Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

Public Safety and Health Committee. It is '9 zero five. I'm chair of the committee, Alderman Scott Spiker, joined to my right by Vice Chair Alderman Bergelis, to his right by Alder Taylor. Joined to my far left by Alder Moore on the committee as well, also joined by our excellent staff assistant Ms. Joanna Urtiz, also joined at the table by Alderman Baumann. We'll start with item one, oddly enough, which is file number 251,587, ordinance relating to parking controls.

Good morning, mister chair, members of the committee. Scott Reinbacher here with the Department of Public Works. Only one change today to the city's parking controls and that is to change the parking regulations on West Vine Street between 47th And 60th Street. These changes will be implemented in coordination with the completion of a paving project this spring. The changes would install no parking on the South Side Of Vine Street between 47th And 55th, and no parking on the North Side Of Vine between 55th And 60th. This change was coordinated with the local alder through community outreach. Happy to answer any questions.

Any questions from committee members? Not then, Alder Berglaus moves passage of the ordinance and hearing no objections so

the

city's regulatory traffic controls today. First would be to install a yield sign for the eastbound direction at Iona Terrace and Green Avenue. And second is to install always stop signs at the intersection of Burleigh And Lester Carter Drive. The second change is in coordination with a recent safe routes to School project where the traffic signals were removed through community outreach. Happy to answer any questions.

Quick question. So regarding the yield in my district, if residents ask, I think I know the answer. I think committees know the committee members know the answer but as long as we have an audience, why not educate? So why do you put why do you bother with yields when a stop would seem to be more aggressive? What's your policy? What are you driven by?

Yes. Yield signs are installed where an engineering study determines that a full stop for vehicular traffic is not always needed. My team will perform a site visit, make sure their the visibility is adequate, make sure there's no trees, bushes, fencing in the way, things like that. Similarly, we'll review the crash history, see get a feel if there have been recent crashes. At this location, there has not been a significant number of crashes, so we felt the yield is more appropriate. And of course, this is all in coordination with state and federal standards and guidelines.

Significant number of reported crashes.

Correct. That's a good point. Yep.

Mhmm.

Yep. Okay. With that, Alder Taylor.

Yeah. Just did you say that the local alder was in support of the one for Burleigh and Lester Carter?

Yes. Yep. It's my understanding the local alder was involved in that project's public outreach, which there's a school nearby. Right. We've also monitored this location. Since the project has been completed, we have not seen any reported crashes that have

occurred at this Thank

you. Thank you.

With that, Alder Taylor would move passage. And hearing no objection, so ordered. We're gonna move on to four pretty substantive files. So I'll read in item three which is file number 250028. This is our old friend, the substitute ordinance relating to the ethical treatment and ownership of animals. It's sponsored by alder Baumann, Moore, and myself. And since I'm one of the sponsors, I will pass the gavel to alder Burgales.

Thank you, Alderman Spiker. As the sponsor, would you like to introduce it?

Alder Baumann is the chief sponsor.

Alderman Baumann, would you like to introduce Yeah.

Thank you, mister chair and members of the committee, good morning, everyone. If memory will serve everyone, this matter came to to us through MADAC. And just MADAC stands for the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission, I believe. And it is a body that was created by all the municipalities in Milwaukee County to deal with basically these the issues with stray and abandoned animals, dogs, cats, rabbits, really any type of of domesticated animal and even some undomesticated animals. And basically, Maddock is paid for in part by the taxpayers of the City Of Milwaukee and all the other municipalities in Milwaukee County.

The City Of Milwaukee currently appropriates about $2,700,000 if memory serves. That's our share, our pro rata share of the MEDEC operating budget that is not covered by their operating revenue. So there's a taxpayer stake in the well-being of MEDEC and the efficiencies of how they do their business. Our our purpose here is basically twofold. Number one, to attempt to hold down the public cost of Maddock's services to the community.

And number two, more of a moral question to improve the welfare of domesticated animals, which based on several recent incidents and some high profile incidents, has been drawn into question. Of course, people with twenty and thirty animals in their home, inadequate care, inadequate sanitation facilities, perhaps animals that are becoming public nuisance, that have caused disturbances in the neighborhood, are are issues that affect the public health, safety, and welfare. So this ordinance is intended to tighten up a lot of the existing provisions of chapter 78, which is the chapter of our ordinances that deals with domestic animals. And also in create some new provisions that deal with some of the more serious problems MADEC is facing in terms of intentional breed you know, off the books breeding operations which occur in in some parts of the city. Accidental litters occurs in some parts of the city.

