Good afternoon and welcome to the public safety committee.

Our members are here today.

Um Councilmember Andre Bowman.

Councilmember Vivian Joyner, Council Member.

Wonderful Regina Hall.

And that's CPO.

And we have with us this afternoon, our Mayor Pro Tim.

Denise Adams.

Thanks for being with us today.

We take uh it's an honor for us to serve our community as members of the public safety committee.

Because this is the one area other than public works that pretty much touches everyone.

And uh before we get into the agenda, I want to have two shout-outs today.

Um first to our Winsless Island police department who had a phenomenal coffee with a cop at uh Alyx's Cheesecake on Trade Street.

Uh it was just a tremendous time to see residents come out and chat with our police officers and learn more about what goes on in public safety from the police force.

So when you hear about that again, and I know they're going to do a couple of more this year.

Uh please come out and meet our officers and get to know them, but more importantly, know their passion about public safety and enforcing our laws.

And I also want to give a shout out to our fire department.

Um ever taken City University, uh, you should.

And last Thursday, Chief Mayo scared everybody in the class.

None of us wanted to go home and go to sleep with our doors open.

We were concerned about the mattresses we sleep in, just being a bed of oil.

So thank you, Chief Mayo, for being real with us and telling everyone the truth about fire safety.

Uh with that, uh, we'll go on with our meeting today.

We have one consent agenda.

Does anybody want to pull that?

Scott.

Uh I would like to pull C1, please.

Yes.

Okay.

I still see it here.

Yeah.

Madam Scott, what is your concern?

I just wanted us to the for consent agenda for C1, and I would like to pull that for uh presentation, please.

Yes.

Okay.

I think that's been moved to G1.

So I don't know if it is not is not on mine.

Okay.

So C one.

The only thing on the consent is just the minutes.

Oh, then I'm good.

I I don't have that on my on mine.

I apologize.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, refresh.

Uh move to approve the minutes.

Thank you.

A second.

C one.

We've moved we've heard a motion and it's been seconded.

All in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

All righty.

Now we'll go to our general agenda.

Uh we'll have G1, please.

Item G1 ordinance amending section 4297 of the city code to establish weight limitations on through traffic on certain city streets located in the southwest ward.

Uh good afternoon, Reed Hutchins, Transportation Operations Manager for the City of Winston DOT.

Uh the item before you for consideration uh is uh uh weight limitation on Jonestown Road from Kester Mill to uh Stratford Road or US 158 to the south.

Um the item is is proposed because every once in a while we'll get requests in from citizens or or agencies uh regarding these where there's there's tractor trailer traffic going through more residential areas than commercial areas.

Um the reason we brought this one before forward today is Jonestown Road is mainly residential.

Uh we found that tractor trailers or semi-trucks vehicles over 13,000 pounds are using Jonestown Road to almost as a cut through between Haynes Mall uh Boulevard or Haines Mall Road and uh and Stratford Road to the south.

Um so the weight limitation that we're proposing today is to go from Kester Mill, uh which will allow vehicles to get to the Walmart to the other commercial businesses there, and then all the way down to Stratford Road.

And I'll be happy to take any questions.

Is there any discussion on this?

So this has been a um in my seven to eight months on council.

This has been a very large topic of conversation.

That's why I wanted to hear about this.

So uh thank you very much for uh moving this through.

Um I know that the residents who live in that area um are going to be very excited to hear that there is progress here and um look forward to to seeing uh what we we can get going.

Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tim?

Yes, thank you.

Hi.

Um my question is how again, how are we able to monitor this?

I mean, I 16 years I see this this all the time.

Uh I know neighborhoods, I know cut throughs.

I saw a big tractor trailer truck do a U-turn today on my way down here in a neighborhood.

And I'm just wondering because our constituents and the citizens constantly ask us to lower these speed limits and weights.

And we got all of these regulatory signs and blinking lights and but I still get calls from my constituents complaining that you know the trucks are still coming through.

And I'm wondering if somewhere down the line, maybe in the near future, AI will help us with this with the companies and being able to see where these trucks are going, just like we can monitor our fleet.

Yeah, great question, Mayor Pro Tim.

Uh so I'll start with the signage aspect.

Uh, we really do rely heavily on the signs as the kind of the first uh level of kind of defense from the offenders here.

Um the second line is of course our police department to help us out with that enforcement of the weight limitation.

Uh the next thing that our department does, we reach out to these companies directly if we do find that they're still offending the ordinance.

Um and then lastly, you you mentioned technology.

Um, as technology advances, as things can kind of progress, um, we're able to kind of we're able to pull license plates directly from cameras that we can deploy.

Uh we can find those offending vehicles and then work more directly with those companies.

Where in the past we were just like, okay, you might be offending, but now we can actually pinpoint the the actual vehicles that are are offending.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hall.

Thank you.

Um I do have one other question.

One of the concerns, well, not one this is a concern, but we've gotten it from multiple people, and I know that all of my colleagues have received email correspondence about it.

And that is having oversized um vehicles, particularly tractor trailers, that have uh been seen a bit more frequently in residential areas.

And so for just a standard record or policy, are residential areas capped at a certain weight limit for um vehicles that I mean I don't know that I've ever seen that posted in my neighborhood, but yes, so great question.

So we we it's the expectation that anything over 13,000 pounds use uh a street that's rated for that that weight.

Um we don't like to see them on residential streets and and really tractor trailers don't love to go on residential street because tight turns, narrow road widths in this scenario, you really do have uh it from 40 down to Stratford Road, uh tractor trailers can get off and go quite easily down Jonestown Road.

