City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you for the presentation and I would like to thank Patrick and Jorah for the excellent job you're doing. I have some quick questions and I start from the end. What is your response to the recommendations they made? In terms of transportation, they had a set of recommendations.

Yeah, but for example, transportation was one of the recommendations for users. And KCRT, could you bring up the set of recommendations, please? I mean, in general, what's your approach? I don't expect you to address them one by one. Are you planning to spend, I don't know, resources, budget to address these, or how, what's your approach?

Got it. So the answer is you'll be working on those recommendations, I assume. Yes. Okay. And there was a complaint about processing invoices, and that's across the city. I don't know if it's your department or the whole city, and you cannot do much about it, I assume.

The complaints I hear often are not about the invoice, it's about processing them. I've seen people who say they're not going to even apply because by the time it's processed, a year has passed and they cannot survive.

I heard it from contractors and others, too. I think it's a little more than organized. So I hope the city takes some responsibility in that regard. Thank you very much. I have some questions. You talked about data sharing. You're going to work on that. That would be excellent. If you could lower the monitor so we can see you, that would be awesome. Thank you. And so one of the questions said was, like, say the program helps them succeed in a school, and it's been over, I believe, 60-something percent at a young age elementary school. So I don't rely on their answer. Are there any objective da

I'm not clear on your answer. Are you going to do it in the future after data sharing is done so we can see a comparison hopefully?

Okay, because that's very important. In my view. Thank you so much. And quick question, do you share the feedback you get about programs with the grantee so they improve their scores or no, it's just for us?

Thank you. And does this score affect the future grant application?

Okay. I appreciate that. That's a very positive approach. Thank you. So when you talk about the survey, is the participants in the programs that were surveyed, not all students? Okay. I think it's what TA stood for. Technical assistance. Okay. Thank you very much. I think I'm done with my questions. Just one quick question. I assume that the grants don't go to faith-based organizations or does it?

But if they offer it on the side, it's okay with you?

Okay. And one question from last year. Last time you had a presentation, I was concerned about the groups that don't know, and I often put them in touch with you, Patrick. So about the community outreach for the next cycle. Yes. There are very active, we had some of them actually, a group of Native Americans who wanted to practice their dances. They need to learn that they should start 501c3, apply for it. Is it possible to have some outreach effort to inform people months in advance so they start their 501c3 and have an equal opportunity to apply?

Thank you. I have some ideas I'll share with you offline. Please. Thanks.

Yes, thank you so much for the presentation. I just have one quick question to clarify with Councilmember Bono was discussing about exploring data sharing with WCCUSD. I know we spoke last time about how our students in particularly are significantly suffering when it comes to test scores in reading and mathematics. And I'm wondering, like, are we missing an opportunity by not collecting that data? Because I know during the presentation you said we don't collect those scores. And so I'm wondering, because we do suffer significantly in that area, are we missing an opportunity?

Okay. And so with that, so once that's all paired and aligned, will we be looking forward in the near future to sort of create some programs or systems to help improve those test scores?

It's exciting to have these conversations I've been looking to the report. Maybe you can help me find a You listed the top three zip codes, 9-4-803, 9-4-801, 9-4-804. Do we have a report that shows all of the zip codes? And I know that Richmond is mismatch of zip codes, so we share zip codes, but is there, I wasn't able to see 9-4-806, 9-4-805, 9-4-530 in terms of services that we provide and those others.

So it's more on the participants because we mentioned participants, the top three zip codes of the participants were 9-4-803, 9-4-801, 9-4-804. I forgot to mention that. So it's on the participants. So I want to see 9-4-806 that's shared mostly in San pavlo but shared with a corner of Richmond. I live in it. 9-4-805 is on one corner. 9-4-530 is another corner. So it will be great to see where the Richmond kids are there. A question on what happens if they don't meet a certain goal. There's the program participation goal versus the outcome. And there was a slight difference there. So in slide 2

Thank you. Good to know that there. Thank you. And Council Member Brown asked about the processing invoices. Anything that we can do to help, let us know. And I've been trying to look to see the services that the community needs and wants. I believe it doesn't match what we're providing. Is there a way to provide more? Now, the data that I'm looking at, and it's on your reports here, and then, sorry, I'm gonna be jumping around, but there's some, so, and my slide 28, for example, and maybe it's just broken down a little different, but 6% housing assistance, 7% medical and dental care, 70% tran

