Council - Regular Meeting

It has lights red. We're on station. All right. We'll call the council work session for Monday, April 6, 2026 to order at 6 p.m. and ask the city recorder to call the role. Council President Briggs here. Councelor Berentos here. Councelor Blosser here. Councelor Fitzgerald here. Councelor Holesapple here. Councelor Jance here. Councelor Schilling here. Councelor Shane here. Councelor Spivey present. It's here. Uh item on the agenda is police department annual report.

Hey Mayor Slack. Uh yep. Uh every year we have each department report on uh kind of the work that that department had accomplished and worked on in the previous year. Tonight we're gonna hear from our police department. So, I'll invite our police chief, Jerry Mott, up to the front and he'll uh give his presentation. Um, each of you should have the uh presentation in your packet so you can follow along as he leads us through this discussion tonight. And this is the only item on the agenda. So,

good afternoon. Um start with a we'll just do a quick summary of some different aspects of our department. Um for 2025 we'll start with our uh staffing. We have 27 members in our department excluding volunteers. Four of those people are civilians assigned to records and evidence. We have 23 sworn officers authorized for 2025. 2025 we were fully staffed most of the year but did have one person out for workrelated injury for most of 2025. The last quarter of the year we had an officer resign, another officer retire for the second time. That combination of vacancies translated about 1.25 uh police patrol officer positions effectively vacant for the year. See, uh, looking at our activity overview, we had an overall increase in activities to 2,380 events, which was just under a 23% increase from 2024. That increase does not mean folks in Dallas are having more problems. We have worked to tune our activities to be more proactive and efficient, which allows us more self-generation. Despite the increase in activity, we had a decrease in vehicle crashes, a decrease in person's crimes, and a significant decrease in property crimes. I believe our efforts to be proactive in traffic stops and other visible activities is a big factor in crime prevention. And one of the significant factors in being able to make time to do those things, a holistic approach to uh how we handle mental health calls. Uh

this starts at dispatch where the person may be transferred to 988 for crisis services if possible. Uh we also work with our partners at PK County Behavioral Health to try to connect folks to services before we reach a crisis level. And finally, we're operating a legal environment where police are less uh less so than historically being used as a catch-all for behavioral health calls. We still go to many of these calls, but we're trying to make sure we have legitimate governmental interest in going such as a crime that's happening or there's a danger to the public or one of our community partners such as EMS or PK County Behavioral Health uh needs us to be safe for them to do their job. As a result of that and some other factors, our behavioral health calls dropped from 665 in 2024 to 563 in 2025. That's about an 18% decrease. For 2025, we had 3,393 traffic stops. That's an increase from 2024, 734 traffic stops, or a little over 27%. And more than double our 2023 numbers of stops. And you attribute that mostly to just doing more of it.

Doing more of it and tuning our workload so we have capacity to do more of it. So just trying to be a little bit more efficient in our proactive work. Chief, yes, the behav behavioral health calls have dropped because we're having other people respond first.

It's a combination of factors. The state stood up a 988 line. So, some of those calls go there, which goes directly to a crisis team. Um, a good many of those come back to police for us to go. Um, sometimes we're able to interact with folks and get them help before they reach a crisis point. We have much better crisis services now than we've had historically. And then there were some case law that came about that that basically told police we're we're not able to go and use force to keep people from hurting or killing themselves. Um so we aren't the first responders in some events that we historically have been. We have to weigh a governmental interest. Are they committing a crime? Are they a danger to someone besides themselves? of our partners like behavioral health or EMS need us there for their safety. We have to have to go through a a process of deciding if there's that governmental interest for police to be there when we might have to use force uh before we we go to those calls. Now,

state or federal? It's a federal CA. It's federal case law driven and it's something

