City Council - Regular Meeting

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hey. [Music] Hey. [Music] Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] like to call the work session to order for January 12th. City clear, please read the role.

Let the record reflect that all members are present.

Thank you. Uh I would like to remind council that staff will be pausing every so often to answer any questions. First item is to receive an update on the fiscal year 2025 Goodyear Municipal Court executive summary. Please introduce yourself for those that are watching on. I am the uh presiding judge of the Goodyear Municipal Court and this is Crystal Whan. She is the court director. All right. So, we're going to provide the state of the court address as council's aware or previously submitted the full executive report for review. We're limiting this presentation to fiscal year 2025 and I will be highlighting some relevant issues. Then we'll start the presentation with some approach programs and services move to growth issues related to our charge funds and then Christ will present the course direction to address growth. Um the presiding judges contractual goals are in the executive summary and I'll be mentioning those only when they are relevant to the report. So while the court recently evaluated uh the implementation of specialty court programs, the process was not specific to determine the potential need for a mental health court which addresses defendants categorized as seriously mentally ill or SMI. Council directed the court to explore the potential of an IGA with the city of Glendel's mental health court to address the mental health needs of the Goodyear defendants of Goodyear defendants. So due to the uh lack of concrete data though regarding the potential Smi population, the court was unable to explore a potential IGA with Glendel. However, in June of 2025, I issued an administrative order that provides authority not only to identify the number of these individuals, but to ensure they receive appropriate legal services. And this data uh will provide the information needed to address this issue. And pursuant to the presiding judge's employment agreement, uh the court will evaluate and make recommendation to

council uh regarding that issue. With respect to veterans court, the Goodyear court uh renewed its intergovernmental agreement with the city of Glendel in February 2025, authorizing Goodyear veteran defendants to participate in the uh Glendel City Court West Valley Regional Veterans Court Program. In fiscal year 2025, 30 defendants completed the Veterans Court program and this number included cases referred to the program prior to fiscal year 2025. The Goodyear Court has continued participation in the Glendel Municipal Court annual standup for veterans event and the Tempe Municipal Court Arizona Standown for Veterans Advance. The Goodyear Court has also continued partnership with Maricopa County Regional Homeless Court, which grants approval of eligible defendants to complete uh community service in lie of payment of fines if they graduate from that homeless court program. Uh this year the Goodyear court is participating in the inmate release court program. The inmate release program is a collaborative partnership between the administrative office of the courts and the Arizona department of corrections rehabilitative and re-entry second chance program. The IRC program was established to resolve outstanding cases and limited jurisdiction courts for inmates participating in the second chance program. So the primary focus of that program is to enable inmates to reenter society without the financial burden of outstanding monetary obligations or other sanctions such as driver's license suspensions or active warrants that could hinder successful reintegration. So inmates can take uh care of outstanding cases while serving out the remainder of their sentence. So in fiscal year 2025, 11 defendants submitted an IRC participants agreement form uh which were approved and then issued a case plan and seven of those defendants successfully completed the plan and resolved their cases with our

court. Uh the court provides let me go to language and accessibility services. The court provides interpreters for all limited English proficient customers in all language by utilizing various certified and freelance interpreters uh including certified ASL interpreters. A high percentage of our interpreter services are done remotely via phone. We refer to it as language line. Uh while our current Spanishonly speaking case load does not justify a full-time interpreter, there has been an increase in this category of defendants. While uh the use of remote interpreters is acceptable, it's not the best practice, nor is it as efficient or effective as an in-person interpreter. So, this year, the court added an in-person uh Spanish interpreter docket, which includes uh every two weeks uh scheduled docket, and this was implemented to create efficiencies and to establish a routine in person credential interpreter for misdemeanor cases. Let's talk about charge filing. So the uh Goodyear Municipal Court has continued to increase in both case and charge filing rates. Just to clarify uh case filings can be viewed as representing an individual defendant or individual case whereas charge filings are the total charges filed against a particular defendant which can vary from case to case. So looking at fiscal year 24 we were at 13,734. Fiscal year 2025, we're at 17,151. So just looking at the categories individually, misdemeanor non-traffic increased 100 by 100. Domestic violence increased by 34, DUIs an increase of 63.

Criminal traffic went down uh by 141 and the civil traffic increased by 3,314. Uh local noncriminal ordinances increased by 32 and protective orders were up by 79 cases. So this number reflects about a 34% increase from last year in terms of the overall uh charge filings. And looking back at the last five years, if we're to look at fiscal year 2021, we were at about 10,990. Looking at this year, we're currently at 7,946 and trending to about 19,689. So over the last five years, we're looking at about a 10,000 uh increase uh which is essentially doubling our charge filings in the last five years. So as you can see, there's a steady increase in virtually every category of charge filings, which has been ongoing for several years. The most notable, again, this year was a civil traffic category with an increase of 3,417 of those charge filings. Uh while these cases are less complicated and time inensive than a criminal case, uh this level of increase in such a short period of time substantially increases the workload on our current staff and processes. And of course, the court is extremely grateful for council's recent approval of our hearing officer. Uh that addition has been instrumental in managing that additional volume. It definitely was time timely. Goodyear continues to be ranked 13th statewide and municipal court filings, ranked seventh with respect to DUI charges in Maricopa County. Uh the DUI ranking places us above all our local West Valley courts and right behind the city of Chandler. Uh as you have heard

me state before, DUI cases are arguably the most involved and complicated case type any court adjudicates. Its DUIs can require numerous calendar settings and typically require post adjudicated proceedings uh regarding jail mandatory counseling interlock compliance and financial obligations before we can actually close a file. Uh just to give a perspective the number of DUIs processed by our court, the Glendel City Court is directly behind us in DUI case filings and they have a staff of approximately 50 and can run approximately five courtrooms simultaneously. Now, while we don't have the same overall case filings as Glendel, this type of case uh continues to place a heavy workload on our court and as we continue to experience significant growth and increase in the Goodyear's police force and their enforcement. Talk a bit about clearance rates. So, a clearance rate is uh measured by the number of charges completed compared to the number of charges filed. So historically we've operated above 100% which has allowed the court to close more cases than are being filed. Last year our clearance rate was 98. At one point during this year we were as low as 89. Uh we ended our clearance rate for fiscal year 2025 at 99.9. So we finished the year by managing to close as many cases as were being filed. Uh the Supreme Court uh issued an administrative order recommending case processing standards for all case types. You've heard me refer to this before as time standards. Uh as your pres presiding judge, I'm required to review standard reports, institute measures that enhance the quality and timeliness of data entered in the case management system, and report our standards to the Supreme Court. The court uh is in compliance with several case types and is moving in the right direction in those categories

where we are outside of the standard. During the last quarter, the court met the time standard for DUIs for the first time. Uh however, we're currently slightly out of standard and we are still chasing compliance with the misdemeanor categories which exclude the DUI specifically. The court continues to implement changes in processing cases which has allowed us to make significant progress with our time standards requirements. uh the Supreme Court has advised that in the near future these time standards reports will be open to the public and so the court is working diligently to get compliance in all those categories. So given our city's uh significant continued growth and increase in Goodyear's police force and police enforcement uh we need to remain intentional and diligent about staying in front of our growth or we will struggle meeting time standards and risk the probability of creating a backlog. just to speak a little bit about jail court. Uh jail court is a court docket where we adjudicate cases of defendants who are taken into and remain in custody and then are transported to the court by the Goodyear Police Department. So this docket occurs once a week every week. Uh the court did explore with MCO MCSO whether our court could conduct these matters virtually. The court was advised that MCSO was no longer accepting any additional municipal courts for virtual proceedings. And so currently uh these custody virtual court proceedings are limited to justice courts who had a previous agreement with MCSO and a few selected municipal courts who were grandfathered in the process. So our jail court is combined with those defendants who bond out and appear in person and with our courtappointed attorney pre-trial dockets. This docket was created in this manner out of a necessity to ensure compliance with the rules of criminal procedure. So we're essentially are running three different dockets right now in one docket. As our volume increases, this docket

becomes unpredictably congested when the number of in custody transports is high and this impacts the police department, the state and court staff. And we have been working together to reduce this congestion of the docket to make it consistently manageable. So, as part of that concerted uh solution, the court intends to limit this docket to only in custody defendants. This will allow the police to transport and return defendants to the jail in a timely manner and will allow the state and court staff to effectively manage and timely complete the docket. To accomplish this task, the court intends to assign a court-appointed attorney exclusively to the jail court docket and then run the other courtappointed attorneys respective pre-trial conferences in our second courtroom. So growth is a good thing, but it brings continued challenges. Obviously, uh Crystal's going to be addressing some of those solutions, uh some of our challenges so the court can get ahead of them instead of trying to chase them.

Thank you, Judge Delgado. Mayor and Council, good evening. Crystal Whan, court director. And so some of the primary focus um as Judge Delgado covered in our presentation so far and as we've presented in the past year and in our quarterly reports, the court has continually adapted to the growth of the city. And after two years of concerted effort working to establish a solid foundation on our operational processes, we're now focusing on the future of the court. Um last Monday our de one of our deputy city managers Rachel Garcia opened up the presentation on the city's three to fiveyear staffing plan and she used the term of smart growth and I really attached to that concept um because the court has spent a lot of time um really taking a smart growth approach and uh one of the things that we have prepared we've planned and prepared a very thorough three to fiveyear staffing plan. Um this is an intentional, thoughtful and proactive approach to allocating the appropriate personnel resources for the court, thus ensuring the court is providing timely, efficient and uh delivery of uh of service of justice to the public. We have taken the time to analyze the organizational structure, programs, and divisions of similarly sized courts, including courts larger than Goodyear. As we clearly anticipate, our growth is going to continue um and we are going to be operating at the level of a larger operational court in the near future. Our goal is to provide a thorough and thoughtful plan that anticipates Goodyear's continued growth and exports and supports the expansion of courts the court's operations. This includes what we envision as the the addition of these specialty court programs that the court has been evaluating responding to council's inquiries and making

recommendations um as we will be with this mental health court and we envision these being a likelihood for good year in the next five years which is captured in our staffing plan that we've prepared. Um when we talk about some of our present challenges, uh our technology is something that we still continue to work through. Um just to reiterate, the court operates under a city network for part of our function functions, but primarily we operate on a a network provided by the Arizona Supreme Court. So one of the things that we did this year um and actually to to tell you how this happened, our network went down. Our case management system went down. And this is our Supreme Court network. Um, and in in this experience, we actually um discovered that our network capacity was far lower than it should be. And so it presented us with an opportunity to not only repair that network, but and then also to allocate necessary funding within our budget to quadruple that network capacity. And this is really going to be supportive of us pursuing those hybrid or fully remote uh court proceedings because we've continually encountered challenges in various areas with really uh fully implementing that process. And so in March of this year, we we anticipate that we will have the Supreme Court out with our network provider to make that network increase. Um another challenge and we talk about if we want to implement this staffing plan. Um and in and in in order to have be able to succeed with implementing the staffing plan is our facility. Um and so we we as you're aware in the fiscal year 27 strategic plan there is plan there is an item for a facility study. However, this fiscal year, we had a conversation with city manager's office and in partnership with our public works

