Recommendation to conduct a Budget Hearing to receive and discuss an overview of the Proposed Fiscal Year 2018 Budget for the following Departments: Police and Fire.
Yeah. Let's go ahead and set up for a hearing. Okay. Let's set up for our public safety hearing. Staff, can you read here? Number three p hearing. Number. Item number 46. Report from financial management. Recommendation to conduct a budget hearing to receive and discuss an overview of the proposed fiscal year 2018 budget for Police and Fire. Thank you very much. I'm going to go ahead. This is a continuation, of course, of our budget hearings and our third hearing of the night. When I got called in to turn this over to staff for the report and the presentation, mayor, council members. We're going to go through two of our public safety hearings tonight that starts the budget hearing process. We're going to hear first from Chief Robert Luna with the police department presenting that budget. Then you're going to hear from Chief Mike Derry, from the fire department presenting that budget. So before we get into it, we just want to remind us all that we look at taking care of the public safety needs in our city. It's just not police. It's just not fire. We call this the continuum of public safety. Basically, it's incredibly important for all of us in all of the departments to think about public safety, to work closely with our police department, our fire department. Whether it's the city prosecutor. Or the city attorney, just the infrastructure that we build, code enforcement, our library services. We also have health and help. Homeless and health services. Workforce development. Parks. Recreation, marine. Affordable housing. Graffiti removal. And also neighborhood services. And that's all important. So our city looks beautiful, looks clean, graffiti gets removed, trash gets picked up. Kids are involved in our parks and our libraries, and we have opportunities for youth to get jobs and get off the streets their workforce. So again, we do want to highlight that we're all here to support police and fire in their mission. So with that, I'm going to turn this over to Chief Luna. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Good evening, Mayor Garcia and members of the City Council. As you know, our public safety efforts in Long Beach are a true partnership. So I would like to begin with some acknowledgments. First of all, I would like to thank the city manager and all of you, the City Council, for your continued support . I would also like to thank the other city departments and our community for your partnership. We could not be successful without all of you. We achieve greater success when working together and dealing with the challenges facing our community, such as crime and quality of life. I want to thank the men and women of the Long Beach Police Department. Their courage, commitment and dedication towards keeping our community safe is truly appreciated. They are doing an amazing job or they're doing amazing work. In addition, the leadership of our command staff has helped to strengthen trust and collaboration by being visible, accessible and responsive, working in partnership with our most valuable asset, our community. On this slide, you will see a list of our core services which are guided by our strategic vision and the concepts presented in the President's 21st century policing report. These core services include safeguarding lives and property, providing law enforcement services in a constitutional manner, proactively seeking to build partnerships with our community and responding to calls for service. And that's why 16 and 17 the police department achieved many accomplishments that have been and that have enhanced public safety in our community. We would like to express our gratitude to our community for the passage of measure. These funds have sustained police department resources that otherwise would have been eliminated from our operation. As you can see, our officers were dispatched to over 211,000 calls for service in calendar year 2016. This translates to patrol officers responding to an average of 579 calls for service making, just over 1000 officer initiated contacts and making approximately 50 arrests per day. In addition, our response time to priority one emergency calls for service has remained under our goal of 5 minutes. As you know, the city was awarded the Metro contract. Thank you to our team for creating and implementing a solid, well-thought out plan. Also, the community support. And the mayor's participation on the Metro Board, which was critical in securing this agreement. So I want to thank all of you. Due to staffing enhancements for Missouri and the Metro contract, our department is currently preparing for our fourth back to back police academy that will take place in FY 18. We could not have done this without the help of our civil service department. Since FY16, they have assisted us with over 100 recruitment events and as a result of those efforts we received over 5400 applications tested close to 2000 individuals, of which approximately 1400 passed. And we presented 291 individuals for our final selection of the 291 presented for selection, 167 police recruits were hired and we graduated 108. I would like to recognize the efforts of our Support Bureau and the Academy staff. This is quite an accomplishment. I am also happy to report that as of today we have received over 800 applications in the past seven weeks for our upcoming Academy class, which will start in February. The South division became operational in February of this year, and we also began construction of the substation at the Public Safety Building. This project was also funded by measuring resources. In addition, we continue to seek grant opportunities that may be used to assist repeat offenders and individuals experiencing homelessness in their FY17. The department was awarded nearly $1 million to fund outreach and support services for these efforts. The police department has experienced an increase in service requests for our mental evaluation teams. As a result, we redirected resources to provide two additional police officers and mental health clinicians to assist on calls for service. As always, the police department strives to be present and active in our community, attending hundreds of community events every year. The summary shown here highlights the proposed FBI 18 police department budget totaling $241.8 million and will support over 1200 full time equivalents, including 848 sworn personnel. Thanks to Missouri funds and the Metro contract, the FOIA team budget adds 40 new personnel to the department, including 34 new sworn positions. When compared to the adopted FBI 17 budget. Our budget is supported primarily by the General Fund at 92%. The title of the title ends fund at 5%, general grants at 2%, and proper funds at 1%. The FY18 budget represents a 9.5% increase over the f y 17 budget. The police department will continue to actively apply for grants in Fy18 to support programs and equipment purchases. We forecast that our grant awards will total approximately $7 million in FY 18. The Fy18 budget proposal includes many notable changes. We will benefit from funding opportunities that will sustain a girl. Certain police department operations, specifically $1 million in Measure eight funds, will be dedicated to the Neighborhood Safe Streets Initiative, which will allow us to conduct special crime reduction operations through Event Action Plans, Event Action Plans, increased police staffing and visibility in neighborhoods, corridors, parks and commercial areas that are experiencing an increase in crime. This has been a very useful tool over the years and has proven successful in improving safety in our community. As proposed, we will receive $900,000 in general fund one times to be used for discretionary overtime. This will help support overtime for our Investigations Bureau to clear cases and other initiatives such as the Hazard Incident Management Team. The police department is also grateful to receive measure funds to support police recruit academy operations in Fy18. We will hire a recruit class that brings us to maximum capacity. We are excited to hire a larger than average class size to help with our staffing needs. In addition, we will receive Measure M.A funds to support drug recognition, expert training for patrol officers and overtime for short for sworn presence at the Civic Center. The Metro contract will add a total of 28 sworn and civilian positions to the Fy18 budget and will be assigned to the field and administrative teams for the new Metro Transportation Section. The police department will also convert several clerk typist positions into analyst positions, furthering our objective to be more data driven. To be a more data driven organization, and the department will convert an administrative sergeant position into two civilian positions in the community engagement division as the department looks ahead. There are a few challenges that I would like to point out. Although the principles of policing remain consistent. Our environment has undergone significant shifts that will redefine police filled investigative and business operations. We are all fully aware that homelessness has been a challenge citywide. The police department continues to support the Health Department, our health department to impact homelessness by implementing creative solutions with all of our city and community partners. Also, increased workload demands have constrained our ability to undertake initiatives outside the police department's scope of core services, such as additional quality of life officers. We understand and support the city's efforts to attract and promote special events. However, the growing number of special events continues to be a challenge for the police department. Planning and staffing. From a staffing and planning perspective. Criminal justice reforms also continue to negatively impact public safety. And we continue to receive unfunded mandates for technology, mental health training, as well as procedural justice training, only to name a few. In addition, the continued use of aging facilities and technology infrastructure, including the police academy facility and outdated records management system, continues to be a challenge. Our body worn camera pilot program will continue or will come up to an end in November. We will be reviewing the results and exploring our options. We look forward to presenting our findings over the next several months. So far, we have learned that body worn camera technology is complicated and requires a huge investment for any city that chooses to fully implement this program. However, despite these challenges, there are several opportunities are available to the police department allowing us to better address contemporary public safety issues. We are currently evaluating field operations to maximize swarm presence in our community. Specifically, we are researching various models that would limit patrol officers from transporting and escorting inmates to obtain medical care at hospitals and clinics . This would free up patrol officers to answer calls for service, as well as providing more time for proactive policing and engaging our community. I also wanted to highlight that our department has been working closely with the city's innovation team to research police operations. This partnership has allowed the city to identify opportunities for intervention to help reduce repeat criminal offenses in our city. With their help, the city has implemented an administrative regulation which will permit data sharing between city departments to address high utilizers of city services. Additionally, we are in an ongoing participant to the Data Driven Justice Initiative in collaboration with the Technology and Innovation Department. We are developing a strategic technology plan to identify best investments in public safety technology and software applications. In Fy18, the police department will begin the RFP process for a new law enforcement records management system. This will ensure the department meets the FBI's updated federal crime reporting requirement. It will also assist our efforts in being compliant with AP 1953, which will require us to collect and report specific data to the Attorney General regarding all of our stops. In closing, the police department will continue to build public trust through a number of efforts which coincides with our mission of public safety through partnerships with your assistance and support. We will continue to expand our technological capabilities. We will employ a data driven approach to our enforcement and investigative strategies to maximize our resources, reduce crime, and improve the quality of life. We will continue to address violent crime increases through a variety of initiatives, including our continuing support and participation in the city and in the city's public safety continuum violence prevention plan and working with our city's innovation team. This concludes my presentation. We will be available to answer any questions after my partner, Chief Terry, makes his presentation. He's currently staged and ready to go. Thank you, Chief. We're going to get our other chief, the great chief, to load up the presentation. And then once we have both presentations, we'll go into city council. Questions or comments? Good evening, Mayor Garcia, members of the city council. This evening, I will be giving you a brief overview of the Long Beach Fire Department's fiscal year 18 proposed budget. My presentation will also touch upon services provided by the Fire Department. Some of our key accomplishments for the current fiscal year. Notable changes in fiscal year 18 proposed budget and some major issues and opportunities that we foresee in the upcoming fiscal year. The Fire Department delivers fire rescue, emergency medical services, marine safety response, hazardous materials response, and non-emergency response services to residents, businesses and visitors within the city of Long Beach. We provide 24 hour operation for which all first responders must be prepared at all times. Additionally, we work to ensure the safety of the community and to prevent fires through proactive fire prevention and code enforcement programs. And we also provide training and education that is essential to the delivery of our core fire and rescue services. I would now like to outline some of the fire department's accomplishments and highlights for the current fiscal year. Over the past 12 months, we've responded to over 71,000 fire, emergency medical services, marine safety and other emergency incidents. This equates to more than 150,000 individual unit responses. Included in this number are over 51,000 medical calls and over 5700 fire calls. This number also includes hazardous materials responses, airport responses and other non fire responses. A major highlight of the current fiscal year has been the restoration of fire engine eight in the Belmont Shore area and the restoration of Rescue 12 in North Long Beach. These restorations have improved the department's fire and emergency medical response capabilities citywide and would not have been possible without the Long Beach measure. A funding excuse me. We also continued our multiyear multiphase plan to address workforce privacy issues throughout our facilities, working in partnership with public works and utilizing capital improvement funding. We are completing improvements at three of our fire stations this year stations to Station ten and Station 22. With one time funding from the City Council, we implemented a new and innovative program our Homelessness, Education and Response Team, commonly referred to as our Heart Unit. This team is comprised of two firefighter paramedics who work closely with the city's continuum of care partners, including the city's Department of Health and Human Services, to assist individuals who are experiencing homelessness. This program has been highly successful, and as you'll see later in this presentation, the proposed FY 18 budget provides resources to structurally fund this program on an ongoing basis. Additionally, our Fire Prevention Bureau actively managed and participated in 512 film days and 450 special events, doing our part to enhance the city's reputation as a destination for special events and filming. Finally, for the first time ever, we conducted two simultaneous fire recruit academies. This was a tremendous undertaking by our training staff and was highly successful as we graduated 39 new firefighters. The proposed fiscal year 18 budget for the fire department is $116.9 million. We have a total of 528.91 full time equivalent staff consisting of 403 sworn Ph.Ds in the fire ranks. Another 27 full time year round marine safety first responders, over 180 seasonal lifeguards and 26 full time ambulance operators. Additionally, the fire department is supported by a civilian staff in fire operations, support services, fire prevention and administration. 