Recording in progress.

Good evening, and welcome to the August twenty-fifth, twenty twenty-five Tooleton City Council meeting.

I'll go ahead and call this meeting to order.

Our first item of business tonight is a pledge of allegiance, and I'll leave this tonight.

And we have representatives of Constitution Week.

Come on up.

I think Cameron, you're up.

You bring up your sister.

All right.

Welcome.

Welcome, Cameron.

Hello?

What's your sister's name?

Jordan.

Jordan.

Hi, Jordan.

Honorable mayor and city counselors.

Good evening.

The celebration of the Constitution was started by the daughters of the American Revolution in 1955.

The DAR asked Congress to set aside September 17th through the twenty-third every year to observe Constitution Week.

The resolution was later approved by the U.S.

Congress and signed into public law on August 2nd, 1956 by President Dwight Eisenhower.

The Constitution was signed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 17th, 1787.

Whereas the Constitution of the United States of America, the guardian of our liberties, embodies the principles of limited government in a republic dedicated to rule by law, and whereas September seventeenth, twenty twenty-five marks the marks two hundred and thirty-eighth anniversary of the framing of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Constitutional Convention.

And whereas it is fitting, proper to accord official requ recognition to this magnificent document and its memorable anniversary and to the patriotic celebrations, which will come commemorated and whereas public law nine one five or nine fifteen guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each year by the President of the United States of America designating September seventeenth through the twenty-third as Constitution Week.

Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the City of the Cons by the City Council of the City of Tualeton, Oregon, that Tualitan recognizes the week of September seventeenth through to the through the twenty-third as Constitution Week.

So we have a signed version of proclamation we can get you up here.

Next up, our second announcement is a new employee introduction.

Police K9 Drea.

Come on up.

Chief Pickering.

Still high energy.

You know how these introductions go.

Yeah.

We can probably just throw her up on the table to begin with.

She is so cute.

Well, Mayor and Council, good evening, I'm Chief Pickering.

Uh I'm excited to introduce our newest uh canine officer, K9 Drea.

So K9 Drea came to us from the Golden Gate Kennels in San Francisco outside the San Francisco area.

Um she turned one last week on August 20th.

And what what a better way to celebrate your first birthday than to uh find and seize 135 pounds of methamphetamine and about 60,000 dollars in cash.

All right.

So Drea came to us uh the week of July 14th.

Uh so Sam was able to work with the breeder to find the dog that was best.

So that he brought up multiple dogs, and Drea from about the first hour of being out of her kennel.

Uh, we knew she'd found her new home in Twalton.

Um the nice thing is she came from uh the breeders uh fully imprinted on all four of the major narcotics.

Uh and on July 31st of this year, she was uh certified through the Oregon Police K9 officers association, and so she holds her certifications already, and she's already been at work.

So we're super excited to have her.

As you can see, she's uh she does she never stops.

Uh she's pretty constant.

Uh and with the fact that she's pretty young, we're super excited for to have her and to have her around for a long time.

So we're excited to introduce her to you tonight.

Right.

Questions for Chief.

Comments.

Council Brooks.

Um, when does her dial come out?

And is there anything different that you do for the female?

Is this our first female, please talk?

Uh Zoe was first.

Zoe was first.

Oh, Zoe, yeah.

Yep.

Zoe was the first one.

So no, nothing different.

So she's she she's just she's right after it all the time.

So she's ready to go.

She's awesome.

Yeah.

So is there gonna be one of these?

We're working on it.

Okay.

Yeah, we're working on it.

Like by Christmas, do you think?

The you know the the the doll?

The canine plushie's about the same size as her right now, so we want to make sure we don't you know get confused who soon.

Other questions or comments.

No, I just had to say girl power.

And how is that gonna work with your little pumpkins?

Oh, they love it.

Are they just in love with her?

Yeah, and Tony loves her too, so I can well.

That was never in doubt, probably.

But I also wanted to say thank you already for having her at work.

It breaks my heart and makes me sick to my stomach that that are that many drugs are out there for our community members to access, and I just think the council, the all the people that have made it possible that we have um detection officers like Drea out there serving our communities.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming.

Thank you.

All right.

So let's go ahead and move on to uh public comment.

Public comment is an opportunity to uh anyone uh in Zoom or in the room here tonight to address the council regarding an item that is not on tonight's agenda.

Please keep your comments to about three minutes.

Uh uh first ask folks in the room if there's someone who would like to comment and then go to Zoom.

Uh I don't see uh I have no sign-ups.

Anybody want to address the council tonight?

No one in Zoom?

All right, we'll move on then.

Uh that brings us to our consent agenda.

The consent agenda are items considered routine and will be voted on in one motion unless the council would like an item removed and heard separately later tonight.

Tonight's consent agenda consists of item number one, consideration of approval of the work session and regular meeting minutes of August 11th, 2025.

Item two, consideration of approval of a new liquor license application for RECS recs.

Item number three, consideration of approval of a new liquor license application for Glow Gifts and Candle Studio.

Item number four, consideration of resolution number 5902-25, authorizing the city manager to execute an intergovernment intergovernmental agreement and IGA with Clean Water Services for the design phase of the Martinazi sewer trunk upssizing project.

Item number five, consideration of resolution number 5904-25 authorizing amendment one to the contract with OTEC for design of the 65th slash borough slash Sagart Improvements Project.

Item number six, consideration of resolution number 5905-25.

Awarding and authorizing a contract with McDonald and Weddell for construction of the Tewalta Police Department roof replacement.

And item number seven is consideration of resolution number five nine zero six-25, authorizing staff to submit to the Oregon Department of Land Conservation Development an application for the 2025 housing planning assistance grant to provide the city with consultant assistance for the city's housing capacity analysis.

Numbers two and three to be removed and heard separately later saying any other items uh council would like remove for consent.

All right.

Um make a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to uh approve the consent agenda as amended.

Any discussions on those motions?

All in favor say aye.

Hi.

Hi.

It's approved.