Is it slide 19? Your slide 19? Yeah, so this might be it. Yes, thank you. And they might fit within this here, but I'm just trying to see if there's a better way of going after what the community is asking more of. And are they aligning at the end of the day? In here, sure, under mental and behavioral health or physical health and wellness, safety and belonging, community, that could have The housing that's on that other slide, the housing assistance, the medical and dental care, it could fit in there. But I'm just trying to see if we should be propping up some more and then going after more s

I think you hit it on there and maybe on there as well, we can then incorporate sort of some kind of ID so that way a person signs up and now you can go and have all these access and you have a little number and now we know you're from Richmond. And that can help with because we're trying to quantify the data more and that might be able to help and I know that I'm out of time so I'll come back later on thank you so much all right council member Wilson

Thank you. So thanks for the presentation. And so one of the things that I learned from the presentation last time that I think, and you can tell me if I'm articulating this correctly, is that although we as council members and sometimes community members, we like to see sort of quantifiable data that shows progress on this measurement and that measurement and that. But what I'm hearing is that and you said this last time as well, is that when you have a program that's spending, you know, $6 or $7 million across a whole city, that you're not really expecting to move the needle on reading score

Yeah, and so just along those lines, I think that, again, I just sort of want to mark it as that we're taking a certain approach of not having a super tight focus on a particular issue, and that's something we might want to keep in our heads over time is if we ever wanted to experiment with having a tighter approach. Another thing that I'm learning about is, I mean, I guess this is kind of the same comment I made during the last presentation, but I think it bears repeating, is that one of my concerns about just sort of the way that it's structured is that, if we were taking this money and just

Thank you, and thank you for the presentation. I had two questions. One is around, what is the percentage of the money goes to city and nonprofit partnership? What is the percentage of going city nonprofit and a school district partnership, or nonprofit at a school district partnership? And my question goes to, the fact that, as council member Wilson is saying, sometimes if we were running this as a city, we could be mapping out more THE SERVICES TO TARGET THE KIDS THAT ARE NEEDED MORE THAN WHERE THE C3s ARE LOCATED. So I wonder is that partnership could also potentially be filling that gap in

Okay, thank you. And then the other part is the evaluation of the quality of the program. Could you put the slide? One of the things that I was thinking about is, is there any, like, any way you compare other high-quality programs to kind of like have a benchmark for these. I see a lot of the surveys are the participants saying, I like these, I would like to recommend this program. But it's also, do you have evaluation where you compare the quality of these programs with other similar programs that are actually also in other parts doing a good job serving the same communities or something like

What's that? It sounds like a couple of people wanted to speak, but they got here late.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation. I had the opportunity to hear that in the auditorium. And I'm glad that some of this is done. As a cancer survivor, it's also personal to me. But I wanted to say, so a couple days ago, our community experienced this rotten egg smell people started to sense that at 6 p.m. There was no warning until really late that day. And it ended up being from the refinery. So my thing is how is that a refinery doesn't know the source of that if it's coming from the refinery and it could not have that warning early. So these are the things that we are exposed and our com

And I'm sorry KCRT, it's really hard to hear you so can we put the volume up?

Can KCRT help us to turn the volume up? Go ahead.

Yeah, it was 400. So following that, the other public comments talk about the cumulative impact. So we are exposed to the order, and that was really high based on the threshold. And on top of that, our community is also exposed to the other toxins that cause cancer. How that is affecting us, how that it takes into account to see the cumulative effects of living next to a refinery and how we can measure that. And what will be the proposed improvements to public health?

Yeah, thank you. And I feel like I would love to working with you around how these one-time exposure is affecting our community because what happened is that we need to add right away to have people to go to the the ER or the clinics to get checked so we can have that data because right now we don't have that data. We know that the community was exposed. We didn't receive any warning and the warning that we received after many, many hours was that it was level one. So we didn't really got a shelter in place because we didn't know that and that cannot happen and We need to work with the health

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Very informative. Thank you, Supervisor Gioia, for representing us at the board. I strongly believe the city of Richmond needs to have representation to hopefully sometime in the future. I know the members of public are waiting for the regular session. So I'll try to make quick questions. It was interesting to me that storage tanks are a source. It's because of the vapor, I assume. And we have many of them. And I didn't know they were a source of pollution.