Um but to answer your question about why we don't post them everywhere, uh we have to make an ordinance amendment for every one.

So every residential street would then have to be under that ordinance.

Um and we like to work directly with the companies to try to to curb the misuse of the residential streets for commercial vehicles.

Thank you.

And one other question.

And so if residents, if slash when residents do contact any one of us, particularly about concerns uh vehicles of this size, um frequent have having frequent access and parking in their communities.

What is our first line of defense of some of the things that you said that we contact your office, have folks take pictures of the company, and then you all will reach out or what will we need to do, or PD directly, or what will we need to do?

Exactly.

So, yeah, the first step would be to reach out to DOT.

Um we would then investigate by putting a traffic camera out, um, seeing if there's a uh a true concern there, um, working with those companies directly to try to stop the the abuse there, um things of that nature.

Okay.

Thank you.

Of course.

Uh Ms.

Mr.

Hutchins, I know that this is a continuing issue in the East Ward.

We have those big trucks parked on residential streets.

Uh and part of the issue that I understand is that it's not really enforceable because there's no real violation dollar amount that would deter it.

It's been going on for quite a few years, and we really need to change the policy so that they can actually be fined for parking on our residential streets, not just driving through, but parking overnight over the weekend, and in the neighborhood that I do know, it's really bad on the streets.

And so whatever it takes for us to move this forward, I'm totally in favor of it.

Um, but uh it seems a little odd that we would have to post on any street where uh oversized truck is not allowed.

Where couldn't it be a citywide uh ordinance?

Councillor Ship, let me let me jump in on that real quick if you don't mind.

I think the the issues that we're getting at, I think if I'm hearing Councilmember Hall right, a lot of the emails that were coming in were really were really talking about folks parking these 18-wheelers in residential neighborhoods.

In a lot of those cases, these are the employees, you're the contract drivers or whoever that are bringing the vehicles home and parking them in front of their house is what's creating that problem.

I think when that initial flurry of emails came in, I know Jeff looked into it, and if Jeff can walk up here and maybe give a quick summary on what we can do with respect to writing tickets already with existing ordinance language, I know there is a conversation in place about upping the fees associated with those violations.

Thank you, thank you, Aaron.

And uh afternoon committee members.

Uh just a couple comments real briefly.

The the issue at hand really is regarding our ability to levy fines for parking in uh in these residential areas.

Current ordinance allows us to cite oversized vehicles that are specific, it's 80 inches wide and over 30 feet long.

That's what ordinance currently allows us to cite.

Now, there's a challenge there when you cite those or work with those those particular uh trucking agencies and our enforcement arm of that right when there's no real levy.

So I think there's a hole in our ordinance.

We've got to look at some benchmarking and bring back some some policy recommendations.

I think we can make some decisions on.

That'll be an action item for my team moving forward to deal with that from uh uh leaving that fine component of this.

One other comment I wanted to make though regarding the the kind of blanket, you know, we want to strict these on particular residential areas.

Well, I want to caution us there because all streets currently designed today, right, are designed to current standard, which I mean we're running fire trucks down those that are you know 75,000 pounds.

They're designed for to handle the the weight capacity.

Now, obviously, we have a number of aging streets and older streets that weren't necessarily designed to that capacity.

So there are those issues of street degradation because of heavy vehicles.

But I want to be clear, when we do our transportation planning and we model transportation infrastructure for freight mobility, right?

We look at where origin and destination are is for these type of movements, and we just start restricting streets regardless of their classification to where they need to go.

That exacerbates other issues.

That's why it takes a more holistic approach where we have to analyze that to make sure we just don't blanket cover residential streets or local streets when there may not be a great other option for freight mobility.

So that's just a nuance.

I want to make a point to say that.

Thank you so much.

We certainly understand there's more than uh one solution, and we have many complexities with those.

But uh, where we can fix something quickly, easily, and it stopped being a nuisance to certain residents.

I think we should be very prudent in doing that.

Uh so let us move forward with trying to figure out all of those uh contract drivers that are parking their trucks on our in our residencies, and that needs to stop.

Um so with G1, do I have a motion?

So move for G1.

Second.

It's moved and second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

G2.

Item G2, Officer Luke Alderman, named finalist for 2024 International Association of Chiefs of Police, Officer of the Year awards.

Good afternoon, Chair Scipio, Mayor Pro Town, members of the public safety committee.

I am not Officer Luke Alderman, but I will speak on speak on him.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police is the largest, most influential and respected association for police leaders.

The association has been speaking on behalf of law enforcement to community since 1893.

They assist law enforcement by various training, various research, and on most pressing issues, threats, and challenges that face us today, including pushing out best practices.

However, what they'll also be deciding is out of the 35,000 members and 170 countries they serve, they will be announcing one officer of the year.

One of the four worldwide finalists is our very own officer Luke Alderman, who on November 17, 2024, Officer Alderman bravely approached a violent and chaotic scene to save a child as gunshots rang out from the residents.

So this will be the first time in our history that we have one of our very own officers as a finalist for the International Association of Chiefs of Police Officer of the Year.

Absolutely marvelous.

It's so admirable that someone thought enough to recommend him for this honor.

And we must know in our wonderful city that we may be right here in Lullo, North Carolina, but we're doing outstanding work with our employees are doing outstanding feats on the international level.

So we certainly look forward to him being the finalist, but he's already a star among us.

So we thank you.

Anyone like to make a comment?

Yes.

Chief Penn.

Um that um award may be going to Officer Alderman, but it definitely speaks volumes for the whole department and for the leadership of the department.