All right.

That brings us to my two.

Our special reports, Washington County Sheriff's Update, Sheriff Massey.

Weren't you just here?

I promise not to take as much of your time this time as I didn't.

Unless we have a gazillion questions again.

Interesting.

Welcome.

I can switch the thing if you want.

All right.

Thank you so much for having us again.

Um last time we were here.

No, time before last that we were here doing our sheriff's office updates or state of the office.

Um I promised that I would have last year's annual report to you sooner.

So you should have in front of you a copy of the annual report.

And then as we go through this, there will be an opportunity.

If anyone here or online would like to scan the QR code and get your own copy, we'll make that available for you.

Um we just wanted to provide a few updates that recenter us back to the idea of wherever you live, we serve you.

And in large part, that service comes in partnership with your Tualton Police Department and Chief Pickering, who has been an exceptional partner forever and ever.

Amen.

We do provide our countywide services to over 600,000 residents, and we are the primary first responders for your rural urban unincorporated residents and our municipal contract cities, which includes North Plains, Cornelius, Banks, and Gaston.

My goal is for us to be the safest major urban county in the state of Oregon.

Um for anyone who has interest in that annual report that the mayor and counselors have.

Uh you can scan that QR code or go to WCSO annual report.com.

Like to give you some updates on our county jail.

This is an area that we always present on because we have the only county jail in Washington County.

Um we have historically had three housing units closed since COVID because of short staffing.

I am ecstatic to let you know that we are actually not just fully staffed, but are engaging in overhires that were approved by the counties so that we can manage that um organic transition as people retire and we get people online.

That takes about 10 months to get someone working on their own.

We do still have three housing units closed, but that is because we are undergoing critical infrastructure repair that includes a new roof, hot and cold water piping, fire suppression systems, HVAC systems.

And so we are in the middle of that right now.

There is equipment everywhere, and we are at about a 380 bed capacity.

Normally, when we are fully functioning, we're at 572, which is the second smallest jail per capita in the state.

And we um right now we are sitting by far the smallest uh jail in the state.

To accommodate some of that or to sort of manage some of those things, we do have a contract with Yamhill County to utilize 15 of their beds where we house sentenced adults in custody so that they don't have to go back and forth to court and um consistent, you know, um visitation with their attorneys and things like that.

So that has helped free up some bed space.

And then uh last year we did receive a $750,000 grant to expand our pretrial release program.

What that will do?

Well, it will allow us to bring electronic monitoring in-house and have our deputies uh manage that program and the alerts 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I believe that that will be a significant escalation of safety to our community because uh over the last at least 15 years, um, the vendor that we have utilized, they do not um monitor their adults in custody who are out on electronic monitoring 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

They do not monitor overnight and they do not monitor on the weekends.

I'm sure it will surprise exactly no one here that many people contact their victims late at night and on the weekends.

Um inconsiderate.

So we are gonna go ahead and just pause that, bring everything in-house so that as our deputies are working in the jail 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they will be monitoring those for those alerts and then be able to get resources out if people are found to be in restricted zones.

Uh last piece I'll touch on with the jail is our uh jail capacity study.

We've just completed a contract with a vendor who did an assessment to gauge what they think our needs will be for our Washington County jail through 2055.

Um with a small amount of overage, it's gonna be over a thousand beds based off uh estimated population growth, and we will start the work coming soon to determine exactly what that looks like, um, how we might get funding, and I will be spending time in a lot of different counties across the country who are doing it better, who are doing it very well with cutting-edge technology and programming for behavioral health, substance use disorder, um, and transitional programming to make sure that the people that are being released from our custody are far better prepared to be successful once they're out in the community.

And so I'm really looking forward to that.

It's a passion of mine.

Um our jail actually um broke records throughout the country and received awards way back in 2004 when we opened up our special needs pod, which was specifically designed to accommodate those adults in custody who had behavioral health needs back then where they weren't able to be as successful in a general population housing unit.

And along with that came some really specialized training for our staff to help support those folks uh more effectively.

That issue has just expanded across our communities, and so uh I really look forward to being able to uh bring some best practices and some innovation to Washington County.

Chief.

Good evening, City Council members.

Um, I'm Chief Deputy Errol McCray.

Uh I'm gonna talk a little bit about our in the interagency teams.

So no single agency could provide all this all the services alone to keep the community safe.

So we have to do that in partnership.

By pooling our resources together, we can provide consistent professional uh services everywhere in the county.

Just as under just as Sheriff uh Massey stated earlier, Chief Pickering and the Twalton Police Department are excellent partners.

Um our agency team is strengthens the public service, public safety across the county through cities, unincorporated areas as well.

Our interagency teams are ready to respond to whatever complex situation that may come up within the county.

This is another interagency team called COVID, uh community violent uh reduction team.

Uh they were formed in October of 2024.

And since that time, as you can see, the numbers uh these numbers have been updated.

Uh the search warrants are up to 68 uh arrests are up to 49, and firearms seized are up to 20 282.

Wow.

Just not quite over under a year.

282 and not even a year.

I didn't actually have that number, so thank you.

Um wow.

So through this this partnership that we have, we were able to secure grant funding and install a NIBAN uh terminal.

Uh our partnership with the DA's office, Hillsborough Police, and Breamington Police right now.

But this tool helps analyze case shell casings.

So when officers or deputies respond to scenes and there's uh evidence there for shell casings, they can submit those into evidence at our at the sheriff's office and run that analysis.

That analysis will uh sometimes tie those casings to specific weapons, could which could help in resolving cases a lot sooner.

We have seen an increase in gun violence across the Washington County, but with this uh with covert uh and the things they are doing right now, we see uh positive progress coming along.

Their main focus is on prevention, intervention, and enforcement.

Our search and rescue team.

While this is not an interagency team, it is still consists of some highly trained cadets.

These cadets are juvenile volunteers uh ranging from the ages of 14 to 17, and they go through uh a 12-day basically academy of learning how to uh be certified as search and rescue.