Mandatory licensing and micro chipping of all basically dogs and cats within the city. Tightening up and expanding the definition of animal cruelty to deal with some of the loopholes that existed under prior law. We've worked extensively with MADEC as well as our Department of Neighborhood Services which is enforcement arm of chapter 78 to make sure that they're comfortable with the enforcement, the ease of enforcement and the logic of enforcement of the chapter 78 provides. So there's been a lot of back and forth between our legislative reference bureau, the drafters of this ordinance, the sponsors of the ordinance, MADEC, and of course, Department of Neighborhood Services. So I I think we are here now with a final final version.

I think we've gone through 10 or 12 iterations which is fine. That's the legislative process and that sometimes it takes time to get it right. And we started this in April And so it's been a eight nine month process and that's fine. But we're here today here today to hopefully recommend passage to the full common council.

Thank you Alderman Baumann. Alderman Moore, any anything to add?

Nothing. As a sponsor of it. Yeah. Thank you so much. I think Alderman Bowman summed it summed it up pretty pretty well.

We just want our community to know and our residents to know that we have taken this matter seriously, especially with so many of our districts that have received calls to what we call animal owners that have not been responsible. And so we have taken the necessary time. I wanna give deep gratitude to ADIS and LRB that have spent countless hours back and forth with not only the sponsors, the departments, MADAC, as well as some other partners, animal partners as well, to bring this to where it is today. It is not perfect, but it is an opportunity to move us in the right direction. I'm hoping that we have some traction to get this moving.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Alderman Moore. And to the last lead sponsor, Alderman Spiker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just wanted to add kudos. Believe we're on draft 16 actually, Alderman Baumann, which is

Oh, 16.

Impressive. Exhausting, some might say. So, wanted to definitely thank Ms. Aure from the legislative reference bureau for her herculean efforts here. I wanted to thank the city attorney's office, Mr.

Adamson for his valuable insight. I wanted to just thank the Department of Neighborhood Services, the commissioner and our team for their work on this, making sure we got things dialed in right. And of course wanted to thank MATIC and the Humane Society which, you know, they might not agree with everything in here but this was definitely an effort to improve, as Alderman Baumann said, the welfare of of some of the most vulnerable creatures among us and to also, as Alderman Baumann said, to make sure we're doing right by the taxpayer because, you know, a $2,000,000 subsidy for something we couldn't do ourselves is a hefty price tag. We want to make sure we're good stewards of that taxpayer dollar. So with that, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Alderman Spiker. Any other comments from committee?

Thank you so So, much, mister yes, going through this process was quite a task undertaking. And so I do congratulate my colleagues on all the work that they did. I do appreciate all the information that came from a MADEC, from the Humane Society, from DNS. Thank you so much for all the efforts and all the knowledge that you brought to the table. And after going through all those drafts, I would ask to be signed on as a cosponsor with you guys.

Hearing no objection, Alderman Taylor's added as a cosponsor. I'll also add my name back as a cosponsor with no objections so ordered. We're joined today by commissioner Arroyo Vega. Would you like to share your thoughts on it and is the department going to be able to handle enforcement under this new ordinance?

Absolutely. Yes. Amila Rojobega, commissioner with the Department of Neighborhood Services. And today, I'm also accompanied by our residential code enforcement manager, Lori Gallop, who also oversees the animal enforcement in our department. I echo every single word that our sponsors have shared. It's been a task but definitely a great collaboration among all of us. We from the beginning thought like it was a very comprehensive and a very complicated ordinance. So this is just phase one. We're extremely excited that we are all in agreement. Definitely we have no issues whatsoever for the final draft.

It's enforceable from that our perspective from what we do in the department. So we are just also looking forward to continue with phase two and phase three of this ordinance. So far, we are handling the load. We do have assigned inspectors for specifically for animals, nuisance cases, and it's just another growing for the department and we will continue moving forward. That's all we have right now. If there's any questions, we'll be happy to answer.

Mister chair. Any questions for the department? Alderman Moore.

Thank you so much. Commissioner, can you talk a little bit about the staffing capacity? So currently right now, how many inspectors do we have that I'm assuming do they specifically work only or animal is one of them and they also work on other areas or just talk a little bit about capacity there.

Absolutely. There was some lessons learned through our 2024, which is when we kind of changed our leadership in the department. Mhmm. At that moment, the animal cases were part of the residential code enforcement. So all inspectors, it was like just by cases that were assigned.

With Lori leadership and myself, we went a little bit more towards 2025 and start developing two specific positions that were solely animal cases. At this point, I know Lori have a little bit more of information that she could definitely share of how we've been targeting those. We also do the hearings, appeals as well. That's something else that we manage. Right now we are just working into probably towards the future analyze probably the needs of a program assistant just to solely half handle the cases that we receive.

There's a lot of documentation and paperwork. Yep. And that comes with it. And with that, a lot of hours on documentation. But, Laurie, I know that you have plenty information on that side.

I do.