it's at least consistent within the consortium that's dispatched by Salem Dispatch. We've all moved to a process similar to that in our deci in our decision- making. We're more likely to go at Dallas PD than, for example, Salem PD because our community has different expectations. We'll move on to stop data. Um, stop data is submitted to the Criminal Justice Commission and not aggregated or calculated by Dallas PD. They report their findings annually on the fiscal year. Uh the state system we use to submit is getting a little bit clunky. So we're losing some some stops. Um I don't think it's enough to affect the conclusions, but it does affect the number that it counts. So if you were to look at last year's count, this year's count, and start doing some math, you'll see a little bit of inconsistency there. That's why folks are getting locked out of their password until it's reset, not able to log log their stops. Um, Oregon does not list race on a driving record. Um, officers must make the best estimate of a person's race or ask them uh when they enter the data and officers hesitate to ask that because it could risk offending a person. Um, in the 2425 fiscal year, Dallas Police Department recorded 2,197 stops. Uh, of those 108 1,86 were white. Uh, 291 were Latinex, 45 were black, 47 were Asian or Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern was eight, Native American is zero. That Native American number illustrates the challenge in in identifying a race. Uh a lot of departments list zero. We have a tribe that operates next to us or is next to us. Um I have family members who are tribal who are not this year but

have historically been pulled over in Dallas or other locations that record a number zero. So I I don't like putting bad data in front of you, but that's that's what I have. We don't collect it or compile it. So I I want to make sure it's understood that we all know that's that's not a good number there. being solved. Yes. Can I ask you a question on that? Yes, sir.

What would you say is the best case scenario on how to document that? Because for the past year, I've seen that number at zero and uh that's just not accurate. So what um based on your training experience would be uh a good way of documenting that because um the obvious thing is and and we could argue here but uh native native Americans are stopped at a disproportional rate than other folks. So, how do we uh in Dallas uh document our stops of Native American if for the past 3 years we've just had a zero there? I don't I in my experience I I don't know that that our native folks are stopped more than in any other group proportionally. I think if Oregon added race to licenses and that were an automatic entry point in the data, it would remove any subjectivity to it,

right? It it's not an overall um Dallas, Oregon statistic. It's the natur national statistic and that's base of knowledge of putting that race criteria on a on a traffic citation. So that's what I'm getting at. How do what based on your training experience would be the best way of another way of trying to ask about uh the race uh when we're talking about Native Americans without actually uh offending them?

Yeah. Like I said, the only the only thing there's only two ways I could think of. One would be to put a race on a on a license and make it a non-subjective data point. The other one would be a requirement to ask every person you stop what their race is so that you have that and eventually it cultures into people to not be offended because they expect it. But I I don't think there's a I don't think there's a a better way to collect that.

Okay. Uh maybe when you see a name, uh could the name kind of like give you a little clue or a tip that this person might be native Native American? It it could, but I'll give you an example. Um Grand Ron's chief of police, his last name is Mcnite, and he's he's tribal. So in some in some places some with some tribes that is is a clue, but around here it's not and in much of Oregon it's not. I I just say that a zero for the past 3 years we're not doing our due diligence of tracking that. I I agree. That's why I pointed it out.

Yeah. I think the best thing we can do, Councelor Brentos, is exactly what Chief Mott did, which is to recognize that, hey, the data reflects zero, but we know that's not accurate. we know that we have actually pulled over people that are Native American. And so acknowledging that here or saying we know this number is not accurate is really the best way we can do that short of the state legislature mandating that people put it on their driver's license or that you know it's required as an expectation that you're going to be asked this when you get stopped. Um but short of that happening at the by legislative directive. Um I think you set yourself up for failure. Well, asking or asking a question may be one way to get to a a a good track. And uh when you're saying you're going to offend someone, that's really subjective. And uh I don't think anybody would have a problem, especially when it's being documented on a on a citation. Uh we we should kind of do better than it. We should track this. I I think 3 years plus is way too long to be not to not track this.

I can say from firsthand experience, and I'm sure you're aware of it, too. Uh there are limitations to this stuff, especially with it being subjective. None of these categories address multicultural or mixed race at all. And so that's completely unobjective whatsoever with these categories. And so that's a real good point. If you've got somebody who's a little bit of one and a little bit of the other, which which bucket you put that number in is and that's where it becomes subjective and that's where it becomes subjective. What's your impression of of what you're and so yeah I

following up on on on this zero on these zeros um and this may be an unfair question so feel free to to duck it if you want to but I'll ask it anyway. From your experience, do you have any kind of a of a gut feel that you trust as to what what range true numbers would be in if we had them. And as I say, if you don't want to answer, don't.

