City Council - Regular Meeting

City clerk, city council member, agency director, authority member Hughes Leslie present. Molly man present. [clears throat] Vice mayor, vice chairman Chris present. Mayor Chairman Paris here. We have a qu for quum. Thank you. The invocation is James Gibson from Grace Chapel.

You had me worried when I didn't see you. Hey, good afternoon. Thank you for having me. Just want to read from scripture real quick. 1 Timothy 2 says, "First all, then I urge that supplication, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people. For kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." Let's pray. Uh dear Lord God, I just thank you for this evening. Lord, I thank you for just even today, Lord. I thank you for all these individuals in this room. Uh Lord, it is no accident that you have placed them here. So Lord, I just pray that whatever takes place today, Lord, that wisdom and discretion is used, Lord. But above all, Lord, the only thing that you care about, Lord, is just Jesus being made known. us Lord whatever decisions are made I just pray that it is made out of wisdom but mostly I pray that it's based on your son and your glory Lord that is why we are here uh Lord we are here for you and for your glory so Lord I just pray that you just do exceedingly and abundantly more than we could ask and imagine here today Lord you are good you are God and we are yet your humble servants so be with us now it's in Jesus name that we pray

amen thank you thank you very Everybody repeat with me to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nation.

Thank you, Kim. Oh, we're up. So, we have some good news for a change, right?

What? What? You can hear me? The mic's working.

Good. You [clears throat] know, 10 years ago, it was literally a 10-year effort. We were sitting around and it had I had been mayor for 10 years. The county was for 10 years unable to give us a full command of sheriff deputies. They have for 20 years been operating with I don't know how many deputies you needed that you didn't have. and they had to fill the gap. They filled the gap with overtime. They they filled the gap in many different ways. But it was just not acceptable to us. And we begged and we begged and we begged some more to no avail. So we thought, what if we started our own police department that assisted them? Not to replace them, but to assist them, give us the manpower that the county was not giving us. It also enabled us to do things we that had never been done before. You know, when you deal with the county of Los Angeles, it's like dealing with a country. It's so big, right? You have to everything takes longer. Half of what you want happens because there's so many people that have to approve it. So, it just kind of made sense that if we created a hybrid department to assist the sheriff's department, we could also use the technology we wanted to use. We didn't have to wait for 10 years while they test something. I mean, there's a lot of procedures we just don't have. We just do it. You know, we tend to be builders. And so what I actually did was I called

a girlfriend from college when I was 19 and she had been a commander of LAPD. And so I said, "How do we do this?" So she put together some people and we started. Imagine the approvals you got to get to have a police department. It takes a long time, but it also took a lot of planning. How do we merge it with the sheriff's department, lot of questions, you know, and we also along the way decided if we had the technology on the street that we know is available, this could be a much safer city. So, we proceeded. took 10 years. But then we hired Rod. He started He hired deputies is what he did. Has Has he recruited you guys yet? He has. [laughter] Uh and so we now have the Lancaster Police Department with very experienced officers. I don't think we have a rookie on the on the team, do we? All of them have years and years of experience which makes a huge difference. We also put technology out there that I don't think any other city has. They have pieces of it but I don't think anybody has what we have. That's why in 23 we had the only city in America our size with a 100% saw rate of the homicides. And we're still doing pretty well. But it's we missed one or two, didn't we? The uh but no other city has that. The national average is 52%. And we're at 100%. And it works so well. They call Lancaster PD, and they actually did this twice in the last

couple months. We had a murder at 20th and Jay at 3:00 a.m. Now, we don't open till 7, so they had to wait four four hours. within an hour and that's all we had that had happened at at uh 20th and Jay and within an hour or two he was in custody because of the technology we put out there we were able to figure out who it was. We were able to track the car. The sheriff's department went and arrested him. Sure enough, there was the gun. It truly remarkable stuff happening. Do I have Oh, you gave me the clicker here. I was in control the whole time. And I am incredibly proud to report to you that we've been up and running now almost a year. Crime has dropped 15%. But I want to be very clear that could not have happened unless there was a seamless merge of the two departments. You know, it it just works. So, in it's hard to articulate because it's never been done before. You know, some cities will have a have a police department and when they get in over their head, they'll call the sheriff's department, but there is no city that has a department whose job is to support the deputies. And so far, it's just working out tremendously well. I'm sure you've all seen the number of police officers out there. That's going to continue to grow. What we've discovered is one way to drive crime down is to get real real aggressive on traffic violations. So guys like me have better slow down. They're going to be everywhere. It but the the reason for it isn't just because it's a good idea to obey the