So Yeah. You can identify yourself. Right

now, we are trying to develop our staff education knowledge that so because that offers more consistency with enforcement so we are engaged with. Developing our staff picking the the staff that their main duty will be animal related ordinances and enforcement for that. So with that said, we will have much better consistency throughout the city.

Mhmm.

Our our enforcement will be consistent. So we are developing that at this point. I know that I want to collaborate with Maddock. We have to get to know Maddock better with the inner workings of their their departments and things like that. And then working going out with them, seeing how that side of things navigates the animal ordinances. And it just gives us better opportunity for, you know, the enforcement to be fair and consistent across the board.

So.

Thank you. Thank you for that, Lori. And when you talk about consistency, because, you know, this is a pretty big city, right? And to have two consistent staffers that are specific to our animal inspection. Obviously, this ordinance provides a little bit more legwork.

When residents were calling me, know, addressing particular issues, they would share videos and photos, but the inspector had to go out and sort of for themselves see you know what the situation was. And some of our inspectors you know they're off at five or there's only an eight hour shift that they work and some of these things happen in the evening or happen late at night. Right? How do you all sort of, you know, think about going addressing those sorts of issues with only two people? Is the reality of it we need to have more inspectors to support this initiative or just, you know, help support the entire city, help break them up into shifts so that, you know, we have some folks during the day, we have some folks during the evenings because a lot of times our our community knows.

They knows they know that, up. I just, you know, can't do anything during the day, but after five, it's a free for all. Right? So if you can talk a little bit about, that level of capacity and the commissioner can jump in as well, but I wanna make sure that we're being, you know, strategic, you know, when it comes to, I know that from this body we, you know, say, hey, we have legislation. We want you to do this. However, sometimes it doesn't translate to say, yeah, that's great. Oop, it's gonna, you know, cost us more, more time, more people. How do you all sort of help address that?

I can take the first one. I would say, like, at this time from the leadership perspective, we are very data driven. That it's part of the data and the research that we are doing internally. We started it, for example, how many cases, how long it's taken. Yeah. That's what we're documenting right now. I cannot give you an answer of how many inspectors we're gonna be needing as this all evolve but do know that the homework at this point is exactly that. It's defining the timelines, defining how many cases we're seeing. Like, we can say right now that there was a huge increase of cases in the year. Right?

So, that's part of all the data that we are gathering and preparing. For now, this is why we shifted it at minimum to assign two inspectors that are solely gonna be working with the animal cases and working more into what kind of like administrative assistance needs are for the documentation and the paperwork that it's needed. We're open to ideas as well. Absolutely. But at this point, we are more concentrating in the data perspective because with the change of leadership also there was changes of expectations and roles and all that.

So so I hope that for now that answer your question. Absolutely. Like I said, this is phase one we're gonna have a lot of conversations moving forward and with that in mind we also would be having more potential data that will support what are the needs down the road.

Okay and this probably would go out to Lori with just some of the existing cases that we have right now. Do you see that we have enough inspectors or the cap what we just have already in house, The the the increased number of cases that we already have shifting to you know having to inspectors solely work on work on those issues is that enough. As far as workload.

Workload right now the data right now is this time of year, things slow down with people aren't walking their dogs as much, and we don't have much of that activity. I can't really give you a definite answer once we actually, you know, really get more involved in this. I think there will be times of the year that become a little bit more stressed on staff. We would have cross training to be able to pull staff as needed into that program depending on the time of year when things start to get a little bit more busy for animal related ordinances. Okay.

I'm just I think my last question is or last sort of comment is, you know, we've had residents, folks that personally reached out to me and they just you know they just felt that nothing had been done so I hope that that moves to an end you know where we're able to get our ducks in a row. That were able you know this gives us a little bit more teeth. You know where people see results because that's what people are looking for there some of our resident they're just terrorized. By their neighbors that are just not responsible pet owners. And they're terrorizing them you know to the fact where it's like.

I own my home I've been here for decades. And I have somebody that lives next door to me across the street from your right down the street from me. That continues over and over to, you know, to just be unresponsible. So I hope that this definitely moves us in the right direction, and I am so grateful for the department support. Thank you so much, mister chair. Thank you, madam chair.

Alderman Taylor, do you have something else? No. I think it's important to ensure that we have enough inspectors assigned. And this might be something for finance and personnel next week. But do you know offhand how many vacancies we have in the the residential code inspectors?

We have three vacancies for residential right now.

Out of how many? Positions. 30. Three out of 30. Alright. 10%. And then for commercial?

Commercial down

three right now.

I'm all wrong. The

same. Yep.

I I believe commercial's down three inspectors right now out of 14.