director. The court has engaged with our consultants, which is the national center for state courts. And we are in the process right now of doing what we're calling phase one, and we are um going to go through the process between now and June of this year to assess Old City Hall as the potential next court facility. And so to give you a little bit of information, that's going to also resolve our current challenge. We've touched on it in presentations in the past. One of our struggles is when we schedule jury trials. Jury trials completely take up a courtroom and the jury room for a minimum of two full days. And now these are dockets that we're adding on top of normal proceedings. So if a jury trial is scheduled, that means we have to move other planned cases somewhere else. And this is where you can when you have an increasing case load, you start to then experience those backlogs be. And so currently our trend with um jury trials or our volume is we schedule about 10 a year. So that's almost every month. Um and so that is a space challenge for us that we would be resolving by u determining a future facility for the court. So, if I were to give, we have a timeline up there that talks about this project with the National Center for State Courts. And so just to have the opportunity um a little background about the national center. The National Center for State Court Con Court consulting division contains a unit that is nationally known for court facility planning with expertise encompassing a full range of planning disciplines including statistical analysis and future system projection, technology security and accessibility, court functional analysis, operations management and construction feasibility analysis which are required to court facility plan. As courts expand access to justice and the demands of public change, the courthouse environment too

must change. The implementation of adaptive spaces, technology integration, user unit user centered design and community focused planning are essential considerations. A sustainable court environment that encourages and supports forwardthinking operational practices will advance a successful judicial system. As you can see the timeline, we have already completed our kickoff which was December 10th. We are currently in the data collection and analysis phase. We are on schedule with our data having been fully submitted and we have our first data analysis review scheduled for this Friday. Uh the uh next which will occur is the national center will make a site visit out here to old city hall. We will walk that facility and in the evaluation we'll focus on spatial adequacy and configuration adjacency and circulation security accessibility and building systems. The next stage will be for the national center to uh compile and evaluate all of this data and develop long-term spatial projections and short and long-term staffing projections. Uh next, the national center will develop a future court space program using space standards forming the basis for programming the a new court environment and they will use this to assess the feasibility of old the old city hall building. And lastly, the project team, oh I'm sorry, second to last, they will prepare a conceptual court space alloc with an allocation scenario for future accommodations of the court and court related functions. These diagrams will include modern courtroom configurations and layouts, courtroom technology deployment, public service accommodations, advanced office design environments, building on design accessibility for people with disabilities and including security infrastructure. They will develop a space allocation concept that will allow

the city to develop a rough order of magnitude conceptual costing estimate based on square footage and lo local benchmark uh square footage. I even arranged to take um Judge Delgado, Judge Bastine, and our new deputy court administrator on some field trips this month and we are going to go visit every two and three story municipal court. Um and so we can get some visuals as well. We're educating ourselves in this process so that way when we walk old city hall, which is a twotory twotory facility, we have a foundation to see what is working in other courts as well. And lastly, um, by June of this year, just so I can, uh, close out the timeline, the National Center will submit a final report documenting their major findings and recommendations on the feasibility of Old City Hall. Thank you.

So, our fiscal year past 225, uh, 2025 passed and our 2026 future goals and initiatives and their status are referenced in the executive summary. Not going to go over that. Uh we've provided that to council uh for your viewing. And the last slide shows our staff. As we continue to multiply, we are growing. That's that's pretty much the theme today. So, mayor and council, that does close our presentation and we are ready for your questions.

Looks good on you, judge. That outfit there. Okay. All right. with that. Any questions? Go ahead. Um, judge, I am really, really thankful that you did the administrative order on the mental health that you put that in. Exactly what did you um ask for?

So, what that uh administrative order allows us to do is have access to uh we I refer to as Mercy Care. It's a database so that we run into defendants that uh we are concerned about their mental capacity. We have the ability to run them in the system. That stays confidential, but then I have an understanding at that point and so does staff as to whether or not they're designated SMI, seriously mentally ill.

But you also allows me to appoint them counsel uh if in fact they are that status. But we're able to keep that data and we'll have a calculation I think you know in several months in terms of how many times are we running into that type of defendant. So if they end up homeless or on drugs and have mental health health issues which we're finding out a lot of um homeless have you have a way of if they come to you finding that out because you're keeping track of that. I'm keep I'm keeping track whether they're SMI designated regardless. regardless.

That's what I wanted to know. Thank you for doing that. You're not just blowing them off because that's important. Um, as far as um our growth, obviously our growth is major. And so I'm assuming that's why we are seeing the increase um in the violent crimes. Correct. I think growth. You're talking about domestic violence. Yes. Domestic violence. Yeah. And there was another one up there. Domestic viol. Can we go back to that slide?

So, I don't know if I can protective protective orders. Are those violent crimes or not? Not necessarily. But you do have to do something along that lines to get a protective order. You can't just get a protective order from anything, right? There typically has to be an act of domestic violence or a potential of it, right? So, um there's a lot of factors that could be affecting whether or not a particular category goes up or down. Obviously, I do believe that growth is an issue.

Uh just the simple fact that you have more individuals uh brings with it more problems sometimes. Uh but the other issues as well involved the increase of the police department and increase of enforcement. So, it's kind of a mixed a mixed bag. Thank God for that. So, it's just I don't know if it's just one factor individually, but I do believe that growth obviously has affected it.

Okay. Um this is something I think that has we've been talking about for three years and the police department having more police and and not getting behind like we did get for a while. Now, we're getting up to snuff and we're basically doing what we need to do. And so I think that's important is to keep the police department going like it's going because obviously we're seeing uh a difference. Correct. Absolutely. Yeah. In in what we're being able to deal with. Um as far as um criminal traffic um you is that ticket writing that kind of stuff. Is that what you're talking about? Patrol the one that went down. Yeah. Uh that would be like your criminal speed reckless driving, right? Yes.

Okay. That's what I'm asking. So, because a couple of uh months ago, I think we were talking about tickets, amount, the amount of tickets the patrol were writing. And um there was questions on if we should write as many tickets in the state of or in the city of Goodyear and and I think it was one of those things that I felt it was important to write tickets for anything that was going wrong so that we don't look like we're asking for trouble. in other words. And so in doing that, obviously, in writing these tickets and making this clear that we're not going to allow speeding and all the different things that are going on since we've had racing and things like that, which I'm sure you've seen in the courts, correct? I have.

Right. So, and and to protect people's lives in our city as well, that obviously we've been doing the right thing and writing those tickets because it has gone down. Would that would you agree with that? Once again, I'm I'm sure there's a lot of factors, but I would say absolutely. I mean, that's one point that you could look at. Yeah. Thank you. That's what I wanted to know. Very, very thankful for the police department we've got now. Very thankful. All right, that's my questions. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead,

Crystal. I read your executive summary and you did a wonderful job with it. It was written where we could understand it and I just want to thank you for giving it to us early on. Um, it was easy to understand how our our numbers are going up or down or whatever. So, we really appreciate that. I'm really excited that you're even considering the old city hall as a possibility because if we can make it work, it would be great. There's parking, there's accessibility, whatever you need is there and it and it's our building. So, that would be wonderful. And we just um we're going to continue to grow. We're going to continue to have more cases because it's just human nature. It just is what it is. And we're just going to um keep working to try to stay ahead of the game. and thank you for looking ahead for your staffing because we know you're going to need more staffing and um we'll just wait till budget time. See what you tell us.

Thank you. Thank you for your feedback. You're very welcome. Oh, and thank you too, Judge. You're doing a great job. Thank you. Couldn't do it without Crystal.

Well, I wanted to thank you both for you've brought stability and productivity to the court and I I think you're doing great jobs and it's we've come a long long way. And I also wanted to thank you for your evaluation of the mental health court. You know, during the pandemic and everything, that was all that the media ever talked about. We were concerned where did we have an underserved population. And I'm pleased to know that it's not such a concern here, but that with your administrative or order, you have additional resources. So, I think we're it's good to know where we stand. So, that that's good. It's really interesting to me when you think about the pandemic and the entire court went virtual that MCSO can't accommodate and is is that negotiable? I mean, can any can that can that be re-evaluated through other channels? I mean, it just seems so inefficient.

We can try. I got a pretty hard no. Um, but it doesn't hurt to go somebody. I don't know. I would guess ask the city manager if she's got any resources to to re-evaluate that. So anyway, I just wanted to say um thank you for the work you're doing. There we go. Go ahead, Brandon. Go.

Yeah, a lot of the same things. You guys are doing a great job. I appreciate like I said this ability and it looks like all the all your workforce is doing a good job and all the I appreciate that the back the backlog has gone down which is one of the things we talked about when you first came in. So thank you for that and yeah looking forward to more uh suggestions and things of the staffing and it'd be great to use the city hall I think as a uh old city hall as a as potential courtroom so a courthouse for you guys. So would be I think it' be good allocation resources there. So, so yeah. So, looking forward to to more uh uh information so we can make good decisions around getting you guys more as you grow and let us know. I mean, if you need I mean I know a lot more courts have five different courtrooms. We have one. So, just making sure if we what we need to be able to scale because we're going to keep growing and with more growth it's going to come more crime and more needs for those kind of things. So, all right. Thank you.

Thank you, Benita. Okay. I also want to thank you for all the work you're doing. This is you're you're you're balancing and juggling a lot here. Um I do want to reiterate, you said it three times, but I'm going to repeat it again. What types of cases are increasing the fastest? Well, it was the civil traffic. Yeah. I just wanted to bring that up again because that that I think is is important that we remember that and highlight that. And um how how widely are the um people using the online payment system?

Council member Nichols, thank you for the question. We have two websites that provide access to court customers to p to post their payments. All of our civil traffic cases. Our customers can call what's post and forfeit. They can if they want to simply pay their fine and not appear in court, they can enter their plea online. And we have a number of customers that take advantage of that. um one of the payment systems posts automatically. So it's no work on the court personnel's part other than to close the case out. So it is a ve very popular customer uh service method.

There are um there were three very important uh areas that you brought up technology staffing and facilities. Is there one that's more important than the other or are they all equally saying I I would say that they're all important. Um I would say in the short term, the immediate short term, uh we need to have the staffing to stay with the stay up with the girls. Um but uh I would say because that's immediate, they're all important and eventually we're going to grow out of that building. So I think we have to start looking towards that other building, right? and technology is always important. Um, and we've had struggles with some of our technology, but uh, we have got a solution to that and it's on its way it sounds like.

Thank you. All right, with that for you, we moved on the second. It's it's tough when you're last to add because great great discussion here from all the members of the council here, but um, the one thing is I noticed is I like to see this criminal traffic and I think you said you still no. Yes. You good?

I'm good. Okay. Uh tra uh criminal traffic is coming down, which is nice. That means those doing 20 and over. Uh but we still have a we still have a traffic problem. We still have a speed problem when you have civil traffic at 3,300. That's a lot. So, uh I don't know how how we get people in in the uh city to slow down, but uh um and I guess the first question I have is who sets the fines? Is it is it um state statute or or does the city ordinances set fines for traffic? How does that how does that work for speeding? Well, this the the state statutes have a have a range. Um but typically uh most courts follow a bond card. We were talking specifically about civil and there seems to be a coordination between the courts as to what the basic base fine should be. So, it's kind of like a unified uh effort among different courts all trying to stay very similar to each other. The only reason why I'm I'm wondering is if through the pocketbook if that discourages people from being um precipitism, you know, as far as speeding is concerned. Uh I'm just thinking out loud here. Are the fines large enough so that once they get it the first time, maybe the second time they rethink it because they don't want to take that money out of their pocket. So just just something to think about. That's all. Thank you for your presentation.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Next we have the uh to receive an update on economic development office of tourism. I'm going to I was maring

go ahead if you would just introduce yourself for the public.