speed limit. The reason for it is is it drops crime. And we're using AI in that. where crime is called uh crime coupling. It's called where pockets of the city has high crime rates. It's not the whole city, it's pockets. Be very careful driving in those pockets. And we have a a uh AI program that identifies where they should be every hour of the day. And that changes as the crime rates change. It's really the most revolutionary thing in law enforcement, I think, that's out there. And on top of that, you have the drones. The drones, when they hear a gunshot, will launch and be over that gunshot within 90 to 120 seconds throughout the city. We're also going to have the drones patrol the high crime areas. The purpose is to drive the crime someplace else. I don't care where it goes, just not in Lancaster. You know, I wish we could just make crime go away, but we're not. But we can make this city much, much safer than it is, and we're in the process. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Thank you, sir. Good afternoon everybody. Uh so I'm I gotta start by telling you uh and I got to stop doing this because I'm really giving my age up, but it's been 37 years of doing this. So and I got to start by saying I've worked all over Los Angeles County because I had the pride of working with those men and women back there and this gentleman uh the sheriff's department. I've walked worked all over the county, tons of cities, and never before have I worked in a city where the city, the citizens, [snorts] the mayor, the council care so much about crime and support us uh unbelievably well. And I mean that. I I wish I could take you to some of those other locations. It is amazing what we do here and how we go about things. Uh this mayor is definitely willing to step forward and say, "Hey, we'll do whatever it takes to bring crime down." Uh and he's supported fully by his partners up there. This vice mayor with his boosters and just his his gathering of this community is amazing. And I'm sure these men and women back here will tell you, uh you don't feel support like that everywhere as a law enforcement officer. I know my fellow officers back there from my department will tell you that. So, I want to thank all of you for your continued support. So, the mayor uh he talked a lot about who we are. Uh but this is a hybrid policing program and he is correct. It's not being done anywhere else that I know of in this state and quite possibly in this nation. But, uh I want you to understand it's more than that. It's it's it's it's more than just innovative. Um, we're talking two police agencies that are dedicated to your

public safety. Um, some of my officers actually coined an analogy of this and I really think it was the best way put. They said, "Imagine the emergency room when you get ill and you go to the emergency room and they handle the big emergencies on the spot and handle it effectively." That's the men and women of our Lancaster Sheriff's Station. We at the Lancaster Police Department are that primary care physician. So once they've knocked that emergency down, they're able to talk to us and we're able to look and say, you know what, what kind of medicine can we put into this thing so that it goes away and it stays away. And our partnership is really working as you can see with that number up there. So, uh, it's it's working. And, uh, I want you to know that between these two agencies, our other public safety partners, the vast technologies that we've brought here, and I haven't seen it like this happen, not just as much, but as quickly to get these technologies in here and the collaborations we're forming with our other public safety entities and our safety uh, partners. Uh, I just want folks to know out there who choose to commit crime, we will catch up with you, we will. I have utmost confidence between the guys I've got, this incredible team that you're going to meet right here, and the rest of the men and women who work at that station, you do crime in this city, we're coming for you. You can believe that. So, uh, but anyway, let me tell you a little bit about who we are in our department. So first is I want to tell you we have u our sworn we have two primary teams that are working right now and that's our set team our special enforcement team that's sergeant six officers our motors we got a sergeant and six motor officers and

they are about focused operations but I want to tell you we're not done yet because this council has directed me to hire 14 more officers and four sergeants so there is additional help coming to the city and additional efforts beyond what these two agencies are doing right now. This team, our special enforcement operation team has has done over 40 operations uh over this past year in 2025. And they really didn't get going at it until probably around April or so. Um but so you know they're targeting uh a multitude of operations. Everything from sex trafficking, organized retail theft, illegal illegal gambling locations which are responsible for quite a bit of the violence in this city. Uh crime suppressions in areas that we've identified and yes, even illegal after hours locations that trouble communities with continuous parties as well as will put on illegal strip clubs. Um, we have a multi- agency approach to what we're doing. So, when I say bring that medicine, I mean it. We're bringing the sheriff's department, everybody from the sheriff's department, CHP, FBI, California cannabis control. We will even bring and have brought the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration and take a look at your books and whatever else we have to do to make the problem go away. strong partnerships with probation and parole and uh actually these guys one time brought out the employment development department and you don't want to know what kind of fines they put on you when you when you are not doing what you're supposed to do as a business. So, but that's what it's about. It's just it's about bringing the resources to bear to shut these illegal locations down. U next is our tra I'm sorry I went I went past one. Next is

