Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

The standing committee is called to order at 06:30PM. Today is 01/30/2025. Roll call. Alderman Gay. Present. Alderwoman O'Neil. Not here. Now let's us pause here for a moment of silence for three recent horrific events. For the victims and loved ones who have suffered from yesterday's airplane and helicopter tragedy in Washington DC near Reagan Airport, and for our very brave first responders, including our own city of Annapolis fire department. For the victims of the devastating fires in California, and for those who suffered recently from the extreme reckless behavior by an individual who struck and killed some of New Orleans residents with his vehicle.

Thank you. At this time, we will move to approve the agenda. Any changes to the agenda should be made here. We will be removing 03424 because it was not referred to the Public Safety Standing Committee. Can I get a motion?

What is zero three four

It was something to do with h budget star now and it's HR. I can't recall exactly what it is. I guess so move. But I looked it over. It was HR and something. IT, was it?

Changes to

Changes to exempt service.

Okay. Yeah. So move. All

in favor? Aye. Aye. Alright. At this time, we're gonna begin with the mayor's office. No harm, NAM and Annapolis United information. I see we have our chief of staff, miss Kate Pettit, as well as our African American liaison specialist, miss Artola Ajai. Good evening. And thank you so much for the handout. Appreciate that.

Good evening, madam chair and and committee members and everybody. Thank you for having us.

Good evening, council. Committee.

Thank

you. Okay. So you all familiar with Uplift Annapolis?

You have to tell us a little more about it. Can you speak up, please? So

I'll just start a little preface to lead in, and then I'm going to hand it over to Tola who manages all of the public safety and community outreach to the African American community as part of his African American liaison role in the mayor's office. I just want to point out the title of the presentation, Uplift Annapolis. It might be a new term for some. We operated I think everybody knows we operated under a banner once of one Annapolis. That title became problematic problematic for some a range of reasons.

And this, in our internal planning and conversations in the team and also as we plan to engage a new Hispanic liaison outreach officer, we've been talking about what all our programs mean. And the word uplift came up a lot. So it's a word we've been using internally to refer to all of our community outreach programs. And that's why you'll see it here tonight. The goal being to uplift residents who have not always had a voice or opportunity to participate or been equal access to services and to a range of resources or opportunities.

And of course, part of that are our general liaison duties. But a lot of our programs have been targeted specifically to needs that relate directly to public safety. So having said that, I'm now going to turn over to Tola who'll give a very quick rundown of the programs and what we've been doing over the past six months.

Take as much time as you need.

For clarity, is Uplift Annapolis the parent and no harm and and and then

the Yes, umbrella.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Alright.

That's right. Okay.

Thank you.

So we established uplift sorry. Uplift Annapolis team values, services, and community surveying. Okay. No harm is our violence prevention program established in 2021. In 2023, we shifted the program to a more community based school prevention school based prevention program, and that's when we partnered with Naples United.

I'll explain that later. Next slide. NAM is our substance abuse prevention program specifically targeting African Americans who use opioids. Annapolis United is our citywide collaboration with the fire department, police department, OEM, HACA, and Rexland Park. And we beyond what we do with the no harm partnership, there's also the police boxing, the Your Life Matters, OEM, ARPD.

We want to establish some public camps with them. In general, Robinwood outreach with all those organizations. I mean, with departments. So our twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five initiatives have been Annapolis School, a cluster of schools outreach options program, the community service and resource pop up tour, the new neighborhood beautification leadership micro grant initiative, our Robinwood engagement and career college exploration, and these two youth men leadership program and the Knap Town CEO maker Space will be launching in February and March. All the other programs were already active.

Napa Schools Outreach, we partner with Charting Careers and Pathways to Peace, as well the Black Student Union to do on in school mentoring as well as the career college exploration program funded by Napa United.

Mister Jay, I have a question that probably the public would like to know. Can you explain about options, what that means and what it is?

I can't. I don't know that. Sorry. You're

good to answer that. So I'll jump in at this point. So we began the No Harm when the No Harm program was restored in 2023. It began very much with a community violence prevention focus. We had, as you will no doubt recall, we had done a lot of work with the Anne Arundel County Health Department.

And TOLA had actually identified a violence interruption model called Cure Violence. And we were working with the County Health Department to identify where could that be delivered and trialed in the city. Based on the research, the joint research we did and the evaluation of the needs that cure violence consultants made. The county has invested that program in Eastport, at Eastport Terrace and Harbour House, which was one of our communities most impacted by violence in recent years, particularly by gun violence. We'd also that evaluation also identified the Robinwood community and there was some significant crime data that indicated Robinwood would another valuable area to focus.

So with the council's generous support of the No Harm Program, the team invested in a community based outreach there in Robinwood And came to make connections with some of the youth there that ultimately led to direct partnership within the high school and partnership with the Pathways to Peace program. As we have worked to integrate with Annapolis United and the additional resourcing that came with that, that allowed the team then to develop a more targeted program for youth called Options, which is focused on targeting at risk youth or youth with limited opportunities to support them in their education pathway and to give them career opportunities. So Tolla will talk a little bit more about those initiatives. But the idea is we are creating options, giving the the goal is to provide teens who would not have the same opportunities or who may be at risk of becoming exposed to violence and caught up in cycles of violence, to give them options for their future and meet them where they are. So if it's an educational pathway, wonderful.

But if they need support in skills development and alternative pathways, the program seeks to try and provide those. And Toler will talk about some of the initiatives. So that's we've taken our outreach. We're continuing our outreach based in the Robinwood community. But we have extended our work into the high school in this more targeted way.

Can you give us the meaning of the acronym options too?

Yes.

Yeah. I like acronyms, though. Opportunities, possibilities, technology, innovation, organization, networking success.

All right. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Aldman Gay has a question.

Thank you. Curious how the information is being tracked, in particular, obviously, in esports territory at Harbor House. So you're you're you're partnering with the school system. Mhmm. So or in the Annapolis cluster in particular. So they could be middle or high. When you take kids on these trips, participate in these activities

Mhmm.

If it's not something that you're doing already, will you in the future okay. Like, say I don't know. I don't I'll just use Jadavion Clowney. I don't know why that football player's name popped in my head. He's the kid.

He comes to the program, like, twice. Are you tracking how many activities he participates in, which days he showed up to the program, if he's actually been in contact with Annapolis Police Department over the duration of the program. Because I think this is good because this is all three like, you know, big picture stuff so that we can just see how everything's operated. But what I'm particularly interested in is the the small details and figuring out if the program is actually effective in deterring kids from being involved in crime. And so I'm just curious how that works in in the relationship with APD.

Are they or will they, some point, you know, help you compile data so that you can see if if the teen has actually been involved in crime? Right.

I'll say that so we work with Pathways of Peace and Charting Careers with their students. I mean, we track, you know, which students go on trips and participate when we're there, right? Because, you know, technically we're working with those groups, you know. So, right now, those groups basically focus on at risk youth. That's why our prevention model is working, you know, keep them from going down the path of even being involved in the criminal justice system. I'll say that we are working with APD to develop a diversion program to work with youth that actually have been in the system. But right now, that is that's where we're trying to go, is I've been saying.

What I will add is that the team have been working to develop a database. At the moment it is a spreadsheet database. But we're looking at actually what is the right case management tool and software we might need to track all of the participants in the program that we touch base with. So I know they do keep a record for every student who goes on to the college tours. I know that you're keeping other case records as well.

And when we take students on college tours, we track and follow-up what how we do surveys with them to say has this impacted your intention to engage in further education? So we do have feedback data. The answer is so we do are tracking some of that information. Our partners are also tracking information. And we are in the process of building out that database which, you know, currently as I say a spreadsheet, but looking at some proper case management

These software would be helpful, obviously, as we come up Because in the if you need the software, then we should know, just so that you can purchase it or or do a trial or whatever. Yes. Just because I think that it like I said, the individual data is is probably more important in the bigger picture because then us as as elected leaders and then also as our public safety officials can say we've actually tracked and can improve, you know, that juvenile crime is dropped in the city by x amount or whatever.

Yes. You're absolutely right, Olmegay. And we have thought we're trying to work through what kind of case management software would be useful. And we will come to you in the budget if we need the funding to utilize that. And I would say that we are I think we can keep improving on our records and our case management and our individual tracking.

We have not got a lot of data in the presentation, but I think Toler can speak to some of the sort of the big picture data around the reach and numbers. And we certainly have some data from the tours last year and the outcomes that the responses a student gave us in their follow-up surveys. So we'll definitely be reporting to you in detail on those prior to the budget as well. Okay.

The other thing is, too, might we suggest that this be a part of the mayor's budget when he submits it? Yes. That would be helpful. It will be. And before I forget, whenever this is sidebar. Before I forget, whenever you all wanna come back and give us an update, whether it's every two months, three months, or whatever, you just let us know. So thank you.

Thank you. And I just wanna reiterate the need for the software. But, Alderman Gay, we also do track individual cases from Robinwood. So that's more intentional working one on one. And, yeah, we do have data on that. So, you know, we're obviously, we've only been doing it for about six months this year. So it'll be you have a better view of each person we worked with after the year.

Madam chair, do you mind?

Go right ahead. Thank you. Mhmm.

And I don't wanna jump too far ahead, obvious because police is coming at some point. But in my personal opinion, and I don't have, you know, any background information except for what I hear on the streets, but I you mentioned that Eastport being the number one concern. I actually think it's Robin Wood. I think so just because this is in my personal opinion, Eastport is getting better from a patrolling perspective, from a, you know, just random shootings from targeted shootings from actual homicides Mhmm. Has went way down.

Obviously, a part of that is because they've arrested the habitual offenders. And then the second of that is, I think, the clear message is missing. So there's not so much, like, violent gang activity. It's much more now than just a a a terrible drug market, which also does influence crime, but there's not a lot of violence crime there. Robinwood, on the other hand, I personally believe is much more much higher of a concern as it relates to violent crime to me.

It's the it's the the setup of the community Mhmm. And the fact that it's just so off the beaten path. And it's not like a a East Port, which is surrounded by single family homes. It has a lot of attention on it, so there's constantly neighbors calling, etcetera. Robinwood is by itself. Mhmm. And I think a lot of of of what is taking place is also the state's attorneys have talked about parent accountability. Okay. With the kid that just this weekend, I don't know the details and all that stuff, 16 shot or whatever. Parent accountability, you know, and I know I'll save that for the police.

This is not your your section, but I'm curious how does how how do you all get involved in something like that? A 16 year old is shot, which in what appears to be a self afflicted gun wound. Does the, options outreach go after a a a child like that? Do you get with the police department and say, okay. This terrible event has happened. Let's follow-up with this child and just see what what what resources that we can provide?

Alderman Gay, I think we're getting a little bit beyond this discussion, and that's something maybe for us to talk to the police about. Okay. Because they're not probably prepared for

Yeah.

And would scenario.

I would just say, like, in that situation, no. And we're working towards that having that partnership because it is, you know, confidential information going on with certain cases. I will use the example of the the school fight. One one of probably school fights at Mappos High School. We officer Joe Hudson did reach out to me to reach out to some African American parents because it was a Latino versus African American issue, what have you. And so I reached out to a couple parents. We one of my staff members met with them. And, you know, the reality is, you know, some of them didn't want to meet. And, you know, a lot of times there's, you know, for example, the school, we we can there's only so much information the school can share. Right?