Thank you. I'm confused about the source of the data, the cancer risk level, 37 in 1 million. It's not from the cancer patient. It's from the test you did. What is the source? You presented it, but I'm confused about the source of data.

But why now? What triggered that now? Why didn't you do it earlier, three years prior?

So in your presentation you had exposure plus time. What time period are you looking at? One year?

Thank you. Because when you look at the air monitoring data on Chevron site, it shows one hour exposure or five minute exposure. And it's not clear, you know, over time, like one year, 10 years, what it is. Dr. Rohan, if you could explain that. And also, it's not easy to see that. I don't know if you can do something about that website. I mean, it should be. easy to understand for any layman to see if there are any flags. But you have to go one by one, and there are acronyms, and there is no base level. Anyway, I hope this site can get improved. But this study, how long did it take? I mean, is

But how often do you do it for Chevron? Hopefully they will do improvements and you're going to do another HRA.

Of course. Thank you. That H2S smell was perceived in District 4, like towards end of El Sobrante Valley. But there's no, I wonder if there is any study about the health impact east of I-80. Usually it's focused here, but we're talking about long-term, and even a small level over long-term could have some impact. Are there any monitors, are there any studies in other parts of Richmond, District 4, like

I'm not talking about hydrogen sulfide. Oh, okay. I'm saying this was sensible, so they sensed it. Yes. I'm trying to conclude that maybe other harmful chemicals that you cannot smell does reach the area, but usually there's no attention about health impact of Chevron refinery in El Sobrante Valley. My request is for you to consider it in the future, if possible, even though lower level. But over the time, I've been living there since 97. It's like 30 years now. people have the right to know if it has any impact on their health, how much, in what ways. So just a suggestion. Thank you.

Right. But if Chevron is going to take five years to do something and it's going to take at least a couple of years for you to do next HRA, meanwhile you may have time to look at other aspects of the issue. Thank you so much. I'm done.

Thank you for the report. So the report was done from data from 2021. How quickly can we get the next one? Because that's five years, and I don't know if things have gotten better or worse, but we're having a conversation about five years ago, and are we

Thank you for that. And going on on the 30 years there, so I'm reading your other report on your website, and it has a little bit different verbiage than the presentation you have today. So it says, exposure for a person living in the area, and it has parentheses, resident 24 hours per day over 30 years. What does that mean? Does that mean resident 24 hours a day in your house, in the backyard? Where are you living those 30 years and 24 hours?

And how are we then, now I work remotely sometimes from my house, but I still go into the office, so I'm not at home 24 hours a day. How is that nuisance kind of calculated and you're in your house maybe eight hours a day at night, windows closed, does that change anything? On the weekends you're maybe in your backyard the whole day, I know it's probably a big calculation, but what does that do to the numbers?

Thank you for that. And then in the map, and I zoomed in closely, it's kind of the perfect storm. We've got 580, and we've been having this conversation in regards to the bike lanes on the bridge, right? So there's a lot of data in my head for that. So in that area, this perfect storm between the traffic from 580 and then the refinery, is there, I'm trying to figure out, and there's the section of Point Richmond that's right there, right in that perfect storm area. What can we say to that?

So I'm not an expert, so I'm asking a question here. So is there a way to just say this chemical is coming from Chevron even though it could be the same chemical that a vehicle on 580 is doing? Can we differentiate to that level?

Now with that, are we able to also study that area of 580 to see what else is happening in there?

And then can you remind me, when is the Richmond treatment plant, known as the Viola plant for now, when is that one on the list for the HRA?

Yeah, so the Veolia plant. Early in the presentation, it was mentioned that you were going to have chem trade and then Veolia plant kind of on the list. So when can we expect the Veolia plant?

Chem trade a year off and then the Veolia plant maybe two years off from there or something or other. Again, because the Point Richmond community is in that perfect storm where you have Chevron, you got Phi Beta, you got Veolia. Sometimes it was all of the above hitting depending on which way the wind was blowing. And in the past, the Veolia plant has had over 200 PBMs coming out of that plant, right? And I wish we would have, councils in the past would have done more to try to mitigate that and be more in front of it. And we talk about cancer, but anything about asthma, something, one of the

And now I know that the airport recently got money from Chevron and it was divvied up already. Knowing that Point Richmond is the number one community being harmed, how can we make sure that we get some of those funds into that community immediately into that community? There is going to be, there's going to be.