Down three. So a little bit higher. Okay. Thank you very much for that. Any other questions for the department? Any other comments? I do wanna recognize Alderman, Westmoreland who's joined us online virtually. Any other discussion? Hearing none, Alderman Moore moves passage of substitute f. Any objections to passage? Hearing none, so ordered. Congratulations. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

You.

And I'll pass the gavel back. Thank

you very much. Alright. On to item four. This is our communication file. 251189 communication from enough is enough relating to its efforts to address the reckless driving epidemic. This is sponsored by me, chair. So I'll say a couple words and then turn it over to our guests. Wanted to thank them for taking the time to come down. There's a new report they they put out. It's in the file. I did a press release yesterday.

This

is a really important issue if you care about safety in Milwaukee. Reckless driving takes lives just as much as gunfire does. You know, it's been said it's multiple thousand pound bullet traveling down the street if you treat it with reckless disregard and it costs lives. We had a massive assembly of goodwill last fall when the mayor, the police chief, district attorney, the city attorney, several council members including myself, president of the council assembled and said basically enough is enough. We need to get a handle on this epidemic.

We're all going to be rowing in the same direction and that involved a commitment from the police chief that if he can write a reckless driving ticket, his officers can, they will. Commitment from the city attorney that they're not gonna plead these things down from something else, They're gonna advance the reckless driving ticket as a municipal ticket because that triggers a possibility then moving forward. A second offense can be a criminal charge and the district attorney said, oh, we'll make sure to charge that. You have my my word and all the evidence is that he's kept that word. But none of this touches the final stage of the process which is what happens when a defendant steps into a courtroom and is before the judgment of a judge.

We have I don't know if you watch court races that much but basically when there's an open seat, there's a contest. But after that, you're kinda in for life. They're not the biggest watched things ever. And whatever else you think about what the judges are doing, if we're gonna live in a democracy, we should have some measure of transparency about what the elect officials are doing. So that doesn't just apply to alders, it also applies to judges.

So enough is enough has stepped into the breach and I'll let them tell their stories which are very moving. But they stepped into the breach to plug a gap in knowledge that is dire need to fill. What is happening when defendants step into a courtroom? Are they getting a slap on the wrist? Are they getting something more substantial, more deterrent?

Are repeat offenders held to account or do they have a revolving door? Is there some variation among the judges themselves? Every judge will hear their particular case and there will be natural variation that way but do we see any trends in terms of leniency or strictness? And whichever way you come out, whichever way you think strict, people should be more lenient, you have to acknowledge that these facts are ones we should be aware of if we are to make an informed judgment. So with that, I'll kick it off to the folks with enough is enough. If you wouldn't mind introducing yourselves and then I understand you have a short presentation for us.

Thank you Alderman Spiker. My name is Jeannie Lupo and I am here to represent enough is enough. I wanna thank you for this opportunity to present our work. I also want to acknowledge that we have several several of our enough is enough members with us today. It's a sampling of all the people who do volunteer work for this effort.

We typically start our presentations asking have you had enough of reckless driving and undoubtedly people are in agreement that we're all tired of that problem. I do want to thank Alderman Spiker for inviting us here today. Since we gathered to the date, we've been gathering data to share with the public and leadership such as yourselves to shed light on this problem of reckless driving and recidivist behavior with hopes and intent that you along with other leaders in the city and county will use this information to make necessary changes to keep your residents safe. Safety and accountability is what we're really looking for, for the common good, for the general citizen. This is your data that we're gonna share and we share in our reports.

It's it's your city, our city, and county. We don't have policy making authority. You have that. But we appreciate the opportunity and encourage you to use this information in that endeavor. And so next slide. If it goes. There it is. So today Alderman Spiker asked if we could share twenty minutes of just who we are, give you some case examples, the nature of the data that we're collecting. We did just release our third report which I believe was attached to your agenda today. And so Saturday night reading, wink wink before bed would be good.

But the report has much more information in it. We're gonna touch on some of that today but it definitely has a lot more depth in there. And then we have a challenge and how you can help. Next slide Angie please. We are nonprofit five zero one(three) organization.

We incorporated almost two years ago in April '24. We formed, however, the November before November 2023 as a group of family and friends, of Erin Mogensen. You may remember her passing and her tragedy. And so that's we we came together as a group of family and friends wanting to do something about the problem of recidivism and reckless driving. Our mission, we're committed to eliminating reckless driving that results in injury and loss of innocent life throughout the state of Wisconsin.

We are currently primarily focused on Milwaukee County to start with, and that's where most of our data collection has come from. Next slide. We have three pillars judicial accountability which is mostly our court watch program that I'm going to talk about today. I'll explain how that works and what we do in court. We also work with the legislators at the state, most recently the towing bill which congratulations to all of you was passed and, we we understand is in effect and so we were large supporters of that and think it's another tool in the toolbox for police to use to try to curb the problem.

