Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

It is 06:30, and we will have the roll call at this time. Alderman O'Neill.

Present.

Alderman Gay, not present. Yours truly, chair Rhonda Pendel Charles. Next we'll move on to the approval of the agenda. Any changes to the agenda should be made here. And there is a motion to move the legislation by request to the top of the list. And after that we'll go and also for the approval of the minutes, we can't approve the minutes for January today because Allwoman O'Neil was not here. So we will move that as adjustment to the agenda.

I move to adjust the agenda as suggested.

All in favor? Aye. I hear no disapproval. Okay moving on to business and miscellaneous approval of minutes. Public Safety Committee eleven thirteen twenty four special meeting minutes. Can I get a motion to approve those minutes?

I move to approve eleven thirteen twenty four meeting minutes.

So move. Second. All in favor? Aye. I hear no nays. General discussion, but we're gonna move on to the legislation o thirty two twenty four fire sprinkler system requirement clarification. Good evening, gentlemen.

Good evening, all or women. Nathan Powell, deputy chief of operations in Annapolis Fire. With me is

Charles Ruth, fire protection engineer for the

fire department. Alright. Good to see you, gentlemen. We have the first reader legislative summary fiscal impact note staff report and one amendment from the rules and city government committee. And Aldwoman Finlayson is here. Aldwoman O'Neill, have you had an opportunity to take a look at this piece of legislation?

I did. It is really just tying up loose ends, correct, from what we passed in 2022?

That is correct. That's my understanding.

Correct. It just aligns some of the language and verbiage with current practice and up to date codes.

Great. Any comments from you all?

The only comment we'll have, just as a point of reference, that the amendment submitted by the city rules and government committee, current Maryland State Fire Prevention Code does not give the Annapolis Fire Marshal's Office the authority to require a sprinkler retrofit in an existing single family dwelling. So we adopt that fire code with certain amendments. So we would also need a legislative action to capture that into our amendments of how we do business in the city. So that that just as a point was all.

So is there a request here for something for us to do? Or

At this point, ma'am, I think no. It was just a point of order for us that the way interpret this document would not necessarily encompass that amendment into chapter 17, which is or I'm sorry, title 17 in the city code, which is our fire protection section. We would just need to enumerate that as well into into that section of the city code.

So is that something you're gonna do in the future or I guess I'm a bit confused?

So basically what he's saying is is title 17 is also gonna have to be amended to include the permission for us to allow for or to require single family residences to be retrofitted with sprinklers. So if this amendment is passed, then another revision to the city code under title 17 would have to be introduced before I think it's 2027 is the the deadline, but before we start requiring people to install sprinklers into their single family residences. So sooner rather than later, of course. But it's not necessarily prohibitive of this unless the council does not introduce an ordinance at a later date.

So you're not asking or looking for us to make an amendment tonight. Is that correct? Or you are?

Well the amendment you couldn't depends on what your desires are. It an amendment wouldn't change what needs to be changed. You'd have to have a whole new ordinance basically.

Oh.

Because it would be it's not amending this particular provision that's up for on the bill. It's a under title 17, it's totally a different section of the code. So it would it could be done by a different ordinance. It just would have to be requested by a council member.

Okay. Alright. Well, we can proceed on this and then get to that later on in a timely manner.

As miss Berger said, we have till 2027 before the deadlines begin to begin to approach. Okay.

All right. Thank you for that piece of Okay. Additional Are we ready to vote on the amendment?

I move we give a favorable recommendation for the amendment to three thousand two twenty four.

Second. All in favor? Aye. I hear no opposition, so moved. And make a motion to make favorable recommendation on O32.24 as amended. Can I get a motion?

So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye. I hear no opposition and the motion carries. All right.

Thank you so much. Alright. Next on the agenda is general discussion ID 3425, Annapolis Police Department update. Good evening.

Are you?

Fine. How are you?

I'm pretty good. Good. Sorry. I'm just arriving a few minutes ago but we're trying to multitask and do several things. We're working on our presentation for the sixty fifth anniversary of the first African American officers that were hired and we're still putting that together. We wanted to be very nice and very memorable so we're working hard. As we talked about last time, my captain is going to be the mistress of ceremony and and I think we're almost there in terms of putting the entire program together.

Great. Looking forward to it.

And some other things that we're we're doing. But I'll give you a real quick update. There's a couple of things I did this week. But but first, before I start, of course, for the record, I'll introduce the two captains that are here with me. To my left is captain Lamar Howard, operations commander. And to the right is course captain Amy Meeghez. They both have been busy. Captain for different reasons. Captain Meeghez have been pretty busy with the budget amongst other things. And the event that we're going to hold and anything else that I ask her to do.

He's been kind of busy. And then of course Lamar is overseeing the investigations that are progressing in reference to the homicide that occurred last week and the shooting that's been solved that occurred a couple of days before the Heritage Park shooting. So that's pretty much where we're So I guess we'll start with that slide. Guess Ward 4 and we'll start with twenty twenty four contact shootings. We had the one contact shooting on Newtown Drive that was cleared by arrest.

The other one was South Villa Avenue. And you see the demographics up there. The first one on Newtown Drive was a black male, 33 years of age, cleared by arrest. And the other one on South Villa Avenue Was a male, a white male 17 cleared by arrest. And then the third one Juliana Circle.

I guess that was the discharge and by water Copeland Street discharged and just as a sidebar. I think what I'm very proud of within the Napa Police Department's response to these contact shootings as well as the discharge as we go after both. Equally. A lot of jurisdictions that, you know, their philosophy is nobody was hit, then we won't prioritize it. You know?

