links to it so that if they are in a bad situation, they're the hostage, they're a school shooting something.

We can send them a link and they can act, we they can activate the link and we now control their phone.

That gives us their audio and their video of their iPhone or Android, and we can sit there and talk with them.

They can text back to us.

We can read their text no matter what language it is because of the AI technology that's coming with with this particular software.

Uh so um with that, I'm I was tasked coming here to get the ECC accredited.

There's no accredited uh 911 center in the state.

There is a 911 dispatch that is accredited in Madison, Connecticut.

They are the only 911 accredited center in the state.

We would be the first, and that is a goal that I was tasked with, and it's a hefty one.

But yes, that's where we're going.

Uh, training and development, the state funded and the uh city, the state funded and FEMA funded programs is I my dispatchers, they're flying out to New Mexico, Louisiana, Alabama, completely funded by the feds so that they can get more information to do their jobs better.

And not only does that, it gives them a chance to really interact with other operators in the country.

As a prior law enforcement, we used to think that you know you don't understand my job until you go and you're like, oh my god, your job's worse.

Anyway, this is an awesome job I have here.

So they're coming back very enlightened with the world.

Um facility improvements.

We refreshed the ECC upstairs on the sixth floor.

We rearranged it, we were made it as much improved as we could with the money that we had.

It's not the state, the state of Connecticut's Department of Transportation with hundreds of uh TVs, but we've made it far greater than it was when I first got here.

It's also going to be our downfall because technology is outpacing us.

Um AI, we are just really touching base on it.

I'm not an AI guy.

I'm still trying to figure out and understand it, but everything is being pushed that way, especially through our quality assurance programs.

I just came back from a conference in there.

The AI they want is you can basically get a program and it'll listen to 100% of my calls, and then it'll tell you all the things that were done wrong in that call.

We can then take those calls and turn them into training call, or they'll take all that and make up their own training calls.

We are already starting to play with it in the uh EMD program or medical dispatch area in our training environment.

We can bring them in there, and through AI, we can now pull calls and actually have our new trainees hear actual 911 calls that we tell the machine to do.

So that's why we're speeding up, we were able to speed up our training time frame by putting them in these rooms and training.

Prior to that, you got hired, and you sat next to a dispatcher and you sat there for eight months.

And I gotta tell you, it is the most boring thing I see is somebody doing this.

Because I'm like, just give me a second.

Now they come out, they're a lot more confident.

The CAD system we have, it's completely it's very complex.

The police department has several, they have almost a hundred different call codes.

You have to learn all this as well as the medical and the fire.

So the training environment that my supervisors put together was incredible.

This is the first group we're looking to hire anywhere from two to four two to five before the end of the year due to uh turnovers and retirements, and we're we have to tweak some of the training as we go, and we might be able to just take it down just a little bit so that it'll save us long run in our overtime area.

The motor roll, the only other infrastructure issue we have upstairs is my consoles are 25 years old, they're outdated, they're not outdated, they're no longer uh vendor, cannot provide any type of workaround for it.

It's kind of like bubblegum and toothpaste, have fun with that.

But we can get up there where we can work.

Lou mentioned the calls for service.

I have five civilian supervisors that were hired prior to me getting here in the year that the 15 months that we've been here, we have had not one union issue, we have not one grievance since they've been here, and it's directly related to their prior experiences dispatchers from various locations as well as within the city.

The one thing I will show you is if Barbara can go to the uh annual report, right?

That one right there.

You will see that 23, 24, and 25 are our total call volumes.

We're within a couple hundred of each other over those years, but the key is the ring times in 2025 with complete civilian supervisors.

Our ring time answer under 10 seconds is 94.47, up 3% from night from 2024.

That's an interesting spot, but what really is is the 11 seconds to 20 seconds.

So, how that works is the phone rings, I answer it, I engage the caller.

That starts the clock as soon as I pick up the phone.

If Parker's on the phone and that's another person is calling for a call while he's talking, the second person has to pick it up.

So there's a delay sometimes into it.

Where it increases is the 11 to 20 seconds, we're able to drop that call ratio by having more people the way the dispatchers have trained them that just because he's on the phone doesn't mean you can't answer the other phone.

And then where you get into it is the abandoned calls down at the bottom.

For that 11 to 20 second area, we had 66 abandoned calls in 2025.

So it's considered an abandoned call is you call and then hang up, or you call and we let it just ring.

So a situation that might ring, oak law.