And I know the funds were already kind of given out. So I'm trying to figure out, since this report is still somewhat preliminary, if it comes back and it says the community should be doing A, B, and C, one of them planting trees. I love trees. We've got to plant more. But if they come back and they say you should be putting double pane windows, you should be doing more insulation in particular communities more than others.

OK, so there's still room there for that.

Are we able to do something about air filters for the residents and the businesses that are there? The residents seem to be the most impacted.

I know the map is long or big, but the darkest purple is in point Richmond. I'm trying to figure out.

Thank you. Hi, thank you for the presentation. I didn't understand the answer that you gave Councilmember Zepeda about it measuring the risk of asthma of either exasperating or creating, you know, we have very high asthma rates in Richmond. So is that correct that this health risk assessment is basically silent on the connection between the regular emissions and asthma?

Okay. So, and that's because the emissions, so you were driven by the admissions, the actual chemicals that were being emitted to then model these health risks.

Okay, it's narrow. Okay. And so this is not, so just to sort of bring home the point, this is not exonerating Chevron in terms of having a connection to Richmond's cancer rates. It simply was not studied in this study. I'm sorry, to Richmond's asthma rates. It simply was not studied in this study. Am I understanding that?

Okay, great. Thank you. So what I want to kind of focus on in my questions is what's actionable, like in the short term, in the immediate moment coming out of this report. And so if I understand it correctly, you have, this is the first time that there was a health risk assessment done, which I didn't realize. It comes out of, it's what, Rule 1118, people keep saying. And so it's been seven years in the process. There's been a law change. And now we can, the community can benefit from having these studies done at a variety of sites that are, of places that are potential polluters. And what you

And if I can just, so thank you for that. And if I can just sort of piggyback on that in terms of expectations, how soon does Chevron have to, either produce a risk reduction plan or refuse to do that and sue us instead? Like what's the timeline for that?

Okay, so that'll be our, we'll have six months in which to do a test here about whether Chevron's going to be responsive to community concerns about health by doing something about its storage tanks, generators, bioreactors, and leaks, or are they going to try to wiggle their way out of it with some kind of lawsuit. And then if they do sue us, so I guess we have the example of the wet scrubber. If they do sue us, I mean the community, I mean the Air Board, If they do say, oh, we're not going to do any of this risk reduction stuff, we don't believe your health risk assessment report, we're not

Okay. So I hope you're right. I hope they just do it. But if they don't do it, the Air District can enforce penalties. Right. And then eventually, like what happened in the wet gas scrubber, Chevron paid the penalties and eventually did the thing that was asked for.

Okay. Well, I hope they start there rather than end there this time. But thank you.

Yes, continue it. What presentation? We're not privy to the agenda.

No, the future agenda. I know this agenda. You're saying it's going to be on the future agenda, but I don't know what future agenda that is.

Is he going to come forward giving us information on how to make 23rd Street safer and have those plans ready to go?

Because that's what this agenda item is about. It's not giving a presentation to know what we know.

Because what we're looking for on our item is solutions, right, not to study it again because we've had many studies. They're online. So, and we have the data that shows that it's a very dangerous street. We had multiple people die in the past couple of months. So what we want is not a presentation that tells us this is the data. We want a presentation that says here's what we're doing because we know this already. We're going to do crosswalks by this day. We're going to do lights by this day. That's what we're looking for.

So he'll have a plan. Because tonight, the item for us was going to be to say, we want staff to do something now. So if he's prepared to do that at the presentation, to come back and say, here's what we can do, what we can do now, short term, long term, then I'm OK with moving it. Otherwise, we need to have that conversation.

No. If that's your commitment, we'll hold you to it.

Sorry, I have a question on one of the items. I just want to make sure. I'm just looking for process. I lost it. On the mcdonald item, is it still an ad hoc? I was looking at our city attorney for that.

So it's a Brown Act body, so then it's agendized? And so then there, if it is, there's only three members, so we should have more than, because we should have a quorum, right? That is, the ad hoc is, having a Brown Act usually allows to have up to four because it's agendized, right?

So the agenda is 72 hours, all that stuff there. So similar to if we were to add another person, we would still have to go through that same process is what I'm getting at. So if we're able to add one more, I don't want to bother but Council Member Brown is on McDonald's.

Yeah. And I'm thinking that there's opportunity for one more. For four? Yes.