We also do community education and awareness, national nights out, we speak at crime and safety meetings, neighborhood associations, just to share what we're doing, and to encourage people to join us and, help in this cause. So I have three case examples to share with you today, and I'm just gonna give you kind of a highlight. In general, what we see in court is that victims are largely minimized. And these cases I'm going to share are tragic cases where people lost lives. But we see very many people who are victims of reckless driving where they have had injuries, their car was stolen and used in reckless driving.

So in the community at large, what we try to share in court is that the community at large is a victim because reckless driving is such a scourge and a problem. The first case is Talise and Delisha Dunmore. These are sisters who were hit crossing the road by a drunk driver. Talise was 20 years old and Talisha 23 years old. Talise was killed almost instantly at the scene and Talisha suffered significant injuries that she recovered from eventually.

The perpetrator was, this was her fifth OWI incident. She had had several years before, and then most recently she, was charged with, several drug, drug infractions, three cases together happening about eight months apart. She was out she pleaded guilty in April '21 and then she was not remanded to custody at that time. And then when her three cases were heard together, she was granted four years of probation. She was on that probation when this incident that killed the two sisters occurred.

Probation at that time. So my operative questions with all these cases is why was she out and who was watching her? Because she obviously had a problem with following the rules. Sadly, less than a year later, Delicia, the daughter that survived, was killed by gunfire by a convicted felon who had just been released from twelve months of incarcer or he was twelve months house of correction. She was trying to help this man to get on a better path and he chose to kill her for her money.

That was less than twelve months later. So this family has suffered significant tragedy at the hands of people that are not being monitored. The second case, next one, slide, is about Lorenzo Martin. He's 50 he was 55 years old. He was killed at a bus stop. He was just standing and waiting for the bus. Three time flee fleeing defendant. So this was his third time fleeing police. He had been convicted twice before. The defendant's named Charles Chipley.

He he again was fleeing police. He he lost control of his car and he ran into mister Martin's waiting for the bus. Now, Charles Chipley was not supposed to be driving because the condition of the probation that he was given less than twelve months before this incident was that he not drive. His most recent incident was granted twelve months, I'm sorry, four years of probation and he was on that probation again when this next incident occurred. Same operative questions.

Why was he out and who was watching him? His case is still working through the courts. He's done a number of delayed tactics such as claiming incompetency which I don't take lightly, but there are a number of delayed tactics that we see happen in court as well that would stall the adjudication of his case. The last one that we have, next slide, Kay Farberg was a city she was a city employee, 69 years old, and she was two weeks from retirement. She was killed also by someone.

He was not fleeing the police. He was not supposed to be driving. He ran a red light and killed her instantly at the intersection. This young man was 23 years old and he had been convicted multiple times for operating while suspended license while he was on a suspended license. He also had a prior felony for fleeing, and he was caught after that with in possession of a firearm.

So when he was caught for that firearm position, first for the fleeing, he was granted eighteen months probation and a six month driver revocation, and then when he was caught with the firearm during that probation, he was given fourteen months of probation less than the first one. Same operative questions. Why was he out and who was watching him? So these are cases that we observe. We offer family support to, victims' families.

There is a division of the district attorney's office for victim witness, victim advocate, but we just offer an extra layer of support for families if they want someone to be with them in court. Moving on to our Court Watch program. This program we put together with a lot guidance and a lot of support and we're thankful for that. The district attorney's office worked with us to help educate us about how the courts work, help educate us about how to look for cases that we were interested in and from a lot of that guidance we put together this program where we monitor selected case hearings, we record the decisions that the judges make and then we report out on the outcomes like this third report that we just issued. We feel strongly that judges are the gatekeepers.

They control that revolving door and so to me it doesn't make much sense that the police do their job to stop and arrest someone. The attorney charges them with, you know, they decide they can charge them with a crime. Before they go to court, the district attorney's office will plead some of those charges away as a part of the negotiation and the adjudication process and then ultimately the judge tends to be lenient. So it kind of undoes a lot of the work that was done in the front and it undoes some of what we think the criminal justice system should be helping us accomplish. Our intention with a lot of this is to just shed light and provide transparency about what is going on.

The process that we follow, oh this slide's a little messy but okay. We identify cases from CCAP that at least have a charge of fleeing an officer and we chose that because it's easier to identify. Reckless driving in and of itself, can be seen as a citation. Reckless driving in itself as a separate charge is somewhat unique and so fleeing plus reckless endangering safety is typically what will be paired together if the reckless driving was So we look for those cases and we accumulate them. We prepare a schedule for the court and we submit a community impact statement.