our traffic enforcement operations and those are our motors. As as you can see, they put up some pretty good numbers. U but I want you to also understand that that pretty much was two officers from September. Uh we've hired four already. Uh one just got certified, so he's now into it as well as uh another officer will be going through certification. We're processing two more now. So expect those numbers to go up. And once again, multi- agency collaborations. You may have seen where we brought in uh I can't remember the total number, but it was somewhere around 40 different motor officers to do an operation out here. So, we're open to collaborating with whoever to address safety and traffic issues within our city. Wrong way. Next, I want to tell you about our intelligence and uh crime center. So when I talk about bringing technologies and state-of-the-art, this is it right here. Uh we got this up quickly and it is a gamecher and you should understand that uh we've got this city has over 500 cameras around our city. Uh, you know, we are, uh, you know, we are constantly, like the mayor just said, looking for new ways to affect public safety. That intel center is run by a couple of analysts and our u community engagement uh, coordinator and amazingly they've worked on 193 investigations in 2025. Somehow had input into that. They are definitely intel sharers as they are connected to the national intel network. Uh and just to kind of give you a list of agencies that have come over and said, "Hey, we want to work with you or can you help us with this investigation?" FBI, US Marshalss, of course, our brothers and sisters with

the sheriff's department, LA County Fire Austin, CHP, Alcohol and Beverage Control, other police departments from up and down Southern California, and even the United States Air Force has come by and said, "Help us out." So, they are tied in and they are doing wonderful work. Uh there's a couple examples of it up there that I'll tell you about really quickly. uh that one that says homicide case that was a shooting that occurred uh couple months few months ago and basically uh there was no real information on it and what happened was our intel analysts said hey let's take a look at our nearby cameras and see if we can see a car that is flying out of the area and sure enough they did they saw that vehicle did their magic identified the vehicle got it to the sheriff's department and got the suspect uspect in custody. That's without any information. That's working with our cameras and our intelligence. The next one down there is a robbery that occurred and uh our friends from the sheriff's department came along and said, "Hey, we got a picture of what we think is the door. You see that little red circle? Well, that little piece in there is the door they gave us." And these awesome analysts went to work, identified the vehicle, got the information to the sheriff's department, and through their great investigations, those suspects were taken into custody. So, this this intel crime center is I mean, it is just a cut above. It makes things happen for us. Our drone of drone operation, we have a state-of-the-art drone program. Um, and that is absolutely a gamecher, especially in a in a a valley where air support can be difficult. As these deputies will tell you, there are many days when the wind does not allow the bird to come up. It does not allow the helicopter to come up. Well, we have two platforms. The first is our mobile drone

system which is a drone on a truck and we can send that anywhere and it allows us to get places rapidly but also allows us to deploy with investigators with detectives with our LANCAP team when they're going to do an operation and get it up and get information to them uh real time intelligence so they can see what they're walking into and what they're dealing with. And this next thing, our drone as a first responder. Now, this movie may take off immediately. Okay. No, it's gonna wait for me. So, drone as a first responder, state-of-the-art, unbelievable system. We just got active October 29th. It flew 55 missions in 2025 and has already flown 62 missions in 2026. And I think that number increased over the past few days. This is basically where we looked at strategic areas around the city where we put drone pods and drones can automatically lift off as the mayor said to a a situation and the pilot can get overhead in seconds. In fact, quite often it can beat the responding unit so that we can get a look and get some real-time intelligence. Uh, but the other beauty of the drone is it's safety for our community, and it allows us to better assess situations in them quicker, look at our footprint, whether we need to come down so we're not inconveniencing so many people, and just provide incredible safety to officers and the public. I think we've got a a video So those those are phenomenal. And by the way, that's not my choice of music. [laughter] My guys my guys.