I I really don't um I I don't I I I would have a I would I think I'd be giving you false data. Um, and and I know the CJC is willing to come in and present to the council they have before to to explain their validations and their process. They're they they're doing the best they can um at trying to compile good data and do so in a respectful way. So

yeah, I think I would have less heartache on this particular topic if I saw at least one number, one, two, anything other than zero for the past 3 years. It's just I I would I would as well. It's not just us. It's other agencies um as well. And and like I said, I I have family members who are tribal who have been stopped and that number's zero. So I anecdotally I know it's it's incorrect for us and it's incorrect for other agencies too, but I think I I want to acknowledge that. I don't want to just gloss over it. Yeah. And please don't uh take offense. I I'm more um speaking of complying with the uh the intent on the race uh and you know and following up on it and try to kind of you know find out you know if this in fact is a problem or creating a database a nationwide database so we can kind of quantify it you know but uh we just can't quantify it with the um with what we have here in Dallas.

I would just hope that 100% of these people have done something wrong, which is why we pulled them over the first place. And if someone asked me if I was Native American or I would almost be offended by that because I am a quarter Indian, but I'm not I don't belong to a tribe. So, what does it matter if I did something wrong? Pull me over, give me a ticket, let me go. Well, it matters because there's such a consciousness nowadays of of of disproportionate treatment of different that that's that's what's behind this is to it's it's an attempt I underscore the word attempt to measure whether in fact he's about to address this on one of the next slides to measure whether or not we're treating people unfairly depending on category. That that's what drives this stuff.

Official statistic.

Exactly. So, the Dallas Police Department was not identified by CJC as an agency evidencing disparate treatment in any category against any group of persons and we we never have been since this program started. Um, you can there are agencies that have been identified and you can look up the reports and see them. Um, but we're not one of them and we never have been one of them. Uh the race terminology is that's used was determined by CJC, not by Dallas police or any other agency. And there's a link to the current uh criminal justice commission's full report. Uh if you poke around in that website a little bit, you can actually see our individual agency stop breakdowns and stuff as well. So talk about fleet really quick. We have 12 vehicles assigned to our patrol uh section. You notice I took the mileage off of here because I I'm trying to give you all the best date I can and that is immediately expired when it's presented after this is made. Um the age of the vehicles are the first two numbers in the number series. So at the bottom of this one, you'll see 1061 is listed as a backup patrol vehicle. We we use our backup patrol vehicle when we have vehicles break down, but it replaces in 2026. That's our oldest working patrol vehicle right now is from 2010 and that's had an engine replacement.

Chief, has there ever been any thought about getting a motorcycle for as uh the traffic person, you know, to be on a motorcycle to get around the city at all? Is that something that's been thought of?

Yes. Several years ago, we actually looked at that. Um the there are two problems with the motorcycles having a agency our sizes. The motorcycle we actually had a could have probably had a motorcycle for free or close to free, but we still would had to buy tens of thousands of dollars in gear to operate that motorcycle. Um, and then every time we had a staffing change, we'd have to incur the cost of training and buy specific gear that fit that person. So, it just it didn't make economic sense. It also is a is not as multi-purpose of a vehicle or a staff person because they can't take people to jail. They can't haul passengers. So, try to try to work as efficiently as we can with our staffing. So,

I would imagine if you had a motorcycle And it the motorcycle traffic person would be out on traffic. I'm sure someone would back them up. Um if especially if it was a criminal citation or something like that. Yeah. Challenge is we have a minimum staffing of two people on shift. So if we're on a minimum or close to minimum staffing or we have a call load where all other units are committed, there's no one no one to come unless county comes to do an AOA for us and they're busy too. So that that that motorcycle the lack of utility for a department our size becomes a challenge. So

I appreciate the breakdown by function here. I notice that um the chaplain vehicle is not listed. Am I correct in thinking that's charged to April's department? Yes. Okay.