We do a little bit of research on the defendant's background through CCAP. We prepare an impact statement which is much like a victim impact statement or a character letter. We submit to the judge asking that he he or she really takes takes into account the public safety when they're making their ruling. And then we support victims and families in the court. We attend plea and sentencing hearings, and so what we try to do is schedule our court watchers in a way where we're not going just for one case, we're going to see multiple cases in a morning or an afternoon.

About fifty five percent of those cases end up getting rescheduled. The court inefficiency I'll address later but the court inefficiency is is a big problem and I think it's a disadvantage to a defendant, to a victim, to any public person trying participate in those hearings. And so it's the way it operates right now but we have cited this three times in every report that the court efficiency should be looked at and could be improved and that would benefit everyone. We record those sentencing outcomes and then we tabulate the results and publish them in a report. I think that's good.

This slide is very messy and I know you've received all of these so I won't get into great detail. All of this information is included in our report but some of the highlights in the most recent six month type period ending October 31. We monitored and attended. And so initially we were only reporting out on the cases that we would go and see in court and collect the information. Now we're keeping track of every case that is happening in the court.

If we don't attend that case, we go and research the information to see what the outcome was and what the what the prosecutor recommended. And this is where you can see fifty five percent of those cases that we tried to attend complete sentencing in that six month time period, there were three thirty five. Previous felons included in that caseload, sixty four percent of those cases, two fourteen involved someone who was convicted previously of a felony. And then of the three thirty five cases, 141 of those were granted probation in some form. Now some of those probation, sentences included some upfront, they call it condition time, which is time served at the House of Correction.

It can be from ten days up to twelve months. A lot of times people are granted Huber release for, work or childcare, but it's a condition of their probation. I'm looking here. Fifty five percent or about half of those cases granted probation were given that condition time. Some of our major takeaways and observations in '18 how long have we been doing this?

Since June '4, so, more than eighteen months of observations. Probation and lenient sentences lead to recidivism. The message getting sent, we feel, is that a leniency, especially related to fleeing and reckless endangering safety, just leads to a repeat. It's a behavior, I guess a behavior tenet that consequences and accountability, both good and bad, are gonna pretty much support the same behavior. The majority of our cases that are observed are perpetrated by repeat offenders and we just went in through what that statistic was.

Dismissed and read in charges and plea bargains. We've approached the district attorney's office and we're working with them. We've asked that charges like fleeing do not get dismissed and read in for sentencing. At court, they can, as a plea bargain, say this charge is dismissed but read in to be included or considered by the judge as part of the sentence, but we rarely really see that happen. In addition, we see a lot of guns and drugs getting dismissed and read in.

And so when we hear a press conference like on the eighth where the leadership is talking about the rampant guns and the drugs and the problems on the streets. When we get into court and see those things dismissed and read in, to us, that means that we're not serious about those things. That can't be a seriousness if we're allowed if we're allowing those people having charges dismissed and read in and and not considered. So a a big consideration and I think a big influence something that you all could be looking at and influencing is let's stop doing that. And we understand that the court in its operation likes to have all this dismissals and the plea bargain so they keep things moving along.

But when do we get real about what's really happening? And ask people to serve consequences for the actions that they're actually committing. The court efficiency we kind of addressed already, and then victims are minimized and forgotten. We do hear very often in court where, especially if there hasn't been a, say a car crash or somebody, a victim in a fleeing, they'll say, well, it was just a fleeing. It wasn't that bad.

It wasn't a long fleeing. He didn't go that fast. It it takes a second for somebody to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, in front of a 4,000 ton vehicle, and that person's life has changed. And unfortunately, so has perhaps the seventeen year old who made a bad decision. No one wants to see a 17 year old in homicide court. None of us do. Okay. Next slide. Something we we pulled some data together about the repeat felons. In the time period of 12/01/2024 until October '25.

We had and we looked at charges of fleeing and reckless endangering safety, second degree reckless endangering safety. That's probably the most common combination of charges that we see. A 177 cases involved repeat felons. Now statutory maximums is something we cover heavily in our report but that's essentially the maximum sentence that a judge is allowed to give based on felony classes. Felony classes in the state are listed A through G and then there's a range of sentences that can be given.

And we also understand that each of those felony classes can involve different charges, so not just fleeing. But fleeing as an example can be classified as a felony E, F, G, H or I. I is the lowest. The felony I can get an incarceration maximum of eighteen months and felony E which is a more severe felony 120. Reckless endangering safety has a maximum sentence incarceration of sixty months.

And so when we add those two together we would expect to see maximums of seventy eight to one hundred and eighty months in that range for those charges. What we actually see is thirty six months. That's a median from the judges. And so much lower than the lowest. And then we and that was thirty six months for these cases of repeat felons. And so that's also very interesting that we're allowing, number one, probation and lower sentences for people who have already committed a felony. Forty nine of those cases of the one hundred and seventy seven were given probation. That's twenty seven percent. Slide. How are we doing here?