So, yeah, you know, that is something that we're working towards, I'll say.

And I will only add that, yes, we've been in discussions with chief Jackson about this for some months. I know APD are looking at their own youth diversion program that would sort of be an accompaniment to the reentry program. I don't want to speak on behalf of APD. But working together collaboratively to be able to identify, collaborate, connect on the serious at risk cases, you know, and young children or teens who are involved already involved in crime or exposed to violence and guns. So our program is not equipped to to deal with that that particular those particular cases.

But we very much want to work towards with APD to fund the pathways for those for those.

Thank No. Not a problem. Just want to welcome Alderman Huntley from Ward 1. As you all know, this year we're going to be focusing on award per month, and he's been gracious enough to come here tonight. And Mr. Eric Evans representing the business community. Thank you, Mr. Evans. Go right ahead, Mr. Jai.

Through Annapolis United, we were able to launch last year our career college exploration program, taking plan taking 10 trips. We've been on two already. So half of the trips are to colleges or universities locally and then half half the the other half of the trips are to local businesses in the area. And we want to expose youth to, you know, real career opportunities after college I mean, high school. Sorry.

And we haven't included data there on the current the last few months, but the outcome last year of our college trips was around 40% of the students who previously had indicated they were not interested in further education indicated afterwards that they did want to pursue further education and also began to identify particular career pathways they were interested in. And we'll have some updated data for you the next time we come because we'd love to take up your offer, Madam Chair, and come back and report

to you regularly. Alderman Gay is a little miffed because UMES wasn't on the list, but we'll take care of that.

Well, the problem with UMES is it's two hours to get there. So we would only be able to spend two hours on campus and then drive back so the students could get, I mean, transportation home. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

But we already talked to Wayne Gerald, so

My cousin?

Robinwood engagement. This is the community based violence prevention part of the program in Robinwood. We did a series of events so far, three out of events, and we're planning an end of school event. Purpose to provide a regular presence in the Robinwood community in the resource center and doing events in the community center. A couple of partnerships we had, mental health suicide prevention. We also work with Mr. Fixer Flat for the Halloween and Christmas event we did and Pas Menendez, OCS, Positive Impact, as well as the Banneker Douglas Museum art program Banneker Douglas Tubman Museum art program. And we'd like to collaborate them on a mural basketball court.

Alderman Gay? Thank you.

Just so that I can a lot of this is me just trying to get budget stuff together. Supporting Van Gogh Douglas Tugland, so you don't have the money for the mural yet or No. So you need either like arts in public places or something like that Yeah.

And I've also reached out to the county executive's office. He said, well, Vincent Moulton said that I should submit a plan. So we need to look at resurfacing the court and the artist will have a rendering for us.

We are going to also look at the process of applying for funding through our own AIPPC.

So when will we know? Is it possible just was speaking to the other one by if you all come back in March. Mhmm. Will we know, like, if the county is gonna lend you money or what we'll need to do for the Yeah. Award or okay.

We'll have an estimate by March. Definitely, probably February. Thank

you so much. Mhmm.

Our Napa's United partnership with the Community Service and Resource pop up tour, fourteen week pop up tour from July to October. We engaged over 1,500 residents in 14 different neighborhoods. And sorry. And we partnered with over 30 vendors, including APD, AFD, OEM, OCS, to provide free resources. And we also had food and music fun.

And we know it was at least 1,500, and it was more because we gave out 100 Chick fil A sandwiches at each other.

So I was going to mention the data. We expanded the program this year. The first year in '23 had proved very successful and we had been to eight different areas of the community. So this year we went to 14. And we were able to connect with 800 residents, around 800 residents in '23, over 1,500 in '24.

It's a true partnership. I think that's why it's been so, I guess, exciting to partner with the Annapolis United program and bring all of these into one umbrella because our colleagues in fire, OEM, APD, Rec and Parks, OCS, all participate in these pop up tours and connect with residents. We have numerous community engagements who come out for them. And also I want to thank the members of the Council who've also made it a priority or been very supportive to come and be at those events in their wards. It's really an opportunity to just try and connect with those underserved residents who just don't have, perhaps, the option easily to travel somewhere or the ability to get information about services.

So it's proved, you know, we want to thank all the partners, our city partners and our community partners for helping us try and reach those residents and provide them with resources. Absolutely. I think

I missed one. It was excellent.

This is just a list of the neighbors we went to and a small list of the partners on the right side.

Can you speak up a little, Mr.

Oh, just a list of the neighborhoods we went to, and then on the other side is the list of partners.

Okay. Know, missed it. Next. Oh, okay. Two minutes.

So this is about the the neighborhood beautification leadership. Micro grant.

Alderman Gay has a question. Thank you. Is this

an active grant or is this something that you want money for?

No, this is something we already did. It's active. Who who this

run out of the mayor's office or?

Napa United.

Yeah. Napa United. So, I mean, I know it's not like the typical grant that the city gives out because it's it's only $500 But we wanted to empower neighborhood leaders and, you know, small groups and, you know, even, for example, miss Phyllis in Bay Ridge Gardens, she's going to use the check to do a Black History Month event. Couple people building doing community gardens, activities. The point was just to be able to, like I said, support neighborhood leaders and give them a little bit of funding to do a community centric event that either focus on beautification or leadership.

And I will just add that the all of the applicants had to submit, you know, like any grant funding, they had to submit an application and meet particular requirements. But the thinking for this, I think, really was partly evolved from the work we'd done in Robin Ward the previous year. And we had worked with HACA to erect no harm signs. They actually, the if you go there, you will see in different places in the community prominently placed Don't shoot down our dreams and really targeting at the youth violence that was prevalent, particularly problematic in 2023. And the idea is to this is based on other programs like Cure Violence and other neighborhood violence prevention programs, with the idea being that you need some public you know, outward disruptions to help people start to think differently about their circumstances.

Those signs have had a lot of interest. We've actually had communities come to us and ask us to do the same thing there, but we are restricting that to Robinwood. But this was a similar idea that we were connecting with leaders in communities. How can we support you to do some initiatives that boost morale, that break the cycle and help people to see that they can come together to solve problems in their own neighbourhood. So that really was the idea of the grant.

Okay. Thank you.

And we'll speak real quickly about our Nap Town CEO Academy Makerspace partnership with Charting Careers. And this is working with at risk youth.

Your mic's not on. There we go.

Sorry. The knob knob town CEO academy makerspace. So we're working partnering with Charting Careers in Eastport United Methodist Church. Well, the space will be in an Eastport United Methodist Church. The students we'll be working with are from Charting Careers. So we're gonna be working with them in the schools to do entrepreneurship curriculum, and then we want that we want to work with them at the the church with a makerspace where we'll have some STEM and, you know, technology that they can use that so our goal is that they'll be able to either start a business by the end of this school year, or they'll be able to, you know, have a co op business together.

Alderman Gay has a

question. Thank you. I'm just I'd like actually if you would pause or wait for not wait, but work in tandem with the economic matters committee, which just I have no I I'll find out where it is. We set put out $25,000 for bid for the African American disparity study. Mhmm.

So that should be making its way back to us, hopefully, sometime soon. But a part of that, we also have $5 to host an event for African American business Okay. Or or I mean, minority business investment. And so Mhmm. It'd be I mean, just work with us so that you can take advantage of that and invite those children to the event and and so forth.

Okay.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you.

And that'd be launched launched in March. We've also worked with Bowie State and Anne Arundel Community College for this. And then our youth young man leadership program, this is kind of to what you were saying, Dewan, but we're gonna identify five youth from Robin Wood and work with them with the executive life coach. He's he's gonna volunteer his time. From Annapolis, Brett Riviera. And so we're gonna help develop their personal skills, and then we also want to help give them the skills to learn how to run their own business, which he does both. Okay.

Two things I want to mention. Number one, the the program you all are having at Robinwood every other Wednesday.

Oh, yes. Yes.

Touch on that. And the other thing was oh, the organization that's working in the Eastport Harris Eastport Terrace Harbor House community. I met with them a couple of weeks ago. I was very impressed. So that might be something that we can tout as far as as the numbers looking like we think are better than they have been. So but let talk about the that program.

Okay. Let me finish with this. Sorry. Because that's a part of NAM. And so I just wanna go over finish the no harm.

The one everyone the Wednesday. Yeah.

Yes. Mhmm. Oh, one second. Okay. So that's it. So NAM, naphtha and antidote movement is has launched a on-site resource day at the Robinhood resource Robinwood Resource Center. So and, you know, Tiana Hayes is the program coordinator. So she's providing resources such as Narcan, fentanyl test strips, but as well, she's offering her time to assist people in filling out any type of applications or support they need. So she's there, I believe, three hours during the day on Wednesdays.

Okay. All right. Anything else you'd like to add?

I would just touch on a question from Aldwyn Gay earlier about crimes data. So our planned outreach to the Robinwood community was really born in 2023 based on the research Tola was doing and the crime stats that he was pulling together. I'm going to be very honest. I have not looked at the stats for the last couple of months. We usually see them a little bit later.

Mean, you often go in to try and do the analysis. But can we speak you know, we're not going to kind of claim it's very hard to claim that there's any direct parallel between the work you do to support the community and residents and to provide pathways for youth who are at risk and directly link that back to crime data. But I do think there's been some improvements over the past year which are very encouraging. I don't know if you can speak to that in any more detail.

I think the only thing I can really say is that we were tasked to try to prevent gun violence. And I don't think there was any murders in Robin Wood last year. But, you know.

Yeah. So we would not claim that any way that that that we can establish that link. But it's really just to be clear that our that was our focus. It's what we can do to prevent violence, gun violence in particular to provide pathways to our youth. And the other thing I will just say that through the youth outreach in the high schools and through the Options Program, that's also been a feeder to the city's internship program.

And we've been able to bring some of those youth into that program. So we're trying to build out all of the connections and the partnerships and work collaboratively with community organizations who are doing the same necessarily replicate but partner and support them in their work as well.

Right. In my experience, everything we do helps. Everything helps. So alderman yes. Alderman Huntley.

I just had a brief it's more of a kudos, but there is a question. I think it's really exciting and really impressive to see that we are distributing xylazine test strips. That is something that I I would hazard a guess that if we went around the country and asked other cities that there are very, few other folks who are out on the front doing that and addressing that issue. I'm just I'm curious what you if either of you can speak to this, and feel free to say if not, what you hear when you're distributing both those and the fentanyl test strips. Do you generally get the sense that most folks are really maybe this is the wrong way to phrase it, but they're enthusiastic that they are looking for these and they're trying to avoid these drugs?

So our outreach coordinator and and thank you for what I said. Our outreach coordinator, Tiana Hayes, is not here. But I know from speaking with her that, yes, people are very, you know, excited to be able to get some of these materials. She even fought to kind of we were getting the first test strips, I think they had to it was like a urinalysis or test or whatever. And she she had a lot of people asking her for test strips that they can just use for their, you know, their product per se.

And Tiana's exceptional job. She is great. All men gay.

And I'm sorry. I was just going to add that the NAM substance abuse prevention program that the mayor's office, that Tiana delivers through the mayor's office is under the umbrella of the city's opioid intervention program which is managed by OEM. So it's a partnership program. And And Teona works very closely with OEM as well on her outreach activities. And Director Simmons is always, you know, a great guide and resource and reports on the overall impacts of that work. Do you have I'm thinking now.