Thank you. I'm here to praise Daniel, too, and I'm very glad that people outside Richmond recognize him, too. Our public works director and his team do an excellent job. They're responsive and thorough. Fast response with attention to details, great respect for residents, hear their complaints or suggestions and everything. I really appreciate it. You deserve it and a lot more, and your team is wonderful, too.

We have the honor of recognizing our firefighters. Please join us here. Thank you so much and please. They usually do an excellent job and work very hard to keep us safe. Please. Thank you. Thank you so much. And there was a fire recently. And I was talking to Mike from the fire management team. And I heard that they had been briefed by a counselor. You know, we know they do their job. We read the news. And unfortunately, there were some casualties at the fire. And our sincere condolences to those families. But we often may not think about the impact that it may have on them. I mean, they deal

I just want to kind of just make a deep appreciation.

Thank you all for trying to fit up here. But more importantly, thank you for the service that you provide to the city of Richmond and all of our residents. Thank you for your bravery. Thank you for putting yourselves out there. And to the family, thank you for allowing us to borrow your spouse and your dad and for allowing him to keep us safe. So thank you. And now we'll read the proclamation.

The city of Richmond proclamation recognizing the courage and heroism of Richmond police officers. Whereas on September 3rd, 2026, Richmond police officers responded to assist the A3 behavioral health crisis response team with a call for service. What began as an effort to assist a person in crisis quickly escalated when an armed suspect opened fire on responding personnel with a high powered rifle. And whereas Officer Justin Church, the first officer to arrive, was struck and seriously wounded by gunfire. Despite his injuries and the continuing threat, Officer Church demonstrated extraordinar

All right. We continue in honoring and celebrating the great work from various of our community members. whether you're in the fire department or police department. Sometimes you may not actually work for the city of Richmond, but you put your heart and soul into it. And we want to appreciate all these individuals that help uplift our community. And with that, there.

City of Richmond Proclamation honoring Soulful Softball Sunday founder, Rodney Alamo Brown. Whereas in recognition of the outstanding vision, dedication, and leadership demonstrated through the creation and stewardship of Soulful Softball Sunday, an award-winning annual gathering at Nickel Park in Richmond, California. And whereas Soulful Softball Sunday stands as a beacon of hope and unity, bringing together an estimated 500 to 1000 participants from across Richmond for a day filled with fellowship, food, prayer, and spirited softball competition. This cherished event restores the city's sens

Thank you for the presentation. Thank you, Supervisor Gioia. Quick question. You showed the past chart. Is the position of ombudsperson going to be in the new chart? It was hard to see. Are we going to hire one? I hope.

I'm confused. So does the Hazmat Commission going to have that position filled, or Adam is going to?

Yeah, but we don't see her at the Hazard. So I'm a member of the Hazard Commission representing the city of Richmond. And Michael did an excellent job, and Adam is trying to fill in.

Right. He's doing an excellent job, but it's my understanding his position is something else, and he's filling temporarily.

Okay. All right. And I have one quick question, if I may, about the content of the tanks, HAZMAT tanks. Do we know them after hearing that actually they contribute to toxic pollution in the city? Does HAZMAT have a list of them? Does the city of Richmond has it? Is it public knowledge?

My question is, is the content of HAZMAT tanks public knowledge or who has knowledge of it?

Excellent. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Somebody told me we have 400 tanks. I'm not sure how many we do, but...

I move the item then. Well, I... Oh, sorry, my apology.

Thank you so much, Professor Corbin, for agreeing to present tonight. This is an important topic for the city of Richmond, and it's great that you are taking the time to come here and present, so looking forward to the presentation. Thank you.

And we used- I'm so sorry, but we can't hear your conversation, Madam City Clerk. Thank you.

Comments and questions or just comments? Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Very informative. I have some quick questions for you. The data you provided were shootings. The first graph was fatalities, but the rest of them were shootings that would have gone up.

Okay. Question on the side. I believe Trump has stopped collecting gun violence data into health data. Is it still the case or we have gun violence in health data?

Never mind. The health department used to collect gun violence fatalities as their data, but.

So to elaborate on that, I assume you considered the correlation between gun violence and demographic data, socioeconomic and everything, right?

Thank you very much. And have other cities started replicating this model? I think Oakland and Chicago I heard something, but I'm not sure how close it is to our ONS.