Thank you mayor, vice mayor and council members. I'm Wendy Bridges, economic development director for the city of Goodyear. I am here tonight to provide you with an update on our activity in the office of tourism since its launch. First, I'll start with a quick recap just where we've been. So, the office of tourism began as a fiscal year 25 strategic plan I action item. You can see a picture of the strategic plan right here. The action item was to evaluate a sports and tourism strategy. The results of that evaluation were presented to council on June 16th, 2025. And council at that time gave staff direction to do the following items. To create and establish an office of tourism as a division of the economic development department. Because this first year of the office of tourism would essentially be one of laying a foundation. We did not request any additional budget allocation and any costs that we incurred have been absorbed by the economic development department to leverage our Prop 302 funds. And just a quick reminder, Prop 302 is a program that is overseen and administered by the Arizona Office of Tourism. It is a program to uh promote and leverage uh tourism promotion throughout the state of Arizona. That funding comes from a car rental searchcharge and a 1% tax on hotels in Maricopa County. We were also given direction to continue stakeholder and partner engagement and by that we mean those who are directly involved in the hospitality and hotel industry in Goodyear.

And finally to focus on the small groupoup meetings market. This market is specific to meetings, events and conferences generally about a 100 people or less. This is an ideal market for Goodyear as we can accommodate this size of group with our hotel inventory and meeting spaces. So our uh our progress update from the direction we received from council, we did officially create the office of tourism obviously or else I wouldn't be here right now talking to you uh about it. We created the office of tourism on July 1st of 2025. It has been designated as an official as the official destination marketing organization for the city of Goodyear. And this is really just fancy language to mean that we are designated as the organization that coordinates the tourism and marketing for the destination. We have also leveraged the Prop 302 funds. They have been programmed out for the full year of FY26. And just as a reminder, these funds uh do have some restrictions on them. They can be used for tourism promotion and marketing only. We can't use them to pay office rents or staff costs or anything along those lines. And because the goal of the Prop 302 is to drive overnight visitation primarily in Arizona, a majority of Goodyear's Prop 302 goes to promote spring training in Goodyear. We also have had extensive outreach with our stakeholders and partners. And I'm going to put a bit of an alphabet soup up here on the screen. These are some of

the organizations that we've been engaging with. Um, the Arizona Office of Tourism, Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association, other destination marketing and management organizations throughout the state, convention and business, convention and visitors bureaus, and other cities and towns across Arizona. We've also had engagement with other city departments in Goodyear, which includes parks and wreck and of course the Goodyear ballpark. These conversations and engagement have really focused primarily on collaboration, best practices, and aligning our resources. In addition to having meetings and visits to businesses in the hospitality industry, we have launched a Goodyear tourism roundt. So far, um the meetings right now are quarterly. So, so far we've had two. The first one being in October and our second one was just held last week. The attendees include those that are in Goodyear's hospitality industry. A quick update of some of the outcomes from the meeting. The first meeting was more uh kind of setting the the baseline or framework if you will and introducing ourselves and getting to know each other. Um and then we have expanded the conversations to include discussion around the market and industry trends as well as challenges and needs and opportunities for collaboration. And I just want to share one example I brought with me of that um opportunity for collaboration but also a business need. So some of you may have seen this piece before. This is our mom and pops piece that the economic development department has printed out for as long

as I've been here. I've been seeing it and we update it every year to make sure that we have the newest businesses on here. This marketing piece is something that our hotel partners use to share with their guests when they're in town and they want to find a place to eat. I mean, some will search on Google, but some want to know, well, where do the locals eat? How do I eat like a local when I'm here in Goodyear? So, one of the things that we learned that this this piece is great and it's being used, but it wasn't comprehensive enough. So, our hotel um uh industry has asked us to create a more comprehensive guide. So, we've done that. Um, this this came out of our October um roundt meeting and we were able to gather the information and get it printed and these have been delivered to our hotels and we continue to make regular distributions to make sure that they're in stock and this is something that we can continue to update as the industry continues to grow in Goodyear. Some other things that we talked about were some of the opportunities that lie ahead for Goodyear and there's some of the things that council has discussed before conversations around sports tourism, regional events, family travel and day trips. Something else that this um the the tourism roundt also brought up and I think it's really important to share with this group is how much they appreciated the city's decision to add this as a focus. One of the challenges that was also highlighted was the lack of coordination and focus on the industry a way to align those resources so that the industry in Goodyear could be stronger. So they really do appreciate that. And finally, targeting the small groups meeting market conversations with our tourism roundt group has confirmed what

we thought to be the case and that was that the business travel in Goodyear is strong and healthy. And if you think of business travel as people staying in a hotel from a Sunday through Thursday, maybe they're here for a construction project in Goodyear. Maybe they're here to have meetings, something of those lines. Uh corporate travel perhaps. Um we know that that industry, we have confirmed that industry in Goodyear is strong and healthy and we need to make sure that it continues to be strong and healthy. This is the bread and butter of our hotel industry in Goodyear. So it's important that it stays healthy. Uh, one of the ways that we can do that is having some involvement with this small group meeting market to make sure that Goodyear is getting visibility with these groups that have business to bring to Goodyear and that our Goodyear hotels and meeting spaces are able to be competitive. As part of our work over the last six months, I attended several industry events to identify the best business opportunities for us going forward for 2026. And we have identified several events and activities that are taking place in the second part of this fiscal year. So, the part of the fiscal year that we're in right now, um that can get our hospitality providers and meeting planners one-on-one or excuse me, our hospitality providers and meeting locations, one-on-one visits with meeting planners who have active projects. So they have projects and meetings that they can bring to Goodyear. This is exactly the path that Goodyear needs to be on to ensure that our small meetings and business travel stays healthy, that it stays strong in Goodyear. These last two slides summarize the things that I said that we would do and we have done. But because we're Goodyear, I knew we could do just a

little bit more. So, we identified some additional objectives that would be important for us to lay the foundation for Goodyear's brand new office of tourism. We did submit an application to be an official visitor Arizona visitor information center. These are the Arizona tourist centers that you see if you're traveling down the freeway anywhere in Arizona. You see the blue signs says Arizona tourism information. Next, right? Well, congratulations because our we thought we were going to be reporting to you that our application was submitted, but we just received word that our application has been approved. So, Goodyear is now designated as an official Arizona visitor information center. Um, there are several requirements with this and we will be going through the process with the state of Arizona and I will have more information for you in the coming weeks as we gather that together. As I said, we've just learned about this. So, congratulations. We've also taken additional steps to um do a lot of research and benchmark data collection. We wanted to establish good baselines and benchmarks for key market performance indicator indicators. This not only helps us track how well we're doing, but this also helps us identify trends and opportunities as we move forward. Some of the metrics that we're tracking are things that you might expect. Uh hotel occupancy, but also the revenue that each hotel gets per available room that is uh rented per night. We have access to Smith and Co-Star travel reports as well as Placer AI data. We also have done some work on marketing and brand development. and I'm happy to share with you our

initial tourism logo. Um, we're continuing to work through this development on this logo thanks to our good friends in the digital communication department who helped us come up with this. Um, this logo represents Goodyear in several different ways. First, you see the outline of the beautiful Estrella Mountains. And of course, we're in Arizona, so you have to have that gorgeous sunshine. and a call to action for folks to please come and visit us in Goodyear, Arizona. The new dining uh brochure that I mentioned and also our website development is underway as part of a citywide strategy to update uh the websites in the city. The tourism update is part of that and we're looking forward to having it up and running by the end of this fiscal year. So to summarize this update, Goodyear has accomplished everything it set out to do in the first year and even a little bit more because we're Goodyear. Um and we've done it in about half the time. We can and certainly will be continuing to build on this good work, support our partners in the hospitality community. The question now though is where does Goodyear want to go next? The next logical step is to develop a consumer tourism function. We've primarily focused on getting a foundation in the business community. I have had the honor and the privilege to accomplish this in two different Arizona cities in my career, both yielding excellent results for those communities. If you'll indulge me, I'm going to take a slight detour here. I'd

like to share a a story of one of those experiences that I had in the early 2000s. I was working for the city of Prescat, a beautiful mountain community in northern Arizona. And in around 2008 2009, the effects of the recession had really started to hit the small town. We saw very little happening in real estate and and other industries were affected. As a result of the recession, there wasn't a lot going on in economic development, not only in Prescuit, but really everywhere. Long story short, um I had an opportunity to take the outsourced tourism function inhouse within the economic development department. Prescuit started its tourism program from the ground up much like we've done here. And it um it also included a consumer focus and I will tell you the consumer focus is really what made all of the difference. After hiring tourism staff and a PR firm to support the effort, our tourism performance in Prescuit skyrocketed, the tourism industry was reinvesting itself in Prescuit. New hotels were built, new events were added. The city was reinvesting in tourism. And with the success of tourism, we had a a dedicated revenue stream to go to work towards something that was near and dear to Prescuit's heart, building out its trails. The PR firm I mentioned even pitched a crazy idea to drop a giant cowboy boot from Whiskey Row to ring in the New Year's, much like they do in Time Square. I will tell you a lot of people thought

that that was a silly idea at the time, but I will also tell you the event was a wild success and it has only grown since. That event was born 16 years ago. Fast forward to about two weeks ago. I was sitting at home watching the New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square. And wouldn't you know it that on a split screen on one side of the screen was the Whiskey Row boot drop in Prescuit, Arizona and the Times Square ball drop. To me that was that that was amazing to see how far it had come. But my point is this. A tourism model with a consumer tourism function works. So here's what I recommend for Goodyear's next steps. We established the consumer tourism function. We we continue to develop a true brand identity, something that really embodies visit Goodyear and we expand our efforts towards destination marketing. We continue to build on and strengthen our regional and state tourism partnerships and from here we can move on to the next step which is strengthening our visitor infrastructure. We can improve wayfinding and signage for people who are visiting Goodyear. And not just that, we can collaborate with our hotels and restaurants and event organizers and other people that work in this space to support a positive visitor experience. Internally, we can create a tourism data dashboard where we can track our metrics such as hotel performance, visitor spending, event attendance. We can also create a dedicated marketing

program. This would be launching a concentrated multimedia presence including website, social media and content strategy along with developing photo, video and storytelling assets. The key to a great consumer tourism program is to tell stories. We would also want to create targeted campaigns focused around spring training and sports tourism, outdoor recreation. We have the beautiful Estraa Mountains right in our own backyard. And in the southwest area just of the valley, there are several really amazing tourism assets. We could also create targeted campaigns for weekend getaways that include events, dining, entertainment, as well as family travel. And finally, much like we did in Prescuit, we cultivate signature tourism experiences. What this looks like is enhancing and supporting annual destination driving events that encourage an overnight stay, expanding on sports tourism and tournament tourism at the Goodyear ballpark and other venues. And to restate my earlier point, this model works. It's used by communities nearly everywhere for the simple reason that it works. So to accomplish the next steps that I outlined, I recommend we hire a tourism position to be dedicated to and drive these efforts as well as allocating a marketing budget. If you give direction to proceed in this way, I do want to let you know you're not making a decision on position and budget to date. those items would come

back before you through the budget process for review for FY27. I would like to wrap up the presentation with this. This approach allows Goodyear to be intentional and responsible in how we grow our tourism. Our progress has already established a foundation and hiring a tourism position and investing in Goodyear and investing in a marketing program moves us from planning to promotion, leveraging our existing assets with our industry partners and focusing on measurable outcomes as well as driving impact to our businesses and our community. And we are at the point where I'd love to hear from you.

All right, let's open it up. Start here to the right. Anybody? Bonita? Nope. Go ahead.