74% of our budget is in the general fund, which supports most departmental activities. The proposed Fy18 General Fund budget for the fire department is $86.6 million. The Long Beach Airport provides support in the amount of $5.3 million for fire and rescue services provided to the airport. And this is included in the fire department's general fund budget. Additionally, the Tidelands Fund supports marine safety activities as well as our fire operations in the Port of Long Beach. The Harbor Department provides cost reimbursement for the services provided in the port in the amount of $18.5 million, and that's included in the $27.4 million Tidelands Fund budget for the fire department. Proposition H from the Oil Production Tax continues to provide additional support for fire staffing in the amount of just over $2 million annually. And along with the Health Department, the fire department content provides environmental protection services that are supported by the Cooper Fund. This stands for Certified Unified Program Agency and through permit fees, it provides funding for inspection services and businesses and business emergency plan reviews to ensure hazardous materials and hazardous chemicals are handled, stored and transported in accordance with current state and local standards. The Fire Department's proposed fiscal year 18 budget includes several notable changes that I would like to highlight. First, as I mentioned earlier in my presentation, this proposed budget includes the resources to structurally fund the Homelessness, Education and Response Team or Heart Unit. The mission of the Hart team is to reduce the number of fire department responses to individuals experiencing homelessness through rapid response to 911 calls for service, collaborating with our continuum of care partners, and educating the fire service and community members about issues surrounding homelessness and available resources. By all accounts, this has been a very successful program and we look forward to continuing it on an ongoing basis. Therefore, 18 budget also includes funding to add a battalion chief in the Fire Operations Bureau. This additional staff person will give us the subject matter expert who will be responsible for managing the fire department's 26 facilities, providing supervisory expertize and testing, procurement and inventory management of equipment, and providing consistent oversight of specialty programs such as urban search and rescue, hazardous materials, airport rescue, firefighting. The proposed budget includes additional staff for the medical marijuana program as well, based on anticipated demands of the and inspecting all the medical marijuana facilities. Additional staffing is necessary to maintain a reasonable turnaround time for the inspection process. The firefighter slash investigator will be the lead staff member during annual inspections for sanctioned businesses and will also take the lead from the fire department on enforcement activities related to illegal or unsanctioned businesses. We are also proposing the upgrade of two positions that will improve management and administrative oversight, upgrading a battalion chief position to Assistant Fire Chief and our Community Services Division and upgrading Marine Safety Sergeant position to Marine Safety Captain and our Marine Safety Division. Finally, the proposed budget includes the increase and increase in ambulance transport fees. The Long Beach Fire Department has not adjusted these fees since fiscal year 14. And since that time, the rates authorized by the County of Los Angeles EMS Agency have increased and now significantly and see exceed Long Beach fees. For this reason, we are proposing an increase of $217 for advanced life support transport and $105 for basic life support transport. These proposed increases will improve our cost recovery and bring us closer to the ambulance transport fees charged by the majority of providers in Los Angeles County. Looking forward to fiscal 18, the department has several significant challenges and opportunities. The first is to improve our response times and response capabilities and to continue to meet the expectations of our community by maintaining fire suppression and emergency services staffing levels. As I mentioned earlier in my presentation, the restoration of Engine eight and Rescue 12 has improved emergency response capabilities, not just in their immediate response areas, but also citywide. Another significant challenge is to continue to train new firefighters and new fire recruits into firefighters and existing staff. With regard to fire suppression, emergency medical services, wildland firefighting and specialized services such as air aircraft, rescue and firefighting, urban search and rescue and hazardous materials. We are an all risk department, meaning that we respond to all the needs of our community, regardless of the nature of the incident. Therefore, we must train all of our employees to be ready to effectively respond to a wide variety of emergency incidents. Another significant challenge and opportunity is to prepare the next generation of firefighters to step into positions of leadership. To that end, the fire department continues to train up potential for future leaders in areas of supervisory skills and management development. These succession planning efforts are critical to the long term continued success of the Long Beach Fire Department in coming years. Finally, we will continue to work with the Department of Technology and Innovation to utilize new technology to help streamline operations, implement performance management tools, and overall increase our efficiency. Mr. Mayor, Council Members, thank you for the opportunity to present an overview of the Fire Department's fiscal year. And that concludes my presentation. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Fire Chief. And think, of course, our police chief as well. A great presentation. We're going to go ahead and go into now. The city council. Is there anything else, Mr. West, that you wanted to add to that? No, sir. Okay, great. So how do we go ahead and go into the council? We have a motion in a second to receive and file the hearing and move to the next hearing. But let me start with Councilman Price. Thank you. Thank you very much for the presentation. Very well done. And there's a lot of very exciting news that both departments share. So I appreciate that. I want to start with the police department presentation and Chief Chief Luna. First of all, I cannot support. Any more. If it were even possible your commitment to increasing RDR. So for the folks who are not familiar with the program, D.A.R.E. is an international program and the state of California has more dealers than any other state in the United States, and dreams are going to be needed and used a lot more in light of the passage of Prop 64. So there is no roadside test that is reliable to detect the presence of drugs in an impaired driver's system. So the drugs are going to become a very useful tool statewide. And I'm personally very involved with this program through my work as a prosecutor and trained statewide on this. So I'm very, very encouraged that our chief is going to make a commitment to include D.A.R.E. training for our officers. Do you know how many certified dealers we have on our force right now? We have approximately between ten and 12 and then working to get more or gain more. Okay. So one thing that I'm thinking of and I'm putting it out there to my council colleagues and of course, you know, a good case will have to be made for it. But but I do believe there are agencies that are considering providing stipends for officers who will become certified degrees and maintain their certifications. And that's something I would like the city of Long Beach to think about or participate in. So I'm putting that out there because I think that's something that the association might be interested in, including in negotiations next time around. I think a a stipend for each certified degree multiplied by the number of degrees I hope we have, would be a very insignificant amount of money in the grand scheme of things, but would encourage our officers to maintain their certifications and would make the city of Long Beach one of the first cities to have a stipend for degrees, which is a trend that a lot of agencies are currently exploring. So I want to put that out there so that that dialog and discussion could be had. But even if we were to double the number of degrees, a 20 $500 a year stipend, for example, for each officer that maintains their degree certification really would not be that big of an impact on the city, but would mean a lot to the officer and provide an incentive for them to continue their certification. So I completely support that, that program and that commitment, and I think it's very timely right now. And when we're in a situation, when we have a drug impaired driver involved in a horrific collision, which happens all the time, but there are those collisions that get the attention of the media. And when we're asked what is the city of Long Beach been doing to combat this issue, I want us to have a story about our proactive response in terms of training up our officers to become certified dealers. So thank you for that. The Neighborhood Safe Streets Initiative that we allocated $1,000,000 for. Could you provide a summary for the Council of what types of projects or needs were funded with that money in 17? Yes, Councilmember Price what we've used that money for in the past and what we intend to use it in the future is it goes to the basis of our philosophy of policing. As you all are aware, because all of you work hand in hand with our division commanders. The community comes to you. We work closely, hand in hand, with all of your staffs to listen to our community and the needs, those needs can be anything from violent crime, property crime or quality of life issues. Every division in the city is different. So commanders will come to us when they need resources outside of their allotment to handle some of these specialized challenges that we have. It has been a very successful program for us in the police department, I think really for the whole city in the past. And I think as as you see our crime rate, which right now we're very fortunate as a city to have an overall 5% reduction, a big contribution or a big contributor to that, I should say, is the fact that we're through data analysis, we're able to see some of these challenges. We're listening to our community and we're using those resources to apply to specific problems. At the end of the day, a simple math equation is that it really adds more FTE, but we put them out there on the days that are needed, at the times that they're needed, and it's been very effective for us. Now I know when we talked about this issue, when we first allocated these funds, it was very important to to me at least, I can't I can't speak for any of my other colleagues that that this money be used to address specific needs within districts and not necessarily prioritized based on the type of crime or the particular district. The basically the allocation of the funds be equitable and not really prioritized within the crime category. Do you believe that that that goal has been followed in the allocation of the funds? I believe it has. And that's not only listening to our patrol bureau where our division commanders are, patrol division commanders reside, but a lot of feedback from our community members and all of you. So hypothetically saying North Division, the commander up there, Rudy Camisa, can have a challenge where he asks for these funds, this funding request. And Liz Griffin, who's in the audience, she is listening to her counsel, people out east, out in east division and the challenges are facing out east are very different than maybe the ones out west or out north or down here in South Division. So I do believe that they're being utilized for that specific community's needs and they're done by patrol division. Well, that's good. That's very encouraging to hear. And, you know, I want to go on and on record in making it clear that that that money should be distributed in an equitable fashion throughout the city to address the different needs in every district, and that it really shouldn't be looked at from a district wide standpoint. But that and it sounds like you're doing deferring to our commanders in determining what the needs are. I know I meet regularly with with the commander and my division and we talk about the needs. And so she has a very good handle on what it is that our residents, what is keeping our residents awake at night, which may be different than what's keeping residents and another division awake at night, but nevertheless it's keeping our residents awake at night. And so just making sure that those those concerns are reviewed kind of holistically would be very important. And I appreciate you. From what I'm hearing, you're continuing your commitment to that, that kind of analysis. Yes, ma'am. For quality of life officers, I realize we have resource restraints and limitations. But I have to tell you, I think that is one of the most effective programs that we have, because it combines social work with law enforcement, which is something we rarely see. And so my my question is, did we give any thought to requesting more quality of life officers? And if so, what was your recommendation in terms of whether that was a feasible option for you? The simple answer to that is yes from a perspective that our quality of life officers are very effective at what they do. Policing has changed. But at the end of the day, our core services from a calls for service perspective, homeland security obligations and investigative obligations. We we do our best to prioritize where the people should go. And something that the council needs to be aware of is that the quality of life officers that we have for the Long Beach Police Department are not budgeted as quality of life officers. They are patrol officers, calls for service officers who each division commander. Going back to what we talked about on your previous question. They they're listening to their community. They're responding to the community's needs. And they determined to pull somebody out of calls for service to apply themselves to that specific task. We have had they are so successful that we have had requests to increase the size of them. I do not have the capacity to do that at this point. So any request to add additional quality of life officers would be asking for additional FTEs for the police department sworn to ease. And so I'm guessing that based on the challenges before you the recommendation on the FDA is and the new FTAs that we've already discussed and where those would be assigned, you made those recommendations based on the totality, given what your resource needs are. Yes. Okay. Okay. So I want to talk about body worn cameras. I have to say, I understand the frustrations with the technology and the lessons learned. I'm experiencing that every day in my capacity, in my other job with agencies. But I will say, I think that. It's something we need to figure out and implement and in full force soon. A lot of other agencies are doing it and we have a stellar police department. We set policy for a lot of the region, set standards for a lot of the region in terms of things we try and do. And I would like to see us get moving and operational on the body worn cameras. And I don't know what you think about that. It is becoming more of an industry standard out there. It is. And that's why we are currently in the middle of our pilot program. The pilot program will end in November, and we are already gathering facts and will be doing a thorough report that will we will be bringing forward at the end of the pilot program. And as I stated in in my presentation, it is a challenge because as we are studying not only what we're doing here at the Long Beach Police Department, but we're paying very close attention to what's going on in other police departments in this region and across the country. It is extremely expensive. And if this policy body wants us to move forward with that technology, we're going to have to make a significant, significant financial commitment to do that. And that is not in this year's budget. And I and I get that and I appreciate that. What I would be interested in moving forward is how many cities of our size don't have body cameras. Because I will tell you, in the numerous law enforcement roundtables that I host and attend statewide, they are becoming the standard of practice. It is rare to see an agency not have body cameras, especially a large agency. And I don't want to be one of the only agencies who doesn't have one if that's where the industry is headed. I think I think it speaks to the to the the credibility of the agency in terms of responding to and adopting trends and standards. So I understand the fiscal challenges, but I also think that we need to do a very good job of educating the body on, you know, what the what the best standard standard of practice is in the industry right now and being able to articulate if we can't come up with the resources to invest in that technology, why we believe that's not going to set us back in terms of using that the latest resources and tools. So I just think it's very unusual to be in a room with multiple agencies, at least in the Southern California region, and say who's not, who's using. But it used to be you'd say who's using body cameras six months, eight months ago, and one or two agencies would raise their hands. Now, you say who's not yet using body cameras and one or two agencies will raise their hands. That's been my experience. It could be very different in L.A. County, but I think that's data that we need to know in terms of our budgeting. And, you know, how many urban cities with a population similar to ours are not going to be using them? I think that's an important issue. I think that's a huge investment that we're going to have to talk about. And and we can use one time dollars for it, which is which is good, is my understanding. We would have to have ongoing money for training in that and such. But I think that investment needs to be something that's a priority for us. I don't know if you agree or disagree with that. You ask some very good questions. Many of the questions you're asking will be part of the assessment that will be presented to this body in several months when the pilot program is completed. And then just I don't have a list right off the top of my head of what agencies do or don't. But just as an example, the Los Angeles Police Department does have most of their officers are carrying body worn cameras. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is not. So those are two examples of two agencies that are doing it just a little bit different. Now, I know that Sheriff McDonnell's considering a pilot program sort of like ours. So are they going to go that direction? That's to be seen. But those are we're trying to keep our finger on the pulse of what others are doing so we can be on the front end and not the back end. And I think that's very good. I would be shocked if in the next 3 to 5 years there's a single agency that's not working on body worn cameras. I mean, I would just be completely shocked to hear that. So I think I think that's just something that if it's not an expenditure we have scheduled for this year or 2019, we certainly should be planning for it in 2020. But that's just my $0.02. So thank you, Chief. I appreciate that. Chief Tory, I do have a question for you on the Hart team. So I was speaking with a council counterpart, I guess, in the City of Orange, and I know that they too have a Hart team. I'm not sure if exactly the same composition as ours, but it sounds like this is something that a lot of cities are using and that, from what I heard, the successes has not have not been as as impressive as ours. And the attention to the team in terms of what the public knows the team to be has not been as successful as ours. So I want to commend you on the outreach that you've done on that. Do we have any data on where we're deploying the Hart team citywide? Because one of the concerns that I hear and I don't know if it's if it's rumor or myth, but that that they they're really not going citywide. I know that's a lot to ask for one team, but what efforts are we making to to make sure that the allocation of that resources equitable. Councilmember the the Hart team in working with the continuum of care partners at the Health Department and our partners at Long Beach PD with the quality of life officers and acting on basically what they know from being out on the street, they target certain areas where we know that people are experiencing homelessness, congregate or where they're directed to. It's not uncommon for the Hart team to be given a tip, if you will, that a constituent will call the fire department and say, hey, you know, there's a number of people that are experiencing homelessness in this area. Can you guys have somebody go out and check it out and we'll do that. The majority of their work tends to be in places where people who are experiencing homelessness congregate. So they're not specifically directed to be in one specific geographic location or another. And as you well know, people who are experiencing homelessness in the city of Long Beach are all over the city and in places sometimes that you can see and sometimes that you cannot. So we've done our best through Deputy Chief Rex Winkle in operations, has done our very best to get them to go out to the various segments of our community that have people who are experiencing homelessness and do the best we can with the two people we've got. So the short answer to your question is, no, they're not. I can't I can't tell you they're specifically assigned to one place. We're doing our very best to be in as many places at once as we can. But really, the information that we get from that community and the information we get from our otherwise bigger community dictates how we deploy that resource. Would it be feasible at all? And this is not something that you have to answer right now. I'm just I'm really just thinking out loud. But would it be feasible at all to take that resource, the number of hours they work during the week and have half of their shift each you know, half of their shift be designated to a particular either either a police dove initiative. We want to do it that way or a district and then have the other half be responding to constituent calls or tips or things like that. But that that they that they touch every part of the city in a week on a weekly basis, that they they touch it in the sense of they're driving around actively and proactively identifying people who might need help or assistance, and that there is some sort of a schedule whereby we know the Hart team will visit our district on this day, on this day. And, you know, we know for sure we can tell residents. Yes, the Hart team, you know, comes to the third district once a week, and this is the day they come, but they also come as needed or they also come as tips are given and that kind of thing. Is that of is that even feasible? COUNCILMEMBER Yes, the answer is in the fire department we have three battalions right there. Battalion two typically is the east side of Long Beach. Battalion one is kind of downtown central Long Beach, and Battalion three is North Long Beach, the Hart Unit, like, as I mentioned, through our paramedic coordinator and under the direction of Deputy Chief Rex Winkel. They are directed to hit those specific battalions. Right. We might get information that there's a person or people experiencing homelessness over on the San Gabriel River Channel. And so they might get directed on any given day to go over there and work. And typically what happens, what we're finding, I think, with them is that when when they get to a specific geographic location, for instance, maybe they're down on the beach, that typically one conversation leads to another, to another, to another. It becomes a very time consuming process for them to interact with folks. But they are making a difference, I think. I think to to put a little number on it for you, I want you to know that there were about 300 since they been started. There are about 346 calls that came to our dispatch center that the team was actually attached to 164 calls that they went on like welfare checks. They actually just went out and did welfare checks like you suggested. They physically proactively go out and address things. And the number of times the heart unit was first on scene on those was 261 times. So they are proactively out in the community making contact with people. But perhaps the biggest number that that I'm happy about is just under 100 times they were able to cancel incoming resources, fire engines and rescues that otherwise would have been tied up dealing with that issue. So it's proving its worth. And I would love to have, you know, 150 more people doing that on a daily basis. And I think that's something we're actually getting to the education that we're getting with this heart unit. The heart unit then comes back and is educating the rest of our floor personnel. So ultimately down the road, we will have a better a more well-educated workforce as it relates to this specific issue. And every man and woman that's deployed in Long Beach fire should be able to interact in the same way that the heart unit is. And I think that's fantastic. And it's a it's a very it's a great goal because it's really using our existing resources and teaching them a new skill, which is good for them, but it's also good for the city. But but I will say that, you know, I think regardless of where you are in the city, the residents in that district believe that the homeless or the transient problem is the absolute worst in their district. It doesn't matter where you're at. And so if we say to them, the heart team is going where the need is, but that need may not be always in third or, you know, oftentimes it's another area that's something that that's data that they can't relate to because to them, the problem is the absolute worst than it can't possibly be worse anywhere else in the city. Right. And so we hear that a lot. So I think if we were able to represent to our residents that, yes, we know there's this resource that's designed to make it. We know this resource makes a difference. We know it works. And we can guarantee that this resource will spend an equal amount of time right here helping you with your need, as they will in other parts of the city. Because I think that that's important is that they may have a different perspective on where the need is, but the residents of a particular area may or may disagree with that. So how can we, you know, take what you and I and everyone in this room probably knows is the data and marry that with perception and allow people to see their city working for them. So that's kind of where and this is something Commander Griffen and I talk about all the time, because you can tell people about data all the time, but if the perception is different, you need to actually back it up with presence in order to get over that perception. So that's kind of where the the nature of these comments comes from. And I'm again, I'm not looking for any particular answer right now, but I realize that that's a resource that we can't replicate right now because of our budget limitations. But to the extent that we can allocate it in a manner that is quantifiable and explainable, I think that would be very helpful for those of us sitting behind the dais. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have nothing further. Council in Austin. Thank you and thank you to our chairperson of the Public Safety Committee for her great questions and comments. We have been working on these issues for for some time. I want to thank our chiefs, both Chief Luna and Dori, for their great presentations. The work that you, the men and women in your department do to provide public safety goes without mentioning. It's extremely important. I think it's one of the obviously a core service of the city and some of the most important work that we do and commitments that we make as a city council member when it comes to budgeting . I had a couple of areas that I wanted to just get a little bit more information on. And so I'll start with the Chief Luna regarding some of the challenges that you raised. You raised the challenge. One of the challenges being unfunded mandate mandates for technology, mental health training and procedural justice upon the department. Can you elaborate on what those challenges actually are? And specifically what changes have been placed upon the department that are unfunded that we as a council can need to know about and can help possibly fund. So some specific questions is especially like, for example, the last three years in law enforcement, when we see high profile incidents that happen across the country, there's definitely a reaction, sometimes a response to it. And a lot of the reaction usually is that very well-intended legislation comes across where, for example, there there's a request that police departments do more procedural justice training, implicit bias training, cultural sensitivity training, or there are databases, for example, to track racial profiling and things of that nature. The majority of the time, when somebody comes up with the legislation, people jump on board. But they don't recognize that in order to conduct the training or just in the technology realm, that that costs money and sometimes it costs people. So, for example, for us, we I talked in my presentation about the technology strategic plan that we're working on with with our technology department in another year or so. The FBI has changed the way they're going to collect crime statistics. So they are changing their system. And our technology doesn't match those systems currently. And as we adjust and by the way, the technology or the request to change the statistics and the information being imported into the statistics, I think will make us all better will have better information. But we're playing catch up with that level of technology that costs millions of dollars to get there. And those are the things I talked about and working in partnership with our other city partners to make sure that we get there. From a training perspective, it always sounds good and it sounds sexy to say, Hey, we need more procedural justice training and all the ones I just listed and this department is doing that. But at the end of the day, each full time equivalent is allotted 28 hours. And then when you start subtracting training time and other time out of the field, we start doing the math of what we are able to deploy. And when you get into too much training, you pull too many people out of the field, and that's not serving our community the way it should. So we've got to find balance. And the the overtime we're talking about is to backfill a lot of patrol functions or other investigative functions when we have people away at training. So that's just something that has to be managed. So when we hear about these great ideas or great legislation, I think a a question that our community needs to ask our policymakers need to ask is, where's the money coming from? Because we're pretty strapped as a as a as a city, just like any other city. Understand. And that's, I think, a great explanation. I don't think I agree with everything, obviously, because as a policymaker, we have a responsibility to a constituency that is responding to these actions at the same time. My question to you is. You know, of the 2088 hours currently, you say per per officer. How much of that or what percentage of that is dedicated to training with, I guess, period? There is mandatory post training and that is at least 40 hours per year. And then on top of that, every day before an officer goes out in the field, they're in a roll call where they are getting usually between 20 or 30 minutes a day, minimum of some current event or something that's changing across the board. So there is constant training that's going on from that perspective. Okay. And then the training in regards to and we you listed them implicit bias, cultural sensitivity, racial profiling, etc.. Implicit bias. Yes. Right. Do you think in any way that that training may be reduce may have an impact on reducing costs later potentially or improving police and community relations? I mean, there has to be a or has there been an evaluation in terms of cost benefits of such training? The straight answer on that is absolutely it helps. I think all training that we're involved in, there's an old saying all training is good training and some is definitely better than others. But from that perspective, every time we have people in a classroom and they're learning how to better deal with our community members, all of us are better for it. And I want to throw this out as we're talking about that. If I start giving you numbers or statistics of how many calls or how many people are employee's contact per day, it's in the thousands. And if I start giving you the ratio of if you think of police work and no one dials 911 when things are going well, it's when things are falling apart. And all officers time and time again are able to defuze de-escalate and handle situations even with armed suspects on a daily basis to such a professional level. So when you start throwing in the amount of complaints in there that we get, that goes to your question. It is it's minimal. It is less than half a percent. If you look at the ratios of contacts per complaints or we start getting into uses of force, your officers are doing an amazing job out there every day in this environment that we're in. Can we always get better? Absolutely. Are do I believe that this police department is on the upper levels of the training we're getting, comparatively speaking, other police departments? Absolutely. We're getting the best training and it's all good training. I'm not complaining about getting the training. I'm just saying that it does have an impact on us. And as time goes on, we get more and more requests for more training and to do things differently. And those things costs money. And it and most of them are great investments. And I think I don't disagree with anything you said. Matter of fact, I agree with everything you said. Our police officers have the toughest jobs out there. Some of the toughest jobs. And I have nothing but respect for the work that they do, the situations they encounter on a daily basis. I know that the average citizen myself wouldn't want to deal with and so much respect to your department and the men and women who do the work. I will say that I think that policing is changing this dramatically. The profession, the practices, the management and administration is changing. And so we have to be flexible and recognize that balance as well. I would also go go to the the the issue of body worn cameras. I will agree with my colleague, Councilmember Price, that I think this is something that we we must commit to as a as a city moving forward. It is the future, and we need to make it work. I think these cameras inspire public confidence as well as reduce liability for our city. And again, can they may be an initial investment up front, but I think the long term benefits in terms of just public confidence and the potentially the potential to reduce liability is is well worth it. And so I'd love to have more conversation about that and look. Forward to getting the the results of the pilot project that we currently have. And when it comes to two to policing, Long Beach continues to lead. And I want to commend you for for your leadership. The the the the chiefs before you for their leadership. And I know we will continue to do that. In addition to body worn cameras, I just want to throw it out there that I think we should also be looking at investing in and cameras in our. I know we have them in some places, but in our business districts and in key corridors that are important to economic development, I think we need to to invest in cameras in those areas as well. Again, inspiring confidence, but also sending a message loud and clear that that we're not going to tolerate crime in those areas because they are important to the the economic vitality of our city. I also I know in the past we have you mentioned also the the RFP process for the new records management system. Is