Um to you and to the rest of the uh department.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You're you're right.

We have a wonderful team.

Thank you, Chief.

Any other comments?

G three.

Item G3 information regarding a grant awarded to the police department by the North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police to support officer performance and wellness initiatives.

Good afternoon, Chair Scipio, Mayor Pro Tim, and members of the public safety committee.

My name is Chris Diamond.

I'm an assistant chief with the police department, and I'm here to bring good news that we were recently awarded with a grant for in the amount of $50,000 from the North Carolina Associations of Chief of Police, and it falls under the uh performance and wellness grant.

So the police department was uh looking at a software to help us manage our officer health and wellness as well as uh some training aspects.

Uh we found a vendor, uh essential personnel who offers exactly what we were looking for.

We were fortunate enough to win a grant and be able to work uh in conjunction with the software company to have it priced exactly for the amount of the grant uh to cover the software for the first year.

Uh this software will allow us to do something that we've never been able to do before.

So we have an early warning system where we look into things that officers have done, uh incidents they've been involved in, but nothing that looks at the mental health and wellness of the officers.

What this software allows us to do is to have our supervisors that are in the field with the officers.

And this also extends to our professional staff, our communications uh operators, our forensic services technicians, our crime analysts who are in the real-time crime center that see traumatic events uh to be notified when they're when an officer has seen multiple traumatic events.

If we have a a the loss of a life of a child or uh violent car accidents, uh violent issues that happen, this system will allow our supervisors to be able to identify officers that have been exposed to multiple incidents to make sure that we check in on them, provide them the resources that we have available for them, and be able to take care of our officers the way they need to be taken care of.

Absolutely wonderful.

Um I don't know how many people realize that a lot of the services that we're able to provide to the community and to our employees come through grants.

Um be considered as a high priority, and I'm very happy that the police department is stepping up and looking at the mental health of officers.

Folks think that, oh, they just do a job, and we think that they're doing that police job, but behind that police facade are human beings who are having to deal with some of the worst part of humanity.

Um very happy that you have this grant.

Um, and I don't think we need to vote on anything at this time, correct?

It's just information.

Anybody have a comment?

Yes.

Thank you.

Um this is a really good program.

It it appears that it's a great effort.

Um, but I I would hope and want to say for the record that um, as you all know, um, service doesn't end um when your watch is over.

And so for those uh members who have retired and have stepped away um that some type of connectivity is still there because um what the what that service member did in the line of duty, it lives with them for the rest of their life, good and or bad.

Yes, ma'am, absolutely.

Councilmember Hall.

Thank you.

Um thank you for this presentation.

Um course, there is a direct correlation, which we also read about between the wellness of police officers and the way that they serve our community.

So I'm a huge advocate for this.

Um I talked to the chief about this, I think probably not too long ago after I was um sworn in just about um what sort of wellness um programs were in place for officers, how they are able to um decompress, right um from the day, from the week, from the year for very very traumatic experiences.

I would like for you, if you can, um, talk about what sorts of services that may be available for the families of officers um that are entailed in this wellness program.

Um so uh and you'll actually get to hear a little bit more from our new wellness coordinator who will be speaking right now.

Absolutely.

Okay, all right.

But so one of the things that we do for our the families of our officers is of course they're entitled to the same as being part of the city.

Um they're entitled to our um our EAP.

The police department also uses a company called FMRT, which actually specializes more so in law enforcement um related traumatic inch uh incidents.

Um so we we make sure that our officers are aware and that their families know that they're uh capable of that.

We have a peer support team with inside the agency that um has recently come up in the last couple of years that is a huge um piece of our uh wellness package that we're looking at.

And then additionally, with the onboarding of Ms.

Buick with our team, um those resources are going to continue to expand as we move forward.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much for this report.

Thank you.

G4.

Item G4, Winston Salem Wellness Advocate Program Udate.

Thank you.

Hello.

Um, nice to meet you, council members and mayor pro tem.

Um just to tell you a little bit about myself.

My name is Kendra Buick.

I graduated from Montreal College with a um bachelors of exercise science and a minor in psychology.

Um so before this, I had no police background, but um well-rounded, um, definitely in our all aspects of wellness.

So physical wellness, nutrition, and mental health.

Um, spent some time counseling um along with many other roles.

I served at the YMCA for a couple of years through the Greensboro Association.

So I was super happy to bring my expertise to the police department.

So just to tell you a little bit about how we started with this program.

Through the grant guidelines, we began to kind of seek, let me step back for a second.

We kind of seek like an online survey to get a well-rounded needs assessment from our officers and professional staff.

And what that survey was successful in identifying was that we had needs for not only the immediate things you would think of when you think about wellness, so physical health, nutrition, but things like stress management, emotional resilience for the trauma that they experience, even financial wellness for themselves and their families.

And some of the key highlights that we had was the issues that they had disconnecting from work, they were struggling with sleep, and then also to retirement planning, and not necessarily in the financial aspect, but more in having services tailored to them.

So whenever they do retire and they are no longer associated with the badge that they carried, they also have access to fitness programs, nutrition, social aspects that keeps them healthy.

So just to speak a bit about wellness and why it is so important and why this program is so necessary.

I think that with all the escalating rates of burnout, PTSD, substance misuse, and suicide.

So I feel like we are behind the curve, but slowly catching up.

And there is a direct correlation, as you guys said, between the well-being of our officers and how they serve our community.

And including the well-being of our other teams like communication operations, forensic services technicians, and then other vital professional staff.

So just to give you a roundabout of some of the wellness initiatives that we've started.