Oh, I'm at twenty minutes. So here's our oh, an explanation about probation. Something we've learned in the courts. There's a practice where the judge will say he or she is supposed to consider the least restrictive sentence when granting. And that includes probation. And so they're considering factors of the public safety, the character of the individual, and the severity of the crime that he committed. And so that's supposed to be considered. This is a practice. We I don't believe this is a law. It's a practice in the courts.

And latitude is given to the judge's interpretation alone. We will hear the judge often say this isn't a probation case. We don't know what those parameters are and they can differ judge by judge. Now from the state, the Legislative Reference Bureau defines a felony as this. A felony is a crime punishable by imprisonment in state prison generally for a term of more than one year.

So, question here is does judicial practice contradict the intent of the law? And it's just a thought question. Next slide. Our challenge to you is this. If judges don't want to sentence even repeat felons to incarceration, then how are we how are we what message are we sending?

Our challenge is to start with no probation for repeat felons. That's our ask and our our challenge to the courts and the judges. And then as stated, no more plea bargaining away for guns and drugs if we really want to tackle that problem. Alderman Spiker said already earlier, judges are appointed by the governor. They largely run uncontested.

So another thing that we've been trying to promote is that we find judges to challenge, right? There's kind of a belief out there that, no attorney wants to end up in a court with a judge that he challenged in an election. I don't know. But I think that we need more people to challenge the judges voting races if we want to keep them on their toes and keep them true to serving the public. What next one?

Couple of closing thoughts. How you can help? Help? We we have searched for real real statistics about this problem. We see a lot of statistics reported from the police. Crime and safety reports don't talk about reckless driving. They talk about stolen cars. Some of the Fire and Police Commission reports will talk about pursuits and things getting away. But for me, if if we don't measure, come up with a measure of the problem, how do we know if it's getting better or worse? And ask would be that help us find statistics that help us measure the problem or modify some of those crime and safety statistics.

Could this be considered a high profile crime instead of a I think the the FBI definition is the violent crime. But could this be considered a high profile crime where it's reported out more frequently? More than a year ago, I talked with Alderman Spiker about some sort of a communications presentation by all of the leaders. What truly is being done collaboratively to address this problem? They all report out on what's happening, but I don't know that I've heard a real intentional plan around let's have a plan about getting this to the end.

And then advocating for sentences and guidance that deter behavior. Let's some youth focus. Invest in youth and education for youth so that they understand stopping for police and getting a ticket is a whole lot better than having a felony on your record for the rest of your life. And just trying to get away because you think you're gonna get away is endangering people, and it could really end your life. It could end your life and put you have put you in prison. That's a bad thing. So these educational things, because I don't hear that either. I hear we shouldn't be pursuing. I hear the police modifying their pursuit policy. I don't hear anyone saying stop for the police.

I don't hear that. But I think we should be saying that. The police, we all pull over. I pull over when I see the sirens behind me. We see the cars when we see the videos in court. We see the cars pulling over when they're pursuing. People need to understand that they should stop. And then a big ask is join us in court. Come and join us and see what we do. See what's happening there.

Come for a morning or an afternoon, one case, and ask your constituents to join us. We've been trying to grow our group and our court watchers for a couple of years now, and it's been a difficult task. We have very dedicated people who return week after week, But growing that base would really help. And it would also, I believe, show the judges and the people in court that the community at large is interested in this problem. And then share our report.

That would also be useful. These are just the quotes. You have the quotes and the closing thoughts. The one that I think is, you know, the the mayor came out and said that the judges should be they should hold to account people death, harm, or destruction. But the more salient point was made by one of the judges.

We under invest in our youth. Making an investment on that front end, could go a long way in in terms of helping curb this problem. It could take a longer time. We stepped into the realm of court because we felt that there was kind of a a gushing hose, and we wanted to at least bring to the forefront that that was a problem happening, that revolving door at the end is happening. But getting in the front of the problem is certainly a much better way to change the future for especially our youth.

About 60% of our cases involve youth who are 25 or younger. That's a large amount. And some of these kids are 17 because they've been referred from children's court. It's a it's a sad it's a sad situation when a 17 year old has a felony. And so we don't we don't want to see that. We would like to avoid that. So last slide. As I said earlier, this is your data. We're collecting it, we're sharing it. We just want transparency so everybody knows what's going on so that leadership like yourselves, you can actually influence and do something about it.

So I thank you for your attention and your time today. If you have any questions, I'm happy to let Angie answer them.

Thank you for the informative presentation. And, Jeanie, I just wanna make sure I'm pronouncing your last name correctly. Is it Lupo?

Lupo, l u p o. Do you know what lupo means? Yeah. It's Italian word for

I have no idea. Wolf. I was gonna guess that because

it sounded like But

now That's

how I used to tell my students it. Yeah.