So so uh but uh we're looking at deploying additional pods uh around our city so that we can have even better coverage. our special investigations unit. So those are uh that that's our civilian investigator and um it involves code enforcement and other things. So I want you to know we've we've done 96 illicit growhouses last year and these are illegal indoor marijuana grows. Uh let me tell you uh that uh th this is one of the things I hate the most because you're talking about people buying a home in our valley sometimes a big beautiful two-story home and filling the house with marijuana. That top picture is one of the Alysa Alyssa grows that we hit. In fact, the mayor went out with us on that one and every room in the house looked like that. That is a master bedroom of a house. And they don't they're not only putting out a product that can harm folks, but because it's unregulated and unlicensed, but it destroys the house. It destroys a house. There is a black mold that is thick all over the house and they use illegal pesticides that can kill you. And once they do two or three of these groves and destroy this house and mess with the the the electric electricity and everything, they run down, get a couple guys paint it, clean it, wipe the bathtub up where all those uh uh backwash from those girls is gone, and they sell it to you or your children, and they move in, and years from now, they develop some very ill disease. Well, we through our special investigations don't allow that to happen. We uh we look at that owner. We try to work with them. Many times they are complicit and understand what's happening at their property and we hold them to answer and make them tear out the entire interior of that home before they can sell it and redo it. And then we go in with inspectors and make sure

it's done appropriately. Um the next photo is of one of the smoke shops that we hit. You may have saw that when we put that out. 36 um uh illegal smoke shops. We work closely with the vice mayor in doing that. And those places are something else. and they're affecting our children. We're staying on them. We have a moratorum to stop them from growing or adding any more shops and we're working with our city attorney to come up with better um statutes to deal with them. But out of that 36, we found violations at each one, including which is a substance that is 14 times stronger than morphine. And our children can go in there and get it. So, and and marijuana in the in the shape of or placed into candy bars that that children would h want. So, so we're staying on top of those places. Uh and then the unlicensed care homes at the direction of the mayor. Last council meeting, we're actually working on an enforcement plan to deal with those. But as you can see, we hit 12 of them. And uh as he said, imagine spending your last days, our most vulnerable citizens, and you're not only being treated in a horrific manner, but your resources, your money, your funds are being drained illegally. our homeless outreach team. So, um this alway always starts with core, our community outreach, resource and education and us going out and doing engagement and trying to get the homeless to receive services. Uh that is followed up by our homeless outreach team. These guys, I I try to let them make a name up and they come up with this hot thing and I don't know. [laughter] So, so anyway, but they do incredible work. I want you to know the county has a team. They have one team that is responsible for the whole county. And because of our great council, we now

have three teams, seven days coverage where we can get out and deal with homeless issues just for our city. As you can see, a lot of work being done by them last year. But I want you to really pay attention to what we're up against, which is if you look out of all those contacts, nearly 3,500, 107 homeless people were receptive to receiving support. Out of that 107, we were able to confirm that only 72 actually took the report, took the support. So, that's what we're up against. uh um you know uh a group that wants to be out there and our approach is changing with this with with the police department. Um we believe in no matter where you're from, you have a duty to abide by our laws and whether you're homeless or not, if you're violating laws, we are going to take you to jail. Homeless being homeless is not a crime, but we're going to offer you services and try and give you a helping hand. But if you're not willing to take that and you're victimizing our community, we are going to deal with you like every other criminal in this city. And then I just wanted a moment to tell you about our community outreach. Uh we do a ton of it with our partners at the sheriff's department. Oh, you know what? I'm sorry. I got to go back to traffic. I apologize. I don't think he's in here, but we work closely with Deputy Kit Groupy, who is the sheriff's department motor, and our team is clicking well, and we are out there together making differences with the traffic. Uh, I can't leave Kit out, and I'm sure a bunch of you know him. So, um, but anyway, 50 neighborhood watch programs run by our community engagement coordinator. We've contacted 200 plus businesses regarding retail theft. We do