Um they are skilled in both rural and urban rescue, and they don't just search for missing hunters or hikers or things like that, but they help save lives and possibly uh bring some closure to some families.

They are they were able to respond very quickly for time-sensitive cases.

They help process some crime scenes by doing grid searches for different items, and they also help and support other search and rescue teams across the state.

Um, this team is is as oversight uh by uh full-time sheriff's office SAR staff, and typically this because of their training and fast response, they're typically the first choice for most agencies to call upon when they have someone that's missing, or they need an area that's searched to be searched.

This news article is a perfect example of our how a search and rescue uh can help save lives.

This missing and endangered person was uh had suffered from severe mental uh issues and had also missed some vital medication.

Initially, when we received the report, the person had been gone over two hours.

Our search and rescue uh advisor uh first responded and was able to activate the project life saving equipment uh and we're able to locate the individual, and I'll go into that a little bit more where they found him at.

So Project Lifesaver and Help Me Home are two programs that that the sheriff's office run.

Project Lifesaver is a uh tracking program, which is a paid program.

If someone wants to uh has uh a love member who has suffers from some sort of uh serious mental health condition and would like it's a tracking device basically.

Um so you pay for the tracking device, and it's a quarterly fee that you pay through the sheriff's office.

And if that person becomes lost, we have equipment that will help us locate them fairly quickly.

The help me home is uh is a voluntary program where it's basically a secure database that we uh get information and a photo of a loved one.

If you have someone that typically wanders away from home from time to time, if a deputy of police officer comes across them, they are able to access that this database and identify the person and then contact the whoever they need to contact or bring them back home safely.

Getting back to the person that was the missing endangered person, he was located in an in an urban neighborhood uh green space area that had a ravine area as well.

So he was located about 30 feet down a ravine with some serious head injuries when we located him.

And as you can see from the picture, our search and rescue team helped bring him out of that ravine and get him back to safety fairly quickly, saving his life.

Our ROVT team, as technology has progressed, so has the sheriff's office trying to keep up with equipment.

Uh we now use have uh drones and robotic technology that are a lot more advanced.

These uh our ROV team helps uh can uh diagram crash scenes uh to help with our SWAT team going into where it might be an armed barricaded subject versus sending uh a deputy or police officer or canine in there, we'd send a drone in first and try and deal with the situation.

They also help support search and rescue efforts.

Um our RV team members carry the drones in their vehicles so they're much quicker to respond depending on the location.

Right now, a team composes of 11 deputies, uh three beaver three Beaverton officers, one Hillsborough officer, and we're still working with other county agencies who want to participate in the program as well.

All of our pilots have must have an FAA license, and uh they require training every two years and then monthly training as well, a minimum of 10 hours a month for the training.

And the training covers multiple uh drone platforms and different scenarios and missions that they have to uh practice in the drones are equipped for both indoor and outdoor.

We know it rains a lot in Oregon, but our drones are capable of flying it in increment weather as well.

And Oregon law kind of restricts us in in certain ways we can use the drones.

So there is uh I'm noticeing some concerns about privacy issues, but we have strict guidelines that we have to follow.

Um you be able to play we have a quick video here that can show you some of the uh things that our drones can do.

So in this one here, we are uh looking for two suspects that are uh taken off on foot.

The drone is able to follow those folks and guide our deputies or officers into Widow's locations that much safer so they don't be walking into some sort of ambush or anything like that.

Also with the thermal imaging, it whether it's daylight daytime, nighttime, it doesn't matter.

Covered area with trees, we can still locate them.

This is a this is another incident where we have uh two people running from us uh and the drone is able to follow uh as they maneuver through where they can fit, the vehicle can't, but we are able to guide officers and deputies where they're running from he got a bike.

Yep, yeah, he jumped on a bike.

And this is that partnership with Twalt and PD as well in action.

And as you can see, we have officers waiting right where they're running to this is uh footage of uh a TNT mission where there's hopefully possible suspect inside we're able to fly the drone to make a little space there and search the area before we send anyone in for safety looking forward.

I don't know if you've heard this before.

Scott, we have the public safety local option levy coming in November.

Has it has anyone heard anything about that?

No?

Okay, let me tell you about it.

No, I'm not gonna do that.

Um I think we know how much that funds us, and that it's the DA's office community corrections juvenile and family justice center.

I um I do want to make sure that everyone knows that we uh have a sort of running document right now where we are working on responses to all of your questions from the last time we were here.

No, there's no apologies.

This is the beautiful piece of the community engagement that's so important.

No one of us can think of everything, and if we can't respond to your questions and your concerns, then um we are not doing our best work, and it is a partnership, and that's really the main reason that we come out here to share different things with updates as it relates to the sheriff's office because it is a partnership.

And um, so just please know that that will be in your inboxes soon.

We're just finalizing a little bit of the data to make sure that it's accurate.

Other than that, what questions can we answer for you?

Questions, comments, the whole world.

Thank you.

It's so nice to see you again.

So um, I I think I didn't, and thank you for all your work and your continued um call out of the amazing partnerships, then especially Twalton.

But um, could you go back to the increasing gun violence and the part of the covert program?

Is that did you say that the increases just in Washington County, or do you don't you feel like that's a national sort of thing that we've seen in the last maybe seven months?

Well, I do I can't really speak to nationally, but I can speak to in our metro area.

There's been a significant increase.

Um we haven't, I would say maybe we didn't know about it as much in Washington County, but now that we've developed this team that is heavily led by intelligence, um, they are just really focusing on the problems in a way that we did not have the resources to previously.

Um I think a lot of what we were seeing in especially gun violence was just responding and reacting to crimes that happened, but then it would take so long to be able to get information about the different guns and whether or not they were attached to any other crimes, because there were I want to say two of those NIBEN tournament terminals throughout the state.

And so with that uh limited access, it would take a long time to get in front of them with the grants and with the special team that we've designed.

Now we have immediate access to that, and our detectives are able to really prioritize just that in our community.