So starting with me, some of the basic things that I do are just kind of wellness checkups, which are one-to-one coaching advice and resources for nutrition, physical fitness, mental health, and other wellness-related topics.

Usually if it's something that I can't cover, it's something we resource out through the community.

Since me being here in late April, we've had 28 staff members schedule one-to-one meetings with me, and that's not included the other connections that have been established through ride-alongs, the visits I have at district offices and other events.

Another program we have started is the healthy food delivery service.

We partnershipped with Long Life Meal Prep.

They are a company out of Jamestown, and they actually do this nationally for a lot of different companies.

But we are averaging 49 units per week for the deliveries, which is pretty high.

We have generally in the high range about 80 units per week.

Another service that we offer is functional strength small group training.

So this occurs three days a week currently.

For the space we have, we average about two to four participants per session, and we are looking to expand that currently more towards the district offices, early hours for officers so they can take or partake better in that service.

Other initiatives, we partnered with Triads Love on a Leash.

They are a certified therapy dog team that visits us regularly to kind of comfort and assist in emotional support for our staff.

So they visit our facility.

So weekly we have pickleball and basketball leagues within the department that play together and this just creates a good social environment for peers.

And we are soon going to be onboarding a wellness app.

This wellness app is for all aspects of our wellness and is gonna house most of our mental health resources along with nutrition resources and physical wellness.

And just some other community partnerships we've done, and here's some photos just to kind of show some of the things we've been doing.

We partnered with Mammoth Nutrition for a nutrition series workshop.

PureSweat is gonna host a recovery and resilience training for us this month.

Hawke chiropractic and sports injury held a duty-related injury prevention and treatment workshop for us, and Taylor Physical Therapy and Wellness is gonna do a women's wellness workshop for us in October.

So some other support systems that kind of help the wellness program be successful, as mentioned is our peer support.

They are a crucial um part of the team and they provide trusted support and resources for the well-being of their um peers.

Um some other things are um just for like our clinical incidences, um, just say like uh recent occasions.

We've had an officer involved shooting or an on-duty uh injury.

It allows myself and our peer support team to work together, be able to provide um resources for family members.

I know you had mentioned um one of the big ones that we've started implementing is um a foundation called Behind the Blue Line, and they give extended support, especially to family members, um, especially when they need um financial help along with a long journey of tragedy.

Um other things are um being able just to provide support to employees for personal and professional matters, and with the help of my wellness committee, they help me implement things throughout the um agency.

And the focus of the wellness program for the future is just to continue to increase participation and be a trusted and effective program that aids in the physical, mental, emotional, and financial well-being of our officers and professional staff, starting with our academy officers and extending our wellness program to our attirees in hopes of changing the stigma around mental health for good and their well-being is crucial to the safety safety of our community.

Any questions or remarks?

Yeah.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, thank you for this presentation.

There's this is uh a very important um aspect of uh mental health and physical health for uh our police officers.

Um I saw that you had uh 62 respondents for the the survey that was done in March, I believe, or May, May.

Um so moving forward, um I know we have a lot more officers than 62.

What what are we gonna do to to get more of our officers involved with that?

And then kind of the same question.

I love that there have been 28 people who have signed up to do a one-on-one session.

Um what are your kind of your goals to move forward with with getting more people to come and interact with that because it is a vital and important service that you're doing?

Yeah, so to speak on the participation of the wellness survey that we did, I kind of left it open, and I was um kind of had whispers in my ears.

But like if you want us to make this mandatory, we can.

Um, but in my idea of making something successful, I wanted to hear from the people first that wanted to give their perspective, um, mainly so it would be more genuine for the responses that we had.

Now, in future, and I think gradually as we I think as they get more comfortable with me, and I put myself in their situations and we build those relationships.

I think naturally participation will increase, but we will do another survey probably early this next year just to kind of revisit things and see how we can progress the program.

Councilmember Hall.

Thank you.

Um thank you for the presentation.

Um very excited to see it.

Um I'm really excited about um what sort of supports that we could employ and deploy to retirees, um, particularly around this that maybe was not necessarily in place when they were here.

So that is important.

Um I think the other thing is just remembering that mental health just in general uh is not something that everybody jumps up and down about the idea of going to talk to someone.

This has been a field, an area that has been stigmatized like none other.

And in a profession that I I would deem as being very male dominated.

Men oftentimes are very stoic.

Let me, I'm sorry, I'm looking at the manager that's giving me a look.

But some men are stoic and not as um eager or very fast, sometimes they're a little hesitant on opening up.

So I actually thought the numbers were good.

And your numbers don't specify whether they're men or women.

So let me let me do that because that's my bias coming in that maybe these were all men, and maybe they were not.

Maybe it was wasn't just all men.

You don't have to share that.

I say all this to say um I do share in my colleagues' sentiments of like wanting to see the numbers jump up, but I am very excited.

Numbers could have been two, could have been four.

So it it's good that at least that was a good start.

And it also was good in knowing that this was not mandatory, right?

Um, I do think you took a great approach in making sure that it wasn't just to see how the feedback was and making sure that it was genuine, but um I want to give you a bit of encouragement to keep going, and I I actually um was happy about seeing those numbers and generally just happy about this.

Could you tell me um who all is a part of the wellness committee?

Is that made up of um officers or staff, be them sworn officers or not, um, or their other members that have a background in your background or community members or yes.

So um our committee is a good portion of our good mix, I should say, of our professional and officers, and we also have some um two captains serving on that board as well as two of our um lead support peer support members.

So it's a good mix of people with training, um, but they kind of help me, you know, I mean, they help me with um outreach in a different areas and help me kind of implement some programs.