Thank you for the presentation. It's very, very interesting. When we talk about the hospitality industry, we're talking about hotels. What else? We're talking about hotels. We're talking about entertainment venues. We're talking about uh you know anywhere that a visitor would go when they're traveling away from home. So is that restaurants? Is that running to Walgreens? Maybe to pick up uh maybe they left their toothbrush behind. It's a lot of different things, but something I think that um may be not as obvious is our meeting spaces. And I'll use the example of Palm Valley Golf Course. They have a beautiful meeting space there that they do rent out for private events. Yes, I've used it for a fundraiser for a nonprofit. Um, what about the short-term rent or the I guess the VRBOS's, the the Airbnbs? Are you getting any metrics, any feedback from that industry?

So, yes and no. While there are many that are operating in Goodyear, um, it's far too large a list, but they are tracked through uh, bed tax metrics. So any stays that are less than 30 days are tracked through bed tax and they would they would fall in that category. Okay. Um we know that spring training is the big draw, but what is the impact of the perfect game or other sports activities on Goodyear? Is it significant? Is it something we can grow?

It definitely is something we can grow. And something that I've heard council mention several times is our sports tourism and tournament tourism and exploring that. I think there's more opportunity for us there. We do know from our hotel partners that not all of those people will stay in Goodyear. Well, we sure would like them to. We just had a brand new hotel open this month and so, you know, we're we're building rooms and we've got lots of space for them. Okay. Have you given thought where the tourism center will be? We have explored a couple of different options. Um it it has been at the chamber of commerce. Sure.

And that is a little off the beaten path for most of our visitors. There are some guidelines that the state of Arizona provides when you're submitting the application and it includes identifying a location that has amenities. If a tourist is going to be getting off the freeway, you want them to go somewhere where they can grab a bite to eat, maybe do some shopping, maybe learn a little bit about the community. So, we are proposing holding having the visitors center right here in GSQ.

That's seems really logical. Okay. And have have you um well BIES is going to be a tourism draw and so what's what are you doing to prepare for that and what do you have information about other communities and understand what to expect?

Well, we've given a lot of thought to the BIES conversation. Uh arguably it is going to be one of the best things to get Goodyear on the map for a tourist. I mean, we have an incredible opportunity coming to us in just a short period of time. I think early uh early on, I think it uh it would be wise for us to really start exploring the signage and wayfinding. If somebody is getting off the freeway and stopping at bies, how do we get them to look around and see what else there is to do in Goodyear? And if they can't if they're on their way to somewhere and they can't fit Goodyear in their stay, how do we get them to come back the next time?

Good. Good. That'll be great. Well, it looks like that uh this is really a very promising field for us. And so I know that we're not um we're just speculating at this point, but I would definitely support um further investment in my position and such to to make this happen. Thank you, R.

Yeah, thank you so much. this is something I've been passionate about. So, I definitely support a position and moving forward. I appreciate all your hard work and making it um keep the great ideas coming. Uh but yeah, I think she answered one of the questions about the I know it's at the chamber now, so having a better spot would be good. I think Aendelle even has like a little room that they have like merchandise Aenddale merchandise and things like that. So, I don't know if we want if we're going to get a lot of people buying Goodyear merchandise, but still a little little tourism office and magnets and all those kind of things as well. Maps of the area, strayas, state parks, all those kind of things would be good. Um, yeah. So, I really appreciate that. And yeah, just trying to get more people here to spend more time. So, I don't know if I like the idea of the events. I like the idea of trying to brand it now would be good. Uh, so people want to come. So if they are coming to BIES, a map of where all the hotels are. So if they come here just to go to BIES or they're on their way and they will to stay here and get a night sleep here and then head on would be a good step too. So yeah, I like that idea. Wayfinding signs make it easier so then you know you're in good year and then you know hopefully they'll they'll want to stay close here. And I'm hoping Bies will bring a hotel. I mean I know we have the two right across the street but maybe there'll be another one over there. I'm not sure. But um and I don't I don't if you want to do really go into Bies all the way, but even a BES day, Bies day in a festival or something like that. I don't know. People love Bies and I don't know if there's a way to capitalize on that even more. Uh but might be a conversation with the Buckies people, but uh just trying to do more more ways to bring more people here like the sports tourism. I think we're missing a great opportunity with uh more traveling sports teams, kids teams. And I don't know if we've I don't know where we left on the conversation with more things along the basin area with soccer fields and things like that. Uh that draws a lot of those club teams. They travel

they travel a lot. So if we could have them here, I think that'd be that'd be fantastic as well. And looking outside of just baseball sports tourism, but other tour other sports tourism would be good as well. So uh but yeah, but I'm on board with it. Um, I appreciate your hard hard work in the first six months or so. Um, so yeah, I'm looking forward to more opportunities. So, thank you. Thank you.

Well, it was a very interesting presentation. Thank you very much. Um, I if I may make one suggestion, I would love to see the restaurant brochure at our airport. We have an awful lot of people that fly in and they're here during the day and they need places to go and they don't really know where to go. They'll ask the person behind the desk and if we have something like that to share, I think that would be really nice that perhaps they'd even put it in a briefcase and remember it the next time when they come to Goodyear. Thank you. I have a stack in my car and I'll stop by there first thing in the morning.

Oh, good. I just think that, you know, I'm just trying to figure out where where our visitors come and where they are besides at our hotels. And I'm really I I have not given up on the idea of someday having a a resort up in Australia somewhere and that would be just a boon to Goodyear because that we need more amenities besides the spring training. We do have a summer ball and I don't I do know that some of those teams come in from out of state but I don't know where they stay. I haven't followed them. I've just run into them in various places in Goodyear. So, there's a lot of folks that do come here and I just think it's great. We should be capturing them. We'd love them to stay here and not go to Scottsdale. And that's why I'm so happy that the Reds and the Guardians have built their apartments for their players to keep them here in Goodyear. They should have the restaurants brochure, too. How's that?

That's great. Okay. I love it. But thanks so much, Wendy. I appreciate it. I'm excited to see what the next step's going to be.

Thank you. Um, I love what you've done. Since PR and events are my business, I think what you're doing is right on. So, I love the Arizona visitor uh information center information. Perfect. Thank you for doing that. That's perfect. Um, the new brochures are fantastic. The new ones fantastic. I would remember um some of our restaurants that are going in like High Tide, even Babos even. It's not a new one, but it's a fabulous one. And they all have um separate rooms. I've used them all. And so to do events, and those are good places to be putting these as well, showing people what we're doing. It helps them and it helps us both. So, I would remember that. Um the dedicated marketing program, I love I love what you're doing there. Um I just think that everything that you're doing is on the right track. I support it 100% because I'm in this business, so I support it. I think everything you're doing, you're right on track. Thank you. Welcome.

I guess I can't let everyone go around twice without saying something. Um, no, I'll make up for it later. Um, no. The only only thing with this is when we're talking about the budgetary process, uh, I'd like to see some sort of tangible um, metrics on how we're judging this position, what we're accomplishing, just to make sure that we're able to justify it in a tangible way. Um, that's really my only add-on um, with that and yeah, I'll keep it short. Thank you.

Yeah, I I agree the direction that you're going in. One thing I would mention though is is don't forget we've got rock concerts down here in Australia, okay? We've got uh plays that are right done right here. We've got events at our rec center. Those are all things that can be promoted as far as tourism concerned, they would come and visit. And even though they're not in the city, when they build over there in Lichville Park, the uh arts academy, they're going to have music festivals there. I know they hired Danny Leco, which is an oldtime rock and roller. So, they're going to have some rock and roll oldtime rock and roll stuff there. So, I mean, there's a lot of things in the area uh on top of BIES that we can put together that we can kind of highlight from a marketing standpoint, but since now we have those two uh places now, our rec center and now right out here in front of here, we've got a lot that we can promote on there that we can get them here. So, um so no, I like the direction we're going on and and you know, it's my understanding consumers are 67% of our GDP GDP. Okay? So, you focus on the consumers, that's where you want to focus on. So, I appreciate all your efforts and thank you. Looking forward to budget discussions as Trey mentioned. So,

thank you, mayor. Thank you. All right. Last but not least, we've got uh Goodyear Police Department fiscal year 2027 to 3031 strategic plan. Come on up, chief. Yeah. Please introduce yourself for whoever's, you know, watching on on the cameras there.

All right, we're on. So, uh, good evening, Mayor Pazillo and, uh, council members. I'm, uh, Brian is, and, uh, as you know, I'm the chief of police here for, uh, the Goodyear Police Department, and tonight we'll be going over the FY 2027 through 2031 strategic plan. uh an action item that was placed in the overall city strategic plan for FY26 uh in regards to provide uh in regards to providing a safe and vibrant community. Uh the goal was to develop a strategic plan for the police department to ensure that decisions are uh driven by wellplanned strategies uh here in the city and uh that task has been completed and uh I am very proud to share uh that plan uh with you here tonight. Uh while I've had the opportunity to uh go over the plan individually uh with all of you, tonight is the opportunity to highlight areas within the strategic plan that we're excited to uh share with you and our community as well. So uh as part of the creation of the strategic plan uh it gave our department leadership the opportunity uh to re-evaluate our mission uh vision and guiding values as a reflection of our culture and what our desire is to contribute to this great community. Uh this is not to replace or compete with what the city already has, but to augment uh what our staff is living day in and day out as they come to work. Ultimately, our mission and vision are as simple as what was placed on our newly rebranded patch uh over the summer, which is community first. Um we are here to serve and protect. Whether you are a resident, part of the business community, or a visitor of our city, our guiding values are a constant reminder of our commitment to creating the best

culture with the best service to our community. Essentially, how we will act as we do our work. Uh as stated when I was hired in August of uh 2024, uh the goal then and what you will see throughout this strategic plan, uh it is our desire that every citizen in Goodyear feels that this is their police department and that is what we are focused on. There are four areas of the strategic plan. Uh one is operational capacity, infrastructure and technology. Two, community engagement. three, crime prevention and problem solving, and the fourth, culture, training, and wellness. Each area provides a vital role in how our department will match the public safety needs for the city now and into the future. These areas of focus were developed by working internally with department staff, other city departments, and with diff uh different community partnerships. As you already have seen in the provided strategic plan, there are many different items uh under each area of focus. So for the duration of this presentation, I will highlight two to three action items under each area. However, my highlighting a specific area or action item does not negate the importance of each item listed. So if I'm not specifically highlighting an item that is important to you, uh please tell me and we can go over it in more detail. The first area of focus in our is in our operational capacity, infrastructure and technology. I've decided to highlight uh our action items of staffing growth, facilities and expansion uh facilities expansion and our real-time crime center

or as you know it grit. Uh we will start with our staffing growth which is really the cornerstone of our plan uh as seen in the picture on the slide uh of my drawings in our conference room which uh my team likes to call it uh my beautiful mind artwork. So, let's talk about the staffing growth. Not surprisingly, Goodyear has grown again. The new population estimate now has Goodyear growing from last year's 116,694 residents to 122,569 residents this year, an increase of 5.0% 5.03%. The number of people wanting to be part of this community is not slowing down and as a result either is the work of the police department. When I began my tenure, uh, one of the first things I did was sit down with staff to conduct a SWAT analysis. And that's not with the SWAT with an A, that's with the O, uh, standing for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and create an initial strategic assessment, which I shared with council and city management last year. Having more time to evaluate the overall needs of the city, the growth of our city has also affected the steady growth for our calls for service from 78,974 in 2023 to 86 uh,453 in 2024, a 9.5% increase. While we are still finalizing the numbers for the 2025 calendar year, it appears that the calls for service have remained consistent with the increases of our growing population. As you know, what was communicated then and what is still being communicated