But we prioritize it for many reasons because of the potential for damage. We wanna get the people off the street so they don't come back next time and hit somebody or make contact with somebody. So we go after them just as vigorously. And number two, at the core of what we do is protect life first and property second. And quite often with these non contact shootings, they may not be a human being struck with people's properties all quite often are damaged.

Their cars, their windows, and so we wanna hold those people accountable in the court of law. Then you look at the second category, and let me know if I'm moving too fast. I don't mean to. Shots fired and those are the locations from Royal Street, Copeland Street, Newtown Drive, Annapolis Walk Drive, and and Annapolis Walk Drive again too. So far in 2025, of course, on South Villa Avenue, we had an a contact shooting that was cleared by arrest so far, and that doesn't discount the homicide that we had.

The street. Whole car. That's sorry whole car street the other day. If there's anything that you want to add to that. So

I'll start with the 2024. Contact shootings. Those incidents, especially the Newtown Drive, was specifically involving individuals. In a open air in the open air drug market there in Newtown Drive. Not being able to settle conflict like reasonable people should bringing guns to The equation.

The. The individual that we end up charging with that incident actually shot himself. Fleeing from the discharging at Newtown Drive. The one on Villa Avenue, pretty much the same. Juliana, which is right there in that geography of Newtown Drive.

The same it's open. We have developed a person of interest in that investigation as well. The the only holdup with that is is viable witnesses to identify this perpetrator. The triple on by Water Copeland where the three juveniles were shot last year. We were able to track the suspect vehicle and recover the suspect vehicle in Washington DC.

The suspects in that investigation, we've been able to identify them and develop them as persons of interest. But because of the way the incident occurred with the suspects wearing mask, the case is clearly circumstantial. Again, viable witnesses to identify these individuals responsible for this act of violence. Again, young people not been able to settle conflict without involving guns into the equation. The shots fired.

I'm not quite sure if some of the shots fired is the result of the contact shootings in 2024. I'll have to do a deeper dive in that. I'm almost certain that the one on Newtown Drive is involving the first nonfatal shooting. The Annapolis Walk Drive, we had an individual that was living with family members. He was targeted on multiple occasions.

The reason why we had the that particular address shot multiple times was because, again, young people not being able to settle conflict without involving guns. So we were able to get him away from Annapolis Walk and continue to work those investigations. And since then, we haven't had any more discharging Annapolis Walk. More specifically, at that location where this young man was was was residing. And of course, the the contact shooting on that we just had.

Last week. Kids playing with guns. Accidentally shot this young man. We're lucky. We're very lucky that this didn't turn into a homicide, especially, you know, knowing his injuries.

Again, young people with handguns. Playing with handguns and and, you know, potentially could took someone's life. That that case is closing. We're hoping that as we push further into the summer, as we come out with our summer crime plan for 2025, we're hoping that we can mitigate some of of last year's violence by knowing who the individuals our our players are and also working with our federal partners with a potential long to midterm investigation to continue to send a message that we're serious about gun violence. And if you wanna use a handgun here in Annapolis, pack your toothbrush.

Yeah. And that segues nicely into something else I wanna talk about. Captain Howard now went two days ago and met with in Queen Anne's County. We had a meeting with the feds. Queen Anne's County Sheriff's Department was the host and we talked about the various things that captain Howard just talked about.

That same day, WJZ TV called me and they wanted to speak to me. I took the call and they asked what was driving the juvenile violence, not only Indianapolis, but, you know, Baltimore still continues to struggle with that as well. And I said there's a couple of simple things that are social problems that we have to have a serious discussion about collectively. The schools, our schools, our high schools, our middle schools, our community leaders. I think what's not talked about enough is this glorification of violence.

And stand by it firmly that in popular culture and in art, violence is always at the center of it. I got criticized for for talking about some of the characteristics of violent offenders when I said that they wear hoodies. And what people don't realize, the statistic shows it and the all the academic literature shows it that it started out wearing the hoodies like wearing a hoodie in July. And I'm given a real life event that occurred last year in bile water. It's it's a heat index of 100 degrees and four guys are walking with hoodies and their face covered.

When it's that hot, it doesn't make common sense. In the old days, there was good reasonable articulable suspicion to suspect that crime was afloat and something was gonna happen. I think what's happened is that we have to have an honest discussion about it. Good kids from good stable families are fascinated because popular culture inculcates them with images through music. And I'm not talking about any particular genre of music, but through music and art, movies.

We're constantly bombarded with violence, and there needs to be a discussion around that, a real discussion around that. And then we wonder why young people are infatuated with it. Then we make these weapons of destruction available as a society now. And then the police has to respond to it, but we don't have a say so when it comes to we're heavily criticized and we talk about social commentary, but you can't have it both ways. You can't have all those things operating and then they expect the police to be able to predict that it's gonna happen and get in front of it before the crime occurs.

It takes a community. And we're a community policing city, so that means that we have to come together and we have to talk about that in our schools. That's what I told WJZ in the interview yesterday that we have to come to go the day before yesterday. We have to come together with our schools, our educational institutions. But we have to have honest discussion. Parents have to have honest discussions with their children. I'd express that to the mayor. I said, when they wear their hoodies, I'm not saying all kids with hoodies on are bad. What I am saying is that that the kids who are good will get high grades and achieves. They're young people.

I was young once. Everybody at this table was young. We wanna be popular. And if at the forefront of American culture, we glorify violence and constantly have these weapons of mass destruction in front of us. We're not why are we surprised that young kids 12 and 13 year old? They're cool guys. It's no longer the cool guy who's headed for Yale or Harvard. That's not cool. What's cool in many, especially urban cities that are underserved and over police is just idea that I'm so tough. I'm such a man that I'm willing to pull the trigger.