Okay, one other question, Chair, if it's okay.

Um, do you do you know right now of any other supports, particularly for this program that you can see as being needing um right now?

I think financial is the biggest one that I kind of I'm struggling with as a trusted um resource that I could provide to them.

So that would be a big help if we could increase that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for all your comments.

But uh welcome, Ms.

Bureck uh to Winsell Police Department.

Thank you.

Um it's always great to have a calming person with a personality that sort of invites people in to be on the forefront for wellness.

Um my question is our police department works in shifts.

How do you manage providing service across the various shifts?

So there especially officers speaking on their 12-hour shifts.

I have started putting myself um in their spaces, so district offices.

Um it's still kind of hard to get the night shifts, but um even with that being said, I will do some late night shifts, so they will also see me in that aspect.

Um, but a lot of my services can be reached through email, um, and we can schedule times to be able to connect.

I'm pretty flexible for them, but I think once it once and if that shift changes, it will be a lot easier for programs for them.

And are you located in a public safety center on Cherry Street or somewhere else?

I am in the public safety center.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

I have another question.

Okay.

I'm curious, I'm curious since we're talking about maybe a longer conversation and one that probably is a bit more comprehensive about just the city's um support of mental health towards all employees.

I I certainly hate to single out one of my first committee meetings.

I kind of singled out a couple of departments and city manager very subtly made sure that I remembered that there were several other employees under the organization's organizations framework.

And so I immediately I had a question of whether or not the fire department, only because we're in the public safety meeting had something similar or similar program.

Chief Mayo I can talk to you about that offline but just in general I want to make sure particularly as um ACM Voida um is here and making sure that in general we are making sure that we highlight this as being of utmost important importance for all of our city employees and I'm speaking as a former city employee who would have loved an opportunity to to debrief or have be a part of a wellness committee or et cetera but particularly as our departments that we know face extreme trauma, sleep deprivation and things like that obviously they're at our forefront but we want to make sure that we are being comprehensive in our outlook towards this all employees.

I literally just wrote a note um to check in with HR I know we're having a citywide wellness fair coming up I don't remember the date but I did just make a note to check in with HR and see how we can partner um kind of between the two and make sure we're as much as possible offering services across the organization.

Thank you.

I appreciate that thank you.

Thank you guys thank you.

G five item G five information regarding the transition to a black and white color scheme for Winston Salem police patrol vehicles good afternoon again so I wanted to speak with you about the vehicle that's displayed this is a a mock-up of the vehicle we are looking to transition to once again as part of Chief Penn coming in and trying to increase morale do several other things throughout the agency the topic of our current vehicle design came up.

So historically the agency has had multiple people that are interested in going to a black and white patrol vehicle it also offers multiple other benefits besides just morale internally in the agency what we have found through our research is is that the black and white patrol vehicle is very easily recognizable.

We have so many different events that are taking place that are that are are bringing nationwide and international people to our uh city this vehicle is the most recognizable police vehicle uh in the country so when everybody's whenever someone sees a black and white they realize that's a police car uh so it it provides that presence what we've also found through our research is it actually provides a uh belief because it stands out so much that it is that there are actually more police vehicles on the street even when they're not um it's kind of a an optical illusion I guess you would say uh but it does provide that there is um so it has that omnipresent factor um to show to show it uh for the commun for the community as well um so as we move forward we began looking at this uh taking into account uh additional the financial uh piece of it so we have actually determined that this vehicle is actually substantially cheaper to stripe than the current vehicle that we have um so it should work out to our benefit in multiple ways uh as we're putting it out there uh this as I said this is the design um that has been voted on throughout the agency uh we had over sixty percent of the uh sworn officers vote with about right at uh just under 70 percent selecting this as the uh patrol car scheme that they wanted to go to uh it does kind of go back uh the whole idea was to go very plain very simple um but very clear and obvious that it is a police car so when would we have these on this on the street so we should start seeing the first ones within the next two weeks maybe a little bit sooner um I have the first ones with blue that have already been equipped with blue lights and all the things that go inside um are already uh being striped up right now so we should start seeing those probably into this week first of next week um and now was a really good time for us to make this change as we have the 60 vehicles that we bought last year that were ready to be upfitted and then the 80 for the next year with uh taking out a few admin vehicles here and there that puts roughly a hundred to a hundred and twenty of these patrol vehicles uh out there which is roughly over half of what's on patrol so it would be a a mass production of these vehicles going out we're not planning to change the stripes on the current vehicle study no ma'am we we're it would be uh we have done this several times I've been here for 23 years now I believe we've had about four or five different paint schemes since I've been here this has always been the standard transition we leave what's there there um and then we move forward with a new one so that we're not stripping off and then spending the money to redo a patrol car any questions Scott thank you chair uh thank you for this um you took one of my questions but my my second question is uh so we see the picture here with the the SUV police vehicle is the same design going to be for the the traditional sedan crew this will be the only police vehicle that we have moving forward that do not make the charger anymore every vehicle that we're purchasing to the 140 that we have currently um either being produced right now for next year and the 60 that we have that are in production having the lighting and stuff putting them now they're all Ford Explorer so everything we have will be a Ford Explorer.

Every vehicle that we're purchasing to the 140 that we have currently either being produced right now for next year and the 60 that we have that are in production, having the lighting and stuff putting them now, they're all Ford Explorer.

So everything we have will be a Ford Explorer.

The only uh chargers we have will be um our reserve fleet, um, loaner vehicles, things of that nature, hopefully within the next uh six to eight months.

Beautiful.

And we do have unmarked vehicles.