today. Our police department must keep pace with the growth of our city. With city management and your support, last year we were able to increase our sworn personnel by over 11%. Which ultimately helped us maintain our response times on priority one calls. In terms of the patrol bureau, the most visible form of government, what I've been focused on since I began, which is police officers and police cars. Upon my arrival, patrol was staffed with 40% of the sworn staff or 31.7% which were the rank of police officer equaling 52 officers. with the additional personnel that was allotted to the police department in FY26 once all positions have been hired. Um, and we're close. We uh only have eight uh officer vacancies left with approximately uh 20 uh 20 in background right now. Um that number moves significantly forward to 54% of our sworn staff and uh with 45% being at the rank of police officer which is a number of 84. While the last numbers of our city survey reflect that 95% of our residents feel safe in our city, I'm hopeful that meeting and matching the growth of our city with increased personnel will allow us to reach the other 5% with the feeling of our safe and vibrant community. There were many questions that were asked in the meetings uh that I had with all of you. I'd say the greatest one was being what does this actually look like? So in terms of the patrol bureau, we

know that in order to accomplish this plan, we will need 138 police officers, 18 sergeants, and six lieutenants at full buildout. After removing the SWAT personnel, which I'll talk about a little bit later, uh from the patrol bureau, uh due to their double duty, that means we will need approximately 75 additional officers, 12 more sergeants, and the lieutenant to make this a reality. Uh we continue to work with city the city management executive team to finalize the total numbers but I must say that I have received nothing less uh than complete support from them and this council as we remain focused on the future of public safety in Goodyear. Let's talk about facilities expansion. Uh this goes handinhand with the the staffing growth discussed on the last slide. Well, there's already a planned substation uh going in at Citrus and Harrison uh neighboring the fire department, station 188, as we talked about in our meetings with the precinct restructuring and creating three uh three precincts. Uh as our city and department continues to grow, there are two specific buildings that staff is evaluating. first is a substation at GSQ that can be utilized to house a smaller staff of police personnel uh that will specifically be tasked with patrolling GSQ as it continues to be built out. Just thank uh Oldtown Scottsdale. I mean the the entertainment district and retail is it's going to be amazing. Uh it uh will be crucially important to have a police presence in this area. This is where bike squads would pay dividends uh allowing for officers to move quickly throughout the area while

also having the ability to have friendly uh community contacts outside of a patrol car or if uh Deputy Chief Gonzalez gets his wish, you might see a horse patrol, too. The second uh facility need uh that we will be evaluating uh will be a property and evidence annex that will also be large enough to house the forensic sciences unit. This would allow the collection and processing of evidence to occur in one location. A bonus uh would be a structure or a property large enough uh to also house our specialty vehicles and uh a vehicle impound lot for vehicles that are held as evidence. Uh as you know, our specialty vehicles, one pictured on on the slide, we have millions of dollars invested in our specialty vehicles. We were finally able to get them out of the uh out of the sun this year and get into a climate controlled hanger at the Phoenix Goodyear airport. This uh evaluation uh will occur in conjunction with our partners from engineering and public works in FY28. Well, this was already uh discussed at uh the previous work session in March 2025. The creation of our real-time crime center or as you know it, the Goodyear Realtime Intelligence and Tactical Center or Grit will carry a significant load in our crime fighting ability. Uh phase one of this project is already underway. You can see on these slides the mockup of uh what it will look like uh once it's built and um I cannot wait. Uh our hope is that this uh will be operational by the summer or fall at the latest. However, we are working with IT, engineering and public works to complete

the project as efficiently as possible. We are starting with a smaller staff as already discussed for our busiest times of calls for service which are generally Monday through Friday. Staffing will also be augmented by the use of light duty personnel basically officers who have been hurt and can still provide uh their services in the real-time crime center. Phase one also includes the complete integration into the grit of our CAD and RMS, our ALPRS or automatic license plate readers, as well as city controlled cameras at intersections and city-owned buildings. Phase two, which we anticipate starting in FY29, will include additional personnel as well as a drone as first responder or DFR program will which will enhance our eyes in the sky uh quicker, allowing officers more information about what is occurring at the scene. Many cities with this program have also used this uh to decrease response times on calls for service. The second area of focus is on our community engagement. This focus is really at the heart of who we are as a police department. And I am so excited and passionate about the opportunities within uh these action items. Honestly, I could probably uh spend a few hours on this focus area uh discussing how we are going to continue to strengthen our relationships with our community. Uh we already have programs like coffee with a cop uh citizen teenmies, shop with a cop, Jana, and uh explorers to name a few. Uh while we missed the National Night Out this year due to the weather, uh it looks like we're already uh planning on partnering with our

neighbors at the Alice Cooper Solid Rock Teen Center to co-create a Rock the Block um event to celebrate with our community. Our virtual block watch launched uh in November and we've already seen over 96 residents and business owners jump on this uh uh jump in with us as partners allowing us to see where uh the community uh where in the community we have cameras allowing us to team up with them as we help to uh as we help to solve crime. The list goes on. But the purpose of this present for but for the purpose of this presentation I wanted to spend a little time on the following items. So number one a business coalition. Uh our business community and Goodyear is amazing and much like the community ever growing. There's a huge potential for our department to connect here and develop a coalition with our community that can be long lasting and impactful. The primary purpose of the coalition would be to create a consistent, transparent space where business owners, property managers, and law enforcement can exchange information, discuss concerns, and work together on proactive solutions. By fostering open communication, the coalition would help the police department address crime trends, quality of life issues, and safety challenges before they escalate. Another exciting item worth further exploring is continuing to develop partnerships with the Aua Fria High School District and Westmech in collaborating with their public safety and career and technical education or CTE programs. These partnerships could create meaningful long-term benefits for the city, the police department, as well

as local students. By working with existing public safety and CTE programs, we can introduce students to careers in law enforcement and related public safety fields earlier while reinforcing positive relationships with the students in our police department. From a workforce development perspective, this collaboration could help build a local pip pipeline of future employees, dispatchers, professional staff, and sworn officers who already understand our community, our city values, our expectations, and our culture. One of the most basic key components of modern policing is transparent, proactive communication with the community. One effective way to achieve this is by launching on uh online dashboards or similar public facing tools that share common uh community policing metrics and use of force data in a clear accessible format. The purpose of online of an online dashboard is not simply to publish data but to build understanding, trust, and accountability. By making information readily available, our police department will demonstrate a commitment to openness and reinforce that we are willing to share how we operate, how decisions are made, and how officers interact with our community. Transparency through data helps conversations move from perceptions to facts, allowing residents and stakeholders to better understand policing activity within our city. The third area of focus is on our crime prevention and problem solving capabilities. This is the bread and

butter of law enforcement and our Goodyear Police Department. Uh while there are several items in the plan that I could focus on and I'm sure that Mayor Pizzillo can't wait to hear about the enhanced uh traffic safety measures, uh I would like to draw attention. You got it, Chief.

I would like to draw attention to two items of interest uh in this uh uh area to include violent crime suppression and homeless outreach and community response. Currently, members of the special assignments unit are assigned to the SWAT team as a tertiary duty in patrol. However, there is an ever growing need for our city to have a dedicated SWAT team that is focused on criminal apprehensions, serving search warrants, and violent crime suppression and prevention efforts. Between 2022 and 2024, Goodyear SWAT team experienced a 68% increase in the total number of tactical operations. In 2025, SAU increased operations from 44 in 2024 to 111 in 2025, an increase of 152%. Removing the SWAT team from the patrol bureau would also stabilize staffing as the team must conduct training and be available uh should the need arise for their specialized capabilities. By doing this, the team would consistently be available for detectives needs and internal customer service as well. Our community action team, uh, CAT, formerly known as HOT, or the homeless outreach team, uh, has considerably grown, uh, in their job duties since their inception. They are still responsible for going out and assisting our homeless population, but they also deal significantly with mental health petitions, group homes, and a variety of other task. They've added some tools to their tool belt through the police department's new

partnership with Handinhand, a program run by Maricopa County. However, there is plenty of work to go around for this group. Uh, and as a police department, we want to join our community in assisting those noncriminal quality of life issues. As part of the department's dedication to these issues, an expansion of uh trained CIT uh certified officers would be warranted as a uh as a collaborating uh as collaborating with community partners to continue to develop strong relationships uh with behavioral health providers, housing and shelter organizations, nonprofits, and faith-based groups. In this effort, the Goodyear Police Department serves as a connector, not as a replacement for these services. The fourth and last area of focus is on our culture, training, and wellness. Again, this is another area of passion for me and our department, as I like to call everyone, our family. This area is all about the people uh who do the job and how we as leaders take care of them so they can be their best for our community. We could talk about each item on the plan in depth, but I chose the top three that I am excited to see come to fruition to include a wellness unit, a leadership development program specific to the police department, and lastly, but not least, our accreditation through the Arizona Law Enforcement Accreditation Program. So, this is a big one, and it is so important to our staff. A wellness uh unit is a dedicated program within the department focused on supporting mental, emotional and physical health of both

officers and professional staff. As you are aware, uh, policing is inherently stressful and, uh, maintaining wellness is not, uh, is is critical not only for an individual officer or staff member, but also for the overall effectiveness, accountability, and safety of the department. The unit's sole purpose will be to uh will be to proactively address stress, trauma, and wellness concerns before they affect job performance, personal health or community interactions. It will focus on mental health and emotional support, physical health and or physical health and fitness, professional development and resilience, and family support. This will be an exciting addition to our department and I personally cannot wait to see it happen. It's one of my favorite pictures. This item is uh actually uh part of our Q12 action plan for the upcoming year and uh we are working collaboratively with human resources to take on the first phase of this task uh which is designing a leadership development program for our sergeants followed by a separate program for our command staff. I believe this item on the strategic plan is one of the most important because a team is only as good as their leaders and we want to intentionally invest in their success. This program will focus on supervisory and management skills, strategic thinking and problem solving, communication and community engagement, ethics, accountability and professional standards, and last but not least, mentorship and coaching. Building capacity in this area is

critically important for the future and the next generation of the men and women that will be leading this department. The Arizona Law Enforcement Accreditation Program or ALEP is a state level program that establishes professional standards for law enforcement agencies in Arizona. Like national accreditation programs, ALEP emphasizes accountability, transparency, efficiency, and adherence to best practices while being tailored to the needs and laws of Arizona agencies. There are over 50 agencies that have been accredited through this process, and our accreditation should be finalized in fiscal year 2028 at the latest. I'm actually hoping it'll be finished next year. ALEP certification will demonstrate our department's commitment to professional excellence, community trust, and continuous improvement. Last but not least, I just wanted to say thank you. uh since I've uh uh since I've been here over the past uh year and a half, a little bit more, I have received uh nothing but uh support and kindness from from this council. And I would be remiss if I did not say thank you uh for uh believing in our vision, believing in in the mission of uh of our department and for uh joining with us in uh making public safety important in our city. With that, I will take any questions.

All right. To pass it on to uh council. First of all, your police department is most highly respected throughout the community. The story I like to tell when I'm out there in the public is when there was massive trouble back uh when there was rioting in the streets, you're so respected that people were bringing food to the police department to say thank you. That's how much you're solely respected. So you guys are doing a great job. Keep it up. So with that, opening it up for discussion. Go ahead. Where do I start? Um, I am so I I just I don't know if I don't know if I should start with this or I'm gonna pull a tray. Dear God. Dear God, I'm gonna pull a tray. Um, so just just go with me on this.