And that's real. And we're still seeing it happen like what happened the other day. And so I just wanted to make that a part of my explanation as to why. And those are some of the things that I wanna start as a police chief leading those discussions and get answers from the community as to what they want to see done with this type of violence so we can get together and do like community policing dictates that we do that we co labor. And that's all collaboration means is to co labor with stakeholders to solve this very pressing and scary problem.

So our federal partners, those are the kind of discussions we're having with them. And I will say that it appears that our commitment from the federal government to fight this kind of crime is still strong. That's what I got out of the meeting. I'm looking at the captain. I'm sorry because I thought it was a very good meeting. And the feds are still committed to support us and helping us make Annapolis, you know, safe street.

Thank you, chief.

Okay, we have knobs. I'll captain talk about that. But we're still we always explain crime in terms of the uniform crime reports. And I've said that in previous times at the table. I'll say this real quick before I turn it over to the captain. We have crimes against persons and crimes against property. We've been focusing on that a lot. Under NIBRS, you have more categories. Under the old uniform crime reports, we did for a hundred years, there was a hierarchy of crimes and everything else was absorbed in those crimes. Real one quick example, if you had the murder, we would only count the murder.

We wouldn't count all the other crimes that led up to the murder. We wouldn't count the lady that was walking down the street and she was abducted. That's one crime. Then when he dragged in the alley and sexually assaulted her, that's another crime. And then when he put the gun to her head, that's another crime. Then you pull the trigger, it's murder. We only counted murder. Now in the numbers, we count everything that leads up to that. It makes it appear that our crime numbers have gone up and we have far more categories that we'd be here half tonight because they have everything from now, we count everything from crimes against persons to crimes against property all the way up into crimes against humanity like hate crimes and other forms, human trafficking and all that. So we track all of that if it's in the city of Annapolis.

So, we're going to focus on the things that most Neapolitan's and people who visit here are exposed to. And those two categories are crimes against persons versus crimes against property.

So as we look at the the part ones crimes against persons, war four, we had no homicides last year, which is is is good. Very good. We look at the rapes. You when you break down the rapes to a domestic, so which means that a partner sexually assaulted his partner or her partner in in that category. And we have one known to the victim.

So what that tells me in war four, we we we don't have any sexual predators just walking around in war four raping women in the city with nowhere in the city as as a matter of fact. But as far as the rapes, the suspect was known to the victims in all three incidents. The aggravated assault, twenty one eleven. So about 50% were domestic, again, partner on partner crime. The locations, 12 were residents, seven on the street, and two businesses.

I'm assuming that the businesses were more than likely probably some of the pubs and some of the bars. I would have to to to to do a deeper dive to identify what those two businesses were. The robberies, again, six four domestic. So the suspect was known to the victim, a partner, committing the robberies. Five were done by hands and one you utilizing a firearm.

Burglaries, crimes against persons. We had 11. Again, four domestic. So this the suspect and the victim knew each other. Six residential, no force, five residential with force.

And basically, is just basically either kicking in a door or breaking a window, forcing your way into the residence. The thefts, again, crimes of opportunity from motor vehicles. Again, this is this is similar in every ward throughout the city. We put a lot of literature out educating and about securing your motor vehicles, removing all of your valuables, but yet and still, we still have a, a very high, reporting as it relates to the thefts from a motor vehicles. And it looks like a shotgun blast.

When you pull up the screen, you look at all the data. It's all over the place. So again, we'll we'll continue to put the the information out, you know, alerting citizens to how to protect themselves. It's just simple. Lock your car and take all the valuables out, and you can prevent we can prevent a lot of these out there for motor vehicles.

Shoplifting. You know? People walking into convenience stores or what have you taking a candy bar or some groceries and things of that nature. So. Our biggest probably our biggest our biggest area for the shoplifting, especially from the grocery stores, is probably on Forest Drive at the Safeway.

From the building, 10 motor vehicle parts, nine other. Again, you know, thefts are crimes of opportunity. The majority of our suspects, especially for the thefts from the motor vehicles or citizens who are in the throes of addiction or mental illness, and they continue continue to do what they need to do in order to to be able to purchase whatever it it is that they need to continue that high. The motor vehicle thefts, we had nine in war four. One suspect known to the victim.

Again, four unlocked, recovered, three locked, recovered, two locked, not recovered. So it is it is we lock our doors, we take out our valuables. I I believe that we can pretty much cut this in half across the city. And we'll continue to do our part. We'll continue to put the information out on our social media platforms as much as we need to until people get it.

And and they start doing it and just doing their part to to stop them from being victimized by a a crime of opportunity over and over and over again. And some of these thefts from autos, sometimes it's the same victims over and over and over and over

again. So

I I don't wanna I don't wanna continue stand on my soapbox on this, but if if we could just get a little assistance, lock your doors, remove all your valuables. I know sometimes when people are coming home from work, they're multitasking and they're busy. But just take the time to go back and make sure that your car is locked. Don't leave the spare key in the car. Don't leave 4 and $5,000 handbags in the car, cell phones, handguns, and I can go on and on and on and on. Mhmm. Just help us out a little bit, and we can we can see a tremendous drop in this particular crime going into 2025. Finishing out 2025.

Alderman O'Neill has a question.

Yes ma'am.

Specific to this but on the previous slide when there was violence last weekend, it seemed that there was a little bit of a hiccup in informing people, the public. Have we worked that part out?