Yes, ma'am, and they will stay white.

And then the other ones we don't talk about those.

Yeah, they're not all white.

Correct, correct.

Yes, ma'am.

Um I think the people need to know, yeah, you can see this one and know it, but the ones that you really need to be concerned about are the ones that look just like your car.

Ma'am, yes, ma'am, and those are the things.

I've been looking really hard.

Um, yeah, slow down.

Thank you, Chair.

Um two questions.

One, what is the total number of marked fleet cars out?

Uh it it varies.

Um I couldn't tell you an exact number.

Ballpark, probably in the neighborhood of two well, right around 300.

We have right around 300 vehicles that are equipped with blue lights, uh, fleet cameras, and and and fairly well marked.

Well, I lied, it's three questions.

So the second question.

Um, what do you think is the timeline to get all of the marked vehicles to this?

Um a lot of that will depend on vehicle needs uh moving forward over the next couple of budget cycles.

Um I would say probably another three budget cycles would probably be a safe estimate, somewhere around in that in that range.

Uh it it kind of varies too between vehicles that end up being involved in in wrecks.

Um, if we have a vehicle that's involved in a wreck um and it has to be completely redone, we may look at converting it because it would have to be wrapped in the in the old paint scheme uh anyway, so we may look at just re-wrapping it in this because it's cheaper than the new one or then the old one is anyway.

So it's it's kind of hard to say a definitive timeline, but I would say three to five years safely.

Okay.

And my last isn't really not a question, just a comment or observation.

It seems to be about that same 60 percent um of police that voted uh or acknowledged this as it did the uh survey for the wellness.

Surprisingly enough, we actually had over 200 participants in this survey, so quite a few more in this one than the in that one.

Uh I think the others are still uh scared uh to bring up the mental health aspect of things.

They all have an opinion about what kind of car they drive, though.

So yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Chair.

One more question.

Um so you said that this um design is less expensive than what we currently.

Do you have a cost comparison of what those two are?

It's gonna be roughly 200 cheaper.

Cheaper.

This is a technical question.

On that uh new vehicle look, there are no lights on the on the top.

How am I going to determine that's a police car coming up on me?

That one was a that's a mock-up.

So that one doesn't have lights on it, all the other ones will still have the big beautiful light.

And yes, actually, our new lighting package is much, much brighter.

Uh with the after we uh you all in the and the council approved the five-year RFP bid out.

Our new lighting package is much, much brighter than the old one was.

So it's you will definitely still have light bars on top of the cars, and they will be they will be bright and pretty for everybody to see.

I don't I don't like the ones that don't have light bars.

Council member.

Thank you.

Uh let me ask this just out of sheer curiosity, if you don't have it in front of you, that's totally okay.

Sure.

I I'm curious to know what the other color options were.

It was just it was either the current scheme or the it was it was just the the black and white.

There were no other options given.

And most of that comes down to price.

Uh the more colors you get into, the more vinyl you get into with the wrapping of the vehicles.

Um it goes up substantially.

We already knew that our current scheme was actually gonna end up going up in price because of vinyl prices.

Um this pretty much the only vinyl that's on that car is the badge and then the black that goes around the front and the back.

Um, and that's not printed up, it's just straight black vinyl, so it's very, very easy.

This is a white car, and you can tell because the top of the car is yes.

And we we looked at paint options as well, which we thought that was actually gonna end up cheaper, but then we had another another vendor come in with the vinyl option as well, and their bid just was nowhere close to anyone else's.

They they just crushed everybody else.

Okay.

Is the vendor local?

Uh it's actually the same vendor vendor that's doing our lighting package.

Um, so it would be a one-stop shop.

The vehicle would be wrapped and lighted and equipped with all the internal uh parts for the patrol car, and then would come to us.

We'll never see the car until it's ready to be put on the street.

But it's not local.

No, ma'am.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions on on this one?

Thank you so much for getting us abreast looking for black and white vehicles once again.

Old school rises.

We love that.

G six.

Item G six, insurance services office ISO rating report.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Madam Mayor Pro Tem, members of the committee.

I wanted to bring you up to speed on the fire department's latest um ISO grade.

Um before I do, I'd like to introduce some folks sitting behind me who were uh instrumental in making this happen.

Uh the ones who were able to join us this afternoon.

Uh ask them to wave.

Uh Deputy Chief Jerry Hardison uh is the deputy chief of the operations side of the house.

So most of the stuff that that happened related to this latest ISO uh score uh happened on his side of the fire department.

Uh Deputy Chief Chaz Browning was here, he manages the risk reduction side of the house.

Um he had to he was here but had to leave a few minutes ago for appointment.

Um so he would be responsible for those things that we get scored.

Code enforcement, uh plan review, investigations, uh the inspections, those sorts of things.

Um assistant chief Bobby Wade is here, and he is our assistant chief of planning, and he really was the project lead for this entire thing in terms of uh our interface with uh the insurance services office.

Our Captain Daniel Everhart is uh Chief Wade's assistant uh in admin.

He's an administrative captain.

Um he was not able to join us this afternoon, but uh a lot he spent a lot of time with uh inventory related to uh the fire the uh fire suppression rating schedule.

Uh David Emory.

There he is back there.

Uh I knew he was coming, but I didn't see him come in.

Uh he is our assistant accreditation manager.

Uh he manages all of our data, so all the data that the insurance services officer would be looking for relative to this um related to this inspection, uh he would have provided that.

And of course, uh assistant chief Andrew Gray is the assistant chief of operations sitting over my left shoulder.

Um again, most of this stuff lives on the operation side of the house.