a bunch of retail theft operations. Um, and we've connected with a bunch of businesses. Our fight fentanyl campaign. Um, uh, we've actually contracted with Helper Foundation, which is an intervention program. Uh, brother Stan Muhammed, who's not in here today, runs that program. and we've been doing instrumental work with them trying to get into our schools and trying to get to our youth and get them to to come down on some of the things that have bothered us. Uh and then lastly, I want to tell you about our CHP driving grant. Um that's a grant we've gotten every year where we're educating thousands on driving under the influence of marijuana as well as alcohol and especially where it comes to the youth. But, you know, let me let me tell you, and Mr. Mayor, uh, I apologize. I know I haven't got to tell you this, uh, and council, but we were notified, I think a couple days ago, that our core team had applied for the California Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant, and we are one of three entities that received it. That's $2 million coming to this city. [applause] coming to this city to work on intervention as well as um come up with more violence intervention uh efforts. And the one thing that I absolutely love about it is it allows us to get an officer to run a youth activities league. So, we're going to be putting that together, working with the sheriff's department to give our our kids another uh opportunity to get into different things. So, it was just us, LA County, and LAPD that got that. No other entities within LA County received that grant. So, John Keith back there with the core team. [applause]

So, I'm going to give this over to my partner here. Love this man like a brother. Um, and to borrow a phrase from the mayor, we just got to keep swimming upstream and we just got to keep bringing more things till we get our city to the public safety point that we want it. So, and your support is the biggest part of that. Thank you very much. [applause]

Thank you, Rod. Thank you, Mayor Mayor Paris, Vice Mayor Chris, and our council for really the support that you provided to Lancaster Station and myself. Uh, it's truly an honor to be here and lead a station of 225 sworn and another 60 professional staff. And, you know, I think we all know, we say it all the time, it's one of the busiest stations or it is the busiest station in LA County. and our deputies go out there every day and work hard and they work as do our police officers from LPD. So, it's great to see that effort combined from both departments working together. And I truly appreciate Rod. Just like you said, we're we're brothers. I share a middle name that's very similar to his. So, I don't go by Rod, but it's very similar. But, you know, I don't I've been here at Lancaster for over two years as captain. uh in 13 days I will hit 27 years on the sheriff's department. So and [applause] 24 of those years in patrol between Palmdale and Lancaster. So this community is important to me. this is my home and I think we've looked at these numbers and you know I have a lot of numbers that are going to be on the board here but it's about bringing that crime down in our community and making our community safer and that's I think what we're all here to do is work together and we have leadership at the city that is very supportive of that of us with our our mayor our vice mayor our AV boosters uh they are extremely supportive of our deputies at the station they provide so many resources to our LANCAP And I'm going to talk a little bit about them in a minute too because you know in part of my crime prevention strategy that I came up with in 2024 to 25 there were some things in our community that we needed to work on and one of them was vehicle fatalities. Autotheft is a significant one that was

impacting our community. It was impacting people's livelihoods, aggravated assaults. So and petty thefts at our businesses. So, we really pushed that strategy forward and I put a lot on these deputies here sitting in front of me, their plate as our LNCAP team and they took it in stride and and with all the combination of technology which has been amazing. They've done a phenomenal job and not just them but you know the other 150 some deputies that work at the station that come every day to work and the biggest part of that is a lot of them are part of our community too. They live here so it's important to them. almost 70% of our deputies live in the Yellow Valley. So, it's very important to them what happens. It impacts our community. So, I know these are a lot of numbers here and I'll just kind of gloss over it because as the mayor indicated, the biggest one is the 15% reduction in part one crimes in Lancaster. Um, significantly, if you look at it, some of our key reductions are vehicle thefts were down almost 40% across the board. uh theft from vehicles, which is another thing. It's not specifically on there, but we kind of extracted that data because we were seeing an increase in vehicles that were being broken into in driveways, and those were down 37% in Lancaster. That's a phenomenal number to see that reduction. Aggravated assaults are reduced significantly, almost 9%. But when you look on top of that, bigger than that, is our gang related shootings in 2025 were down 56%. That is phenomenal. And a lot of that is you look at the technology that's in place based on the support of our city and our city council and that technology is helping to solve crimes. And now I think more than ever it's stopping crimes from occurring and that's important. So one of our other biggest factors I