Yes ma'am. And it was a hiccup. I'm not going to sit here and look you in the eye and say it wasn't because it was a hiccup. Of course we were trying to do the right thing and make it as efficient and effective as possible. But those glitches we're going to fix.

Especially with the reverse nine eleven. I think he's sitting behind me. OEM director Kevin Simmons who's really brought that to us. He's going to work with my people and me to make sure that the right message gets out. For example, we both had talked and we had talked about the fact that it seemed like a loose killer was running around in that area.

And I believe many people felt that when it wasn't. It was a targeted event. So it was the kind of things that we have to work on. And so we had a nice conversation centered around making it more efficient. But with people, what I lamented about last time that I was here is that not making excuses, we have those kind of things quite often.

We're multitasking and we're trying to, you know, make sure that the victim gets the right aid. That the preservation of life of course is our number one aim and two to preserve the crime scene. But what we're gonna do is work on doing continue to do those things. I mean, that's our oath. But also make sure that the flow of information is as efficient and timely as, you know, so that everybody can appreciate what we're trying to do. So I apologize. I accept responsibility for that but we'll work on that.

Sure. And I had questions, think captain McGaz I had sent her an email asking about it. But the one that was the South Villa Drive one that happened on the playing field, I had tons of residents calling and contacting me, and there was a lot of chatter on social media that it was an early dismissal day. But that doesn't mean that all the children were gone from schools because there's after school programs and things like that. Can we increase the I think it was a mile radius of it that people were notified by phone.

Can we increase that? Like I had people saying, well, I work downtown and my child was at Bates, But we didn't know anything about it. So can we increase the coverage, the radius of the coverage of those automatic phone calls?

That's a good question. Can we increase the rate of

phone calls

when they receive the letter?

So it actually becomes kind of an FCC issue with the type of messaging we're doing dependent on the situation and the amount of people we're trying to reach. And director Simmons can kind of explain.

Yeah. This is not for, like, general messages. These these systems, they're called community notification systems. People call it robocall. People call it reverse nine one one.

But it's it's for emergencies in the community. For For emergencies in the community when we use it for public safety. Now sometimes we send out a message to finance that your water about to be shut off or something like that with these calls. But we from a public safety standpoint, it's supposed to be used for an emergency because we don't want people to be desensitized by getting all these messages all the time and then it's just another message, and we don't pay attention to it. So when you get something from police, you get something from fire, you get something from the office of emergency management, it's emergency and it's emergent in nature.

And just to just to follow-up on what the chief said, he's taking full responsibility. However, we had a problem with the vendor Civic Ready. And the message did not go out as it was put out. The message was garbled. We have a meeting with them tomorrow. I have two meetings. They have a meeting with me tomorrow, and we have a meeting with OEM and the county in Civic Ready. Because we pay substantial funds for this for this for this process that we have, the emergency the community notification system. And when we use it, we expect it to work. And this is the second time it didn't work.

The first time about a year ago, we had the escaped inmate, and we tried to put something out and it did not go well. And then the other day, we put something out. It was the message was garbled. Some people received it. Some people didn't. So that's unacceptable. So they're gonna hear a little bit from us tomorrow. That we need to rectify that problem. Questions?

Well, sort of. So what I'm told is the shooting that took place that was on the playing field, that it was up to the public businesses, the school, the whatever that was closest to that to get that message out. And that's where constituents are complaining because not everybody that had a stake in it got the message. And so they're like, oh, there's this shooting. And very early on in it, we didn't know that somebody just drove up and shot somebody and drove away in a car.

We didn't know at the time it was targeted. So there was a lot of worry from parents. And yes, it was an early dismissal day. So schools weren't letting out, which they would have been letting out right at the time of the shooting happening. But there were still children around.

And there's people that walk around the park that weren't notified or so I'm just asking like, can it be extended more than just the mile radius? And if it can be extended and I understand that you don't want to send out a message all the time, but this one seems pretty important that a shooting occurred. And there were people that live just outside of that mile radius that didn't know about it but had a stake in it because their children were playing on the field or visiting a friend's house or something like to that matter?

So I will tell you that the system did not work as it was supposed to.

Okay.

Actually it was a three mile radius. It was probably too much. It went to a and 22,000 people. Remember it's only 40,000 people in the city of Annapolis.

So Director Simmons, she's talking about the South Villa, not Whole Cloth.

Okay. I'm sorry. I'm not familiar with that one.

Yeah, that was a little earlier,

a couple days. Right. So I know the other one was garbled, and I'm glad that you're taking care of it with the vendor. I'm just wondering about our process for the previous one.

So the previous one, I could get you information. I have statistics on the one that we were talking about, but I do not have the statistics on that other one. So I can certainly look up the the stats and get back to you on that one.

Mhmm. Thank you. K. Chief Simmons, I look forward we look forward to your update in on March 3 regarding your meeting tomorrow. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Mhmm. Alright. Alderman Finlayson, did you have any questions or comments?

Not at this point. Thank you.

Any other updates on any other items? Chief, your call.

Well, I can talk about a little good news. I awarded the distinguished service award to Al Khalea team today on this afternoon. The recipients and I'll have them to come and present in the future. The recipients was Kayla Ziegler, now civilian employee Melanie Williamson, Officer First Class Melanie Williamson. And lieutenant Hill Hurley.

That those three. Yes. Those three received certificates and ribbons thanking them for their hard work. We're pretty much writing every rewriting every general order as we go into this new cycle with CALEA, we're gonna make sure that they are written in a way that automatically reference a CALEA standard. And then on the inspection side, there's been a wonderful job under the leadership of Hilo Hurley to make sure that we're making sure that the standards set forth by CALEA, We have the proofs that are available with them.