I'm going to hold you to that. Don't worry. I am. I am. I don't I don't know where to start. I'm so darn proud of you and what you came because I know you know I know what you came into and um it wasn't easy. You had a big responsibility when you came in and I am so proud of you and the people that you have brought with you. Your deputy chiefs Chip Kirk and Jose Gonzalez and your commander and his name again Jared Low. Jared I Why do I always get that name wrong? I always get that name wrong. And our acting commander is Jeff Kerion. Jeff Kerion who I know well. And we can't forget Jennifer Kelly.

And Jennifer is my favorite person on the face of the earth. So, yes, obviously I'm embedded. Anyway, so I love every one of these guys and girls. Love you. Love you. Love you. You know that you brought the best group of people just not just yourself, which is pretty good. But you brought the best group of people in to help with a situ. We were in We were in bad shape. Safe to say, right? Safe to say. You came in and you brought these great people in and you shaped up a police department. We always had the best. We have the best, but they're even better if they can be. They're even better now. And you see it. You see it when we were in a forum just uh last week and people talked about feeling safe. That was the one thing that they all had in common. They felt safe in their community. I haven't heard that in a long time. And I loved hearing that because that has to do with you and what you've created with these fabulous police officers in this city and and the reason they feel safe, like I said, is because of all of you. So, thank you for that. Thank you for doing that.

Thank you.

What a difference. Um transparency and communication is so important. You're right. You're not coming here saying, "Well, we need this." Having someone else tell you, "No, you don't." You know, you're coming here, you're saying, "This is what I need." you're not backing off of it and that's what we need. How do we know otherwise so that we can go forward and do what needs to be done? So, thank you for that transparency very important. Um, license plate readers, I know we've had a lot of issues um not issues but things being said, pros and cons on those. I happen to think they're fabulous. Um, I wanted those from the very beginning and I think they're fabulous. In fact, I was looking at some today on the way here, noticing some of them that are up. I think they're fabulous. They protect not only our officers, which I said three years ago, which one is one of the reasons I wanted some of these cameras to be operational and not nonoperational. They protect our officers, but they protect those of us that are citizens also against things going on. Very, very smart move. Um, I'm very very proud and I say this every time and I'm going to say it again of Scott Daniels and Ashley Tro Troyer and uh from fire. There's a lot and there's a lot more people involved in that. But the homeless outreach and the group they take care of the group homes and everything else that we've had issues with. very very proud of them and I'm very very thankful that you are continuing that because I think it is important to keep everything above board in this town and let us know what's going on so we can stop it if people are doing fraudulent behavior. So I think that's important. You're on to something. Um can you elaborate a little bit on um elaborate on on the beats? We talked about you and I talked about the beats because I think that's important. my grandfather was that in Seattle. And that is so important for the kids um to have officers in their area and know who

they are and um become friendly with them so that they're comfortable and it it just allows that love a little bit more for police officers since police officers have been treated so badly in the last 5 years. Um can you elaborate just a little bit on that and then I'll get into some other stuff?

I can. Uh so Mayor Pazillo and uh Councilwoman Gillis, I uh I think uh initially and I I spoke with all of you about the the precinct restructuring and so uh we have the uh the substation that will be built out at uh um Harrison and Citrus. Um eventually that will become the third the one of three precincts. We'll have uh officers out of that building. We'll have officers out of operations and we'll have officers out of EMR. Um, essentially what that provides is that allows us to create uh um with the three precincts. Each precinct will have three beats. And so we will have officers responsible for specific beat accountability uh within within their uh roles and responsibilities as a patrol officer. So I'm I'm really looking forward to uh to that part of that restructuring is I like using natural boundaries. So we'll be using uh the river bottom uh as uh you know our our cutoff line for the precincts to the north and then we'll be uh using anything everything south will be for uh the officers that are operating out of EMR.

And what is your time on that? So, I believe that the CIP for the substation at Harrison is supposed to start taking place FY uh 2028. I don't anticipate it being built out till FY 2030. The goal is to have everything in place for when that precinct is finally built out and then we can have um all of the staffing appropriately designated at that at that time. Perfect. I think that's perfect. and it brings everybody closer together. Um, also I wanted to know do we have anything more to report on the jail issues.

So I've been working with that uh working with that uh I know I have a uh in the strategic plan um the city strategic plan it talks about a a regional jail study that will be completed. Um, right now, as you know, our officers have one option, which is really to take everybody down to ITR, which is run by the sheriff's office. Um, I'm hoping that we can get some traction uh in the next uh uh several months with uh with Aenddale as they have a jail that's neighboring us. Uh but those are uh discussions that uh I've been having with uh Chief Espinosa and uh we'll hopefully continue in a very positive direction. I'm hoping so too because I think that um if we can get something going with Aenddale, it would be a plus for us especially to have our Goodyear officers remain in Goodyear and not have to go to Phoenix and be told that possibly Phoenix is going to come get them and then Phoenix doesn't and then we have to get off the road to take them to Phoenix and because that's 30 minutes each way or longer because of the check-in time.

There are a lot of uh there are a lot of benefits to having a uh jail facility that's much closer to our city. Marcus brought this to us several years ago and I'm so happy that we're finally thinking of implementing that. He was right. All right. So, um then as far as the SWAT team, I think that that is an awesome idea because that leaves us more people for patrol. Correct. That's what you were saying. We have a separate essentially right now. What's happening is our SWAT team has a tertiary duty, right? um their double double duty with the patrol and with SWAT

um because of their activity has picked up so much um the natural progression is to get them out of there so that they don't have to be doing double duty. I think they've demonstrated or over the course of time their uh workload has increased and continues to increase and so the only sensible reality is to remove them so that every time that they have to leave from the patrol bureau to go handle a search warrant or a barricade that's one less police officer that we have patrolling. The reality is we want as many patrol officers to be out there as possible, right? And with a growing city, correct?

We need that SWAT.

Um, also the wellness. Um, I I love that. I love what you're doing that and that you're putting your officers first, that we're making sure that we remember them and their mental health with everything that they have to deal with. Sometimes I think we forget that and I think it's important. We are not police officers and those of us that were raised in homes of police officers and firefighters tend to understand what you go through. Some people don't understand the enormity of that and the fact that you're putting them first and you're making sure they're taken care of. I love that. Well, I can tell you with our executive team, every uh every single person on our executive team has a great value uh shows great value for each one of our of our staff and uh that is a super important unit for us to get up and running.

I am a in agreeance. um the business coalition. Brilliant, brilliant idea, especially with all the new parking lots and everything that are coming along because whatever whatever we don't know this may be happening out there, your business people that own these different um restaurants and whatever retail as we start getting that can come to these meetings and fill more in. There can be more communication there. Again, communication. Yes, I think it's a great idea. Um, I just can't tell you, Brian. I can't tell you. You and and Chip and Jose and Jared and and Lieutenant or I mean, um, Sergeant, what's his name? The other one. Yeah, Jeff Carion.

Jeff, I love you, Jeff. I don't know why I screw up on your name all the time. And Jennifer, I love them all. I can't tell you how proud. I just I keep saying it because I can't tell you. I hope that the new city manager that we end up getting is as good to you as our city manager has been in in realizing the importance of getting you going. Thank you, Winnette, for finally realizing that because it's been a while. We finally got him where we need to get him going. We got one of the best guys here that's doing this and leading it and I just I've watched it and I just can't tell you thank you. I'm so proud of this police department. Thank you.

Was that great for you? That's true. Is that what I sound like? Yes. That's fantastic. Before I go before I go to you, let's see. Uh then we'll go to we'll get you last. Go ahead. Go ahead, Benita. Okay. Um first of all, let me just say this. This is this strategic plan is is so comprehensive that it it had my head spinning a little bit. Um um it it's excellent. I appreciate it. I I and taking a look at it. Um I just really thought it was just hands just just top-notch. Thank you.

And and I I couldn't figure out anything that it didn't cover. Um but as you know, our citizens already love our police department. Um we're very fortunate

and we are very fortunate. people do love our police department. My thought is about actually just two things. One is staffing because we just talked about adding tourism. We know that our population is increasing and we know that BIES is coming. All those things to me say that our police staffing has to be one of our top priorities for for the city because the plan that you presented to us only works if our staffing is where it needs to be. Um, as a former HR person, I I just I used to do staffing for another organization. Um, and I look took a look at your staffing as opposed to um your population. And even with what you've added in 2025, you're still behind what normal staffing levels would be for a a city that this size. So, so staffing is really really important to me. And the last thing that uh I wanted to say because we can really say a lot of things is uh what um really uh kind of gave me a warm feeling about all of this is our wellness unit. having as as a 30-year military person, I work with PTSD and I know how very very important it is that we take care of our officers when as because they're out there dayto day looking at stuff that we probably don't ever want to look at. And so, thank you for the wellness unit. And with that,

thank you,

Laura. Well, I appreciated that you met with us individually so we could just ask lots and lots of questions and have a lot of conversation and and even in this group meeting um yeah, just the what you've provided is just really rich and I know that the residents listening um are are really getting a good feel of of where you're going to take the department. Um, one of the areas and uh Vicki uh talked about this too was um that's pretty controversial in some communities has to do with the real time crime center and all the equipment that it takes to do it. But it's interesting because even the criminal elements have gotten very si sophisticated with the use of technology and you know that this uh movement not to use it I think is really would be potentially dangerous. Um but uh would would very much limit your ability to do your job well. And that's something that's always been very important for Goodyear. Uh you commit a crime in Goodyear and we'll chase you down even if you've gone down the road. And I think, you know, we've always worked to set that message how um you know, don't don't bring your business here. And uh it's important to us. So um yes, I think

that's a message that we want to continue to uh share.

Exactly. And in order to do that, uh especially living on a a major interstate, we need the the tools to do that. So, you know, as as we proceed with that, I think that it's it's really important um that we uh make that happen. And and it's really interesting, too, how uh the number of the organized retail theft uh rings you've been breaking up and finding. Uh I mean, there's a real cost to that as well. And uh people, you know, think about their personal, but when it hits businesses, it costs us. and uh it's devastating for mom and pops and things like that. So that's really good. As the mayor mentioned, I mean uh during the the COVID and all the social unrest, uh many communities I mean were communities uh with their police departments were really struggling operationally and then with their morale. But Goodyear's always been strong and uh your you and your team are going to take us, you know, to really as we grow. I mean, we're the rapid growth. So, we're we're going to continue to be a top-notch um department. And I I was just as I've been listening tonight and I think about all the recent work sessions, kind of one of the overarching themes is everybody has significant IT needs. And uh as we get to budget and we're really going to have to talk about that and before we hit our wish list of all the fun and uh sparkly things we want to do, we're really going to have to think about our internal infrastructure as well. So thank you.

Thank you, Brandon.

Yeah, I thank you for um the premeating with us with me as well. So I appreciate that and I think we all all the council is very supportive of public safety. I think that's all we've all been very supportive of that for years. Um, and in our community has been too. Ever since I've been on city council, I've been places and uh people buy officers meals everywhere they go, things like that. So, it's definitely a great community and I want to continue it to be that way. So, I think this plan is definitely a good thing to be able to continue. If I did the math right, like I talked to you, I think we're looking at potentially 30 new officers every year to the next five years. So that's something we'll definitely have to get with our budgeting team to make sure we can we can absorb that and also themies can handle that and that our culture doesn't change in the department because we hired too many too fast. So but I want to make sure I get you all the offers you need to hit those goals so we can continue to be a safe place for people to to be to live to raise a family and things like that. So um and yeah I know we've tried to do that before like I said we increased it by I think 11% last year.