And what they're finding is that those guns that they're seizing are connected to a lot of different people and a lot of different crimes throughout the Portland Metro area, especially.

Am I missing anything?

No, I think you covered it.

Yeah, thank you for that forethought.

And the only other thing I wonder about is I love getting to hear the continued use of the cadet program.

And I'm wondering if any are from Tualeton and how we could maybe what the education looks like, and maybe I could go on the website and find that, or I just wonder if there's engagement from our community in that program.

Sorry.

No, you can get back to me.

It's okay.

That's what I'm gonna do because I don't know off the top of my head if we have anyone from Tualetin.

But I will say, I mean, we have so many cadets, so I just have to believe it.

But also I'd be happy to send you the information because it's really incredible.

Um, especially like let's be clear, I have a 14-year-old daughter who has zero interest in it, but her friends in high school can't wait.

Yes.

No, not you, no, okay.

Yeah, I'd love to be able to make more knowledge.

Thank you so much.

You bet.

Other questions or comments?

The prisoner prep.

This is kind of a general question, but um you famously let everybody know that Washington County will not let you get away with crime.

I mentioned it.

Yes.

So, and then we we've heard over and over about the limited jail space.

So, do you use those tracking devices?

How do you um what do you do when you arrest somebody when you know we have such limited jail space to make sure they get the message?

Well, one of the things that we're doing is we are actually bringing people into custody and at the very least getting them booked and fingerprinted and out on a release agreement that restricts their ability to go back to the locations they were in.

Let's say it's um theft specifically.

One of the things the DA and I have been um talking about is organized retail theft and things like that.

So we are taking those folks into jail and getting them into custody at least initially and arresting them on other warrants that sometimes keep them in jail.

Um, and then we are um going to be using that um expanded pretrial release program to at least get people out on electronic monitoring and make sure that they're not having that victim contact.

But there are a lot of crimes, anything really like person felonies or anything like that, domestic violence, they all go to jail.

Um, so what we're doing is we're just making sure that we are utilizing the space that we have for the people that need to be in custody and for those who can be out of custody while they await adjudication.

Um, we're either out on electronic monitoring or just a release agreement of some sort.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Mm-hmm.

Councillor Brooks.

Thank you very much.

Um the programs look very interesting and uh amazing, actually.

Um I am curious about the process around jail, because I think that some people stay at Washington County jail and some people go to prison.

And can you talk to us a little bit more about that that kind of process and the average length of stay and kind of mandatory sentencing, blah blah blah.

Yeah.

Um, so uh Washington County Jail is uh anyone who is pre-sentence, pretrial, and people who are sentenced for 12 or 12 months and less.

Twelve months plus one day, they go off to prison.

However, we do have people that have been in custody for four to five years who were sentenced to less than a year on multiple charges, and if they are run consecutively, mm-hmm.

You see where I'm going here.

If a judge runs them consecutively, let's pretend someone gets 12 months on five charges that are run consecutively, they never do meet that threshold of 12 months plus one day to go to prison, which is statutorily required, so they will spend five years minus their roughly 10% off for good time at the Washington County jail.

Um that is not the goal.

The goal is to 12 months plus a day get people into prison where they actually have the a better ability to provide um more wraparound care and resources to help them re-integrate effectively.

Um, but it does happen.

And there's a lot of other things that impact people's um average length of stay.

For instance, if someone is going through the um state facility for mental health to determine whether or not they're able to aid and assist in their defense, they could be down there on an aid and assist for several months prior to determining whether or not they're able to assist in their own defense.

And so that will pause their entire adjudication pretrial process until that determination is made.

If they are not found able to aid and assist, they might stay at the state hospital to get treatment until they are able to, then they'll come back and start the whole process over.

Or if they're found able after several months, they will come back and start over and pick up where they left off.

And so there are several factors that can impact someone's average length of stay and determine whether or not they're actually in custody, sometimes for very extended periods of time before they ever get to their trial.

And then post-adjudication with sentencing, depending on what the judges sentence, they could also be in custody with us in Washington County for a very long time.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, I appreciate that very much because I think it's confusing and a lot of people don't have a lot of exposure, and I really didn't until I started working at community corrections and yeah.

Um and then the other I had two kind of weird questions.

Um was I've had community members in diff from different realms come to me with concerns about um we have a lot of massage parlors and concerns about like sex trafficking and that kind of thing.

And I'm just curious, is that something that your department works on?

Is there a process around that or if there are complaints of that in the urban unincorporated areas, rural areas, that's absolutely something that our detectives look into.

Um I know that there was a complaint made, for instance, next to my hair stylist spot in Tiger, and uh they contacted the Tiger Police for that, and their detectives were looking into that one.

So it's absolutely something that our local jurisdictions are working on and sharing information on and intelligence.

Absolutely.

Okay.

And then um the other question is, and I know you might not be able to speak to this, but maybe why you can't speak to it, but some people have talked to me about the case about the uh the Twelleton River with the Yeah, and because we had just done a kayaking tour, and there was some fear and curiosity and concern that there was a lot of vagueness around reporting, and just wondering if you want to could illuminate a little bit about that case.

Um unfortunately, there's probably not a lot that I can say yet.

You're correct, um, other than the fact that we have uh we had search and rescue responding um to help our staff with um doing grid searches of the entire uh banks and sets of areas where um we could hopefully look for more body parts that were discovered, and um we've had a significant presence with our Marine Patrol to help ensure that people can feel like they can use the waterways safely and that they don't have to worry.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much for that.

You but yeah, that came up even with the young ones though.

Sure.

Appreciate it.

Understood.

Are there questions or comments?

That's right.

No questions, just comments.

Thank you very much for this uh report, and I look forward to reading it more and more.

But um, and for keeping our uh community safe along with our police officers here, so thank you.

Thank you.

Um, I don't know if it's widely known, but the sheriff's office is also statutorily required to have a marine patrol, which is just one of those things that makes us unique.

Any other questions or comments?