Thank you. I would like to thank Sam Bond and office of neighborhood safety and all what they've done. My background is in engineering. I don't know much about medicine but I've heard of JAMA. I know how credible it is. Congratulations and thank you for focusing on our wonderful city of Richmond and its achievements.

Yes. Thank you so much for the presentation and for your work on this. Again, congratulations on your publication. I wanted to ask a couple questions regarding the study. So it says that you selected 15 cities that you indicated with over 8,000 eligible cities for the study. And I'm wondering why were none of the cities that were selected in the 15 bulk were in California.

Yeah, no, thank you for that clarification because I did notice that there were eligible California cities but they were excluded. And how many, do you know how many California cities were eligible but yet were excluded?

So it was strictly based off of data limitations,

No, thank you for that. I'm just wondering, when I saw the exclusion, I'm like, hey, would this have ultimately had an effect on the comparison model overall? Like, would the outcome have been different? So thank you for that clarification. Also, since this report has hit the web, it's garnered, like, lots of chatter regarding who claims the 61%, right? And I just wanted to know if you can clarify what or who actually attributed to Richmond's reduction of firearm assault in homicide numbers. I know it defines it in the study. However, it has grown like a conversation of its own. And I just wan

Yeah, well, the police department, because they arrest folks with guns. things like that. So I'm just trying to gauge the overall understanding that folks are putting out there. Because it says in the report that ONS contributed or associated. And then the conversations that are ongoing with mayoral candidates and so forth is that ONS is the... organization that's responsible for this 61% reduction. And then you have all these other organizations that are talking about the work that they were doing during the same reporting period. So I just wanted to get some clarification on that. Also, I ju

Okay, great. So I believe that this study is super important, so thank you, and thank you to the work that ONS and all the staff do for the city of Richmond. I just think that this study is a contribution to a much larger conversation, and so I just want to take this time, and that's why I asked how much time did I have, to recognize Richmond residents who have continued to be shot and killed during this time period. But the fact that they were not shot and killed in the city of Richmond, they were killed in neighboring cities like Oakland, Antioch, Vallejo, San Francisco, and other places. So

All right. Thank you for the presentation. So I was just curious, like what made you as scholars decide that you wanted to do research on this particular program? Like how did you find out about it? What sort of drew your attention to it?

I want to say again, even though we know more work needs to be done, we really appreciate when outsiders come and especially for free, we didn't have to pay you, do this kind of research because we are all pretty desperate for numbers. We know they don't always exist they can't always be used, but when they can, we really appreciate that. So really thank you. I want to talk a little bit about the methodology. One of the things that my jod sort of dropped open when I first saw this online and then you explained it so beautifully tonight is sort of like, well, how do you know what would have hap

Well, I'm going to ask you, it's a question, but I hope you will also hear it as a pitch, because one of the questions we're trying to answer here in Richmond is when we started using ALPR cameras, automatic license plate readers, did that have an effect on reducing crime or solving more crimes? And when I talk to my friends who we are not researchers, we say, well, it's hard to say because we don't have a parallel universe in which we didn't have these cameras to compare it to. But now I am learning that there is this technique called the synthetic control model where you can maybe synthesize

Right, so it sounds like both having it run for a longer period of time and investing more in it pays off. It doesn't, like you say, plateau at a certain point and you don't get any more benefits. Okay, last question I have is, you talked about it again, I want to recognize that human life is, you can't put a dollar price on it, on human life and human suffering. But one of the things, the statistics that you had was, and maybe KCRT can put up that slide, about every dollar spent on the program saved a certain amount of, or generated a certain amount of savings in terms of the number of homici

I'll try to keep going. So is that city savings or is that sort of like the cost to, I know sometimes people quantify cost to society. Can you clarify?

Okay. Again, amazing things to think about. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you so much. I remember you because I went to UC Berkeley and you were one of the professors there in my program. And it's no conflict of interest, right? Because I was there before city council and before thinking about being a city council. I wanted, there is this, first of all, I wanted to say thank you and I want to quote Sam Bond because he always say that. Thank you. At the end of the day, we had been reducing gun violence in the city of Richmond because those individuals who had been in that life had decided to not do it again. And that is really important that we also recog

This is why this program could be, needs to be part of other cities, so we can decrease that, see that decrease violence in other cities. My last thing is, I think like the thing that I say a lot is that the prevention part is really key, right? We don't want to lose members in our community. And this is why we have been investing in a holistic approach of public safety. to decrease, to not go after the fat, but also provide this opportunity. So now I have been hearing, yes, we had this decrease, but I have two questions. If another council decided not to support ONS right here in the city of

I'll make a motion to extend the meeting until we finish this item.