Yes. Which it's something but it's not where we need to be yet. So I do I am supportive of the plan. I'll be voting improving that when that happens. Uh the other thing I have is I like leadership development. Did how do you foresee that happening? Is that for people that are interested in being off being in leadership they'll go through the academy and then those people will then apply to do it or is it I'm now I'm an off now I'm a leader now I get trained on it. Is it so Mayor Paz, Vice Mayor Hampton?

I think that's a uh that's a great question. Um because there hasn't been a specific leadership development program for our department uh during the course of its history. What I'd really like to do is start with our sergeants, our current sergeants, have a leadership development program for them. Um but also to um extend that to officers who are interested in being sergeants as well. And then that would be phase one. And then the second phase is to get um our command staff a leadership development program as well. Yeah. So I think it's excellent. I mean to be able to have those skill sets. I mean

I think an officer is a great officer when they're patrolling things like that, but it's a little different job when you're doing in a leadership role to what might not be this similar skill set but not the exact same skill set. So having that that other type of leadership skills is is fantastic as well. So um so yeah. No. Yeah. I'm definitely on board. I appreciate it and I don't want to keep saying the same things everybody else is saying. So, thank you very much. Thank you so much,

Wally. Well, thank you, Chief, for meeting with us. We we we you answered every question and I'm not going to go through them again because I know where you stand. I know what you're trying to do. And I have to be absolutely honest. I have not found anyone in Goodyear that has told me I don't feel safe. People are telling me they feel safe because they know their officers are out there. They probably would like to see more officers out there, but we don't have a a problem in the city where people really don't feel safe. Um, I may be speaking out of turn, but I have never voted no for any chief that has come and said, "I need more officers." And I don't know of any of our councils that have done that in the years past. We have not we have grown so fast. There's no way to project what we need and how we're going to accomplish it. But your plan is a great um plan for us to follow. And I'm glad that you put it together so that you know where you're going, your officers know where you're going, and everyone is finally on the same page. and I just appreciate that. But thank you so much and

thank you for including us before you presented this tonight. That was really important and very thoughtful. So, thank you. Thank you. Now for the second tray. Yes. The OT.

Yeah. Well, let's see if I can Let's see if I can do it. Um, no, Chief. Thank you. Um, you know, I've said it before, but the biggest challenge a city will ever face is what happens when you call 911. Um, whether it's police or fire, you know, how many responders are there, how well trained are they, how well equipped are they, how well-rested are they, uh, like it it matters more and long before anything else we talk about uh, in our job here. So, I just want to thank you and your team for everything uh that you do. We did talk about staffing a little bit. You mentioned your strategic assessment from last year. I remember last year I was brand new, I think, first couple weeks on council. You were in your first couple months in your job. And your initial assessment, you talked about uh 100 officers over the next uh four years or over four years as of a year ago. Um can you remind us last year uh budget uh what you were able to what you requested and received from council?

Yes. Uh Mayor Pazilla and uh council member Terry. So last year in the uh budget we uh we ended up getting 29 uh new FTEEs and 21 of those FTEEs were sworn officers. Uh the other um eight were um were professional staff. Um okay. Um so so with that there's the difference between the sworn and the FTEEs. I know some of that has to do with the implementation of the real-time crime center. There were some um dispatch stuff there. Things like that.

It sounds like according to this plan, it's probably got to go up just a little bit from the hundred. I know uh vice mayor uh mentioned somewhere around 30. Again, we're ballparking, but that's something that we should be expecting and as um I think I recall from your plan you had mentioned um kind of some rough numbers. You mentioned number of patrol officers versus uh sworn. Is that still on track or where we should expect that to grow? Yeah. So um obviously uh I think you have actually been in the conference room to uh see the beautiful mind artwork. Yes. Um you know we have uh we have our numbers to me.

We have our numbers on there and we are working with the city executive team to uh to finalize those numbers. But we know for certain that uh in order to make this plan uh work uh for the patrol bureau, we need 138 officers. Part of that is um you know this this uh upcoming year we will have 84 officers on on patrol, but you have to remember that uh approximately 20 of those officers are SWAT uh on the SWAT team on our SAU. So if if you remove them from the equation, we're kind of back to 64. And that's where uh the approximate 75 and officers uh comes from to uh complete the plan. Ultimately, what that provides is in the three different precincts for the um for the precincts north of the river bottom. That provides uh six squads per precinct. So 24/7 coverage and uh each squad will have nine officers. Uh the southern uh precinct in EMR that uh um precinct will have six squads for 247 coverage and each squad will be uh filled with five officers um until we can uh until we can demonstrate that we need to add additional personnel uh in the south uh based off of calls for service.

Okay. Um and the believe is the vice mayor as well mentioned some of the reasons why you know you can't hire too many too fast. Um there are financial reasons there are culture reasons. Um but from what you've told me you've pretty much put it you you said there were 20 or so on background right now for the eight remaining positions that you're currently allotted. um from what you've told me is if we allocate room for it, you feel like you can fill it. Does that feel good? What what's the culture out there um when it comes not only to our department, but how is our department perceived in the LEO community in the valley? So, we actually uh we actually had to shut down our recruiting um because we had uh we had so many we we get emails every single day from potential recruits and from potential lateral officers from different agencies that want to be a part of our uh department. We just had uh I will leave the uh department to remain anonymous, but we just had some background investigators come from a different agency and they made a comment to our staff that uh the word is out and uh everybody knows that Goodyear Police Department is the place to be. So, well, we certainly want to keep it that way. Um on the other end when it comes to retention uh what is the attrition rate or if any what does that look like? What are potential reasons um for officers wanting to leave our department that you're aware of? I know I'm asking you to speak broadly there, but just kind of what you're aware of.

Yes. Um so we really we don't have officers that want to leave. Uh the the only uh the only people that we have that uh are leaving are uh either people who have reached uh their maximum retirement uh uh uh time. they they are being basically being forced to retire because they cannot go any further either because they were in drop um or um the other the only other reason that we're having people uh um that aren't Goodyear police officers anymore is because I have removed them. Okay. So,

um, and then one last thing, I don't know if it was mentioned in this presentation, but I saw, um, with our response times, uh, I know our response times have gone up. Uh, can you kind of allude to everything that you brought forward to us, um, of where you're trying to get that and what's deemed not just acceptable, but ideal when it comes to response times, cuz in my opinion, they're they're getting a little too high. Um, you know, you're talking a few minutes here and there. I have a different world to speak of, but I've been in, you know, a firefight and 30 seconds seems like an eternity. Um, so I can't imagine three, four minutes. Um, where are we? Where are we trying to get? Uh, can you address that?

So, uh, so minutes matter. uh especially when you're calling because arguably uh something bad is happening and you're you're waiting for a police officer in a police car to come answer uh answer your problem. So um in terms of priority one uh response calls, I believe uh or response times, I believe in 2023 we were at 514. Uh last year we ended up being at 515 and I believe this year the current number I saw we uh finished at 520. So we're uh obviously uh doing the best that we can to get to those uh calls for service as quickly as possible. Uh but the reality is from the graph that you saw uh the calls for service uh numbers keep going up and uh so you know we're we're we're doing our best but yes I mean ultimately um I would love to see those numbers come down. Yeah, I I think getting five minutes that's, you know, it's too long and I think that's got to be our number one goal. Um is making sure we get that number down. U and it's not just to get a number down. It's to ensure that we meet that challenge of when somebody needs uh someone from your department ASAP. We get them there ASAP. That's our fundamental role. It's definitely a priority for uh myself and for my executive team.

And then I wanted to shift to the Real Time Crime Center. Um I know myself, Councilwoman Beckles, we had the opportunity to tour Glendale's uh several months ago as well. Um appreciate that. Can you again for the public just kind of what is that real time crime center? how it works, how it helps officers, how it residents, like we we saw a couple of the photos on here, what what does that actually look like and why is it so necessary for our city to have it?

So, uh to to give you the short version, the real time crime center has uh I mean the definition is in its title uh the the ability for us to get information out to our officers in in real time. um for a variety of different reasons. The primary goal to for us to be able uh to solve crime and to respond in the most effective and efficient manner possible. The more information that our officers have while they're in route to a call, the more likely uh that we are going to be able to respond to that call appropriately. uh whether that's uh getting information, you know, from a drone as first responder and having the eyes in the sky, whether that's uh getting information about a suspect vehicle uh that's leaving a scene, and we can uh then access our city uh intersection cameras and give real-time information to our officers that this this vehicle is now traveling northbound on Lichfield Road uh in in the number one lane. uh go get them guys. And so that uh that really ultimately at the core is what the real time crime center is designed to do. And obviously there's a huge officer safety component with that as well. Uh so that uh our officers know what they're stepping into when uh uh when they arrive on on the scene. Yeah, I think that was one of the most important things I noticed just sitting in Glendale Center for a while seeing officers respond to calls where dispatch literally had eyes on a criminal activity before the officers get there. It lets the officers know like like you said exactly what they're going into. Maybe someone's fled in a direction or something like that. They're able to uh

ascertain that that location a lot quicker and a lot faster. um with human like this this isn't some random computer software thing. These this human in the dispatch center in the real-time crime center watching this operating this um which comes to you you had mentioned um cameras uh from what I noticed most of these cameras are usually something like traffic cameras that have been on our intersections for decades. Is that correct? And um you know I I do want to get into some of the criticisms that were mentioned out there about being able to leverage technology. Um you know I I see comment here you know it sometimes seems a little bit too big brother. What and maybe this is for the attorney as well but what's kind of the reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to going through our public intersections or you're walking down the sidewalk. Um just just to address that if you if you can and I'll leave that open to whichever one uh wants to do that. But you know making sure or I guess ensuring those privacy protections is very important. It it is um while at the same time, you know, ensuring that our officers have every tool necessary to do their job. So I I was just hoping you'd be able to address that. So I would say that the reasonable expectation of uh of you being in public, it's in again in the definition of being in public. Uh there really is no reasonable expectation of privacy while you're in public. You're on a public road. You're or a thoroughfare. You're on a public sidewalk. um the real-time crime center and the drone as first responder program is not being set up so that we can uh you know fly a

drone to spy on what's happening in your backyard. uh they're all go every time that uh the drone would be launched or every time that we're using a city intersection camera, it is going to be for the expressed purpose of solving a crime and so uh or in relation to a call for service uh that we are are using or leveraging that technology. So I I generally agree with that. I think and you have policies in place as to who can access that data for legitimate law enforcement purposes. So yes.

Okay. Um and then when it came to the real time crime center, you mentioned wanting to get it operational by the end of this year. Um where where are we at for partially operational as opposed to fully operational 247 coverage? How many more years? because I see 27 to 31 in the strategic plan here. I hope that we get it fully operational before the end of this plan. So, I wanted to ask that honestly as soon as uh as soon as we can get uh the personnel into that room. Um we we will be operational right now. Um there are several things that are happening in concurrence with one another. Uh one working with uh engineering and public works. We're working on the buildout or the construction of the room which is going to be uh built in in the uh emergency operations center uh that's attached to our emergency communications uh building or dispatch as you you know it. Um right we are currently in the midst of a RFP and so I won't talk too much about that but we're working on uh the actual platform um the uh the platform that we are going to use uh inside the realtime crime center and then uh as as in terms of uh lead time we're just waiting for the actual hardware uh to to come in. But once once all of that's in there, I've been working uh a lot, you know, handinhand with uh director Fasion with it and uh we're on track with all of the software. Uh it's just a matter now of building out the room and then getting all of the uh the hardware situated. Um in terms of personnel, we already uh have selected two of the three uh staff members. And so we'll be having a process here shortly for the uh uh the

officer that will be inside the real-time crime center. But uh we're moving along uh we're moving along great. And I fully expect that by the summer or the fall uh we should be able to be fully uh functional and operational.