that is that that budgeted or or do we have have we budgeted that in this this f y fiscal year? We have some money for it. And we're paying a consultant to come in and assist us to make sure that we're identifying the the right equipment for for our city. But that's something that we're going to have to work together as we move forward. So it may not be budgeted this fiscal year. That may move into 19. That accurate or safe? Yes. My financial chief behind me saying yes. Thanks to you. And then I know you councils passed in not too long ago. Over the last few years we have made strong stances on issues like human trafficking, task force and task force to address issues of prohibited possessors, to get guns off the streets and crack down. How are we dealing with those issues in this budget. With our existing resources, our our officers on the street specifically are directed enforcement teams that are working out in patrol, are specialized and investigative units. And our investigations bureau continue to focus. And what we're doing is through better data. I talked about what the I-Team is doing for us, and I'm really excited about the opportunities we have in front of us. And there will be some technology needs that go along with it. But really, instead of going out and and doing sweeps like we once did is where we're so much more data driven and focused on individuals. We're looking at criminal histories and and really looking at patterns and then trying to figure out who we can surgically removed from communities who are causing problems and victimizing people in our neighborhoods. That's good to know. And I'm glad to hear that we're getting smarter, I think. But perhaps those those task force have provided some sort of tools and best practices to help us help us identify problem areas. But I'd like to, too, you know, if in any way make sure that we're in place in a strong emphasis on those areas and not walking away from them. But we are and we appreciate your leadership. I know you've always talked about human trafficking. And and I'll tell you what, the city of Long Beach as a whole is a leader in that arena and not only its police department through the leadership in this room, but we have so many community members who have done so much out there in organizations that we're working with too many to name right now. But this is just a completely different issue. We look at it a very different way, and I think we are one of the most effective communities in dealing with not only the suspects, but more importantly, the victims. The other side of the equation of this horrible crime. All right. Thank you for your your patience. And I know we'll be continuing this conversation in the weeks to come. Chief Tory, again, thank you for your presentation. I just have a couple of quick questions for you. And forgive me, I've been I wasn't able to attend the budget hearing last week, and I'm looking beyond the head here for good. But in I've just been able to to kind of grapple with the budget here today. But is there an Academy plan for the fire department in this fiscal year? Councilmember Yes, part of our part of our annual our fiscal year 18 budget does include the revenue, the dollars to do a fire academy. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And then I wanted to follow up on the Hart team. I think, you know, I think Councilmember Price was on to something at our last public safety committee meeting. We went out into the community and there was a detailed presentation not only on the Hart team, but also the Met team and some of our efforts in terms of public safety outreach to to deal with our homeless issues, but also those with the mental illness in the streets. Is it possible and I guess my question specifically is what would it take to employ a Hart team in every battalion? You said that what currently there is a Hart team in the employ or I don't know if it's one to but one battalion but or it's moved around between three different battalions. If every battalion had a hard team dedicated. What would be the cost? And is that possible to. To achieve? Councilmember Each each a structurally funded heart unit costs about 300, and just under $350,000 is what the cost would be. Currently, the existing heart team that we have deployed is it's a citywide resource. It goes it goes all over the city. And as I mentioned earlier, wherever the hotspots are is where it will go. So but the structural value of that is about $350,000. And I guess with existing resources, is it possible to develop that or to, say, tweak our system in a manner that would actually provide that service? Councilmember the no, not not without additional additional funding that we don't have. You got to remember, when we first put the hard team into place, it was put in as a pilot program. We had one time dollars to put that in place. What this proposed budget does is it turns that pilot program into a structurally funded resource, so it becomes an ongoing resource that we can use whenever. So beyond the dollars that have been allocated in this proposed budget, I don't have any other discretionary dollars that I could apply toward that. You couldn't rely on your great administrative management skills to kind of make that happen. Councilman, I might be able to do it once. But no, we don't have any additional revenue in our budget that's not already accounted for in other programs or resources. Okay. Well, I'm not going to give up on that that that thought an ideal. I think we we have some there's some opportunities. And again, with and with policing, I think with our fire services, we need to be adaptable to to change to 21st century needs. Specifically, we know that, you know, fire services has changed quite a bit over the last few decades. And medical responses are are pretty much what we do. But but there's a there's a certain level of proactivity that I think is necessary for us to be the city we want to be. We we have. And I'll just say I get constituent calls and correspondence on a daily basis. People are concerned about homelessness. They're concerned about, you know, people on our streets that could get services. And if we were more proactive in reaching out to them, you know, our quality of life and our neighborhoods would be a lot better . So with that, I will reserve my comments and look forward to hearing from the rest of the colleagues at the council. Thank you. Thank you. That's me. Richardson My goodness, that is a lot to follow. And so, yeah, I had like three or 4 minutes, so, so let's just go through what I have here. So first, there's a lot to be proud of in this budget, but I want to begin just just talking with the fire department. So we've we've worked over the last few years to identify the resources to finally put paramedic services back into District nine and at Station 12. So and I know that we've we've worked on this. We found different iterations of of wait means to do it. We finally got it done with measure. A So what has been the impact of the system since we've placed Rescue 12 into service? Vice Mayor When we put prior to putting Rescue 12 in service, the average response time in Station 12 was first in area for a paramedic resource was about 8 minutes and 40 seconds. Since we put Rescue 12 in service, that number has dropped down to 5 minutes and 36 seconds. So it's been a significant decrease in overall response time in that geographic area and citywide. The addition of Rescue 12, because it really is a citywide resource has taken it's not as significant, but it has shaved about 30 seconds off the expected response time citywide by having that resource in place. So I'm gonna pause for a minute because that that is a significant number. So we've shaved 3 minutes of paramedic response time off of the response in North Long Beach. I mean, it's just unheard of to think about the fact that we've had response times for that long eight minute response time. If you imagine a cardiac arrest, a heart attack, you know, a major events, life support, emergency, the fact that folks had to wait that long and we're finally addressing that with shaving 3 minutes off. That's something the entire city council and everybody who supported Measure, that's something they should all be proud of. So congratulations to you and thank you for that. And I do want to say citywide, 30 seconds is significant. That means our system is healthier. It is stronger because we didn't think so much just about our backyards, but thought about the entire system. And so this should be evidence to us that we should we should certainly think about. The human element of the choices we make, how it really impacts and makes a meaningful difference in the lives of people. So thank you. Thank you, Chief, for that are my next question. Let's talk about the fire fee. So this council went through a process and we walked down a road and explored a a first responder fee. How is that common and how is that how is that developing and how we approaching that in the budget this year? Vice mayor. The first responder fee has been in effect for the past year, roughly. I'm not prepared to give you an actual the exact number that we've pulled in. I can tell you that is it has trended a little bit over initial projections on the amount of dollars that have come into the city. We projected that it will receive over to over $2 million this year from fire impact fee. And is that what we saw? We met our projections. We went over our projections. We initially projected we'd reached about $1.6 million. In how we budgeting that surplus. Are we utilizing that? Now, if you go back a couple of years, Vice Mayor, the fire impact fee was was used to plug a hole that was left with the elimination of the RMD program. A portion of it was used to plug that and the rest has been allocated in the proposed budget general fund resource. And so do we anticipate to that trend to grow that we can see that as an amount that we can continue to budget on and make other enhancements to the budget with Vice Mayor? I think that would be a financial policy decision through financial management. We're working with them to determine that that is a stable funding source, but we don't anticipate in the fire department that we'll see a reduction in our annual calls for service in EMS. So we believe that's a pretty it's a pretty stable number. What is the fire fee? The same level it was when we initially established it? Yes, same same. Number. Okay. And how does that compare to the fire fee in other of the regions? Vice Mayor That that number is literally all over the board, throughout the region and throughout the state. In some places it's as high as 5 to $800. In some places it's as low as $50. The study that we put forward to the Council prior to implementation of the first responder fee outlined a number of cities throughout our region, and this placed us directly kind of right in the middle and it's actually included in the budget book from last year. If I, if you want me to refer to it, I can. But in the middle. I think where I'm heading here is, you know, I don't I would love to know there was a significant discussion about how this might impact low income residents. And we established a like a a program or a system to identify them and provide fee waivers. Have we have we had to use that? And at what levels like how did this impact our low income community? Yeah. Vice Mayor The when, when we do get cold calls from time to time, we'll get calls into the fire department from people who express that they are unable to, to pay the first responder fear they have. They can test the bill or whatever, but most of them will take their information. We then pass that information on to our partners over in financial management. And the financial management folks are very good about educating them what process or what steps they need to take in order to get the fee waived or come up with a payment plan or whatever they want to do. We don't receive a great number of those calls, but there have been a few. And Director Gross's here, he thank you, can speak to that if you'd like. Since we implemented the first responder fee and at the request of city council, we've we've tried to be very sensitive about those concerns. I would say that the number of fee waivers has probably tripled or quadrupled since we implemented it. But I think that's all been for the good. We have I think we have done a very good job of making sure that people who have those concerns get a fee waiver application. The city attorney reviews it in general. Most of those fee waivers are approved, and I think we have considerable satisfaction in that process. It's fantastic. There's been a lot of conversation about, you know, you know, we've made progress, but there's still interest in expanding, say, the Hart team. I've, you know, learned a lot through Councilmember Pierce and our fire chief about the Hart team when it was an idea. And it's something that it seems like folks folks like and it seems like it's making an impact. And the narratives are great and the data is great. And, you know, based on the narrative today and other conversations that I've had, there is significant interest in expanding it. I think we should think about maybe a plan rather than look for a short term solution in this budget. But I think we should evaluate our ability to bear to, you know, look at that fire fee and compare where we are with other cities and see without, you know, sort of without placing a burden on our our low income communities or the folks who might opt into this fee waiver, see how much and someone who's insured, how much we can increase to offset a, you know, additional support in terms of the Hart team. Because what we see is a value added here with this this new model with the Hart team. There's definitely interest and need to be proactive with with homelessness. So maybe we should be creative and take a look at maybe doing a study over the course of the next year on what we could bear and how that could help us to support additional Hart team apparatus. I can tell you, you know, less than a year ago, less than a year ago, my my neighbor called us because, you know, there's a gentleman you know, there's a gentleman sitting on my bench on the front porch having a good old tall can of beer. And they said he doesn't look like the council member. I don't think he's a he lives there. And so, you know, we we responded and Petey responded and helped us. And we, you know, we helped get this gentleman support at our local shelter and helped it out. But if that happened to me that, you know, that could tell you homelessness is a is an issue all across our city. And our residents want us to do as much as our guys as we can to evaluate ways to address it systemically, but also to respond to the needs of neighborhoods. So that is a balance. So I do appreciate all the dialog tonight about, you know, hey, I have a real need in my district and people want to see that response in their district because if you see your house, no matter whether you feel as equitable or not, I want to see a response. I completely understand that. So I support the dialog as far as it's gone. In terms of the Hart team, we should look at, we should look at rather than, you know, dictating police resources and saying, just show face. In my district. I don't see a meaningful I don't see a meaningful impact. And if that means add additional resources or or look at this first responder fee that's really working, I think that I think we have two things here that could match up and say first responder fee and an Hart team match up. And, you know, and I'd have to give once again credit to Councilwoman Pearce, because this is a conversation we've been having for a while now that we you know, we'd like to see more of this Hart team, and this may be a potential solution. So hopefully we can take that up in the in the months to come. Switching over to PD. So there's there's a lot to be proud of in the in the police department budget as well. So we've got for you know, before I do that, what do you think about Mr. GROSS? What do you think about what I just proposed? Mr. wrote Mr. GROSS and Mr. Dery, we've got to both right next to each other. We think about that putting the plan together to leverage, to reevaluate the level of first responder fee and see if it could offset structurally funding heart or expanding heart. Now my my job in the gets to be a little beyond just the financial numbers but part of part of our responsibility in financial management is to collect the fees, the first responder fees and issue you pointed out, deal with the waivers and deal with the calls. So is this something we can look into from the both of your opinions? Is is this a direction that we can realistically explore? Yes, it can be explored. I think there would be a lot of resistance to an increased fee in that area. Okay. And Mr.. Mr. Dooley, what do you think? I think I typically defer to the director of financial management on on policies related to financial management. But I. Vice Mayor, I would certainly I would certainly provide any necessary information and that would be required to have a robust discussion on that. And we would definitely have a seat at the table and and see if that's something that could be done. Absolutely. So. So I'd like to I'd like to understand that resistance and understand if this is feasible. So so moving on the police department. So for back to back academies, that's certainly something to be proud of. When I started working here years ago for Councilman Neal, you know, just we were fighting just to have one one academy . And I see Greg Abbott shaking her head. She remembers nodding your head. She remembers one was a big feat and we've done four back to back and we are supporting them in this budget. And that's so that is something to be proud of. The Neighborhood