So my last question here is the violence had decreased significantly and there is now a conversation, I feel, or I think there is a need for a conversation about what is next, right? We are saving these lives, but what would you recommend to the city council based on what you are doing? What is next that we need to

Council Member Cepeda. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sam, first off, thank you for the great work you have done. Thank you for the great work you have done. I want to acknowledge you for everything you've done for our community for many, many years. You have a really great program and every life saved is a life saved. So you're doing a great job. So thank you for that first off. And thank you for the report as well. I want to get back to you in a minute, but he's here. You mentioned something I want to start off with, something you ended up there with, which is if they're hungry, right, the services t

Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you. I'll now ask our hearer for it. Thank you, Sam. Thank you. Going over the report, first I thank you both for the time that you put into Richmond and helping us paint a picture of Richmond that has been always changing and for the better. And the crime rates show that. So thank you for that there. I was trying to figure out what is the magic that is making it. ONS is a really great program. I want to see if there's anything else there that has helped so we can continue doing it side by side. revenues in Richmond or household income has also gone up. I d

So just to confirm that I understood correctly, so the other model cities, you also looked at their data and as they were changing, did you pivot to a different city if one of them changed too drastically, or did you stay with the same ones throughout the whole time regardless?

I believe in your report there was at least two cities and I always try to find my chicken scratch here but I think there was at least two cities that don't have similar program but they had a reduction as well. Do you know what strategies were part of these two cities?

Okay. And then kind of in the similar there, so the report says that the Peacemaker program wasn't solely for the reduction. Are you able to speak to what else you see out there? So ONS, great piece of the pie, right? But what else can we as policymakers continue doing that what else contributed to that change?

And I know it's difficult to pinpoint, and I'm asking these questions, but I feel the pain in even asking them. So some of the demographics have changed in Richmond. And then you see Richmond's crime decrease. And then if you look at some of the places where some of the individuals migrated to, like Antioch. Antioch is one of the cities that has had an increase in crime. And from... I joke, I'm a Googler, right? I Google stuff. While Googling it says several people from Richmond moved to Antioch. And I'm not saying that those are the people that moved to Antioch and created crime, but it's jus

Again, this is really great info. And then kind of along that same line, do we know what number of Richmond shootings actually involved any of the peacemaker fellows or any of the conflicts that they had? Do we have any data on that?

If there's any future data, any future reports, or maybe it's missing, or maybe I'm missing it here, it's a word nobody likes, but it's out there. It's gentrification, right? If that's happening to a city, does that have anything to do? You have new neighbors coming in. You have the older generation passing away, part of the generation moving away. Are all of these points considered into the change?

I look forward to seeing a future report. This is really interesting, and I think it's a question that everyone has had. changing demographics, changing Richmond, always changing positively. So let's see what else we can do. Several years ago, we also had, I remember one of our former, former police chiefs kind of start out the community policing. So I don't know that has also taken into account what programs the police has done on their own side, solving crimes or being out in the community more. So I don't know if that's in there or not. I have one second.

Thank you so much. So my colleague, council member Wilson, was trying to deduce from your research that automatic license plate reader cameras may not be needed in the city because ONS is am I wrong?

That wasn't my point. May I state my point and then you can see if you want to respond?

Okay. So I just wanted to me those cameras are to arrest people who do it may be preventative of repeated crimes, do you have any suggestion about your study if it could be linked to ALPR cameras?

That's what I thought. Just wanted you to confirm. And again, my apology. You had to wait so late in the night. Thank you so much for everything. Greatest study. Yeah, thank you so much. We really appreciate your support of our city of Richmond and the great programs we're doing. Keep continuing the research and hopefully see you in a couple of years again when things are getting better. Thank you.

Point of order. Thank you. Am I allowed to clarify my actual position just for the record? Five seconds.

I was saying that it would be interesting to use the same methodology to study the effectiveness of ALPRs, not making a point about how ALPRs work. Yeah, maybe a long extension. Thank you.

And would I have an opportunity to address my mischaracterization? Thank you. So, yes, I was saying that. Wait a minute. Okay, Wilson said yes, so I felt compelled.

Okay, so the person is not here? I would like to hear it if you would still say it.