So fully functional 247 by the end of this year is the goal. not 24/7 um because our staff is smaller, but uh definitely um we will be set up for our high times of uh calls for service uh which generally speaking are uh Monday through Friday um usually anywhere from um you know the the midm morning through the early evening.

Okay. Um and then there's one last uh issue that's related to that. It was mentioned earlier by Councilwoman Kano when it come to the um license plate readers as well. Um and I know Councilwoman Gillis mentioned that um I remember sitting as a candidate I believe in in this room during a retreat. I think it was the fall of 23. I think Councilwoman Gillis was um advocating for it. We had Chief Rodriguez um sitting in here at the time uh mentioning uh RICO funding for the initial investment of these cameras. Um council supported that. Uh I remember interm chief Miller uh sitting where you're sitting at when I'm sitting in the back of the room. I was a candidate for council. I wasn't even up here um advocating for supplemental requests. uh council talked about it uh debated it and um ended up supporting it in a subsequent meeting where this has been openly uh debated, voted on um many times uh with this council just I I wanted to get make sure that there was no impression out there that this council does not support that. Um this council has constantly talked about I can't enumerate the number of times we've had the conversation since I've been here and you've been there about license plate readers. I know um with the city attorney, I was a candidate and we had a conversation on the steps out front um one night after a meeting where this this has been an issue that again I take seriously the privacy concerns. Um I I I really do and that's something that I've made it a point to learn as much about this issue as I possibly can. Um, when it comes to an automatic license plate reader, can you very briefly again um but again I we're I'm going to beat this horse uh if uh the deputy chief isn't going to ride it. So I'm I'm going to keep beating it. Um

what is a license plate reader and what is it not? So, basically the the uh the license plate readers that we have um they're they're set up around the city and essentially when a vehicle goes through the intersection, it uh a a photograph is taken of the license plate and an overall photograph is excuse me is taken of the uh of the vehicle that the license plate is on. Um that license plate is then run uh run through the system. It's computer generated and run through the system and it is compared against uh ACIC or NCIC. So uh both the Arizona uh criminal justice information system as well as the national um and that is uh determines if that license plate is stolen. It's it's part of a stolen vehicle. if it's a stolen uh license plate, uh if it's attached to a missing person, and there's also a secondary um a secondary uh platform that it's it's also run through through DPS uh on a hot list. And hot list is used by investigative details if they're looking for um someone associated with the license plate. So, for example, um last week, I'll just use that as an example. Uh last, I believe it was last Saturday or Sunday, we had a uh license plate reader hit of a vehicle that was wanted for organized retail, uh theft. Uh our officers were able to locate that vehicle around uh uh one of the stores uh on Australia Parkway. um we were able to get that vehicle stopped. Uh the

person uh or the the co-accomplaces in that vehicle were responsible for over 54 uh organized retail thefts uh within the entire valley. So um that was generated from a hot list entry. Uh so that is what that is the other piece that is constantly running against. We uh we have taken we have we are serious about safeguarding the information that is that is uh in the uh the ALPR uh database uh that we have. We treat it as a police department much like we would treat a siegous information. So a siegous information uh if you don't know uh you cannot use uh a siegous database information for any personal use. If if a police officer does that uh it is a class six felony. It is not good. And so, but that is the way that we treat the information that uh our flock uh ALPR cameras are are generating uh day in and day out. So,

did that answer your question? Yeah. Yeah, it does. I I want to get it captures vehicles and plates. Um does it capture people? Say I walk through an intersection. Does it notice me? No, it does not. Uh does it capture faces? Um, I have never seen a photo that has a a picture of somebody's face in it. I suppose anything is possible. Maybe if somebody was driving a convertible and like the backseat passenger was looking backwards. May maybe then it would capture uh a face, but I've not seen that yet.

Well, I remember those uh speed cameras on the highways like a decade or two ago where you'd have the people standing up through sunroofs uh trying to trying to do that. not uh advocating for that, nor am I advocating for speed cameras. Um I not a fan of red light cameras or speed cameras, but these are, as you've kind of determined, they're a detection tool. I was talking with a resident recently and I kind of um compared it to a carbon monoxide detector um where it is always on. It is always sampling the air. It is always bringing in data. But I mean, just as you could walk through an intersection, um you could walk by a carbon monoxide detector with a whole bunch of cologne or perfume or whatever other smell you want to have and it won't care. That's not what it's looking for. And um that that's why I take issue with, you know, calling it a mass surveillance. It it is a detection tool. Um and it is a vital tool for our law enforcement. Um, and yeah, I I do um want to also address something. You know, you you mentioned um you mentioned the situation last week. I know I've read uh instances where here in Arizona we've had kidnapping cases that have been quickly solved um with LPRs. uh do are you aware or do you know kind of roughly the amount of uh crimes or violent crimes that are being solved with the assistance of LPRs? Um recently these days we talked earlier about you know bad guys are using technology, bad guys are using tools. What are the good guys doing and how effective is it? I mean, I can I can tell you that uh I have I have three pages worth of uh of success stories from us using the uh the flock ALPR cameras. We have uh we have

been able to identify a homicide suspect. We have been able to uh catch uh sexual predators. I talked about the uh uh retail uh organized theft. We had a very similar one because of uh we'll just uh call it a porch pirate where uh somebody stole a cell phone uh off somebody's uh off somebody's porch and we were able to identify that person and uh we were able to make an arrest which ultimately ended up in uh I believe 22 other cases around the valley uh where this person had done the same thing. Uh the reality is um you know within those three within those three pages of success stories uh there's a victim attached to every one of those success stories that we were able to get justice for. That's that's that's great. Um when it comes to you had mentioned uh the data and the security with which we take it. Um who owns who owns the data? So, we own the data.

We own the data. We determine who we share with. We and all that all that sort of stuff. Is that correct? Correct.

Okay. Um, we had uh I I do want to address we had a um a a resident a couple weeks ago uh bring up a comment. I wasn't able to we weren't able to talk about it at the time because we were on a different agenda item, but bringing up the fact that through a public records request um they they spoke of it as their file um you know their their wrong hits tied to my data and my file. Do we do we have files on civilians uh when it comes to this stuff? are are we tracking just civilian files or what we're doing or does that require as you mentioned um being on a hot list for any for pretty much any law enforcement or any human to see it?

So the answer to your question is uh is no. We don't have uh files for our citizenry. Now, I will say we do have files if you're involved in crime. Uh that uh we we're obviously um you know trying to find you and so we do have a file for you if you're a bad guy um and have committed a crime and we know that that you have committed a crime. Uh but for our your ordinary citizen, we do not have any files uh that we have created uh on anyone and we never will. So you drive by the flock camera 99.9% of the time unless you're in the process of committing a crime around that time or just after no human's going to see it. Uh no police officer is going to see it. Is that correct?

That is uh correct.

Okay. Um, and as part of that, um, public records request, I I know, um, you know, I mentioned earlier, city attorney, we've been having discussions going back years on this. Uh, there is no statute in Arizona that explicitly covers uh, ALPRs. Um, we we did uh, honor that request um, at the time. My understanding is uh the city of Surprise uh does not create a hit um because when somebody would put in a public records request, it forces us to create a hit or put a plate on a hot list um to then be able to um capture that data. Um, so I know the city of Surprise does not, the city of Poria does not, I know Glendale redacts everything, but in the, um, manner of transparency, which I fully appreciate, um, we we honored that request. Uh, but I know we've been reviewing um, our our policy. How has that changed and how are we now are we now more aligned with where um, Poria, Surprise, and Glendale have been treating this?

The short answer is yes. uh working with the police department uh we've developed a policy on how to handle these public records requests and what is public uh public records of uh generally accessible to the public and what does fall within those exceptions for privacy interest or best interest to the state. uh as you reference there's there is no state statute that directly addresses LPRs and uh as often uh happens when you have these uh fast emerging uh new uh new technology it takes a while for government to catch up. Uh there's no case law on it. uh you have to look at what is analogous uh records in statute, what is analysis records in previous uh uh case decisions and and try to figure out where that where that fits and then working with with the police department. We spent quite a bit of time over the last couple months, I would say, really diving into uh what makes the most sense and providing access and respecting the general Arizona law provision that, you know, public records should be open to the public unless it fits into one of these exceptions that's welldeveloped in case law. So, we think that certain aspects of this probably does fall within those uh those exceptions. uh and there are some privacy interests that probably needs to be respected and there are some operational issues that the police department uh needs uh to protect that from public records. So I guess that's a long answer to say um working with the police department we've developed a uh we think a a defensible policy uh that we probably would not handle that exactly the same way we we handled it back then.

No, I I I appreciate that. Um, I agree with that and I would would like to say I I know if somebody were to put in a public records request for a police report, we redact uh personal identifiable information such as phone number, address, license plate. Um, we we redact that sort of information for those privacy reasons. So, there's privacy concerns on back end of what we can disclose, what we don't disclose, as well as the transparency. Um and as was mentioned, there is no state statute on uh license plate readers currently. Um that is something that I've made contact with few others. I've had several conversations. I know I've had conversation with um the Senate President. I know uh I had breakfast with the speaker just a few weeks ago um where th this came up. We talked about it. Uh Chief, I know you've been with me with meetings with multiple legislators. Um I do know that uh I believe it was yesterday a bill was uh dropped that uh we have had some input in that would um codify um just to make it clear again. Um th this is admissible under current law. Uh but it it just makes it clear and then helps um get rid of that issue where uh no offense to uh my my friend here, but if you get two attorneys in a room, you'll end up with at least three opinions.

There you go. Um but uh if not more, if

if not more and and we've and we've seen that when it comes to just this simple statute um on how the just different West Valley cities treat this. So, um I I appreciate uh your work on on that, your conversations with legislators on that. Um I know you you've mentioned a a cops involved, APA's involved and uh being able to give um you a voice in that process just to um make sure what works, what doesn't work, what we do need, what we don't need because a lot of that is creating those guard rails, uh creating the retention timelines with the disclosure rules, the privacy concerns, making sure that you cannot use it for civil enforcement. You it it must be criminal activity. uh it it cannot be used for commercial purposes. You mentioned how um it's a felony to utilize some information. Well, we want to make clear that if you wrongly use this information um it it is not just a policy uh problem. It it is a criminal um problem. So, I I appreciate uh your your work on that. I I look forward to hopefully being able to clear this up. I know it's contentious and um you know with with that. Did I do a good job?

Okay. Um I I I just wanted to be like uh Councilwoman Gillis over here. She was taking after me a little bit. So, Mayor, I appreciate the time. Um I feel like uh this side of the table has carried its weight so far. Yeah, I I appreciate the discussion from all of you and uh especially when it comes to the uh cameras. You know, I I truly believe they save lives out there and and it's needed for the crime crime unit and the discussion here was was very thorough and very good. So, with that, the next meeting will be January 26. Uh, no further business. Meeting's over. Yes. Uh,