Do you have an update on the person that we're supposed to hire that we've been talking about since July?

Can I get your update tomorrow?

That sounds very good because we've been talking about this for quite

a

while.

Mhmm.

And we understand and we know that we need that additional person to do the work that needs to be done in the community. Yeah. So if we can speed it up Mhmm. From July Yes. That would be great. Okay.

Alderman Lindell, Charles, is that someone who was that position was added in the budget?

Yes. It was.

Okay. So I'll just let you know, at the next finance committee meeting, we've asked the director of HR to come and provide us an update on all the positions that were added to the budget and where they are in the hiring process.

I'm pretty it's a very small amount. Thing I will just clarify United budget are not budgeted under salaries in the city. They're budget under the program. So it's program dependent. It's like a grant. The council has been kind enough to Annapolis United was its own funded program. The council was gracious to give us an internal grant, if you like, for no harm. Those have been amalgamated together. So it comes out of that like a grant program, more or less.

Thank you for the clarification, Ms. Patton.

And I just want to say, as far as NAM, we've had Winter Health Fair. I want to give kudos to Tiana for partnering with the Merriam Department of Labor and Community Legal Action Fund to provide two expungement fairs. One was at the Annapolis Library, one was at the lighthouse. And she was able to well, they were able to bring in the NBA and several partners to help people with their, you know, quality of life issues. And that's something we've definitely been working on with Chief Simmons, the OEM and the OPT.

That's been hugely successful, those expungement programs. Yes. Extraordinarily well attended.

Thank

you. And another Annapolis idea that has really brought in county partners and other partners. So, you know, a great I just applaud Tiona and the team and all the partners involved in that. It's been great.

Thank you all so much. What a wonderful presentation as well as information that's been extraordinarily helpful to many I'll get to it. Many residents in our city. I have peripheral vision, you know. Alderman Gay has a question. Thank you.

Did you get just a breakdown for now. So previously, that we were giving you $40,000 and you all were splitting it four ways. You would get 10. OEM would get 10. How was it being split before the opioid money came in? Well and don't get me wrong. It was was it 35 or 40,000? I know it was

No. That was like the very beginning.

35.

But I think at at some point, part of it was county and city funding so everyone could be funded because we probably have had steadily 40,000, $4,050,000 every year just banan.

This is something that the expert can speak to.

Just quickly if possible.

He's next Kevin Simmons, emergency manager for the city. It it takes about somewhere about 150,000.

But what are you getting? What am I getting? So pre opioid litigation and them allocating funds to the units for for opioid intervention, the city and the county were allocating funds. And I if I remember correctly, it was somewhere between 35 and $40,000, then it will be split between the four programs, one run by OEM, one run by the mayor's office, fire, and police. Is that right?

No. So the 35,000 that we get from the county, that goes to OEM. All that goes to OEM. So the other three programs right now are funded by the opioid restitution funds that we secure.

But it hasn't always been like that.

It has not always been like that. We we've gotten grants. One year we had a $189,000 worth of grants that we split amongst us. And we don't split it evenly. It's it's based on the demands of that program.

So fire department gets a lot because most of the folks that work in their program are working on overtime. So that's that's lot more than than OD free, which is in emergency management. And I think in second, the largest budget second is NAM. So we've transitioned recently to the opioid restitution funds plus the 35,000 that we get from the health department.

So the city is no longer allocating the 35,000 because we're relying on the opioid funding?

We've allocated the 35,000. So the city supplemented what we didn't get from a from the opioid restitution funds. So we have Okay. But I'm saying okay.

So pre op pre opioid lawsuit, the city or the county was given the four programs somewhere between 35 and $40,000, and they were splitting it about 10,000 each. I remember having that conversation very vividly during the budget season because they were saying it wasn't enough. So

I think it was one time that we did that. But Okay. If you can imagine, $10,000 for each one of these programs is just like a drop in the bucket. Exactly. So when we didn't have a grant, and I think Dave Jarrell was the city manager at the time. We we hit the city up for like a 140 some thousand dollars. If my member if my memory is correct. And then that's supplemented with the 35,000 that we received from the health department. And again, to run all four programs is about a $150,000.

Alright. So

So I'd I'd have to look it up. I'd have look up the history to to give you exact

And I I I asked because I am interested in expanding what we do for opioid intervention in the city. I'll get to why in a second. In 2023 and and by the way, MK sends out these fantastic substance abuse reports. I don't have December's, which would have been last, but I have November's. So as of November, in my ward at least, in 2023, we had a hundred and thirteen overdoses total. This year, we have seventy one. This is as of November. And we had, fatal overdose twelve fatal overdoses up to November year. This year, we have eight. So everything is obviously going down, which is good.

And I think that it has a lot to do with, obviously, your work, NAM, the fire department, the police. What I'm concerned about is that I think now for at least the last six years, we've been, you know, getting in the same circle of Narcan, fentanyl strips, etcetera. And I think that we could do so much more. And particularly because we are getting funding from litigation, and I know what they do in Baltimore with the funding that they get from litigation, they are not just buying fentanyl strips, resource packets, all of this stuff. They're sending people to rehabilitation centers.

They're bringing in community therapists, you know, transforming how you interact with somebody that's going through addiction. And so I think that we're at that point where we can get away from filling up the vending machines, we can get away from buying the Narcan. You know, it's always good to have those things, the resources available, but we can also start getting people the legitimate help that they need. In particular, I won't use the name, but there's several instances in Eastport that we've discussed where the, the individual wants help. They wanna get the assistance.

But if you're only taking me to Crownsville and I could get a $20 cab back to Annapolis so I can buy whatever substance I need, I'm really not getting it's just a vicious cycle. And so I hope we can break that and start really, really utilizing those funds in a way that transform opioid addiction.

And I think we're I'm always open to to new things. And you're right. But I will also tell you that what we've been doing for the last since 2017 is working, I. E. Your ward. Your ward used to excel and be number one and it used to be the most overdosing ward. Now you're down to number three. Now you're down to number three.

We're And that's why I think the work is good, but we we could always just, you know, try to put put in, you know, other programs. So maybe we go from three to eight. You know? I I I'm not knocking any of the work that you've done. Just thinking outside of the box in particular because I asked for the the opioid restitution fund from finance.

And they were saying as through 12/3124, a hundred and twenty six thousand one hundred ninety five thousand dollars and thirteen cents have been allocated. And I'm curious what

been allocated or in the camp?

I'll I'll double check on that.

Because I'm a need I'm a need every bit of that

I'm seeing

this coming budget.

It says op okay. You're right. It says opioid restitution fund balance as of 12/30/2014 '24. So that, we'll see 35 But but if not, you're sitting on a $126,195.13.

So so that with the 35,000 I'm getting from the health department will get us where we need to be Okay. For another for another fiscal year.

I'll follow-up and and make sure I'm reading this right. But for the record, it says the opioid restitution fund has a balance on $12.31 24. So unless you've spent anything in the last thirty days, it's a $126,195.13. So

And, Norman Gay, if I may, I think your question goes to the heart of a decision that will lie before the council in the coming year. We truly appreciate the council support for the initiatives of the mayor and I have had many people across the city say to me it's the first time we've had an administration that comes out to us. But we know with an election and a new mayor and a new administration, priorities may change. And I do think that is something I will be following up with Director Simmons, with the other directors, and bring to the Council for those to think about those decisions as we go forward into a new financial year with a new administration coming. So I think your question about what is the next phase is a very pertinent one from that aspect as well.

Doctor. Correct for the record, kid, because I don't want to have anybody in trouble. And or the you used only last year, $19,045.35.

When you when you say you

It says op opioid restitution funds used through so from I'm assuming January through December '4, $19,000.45 or $19,045.35. But I'll get clarity on this just so that we can see exactly because I'm not again, I think the program is doing phenomenal. That's why my award has dropped significantly. I'm just curious where we could, say, take $50,000 and put in a separate fund and allow you to, you know, send somebody to a rehab facility if they really, really need to or or or get them some connected community therapy help or something like that. So thank you for all that you

do.

I'm sorry. Just want to add, you know, respect to what you said, but Baltimore City, you know, had a had a separate case than our jurisdiction. Know, they separated themselves from the state. So their settlement was way more than, you know, what we have. The second thing I would ask you to look at is the cannabis tax fund at the county, because a lot of that money is supposed to be used for distressed communities, and the communities we work in are in those areas, zip codes. But also, again, the money that's supposed to be used to help people, you know, get into rehab and change their life. So I would look at that if you have the opportunity. Thank you.

Thank you all so much for presenting on ID 2525.

Thank you.

Thank you

very much. We're going to slide right on into ID 3625, which is office of emergency management update.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Evening. I'm Kevin Simmons. Emergency manager, City of Annapolis. Huntley, are you a terp?

You know it.

My wife's a terp.

So is mine. That's where we met. So

I'm gonna give an update, and it's gonna be on Ward 1. So we're gonna talk about a substance use disorder, and we've already talked a lot about it. We're gonna talk about some flooding that we had that was pretty extensive in 2024, and then we're gonna talk about talk years. Had the lowest last reported overdoses since 2015. In 2015 is when we started keeping records on overdoses.

In 2024, Ward 1 had seven overdoses. The the the first lowest was in 2015 at six overdoses. Four wards reported more overdoses than than Ward 1 in 2024. They were Wards 234, And 6. And then Ward 57, And 8 had fewer overdoses than Ward 1.

Ward 1 had no fatal overdoses reported. And the seven overdoses that they had, all of them received Narcan. So that's a first for the city. We had seven overdoses in Ward 1 and all of them received Narcan on their overdose. So that's that's over I'll Ward 1, which is seven.

And then '20 it '22 and 2023, you had one fatal in those years. You had one fatal for each year. No fatals for 2024.

Alderman Gay has a question.

Question. When parties happen downtown and say, like, somebody overdoses at Acme and they are a Ward 5 resident, when you track that data, do you count it as a Ward 1 incident, or do you count it where

it happened.

So you mean to tell me. In all of things that happened downtown in the in in Downtown Dallas, only seven incidents have happened in the last year?

Seven documented. Yes. Now now if it's if it's others that weren't documented, if it's others that received Narcan received Narcan and got up and walked away. Yeah. That's a great stuff. You know, that's it. So here are the locations where they had the overdoses.

There

were two of them on West Street, one on Northwest, two on Dock Street, one on Bloomberg Square, and one on Park Place. So a little

bit back again. Step back again, please. Most of Ward 1 overdoses along the border of Ward 2, a trend for the last four years. That's important to

note. Yep.

Director Simmons, can I just ask you don't happen to know any detail about that, the one in Park Place to you? That just seems like kind of a anomaly.

An outlier. Right? I can find out for you.

Okay. Just curious.

Thanks for pointing that out all the women. So some demographics on Ward 1 overdoses by age group. We had one in the eighteen to twenty four age range, two in the twenty five to thirty four age range. Two in the thirty five to forty four and then two in the forty five to fifty four age range. Go by race and the overdoses, you had seven overdoses, four African Americans, three were white.

African Americans still largest group of overdoses in 2024, sixty five percent of all our overdoses in the city were African American. Just some 2024 data on fatalities. These folks died. We had five in in Ward 2. We had two in Ward 32 in Ward 4, one in Ward 5, and one in Ward 6. Again, Ward 1, zero fatal fatal overdoses.