Safe Streets Initiative and I haven't tracked it very closely. I remember when the discussion came up and my understanding was, you know, this is a resources that as needed, we can draw down and make sure we sort of focus on certain areas. Mr.. Mr. Chief, how does this connect to the impact team's? Are these related to the impact teams? Because I know we utilize impact teams to really when there's an incident, we want to have a heavy response. We utilize the impact, the impacting. Are they related? Vice mayor, if you're asking about the are directed enforcement? Yes, directed at, for example, our north division directed enforcement team, which is very effective in doing what they do. Those moneys that we are talking about are apart from them, although they can be utilized as the resource on overtime. If the commander data directs us that way. But usually it is a a problem that occurs on on any specific given day or time of the day. Wherever the data takes us. So, for example, if it's auto burglaries on graveyard, we're going to figure out how to get more people on overtime during the days that we see that that's happening to us. So it is different, but they could be kind of the same. It just depends on where the data takes us. Okay. And I'm sure we're likely to hear much more on this from my colleagues. But it seems to me, I mean, crime crime is heading in the right direction. And in our city, we've seen crime, certain categories of crime hit in the right direction in North Long Beach. I meet regularly with our commander. It seems like the resources from from, you know, the are the direct enforcement team as well as the neighborhood safe streets team is being deployed in a in a meaningful way that's making a difference. And so I'd like to continue to evaluate that and make sure that, you know, our body, you know, as elected officials, were not influencing things based on a different value model, anything other than need, anything other than, you know, need and crime and keeping our community safe. So I'd love to I'd love for, you know, to continue to hear that. And I think it would go a long way to here, you know, city manager, one of these memos on a memo to come out soon, just giving an update on that that that program, because since it first came out, I haven't really received an update on it. So I'd like to see that. Yeah, that Miss Malika got it. Thank you. So I'm really excited about some of the data driven justice stuff. So we had a conversation maybe a year ago, Mr. Chief, who was in your office and we, you know, we talked about a number of things from, you know, rap lyrics to to models that we've seen all across the country, from Oakland to New York. And since then, you know, we've been heading in that direction. Our innovation team has pivoted and establish a new a new sort of focus here. You know, we had a community community discussion around 21st century policing, you know, over two years ago with our ministers alliance and so so clergy and community partners about really doubling down on things like diversion and things like sort of body cameras and things like implicit bias steps have been taken to head in that direction. Specifically, the innovation team's work, specifically the violence prevention work that brought in an expert to talk about implicit bias training and the establishment of the office equity. And the way I see it, they're all aligned. They're all really aligned. And what I'd like to see really is a more comprehensive approach, since, you know, we've heard a lot of discussion at council tonight. And frankly, I think that's what our people on staff has been waiting for. You know, significant people on the council to start saying these things, hey, we want to be serious about body cameras. We want to be serious about 21st century policing because this conversation is really only taking place in the communities. It's taking place at the Federal Legislation Committee. But I think it is appropriate that we have this conversation. So I want to say thank you to Councilwoman Price, Councilman Austin, for helping to breach this subject at the council , because it has been difficult the last few years to get this amount of focus on this. So I look forward to working together on more comprehensive. Comprehensive we looking at how we can address 21st century policing. I know that there was a study came out of the White House and that we evaluated and we placed into our process with the establishment of the My Brother's Keeper Local Action Plan. And we pointed to a number of a number of things, including the version to focus on. And just two weeks ago and I'm not sure if the public is aware of this, our work has been recognized because we hosted a national summit right here in Long Beach with the Obama Foundation and the My Brother's Keeper Alliance discussing this very subject matter. So I think it's really encouraging to go to this summit and thank you to all city staff and the mayor for helping to land this here in Long Beach. But to take that and here we are two weeks later at the at the city council during a budget discussion, talking about making these things real. So so I want to say, this is this is fantastic work. And I want to see I think I want to see some tracking and some discussion publicly about these 21st century policing tactics. And in turn, specifically on body cameras. On body cameras, you know, the pilot that we set out, set out on, I do want to see where we are in terms of data, because I know it took us a little while to get up because of the issues with data and information and the legal circumstances surrounding that. So I don't want to put any pressure to keep up with another city. What I'd like to do is put a put a real program together that's structurally sustainable and makes make sense and that the community can have a little bit of confidence and faith in so that so that's that's good. So kudos to everyone who's discussing that and hitting that heading in that direction. The next thing I want to talk about, fireworks. So, you know, fireworks lived in North Long Beach for seven years now. And I got to tell you, it's different when you have a when you have a three, three month old. And, you know, before I would when I was a young guy or a single guy or when me and my wife were just alone, we just we didn't the impact that as much we didn't hear the impact as much because we always spent 4th of July away with family. And I can tell you, it is a disaster. I saw our response, the fireworks to the public. And I know our fire, our police officers and our firefighters work hard. They are slammed. I completely get it. I completely get it. And they work hard and I've had conversations. We speak with our commanders and our fire folks all the time, but in reality, we've got to figure something out. And what and what I think is I think the in the hearts and minds of our residents, we need to do a better job at communicating the circumstance. The conundrum wherein in terms of this region I live, you know, my district is adjacent to Compton, Bellflower, Lakewood, Paramount and Rancho Dominguez. And all of them have different rules on fireworks. So living as close to different borders, I hear the impact across the border. So what I'd like to really see and where we can work together on, because there's no easy solution to this. I'd like to see us to engage in a real conversation around sort with these adjacent cities to see if we can talk about a regional a regional solution to this. Because I, I think the city councils in those areas, we've had off the cuff conversations. I think there's something there we can talk about constraints or maybe engage the county about a response regionally. But I think we need to have that conversation. So those are those are my remarks on on fireworks. And I would also say that I think physically people want to see a certain level of response like I don't think we bad to grab certain parks and heavily impacted areas and literally set up set up tents with some of our have set up a firework fireworks information station on the 4th of July at a park in the middle of the neighborhood where you can talk about where you you know, where to go to report something and you can get information in. And people will feel like feel like we're not just running around putting putting out fires, literally, but rather we have a central location to where the community might feel safe. And we can rotate these things around because I know resources are different, but I want to see like a visible response beyond what we did this year on lawn signs. So I definitely have had to do that. The last thing I'll say is I think I think it was really smart in this presentation to outline your challenges. So I do want to acknowledge that the fact that you outline these challenges, it helps us as a city council to to maybe, maybe can put ourselves in your shoes a bit and understand what your what your what your problems are so that we can think be solution driven. Right. And so I would I would like to. And Mr. City managers, that's something that we're encouraging all the departments to do. Yes. Is that is that new? I don't remember. That is a new thing. We've done it before. Yes. Okay. I think it should be standard moving forward. Just standard, because, you know, it really helps put things in perspective. So so thanks again to everyone on this. And this has been a good dialog. And again, you know, the my take away from here is that our police department is doing great work and they need and, you know, everything has a cost. And we should really think about how we can be intentional to identify new resources, support them. And secondly, three minute response time, three minute cut on our response time in North Palm Beach is something that that I'm going to be proud to talk about. Thanks a lot. Now next up is Councilmember Ringo. Crime is headed in the right direction. Must be like. I don't understand it. I mean, in the right direction. Up, down, sideways. You know, whatever. I mean, either way, I know it's a positive statement, not a positive statement. But the bottom line is, is that, you know, there are some challenges in this budget that the both chiefs have mentioned. We're not exactly where we want to be. Of course, you know, I don't know if we ever will be where we want to be in regards to budgets for our public safety personnel. But I and my focus mostly is that we're talking about people and we're talking about those service providers as first responders that we need to have on duty to ensure that those response times are done, to ensure that crime is headed in the right direction, to ensure that. Our. Residents feel safe, and that when they call 911 or the non-emergency number, that there's going to be somebody there quickly and efficiently and provide the the needed response that they need to have. So my comment on this is going to be very brief, very short. And it's dealing with if we're going to want people coming out of our academies who are ready and have all the equipment and all the tools that they need to do their jobs, we need to do it at the front end as well. So my emphasis is mostly and I've spoken with the city manager about this before, is that we need to dedicate more money, more resources to our recruitment efforts to ensure that we get the most qualified people out there to apply for our jobs in police and fire. And that includes dispatching security, all that. And it's a full service that we want to provide our residents. So I want to ensure that we have enough money in our budget here and identify. To provide some recruitment teams and advertising dollars to make sure that we get the word out that Long Beach is hiring. It's a great place to work. It's a great place to live in this great, great, great, great place to raise family. So I hope that from here on out, we are able to get that message out there that low is hiring coming to work for us. It's a great career. And and we don't do that unless we get the word out with a good recruitment budget and advertising budgets around. That's my message on that. And that's about police and fire. What we need in both areas in regards to the budget, of course, it always is challenging and I think that one of the things we haven't really paid any attention to on the city council and I think it's with us at this point, is the the declining condition of our police academy. I mean, I remember back in the day when it was a nice Rancho style Academy lockers, showers, you name it, it was a very nice place to be. Our recruits loved to be there. And now we have where bungalows, trailers. And I think that they're getting old. They they have to be old and they have to be falling apart. So I think that we have to look at dedicating some of our budget into replacing those trailers and getting an academy that's top notch state of the art that provides all the full abilities of our police department to train our police officers the best that they can and that there's a department that they really want to come to because we've got a great topnotch academy. I don't know what the stats are right now in regards to our academy being used by other agencies. I know we used to have recruits coming from other agencies to train with us. I don't know if we're doing that anymore or do we have the capacity to do that anymore? Put both police and fire. We for the police department, we currently in this class, this recruit class, we have four members from outside agencies and we did in the previous one as well. Well, that speaks well for us, but I'll be probably turning over here because they don't have academies themselves. So but regardless of the growth of that, I think we can expand that opportunity for other departments as well. If we get an academy that that's top notch. And I would like the city council to look at ways that we can create a better Academy experience, if you will, for our recruits once they join a department. And that goes for both both departments. So I hope we can get something if if it takes a bond or whatever. That's something that we can discuss in terms of what we need to do to ensure that we have a police academy that that and fire academy. That's a top notch. I know a lot of the emphasis has been on homelessness and the the increased services that we need to provide to those individuals, as well as to respond to requests for service when there is a homeless individual out in the in the street and what the response is going to be, we have we have the response teams for that. But from from speaking to some residents, you know, their feel they're feeling isn't without perceptions and some of it is factual. Some of mine that might not be is that they're getting bolder and more aggressive as time seems to go on. So we need to look at how we can best deal with that with our homeless issues and problems. We're going to be getting some additional funds for an account from a county measure h. H. H. H. Therefore, H or three. H. H or. Okay, we're getting 1hi here. I was hoping for a4h program, but that's another story. So we are going to get some help and some relief. But, you know, we need to a few more. So I'm sure that our our departments are going to be looking at that. And given that, has there been a a decrease or a re a new focus on gangs? And back in a few years ago, we're talking about the elimination of the gang unit and its possibility of reinstating it. And I haven't heard any talk about that lately, and I haven't heard the police department really address that the last at least the last two budgets. Are we beyond that? Have we have we restructure, reorganized our departments in such a way that we're addressing it, but not really calling it that anymore? Councilman, your anger regarding gangs. We have not stopped working. Gang enforcement. We never did stop, I should say. Once upon a time during the recession, when we lost over 20% of our staffing, our field gang unit was eliminated. But we still had a gang investigations section, a very effective one, a very good one. And to this day, they're very effective at what they do. We have to use other resources within the department. For example, directed enforcement teams in each patrol division are very effective at dealing with violent crime, specifically gang members. But again, as I've said earlier, very good questions asked. We just have a very different way of approaching it. I think it's a much smarter way of approaching it, a very data driven, focused way of approaching it. And I think and I knock on wood, that's why our murder rate year to date is down over 30%. Our gang shootings are down about a third over 30% as well. So the men and women of our department and I got to say, our community, our partners, it's a it's a whole team effort, are doing a very effective job at managing that challenge. And it is always a challenge, but we continue to take it on and. And. Yeah, I mean, they're. That's great. You know, that that's a statement that that carries very, very well with me in terms of the police department is doing an excellent job in, in addressing ah gang issues and problems and if it being able to get done without having a specific dedicated gang unit to it, all the better. I mean that means that we're, we're are using our resources effectively and efficiently. That's all I have to have. That's all I have to say to. Thank you, Councilmember Pete. Okay. Well, first, I want to echo a lot of what my colleagues have said. It's great to hear people talking about equity, even though we might not be using the word equity. When we talk about police cameras and we talk about data driven results. These are things that we need to be able to do to govern for everybody in ways that might help those that have the least tools at their disposal to those that have the most. And so I'm going to try to be quick and not go through all of my questions. I'll