Okay.

That's fascinating to me.

Is there anything else we should know that's unique about the sheriff's department that they have so much?

That it's an office, not a department.

Because office of the sheriff, just saying.

Um I was appointed, it would be a department.

Yes.

Oh, and because it's elected, it's an office.

Also, statutorily required functions.

I have to have a jail.

I have to have search and rescue.

I have to have marine patrol.

I have to have concealed handgun licensing, and I have to have civil.

What I don't have to have, and by I I just mean the sheriff generally, not me.

But what what the sheriff does not have to have is a patrol division, believe it or not.

But we do have the third largest police agency in the state, which is also a gift.

But it's those other things that make the sheriff's office really unique because they're required by statute for a sheriff to provide for the community.

And a jail, jail division, all of that.

So a lot of offices, a lot of sheriff's offices in the state don't have like a policing function, but they definitely have a jail.

They have to have marine patrol.

They have to have those things.

And then you call the rest of the group, the divisions.

So we have divisions.

Uh at the at our sheriff's office, we have our investigations division, so those will be our detectives.

Patrol division.

So you see out on the road, and then our jail division.

We have a services division, which includes property and evidence, records, civil, civil CHL.

Thank you, and CHL, and then our professional standards division, which is our internal affairs training, um, policy and accreditation.

I'm probably missing something.

That's okay.

Thank you very much.

I I would like to have the terminology right.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, thank you both for coming tonight.

Enjoyed the presentation, and good luck on the levy.

I know you'd be working hard on it.

What?

Thanks, y'all.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

All right, that brings us to general business.

Item number one, consideration uh resolution number 5907-25, authorizing the city manager to sign an intergovernmental agreement with the Tiger Tualton School District with a school resource officer program, also uh also known as SRO.

And we have uh Chief and Officer Miller.

Welcome.

Well, good evening, Mayor and Council.

Um again, Chief Pickering, and uh seated on my right is uh school resource officer Brian Miller.

So just you know, real briefly, you know, year after year we sign an intergovernmental agreement with the school district to provide uh police officers in the schools.

We do provide two.

Uh we have one at the high school and one at the uh middle school, is where they're assigned, but and then they collectively cover the elementary schools in the district as well as uh Horizon High School and Horizon Middle School and Elementary School.

Um and so with that, I'm gonna turn the presentation over to Officer Miller, who's gonna give you some statistical data and some stuff that they dealt with uh from last year's school year, and then uh we'll circle back to the resolution.

So thanks for having me.

So I do Zillows go here.

I did not put this PowerPoint together.

Uh we have lovely staff in the police department that are very gifted at building these PowerPoints.

A little touch happy.

Okay, as Twalton SROs, we are dedicated to making a difference in the lives of every student by ensuring each child feel safe in the classroom environment, promoting an open door policy for all those students, interacting with students in a positive way every day and supporting the staff and community.

That's me and uh I go into government classes every year at the high school and focus classes and talk about search and seizure and kind of criminal law with the focus classes.

So let's dive into some of our goals for the 2024-2025 school year.

So we're asked to do a lot of things.

These are just some of the examples as far as stuff that we um are asked to do.

Um so fall events, you know, attend all the home football games.

Um we go to some away games based upon just how the season's going.

Um we're asked to be a back to school night for you know, help get to greet families and students coming back to school and new students and families to just kind of introduce ourselves so they know who we are.

Um we assist, you know, the band with the homecoming parade and the dance on coaching staff, help out with football, and um we try to get engaged with um staff meetings and um you know this week is basically just a lot of professional development, and so they try to get us involved with that.

So just to make us be a part of the staff.

Um, our winter events, you know, we attend basketball games this year.

I had the opportunity to go to Washington, DC with Leap.

Um we attend help out with Pioneer Days with Twalton Elementary.

We do shop with a cop, we're doing that a little bit different this year.

Um different school fairs and events that we attend, and we do read with the comp at the elementary level.

So spring event, we always have check-ins with the school district regarding different stuff that we're involved in in the school just to make sure that we're still being involved.

You know, we're involved with Unity Week and obviously graduation ceremony, prom and also help out with girls' golf.

This thing's cool.

So let's look at kind of see that picture next to uh Daniel, Officer Hernandez there.

That's uh one of our officer's son at Horizon Elementary School for Axton Montrose.

So the 2024 school year from September to June.

Um the total offense reports that we took between Daniel and I were 47.

We had 10 arrest reports, um, zero missing person reports.

We had 33 supplemental reports, and those are basically just either an assist to another officer investigating something that was related to the school or cases that we were assigned and did supplemental reports on, and then juvenile referrals, those are kind of cases where maybe there's a request for a referral to be made to the juvenile center, not necessarily there's just a lot of um circumstances related to it.

Probably doesn't need to go to the juveniles, but we do make a referral based upon the request of a family or a student or potentially the district.

So and none of our referrals or really offense incidents last year were self-initiated by Daniel and I would say 99% of everything that we do in the school is at the request of either an outside agency, parents, uh district, or students themselves reporting incidents.

So here's a breakdown of just the um types of reports, um alcohol offenses, assault, harassment reports, um, assistant, assist other agencies.

We had 13 DHS referrals, um, and the DHS referrals are kind of split up between in our detective division.

Anything during the school year that's tied to a school, they assign DHS referrals to Daniel and I.

Drug crimes, uh juvenile involvement, school threats, sex crimes, vandalism, property crimes, and welfare check.

Drug crimes, um, how we do drugs across Tiger Twalton School District.

Um typically, if it's just a possession of an illegal offense that we can enforce.

Um every kid is provided a uh freebie, they're provided education.

Um they meet with the school social worker.

Um obviously there's some school consequence, but there's no enforcement on our behalf.

So here's a little bit more in depth at the offenses that we reports that we handled.

Um we had two assault threes, and that's basically uh more than one individual attacking another person intentionally.