Male I'm curious, when you map the incidents in Ward 2 out, are they in close proximity physically? And also as it relates to dates? Are they happening around the same time?

I I do I can I can get that information for you? I didn't bring that with me. Fatal overdoses by race. And this is this is the whole city citywide. Non African Americans and two to white.

Fatal overdoses by age 18 to twenty four one. Twenty four to thirty four four. Thirty five to forty four one and the biggest group is fifty five to sixty four at five fatal overdoses. Historically, the city saw more individuals overdosing in the 45 age range, specifically African Americans, and that's and that's been for a long time.

Okay?

Just for you all the woman. Did you know you always say that? So we had 80 overdoses. In the city of Annapolis last year. This is the first time since 2015 that we had double digits in overdoses. Usually, we have triple digits. And I I attribute that to Narcan. We we started early. We got Narcan out there. We got the community comfortable with giving Narcan. We gave them instructions. We have a harm reduction vending machine in Eastport. So Narcan is pretty prevalent. And because they're out there using Narcan, because they're not afraid to do it, because they're stepping up, I think we see these low numbers.

And and

And the fourteen, fifteen pop ups that we had this past summer, I think every one of them had Narcan available. So to me, that also helped those outreach events. So thank you.

So if you're looking at the total eighty eighty overdoses for the city of Annapolis, if you want to go by ward, here's your snapshot. Seven in in Ward 1. Nine. In Ward 2. Eighteen. In Ward 3. Ward 4. Our highest overdosing Ward is twenty two. Two in Ward 5. Fifteen in Ward 6, two in Ward 7, and five in Ward 8.

So pretty much everybody that's overdosing when Ward 2, they're having a trouble with Narcan because they have the third fewest overdoses, but they have the highest over fatality rate. So

So we have to pull back the layers on that. I wouldn't say that was prominent thing, but we have to pull back the layers. And, you know, one of the problems I'm having is staff. You know, I don't I had a mass exodus, and I can't put too much attention into this like I I usually do.

Chief Simmons, that's that's a huge point to make, and we're gonna beat on that right now. Staffing makes a huge difference in the way we service our residents.

Absolutely.

And the reason we're having problems with staffing is salary. And I'm gonna bring it up. I'm gonna I'm gonna throw out the elephant in the room. So we've got overdoses that are directly linked to the lack of staffing because we cannot pay the correct salaries we need to pay. People are suffering, and I'm saying it.

I'm saying that I can't give the attention that I used to give to this because I I think you were at the EOC and you saw my whiteboard with the staff that I have and all the new people in there. I had a category I can do this. We're certainly gonna do this. We're gonna respond to emergencies, disasters, and crisis. This over here was is nice to do.

This down here, I'm not gonna try to even do that. And this I'll do if I can get to it. So this is this is one of these things that is a mid priority. And if I can if I can do some things with this, I will. But it slowed down a lot because my my mass exodus of staffing. I got new staffing, but they're all green.

Right.

And they won't be up to snuff in over a year. So I got the the three core people, myself, the senior emergency management plan, and the deputy doing everything, budget. We just we just running around. It it reminds me of the the old play trick. You know, you played on a stick and you're spinning it. When one gets wobbly, you go over and spin it, give that some attention. So this is one of these things that are getting wobbly, but I can't give it my full attention.

So people are are affected because you don't have the staff, because you aren't paying the salaries necessary, because folks are leaving to get jobs that pay higher salaries. And so we're suffering behind that. So there's a direct correlation, and I don't want anything to be lost on that. Thank you.

So, the saving grace with all of this is the other programs. Your Life Matters with the fire department, APDSUD program, and NAM. So they're out there in full force. They have full staffing. We stay connected and all, and they're doing great things. So they're holding up stuff. But, you know, we're not firing on all cylinders because one of us has some of these problems where we can't pay full attention to all of this.

Thank you for the explanation.

So did you know we have a harm reduction vending machine at Eastport Community that's that's working good. I I had a chat with doctor Gedden, and she's going to actually add more more stuff to the to the machine. So that this is going well. This this is going well. She's going to ask some Planned Parenthood type stuff to

the machine. Great.

Okay. We talked about the four programs. You talked about NAM, which you heard from from Tola. Your life matters, great program, originated in Florida. Annapolis Fire Department brought it here. It's been very successful. What I'm understanding is that the county's reaching out to our fire department to see if they can get something like that going over there. And we'll hear

from our fire department right after you. Thank you.

Yep. And then we have the police department's SGD program. I like this because they actually reached out to folks after they've had an an overdose, see what kind of resources that that they need or their family needs. That that's pretty important in OD free and OEM. So did you know APDSUD?

That's that's their substance use disorder program. Officers and civilian staff community liaisons or SUD specialists conduct follow ups and provide resources to overdose victim. That's that's the pretty important thing that they do. Your life matters from the fire department focused on educating the community and preventing fatal overdoses. They train hundreds of folks, city employees included, and businesses on Narcan administration, Good Samaritan laws.

And if you remember when we first started out, people wanted to know the liability of doing the Narcan thing. And I think with their education outreach, a lot of people would felt better about about doing that. And and hands only CPR. Yes, sir.

This the lieutenant White is new. There was another, gentleman running this.

Mhmm. Fair.

Yeah. Yeah. Captain Edwards. Yeah. Captain Edwards.

Captain Edwards. Yep. Captain Edwards went on to different things. And and I'm looking forward to what lieutenant White's gonna do with this program. He's certainly certainly a capable individual.

One one tidbit. When we were at the health department to that summit recently, I just had chief O'Malley, even to chat with Kenneth White and I, lieutenant White. And I mentioned to him it would be good if we we kinda, I guess, enhanced our CPR. And I had some ideas, but we can definitely talk about that. So thank you.

Okay. We talked about NAM. I think Tola did a great job in in describing NAM and what they do, and I like the way they engage young people.

Thanks to our chief of staff.

And chief of staff. Kind of a hip SUD program. And then it's it's the OD free where everything falls under the umbrella of o d free. So, basically, we coordinate the three other programs. We deal with the budget and all. We we keep up the web website for resources for treatment, and all we have the public dashboard. With overdose details. And we provide data trends and analysis on programs. And citywide overdoses. And that's Mary Kay Severowski and Brandon Gosnell, who run that.

No, Brandon has been around for a bit. He is a contractor whose funding comes from the opioid restitution funds. All right. We'll switch gears a little bit. So as you all know, Annapolis has experienced about 925% of an increase in nuisance flooding since since the nineteen sixties.

This is the largest increase in Noah's research and data of any place that they researched. Annapolis has the largest increase. No news there. So last year was challenging for us because on November on 01/09/2024, we had the third largest flood ever in Annapolis history of recorded flood history, and that was 5.1 feet over normal. And then in August 7, we had another one, and that was 4.4 feet above normal.

And that's rated as the the eighth largest flood in Annapolis history. So we we had in last year 2024, we had the two top 10 floods in the Napa's history. Never had before. Also, last year, in 2039, sixty days with minor, moderate, or major flooding. What I mean by that is 2.6 feet or higher.

We had sixty days in 2019, and that was a record. So we just blew that away. In 2024, we had approximately one hundred and twenty days at flooding at 2.6 or greater. The important thing about this slide is that if we do nothing if we do nothing, we're going to have a record setting flood once a day by 2050. So if you wanna put that in economic losses, it's a 120,000,000 125,000,000 in losses if we do nothing by 2055.

I think that needs to be highlighted. The figure is $125,285,974 in losses by 2025 if we do not address

this issue. '55.

Yeah. But excuse me. Twenty fifth '55. Is that right? If we do not address this issue. Yep. So I think that's hugely significant.

The the great thing about the city dock project

I'll be a 100 and

The great thing about the city dock project, if I'm following it correctly, is it'll lift everything up about eight foot. Is it eight foot still? And that's gonna take care of a lot of stuff. Alright. Let's shift gears again. So a lot of our unhoused folks hang around downtown. You know? In good weather, they sleep in between buildings. They find a place to sleep. Usually, somewhere in Ward 1.

So we've had some extreme weather here lately, and we our motto is nobody dies from exposure on the streets of Annapolis, and that hasn't happened since I've been here. And I don't I don't want it to happen while I'm here or when I'm gone. So we had to take some extreme measures to to make sure we keep them safe. But a little bit about the winter relief, the warming center program. It's located at the stand centers everybody knows.

We've had 63 total activations since November 12 when we first opened it up for this season. Out of that, we've had four twenty four hour activations on on January 6, January '20. We've had seven hundred and fifty six hours of activation, a total of 1,666 total patrons come every night. You know, night you come, that's that's account. So 1,066 patrons with an average of 18 or more.

I think that's a little low figure there per activation. 97% of the patrons are Annapolis residents. And I don't agree with that one because when they come in, they sign in and it's a checkbox. Checkbox says, are you a Napa's resident? So and a lot of folks mind, if I don't check-in Napa's, they they probably gonna put me out or they're gonna do something to me, send me away.

So everybody checks I'm a Napa's resident they roll in. So I don't I don't think that that's accurate. Mostly male at 80 some percent, 17% female, and eight families utilize the service. When families come in, we call crisis response. I don't I don't like the idea of little kids or adolescents or underage people being in the standing center.

We we do house them when we need to, but we call crisis right away and try to get them a different type of placement. So you you're all familiar with the extreme weather. We had the snow day where governor Moore declared a state of emergency. We had a phase two snow emergency. We received about nine inches of snow, which is our annual accumulation in one snow event.

And then on the other side, we had extreme cold where if you look at the wind chills on the certain dates like the sixteenth, it was four degrees. The twentieth, it was five degrees. Twenty first, two degrees. Twenty second, one degree. Twenty third, nine degrees. Twenty fourth, 15 degrees. Twenty fifth, 11 degrees. So that type of temperatures are dangerous. That type of temperatures is deadly. It will kill you.

So we have a number of unhoused people that we gotta keep them living. So our motto is nobody no one dies from exposure on the streets of Annapolis. So option one was to activate the warming centers for twenty four hours. And these are the dates up there, the sixth, the seventh, the nineteenth, and the twentieth. We did it for twenty four hours.

Not all the time we can we can do it for twenty four hours. So when we can't do it for twenty four hours, we go to option two. So if it's unavailable in the daytime, what we do is we get with a dot and director Moore has been great about this. He sends a bus to the Stanton Center at 06:30AM. Everybody loads into the buses at 06:30, and we take them to the Lighthouse Shelter. And they're there in the daytime. And they receive bus passes to come back to the Stanton Center. Free bus passes to come back to the Stanton Center. At night. So the lighthouse, that's great for them because they have a washer and dryer.

They can clean their stuff. They can take showers, and they can have hot meals. And they do have a hot meal at the Stanton Center and a bag lunch to go in the morning. So I just wanna thank our long list of partners with the Stanton Center. The reason we haven't the reason no one has died because of exposure is because of folks like this, the Lighthouse Shelter, a dot, apartment transportation mobile crisis, APD, and Anne Arundel Police Department, and Recreation and Parks.