indicated was homicides or aggravated assaults that lead to homicide. Those are down 24% in 2000 in 2025. That's phenomenal. And I know when you look at it, 18 murders in Lancaster is too many. That's 18 too many. But it's a severe reduction from what we had last year. And that again is that technology, that hard work, and that working together with LPD and all of our partner agencies here in the valley. Another key significant issue we've seen in their our success is in that a lot of that based to some of the support across the board by our community members who went and voted and voted in Prop 36, voted in a new district attorney. Overdose deaths in LA County are down significantly. So that's an extreme benefit to our community, our community members. We're not seeing those fentanyl deaths across the board. our traffic data. If you look here, we had 19 fatal traffic collisions. Again, that's 19 too many, but that's a reduction from 28 the year prior. So, that's a significant decrease. We'll get into another big factor here is the number of DUI arrests. 464 for the year compared to 420 the year prior. So, getting out there, being on the streets, and arresting those impaired drivers, stopping them from causing those fatal coll crashes is important. Again, I want to talk about our team here. So, LANCAP is a specialized team of what they are called their servia service area deputies. They are directly funded by the city of Lancaster by the vision behind us here. And that team goes out and they targets, supports deputies in investigations in the field. They also target violent crime, autotheft, robbery, and any type of organized theft. And they know they could tell you last year when I ch came to them I changed some of their programs and I said I want LANCAP to take over

autotheft investigations. So they were doing robberies in our town and I pushed on them the autotheft because we needed to see a reduction in that from the year prior. They also use technology which is huge and a lot of that is supported by our city and our boosters. They work closely with the city of Lancaster, LPD, and many of our business partners because part of their team is also a community relations deputy at the station who helps get out there and handle almost 200 community events that we handled at Lancaster Station last year. One other little factor that we we kind of forget about that we don't talk too much about, but LANCAP is really the Lancaster Community Appreciation Program. They also work with our high occupancy apartment complexes in town and last year they did almost 360 apartment contacts with managers in our community. Wanted to talk a little bit about their stats because they did such a phenomenal job job last year. 201 felony arrests, 100 misdemeanor arrests, 104 citations, 58 illegal firearms by that team there. 51 stolen vehicles recovered. 113 search warrants is what they did last year in our community. 75 focused crime suppression operations where they worked with our homicide bureau, our major crimes bureau who handle high level murder suspects who are wanted and highle highlevel robberies. So they assist in major crimes and our operation safe streets which is our gang enforcement unit for the county. And again, as I indicated, hundreds of property and apartment safety checks with the managers. We had 275 felony cases filed with prosecutors, expanded follow-up investigations on a lot of those crimes that are occurring

in the field, specifically with robberies and with autotheft. And really because of their staffing level that the city has provided us, they've really been allowed to complete those investigations, follow up and solve those crimes which have been leading to prosecutions. I want to get into one of the big arrests that they made this year and this was on behalf of a minibike and we know the problems in our community with the minibikes and this was a minibike carjacking spree that was occurring in Lancaster. So the team went out, conducted some investigation, identified four suspects, and ultimately in August of last year served a search war on a location. And phenomenal job when you hear these numbers. They recovered stolen minibikes, five illegally illegally possessed weapons, 17 pounds of methamphetamine. You look there, two pounds of fentinyl, and I think we know how much with fentinyl and how potent it is, how many people that could have killed had it got in the wrong hands. Two kilos of cocaine and two kilos of heroin. Here's a another carjacking search warrant that led to the recovery of illegal narcotics and a firearm as you see there. And these are just a few pictures just to show you of some of their efforts this year. These were basically one was a pedestrian stop where they identified a robbery suspect, stopped him, found him with that illegally possessed weapon with a drum that was carrying over 50 rounds of ammunition in it. And if you look there, you'll see another stop that they did on a vehicle that recovered another firearm used in a in a robbery. But in addition to you see in addition to the robbery, it led to a bunch of other narcotics recoveries.

Here's another investigation on a robbery and the weapons that they recover. So, I didn't want to, you know, they do us so much hard work, but really I also wanted to thank those hardworking deputies that are out there every day in addition to LANCAP that are out there every day answering those calls for service. So, last year in Lancaster, there was a reduction in calls for service. So in 2025, Lancaster deputies responded to 74,000 calls for service, which is about 7,000 call reduction, but in addition to they had another 44,000 observations, we call it, which could be stop traffic stops and things of such where they actually make the call themselves for a total of over 118,000 calls and observations in 2025. But I think one of the biggest significant here. Lancaster station deputies recovered 585 firearms in 2025. And that was through patrol operations. That wasn't a gun buyback. There was nothing like that. This was just deputies on the streets responding to calls or stopping cars. But when you break that down even further, firearms that were booked as evidence in a c in a criminal offense, so illegally possessed, Lancaster recovered 368 guns. And you can look down the line. They're not really in order, but Palmdale recovered 318. Uh, Sentry Station 240, Compton Station 290, East LA 27, Lakewood Station 157, and South LA 265. So those deputies were out there every day recovering those firearms. And I know that is a big reason why our homicides are down, getting those guns off the street. And that's really important to give those accolades, those deputies that are out there. And that's and again a lot of that work we have to look at it is because of the technology