Assistant chief Daryl Sawyer is our logistics chief.

I don't there he is back there.

Um he would be responsible for purchasing and procurement of all the parts and pieces uh that that fall into this scoring system.

And then uh, you know, you get in trouble when you start calling names, but I think the only one of oh what Chief Duffy made it in.

Uh so I'll talk a little bit about uh the score uh related to training.

Uh Chief Duffield is the battalion chief in the training branch, and then um Chief Jamie Ford is sitting back here.

Uh he is the director uh for Scythe County Fire Communications Division, so they handle all of our 911 call processing and dispatching, uh and that is part of the scoring rubric also.

So um the insurance services office, they are funded by the insurance industry, and ISO rates fire departments so that when uh somebody calls an insurance company and gets a quote for property insurance premiums, uh that they have some idea of what that community's risk from fire is because of this public protection class uh that the insurance services office assigns to uh the fire department, fire departments across the country.

Um and we are typically graded every five years.

Uh so we were last graded in 2019.

This this uh grade actually uh they came in and started working on it in December of 2024, but we've just gotten the grade about a month ago.

Uh there are three items that that get scored uh that that make up what what is uh what are 105 and a half total available points.

Um the fire department is responsible for about 55 percent of that those those total available points.

Uh the water system is uh responsible for 40 percent, and then the communications piece, ability to take 911 calls and dispatch units.

That's that's 10 percent of the score.

Um and and when all that comes together for that that possible 105 and a half points, uh you are and I've got a score chart and uh in a later slide, but uh so public protection class one, which is what we received is the best available rating.

And I've got a score chart in a in a later slide, but uh so public protection class one, which is what we've received is the best available rating.

If you were to get a public protection class of 10, that would essentially indicate that you have no fire protection.

So here are uh the scores.

So again, out of 50 for the fire department, uh we picked up about six and a half points uh from our 2019 score.

Um communications didn't have much to gain because they were almost all already getting almost all of their uh available 10 points back in 2019.

Um same thing with community risk reduction.

So what you see on the left side of this uh table here is kind of what the fire departments related uh is responsible for, and on the right side are are you know our uh partners in in communications and and utilities, but uh utilities picked up uh about four points also, uh little more than so uh all this comes together for that for that um that total aggregate score.

For us, uh our our notable uh pickups of points uh from 20 uh 19 to 2024 was two of the things were in um with ladder service and the deployment analysis and deployment is kind of do you have the right resources spread out over your response area?

Uh and we have for several review cycles use uh you can be scored two ways.

You can be scored based on what a map would predict that you do, or you can present your data to ISO and show them what you actually did.

Um and our uh actual performance is is better than what a map would predict would would predict that we do.

Um so in changing how we were scored, we picked up uh those points.

Uh I mentioned Chief Duffield was sitting in the back.

You're your um your points for training are not just that you got some training.

It is, you know, how much did you get?

Did the right people get it, did the people that got it get it in the right categories, those sorts of things, and making sure that the data of the uh the training that we uh delivered over the period the ISO looks at, what did it go kind of into the right buckets in terms of the credit that we were receiving for that training?

So uh that was an improvement over 2019.

And then kind of like map prediction versus actual performance uh in in uh times past when we were when the water system was was graded, ISO would kind of draw hydrants at random and go out and test those hydrants.

Well, if they pick some really good hydrants, your water score was good.

If you pick, you know, if it was just not your day and they pick bad bad hydrants, then you your water supply score suffered.

Uh this year uh well last year, we uh were and rather than being scored on that kind of random hydrant draw, we utilities helped us present ISO with the hydraulic model for the entire water system.

Uh and in doing that, uh we get we gain a little more than four points.

So all of these things came together uh so that uh we uh improved not quite 12 points uh from our 2019 score to 2024.

But as you can see down the right side of this table, uh when you go over a raw score, what's called a raw score by the fire suppression rating schedule is that puts you into that public protection class one um grade.

So uh in summary, um, you know, kind of, you know, what what does this mean for us as a city?

What does it mean for for the consumer or the customer?

Um there are about 33,000 fire departments in America and about 125 to I couldn't pin the number down, but somewhere between 125 and 150 of them are both accredited and class one.

So it easily puts us in the top one half of one percent of fire departments in America.

This new rating will take place on December 1st.

So you know, everybody who owns property and has insurance on that property will need to call their insurance company and advise them that this new public protection class has been earned.

Um it has long been um assumed, uh presumed is probably a better word, that when you go from uh the big jump is from uh kind of in the five, six, seven range in terms of insurance cost savings to the consumer.

And a lot of people will tell you that when you go from go below six, that only commercial properties are affected in terms of reduced uh insurance cost.

I did some some research uh in graduate school, which has been some time ago, but I think it still holds up and and it's that research showed that that is not accurate, that all property owners will s would would expect to see some uh reduction in insurance costs three to five percent when uh when a fire department goes from from two to one.

But for sure uh commercial property owners will be will be affected, so uh positively effective.

So, you know, when the city, when the folks developing downtown, you know, others and in around the city who are trying to bring businesses into Winston Salem, this is another thing that they can tout is for you know, we are giving them uh the best uh that that the fire department can deliver in terms of reducing their their insurance costs.

So I will take any questions that you have.

Scotty, thank you, Chair.

Uh one congratulations on this to you and to all the crews who serve in the community.

So thank you very much for all the hard work you guys do.

Um my question is uh comparing ourselves to the the region around us, do you know how do we rank to some of the comparable municipalities that we we look at?