Those were at the high school, um four assault fours, two agency assist, we had custody issue, a couple courtesy reports, two criminal mischiefs, 13 DHS referrals, four harassments, and that's offensive physical contact, or intentional, you know, unwanted harassment, like telephonically.

Juvenile involvement, and that's those are kind of those uh cases where we document the incident, doesn't necessarily rise to a criminal level, but we at least want to document it and have it on record.

Um lost child, lost property, one MIP alcohol, two possession of marijuana, two sex abuses and three suspicious circumstances, two school threats, and one welfare check.

This is just a this slide didn't turn out very good.

Um but this is just kind of breaks down.

There's another slide here that breaks it more down with uh the reports with the victim and suspect race and sex, but this just kind of breaks down what up at the top the assault three suspect was female, and okay, let's see if suspect race was white.

Uh but it just kind of breaks down each offense that we dealt with.

Any questions on that slide?

Tough to see.

Yeah.

Okay, I think the bar car, the next one on the so here's uh just breakdown of the victims and suspects by race.

Um white, three black, ten Hispanic Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, one zero Asian and unknown of the victims.

Twenty white of the suspects, one black, fourteen Hispanic, Pacific Islander, four Asian, zero, five unknowns.

Here's by breakdown of sex.

And those harassments are all offensive physical contact that didn't rise to like any physical injury or anything.

Here's a five-year trend.

I like this slide of juvenile arrest by race, just um, you know, 2021.

2022, we really saw a big spike.

Um that was a bad year at the high school.

Um, but that was post-COVID, and uh I think a lot of kids didn't know how to communicate.

So you know, we're we're doing a lot um working with families, um school administration, um counselors to really you know decrease the amount of referrals we do, you know, and that's one good thing about you know being at the school all the time, really getting to know families, being engaged in different activities, um the families you know, they start trusting you and knowing that you're gonna take care of follow-through with uh restorative plans and so we get kind of creative to keep kids out of the criminal justice system.

There's five-year trend of the juvenile arrest by sex still, you can see a significant decrease last year.

We still got a little bit of 25 in us.

Our students are thriving in the environment we have built together that is why only twelve out of thousands of our student contacts resulted in a referral, juvenile referral or arrest.

So we Daniel and I both we try to keep an open door policy.

Um kids coming in all day long, you know, when we have when we're available.

So Twalton School Resource Officers, we are committed to building a bright future for every student.

That's it.

Any questions?

Questions for Chief or Officer Miller.

Elsa Brooks.

Hi, thank you very much for the presentation.

And um and all of your work with our students.

I just I don't know if I didn't remember or if it's different, but do have we always served Horizon too?

Yeah, yeah, we've served Horizon for many years.

So why they're in the city.

Oh yeah, no, I'm just but I don't remember them in the report.

So I just was it's pretty rare that we have any um interaction or involvement with them.

Um but yeah, we we do cover um any crimes or any issues that do come up.

A lot of theirs are just minor disciplinary issues, and they usually don't need any assistance from the police.

But you might remember that's probably been about 10 years ago.

They had a pretty pretty vocal uh school threat uh that we handled and dealt with um you know pretty thoroughly.

So we participate and help them out in their um lockdown drills.

So thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

That was Reason.

Thank you for the presentation.

Just curious of um activities that you do with the youth, so to keep them from uh taking aggression or doing all these other things that they do on others on their peers.

Just I'm just curious.

You know, um it it takes it takes a team, obviously, and there's connections that kids have within the school, you know.

Um if we're able to get kids connected in a positive manner, then that's kind of how we we try to get them involved in different activities.

Um, sometimes you know, we do have to put things in place, you know, no no contact agreements if kids aren't buying off on it.

Um but you know, we do I provide a lot of law-related education as far as what the potential consequences could be, um, you know, and communicate with families as well.

Um but we just try to give buy-off on the kids to uh kind of focus on maintaining the safe behavior while they're within Tiger Twelve and School District, you know, one of their pillars.

I I think it's important to to really showcase the the relationship that Officer Miller and Officer Hernandez build with the kids.

And so I you know, I spent time in the schools as an SRO, and the biggest component of the SRO program is the consistency of the same person being in the building on a daily basis, and so they get to know Officer Miller, they get to know Officer Hernandez, they get to know who they are as people.

You know, Brian has a large bowl of candy that sits on his desk.

And every time I've been up to his office to just to go in and check on them or have a meeting, kids come in constantly and grab candy, and that candy turns into conversation, and that conversation then turns into a level of trust.

And you know, depending on the certain student, it might be a small level of trust, but that level of trust then grows.

And their constant communication with those kids and constant just being a constant in the school itself, you know.

As Brian said, he coaches freshman football, he coaches girls golf in the spring.

He's interacting with the kids outside of the school function itself.

And if you look at the high school specifically, it's like a small city within the city.

Um, you know, they have their own mayor being principal de Lerba and their own council and the administration of the staff.

But the integration of this of the SROs into the school and the partnership they have with the Washington County juvenile department where they're dealing with a lot of these issues, smaller issues, things that without an officer in the school or a normal patrol officer who may show up and may not have the relationship that an SRO does.

Those incidents are are being dealt with at a more restorative type justice level where they're talking about programs, they're getting kids into different classes, they're moving kids around, they're different their placement, they're they're not necessarily just taking enforcement action.

They're actually dealing with the kid and Officer Hernandez and Officer Miller are getting to know as as Brian says, they're getting to know the families and the family dynamics and the family units and what might what may be happening outside of the walls of the schools, and with the constant communication with the schools, the families and the students involved, we're finding very positive resolutions in a lot of those situations.

You know, it's it's interesting to find in the schools, especially today, that if something starts to happen in the school, rumors start to float around of certain things, something gets written on the wall of a bathroom.

Typically, the first people that know about that incident in the school, other than the couple of kids who may start it is typically our SROs.

And that's because the level of trust they've established with kids that are not in trouble to know that's the trusted adult that I go to.

Yeah.

That a lot of times they'll go to the officers before they will go to the administration.