that is in place by the city of Lancaster from the block cameras the shot spotter technology getting to those deputies to those calls quicker and getting to saving lives when they get on scene because of shot spotter. And again, I I indicated there were some changes across the board and that was based on that was our community. That was that was us and the community that voted Proposition 36. Now, updated state law, increased consequences for repeat theft and drug offenses, including autotheft, which has significant significantly helped reduce those numbers of autothefts occurring in our community. increase felony filings where they're appropriate and really greater accountability both real and perceived which is really supporting deterrence. So in ending here again want to thank our deputies if I could have our LEAP deputies stand up. [applause]

[applause] So, here we have six of the 11 members and two of our sergeants, but the team is made up of those 11 deputies, one community relations deputy, two sergeants, and two detectives. And they do a phenomenal job at our station. And thank you guys. [applause] Hey, Paul. Well, I'm assuming it's okay. I mean, I don't I'm aware sometimes we don't want to take their picture, but it's okay. Let's bring him down and get a picture. Okay, good. [applause]

So, thank everybody and again, you know, public safety is a shared effort. We couldn't do it without our community. The community is what leads us and if we didn't have the community support, we couldn't get our job done. So, thank you. [applause] You know a thing we forget when we hear a number like 300 and some weapons recovered. They're taking a weapon away from a criminal. Their life is in danger when that happens. I mean real danger. That is a huge thing to accomplish. And thank you. We know we know what you're doing. One, two, three.

[applause]

One last thing, Mr. Mayor, I'm pretty sure that when the numbers come out for Janu January, I'm going to be able to report to even more significant decrease last year. Just uh confirming if council had any questions for us today.

Any questions from the audience? Yes, sir. Did they deploy automatically or is that deployed? So, we're actually putting a working on an application now that's going to allow them to deploy automatically the shot spotter uh um our LPR cameras uh and even uh we're hoping uh to our uh our body cameras for officers. So, that's that's in the works. Yes, sir. Follow that. So, so yeah. Yes. Yes, we have. [laughter] like that, sir. [laughter]

Yes, sir. Well, I you know what I would suggest? Uh and I and definitely Fr unfortunately we don't have the slide with us but we have a criminal justice commission that the council put together and every that meets every month on the actually it's this Wednesday and the sheriff's sher sheriff's department does a complete report that actually shows those pockets and areas. It's a 10 o'clock and we and we encourage I mean we encourage community to come to that. So

I'll work with I don't know if this is a question of my church is in a small business. We had parking lots and you guys do

the the problem with that is we have to keep it secret. We we don't want to let people know where they are because you have problems with people stealing them. I mean, they're really expensive. What if there are you think something like that. I don't know. Rod makes those decisions. Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Is absolutely correct. And then uh it's something we can take a look at. The other thing we do have to look at though is airspace and considering being able to lift off from that point. So, uh but actually my uh my drone manager is here uh Tim in the back and feel free, sir, to have a conversation with them.

Any other any questions from council? Okay, I have a question.

First, I want to just say thank you to both departments for what you've done. Just the numbers speak for themselves. And then my question for the two of you gentlemen, and we don't have to answer it on the spot, is what can we as individual residents be doing to support you? So, is that coming to the criminal justice meetings? Is that reporting things a specific way? Is that just making sure our four walls are are straight? You know, I would say just report. And I know there's always concern that maybe people are not reporting crimes right now, but I I kind of disagree. I believe that people are reporting, you know, may you may see some incidents maybe, you know, concerns of people not reporting certain crimes, maybe domestic violence, but I think when you look at the numbers of autotheft, I I always use this analogy that if somebody has their car stolen, it's their livelihood and they're going to they're going to report that car stolen. So the fact that we're down so much, I don't think it's a lack of reporting. I think it's crime is down and I think it's because of everything that's in place in Lancaster with the technology and you know the hard work of the officers and the deputies.