And it just seems like this year, every time I used to stop there during the weekdays at 06:30 in the morning, and every seems like more than usual, there's an ambulance sitting out there for some reason. So it's a lot of ambulance calls. I like to thank my partners and the fire department as well. Well, I ran across the ambulance on Clay Street, not not at the shelter, but I own Clay Street this morning about 06:30. So for one time, it wasn't at the shelter. So that is all I have. Ward 1 wise, take any questions.

Okay. Alderman Hartley.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the budgeting for all those services that the warming center provides and what the staffing ir

that. To business. The exact numbers in my budget.

So, You know, I wanna say 40 that. Something thousand, but I'm not I'm not sure. And we're under contract with a nonprofit, Blessed in Tech. So we pay Blessed in Tech. We use we use their employees. They manage it. We we provide administrative oversight. They manage it day to day. I'm there every day, every morning at 06:30 when I get in. I lay my eyes on the place except for the weekends. So so that that's how we run it. We give them a stipend and then and they run it.

Excellent. Thank you. The other question I had for you is when you find and maybe this is as much a question for chief Ramali. When you see that there tends to be an ambulance there, do you have a sense of what is that there for typically?

So it's it's a lot of it's a lot of stuff. So I've seen this happen where, okay, you have a person, they're all out of there at 06:30. They're supposed to be on the street at 06:30. They don't have anywhere to go, and they they say chest pain trouble breathing. So when they say chest pain trouble breathing, you call an ambulance. They get in the ambulance, and they go to the hospital. And they stay warm. They do that. But many of the calls are legitimate calls as well. Any other question?

Anything else? Alderman Gee, I can't believe you don't have a question.

I thought all of mine was out early.

I'm sorry?

I got it out early.

Okay. Well, that's too late for that.

Thank you so much, directors. We really do appreciate you.

Okay. Thank you all.

Thank you. And we will move into our next order, which is our fire department, which is ID 3525. Good eve good evening,

And I

other of

think I the

think case. The States.

United

we're

And proud proud proud proud of of that. We're even more proud to let the council know that in this case, two of the three are Anapolitans. Were born born and raised here and have grown up in the city of Annapolis. Congratulations. We're glad to see them here tomorrow, and they'll be joining the ranks of our department. With that, I'll turn it over to deputy chief Powell and deputy chief Lopez to talk about Ward 1 and our responses.

Thank you. Good evening.

Good evening.

Next slide, please. Just a quick overview of the things we're gonna review. We'll give you a citywide overview of responses for all of calendar year 2024 and then take take a look at by ward breakdown for Ward 1. We'll just talk about a couple operational challenges that we face in Ward 1, and then I'll give it to my partner, Chief Lopez, to talk about our ongoing strategic planning process. So for 2024 as a whole citywide, we responded to 13,626 calls for service.

This is an increase of approximately 500 incidents from 2023, and call volume has been increasing by roughly 500 calls per year over the last five years. So we see an 18.3% increase over a five year period. Of those responses, 75.35% are emergency medical services. That's generally a consistent number and has been for about the last ten years, between 7276% emergency medical services. Next slide, please, sir.

So by ward for 2024, Ward 1 saw us twelve sixty five times. It was our second busiest ward in the city. I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge miss Sean Wampler in GIS because by ward tracking is generally not a function that we track, and our software reporting platform does not capture it that way. So she was actually able to go back and and draw that data out of our reporting system and populate it by Ward. There was a In GIS, you did that?

Sean and g I Sean Wanfler and GIS did this for us. Yes. There was about 10%. 1,200 and something that she could not quantify. They were dispatched as an address of West Street, as an example. They're not all West Street, but just as a singular example, West Street could fall into several different wards or even into Anne Arundel County. So we're continuing to evolve and work with her to refine this data capture. We're moving towards a GPS longitude, latitude capture of the data, so she will be able to plot them specifically everywhere.

Any reason why ward that's this Ward 1 is the second busiest ward. Any thoughts?

I I don't know, ma'am. I we I tried to go back and pull the breakdown of dispatch types, EMS versus fire versus rescue, and compare that into each ward, and I was not successful in capturing that data. I I don't. I would it would be speculative, but I think that our community visitors and tourists, especially in the summertime and the busy weekends and busy naval academy times, do contribute an uptick in in our call volume during those periods. And those calls seem to be focused in the Ward 1 area.

Makes sense.

I'd also speculate while we're on that that, you know, we have an older population in Ward 1 that contribute to some of those EMS calls as well?

Correct. Yes, sir.

I agree.

I have a question.

Yes, sir.

5,825 calls, of that, a 1,300 roughly are the ones that she couldn't track?

She could not capture 1,300 approximately, so she lumped them into the county or mute that that's all mutual aid responses. Some occasionally, we go to Queen Anne's County, occasionally to Prince George's County.

Is that excessive or no? It seems like you and, again, I'm just looking here. Are you doing more mutual aid than It's it's pretty standard.

We do two thirds of our calls in the city of Annapolis and a third of our calls outside the city of Annapolis. Okay.

That's about right. Yes, sir. So with with the data she couldn't capture just being lumped in there inflates that number slightly. But but chief from Ali's correct is historically about two thirds in the city and one third out. Next slide, please, sir. One statistical piece we would like to highlight citywide is our fire loss, the dollar

we're to

the results

the

in total fire loss in the year. City. Also, to highlight in 2024, we had no civilian fire injuries or deaths, and our last fire death in the city was in 2010. So knock on wood, the men and women of the Annapolis Fire Department are fantastic at their job. They're the best in the country.

I'd put them against anybody, and they do a great job. And it's because of them and proactive programs along with our response programs that we continue to be effective. And to borrow an analogy from chief Simmons about spinning the plates, our staff are very good at wearing many different hats and doing many different jobs, and we certainly appreciate all the work they do. Just some operational challenges, and these are not anything new or acute for us. We have challenges in some of the colonial era construction in the historic district because fire codes were not a thing then.

Another challenge in those occupancies is renovations over time and evolving from, you know, original colonial era construction and then being renovated, you know, we'll say once a century since. There's just different layers of construction contained in the same building. Sometimes there's void spaces, different construction materials, and things of that nature. Streets are always a challenge. We we do our best, and we take great care in engineering designing our fire apparatus to accommodate the narrow streets.

But but they do present a challenge, especially in areas where there's parking on both sides of the street. State Circle as an example. It's a challenge. It's tough. But again, our staff are trained and are good at that.

One thing we are appreciative of is the council's support and passing of ordinance one dash 22 back in 2022, which will require buildings on Main And Francis to be sprinkled within five years of the inaction of that ordinance, which is coming up in April '27. Again, we appreciate the city's support with the sprinkler loan revolving fund and the tax incentives that they provided the property owners for getting the sprinklers installed. That's

May I ask a couple questions, Alderman? Sure.

Go right ahead, Alderman.

Got sort of two categories of questions on this. One about the narrow streets and one about the sprinkler system. On the narrow streets, funny enough, I was just talking with the resident about this this morning. To what extent has the department looked at having, let's call them, atypical firefighting apparatuses? I've I've heard of some other towns around the country having basically smaller vehicles. How do you guys think about that, and how much have you explored that?

We well, we have. In fact, that's in our last generation of fire engines that pump water and bring hose. We've actually downsized those. We've gone to shorter wheel bases, shorter height overall, kind of took them back to a back to basics type design pattern where it was less things to go wrong. They were more user friendly, more simple, more compact.

That helps with turning radiuses. It helps with, you know, widths. Both of our ladder trucks in the city are the hook and ladder tiller trucks. So they with them being articulating in the middle as they are, that also helps with turning radius. It allows us to get through the tighter streets, make turns, and they not necessarily tighter, but in a more calculated manner.

Yeah. Well, gotta tell you this. You were talking about State Circle. I am very impressed that you could ever get around State Circle Or my street, Dean Street, is another one that is I actually had to have a fire truck called to Dean Street last year, and, golly, that you guys can even get down that is it's a real testament to your work and your skill. Thank you.

On the sprinkler system ordinance, I've heard a lot of concerns from our businesses, and so a lot of this comes beyond the the fire department's control. But around there there are sort of two distinct problems, I understand. Is around the city's permitting of it, which is we all know is an issue with all all sorts of types of permitting. But the other is around the who does and can install these. So I understand there's a very limited number of of companies that work on installing sprinkler systems.

Do you think that there is any assuming you had the appropriate resources for this, that it would make sense to create the ability within our fire department to do some of that work in house and have businesses pay for it. Because I understand so much of the problem is just Annapolis is so unique, and that's why we only have this one one person interested in doing it.

So there are several sprinkler companies out there that can install sprinkler systems. So I'm not sure where that's coming from. As for the fire department doing something in house, it would not be cost effective, plus the expertise and the requirements and skills you have to have to install the sprinkler systems is something. Now we we look at it. We have a very good fire marshal's office.

We have a fire protection engineer on staff. And if alternatives are brought to them, they will check on it to see if we're doing. Of to a owners compared to the tenants and who's responsible. There's a challenge with the ordinance as is in place, and that's why it's in front of some of your committees now because of the residential aspect because we have multi different types in the buildings, some business and then some residential above. There was a problem with the ordinance, so that's being corrected.

I do have concerns that because of the timing that not a lot of people have taken supplements. And when we get to this timeline on 2027, what's the council and the city's stance going to be about these buildings? Are we going to pull use in occupancy permits? Are we going to start finding people? Do we need to extend the time period? And I know that's being worked through on a lot of committees currently.

Thank you for the feedback on it. Do you think there are additional changes that are worthwhile to I I guess my question is sort of more broadly. How do you think we can get more of these folks to comply? Do you have any thoughts on it? Because it seems to be a really thorny problem as I talk to our businesses.

It's I don't have an answer. Okay. It's a hard sell. It really is.

Yeah. It's a it's a big expense and Sorry. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Alderman. I agree with you. Maybe you weren't suggesting it, but I'll suggest it. You probably should pull use in occupancy permits. I remember you showed us a video a while back of a place with a sprinkler, a place without a sprinkler, and it's night and day, just the response that it makes.

And then also, when we had a chance to go out to the navy thing and, you know, be firefighters for a couple hours and to see yeah. I I just I don't understand it, especially within a historic building. I wouldn't extend it's not my ward. I'll demand a courtesy, obviously. But I think, obviously, the economic value of the buildings, the history in five years, and the money to implement the project to me seems like you should start pulling occupancy permits at some point because it's about people more than anything.

So what I can tell you is we've been through this. We just talked about having a very good year with fire loss being down. One major fire downtown would to triple that, and we don't need you saw the wildland fires in California. Now I'm not equivalent to the wildland fires, but because our buildings are old in construction and are together so closed, we've seen when one of them catches fire, then we have problems with exposures, and that's why we're very proud. Our units get there quickly, but we get wind coming off the water. There's a lot of things that play into factors that could create that, and that that was part of the reason that we don't want another historic district fire, and that's why the council voted on this ordinance.

Finally, our strategic planning process. Our last strategic plan for the fire department was back in 2004. The fire chief directed me and the staff to start working on it. So we decided to use the Center for Public Safety Excellence model of strategic planning that has been used for neighboring jurisdictions. A committee internally has been established.

Diverse cross section of members within the department. Diverse being both rank and cultural diversity. We have a in the process of developing and will be implementing both internal and external stakeholder surveys, evaluating needs as well as expectations of the fire department by both employees as well as the citizens of the city of Annapolis. Our expectation for this committee is to have a draft document to the fire chief to review by September 2025.