So we we do a little bit, we do ourselves a little bit of a disservice comparing to our peers in North Carolina because North Carolina is one of the states that has more accredited fire departments.

So North Carolina, Florida, Texas, California, and Illinois, uh gotta lead the nation and accredited agencies.

So just by nature of having so many accredited fire departments relative to most states in North Carolina, uh, but High Point is Class One and accredited, Greensboro is class one and accredited, Asheville, Kerry, Wilmington.

Somebody in the back, if I'm if I'm missing any in the state, uh Greenville, uh, Wilson, Rocky Mount, uh there are a fair number.

There are 22.

Last time I looked, there were 22 accredited fire departments in North Carolina, which is more than most states have.

Um and all class one.

Yes, ma'am.

Very good.

Uh Ms.

Hall.

Thank you.

Um this becomes effective, Chief Mayor, on December the first, I believe you say it.

Do you have any plans to work with the uh marketing and communications department to make sure that this is information that all property um owners know about, particularly the commercial property owners, but for all property owners to make sure that they know so they can be contacting their insurance companies to make sure just in case they're not watching this meeting and forget about this on December the first, that they can be prepared to take advantage of those cost savings, be it three to five percent or more.

Um how how do you plan or if you hadn't thought about that?

So when we got the grade, uh we work with marketing and and Ms.

Childress in our department, so we have already blasted that information out, but I think it would be appropriate when D.

Summer gets here to do it again to re to keep it fresh on people's minds since that's when it officially takes effect.

I think so.

I unfortunately missed that.

And there may be some.

There you go.

There you go.

Thank you.

Chief, again, this just shows the excellence of our departments in this city.

We have bragging rights on many fronts.

And I want some fire department is outstanding in many ways.

Um, and we certainly appreciate that.

Neil, when you get rated, and you become number one, it you get a comfort level to say, oh, we we're there.

There's nothing more for us to do.

But were there any areas that we could spend a little more time on to get it better?

Um you're putting me on the spot.

But since you ask, I will tell you that the um the area where we lost points, we didn't lose a lot, but the area where there is a lot of scoring to make up and we lost points between 2019 and 2024 was in staffing.

Staff staffing.

Yes, ma'am.

Staffing being the number of people riding fire trucks.

Less than.

Yes, ma'am.

It's not as efficient as it should be.

Well, what they look at is the average number of people you have working, kind of divided into the number of fire trucks you have on the streets.

And it is a much more sophisticated scoring rubric than that.

You just can't, you know, you just you can't call your ISO inspector and say, well, if we take one person off of our ladder trucks, how does that affect the score?

Or do if we add, you know, a person to all of our engines, how does that affect the score?

It it is not the the calculation is much more sophisticated than that.

So that's that was the that was the place that we saw, we did see a small reduction in points in that area, and that's where the I think um that is Chief Wade, am I correct?

That's the that's the largest score.

That's the largest single, that's the largest single place you can get points is in is in staffing, but it's it's 15 out of the out of the 105, 105 and a half.

Well, that's important to know.

That's really important to know.

She we've got this on video.

She's the one that asked the question.

I'm just answering.

Yeah.

Um it's sort of and and we can celebrate and say things are wonderful, but we really need to know where we need to improve uh to really be the best we can become.

That's not what so when you were asking that question, that's what you ask is not where I thought you were headed, but I I do think it's important to, you know, the two things that we spend a lot of time maintaining, the ISO grade and the and the um the accredited status is that the entire concept of um fire service accreditation is continuous improvement.

So that model drives us to get better every every uh renewal cycle, and we we renew that every five years, and the every renewal cycle of the accreditation um credential is more difficult than the last.

So and and we're we're in our first cycle, so as we go through that, they will that model will push us to continue to to improve the fire department.

And what do you feel about the facilities rating?

I I know it looked like we improved a bit, but is there more room for improvement there or our facilities seen as wonderful?

So the the fire suppression rating schedule does not assess the uh the state of your facilities.

It assesses the location of your facilities, um, what you know what you have in those facilities in terms of suppression apparatus.

Um and I'll just and I'm glad you brought that up because you know this assesses only our ability to control fire.

It does not assess our ability to get a window washer off the side of the Winston Tower or to get an incapacitated worker out of a rail car.

It does not look at our our um cardiac arrest save rate.

It doesn't look at our ability to get uh uh an entrapped uh patient out of a mangled vehicle that's been in a motor vehicle crash.

It doesn't look at any of that stuff.

It only looks at what our ability is to control fire and what our risk reduction services are.

That's that small five and a half points related to investigations, code enforcement, um, plan review, that those type of risk reductions or public education, you know, what doing things with the schools and um those sorts of things.

That's that is that that is the focus of the price fire suppression rating schedule.

Doesn't look at facilities, doesn't look at the state of your apparatus, just looks at how many you have, how they equip, that sort of thing.

Thank you.

Any other comments on this item?

Thank you, Chief.

Yes, ma'am, thank you.

And congratulations on getting there, getting the number one.

Ma'am, thank you all for your support and for you know, everybody who's listening in the fire department who who worked on this, you know, even the guys and girls out in the fire stations, everybody had a hand in it.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Any other uh comments for the good of the order?

Scott?

Uh speaking of our highly qualified and ranked um fire departments.

Um I know we've um talking about a pace study happening.

Um if you could um as that begins, could you please send out or it's me or to the whole count uh council the current pay scale for our firefighters?

So we can compare that to what is being presented.

Thank you.

Any other concerns, issues that you'd like to speak to?

While we end up well, ladies and gentlemen, fellow council members, we are adjourned our public safety meeting for the month of September.