We're dealing with an active situation.

My callers are all answering, you're sitting there, and the phone just continues to ring ring ring.

What's the impressive part is in 2024 we had 21 in that time frame, and then in 2025 with the civilian dispatches, we cut that almost in 150%.

But if you go to the 21 to 30 second gap, we went from 760 to 120, and that is because the civilian dispatchers, they were dispatchers, they know what calls need to go, and they tell them that there's nothing hanging anymore.

There's no reason.

Facilitate what you have, look at the map, move the people that are working.

So the police, you're in this sector, you touch that sector.

There's no reason for you to sit there dormant while Billy's taking three calls.

You can come in, and we just continue to manipulate around the sector so that nobody's outside of their sector to any great degree until they can free up people.

And we do that with the fire as well.

And then the last slide would just show you where we've gone in times for our pickups, which is in 2023.

We did it in 91.9.

2024 was 91.3, and then currently we are running 94.47.

Two weeks ago, with the latest information I had, we were running 97.31.

And Frank Legaux gives us, I have him run that report weekly.

And we were in the high 95 since the beginning of this year.

And it's only increasing as we now get people on there.

We're we're behind, we're four people short from where we want to be.

My total staff and hopefully by October, we will be totally staffed.

We were also moving radios in 911 uh locations so that it's now everybody has a way to answer it.

I'm only allowed certain nine so many 911 stations uh for the population to call volume.

So instead of just having two, I now have five because we they were underutilized prior to and now they're utilized.

I know that was pretty quick.

I was hoping it would be faster.

Oh that was true.

That was really good.

If you have any questions, you're more than welcome.

I said one very go ahead.

Thank you, Chair.

If you go to a uh IP uh pollen system, yes, ma'am.

Do you have a backup for power?

If um because we'll be running fiber with it, so our fiber will be our backup.

Okay.

The goal is to get rid of all the copper line.

Okay.

Uh because what we're finding is 30 years ago, 90% of the people had house phones, only 10% of the people had cellular.

Well, now it's it's completely flopped.

So if you go if you're more than you were more than welcome to come to the 911 center, there's a room half the size of this that's filled with copper line.

I have no idea what it does.

And I go in there and I'm like, what do you think that does?

And we don't have no idea.

Yeah, I think nobody works in that system anymore.

It's it's nice to touch down the line.

Well, yeah, you used to be watching.

Yeah, yeah.

That is the most amazing gift because after you got 50 of them, you're like, yeah, I'm just gonna guess here.

All right, I see Representative de la Cruz.

Sorry.

Yes, Representative Delacruz.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Uh Brian.

I appreciate the dilemma with the copper lines.

In my district, I have people of very, very low income.

They cannot afford a cell phone or Wi-Fi and so on.

So, what do we do about them?

As concerning what, sir?

The fact that without a landline, they don't have a cell phone.

How will they be able to contact the center?

I think that's outside my purview.

I I don't hand out cell phones or do the the phones, sir.

I wouldn't know how they would.

That would probably be a Jody question.

Well, right now they would use the landline.

Oh, they're using the landline, yes.

It would come.

We still answer 911 still come in as a hard line, or as a as a true telephone like you grew up with, yes.

Oh, I thought you said you were getting rid of all the land lines.

No, sir, it would be the blue light, the blue lights, the 25 blue lights right now are being when you call it comes across on a landline.

We want to disconnect that particular land line, and we will run it through a through an IP address and through um fiber cable, fiber.

I see, okay.

So um to Millie, who doesn't have a cell phone, would still be able to contact you through her uh her landline phone, her copper phone.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Uh Brian, thank you for that clarification.

Appreciate it.

On that yield.

Thank you, Representative.

Um representative Goldberg, sorry.

As I recall or the pastors, you actually have very little control over Mr.

Budget, it's the contractual or outside service providers.

So you and I the only reason I bring that up is just so my colleagues are uh synchronized to the conundrum you face, which is you have very little control.

I have can I control my uh maintenance budget and my equipment budget, and uh that is what I need to keep everything.

Um I won't tell you where my secondary location is, um, but little white things hit it, and I'm replacing little parts of it that I'm not a golfer.

No, I'm not that guy, but somebody could hit them way up there.

So that is where we spend a lot of our money is replacing lines like that, fiber, uh expanding our networks.

We assist obviously with operations through all their camera systems, but yes, the majority 99% of my budget is I have nothing to do about it.

I yield.