So assigned to our criminal investigation section. Uh one to a sergeant, two to regular detectives, and then one to a rotational detective. Uh we have five vehicles in our administrative division. That's my my vehicle. Uh lieutenant's vehicle, which is an 0966, which means a 2009 vehicle that's still being used as a as a police vehicle. That replaces this year as well. Um we have a travel and training vehicle uh gets used to send people off to training so we're not using a patrol car uh when we don't need to use a patrol car. And we have a the 2006 pickup. That's what we use to do things like haul haul uh stuff to evidence to a dump or disposal or haul bikes, dirty things that we don't want to put in the car. Um it's it's hanging on by a thread, but we're still using it.

Chief, you you had mentioned in an earlier meeting possibly picking up another pickup. Uh what would you would that be a patrol vehicle? It will be a patrol.

Okay. and serve some of the purposes that that 06 is serving. So, we'll squeeze some more life out of that one. And then the 2011 is our SRO vehicle. Um, we're we're lucky we're we're able to pull amount of time out of these vehicles. I I have to tip my hat to our fleet mechanics. They're they're top-notch. I've worked in other places that doesn't have that level of service or ability and it it's pretty meaningful at managing cost and keeping our fleet up and running. They also um had some issues with the Dodge fuel pumps. Dodge wasn't solving it for us. Our own mechanic solved it for Dodge. They figured out it's not the pump, it's the connection and resolved that um pretty significant problem. So, I just we have just great people there. really like the last bullet on this slide.

Our success is um we hired Steve, Lieutenant Steve McCartney to backfill our second command. Uh we maintained our traffic officer position. We maintained a rotational detective position. We began a cadet program with our first cadet starting in 2025 and we did not lose staff to competing agencies. It's it's tough to list a negative as a success, but the the retention is very difficult now and the recruitment from agency to agencies get gets to be pretty cutthroat. Um, but we're not we're we're pulling from agencies, bigger agencies than us, and we're not losing to agencies. So, that tells us we're doing something well. I can attest to the fact with the number of OSP troopers that are coming through the academy, that's very commendable that you're not losing people to because they're taken from all over the state and they're hiring a ton.

Uh we have a robust inventory of emergency evacuation locations through partnership with the Dallas School District. now. So, we have locations that are we know are there. They can they can hold a lot of people. They have kitchens, bathrooms. We have access 24 hours so we can evacuate to them if we did have an emergency natural disaster. We're not having to come up with an ad hoc location. Um we're regularly engaging in organizations engaging organizations at the neighborhood level for emergency preparedness and crime prevention and community outreach. Um, so we're having those those meetings to talk about, you know, evacuation centers, uh, our Everbridge system, things like that to make sure our folks are prepared for an emergency if it does happen. Uh, another success, we continue to maintain a chief's advisory panel. The first panel was uh, June of 2023. It's comprised of five community/business volunteers staggered to two or three-year terms and they meet quarterly. The advisor chief on topics and concerns from community business members perspective. They're communication conduit between police and a variety of community networks. Encourage community input on public safety matters which impact our community as a whole and help build trust between community and the police department. So, we had a uh Mike Bowman's position go vacant when he retired in 2025. And then in quarter 1 of 2026, we appointed a student from Dallas High School uh Avery Hoffman uh to as a youth adviser to one of those positions. Um Jason Thornton holds a position, Russ Hillinger, Nancy Adams, and Don Anderson. Those are all names that I think everybody here knows from their um significant involvement and service to our