Is that is that normal for it to be twenty years? A twenty year gap in the strategic plan? Or is it just something happened and you hadn't had a chance to get to it? Not that I'm not

I don't have an answer. It is that was many years before I was here. Typically, you would reestablish strategic plan as the last one kinda comes to the end of its life of ten, fifteen years. This has been twenty years.

So the census. Ten years like the census.

Yes. Okay.

You're aware, in the last budget cycle, the union went and had the International Association of Firefighters do their own study. We wanted to add onto that study and and take a look at that as part of our strategic planning. As you know, there's some concerns about our staffing levels, and we agree that we have to at that. We also have to be cost effective for the citizens of Annapolis and be good stewards of the taxpayers' money. And we wanna make sure that the studies have the proper documentation to go along with it.

That was part of getting the right people in positions. As you've been seeing, we've been moving people around within the department so that we could we're very proud of everybody wearing so many hats in our department. But with that, we sometimes overtax our employees. And as we add more stuff to it, stuff falls off the plate. Hopefully, that's not anything major, but we've been doing so much for so long with less that it's coming to the point that we want to make sure, but we want the data to be there to support this planning, and that's what this strategic plan is all about.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Alderman Gay has two questions.

The first one is right in line with exactly what you were just talking about in your first question or remark. Actually, software when you were saying GIS was helping assist with all of that. How much does our department rely on technology? And is that something where, you know, we can afford to spend a a a few, you know, $100,000 or even million dollars if it, you know, you think it will drastically benefit the department in in both collecting statistics and then also, you know, technology just advanced even in fighting fires sometimes. Like

you bring up a a very good point and a very good question that you will see in our budget this upcoming year. Fantastic. We have we have just moved to we've moved platforms. We've we've moved to a new fire reporting system, a new staffing payroll system. And I have firefighters that are trying to put these systems together that are not IT experts.

IT attempts to help us, but because of their staffing levels, they can't do it. And the technology and the fire service and what we're going to And like our counterparts in public safety behind me and the police department who have two people that work for them that strictly do their IT stuff or their computers and their the units and stuff. We don't have anybody dedicated to that, and that's taking away from uniform personnel. So we know how hard it is to get positions in the budget. Within the last budget year, you all helped us, and we were able to increase some of our software applications.

But that technology continues to grow. And as it grows, there's a lot more that goes along with it, a lot of upkeep, and we're we're working on that. So I can tell you in the upcoming budget, you will see some request with a position to manage those programs for us, and that's in conjunction with our IT department. Brian Pakman, the director, knows that that's coming forward. He supports it. We've been in to talk with him, and I can let Chief Powell tell you a little more about it, but I I know that they support it. It's pretty passionate to both of these people to my right and left that we need somebody to help us with this because we just don't have the technology. And we're trying. They're trying. And we've got some cheap officers to down the firefighter level that all have expertise, but it's taken away from the jobs they're supposed to be doing every day, and it's it's taking a toll.

Actual actual employee or do you want it

contracted out? It it would be a contract position

Okay.

That would be able to

Full time.

Take care of not only the hardware and the software, but the programs themselves.

Gotcha.

So, yeah, it would all be part of a whole package.

And then my second question, the fireboat. Have you bought the boat on

The fireboat is on order.

Okay.

That it it's on order, but it's gonna take up to eighteen months to build.

Okay.

So that that process has moved forward.

Thank you.

Now we appreciate the support with that.

Two things I wanna mention. Number one, it can be overlooked. The devastating fires that were in California and just so we're prepared for whatever happens. And I know the terrain that we have is totally different from California, but just we wanna be confident that we're prepared for any kind of major issue that should arise here. That's number one. And number two, my understanding is that we sent over a diver over to DC today to assist with with the tragedy that occurred last night. Is that correct?

So that is a correct statement. We did get a request last night from emergency management around 12:00 last night that came from DC's emergency management agency who had requested marine resources from Anne Arundel County in Annapolis. So Annapolis does not have a standalone dive team. We are part of the Anne Arundel County dive team, which runs out of the Annapolis next station that we share with the county. I talked to chief Powell, and we had agreed that our divers would go with them if they were deployed.

They were put on standby early morning hours. Actually, around 10:00 last night, they were put on standby. They weren't deployed until this morning. We did have resources there with them all day today. And we there was actually a plan for additional team to go tonight, but they backed off on that currently as they're reevaluating how they're going to continue to assess that situation.

But yes, that's part of the program we have. It's part of us utilizing resources from throughout the region. I can also tell you that we had a tragic loss in Montgomery County about a week and a half ago where they lost a firefighter on a mutual aid fire in Prince George's County. That firefighter lived in Anne Arundel County. Annapolis Fire Department actually provided units to go to Montgomery County and staff their stations while they grieved in their process and were able to lay our fellow firefighter to have his funeral.

And we have those partnerships throughout. As for being prepared, I can tell you we're as prepared as we can be. We train all the time. Those fires in California are devastating. It because while they have wild land fires, those wild land fires went through some cities that are not used to wild land fires. We talked a little bit earlier about the downtown district. We know that one fire, because our buildings are so close together, could spread to another. We know that wind driven fires cause us problems. We have had major wind driven fires coming off of the bay that really affect the firefighting operations, but we continue to train for that. We'll do our best, and we will utilize our mutual aid partners to to handle any situation that comes up.

Great. The other thing I wanna mention I would suggest, because I heard two sets of news stories today, and they named all the partners that were part of the team that went over to D. C, and Annapolis wasn't one of them. So we might wanna get a press release out to let people know that we were part of that as well. That's just a suggestion.

Okay. Yeah. Ours is a we are part of the Anne Arundel County team, so we're included in that, but we we will make sure that people understand that we we did assist.

That we we respond to things beyond the four walls of Annapolis.

Oh, well, that's that's evident every day as people see our units going up and down, Route 50, Route 2, Route 97. So that's very common.

Yes.

We could yeah. We can't really do it without our mutual aid partners, and our mutual aid partners rely on us all the time. But any call, given day, you're gonna see the United States Naval Academy, which is Naval District Washington Fire Department, Annapolis, and Anne Arundel County working hand in hand. And as the deputy said earlier, we we've had units responding to Queen Anne's County recent recently. We assisted Montgomery County, and we'll continue to do that.

I like to hear it on the news, especially if it's a national story. I think our name should be mentioned.

I understand.

It's extremely important. Thank you so much for everything that you do. You have another question?

I do. Just a very quick comment and a question I want. How are you all how are you all so successful at recruiting? Because I see so many of my classmates doing fire related stuff. It's awesome. I mean, people that graduated before me, people that graduated in the same class as me, people that graduated after me, working with Anne Arundel in Annapolis. And I I another friend of mine, I think, just was I I think they were sworn in recently. I don't know. How are what what are you doing in the community that says, hey. Come work with us and and and be a part of community public safety.

So I just I believe it's the employees that work for us that promote our department. We have a diverse group of recruiters, and it's just a part time gig for them because they're they're full time jobs, firefighter paramedics, but they get out there too. It's hard for us when because when we hire, we only hire two to three people at a time. So we you know, there's a lot of people. It's it's a very great job. We'll tell you it's the best job in the world. And that people see us out there, and I think that our people just promoting the department. I can tell you, and I'm sure that our firefighters and other people would say that, you know, there are salaries. Everybody would like higher salaries, but that we are competitive with our surrounding jurisdictions. And when we're competing for these people, we're competing with very large jurisdictions.

We're competing with Prince George County and Arundel County, the large jurisdictions around us, and we've been very successful in filling our positions because I can tell you they have recruit fire schools going on now, and it's hard to to get qualified people that wanna do the job now. But you've gotta wanna do it, You've gotta be able to wanna go into burning buildings, climb ladders, and it's not for everybody. And sometimes we have people that they find that out as they're going through fire school. But I I attribute it to the people that work for us because they promote our department, and they know we have an excellent department to work for. And we're sort of too big to be small, but too small to be big type of department.

But the call volume that we have, the responsibilities we have in the city of Annapolis. And I've told the council, because it's hard because of our size, population, the size the city is, but you can't really find a a city fire department out there that has to deal with what we deal with every day with being the state capital, having the naval academy here, the it's it's just Annapolis is such a great place to be, but we bring a lot of people in for the boat shows, for navy football games. It's just we it's a great place to work, and I think that it shows. And we don't have the turnover, and I'm I'm proud of that. And I'd like to be able to say it, but we haven't had the major turnover at some of the other jurisdictions. And I think it's because when people do come to work for us, they know we have a great place and they're part of our family.

Yeah. Yeah. I do a fantastic job, and it it makes me happy. Like I said, that it seems like a community department. And I think that's reflected in how you respond to our communities and how you engage with our communities as well. Thank you all.

Doctor. Thanks.

Doctor. Thank you again so much. Alright. And we're going to move on to ID 3525. Annapolis Police Department.

As I promised, eight thirty.

No. Because you asked a lot of questions. Baby, I got a hot So don't I got hot date. Don't don't be perturbed by alderman Gay. Good evening.

Good evening. How are you? How are

I'm doing well. Everybody's fresh and ready to roll?

No. We're ready to roll.

Your mic is not on.

Oh, you're on. There

you go.

We're gonna rush you because we haven't had a meeting in several months. And so

Well, if

it And alderman Gay had quite a few questions.

Yes, ma'am. And if it pleases you, madam chair, first, I'd like to give an overview of the things that we've done in 2024, and I know the concentration is gonna be in Ward 1. Then the things that that I can't answer, I'll defer to my command staff.

Do you have a PowerPoint?

Yes. We do. Okay.

Can you introduce your staff?

Yes. I will. Yes, ma'am. I start to my far right, and that's captain Amy Miguez.

The prettiest one at the table?

Commander. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Commander of administrative services. And to my immediate right is captain Lamar Howard, and he's our operations commander.

I'll have him speak on a a few things tonight. And to my left is, of course, everybody knows the deputy chief, Stan Branford. And then to his immediate left is our new public information officer that I'd like to introduce to everybody, and that's Cortland Jackson. And in full disclosure, I don't he's not my son. Would be happy to have him as my son, of course, this handsome young man, but I don't want the capital calling me tomorrow and asking me if I hired my family member.

So same last name, though. So we're really happy to have him. And he comes with just a kind of experience that we need. First of all, I think he'll connect real nicely with young people. And we're gonna ask him to do more than just reporting on crime.

He's gonna do a whole array of things, tell Naples police story the way I've been wanting and the mayor asked me to do for a number of years. So we're really happy to have him. I wanna thank chief Romali and director Simmons. When we were searching for a PIO, they were very instrumental in assisting me because we are going to approach this a little bit differently as a public safety team. As a matter of fact, I think chief O'Malley, if he's still here, he he has committed to have him to work side by side with his captain.

And so it's still a work in progress. As we speak now, we're sending him to a number of training before And we're we're we're to be do that. A nice foundation before

Welcome, And sir.

We put him in a hot seat. So

I think

I've accounted for everybody. And I'd just like to start off by saying I think I'm very proud of what we've been able to accomplish in 2024. Of course, the nature of what we do puts us we have to confront many challenges both internally and externally. But I think at the end of the year, the the the the PowerPoint will show that a lot of good things has happened in the Annapolis Police Department from January 01/01/2024 up until New Year's Eve, 12/31/2024. And we are hoping to expand on our successes in the year 2025, this year.