And then one more person I need to consider, and I just thought about it just now, is OEM because again Kevin Simmons was gracious enough to loan one of his individuals who's very efficient in accreditation for the ICS portion of it and natural disaster. Or even a a a terrorist issues when we the entire city has to come together, fire service, police service, and OEM to make sure that we mitigate any catastrophic event. They've been helping us too with our standards. So I have to make sure I show my appreciation for them as well. Mary Kay and anybody else from OEM who's been instrumental in helping us because we did receive help from them.

Also, what I wanna do in the near future, I still don't I'm still not satisfied that we explained to the community how NIBAs work. And it needs to be a public service announcement to let people know that the way we count crime has changed. When we talked about the rapes, I think virtually every rape that was reported, for example, in the city of Annapolis has been heterosexual under the old UCR model, which at some time for some time, I'm I'm talking about eighty years or better. We define rape in Maryland based on the common law definition of rape which was between a man and a woman. Only a woman could be raped.

We know the society's changed drastically. And I want our LGBTQ plus partners to feel that they can receive justice if they are a victim of assault. If they're in the same sex relationship and they're sexually violated, then they can pick up the phone and call the police and make the report and seek justice as well in in in that community because they are citizens and they're entitled to receive justice just as the old definition of rape. And so we have to get that message out. I don't wanna see any of our rape numbers increase.

But I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that I wanna make sure that the public feels that whatever happens to them regardless of who they are and their their race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, that the same system much like we do with the hot topic right now and that's immigration. You know, it's the Napa's police department's position and supported by a new general order. We don't ask immigration status. So we want people of Latino descent to whether they hear illegally or not legally, whatever that definition is as it's defined by immigration custom enforcement. We want them to know if they are a victim of a crime in Annapolis, they can call us and seek justice without their immigration status being an issue.

That they can call us and say I've been a victim of a robbery or somebody stole my car And we take the report like we would do any citizen and not separate. But we want the rapes to be the same way because you're in a same sex relationship and somebody violates you. You don't have to suffer in silence. We can get you to help whether it's through SITs and other venues that we can get you the help that you need. And the Annapolis Police Department is here to support you.

And so we can have a more accurate assessment of what goes on in that area of crime. And right now, I'm not sure that we are capturing all sexual violations or exploitations anywhere in Maryland because I don't think that people who are not in this so called traditional relationship of reporting the crimes when they are victimized. So I wanna make sure we get that message out. So that's something that I'm I'm gonna be asking for help and making sure we get the right public service announcement out to let them know that they please if you're a victim, call us and we're going to be victim friendly when it comes to that population.

Okay. Any other questions?

I do not. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you so very much. Appreciate everything that you do. You all stay safe.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. You have a good evening. Thank you. Happy Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day.

We'll be in Benz Drive tomorrow for Valentine's Day. We're doing a conflict resolution workshop tomorrow in Benz Drive to help these young men to work through some of their issues. So that's how I'm gonna spend my Valentine's Day tomorrow.

So are you all gonna be doing this in different communities?

Well, we were asked. We were invited to do it in that community. I'm open to do it in different communities.

Reason why ask you?

Tony Pratt.

Tony Pratt.

And Will. Her husband Will. Really. It was an invitation from Will. Not Tony.

Okay. Great. Okay. And you can bring us an update on that when you come Yeah.

And Robert Horn will be with me tomorrow. He's going to talk about reentry and offering some resources so I'm glad I thought about that.

So it'll

be me and Robert Horn tomorrow. Okay great.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Okay. Next

on the agenda is ID3625 Office of Emergency Management update.

Help me. Help me. Good evening.

Good evening.

Kevin Simmons. I am the emergency manager for the city of Annapolis. And I'm gonna talk about ward four substance use disorder and ward four and a food Friday program.

Okay. Alright.

So here's the past three years with Ward 4. 2024 was the fourth highest overdose year in Ward 4 since we've been keeping records in 2015. So you see 2021, twenty nine overdoses, 2019, '28, 2023 and 2024, 2022. Ward 4 reported the most overdoses of any ward in 2024. Followed by Ward 3 with eighteen and then Ward 6 with fifteen.

And Ward 6 has come down considerably year after year after year. Ward 4 had two fatal overdoses recorded in 2024. One of the things that that is particularly good that's happened in Ward 4 is that Narcan uses were reported in seventy seven percent of the overdoses in Ward 4. So the fact that we're doing outreach, the fact that we have Narcan and other harm reduction materials and resources out there, they're starting to show its effect. Now the locations of the overdoses are what you see on the screen.

You had 12 on Newtown Drive. And if you remember with the police department's report, they talked about an open air drug market near there. So you had 12 on Newtown Drive. Both fatals were in Newtown Drive. You had three on South Cherry Grove.

You had two on Copeland Street, two on Newtown in Skippers Lane, one on Newtown in Juliana, one on Island Creek Court, and one South Villa. Sixty eight percent of the overdoses on Ward 4 are along the Newtown Drive area. And that was talked a little bit about with the police report. Now if you want to compare all of the wards in the city of Annapolis for 2024, You see it there 22. Well, I started Ward 1, seven in Ward 1, nine in Ward 2, eighteen in Ward 3, 22 Ward 4, Ward 5 had two, Ward 6 had 15, Ward 72, and Ward 85 for a total of I think it's 80.