community. Um challenges this year, staffing. Uh we're continuing uh we have a continuing challenge to retain against aggressive recruiting by competing agencies. Um and that that's for the foreseeable future. That's going to be the environment. Uh facility needs. Uh this challenge is being addressed by staff and council with meaningful progress towards resolution expected in 2026. Um continued volume of calls related to behavioral health problems and we discussed that earlier. We we have some pretty fantastic partnerships at PK County Behavioral Health that have really helped us kind of mitigate some of that and I think that will continue to grow and we'll see that number see that number decrease or at least the time taxation associated with it decrease. Um another challenge is our homeless or unhoused persons. Uh this is generally not a police issue under current law. Uh it does impact police services. uh we make an effort to contact the person and provide the person with services, but we also police behavior and not status. You know, that means if a if a homeless person's doing a crime that that a house person would would expect to go to jail for, the unhoused person needs to expect to go to jail for it as well. Similarly, if a unhoused person is engaged in behavior that a house person would not expect to get in trouble for, the unhoused person should not expect to get in trouble for it. Um on the horizon we have significant progress and effort towards a police station. We plan to maintain the traffic safety officer position as a priority. Uh state accreditation renewal is due in 2027. So that'll be six months of aggressive work for Lieutenant McCartney to keep us on track there. And we do expect to need a need to fill three

police officer positions in 2026. Um there's one of those has an offer out now. We have a chief's interview for a second and the third one will come up down the road when we expect one of our folks to move out of state. Does anybody have any questions? Going back to the behavioral health thing, uh the new facility uh next to the academy building, um has that been a resource for you as far as getting people into uh service uh connections and that has that been part of it?

Yeah, it's been part of it, but not not in that direct of a manner. Their their teams operating out of there and more available to us and then community members have been directed to that resource themselves. So we are seeing a lessening of the of the immediiacy of crisis intervention. Um so it's not a number I can say like I can't say we took seven people there. I can say things are getting better because of that facility because of that partnership. Yes. Yeah. Good

question. Just a hypothetical uh welfare checks. I know police officers uh go to a lot of welfare checks. not necessarily a crime. Uh just maybe uh a relative would want you to check on another relative who could be depressed or despondent or anything like that. Are you telling me that uh police officers will not respond to something like that because it's not considered a crime or so what we're trying to do is we're trying to make get that person in touch with help be instead of physically going there if it's not a criminal action there's no one else in danger um we try to make phone call phone contact with them try to put them in touch with the crisis worker but when it comes down to it if person's by themselves in their house threatening to harm only themselves and there's not a crime involved, then what the courts have said, if we intervene and we end up in a fight with them or we end up end up in a shooting with them, that's on us because we didn't have a governmental interest in going there to protect anybody except themselves from themselves. We're doing it. It's it's I think I personally feel it's wrongheaded, but it is what it is.

Yeah, I agree. We're doing the best we can. It's an unintended consequence. Yeah. Yeah. With the rules that we have right now. Um if those rules change, then we'll we'll go back to how we were doing it before. And we we in my career, we saved a lot of lives going to those. So,

yeah, I agree. I just uh I am thinking of um disregulated people, suicidal people. Somebody might call on their loved ones and say, "Hey, check on them." And uh and maybe you worst case scenario, uh somebody may be in their home dead and could be dead there a week or something and you know, you know, that just seems so wrong. Do you do you happen to know what the facts were in the court case that resulted in that ruling? What led to it?

Yeah, I do, but I I don't want to I don't want to give a legal summary in a council meeting. I I can I'm I'm happy to have a conversation with it about it. Yeah. And I and I'm not looking for anything that would, you know, transgress into the realm of legal opinion. I just am curious what circumstance led a court to make a ruling like that is, you know, what caused it? But I'll talk to you later. And it's not something that's brand new. It's been around for several years. Uh it's been that way since back when I was in the U law enforcement. So, it's been around for years like that.

We're doing the most we can to help our community with what we have uh what we're allowed to do. So, I do trust that you're doing your due diligence, but I just want to, you know, just clarify, you know, what the u the expectations are. Any other questions for Chief Mott? Chief, good report. Thank you, sir. Any other business for this meeting? Uh, no other business. I would say Chief Mott left off one of the big successes of the year and that was hiring a new police chief in 2025. We did that too. That's true.

Did we hire from within or did we go? I I don't even remember that it was it was a quality hire. He's still with us. All right. If there's no other business, we'll adjourn at 6:31. We'll see.