And I'll just add a couple more things. Uh neighborhood watch neighborhood watch is huge and I don't understand why why more people don't do it. Um uh it doesn't cost you anything and there's other benefits to it. So, please reach out so that we can start a program in your in your neighborhood. Um, and then, uh, Councilwoman use Leslie hit the nail on the head. We have a comm a criminal justice commission here, and I've worked several cities, like I said, and I didn't see that in other cities, and that is a chance for you to come and voice not just your concerns, but what you think about how we're doing what we're doing. So, I would absolutely encourage everybody to attend those. [snorts]

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. You don't mind? I'm going to have our Sergeant Robert Jensen just give We have some emails that if the committee wants to email our community relations team any questions you have, you can email them and they'll answer any questions you have. Definitely. Vice Mayor. Uh yeah, absolutely. We welcome all the community feedback from everybody across the board. Uh our email directly for our team is going to be lan len community relations ld.org. And if that's too much to remember, you can just do lancaster ld.org and that'll come straight to our office. We'll be able to kind of filter filter through that. But yeah, as I said, please continue reporting. That's our biggest help. Thank you.

Thank you. Marissa Church may hearing council. I'm actually gonna call up our assistant director for public works and city engineer Nicholas Goden.

Good afternoon, Mayor Paris and members of council. Uh going to be hard to follow Chief's uh amazing work that he does, but we'll uh we'll do our best. Um again, my name is Nick Goden. Um I am the city engineer and assistant director of public works. Um, we have a presentation for you today regarding the city's recent award from the Southern California chapter of the American Public Works Association um to our municipal stadium project for best recreational and athletic facility. Um, I'm pleased to introduce Stephen Anderson. He's a board of director for the Southern California chapter of APWA. Um, who will tell us a little bit more about the awards process and present council with our award. Thank you.

Good afternoon, council. My name is Stephen Anderson. As assistant director said, I'm a a director for the American Public Works Association. I'm also a civil engineer with the firm Kimley Horn that does work with the city of Lancaster. Um, one of the keynote things that I do every year is I um am the chair for the public works uh southern public works expo conference in in midappril which several of the staff here attend and I encourage uh to add more attendance because we're going to add a second day this year where we're going to have an operation and maintenance for your O andM staff to kind of help out with some certifications learn about the watch manual etc. So with that to the award itself just to let you know that the building excellent shaping tomorrow awards the best award started in 2000. It's from our APWA SoCal chapter. It's one of the biggest chapters in the country. It encompasses LA County, Orange County and in the Inland Empire. Um this year we had nothing short of an extraordinary year with 23 reviewers, all season public works officials um looking at over 200 projects from over 75 municipalities. So the level of competition, innovation, and collaboration was really high this year. And so to be selected among such a remarkable work is a testament to your team's dedication, ingenuity, and service to your community. Your agency should be extremely proud of this recognition and the positive impact your project has made. So congratulations again on this well-deserved honor. Um the city submitted for the recreation and athletics facility category for populations uh 100 to 200,000. And so we celebrated Lancaster's amazing achievement this year with two representatives from Lancaster joined us the stage to accept the award and capture the moment. So a well-deserved spotlight for your outstanding work. So we hope your team will display your award plaque proudly as a lasting reminder of the milestone and positive impact you've made on this community. All photos can be on our website. So a little bit about the municipal stadium improvement project. So, the project involved the transformation of a minor

league baseball stadium, the former home of the Lentancaster Jet Hawks, and converting it into a 5,300 seat soccer stadium. It's the result of public private partnerships between the city, United Soccer League, and Analopee Valley Soccer to grow the area's sports offering. The stadium renovation offers local locals an entertainment venue where they can go and cheer on their soccer team and enjoy a heartwarming sense of community and camaraderie. So, congratulations to the city.

Thank [applause] you. That's right. We did all of that with the community workforce agreement working with labor. It uh there's a reason we're we're this the most friendly city towards labor. They do such a magnificent job for what it's worth. They're going to do it against the wall.

[laughter]

One, two, three. Another one, two, three. Thank you. [applause] Is this uh An update on destination Lancaster number three.

What? Long time. You know, if I had graduated from high school, I'd know how to count. Number three, team up. Lancaster commitment completion and renewal. Give me a second.

Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, city council. This is tough act to follow. You got chief's good news. That guy brought you an award. I don't I don't have anything like that, so bear with me. Um, today we're here to recognize Community Development Center USA. What do you mean? Next meeting. I I promise. Um, today we're here to recognize Community Development Center