So the average overdose per ward in 2024 is 10. The mean is seven. So let's let's look at demographics by age and let's look at demographics by race. The age groups that maintain the spread over for the past few years with exception of 55 where we had seen a drop in overdoses. So only in Ward 4 that you've seen 55 plus that it's a drop.

The rest of the city is increasing. So you see the the age demographic of twenty five to thirty four fifteen that was the most overdoses in that demographic.

What do you attribute that to chief?

It's it's it's a lot of things. A lot of stuff that that the chief talked about when he was here. It's just it's just so many different reasons. So many different reasons. Of them some of them are early aggressive behavior that's unchecked. It's lack of parental supervision. It's people with academic problems and they seek something somewhere else. It's undiagnosed mental health problems. It's peer drug use. It's just a drug availability and socioeconomic status.

And I just wanna reiterate what the chief said. They glorify I mean, I see a lot of programs about drug dealers, and they're the heroes of the of the programs, you know, especially on cable TV. So they're kind of glorifying this life to a lot of young people who don't have a lot of hope. So the chief is spot on on that. In Ward 4, African Americans still represent the largest group of overdoses.

In 2024, sixty five percent of all overdoses in the city were African American. So you have 15 African American, which is I think sixty eight, sixty five percent, and then you have seven white. So let's talk a little bit about fatalities. These are overdoses where folks died. In Ward 2, we had five fatalities in 2024.

In Ward in Ward 3, we had two. Ward 4, we had two. Ward 5, we had one. In Ward 6, we had one. So again, Ward 42 fatal overdoses citywide reported the lowest number of fatal overdoses since 2018.

So the thing about the overdoses is, you know, we can get the drugs down and all, but it just seems like the fatals are always about ten percent of the total amount of overdoses that we have in the city of Annapolis. Ward 4 all fatal overdoses in the middle pie chart. All fatal overdoses were African American citywide. African American represented the largest group of all fatal overdoses in 2024. However, in 2022 and 2023, the white population led the fatal overdoses.

In Ward 4, the graph. Both fatals were in the 25 to 34 age range. Citywide, historically, the city saw more individuals overdosing in the 45 age range, especially African Americans. So in Ward 4, there's less folks, 55 plus overdosing, but citywide it's more. And I'll skip over this.

I'll hit it just a little bit because this is the same information that I gave at the last presentation we have for Ward 1. NARCAN is a big deal. We started out slow with Narcan. People adjusted to it. You know, they they became more comfortable with the Good Samaritan laws. And now we have Narcan all over the place, and it's starting to show because a lot of our overdoses get NARCAN. People are not afraid to do it. They're very aggressive with it. I'm I'm pretty proud of this. This is the harm reduction vending machine.

We had the first harm reduction vending machine in a community. We work with the health department to get that done. If I had my druthers, I would want at least three or four more around the city of Annapolis. However, these are very expensive. And we've we've been talked with the health department. Hopefully, we can get more of these. But for right now, we just have the one in the Eastport Community Center. What's the cost, chief? You know, I asked that at our last meeting. They could not give me that that that information.

But what I'm understanding is it's pretty expensive. I think there were six. So five of them are in the county and one of them are in in the city of Annapolis.

So they couldn't give you any cost at all?

Nope. I asked doctor Gannon directly.

Well, how what's their finance department? It must be a number in there somewhere.

So, hopefully, next time we meet, they can give us that number. You know, they said that they would look into it for me. But, you know, pretty much the expense of these things prohibits them from putting them all over the place. And then you have to have them in particular places because it has to be a climate controlled place, has to to be accessible, and etcetera. One one thing I would say about the health department, they they make sure that they have plenty of inventory in the harm reduction vending machines.

And last week, for some reason, it it it got stuck. And nobody could get anything out. Once we called them, they came right out and solved the solved the problem. So last last time we were here for Ward 1, we talked about the four programs in the city of Annapolis. Nap Nap Town anti dope.

We have your life matters in the fire department. We have the the APDSUD program, and then we have OD Free Annapolis. And that's that's the mayor's office, fire, police, and OEM. And we work very, very closely together. Again, last week, I went over this. This is the police program, Annapolis Police Department substance use disorder. It focuses on youth at risk in their hot spot areas. And the thing that I like about this is they have the officers and the community liaisons, and they follow-up on overdose victims. That's pretty important. You know, not only with the victims, the family.

So that's that's pretty pretty important part of that program. And we have officers Benson and then Patty Norris runs that. Your Life Matters, Florida based program. Fire department brought it here. It's been highly successful. A lot of firefighters participate in this. They focus on educating the community and preventing fatal overdoses. They do a lot of training. They do a lot of training with businesses, houses of worship, go over Good Samaritan laws, handle only CPR. And the program coordinator now is lieutenant Kenny White.

Everybody knows about Knapp Town anti dope movement. They target high risk hotspots in minority population. Again, the expungement program, that's pretty valuable so people can have a quality of life with a with a do over. They host community engagement sessions, campaigns. They engage community leaders, etcetera. And that's running out of the mayor's office. And everything falls under the umbrella of OD Free Annapolis. And that's run out of the office of emergency management. We coordinate the three other programs. We go to bat for them doing the budget.

We have the OD3 website and dashboard that we keep up for stats, which is public facing. And we look at data trends and analysis on our programs and substance use disorder activity in the city of Annapolis. Any questions on that? I knew you would have a question.

Alderman O'Neil, do you have any questions?

No, but Alderman Finlayson has.

Oh, Alderman Finlayson.

I'll defer to the committee first. Don't have any questions. Okay. Thank you, madam chair. Chief, is there a correlation between the and I'm referring to the vending machine that's in East Port Harbor House.