And so that again is just it just highlights the partnership and the work that these guys do, just to be human beings in the schools who just happen to be in uniform.

Yeah, no, I I truly admire the work uh dealing with teenagers.

I'm sure it's I was a teenager once in LA.

So you know, so I I know how hard it is.

Um thank you for that, and thank you for keeping them active and positive and um have that trust so they can come to you and tell you things that um it's really bothering them, and or someone bothering them, or things that you know um that they can prevent that um prevent them from being aggressive or hurting someone or hurting themselves even.

Yeah, so thank you.

So do you like coaching freshmen football or girls golf better now?

It's girls golf.

You know, it's uh well I uh I enjoy I just I like being with the kids, you know what I mean?

It's really well.

I was kind of thinking on you, sorry.

But when the weather turns, that's when I'm the least happy to be out there, yeah.

I can imagine.

Um I was kind of shocked um that the sex of the suspects that they were it like I know the females are half, but I was expecting to be like 10%.

So I was really kind of shocked, and is that typical but um other schools are seeing?

Um I always compare myself with Tiger.

Um Twalton's always had um different dynamics as far as um I think we've just had more aggressive kids.

Okay.

So yeah, okay.

And then do you an officer Hernandez like um when you're on the clock, how much of is your time all at the school, or do you spend time doing other things?

It's all at the school.

Yeah, so they're they're primarily looking, they both have offices at the schools.

So they they do have desks at the police department, but their primary um duty location, if you will, is at the schools.

So you're pretty much at the high school, and then you just kind of go to Horizon or Officer Hernandez goes to the grade.

Yeah, if we're requested at you know, the different elementary schools will go and you know, we'll we've tried over the years, last couple of years since Daniel's come on to try to make an appearance, you know.

Uh consistent of parents at the elementary level.

Um, but it's tough sometimes.

Yeah.

Um I I just want to share a story real quick that there was an event at um Las Casitas that um during the holidays, and I was with Officer Hernandez, and I was um just it was amazing because those kids knew who he was and they came up and talked to him, and it was a friendly, really great interaction.

So thanks for the great job.

So so Brian has candy and Daniel has stickers.

I see middle school kids love stickers, and it I mean it actually became an issue when we were we were running out of stickers and we're like, where have all of our stickers going?

Because we order them by the thousands.

And to find out, we just we had to order Daniel his own box because he hands them out almost every day.

But that sticker is the candy that Brian uses, and it is the connection to the kids.

The high school kids only get a sticker on a birthday.

That's the hillier.

Um just quickly, I I think that you undersold the list of things that you officers participate in and building community, and um, I think you're also uh a present presence at Mitch for sure.

And um I just want to say to the chief and thank you for hiring such people of character, and um thank you for making sure they're in the roles to be these trusted adults for the children in our communities and for the families.

I've seen firsthand the difference that Officer Miller and Officer Hernandez have made, and I think our community is a way better place because of the work they do and the time and energy and care they put into everything that they do, every word they say.

I mean, I I I've seen Officer Miller be a girl dad all of a sudden in the middle of an unusual, like, okay, that was not what I expected situation, I'm pretty sure.

And and um they are they are people of great character, and um I'm proud to get to say I know them and get to work with them in my day job.

Um, and I'm also proud to get to sit here as a counselor and be part of this presentation, and I know how hard you work, so thank you.

You know, the the city of Twalton is has embraced the school resource officer program since 1988.

So they became an we Twalton became a police department in 1987 when we incorporated from the sheriff's office.

And in 1988, the Twalton Police Department put Officer Randy Capus at Twality Middle School, Twaldy Junior High back then.

Um I can honestly say that he is one of the people who guided me towards law enforcement as an as a seventh grade student at Tuality uh junior high and hanging out with Officer Randy, and just the interaction that he had, and so those are the interactions that are super important for our kids to have.

So yeah.

Any other questions or comments?

Right, seeing none.

So just I will just call to your attention on the IGA itself.

So um over the past several years, um, our IGA has been a partnership with the school district where the school district uh pays for 50 percent of the top paid uh school resource officer that we have.

Uh, in conversations with the school district and with uh the superintendent, the school district has agreed that uh the partnership that we have is one of value.

Um and so they have agreed over the next over this school year to increase their contribution to 75 percent of the top paid officer and to uh escalate that in the coming years to 100 percent of the top paid officer.

So um we're we're working to get to where the they are truly valuing um who we're putting in the schools and the relationship and the partnership that we do have.

So do we have okay, okay.

Um I move that we adopt resolution number 5907-25.

I have a motion in two seconds to adopt resolution number five nine zero seven-25.

Any discussions on those motions?

I'll start with Councilor Sacco.

Aye, Council Hillier.

Aye, Council Reyes, yes, Council Brooks.

Okay, Council President Pratt.

Aye, chair votes aye.

It's unanimous.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

So item number two is consideration of recommendations from the council committee on advisory appointments.

Who's leading the discussion tonight?

Um so we thank you very much, Mayor.

So Councillor Pratt and Councillor Sacco and I met on August 5th, which was the National Night How and we met and we uh took time to um interview several people, like always um many great qualified volunteers, and these are volunteers by the way, they're not getting paid or anything.

So having that um high quality of uh interested candidates, it's always a good thing.

It's always uh a prime moment for me because a proud moment for me because of our community, and um there are a lot of people that I never get to see them anywhere other than that meeting, and then of course we build relationships from there.

But I I'm always surprised about people that just decided I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't know we had this kind of talent in our community.

So thank you very much.

And we are now gonna name the um individuals that were uh assigned at different committees uh to advise us and to be our eyes or ears out in the community, and um so I'm gonna pass this on to the other counselors.

So for the architectural review view board, um, we'd like to reappoint skip stanaway, and for the library advisory committee, um we'd like to um appoint Emily Lanson, and then counselor Sotto's got a couple, and then for the planning commission, um, we'd like to appoint Justin Lindley and Alan Pericini.