start with fire. We've had a lot of chat about the Hart team, which I, of course, love. As far as the first responder fee, is there anything keeping the city from saying that we would have a policy to stay at the rate of the county first responder fee? So, Councilmember, I think I want to let me clarify that. So the county of Los Angeles does not establish a first responder fee. The county of Los Angeles, the local EMS agency, does established establish a guideline for ambulance transport fees. So the first responder fee is something different. Let's make sure I clarify that. It might be a long night. To your to your question, though, I think I understand your question. That would be a a decision that the council would make to determine how you how the council wanted to direct financial management or the department to establish, ah, ambulance transport fee as it relates to what it currently is. Great. And my understanding is we have three battalions in the city. Yes, ma'am. And one proposal that we're kind of playing around with through conversations with you and financial management is if we it's fantastic that we have one that's going to be structurally funded. I think that's great that the pilot program demonstrated numbers that that say this is taking time, that we're not having to use elsewhere. So if we were able to increase our first responder fees to a level that we could do another pilot program for one of the battalions, I've also been in conversations with our county supervisor around funding and possibly another one so that we could hopefully get to three so that we're at the city capacity, because we do know that there's great need on, you know, underneath our freeways by the airport. You know, my colleagues just talk. So I want us to try to explore some options outside of the box to try to figure out where we can get funds to do that. I'd also like to ask you, how soon could we possibly get just a really quick memo on the Hart team and the impact that you guys have seen, because I know after three months of being employed that are being utilized, that we already had some good numbers. But I didn't see those numbers. Directly in your report. And Councilmember, we can put together we can put together a memo to the council that outlines all the data points, some of the many of the data points I brought up earlier. But we can go through a kind of a chronological history for you, and I could probably provide that within 30 days. Okay, fantastic. The other conversation that's been coming up is the need for another academy for fire. I know in my district alone, we've got several hundred new residential units coming on and obviously we want to make sure that we have enough fire to to handle that. And I might not be restoring an engine, but just doing the basics of the academy. Where are some funding sources that financial management or fire might be looking at if we wanted to give some direction? Well, Councilmember, as I mentioned earlier, that the fire department is funded for one fire academy. Typically that's going to depends on the lengthy academy, but that's typically around 20 for new recruits that would start the academy. And we do have some attrition typically. So the key question here for us, we're finding now that, you know, the council has with Measure A and a lot of the council allocations over the past couple of years, we've actually begun to hire people again. We're still kind of playing catch up, though, from a number of years with no academy. And you're correct, even though we we brought on two academy classes this year, we're still showing numbers. It looks like we're going to be down a number of firefighters over the next two years. So we're exploring creative ways inside our existing budget that we can potentially add more recruits to our existing fire academy. But certainly any dollars, any kind of one time dollars, I suppose, that were available to help us bring in new firefighters to the system would be would be beneficial for us. Great. Thank you for that. I know that you guys also have a long list of any other one time fund opportunities. So obviously we want to support fire as much as possible. I think what you guys have here has been great being able to see us upgrade different staff and I just want to make sure that as our city grows in population that we have enough firefighters and the resources necessary for that. So obviously fully support. Trying to think creatively about a Hart team option for police are awesome PD department I want to say. How great it is to see in this report back that we're looking at data analysts, that we're shifting over some resources to make sure that we're doing that. How closely is the department working with the Office of Equity currently? If at all. I know we're working with the team. We are absolutely working with the team. We've been in meetings regarding the Office of Equity. It's a new office. It's just coming online. So we have had conversations and we're looking forward to working with them. That's fantastic. And I know that you guys are working with the with the team on some of the data. I think what would be really exciting is to see the Office of Equity with the team working with you guys to share with us what data points you guys are hitting on. I know that they're you know, we could pull data on small areas or on a very long list and looking at what other cities have done, like St Louis, like Seattle, what are the data points that have helped them kind of see a shift would be really helpful. But I really want to just celebrate the work that you guys have done that you've put into this. I fully support our additional academies. I wanted to ask on the national incident based reporting system that we're going to be shifting over to in the future. How is that different from what we're currently doing? Give me a second and I'll get a document I have that actually explains it in a just a quick paragraph. It's actually pretty exciting stuff. Okay. Thank you. It's where I'm trying to talk fast. So in the past, the FBI collects well, actually, we turn in our crime statistics on a monthly basis to the Department of Justice, State, DOJ, and then they in turn turn it over to the FBI. And that's the what we call the 3010 or refer to the 3010 report in here. And usually that was just crime stats that they're asking us for. Like, for example, part one divided into violent crime and property crime. What this new system is going to do it. It collects it collects each offense within each incident. And what I what I find exciting about this, it actually asks for characteristics about victims offenders and arrestees property data. So it gets more specific into the incidences. So we'll have potentially the ability to better identify patterns and trends and things of that nature and have more information that people typically ask us about offenders and victims that were not always readily able to answer without doing an extensive hand search. That's great and it's great to hear for the camera conversation. Obviously, you guys know my opinion. I completely echo that and think that it's, you know, as you mentioned, that it's cost savings if we're investing in this in the long run. When we look at any. Times that we've been we've had to pay out because of legal challenges. And, you know, I'd be interested to see what other cities have seen reduce as a result. Of having those cameras. So I like to say that my colleague, Councilmember Price and I definitely almost everything she said I agree with today. So that's fantastic, which is great. The last question I have is on property crime. While our crimes overall are going down, property crime obviously is still a challenge and we know that crime rates are directly correlated to poverty after school programs, making sure that we have some of that in place. But what is the your department's angle at trying to reduce those property crimes? I'm sorry about that, Councilman or Councilwoman Pierce, regarding the crime stats, our property crime is actually in the negatives. It's for the 3010. In June, it was -8.6%. Where besides homicide and rape and violent crime, that's unfortunately the crime that's going the direction we don't want it to, but we're working hard to do that. But overall, the city crime is down 5.4%. From a property perspective, property crime perspective. Our officers are responding to it because our community is more active, I believe, than it ever has been. From a community watch perspective. They're seeing something, they're saying something, they're calling us. We're getting to the calls. Usually priority one calls. We're getting there below 5 minutes. That teamwork is really helping. Our investigators are working as hard as they ever have to get the cases filed with the district attorney's office or the city prosecutor's office. So we're effective in that sense. And I think it's it's important to recognize that we as the city of Long Beach are doing good, comparatively speaking, to the cities around us who are not doing good for a lot of the challenges that we've talked about before in here with Proposition 47, for example, and the challenges with the criminal justice system, we have more people on the street who are not incarcerated and a lot of them for good reasons. But we have repeat offenders who are committing a dozen burglaries, 18 burglaries that we're catching are putting away, and then they're coming right back out. So those are the constant challenges we have and we're trying to do a better job. Again, going back to this I-Team concept of being more data driven. So we focus on those not that we're going to ignore any crime, but we want to be more focused on these individuals and their histories of why they're there in the first place. Is there some education issues, some health issues, substance abuse issues, mental health issues? So I'm really excited about the I-Team and the way we'll be able to use the data to drill down and really focus on these individuals, not only from a police enforcement perspective, but a trying to get them help in a more holistic way for me. And I'm going to just focus on the substance abuse part of this, where if we can go to our partners out there and specifically say, hey, we have a grouping of people, how can we help with these individuals? And they use them as examples, positive examples. Maybe we can turn the tide and keep them away from committing some of these property crimes. Yes. Thank you for that. And I know you guys are working closely with our city prosecutor's office and that's been huge. So thank you for that clarification. My very last question is the percentage. I'm curious for financial management. We use Tidelands funds right now to cover some overtime for public safety. How does that percentage right now compare to other years? Is it about. The same or have we dipped into. That more than we have in the past? We can take a look at the report and come back. I believe it's the same as we have in other years that we're not decreasing, but we're not increasing. But we can look into that and get your response. Yeah, definitely. I know that fire brought up, you know, special events. Obviously, we are seeing an increase in special events. A big chunk of those special events happen to be in our Highlands area. So just want to make sure that we're exploring ways that we can have a conversation around making sure we have resources there so that we can use other resources throughout the city to to cover in those areas as well. So those are my questions. Thank you, guys, very, very much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Great. Lucky for me, most of my questions have been answered. So. And for us. For all of us. Yes. Okay. Well, I appreciate each of your departments and all of our employees and each of you. I have had just such great back and forth with each of you on on many of the initiatives that we've put in place. And I think we are in a really great position currently as a city. So I'll start actually with a question for both of you. How about that? This is a question about, you know, we've been often hearing about and we see it in downtown, unfortunately, the opioid epidemic. And I don't see anything in the in the budget specifically tackling that. But I know we're working on that. Of course, some cities have put together like a city county task force. Have we are we doing that or is there intention to do that? Councilmember. Yeah. Thank you for bringing up that topic. This is a it's not just a Long Beach issue. This is a national issue that the fire service and our police partners are dealing with on a national scale. There's been a great emphasis and effort lately from the state of California through our federal partners down to the state and now coming down to the local level, level, greater levels of education for our employees as they deal with some of these drugs that are out there in the community today in at levels that we've never seen before. I will tell you that we in fact, just today at fire headquarters, we're having a conversation about this very subject and and the information that we wanted to give to our nurse. Educators are our team, our education team to then get out to our paramedics, get out to our crews in the field, things to be aware of . And that that also stands true with the police department as well. I mean, there's been a number of cases recently in the local region where police officers will arrive on the scene first and they will be exposed to drugs and opioid, you know, fentanyl and some of these other drugs. They get exposed to that and creates a hazardous materials environment. Fire department ends up coming in and cleaning it up. So it is a very, very serious, very pressing issue. We're taking it seriously. We're beginning to address it through proactive training of our folks with our existing resources. Great. And I think we all just kind of needed to hear that, because I know it is a national we hear it. We're hearing it everywhere. And it's just it's scary. I mean, you see people on the street and they just look, you know, they're just completely lost and it's unfortunate. So thank you for that. I just. Councilman Gonzalez, just real quick, just to add, from the police department's perspective, actually, Councilwoman Pryce asked me this question probably I'm going to say about a month ago or so. And we have a current project that we're working on within the police department, number one, and we're working with our partners in fire in trying to figure out it is we're definitely hearing about it. There's a significant challenge on the on our East Coast, some of our East Coast departments. You hear about it every day in the news. My major city chief meetings, it's been brought up, but it's we're doing a stat review to see if it's really a challenge here in our city, both on the police and fire side of things. Because when we talk to our employees, they're not identifying it as something they're seen as we're hearing about it in other places. But as always, we've got to be ready for these things. So some of the questions that Councilwoman Pryce had asked about was the use of Narcan that's been used more and more by police departments. So we're currently looking at that and looking at potentially buying it for some officers, trying it out. And again, I really appreciate Chief Gehry's help in it, because at the end of the day, it's it's almost like applying a medication, and that's kind of a new area for our officers. So we're looking at it, we're studying it, and we hope to have more information for all of you here in the very near future regarding that topic. Great. And I'm glad you brought up the stats because I think if there's, you know, not a clear enough issue with that, then obviously we have to direct our resources elsewhere. But we know it's somewhat of an issue here. So I appreciate both of your responses on that. I will start with fire. So great that we have a new academy, 24 new recruits. Sounds wonderful. I also wanted to ask about the increase in the ambulance transportation fees. Do we have financial projections as to what that will look like in the coming years for us? Councilmember? No. All we can use all we can do is base current kind of current projections on historical data. What we know we've collected in the past. We do know that if we raise raise the ambulance transport fee, the two on the Ehla side and the blue side, we expect to generate an additional $722,000 a year. OC. Okay. Great. And then on the last question for you, Chief Derry, the fireworks I know has been, of course, an issue for everyone city wide. And there was a thought out there about and perhaps it's just a collaboration, but a thought of having more free firework shows, perhaps funded through the foundation of sorts. So I don't know if that would even be a deterrence for individuals to not pop off that are, you know, not on 4th of July, but just a thought out there. You know, I don't know. Maybe we'll see what happens. And then I also want to commend your your Marine Safety Department as well. I think they do an incredible job out there. So overall, great job. And thank you so much for everything you do. So, Chief Luna, also incredible work as well, the innovative recruiting that we're talking about. I just want to make sure that as do the civil service. I saw that in the proposed budget and it will be done through civil service. This is not an extra position. Correct. That will be designated for recruiting. We're doing it through our existing resources. Okay. Perfect. And civil service is a great partner. They've been doing an amazing job with us. Okay, wonderful. And then the Neighborhood Safe Streets Initiative. I love to see that. It's great that we're creating a robust bus program around that. I know that. I hear you on the bus transit all the time. See something, say something. It's in English. It's in different languages. I would say if we can continue that. That would be great, especially in the communities that you know are non English because we know a lot of our we have a homicide that happens and no one calls. And so any more outreach that we can do to just continue that discussion that we need, you know, people out there calling and being proactive is important. And then lastly is do we have a separate dataset for gangs statistics? I know we I don't know. I'm sure it's embedded perhaps in violent crime, you know, violence and other stuff. But do we have a separate data set for that? We're getting better and better at tracking specific gang information. But we do have a stat we keep away from the 3010 regarding gang shootings. And that's why I indicated earlier that our gang shootings are down year to date. Okay. Thank you. And then last that I'll leave is with, of course, security cameras. I know with our tech services as much as we can get those up and running as fast as possible, the better. I know we're adding some on our Washington middle school and I have to commend Commander Burke and Camp and Commander Lewis, who've been working with us. They have been incredible. I will tell you, you know, when people say that you guys need more training, we need this, absolutely everyone needs more training. But at the same time, to be able to put these groups together and just have a panel, we had Doug Halbert with us. We had our of course, our Commanders and Ministers Alliance Central, and we built a really good collaboration with great feedback. So I just want to commend your commanders for that as well. And I think those are all of my questions. And actually, I'm sorry, I have one question, and this is actually since we're in the PD field, this is actually directed towards our city manager. And I don't know if you have a question for me or I'm sorry, an answer for me relative to our safe passages at Washington Middle School. So what is the question? Our Safe Passages program at Washington Middle School. I'm going to defer to the chief on that. Yeah, if you can. Councilwoman Gonzales, if you could ask me, between myself and Mara, we should be able to answer it. Okay, great. D r update council woman Gonzales that we're waiting for the contract to be received from the county. So it is in process and we're working towards executing that agreement. Okay, great. Any help that I can provide in speeding that up, you'll let me know. But I thank you for all your work in that. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Andrews. Thank you. First of all, I. Want to thank all the individuals for sticking around tonight because we only have 32 more items to go. And I know some of you are going to have to stay in the others. You guys are warriors. I find that being close to L.A., you can just sit around and listen to Councilwoman. Price and Vice Mayor Richardson. You'll get all the overlays if you just stick. Around, listen to them because they're going to tell you what's going on. I went to sleep, woke up, and they were still talking. But it's okay. It's all right. And I'm going to rush right through this. I don't have two questions. And that is the two things that I heard from. Both our chiefs was that it said that crime in the city was down 5%. That is wonderful. The other 3% that, you know. Response time, that was wonderful. You guys just keep up the good work. I have nothing else to say. Everyone else has said everything. That's it. Thank you. Councilman. Mongo hearing the applause and knowing that everyone else has said everything. Perhaps we should start with the rule that the maker of the motion gets 2 minutes. Then every council member after that gets one minute with unlimited recues. As long as you go to the end of the line so that we each get the opportunity to ask the questions that may have been important to our district, but perhaps people at home weren't. They might have been awake at that time. It's after 10:00 now, so who knows? I have a couple of quick questions. Hopefully not too many. I love the Hart team. Think they do meaningful work. Meaningful impact on the homeless study did show that homeless is down in the city as a whole, but that homelessness is up in the East Division. And so I think that when we talk about deployment of resources, while there's still a majority of homelessness in the downtown area, we do have to be mindful of where it is migrating to and do our best to sometimes get ahead of things. So I kind of think of the potential deployment of the Hart team to be kind of like what we're doing within public works in terms of slurry, sealing some of the streets that we can save and addressing the people who are about to become homeless and or are just becoming homeless and or are moving because of new mitigating factors and what opportunities there are within that. So there was an infographic online. I've actually been asked to find it and I actually don't remember where I thought if it was Twitter or Facebook or if one of my colleagues had posted it, but it showed a map of the city and it was blue dots of everywhere . The Hart team had responded and they were all in one council district. And I think that that was alarming to the community. I don't know if it was meant to be. Look at all the great work we've done. We're out in the community. There's a lot of dots. I don't know if it was data or if it was just made up. And I think that part of that will be rectified by how we are implementing some communication strategies and public safety. And I think that we need to be do a better job communicating because I think you guys are doing a great job and I have seen the Hart team on the East Side, but when I looked at the end of the graph, the moment it was when I thought there was not a single blue dot. Where's where's Commander Griffin? From the cherry line over of the East Division of Police Department. There wasn't one blue dot. And so I think that that's a messaging more than a real resource allocation, anything to achieve. So Councilmember the the infographic you're referring to was posted on Facebook and the fire department every month puts out a series of maps basically based on council district that shows in that council district how many calls for emergency medical services we had, how many fire calls, non fire calls and Hakeem calls. So I suspect what might have happened is you might have been looking at a specific council district and the Hart team calls in that council district were specifically posted there just for that council district. If you looked at a different council district, you'd see the Hart team calls their I will tell you that we deploy the Hart team to respond anywhere in the city where the work dictates we go. They they go where we find people who are experiencing homelessness. And that work will take them all over the city. Yes, it's true that we seem to experience a larger number of people experiencing homelessness concentrated in our beach and downtown core. But they are very active in North Long Beach to the best of our ability and very active outreach to the best of our ability. It is important to put it in perspective that we have one Hart team and and it's the success of the program, the success of the pilot program and all the outcomes, the beneficial outcomes we've seen have driven demand to a level that is difficult to keep up with, but we're doing our very best. I would hope that we don't communicate information in districts anymore because I think that when those get out, it leads to misinterpret misinformation in the community. And I think that while we are elected by districts and we do a lot of work ensuring that our districts are. Are getting their fair share of resources. We also and that it's equitable. I appreciate that too. We also have to think citywide and this is a $3 billion one city budget. And so I think it's important that we keep that in mind. We were talking about the ambulance transportation fees. I know there's a number of fees within the fire department. Do you want to name a few that are the more recent acquisitions to the department, including the ambulance transportation fee and what that amount is and what the increase is looking like because in the budget book I see $700,000 variance, but it doesn't say like it's going to go up $32 or it doesn't say the specifics. Councilmember The budget does. When you talk about ambulance transport fees, we're proposing it's a 270, $217 increase in Allison, $105 in bills. That's in the budget pages as proposed. I must have missed that. So I was looking through when I saw the total net. So what is the current rate and what is the new rate proposed? Go ahead, David. David Honey City. Council Councilwoman Mango. Or you can tell me what page to go to. I have all 500 pages here. I'm not sure what page it's on, but the the current rate for advanced life support transport is $1,675, and under the proposed budget, that would go $217 to $1892 for transport. And what percentage of that is currently reimbursable by a majority of the insurance providers in the region that are 100% reimbursable for the first call a year? Or I mean, how much how much are we really burdening our taxpayers? Councilmember. That's a question for financial management. You're asking about revenue billing returns. Am I correct in that? I mean, I guess if we want to have a robust discussion, I think that's a quote from earlier. You have a robust discussion about fees. What we really need to talk about is how many addresses are being billed this fee annually. How many of these addresses are getting multiple billions annually? I know that we have a couple of addresses within the community that are over users of the system, but then there are others that are moderate users. And then to know and understand, are these the fees that are being burdened by the resident or are they being burdened by insurance? And if they are available for cost recovery for the resident through insurance, what percentage of them are actually being paid by insurance companies? Because a $200 increase doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a lot to a person living on a fixed income. Was that a question? So the question is what percentage of these fees are paid by insurance companies versus single payers? For the most part, to the extent people have insurance, it will be covered by fees, by insurance. Even the new rate. Yes. That's what we believe. And will there be a chart that will be getting it sometimes similar to when we increase fees in any of the other departments in the city that kind of show current fee total rate cost recovery. What percentage of these fees go to collections? A breakout. Yeah. A I mean, this is a large fee to just fold into the budget. Councilmember, I'd like to weigh in here. So the proposed increase in ambulance transport fees would actually put us it's about 50, 50% of what would be required to actually get to what the county rate what Los Angeles County is currently charging for ambulance transport fees. Long Beach if you remember in 2014 we we as a to a one city we went beyond what the county was charging for ambulance transport fees. We said we wanted to set our rates higher. We went about almost $200 higher than what the county was charging, which prior to that we had traditionally always kind of married up with what the county was charging. There are 31 fire departments in Los Angeles County. 28 of them used the county rates as the baseline and it's built into their budgets. The other the other, there's two of them that are above county rates and a couple that are below. We are now one of them that is below. So this proposed increase would get us about 50% of the way to getting to what the current county rates are, what's being charged in Los Angeles County. So it's it's I think I just want to make sure that we're clear on what we're talking about here. Then when we're talking about raising the fees, Long Beach will still be below 28 other fire regional fire agencies for the same service. So there are some fees that we charge for that L.A. County does not yet charge for. Your speaking of the first responder fee specifically. And are we proposing an increase to that? We are not. Okay. And if we do get a report back to have a discussion about the fees, I think that it would be a good dialog because I think that part of the first responder fee was to deter non appropriate utilization of the system. And I think that there are certain addresses that are consistently utilizing our services. I think we've talked about some of these sober living homes that don't have appropriate staffing that we can't do anything about because they're mandated by the state and others such like that. So I think that some of the data that we probably need to have in that discussion that we hopefully will have is what those utilizations look like next body worn cameras. So I appreciate the dialog today. I am a personal supporter of body worn cameras. I strongly encourage any police officer whose department or agency does not supply them to choose to wear them on their own. They are available for purchase. I think that if we're going to deploy body worn cameras as a department, I appreciate that we've gone with the pilot program. I think that it's really important to discuss the true long term costs that are required. This is not a one time investment. A true body worn camera program includes retention and data and management. And storage of that data is a long term cost. It includes upgrades and technical assistance that I think really need to be evaluated. And so I was wondering if part of the reason that this is still a challenge is because we've actually started modeling what those costs are for an agency of our size. Do we know what those costs are? Is that still a part of the process? What's the timeline on knowing that? Is that a part of the pilot program council? One month ago, we selected a very unique technology solution that was not readily available several years back when we started this program. And part of determining the cost depends on which solution we pick. The vary depending on how data is uploaded and how it's stored. And so that's a cost consideration that we have not yet fully undertaken, but we will do over the next several months. I appreciate that. I think that that is a really important component of the dialog. I think that there are not only concerns about the data and its access, but the security related to it. Because when a police officer goes into the home of a community member, they are in their most vulnerable moments as well. And while I appreciate that the cameras are there to protect everyone in the in the situation, I think that oftentimes the victims of violent crime, the victims of. Domestic violence. The victims of all of these things are often portrayed in those videos. And then you have to talk about what does it look like to redact out people who don't want their identity shared and their personal situations shared? And I really think that we need to have a serious discussion about what that looks like, because these videos without proper security can be very salacious in nature. Agreed. Councilmember Mongeau. And that is spelled out in our our pilot policy, very strict and direct about the victim privacy. So we're very concerned and and that'll be part of our assessment as we move forward. How did that work out? And not only looking at how it worked out for the Long Beach Police Department, but still looking at best practices around us to see what we've learned. And with body worn cameras, it still is a newer technology. We're learning things every day from all of our law enforcement partners. Well, I appreciate that. I think that I know that not many people take the time to delve into all 510 pages. But I appreciate all the staff that have put in the work. I appreciate even throughout this dialog, the many questions that staff have been available to answer. On the two dividers worth of data we've been provided so far. And people do read the book. I know that a lot of staff take a lot of time to put it together. So thank you. Thank you to everyone. And I hope my proposal on the two and one minute is seriously considered by this body for speaking. Councilmember Soprano. Okay. Thank you. I think I'm the last speaker. So if that doesn't get a round of applause, I don't know what will happen. Oh, thank you. One minute. All right. I'm just following up on a couple of issues. I want to go. Back to the fire first. Responder fee to Chief de re. As I recall, that was implemented two years ago, July 2015, and it was projected to generate about 1.8 million -200 K for administrative costs or whatnot. Is that about right? Yes, sir, that's correct. And do we have data? I just know what was proposed at the time. I don't know if we have data to to see where it is now, but we're not increasing that fee is the point. That is correct, sir. And we projected. That we would receive about $1.6 million. We believe it's trending towards about $2 million of revenue that would come in. Okay, great. We are not proposing an increase in the first responder fee. Right. But we're we're trending a higher amount than we projected. Yes, sir. Okay. And the other I just want to make a comment regarding the heart unit, and that is I just want to put in a perspective that this might be the best resource of funds, but I'm concerned about counsel, cherry picking services. My feeling is that the heart unit is part of a system, a consortium of care, and that's who needs to make the decision. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember, and thank you for that. That was definitely the best, most concise of the night. Thank you, Councilman Sabrina. Just Chase, I just want to say thank you for your work. Crime is down. Response times are down. We're hiring more cops. We're hiring more firefighters. And you guys are doing a great job. So thank you. Okay, let me go out and take public comment on this issue as what I will also do is, believe it or not, we're still in the last year and we have even started the council meeting. And so what we're going to do is right after this hearing, we're going to go round up public comment for the council meeting and then the full agenda for the actual council meeting. So it's I know it's difficult with all with this timing, so I apologize for that. Mr.. Mr.. Goodhue, obviously the budget public comment on the budget and they're going to go right into public comment for the council meeting. That is correct. And this follows up parenthetically some comments made earlier on a different subject. I'm going to read an email that I sent out to the chief, to the prosecutor and a number of you. So forgive me. As I read it, the specter of such was brought into sharp focus over the last few days. My sense is a close examination will reveal that, notwithstanding the ill served Chief Luna's mantra, if you see something, say something. There are those within his ranks and the dispatch center that do everything they can to discourage people from reporting crimes or reasons for reasons ranging from rank stupidity to laziness adding to the malignancy. The above have found a fellow traveler, in my view, in the Long Beach City Prosecutor, the above tolls to the imperatives of a federal master to oversee Long Beach police and the California Supreme Court's judicial review paradigm. If it is not suspended or revoked the city prosecutors license. It should be noted that the above is separate from the pending U.S. Department of Justice arrest, prosecution, conviction and imprisonment. The self inflicted mayor, selfie addicted Mayor Robert Garcia and a bipartisan U.S. circuit rebuked Camilla Harris. So rebuked for the epidemic of corruption. The former Willie Brown squeeze engendered said arrest and imprisoning, flowing from the criminal complicity of Garcia again to Harris's criminal conduct in the violent, wanton intercourse and destruction of Marine Stadium much needed support structure to us. What remains to be seen is if the scope of the federal master purview will include include overseeing the entire city of Long Beach. A close order inspection of the revenue stream from the pen for the pending elections in Long Beach should prove to be instructive. Thank you for the next speaker, please. Time and money. I've been here for five and a half hours. The person to whom I wanted to direct my comments just left this room. It falls under the category of safety. And I think the problem is idea and it's been discussed by the entire council to body cameras is great. It probably would have saved untold tens of thousands of dollars had they been warned on June 26th when one of your council members had an interaction with the police. I think there would be a lot less vague comments with regards to what happened, when it happened, what the timing was, because nobody seems to want to reveal this information. I'm a pharmacist, so I know a little bit about blood alcohol levels and I did a little bit of calculation. Alcohol was excreted from the body at a rate of 15%, 0.15% per hour. If indeed Councilman Pierce had 80 minutes of delay, her levels would have risen to .08 from the .06 that was reportedly measured. That would make her in violation of the law. Most citizens would be picked up. Even at the level she blew at the severely prolonged time in which it was administered. This speaks to the training. It is my understanding that there was a program put in. I believe the training was so that people with the record would be more clearly identified more quickly. But I'd like to speak to the 22 interviews and 300 hours that had to be put in such that the case could be put back to the L.A. district attorney so that it could be explored by the Integrity Committee. Waste. Unbelievable. Waste and cover up. And what a moral canvas for this city. This city. It's just amazing. And I have a great idea for you. On you seem to like to have first responder feet. So let's talk about this one. People call about the homeless all the time. They won't press charges. They won't follow citizen's arrest. And so nothing happens. But if the homeless person manages to collect 24 of those citizen's arrest, then they get to go before the prosecutor, and then they get approximately 5 minutes jail time. The citizens need to know this. I see that. That's red. So I'm assuming I'm cut off. Any pressure. Charge them for it. If you get a call and have somebody come out because you don't like somebody standing on your porch or standing on your edge, your property, or they're over there doing something that you don't like and you won't press charges. Charge him for it. Thank you, ma'am. Next speaker, please. Hi, Warren. Lisowski. Couple of comments on the budget hearing here. I've got a problem with the overall budget. I Councilperson Mhlongo alluded to this large binder 500 some pages, but I don't feel that the detail there is necessary to really analyze the budget. You know, there's a website that you can click with some charts and stuff, but you really can't click through $100 Million line item here to find out where that money is really going in so many of the different department budgets. There's operating transfers and interphone charges tends to raise hundreds of millions of dollars that citizens don't have access to. So I would propose that this council, in doing their budgets for public review, I don't know if it needs to be brownout compliant that we be able to really click through the budgets and find out where the money's really going. Now, the one area that you can click through is on this the staffing, the the wages and salary charts. And just a comment I had on the fire department. You've got 12 battalion chiefs for $200 million. Sorry, 12 battalion chiefs at $2 Million. Do we need 12 battalion chiefs? I mean, if you cut that number down by just a few, you could go from 29 ambulance operators to easily double that number. And with respect to the Department of Justice's Budget Office, in their 2013 report regarding police, city of an average city spends $279 per year per resident in Long Beach, spending $489 per resident. So I think there absolutely is to echo what Councilperson Price was saying, money in the budget for body worn cameras and the first responder fee. I apologize in my ignorance, this is the first I'm hearing it of this. I was not as vigilant, you know, watching this this body over the last few years as I probably should have been. But I'm really surprised that that type of regressive tax is being charged to somebody in need. We pay property taxes. We pay sales taxes. God forbid somebody breaks something or gets in a car accident. And now they have to be worried about getting billed back $250 to collect $1.4 million of your $3 billion budget. It just really seems abusive and not a good way to raise $1.2 million. Just final thought, is that out of our $3.3 billion budget here, it really seems like only about 500 million that goes towards the general fund really gets discussed in this body. There's vast sums of budget that go through the harbor and the tidelands that I think should have the details that this does also. Thanks. Thank you. Speaker, please. Very angel. I'm speaking right now on behalf of the Jane Addams Neighborhood Association in North Long Beach, and I sent an email to all of you. And basically, we have concerns about crime. I mean, we talk to our police. We have a good relationship with the police. They come and speak to our organization. They tell us what's going on. There's always something going on and they encourage us to call. We go ahead and call. And they said, you know, sometimes we're just not going to be able to make it. We have priorities. And so the priorities are the most difficult crimes. And so the crimes of maybe quality of life or, you know, maybe arguments between neighbors, whatever it might be, I mean, those won't even get addressed because there isn't time to address them. It's only the most critical crimes that are getting addressed. So I think police and fire may be making do, but the truth is, is a lot is getting away from us because we don't have the resources to address them. And I appreciate that they're doing everything they can to make do. But the truth is, it's not enough. And I think the community in the neighborhoods and business deserve more. And I understand it's expensive, but I also know that we spend a lot of money on other things that aren't nearly as critical as public safety. And I think it's important that that we address this. So we're asking, in fact, the neighborhood association is demanding. That we have more. Resources put toward police and public safety for the good to the neighborhoods. I mean, it isn't even safe to drive down the street anymore. We don't do traffic enforcement anymore. I see cars going. Through red lights. Concert. Gently. And that might seem, you know, maybe it's not a big deal. But I tell you, every time a car goes through. A red light, there's. An opportunity for a death and a devastating situation. So we're I don't see that we're even doing traffic enforcement anymore to any great degree. And the fact that we have people living almost caravans still. Along our major corridors. Because there aren't enough people to enforce or because we don't. I know that's being addressed a little bit later tonight. But the fact that. It's been allowed to get to this point is really critical as well. So I'm just hoping that you'll pay attention to the needs of the neighborhoods and maybe it isn't bad or maybe it's improved in parts of town, but considered that maybe in other parts of town it isn't quite as good. And we do need more resources. We appreciate the work that the public safety units are doing, but we need them more than what we have resources for. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening again, Greg. Average Eighth District. First, I would like to thank Council member Marengo for the questions that you asked. You didn't pose it as if everything. Is. Great and I appreciate that because it isn't great. You know, I have two passions in this city and one of them, as you all. Know, is the. Airport, but the other is public safety. I think that the responsibility of our government, whether it's at the federal level, the state level or local, is first and foremost public safety at the appropriate levels. Not at not at the level where the chief has to say, we'll do the best that we can do with what you give us. I think we've gone way past that. That's been the comment that's been set before the council for many years and not making do like Lori just referred to. You know, there's a brief history of back in the 1980s, we had a hiring freeze in the late eighties and crime was on the rise. And there was a they coined the phrase white flight because crime was increasing. People were leaving. Then they had to hire additional cops to make up for that time that they had the hiring freeze and they hired many new officers. Actually, those officers are now a year, maybe two years away from retirement. I know that PD has attrition rates of usually 30 to 35 a year. I would like you to ask, what are those numbers projected for 2018 to 2021? During that time that as I read it, if I read it correctly, the budget projections for 2019 to 2021 are deficits of $10,000,009 million. So what do we do when we get there? Today, we have substations that are closed to the public after spending millions of dollars to bring community policing closer to our residents. Today, we have 200 fewer officers than we did in 2009 to 2012. Today, we have an outdated citywide camera system when we spent millions of dollars to improve community safety. I know that Long Beach PD has taken on a study by the Institute and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. I went to one of their two meetings that was held last week. It was poorly attended because it was poorly advertised, but they will return with their recommendations to to the police. And I'm going to guess that. Based on their best principles. They may even say that we're not capable or that we can no longer afford our own police department. He shared what they base their their percentages on, and we don't come close to it. So the more development we have, the more residents we have, the greater needs for visible public safety in our community. Today, Vons made a call. They had a. Man exposing. Himself and terrorizing the women that were taking over the new shift. It took 3 hours for a police officer to get there to the bonds in Bixby Knolls. Code Enforcement. I've been calling for three weeks and I still haven't had a response on a home that's abandoned and taken up by homeless people. So we have a lot of needs. I ask that you look at. Where we. Were with the number of police officers. Back when Mayor O'Neal took over, we were 791. Foster promised 100 more and had to cut. And today we have. 46. Fewer than we did when Mayor O'Neal took office. So please look at those numbers. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. I'm cluelessly and I am from 307 to Knoxville in Long Beach and I'm here to speak on the Planning Commission and the latest appointment to the Planning Commission. I'm a member. So we're going to do that public comment right after the budget. Public comment, which will be right after these gentlemen over here. This is only on the budget. You want me to wait? Yeah, it's only on the budget. And then we'll get to the public comment in a minute. I think, Speaker. Yes, I'm not I really wasn't here to talk about body cameras, but now that you have it, I'm going to get into this thing. Very controversial situation, body cameras. I was here maybe a couple of years ago when you got into it the first time. And I it to me it was an overpriced deal. It was not a deal that you should have got into. There were some free goods involved. There's different things involved here. And it was not as bad as Los Angeles, I'll say that much. And frankly speaking, there are municipalities in this country, you who have litigation trying to break contracts on body cameras. There's been it's very controversial. Prices are ridiculous to the extent of, well, I'll be kind. I won't use certain words, but the charges down the road are going to be humongous and they're going to get worse. And you people have ignored certain things. And in many ways, I stopped trying to do business on security equipment three or four years ago on this with Long Beach. Maybe it's changed now, but I'll just say there are there are ways to overcome the humongous charges that you're going to get with your cloud situation on your present supplier. That's all I'm going to say on on this. I don't I don't want to say the wrong word. Wall Street jeer or jail roll up, uh, a lot of things about some of the scams going on in body cameras. The city of New York has had all kind of litigation. There's litigation all over the place about body cameras and Jim McDonald, I told when he got into office, be it be the last guy in stay away from body cameras as long as you can. And to me, he's the smartest guy around. Thank you. Thank you. Next picture, please. Franklin Sims, fourth District soprano was my councilperson. I just want to say that. I'm very grateful for the work that the police chief and the fire chief are doing. I was very outspoken on Measure A and I was really happy to hear about this report as I was listening that I couldn't help but hear the hypocrisy. And it kind of remind me that this cool guy named Jesus, you guys may have heard of him. And he said. Why are you looking at the mote in your brother's eye but cares not for the beam in your eye? When I look at it, I agree with Powell. I think this is about our kids and making sure that our streets are safe. But I remember talking to Chief Luna about what that meant during those tense discussions about Measure eight. And what he told me was that when he sends his force into. Our. Tough neighborhoods, he said that the first line of protection wasn't a body cam. Wasn't cultural sensitivity or implicit bias. He said the first line was public trust. A lot of people here have reiterated that same claim. As a black man. I'm having a hard time trusting right now because I think that if I was pulled over or stopped at 2:40 a.m.. And I was intoxicated. And a black woman was in the car with me. She was intoxicated. I'm having a hard time believing that I'm going to be. Able to call a friend. This undermines the work that Chief Luna does. This undermines the public trust when his forces go out and they serve a warrant. And to access community, I ask community. Where's the public trust that they're going to get the same sweet deal that happened that early morning? They're going to get that same sweet deal where the police escort them home and the squad car. I want to be able to tell my daughter that maybe her husband's going to get a sweet deal like that one day. But I'm not sure. Appearances matter. Perhaps white. Privilege matters. There is no public trust. If the public can't trust the city council. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And I think that was our last speaker on on the budget. Is there anyone else on the budget? Please think no other speakers on the budget. Okay. Then there's a motion in a second. Of course, the motion is to continue the budget hearing to the next meeting, which will have other departments present. So, members, please cast your votes on the continuation of the hearing. Richardson and Austin. Motion carries. Okay. Thank you. We're actually now going to go in to the council meeting. Believe it or not, it is ten 1040. Let me let me name who. If you're here, please let me know. Folks that signed up for public comment.