So also, I like to mention while I'm talking about personnel, in a few weeks, we'll be bringing on board two new command staff members. One is Guy Thacker, currently a colonel in Baltimore City. He's joining the the team. He has thirty two years of experience, and he's currently command of the SWAT team and responsible for a lot of citywide initiatives in Baltimore. And then we're bringing in Lakisha Blue.

She's going to assume many of the duties that the former professional standards manager Rhonda McCoy was responsible for. But she's going to concentrate on internal affairs and the administrative charging committee and the police accountability board. So she's gonna and work with legal work with Carrie Berger, attorney Carrie Berger, and and and help with the some of the legal issues centered around what we do and the disciplinary process to prepare help prepare for trial boards, etcetera. And so we're looking forward to having them to join the team. Also, I'd like to take just a moment to give an update, a quick work, and I hope I will bring them back before the council the immediate future to talk about some of the things that we've done.

They've done a very good job in updating the policy to make sure that the policies are congruent to the standards. And they've done a wonderful job to provide CALEA the proofs. I think two weeks ago, we had an on-site visit, and that went very well. CALEA sent a commissioner, or an assessor, I should say, to Annapolis, and he interviewed some of our personnel and looked at some of our systems. They were very pleased with what they saw.

So, I'm really hopeful that come August, I think, or the sixth through the ninth of this year, we'll be in Little Rock, Arkansas to receive our credentials, you know, stating that we are full participants again. I hope that we'll be back into compliance before then, but they have a national conference when they present your certificates, and that's not until August. I think it starts on the August 6, and the conference runs from the sixth through the ninth. So, I'll be in attendance along with my staff. And like I said, I'll bring Kayla Ziegler, who is our advocate.

She works with the Police Accountability Board as a community advocate, and she also works with the CALEA standards. And she's really enjoying it and doing a good job. Also, officer Melanie Williamson is working with her along with sergeant Hernandez, Tanya Hernandez, doing inspections. And also, and then I can't forget him. Lieutenant acting captain Hilo Hurley, they're doing it under his leadership and under his direction. So I'm really happy about the job. Thanks, deputy. That Hilo Hurley is doing to get us back into compliance.

Looking forward to that, chief. Looking forward to that.

Yes, ma'am. And I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I've been very hands on. As a matter of fact, today, I gave them direction, and we rewrote the mission statement to make it more relative. Our goals and our objectives are congruent to our mission statement, and those are the kind of little things that I've identified that I know CALEA will expect from us. And it read very well and we're excited to get that back into compliance. I want to thank Carrie Berg as well because everything that we do, we generally give it to her to review and look at it to make sure the language is professional and meet the standards of what assessors expect. So I'm very, very excited at our progress with CALIA.

Paul McGay? I have a question on because I wanted clarity on we are are we I don't I personally don't believe we're missing out on anything too much while, you know, this accreditation issue is being resolved. I'm looking here and it's not all I'm on their website. They build standard in public safety. We're not the only department in Maryland that's not in CALEA. And so it isn't a travesty that we're not involved in this.

No, sir. It's not. And as I

I just want clarity on that

for the Yes,

sir. I mean, nobody's taken into account, and that's what I've been trying to express for a long time now. The challenges were immense. The challenges that COVID presented, many police chiefs. When I went down to Montgomery, Alabama, we weren't the only one. Chiefs were just like me. They had to prioritize. And when you have upticks in crime, you know, I put everybody in Eastport, you know, to deal with that. So and that's real. I I stick to that because it's the truth.

And so you have prioritize. So I'm glad you brought that point up, Alderman Gay, because the reason why we're not in it is not unusual. Many agencies have had to reevaluate. Now, what we have done though, is now we have people dedicated to CALEA. Every day they come to work, they're dedicated to CALEA. So we didn't have that before. We had one person doing it and it was just too much. Now we have three, and we have the right people doing it with the kind of education in the background and the writing skills to get us back into compliance.

My last question on this. How much do we pay once we are accredited and we're enrolled in the programming? How much does the city pay them to be involved in this and take advantage of their resources?

I may have to get back to you, but I want to say around $5,000 Yeah. I it's somewhere around that. It's not hundreds of thousands. It's a it's a annual fee. It's around 5,000. But don't hold me to that exact figure. That's an estimate. And I'll I'll get back to you with that. And so we were really happy with that. And then the I'm I'm sorry, sir. Said I I don't want is anything else with clear? No. Okay. And then I would like to talk about two more things before we really turn it over to the rest of the presentation. The University of Maryland study is in, finally.

We're still reviewing it. I'm not prepared to discuss everything about it because I'm still reading it, but it's in it's about a 60

That's the workload The workload

study, and and it's about a 60 page document. It has some interesting things in it, but I wanna read it again and then have an opportunity to discuss it with my entire command staff, and we'll do that very soon. And once we do that, then we'll be prepared to go come before the council and talk about the recommendations, but we're not even prepared tonight to talk about it because the report just came to us last week, the final copy. He sent us a rough draft before the Christmas holiday of what it would look like, but now we got the official final report. I don't know. Inside of ten ten, twelve days ago?

Alderman Huntley, that's a report that we requested the University of Maryland's Yeah. Conducting to see if our staffing levels are appropriate, basically, within the police department.

Yes. And captain Meege just gave me the exact amount, Alderman Gay, and I was well, I wasn't too far. $4,600. $4,600. So I knew it was somewhere around that. And that's what we pay annually to

be One thing, Alderman Huntley, to that that was a $80,000 study, I do believe.

85,000.

85,000. Annapolis United paid for that study.

Yes. And you have paid for by Annapolis United. Thank you again. Mhmm. I think it's a good report. I've read parts of it. You know, I did my books when I was in college. I read the final chapter first, now I'm moving backwards. And to find out what they ultimately recommended, then I'm now looking at their rationale and the study itself. So we'll be able to speak to that very soon with my entire command staff. Everybody sitting at this table will take part in the discussions once we get the report read. And then we have the JOINS program up, and that's the acronym for Juvenile Offenders in Need of Supervision. It's a diversion program. I think that Tola talked about it a little bit today. It's up and running.

Smichael is the head of it, and then we're going to have everybody who can chip in to chip in. But we met with Department of Juvenile Services, and they've agreed to finance some programs involving juveniles that that could that has the ability to be diverted. Of course, all crimes can't be diverted. That's up to a prosecutor and a juvenile mass and the judges. We have to consult with the judicial system, but the eligible offenses that can be diverted.

Department of Juvenile Services, Michael brought them to office two days ago. We had a nice conversation about my vision for, you know, intervention of juveniles who have the potential to become adult offenders if there's no intervention. So, we are excited about the possibility of getting these young men and young women into programs to divert them from the criminal justice systems as adults. And so, that's fully up and running now, and all we have to do is grow it out. And lastly, of course, one of the hot topics as we enter this very new second administration, presidential administration, is, of course, immigration customs enforcement.

And we're revamping the policy. You know, Carrie Carrie has agreed to help us to make sure that the officers fully understand as it's written as a part of policy. We're going from a training bulletin to a general order to mandate that officers do certain things, what they can and cannot do constitutionally. She's going to evaluate it for us once we get it compiled to make sure that it's tight, you know. And so we're to talk about things like detainers and when you can hold them legally and when you can't.

And, you know, what our role should be as a local law one, one, other

espoused by the mayor and the council, you know, and

the in terms of how we engage, you know, immigrant populations. So we're really looking forward to that. I think it'll be a good policy, a very fair policy, you know, things like not asking them their status and all that kind of we just want to make sure they stay safe in Annapolis. And if they're victims of crime, we just focus on that, you know. Now, what the federal government does, then that's a whole different conversation. And that's where we're going to write the policy. And Kerry has graciously agreed to make sure that the policy can withstand legal scrutiny. And it has everything in there sufficiently that we need to move forward with the policy. So that's forthcoming. I'll let captain Howard talk about ward one.

But ward one is the stats are very interesting. We had a conversation just today in anticipation of this meeting, and we talked about the challenges historically when I first got here. When I say historically, I'm talking about 2019, not when Amy was here. Twenty years, thirty years ago, but when I got here.

Thirty years something.

We've talked about you know, since I got here, you know, things like ACME and and and and venues like that that were problematic. But I'll let captain Howard talk about that. I know we had you had one homicide in Ward 1, and I just want to say that real quick, and you can elaborate on that. But that one homicide, if my memory serves me correct, is the incident that developed in Baltimore City. A young man, 47 year old male, was abducted, and and he was brought to Sparrow Road and shot.

But we there was a there was an investigation that we did with Baltimore City. The actual incident was Baltimore City related. We had to take the homicide because, first of all, he was found here, and then we we we eventually got evidence that he was actually shot here. But it had nothing to do with he wasn't a resident of the city, And the reason why he was killed had nothing to do with Annapolis. He was just literally dragged out of his home in Baltimore City.

The southern part of Baltimore City, the northern part of Anne Arundel County in the Brooklyn Cherry Hill area. And he was dragged up to Annapolis. And then because they thought that would be a nice place, one of the conspirators in that crime said, well, I know a spot where we can offer him. And that's what happened. So it wasn't random act of violence against an Nantopolitan or anybody visiting here. So I just wanna and that was in your ward. And then how we had things like rapes. So we didn't have any rapes that were random. If you see three were domestic and one was known to the victim. Very few of them are by strangers.

So with those kind of rapes, we take the investigation and carry it as far as we can in terms of evidence, and then let a prosecutor decide whether they're gonna move forward based on the facts that we find. But as you can see from the slide, they were known three were domestic and and and the victim knew her assailant and the other one. Aggravated assaults, 26 of those 26, six were domestics, domestic violence or some type of relationship. We had another, what's that, 12 on the street?

Yes,

sir. Another eight in the bar, and then we had fives in residence. And the question was asked the other a few minutes ago when the fire department was here, the uptick in incidents and responses to Ward 1. Well, your ward is the most challenging, yours too, ma'am, because you have both residential areas and businesses. You have a lot of venue. And so when you have communities like that, neighborhoods like that, you're going to always experience the most overall crime. This is this index crime we're talking here. We're not even talking about, like, miscellaneous stuff like destruction of property and things like that. We're just talking about index crime, you know, your most serious crimes, homicides, rapes, robberies, and things of that nature. But you're gonna experience that because your ward is the hub where people meet you at the Naval Academy.

You have so many venues down there, and so you're gonna experience it for for that reason. But I'm happy to say from a police standpoint, most of that crime we mitigate. In other words, it's solved. It doesn't go unaddressed. And so I'll move quickly. You a the next a of do.

Sense

a crimes against persons, those are your two categories, crimes against persons and crimes against property. To my left, your left, those are the crimes against property. I'll move on real quickly to crimes against property, and those are the burglaries, had 15 of them. And then you can see it makes my point. Residential residential, business office, and most of them with no force.

Then you get down to the theft. That's the highest number of theft. Thefts are always the highest number. Shoplifting and from buildings, from motor vehicles, know, pickpock and motor vehicle taking motor vehicle parts and purse snatchings. And then the last one is our biggest challenge too with motor vehicle theft at thirteen. And if there's anything that the captain can add to that in terms of arrest, three suspects were known to the victim. Nine were unlocked, two were locked and and and recovered, and then two more were unlocked and not recovered. So if you can add to that, Captain, I appreciate it.