And with that, um I move to um to I guess uh recommend these uh appointments to the um mentioned committees second okay.

So I have a motion and second to approve the recommendations of the appointments committee.

Any discussions on those motions?

All in favor say aye.

Aye aye.

Opposed.

Abstentions, it's unanimous.

All right.

So that brings us to items removed from consent.

We had two items removed for consent.

Item number two, consideration of approval of a new liquor license application for RECS or Rex.

Council Hill, you're up.

Thank you, Mayor.

But I will state again that I really believe that it hurts my heart and it hurts a lot of parts of I of how I think we should be protecting our community to have a liquor license at a place where people go to recreate.

You're gonna go for Baltimore.

Yeah, we just do ultimate laws.

Oh and I also believe that in that uh vein that um as we're recreating to make candles at a professional location.

I I really just uh question the norms that our community is placing on businesses to provide liquor for people to go recreate making candles.

I really believe that that is um something that we should not be pushing on businesses in order to be successful, and I hope that I can find a way to help change the norms in our community in some possible way that support us businesses being thriving in our community without liquor for these types of activities.

Thank you.

I move that we adopt the two items from the consent agenda approval of liquor licenses for RECS and for Glow Gifts and Candle Studio.

Uh you need to do them separately, I'm sorry, because there's their resolution.

I move I move that we adopt consideration of approval of a new liquor license for RECS.

Second, I have a motion or second for the approval of a new liquor license application for RECS.

Discussions on those motions.

Uh Councilor Sacco.

Aye.

Council Haier?

No.

Council Reyes.

Yes.

Council Brooks.

Aye.

Council President Pratt.

Aye.

Chair votes aye.

It's unanimous.

No.

No, it's not except for the case.

Oh, I'm sorry.

It's sorry.

That's uh five to one.

Sorry.

Or my stripes.

Yeah, five to one.

Correction.

I move that we um approve a new liquor license application for that was uh sent in by Glow Gifts and Candle Studio.

Second.

I have a motion second to approve the new liquor license application for Gold Glyphs and Glow Gifts and Candle Studio.

Any discussions on those motions.

Council Hillier.

No.

Councilor Reyes.

Yes.

Councilor Sacco.

Yes.

Council Brooks.

Aye.

Council President Pratt.

Aye.

Chair votes aye.

It's uh five to one in favor of granting the license.

All right.

So that brings us to uh council communications, any communications.

Council Brooks.

Um yeah, I over the week um I had uh someone reach out to me about the parking um conversation that we had for homeless, and that we had made a decision to not do it.

And um I didn't feel like we had the full discussion, so I was just curious if there was interest on the council for having a conversation, not just about that, but about um utilizing city funds to support solutions for people struggling with housing issues.

Um, and finish sort of discussing some of the topics that we had talked about in the safe parking program conversation.

Does that make sense what I just said?

Okay, council person press.

I'm just gonna chime in.

Um, during that um when that was presented to us, there was also talk about that eviction prevention was more effective.

So I think I think and we already have the budget for this year, but I think that'd be interesting for next year, maybe to look at the different things and look if there's a room in the budget, a small amount at least to help with that because I mean we were all pretty touched when people were talking to us about the situation in our community.

I got an update today from Megan.

Do you want to come?

She has a little bit of information about that.

Hi, everybody.

Uh, my understanding is that just compassion will be submitting an application through our outside agency grant program potentially for eviction prevention assistance or rent relief.

So we'll see if it comes in, but that could be one avenue.

Council Brooks.

So I think that's another thing to talk about, but I'm just curious about the conversation in general and having a transparent conversation around this issue, kind of like what they're doing currently with other cities and the costs that they're ex you know the other cities are expending, what we think if we want to or if we don't, and what kind of program that we'd want to look at if we did.

Um just instead of waiting for somebody to come to us to make a decision based on the council's uh leadership, thoughts or comments or I'm not sure.

I would have to like review a few more do a little bit more research and then uh think about it, process it, and then come back.

But yeah, I'm not ready to speak about it today.

At least I I heard about it when I was driving here last council meeting, but I didn't dig into it that much, and I as far as research, like um, so I don't know.

Okay, I'm not ready to talk about it, I guess as my okay questions.

Yeah, I uh I mean I I agree with counselor Brooks.

Um, you know, we had the conversation, but you know, there was no decision made, but I would like for it to come before council um and for us to um have a more robust conversation about um if that's something we want to move forward with or not.

So I was just reading our minutes from the last meeting.

Thank you, Mayor.

And um yeah, I I'd like to have more information.

I understand that it was a staff report, it was a really good one and worth having a conversation for, and I think that it would be really good to do after we look at the grant cycle potentially.

Um I mean, knowing that we would look relook at it, but understanding too what maybe resources could potentially be assigned.

So that's just a thought.

All right.

Uh my position right now is the budget's done for this year, so I wouldn't I wouldn't want to take time on our schedule until we get closer to next budget year, especially considering you know, a grant application and to the um discussion of it's better is the money better wisely spent on eviction prevention or three empty parking spots.

I mean three spots that potentially could be empty all year long versus those dollars going towards eviction prevention.

Um I just to be clear that is part of the proposal.

I it would be more like a work uh a work item to kind of flush out some of the things that we had talked about at that conversation.

It was just weird to me because I thought it was informational and informational uh point on our agenda, and then when I had communication about like where you got you know, that we heard that you made this decision.

I was surprised because I didn't feel that we had made a decision because we were just deliberating.

So I um I want to be really clear to especially the county leadership that came and took the time to um give us this presentation that it's really had me thinking about ways that we could be participatory in an effective way in a way that we believe that would help our community and set us up for a good work session whenever the council at the council's you know what do you call it?

Pleasure.

Okay.

All right.

Other communications?

Yeah.

Oh, I moved to adjourn.

Second, second, second.

I have a motion and second to adjourn.

Uh all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed.

All right.

All right, that's it.

Are you our official or draft?

Have a very good evening, folks.

Thank you for watching tonight or attending.