Thank you.

Uh Representative Pine.

Uh first off, it was a great presentation, and it's uh maybe the first one we've heard where we're sitting here and listening to how technology is actually part of more efficient, and I've been waiting to hear it.

So thank you.

Um this may be answered by Representative Colbert's comment, but the overtime line just touched on it at one point that some of the training you're doing could cut down on overtime.

It's a big number.

Is that just locked in contractually as well?

Is this so it's yes?

So it is contractually.

Um the numbers will probably change because just where we are next year, probably will come to it.

My goal is we've been we've been short staffed.

Uh several people have left on their own accord.

We've been obviously when I first got here trying to get the hiring system, it's a little long.

Um we thought it could probably be done in three months.

Um, so obviously I had that gap.

And then my goal was to let's cut the training down at a reasonable amount.

Myself and my two supervisors from outside, we came here, and we said this is a little long for us.

Everyone here is like, well, that's how it's been.

So I said, let's try this route, and we're seeing where we are.

I cut that so for every person I have out there that's new, I have a trainer.

So I'm paying this person and this person, and with somebody else on overtime.

So by cutting spending the time in the training center, the environment, I can cut those four months.

I think I can probably cut two to three more weeks off of it, and that's what we're going to look at May 1st when these four get off, and we go to hire the next two to five, is we will then see where we are because this is a very new environment for for this for the city to go from what we were to where we are now, and it's a learning curve.

Um AI, it's I know it's like a taboo thing.

It's extremely helpful in certain areas, it's extremely expensive.

Um, we do not have any true AI running quality assurance stuff right now because it's averaging between 30 and 60,000 a year, and everybody's still trying to figure out where it's at.

The the goal was, and it was really I came to Lou with hey, this is the software I want, and my goal from my background is is let's layer it so that we just have one software and then we can save money because PD doesn't have to do this, and FD doesn't have to do this.

We can get them together.

Umce I've done it, at least in my area, I know there's been a cost savings between 10 and 15,000 just in this first year.

And now we are looking at bringing in our drone program and some other things that are going to hopefully transpire this year that will alleviate some of that.

And but yeah, my goal is technologies where we can't stop it.

I got into computers in 1982 when they first hit in sixth grade, and my father said, dude, those things aren't gonna be around.

We should buy one.

Yeah, he's got two of them now, and I have an entire office upstairs over both of them.

So we do have to embrace it, but we also have to be cautious because lose public safety building is where we have to go because the room upstairs is I can reconfigure it.

We're growing out of it.

The servers that are required for this is just immense.

And my secondary location is completely inadequate.

If there was ever a flood zone here, we couldn't get there.

It's it's literally the size of your kitchen over there, and I have to put six people in there.

Then I have to bring a bus, like put the supervisor or somebody else in, and then I have to ask Grenage to have two 911 operators there because that's where we have to get our 911 people.

So I have to spread my people thin now.

So that's why we can't give up the sixth floor because that would be my secondary location.

But it's soft.

The technology is yeah, I'm in trying to embrace it at a slow pace because it gets very costly, but it is it's helping us help the citizens and the public safety by allowing us to be.

It used to be where where is that person?

We think he's here.

Now it is he's here to the point where if you're lost, I give you three words that are on your phone, you give them back to me.

I knew exactly where you are.

If you give me three words and they're wrong, I can take those three words, put it in a computer and tell you where you are.

Anywhere in the globe, the three words are never spoken anywhere else except in there across the water.

We have four square miles of Long Island South.

It's huge for us.

It helps us with the drones, it'll completely help us with uh the water uh locations we did with Sims and PD.

Now we have the what three words at these locations where if there's a some sort of water issue, they tell us, and we can tell you instantly where it is compared to somewhere in Cove.

Well, we're in COVID.

I don't you give us the three words, and I can put you within this table.

That's where that's you're gonna find that first.

So yeah, I'm gonna we fully embrace it, and with Lou's assistance and open-mindedness, yeah, we've definitely attacked software and made it the priority here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Representative.

Any further questions?

Anyone else?

Thank you very much, Brian.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Jones and ladies for having a lot of people.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good night, everyone.

We're done.

This is what time is it?

Good night.

1012.

1012.

Thank you.

And thank you for putting up with the delay from the computer rebooting in the middle of this.

That was awesome.

Yeah.

Good night, everyone.

Good night, everyone.

I knew it would come up, and I'm like, it's completely.

How do I lock you off here?