Good evening. So I I really wanted to provide a snapshot of a more a a true picture of the crime that's occurring in in in war one. When you look at some of the other slides, it just shows the raw number of incidents. But when you zero down and you look at, for instance, with the thefts, the shoplifting. Like the chief said, it's it's increasingly difficult to police shoplifting.

You know, you have someone going to a convenience store and they steal a candy bar. The porch pirates. I mean, we've we've we've put out information to Anapolitans at nauseam, especially when it comes to the deaths from residents, the deaths from vehicles. We we we put it out on all of our social media platforms. We've even put the VMS boards at the major thoroughfares on Forest Drive as well as Rowell Boulevard.

When you leave your car at night, lock it, remove all of the valuables, and but still, you know, it's still something that we come back on a day to day basis. And I get it. People are busy, and sometimes they may be absent minded and moving so fast that they forget. Like, we just had one the other day where, you know, a young lady left almost a $5,000 bag inside of a car. So we're we're trying to think outside of the box to have the residents be more accountable to preventing themselves from being victimized from people coming in and and and instilling their things.

But it's it's a challenge, but we we we we work at it every day along with our PIO putting it out and and as well as, again, we'll continue to utilize the BMS boards to get that information out so that we can make sure that, you know, people are are protecting themselves from becoming victims.

And we, for a hundred years, we used the uniform crime reports commonly referred to as the UCR, and it had eight index crimes. We recently America, not we, Annapolis, but the entire United States Of America because it's run the clearinghouse is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We we went to NARS, and NARS is the acronym for National Incident Based Reporting System. The point that I'm making in NARS as well as the UCR, they categorize crimes, certain crimes. They'll tell you whether police it was if it was reasonable for police to be able to prevent it.

And thefts are one of the categories that they they make it explicitly known when you leave your purse on the front seat, if you don't lock your doors, and those kind of things. There's no way you can expect police to to to prevent those. The crimes that we are charged with are those offense that we should have done by our presence. In other words, some of those crimes I had this conversation with the cap in the day. Some of those crimes, you know, we just missed it because we you know, the old adage, we can't be everywhere.

We don't have all c and I. But, technically, by our presence patrolling the street when something's taken off of President Street or right or stolen right there on Madison Street, then we should have been able to prevent that theoretically. You know, it depends on a whole lot of other variables too because sometimes we're at a homicide scene or shooting scene and all of our resources are dealing with that. And, of course, most crimes are crimes of opportunities. That's why we try very hard with my command staff to make sure that we have an even spread throughout the city.

That all my my my first concerns when something happens, a major incident happens like Paddington Place did in in in in in June 2023. When I get to the scene, I'm thinking about the rest of the city. I don't want criminals to think that because we all they are mitigating the mass shooting that our Achilles heel is all the rest of the wards. And so so that's something that we're still working at. And we have those kind of incidents. We gotta make sure that there's coverage in in in in those areas. We don't wanna leave them vulnerable. And so

Go right ahead. Uh-huh.

So two questions. One, am I reading this right that other than this homicide, there was no gun crime in Ward 1?

That that's correct.

That's excellent. Wow. That's correct. That's really wonderful work.

And I I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but I just wanna emphasize too that homicide, we that that that happened in Baltimore City. It is border, man. So we wouldn't have known that that was coming.

Right. Right.

How do I so the the crime that I hear about the most often as a complaint is theft from vehicles. So that tracks with it being a very common one. And I'll tell you, I have forgotten and left my car unlocked and had it gone through. Now I also don't keep anything valuable in my car. But I guess the question I was wondering about this is I I have a perception that that is more common in Ward 1 because we are have relatively wealthy populace.

We have folks who I think maybe show up, and also we have a more more of a density of it. So put it this way, if I was gonna go and try door handles, I'd go try it in Ward 1. Is that borne out by the data? Do you know that that tends to be a problem more in my ward, or is that just my perception?

So

when you look at the city in its the

a very part I And I and city

very

it's I don't think it's more specific of to any particular ward. I just think it's just a crime of opportunity. When you have individuals coming through that may be in the throes of addiction, if they see an area to where they can make a quick lick and to satisfy that itch on their back that night, that's where they're going. Mhmm. So I I I think it's it's it's a crime of opportunity. No award is is more picked on than any other. But when you go through a community and the the rationale is is that the doors are gonna be left unlocked and people are gonna leave valuables inside of the car, then they're gonna return and return and return.

But I will add that your wards, you're right. You have a lot of wealth down there, and they have to be vigilant in terms of not just thefts, but street crime. You know? Every it's rare in Annapolis, but every now and again, you'll get a predator. Not a person who takes advantage of an opportunity, breach or unlocked door or an unlocked home, and they see the person left and they say, oh, they left their door unlocked and go in.

That's that's bad. But what's even worse, which you to your point, what has to be underscored your ward is that you have a lot of wealth there. And it's not a secret. All over the state of Maryland, there's a lot of wealthy people in Annapolis. And so they have to be vigilant when they walk the streets at night, be aware of their surroundings, not thefts with robberies and other violent offenses.

One last question for you on this pocket picking, and I recognize really not many on there. But that's the kind of thing that I think potentially drives away tourism if people feel like that's a concern. Is there any trend you can tell me about in that? How does that typically happen? It was were all three of those one guy. Any additional information you can share on that in particular?

So I would say for the pickpocketing, a lot of that activity happens around the bars. We have people that are inebriated and not aware of their surroundings. Generally speaking, you know, experiencing pickpocketing in in in communities where you don't have establishments where they're selling alcohol. The majority of the pickpocketing incidents that we that we see here in Annapolis is happening around the bar scenes. Yeah.

Gone are the days with the old bunko squads. And and then now that and I'm embarrassed to say that I'm probably the only one sitting here to remember the old bunk bunko squads. And with bunko squads, we're professional pickpockers and scammers. One day, we operate in pairs, and then one guy would Bump you. Bump you, know, out of here. His buddy would take you or or ladies too because ladies were better at it than men. And and and that's not a DEI thing. That's a fact. The attractive woman would come up and distract the man while her boyfriend would take your wallet. But here's why I believe, and I think a lot of scholars would agree with me, the reason why we don't have a Bunco squad, nobody has a Bunco squad anymore.

We're laughing because we have probably have been the last Bunco squads probably existed twenty five years ago because everything is digital now. People don't carry cash in their values. Everything's on phones now. And so that that kind of diminished the needs. And to captain Howard's point, the ones that we have are these people who have too much to drink, and they're drunk, and they're easy target.

You can just pretty much take their wallet out and leave them a note that they were drunk and you took it and put it back in there. They would never know the difference because that's how inebriated they are. You notice the number is low. So we don't have a need for in old days, we used to follow them around and and everybody looks suspicious after a while. I you know, they would put us downtown Baltimore and you look, and after a while everybody looks like a criminal, you know, because all you do is people watch eight hours a day. And so we don't have a need for that. And because most tourists now, their money is digital.

Thank you all so much.

Crime reduction, and I'll I'll, again, have the captain speak on it. But if you look at the numbers, in 2024, we had three homicides. One was the one we just same suspect, and that was the one from Georgetown Road and Bywater And Forrest Drive in the at the Safeway. From the previous year. That was 2024 down from 2023.

2023, the numbers are high, but three of those homicides were a result of the mass shooting on Paddington Place that account for three of those homicides, and the other six were separated. But you can see it's been reduced significantly. Overall crime, I was so happy when captain Howard showed me those numbers down 67% in all categories. Contact shootings, we went from 22 down to eight, and then shots fired, you know, was cut literally in half. In 2023, 36, and then the report count is is down to to to 18.

And I'll just say this, and you can elaborate on this if you don't mind, captain. What we do that a lot of jurisdictions don't do, we go after everybody. We try to use the CCTV and the license plates readers. Some jurisdictions are so busy that if nobody gets struck, then it's just unfortunate. But we go after everybody, and we do our very best to prosecute them for that type of reckless endangerment. So whether you strike somebody or not, whether it's a contact shooting or not, if we can prosecute you, we'll go after you with the full force of the law, and we'll treat you just as aggressively had it been a contact shooting. If you wanna elaborate on that.

Yeah. So so it's it's it's no no secret to everyone in this room in 2023. We were very challenged with with handgun violence in pretty much every marginalized community in the city of Annapolis. Under the chief's guidance and the and the deputy chief's guidance and the on deck, all hands on deck approach, being able to do some different things to add some adrenaline to the crime fight, we were able to to to to to to cut into some of the numbers that we were experiencing in 2023 to what we're seeing here today. Granted, it's it's success, but we have a lot we have a long way to go.

But the most telling factor for me on that slide is the shots fired going from 18 to 36 because we all know when you have individuals pulling up to communities and they leave leaving fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty shell casings per event, each one of those projectiles that that that is fired from a weapon is a potential victim. So going after and targeting the individuals that were more likely to use a handgun in the commission of a crime, we knew that we had to do that. And we had a a a quick vehicle to do that with the open warrants that we had in the city, utilizing that open warrant list, Some of the individuals that we needed to touch, especially in the Harbor House community, they had open warrants. And, oh, by the way, when we finally caught up with them and we gave them a pair of bracelets to put on, they had handguns. They had handguns.

Mhmm.

So by doing that and by them being already prohibited, you know, we just talked to our federal partners and asked them to adopt the cases to send a strong message to everyone else. If you're prohibited and you're willing to use a handgun in the city of Annapolis, we're gonna have your case adopted by the feds, and we're gonna send you to Minot, South Dakota or somewhere where your loved ones can't come visit you. And that's the message that we're trying to send. We're we're trying to be fair, but we we want everyone to know that this is not a game that we're playing when it comes to this hang on violence.

And the beauty in all this, the because there's so many people, nice people in Harbor House that live in Eastport Terrace. Make no mistake about it, most are nice people, but it's those few who think that they can come and act, you know, wantonly and recklessly in those communities. And when we do those kind of initiatives after, you know, our operations units have made those kind of arrests and dismantle some of this violence, the residents are static. You know, the people who live there every day are always happy because it lessens the probability that one of their loved ones will be struck by an errant bullet that wasn't meant for them or their loved ones. So, I just wanted to add that to what Captain Howard had to say.

The residents appreciate it as well. And that's just as much a part of our community policing initiative. Now that they trust us and we have a better rapport, they're always happy to see us come out there and get those guns off the street. Don't think you can go to

Alderman Gay? I have just a quick question. And obviously, I'm a fan of the the work and everything. I'm I'm I'm and particularly with the as you mentioned, going from 36 to 18 shots fired because we did have a point in Eastport where we were having severe drive bys, it seems like. My first question is who's doing cold cases now? Because I remember you were doing a very, very good job at that.

Yes. Still still active. We got a couple of them. We're just waiting for prosecution. We still have cold case. You must know

well. And Howard still in

charge there? Will know detective Will Noel well, you can talk about that. Detective Will Noel is that's all he does is look at cold cases and and interact with the state's attorney. And it's a couple of them that we wanna take, we think already. We're just waiting on the office of the state's attorney to move forward.

And I think that's good because that was just a caveat is how how is the relationship with the state's attorney. I know at some point, you your team had been making the arrests, but Mhmm. They weren't really staying, obviously, at the detention center or whatever, and so it was just a revolving door.