At one time Ward 6 was very high in overdoses and their numbers have dropped significantly. So is there a correlation or can there be a tracing of the reduction in their numbers to this vending machine?

So in 2018, Ward 6 had seventy three overdoses, right? And we had eighty all last year. And what did they have this year?

Two, fatals.

Yeah, they had hold on for one second, please. So we they had, in 2018, they had seventy three. This year, they had fifteen. So I attribute that to a bunch of different things. An aggressive outreach program that we've been doing there. They also have the wellness van or mobile that comes out of the health department. It comes to your ward. It comes to Ward 6. So people have been feeling more comfortable with that. And then we have the harm reduction vending machine.

So I think all of that stuff has made a difference. We did have a community liaison there. We since lost that person, but that person was helpful in giving us information to turn things around.

They also have a health department sponsored program that is run by bishop Palmer and Troy Stansberry, which I think is having a significant impact.

So it it it is. And what's important about that program is that once you get people away from abusing substances, then you have to work on quality of life stuff. You know, they have to, you know, maybe get, you know, their record expunged. You know, they have to they need a life coach. They need a financial counselor because, you know, they've been in the game for so long. They don't even know how to deal with the household budget. So what's important about those type of programs is once you divert them, then they help with the quality of life to kind of keep them on that side and not have any recidivism where they go back. And that's my estimation on that.

Okay. I think we should just keep an eye on that program as well as the vending machines and all the other ancillary programs that are helping us in our communities to deal with the overdose problem. So thank you. Any

more questions?

No. No. I don't think so. We're moving on to Food Friday. Okay. Great.

So award four Food Friday program. I think everybody knows a little bit about the Food Food Friday program. It provides boxes of fresh and canned fruits and vegetables, frozen meat, rice pasta, and other non perishable goods to residents in Annapolis that are suffering from a food deficit. We distribute two seventy five boxes of food every week to support 840 Annapolis. Is that is that not right?

That is correct.

Okay. Rec and Parks, they provide a workspace to get this done. The food is provided by the Anne Arundel County Food Bank. All the women O'Neil is a volunteer program manager, and OEM provides administrative oversight of the program. And the program was started in my reception area at OEM with myself and Robert Eads years years ago. And we started out with like like 15 people. And now you got two seventy five boxes supporting eight forty of Annapalatans, and it all goes to Annapalatans. It doesn't go anywhere else.

Question. Do you have broken down by ward?

Yes.

Yeah. We do. But we're only talking about Ward Ward 4 to that.

Okay. I mean, is that

We okay.

Got it. Thank you.

So ward four. Okay. The total number of food boxes prepared for Ward 4 is 28. These food boxes benefit 28 families, 97 individuals, 14 seniors, 31 children. Most of the folks are on Copeland Street that received 15, which is 53.57% of the deliveries in Ward 4. And they have have four routes in Board 4. Is that correct, Alderman?

It is, but I think the 28 is wrong. I think it's more than 28. I will double check.

You're the expert. But I think it's reasonably close, would you say?

Yeah, pretty close. But I'm only wondering because with four routes that would mean that there were only six on each. Give me five minutes and I'll get back to you.

So, and the bottom line about all of this is that the folks that have food deficit in your ward are being taken care of. And, you know, if if people are watching this and you you have a serious problem with a food deficit, we wanna hear from you and we wanna help you. So this is on the map. This is a map of Ward 4, and here's the spots where the foods are are delivered to. And just a pie chart of, you know, Copeland Street, South Villa, 3.6%.

Newtown Drive, 7.1%. Bell, 3.6. Brightwater, 7.1%. Wilton Court is 14.3%. Roach Court is 3.6%. Inheritance Court, 7.1%. Any questions? So, you know, I'm I had a mass exodus from just to switch gears a little bit. Had a mass exodus and all some of my folks went on to bigger and and brighter futures. So we just hired at least three.

We're we're trying to hire one more a new staff, and I just wanna introduce the staff to everybody. Starting on the left, that's Patrick Kumar. He's a emergency management planner. He has a bachelor's degree in political science from Susquehanna University. He started on December 5, and he was working for Maryland Department of Emergency Management before he came in the MJOC.

We have Andrew Wittican, emergency management planner. He has a bachelor's degree in homeland security with honors. University of New Hampshire. He started on December 19. And then we have Kyle Lepkowski, emergency management grants coordinator.

He has a a bachelor's degree in homeland security and and justice studies. He's also from the University of New Hampshire where he played football. And he just started January 2. So very, very bright, very, very capable folks here. And once we get them up to speed and get them a little experience, they're going to be right there where we need them to be.

Great. Any questions? All the women will yield.

No. The only thing I'll say is it's two routes. The deliveries in Ward 4 consists of two separate drivers. And I have one driver that specifically wants one of the routes all of the time because she loves the people on her route.

Who might that be?

Jeanie.

Okay. So again, is that if you have folks that we can help out, certainly let us know. And then what ward is next so I can be prepared? One.

You already oh, I'm sorry. 8.

We did one. 8. 8. 8.

And that should be March 3. Is that right, miss Jackson?

And the thing about food food Friday is we service every ward.

I'm sorry.

The thing about food Friday is that we have clients in every ward. Oh, okay. One of them.

Good. Okay. Nobody's left out?

Nobody's left behind. Good. Yeah.

One thing I'll say about Food Fridays is that we do have very dedicated volunteers. And there have been several times where volunteers have either alerted us to either somebody that's not picking up their box or somebody that was in need in some other way. And other city departments along with OEM, Office of Community Services have been able to step in where we may not have known about that issue had we not been seeing them every Friday and forming a little bit of a relationship, which is an attest to the goodness of our volunteers as well as people feeling comfortable with somebody coming to their house every week. Which is a I think it's a really nice aspect of our city that not every city has.

And and what's cool about the volunteers that they're all seniors. They're all seniors, and they show up every week. And they take this very, very, very seriously.

I'm not a senior.

So

But but I but I wanna shout out to to aldwoman O'Neil because when someone reports to her or she realizes something's amiss, she has called me a couple of times and let me know. Once when the person was hospitalized because the food hadn't been picked up, the dog seemed, something strange. And on the other occasion, I believe someone had actually was deceased. So it's really a a good good service, a great service going way beyond the call to duty. So thank you so much.

And we really appreciate the council supporting that in the budget as you always do. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Alright. Thank you, chief. Thank you, chief. Okay. And the last matter on the agenda, ID 3525, Annapolis Fire Department update. Deputy Chief Powell.

Sorry about that. Good evening again. Nathan Powell, deputy chief of operations for Annapolis Fire Department. We'll quick review tonight. We'll recap some overall citywide statistics for 2024 for miss Finlayson to hear and then some specifics to Ward 4.

So overall, in 2024, the city of Annapolis Fire Department responded to 13,626 incidents, of which those about 75% were EMS related, which is a normal trend for us. That stays pretty consistent between 72% responded seven thirty times. That was actually our second least busiest ward in the city. And that's combined for fire and EMS responses both. Only Ward 5 saw us less than Ward 4.

So far this year, we've been in Ward 484 times, which is actually our least busiest. Up until February 11, a couple of days ago, we pulled these numbers. Ward 5 has seen us 87 times, so they're very close with Ward 4 And 5. This is a slide I wanted to review. I just want to make a point that the men and women of the Annapolis Fire Department work extremely hard for the city, for the residents, for the citizens to protect lives and property.

And this slide here shows our fire loss dollar valuation for calendar year 2024 at $450,000 and change, which is down from over $2,500,000 the year before. So in 'twenty four, we had a very good year. We're very fortunate. We had no major fires with high dollar valuation losses. Operational challenges associated with Ward 4.

We really don't have very many challenges in Ward 4. It's primarily, as you know, primarily residential with some retail and light commercial occupancies. We're continually monitoring the status of the Crystal Springs Farm project and how that may impact us in the future once it becomes shovel ready and gets underway. But other than that, we are fortunate we don't have too many challenges. The streets are all readily accessible.

Forest Drive traffic can be a challenge, but it generally is not problematic for us. I'll just touch on our strategic planning process that my counterpart, Deputy Chief Lopez, is leading. The last time the city fire department undertook a strategic plan was twenty one years ago now in 2004. So we have reached out to the Center for Public Safety Excellence and are using a model that they provided. We've established actually quite a large committee.

We had a lot of response from people who wanted to participate. And we've been able to establish a great cross section of our department, both in years of experience, male female, ethnic backgrounds. And it's truly a great, great cross section of our organization. We're preparing some internal and external stakeholder surveys we hope to get out in March. And our goal is to have a draft to the fire chief of this document by September.

And this will provide us with some short, medium, and long term planning goals as an organization and what direction we want to sail our ship. And channel charts a channel for us to go. So I'll be the quick and easy guy tonight. Happy to take any questions. Questions?

I have one question for you. And maybe you can't answer it. And it's a little bit off topic, but it is on topic. So I happened to meet a Annapolis firefighter a couple of weeks ago. And when I met that person, they told me that they were currently in school for further training. When we have firefighters like that in school for further training, are they signing a commitment to stay with us after that training?

So in our initial onboarding process, yes, there is a commitment for the financial investment we make into them for their initial fire academy training. I believe it's a and I can follow-up, but I'm 90% sure it's a five year commitment. So if they leave within that five years, it's a prorated dollar value they would pay back to us. We have two firefighters now who are in paramedic school to become advanced life support paramedics. And they just started in January this semester.

And

both of those individuals are extremely invested in our organization. I don't know, though, about the commitment letters for them, for the paramedic school.

But

I can find out and get back to you.

They did not indicate that they were leaving, but I was just it brought up a conversation.

We have not. We have not. We've been very fortunate. A lot of our counterparts in the region are struggling to maintain good staffing numbers. We currently have four firefighter vacancies, but we have four persons who have tentatively accepted job offers for a fire academy to start February 27 in Anne Arundel County.

Great. Thank you. I appreciate that. I said, it was off topic

but on

my mind.

All good. Aldwoman Finlayson.

I would just like to say to all three departments, thank you for a job well done. You know, I'm close to all of you and I feel like I keep up with what's going on. And when I have issues, which isn't often, you you respond immediately. So I feel like I'm being well taken care of, and by I I mean ward four. So I just wanna say thank you.

And our numbers speak to how well we're being cared for in all departments. So kudos to the departments for the job that you're doing. And thank you, madam chair, for the opportunity to hear all of this again. I have a lot of it, but it's good to hear importantly, it's great for the community to hear how well our departments are doing. So just thank you. Ditto.

Thank you for that. And I'm I'm sure I'll speak for my counterparts that that we certainly appreciate the support of the entire council. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other departments, if there's anything they've forgotten at this point, you can certainly come to the podium I mean, to the desk. And if you wanna add something that you need to add. Okay. Going once, going twice. Alright. I think we've reached the let me see. I think we've reached the end of our of our meeting.

Right. Motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. It is 07:40 7.

Thank you.

Thank you.