Would be nice.

Yeah. Lupin. Lupin. So I have couple of questions and then kick it open to committee members. So how many volunteers do you have currently?

Court watchers, we have 20. But we have followers and members in the hundreds. Total is 600. That's a combination of about two fifty each email followers. We have a Facebook group and we have Facebook followers. And so we call to action like for legislation as an example we would put that out to the whole group of 600 members saying we would like you to contact your alder person or your state legislator about a certain thing. So people are involved in different ways, but our regular day to day court watchers is about 20 people. And that involves people sorry. We have people behind the scenes. Barb is here in the pink.

Barb pulls all of our cases. But we have people assembling the schedule, putting the community impact statements together. So there's a lot of behind the scenes. We call it a machine actually.

And because of access issues, you have to be there in person. There isn't a virtual option as a watcher.

Actually, a couple of judges. It's judge by judge, but there are two judges that allow us to Zoom. We have told them that we won't do that in a regular sense but that we would. So on days say that where we would have only had two cases scheduled then we would zoom into one of those judges if we're able but that is an option.

And then you mentioned the challenges opportunities with measuring the problem you're trying to identify. This sounds like something up the alley of the Wisconsin policy form so I'd be happy to make an introduction to Mr.

Stine and worked with them for a long time, so thank you.

Yep. I I can't promise what they'll say, but this is obviously a fecon topic worth more investigation. Briefly, recklessly endangering safety, that's kind of a level up from your normal municipal and then criminal reckless driving charge under sixty two fifty. So I realize the district attorney is is charging that when he can, which is Yes. A more serious charge. The last question I have is you mentioned repeat felons. When you mention repeat felons, are you referring to people who have repeated felonies for items pertaining to reckless driving or felonies for other things and then reckless driving being one of them?

Felonies. Mostly felonies for other things. We will start after this report was released and we noticed there are a number of people that are back for their second or third fleeing and reckless driving. And so we weren't tracking that specifically, but we will start doing that now so we can report out on how many people were a second fleeing or a, you know, second, third, fourth. It would be interesting for the courts.

What we've observed is for drunk driving as an example there is sort of a schedule that the judges need to follow for second, third, fourth, OWI. It would be an interesting schedule that could be developed I believe for this particular situation especially because of the the problem that we have that there's a guideline for the judges to use for a second or third fleeing. The other thing I wondered too was after the announcement last fall where the city attorney said he was gonna, you know, not give or not reduce the reckless driving and statistics that the district attorney also talked about where we've we've seen an increase in cases, not a decrease. We were tracking about 64 new cases a month in '24 and now they're up to about 70 a month. And so we've seen an increase in case and I did wonder if that's the result of that shift.

Can't prove it though.

Okay, very good. With that, throw it open to committee members. Madam Chair. Madam Chair. Mr. Chair. Got to get the gender right. I'm not going to call you. Sorry.

Thank you so much Mr. Chair.

Thank

you all so much Ms. Lupo for the team's work around this. Every single number when we talk about reckless driving, especially to those individuals that have lost their lives is a person behind that. So Talese and Delicia Dun Dunmore, Lorenzo Martin, Kay Farbergh, and countless others that have lost their lives due to reckless driving, due to something that could have been avoided. Unnecessary.

Unnecessarily. Unnecessary. Thank you. It is something that I don't want to push past to say, oh, the statistics and these numbers, there's there are families that are impacted. So my heart goes out to those families that have lost loved ones due to unnecessary actions.

Your presentation shares that we have a systemic problem that we're dealing with. We can look at the individual and we can, you know, do the data around their past and, you know, all of these things. But when we sort or surmise where we've come because, you know, I I'm a eighties I grew up in the eighties. We didn't deal with this level of reckless driving. So when I say the systemic issues that occur, we're talking about, oh, we don't need driver's ed as a class in school anymore.

We can't afford it. Let's make it an after school program. When we talk about lack of funding going to prevention, intervention, and alternatives. It literally cost about $53,000 to incarcerate someone for a year. And the number is astronomical.

It's probably almost a million dollars for young people out at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake. When we talk about the extensive cost that we're putting into incarceration, there is a moment and an opportunity where we can revert resources to be able to work heavily on prevention and intervention. But we don't have the structure, The gamut the you know the the the the varying of op options that judges have at their disposal. This is near and dear to my heart because I work with on before I. Was elected into this council, I did a lot of work around youth justice and restorative just restorative justice.

You know, we have Mary judge Mary Triano over at Marquette that's doing some amazing restorative justice work.

One of our members today Ruth is here and she's working with Mary.

Excellent. Yes. There needs to be more of those because it you know there it works. But again embedding these sorts of system into our criminal legal system it just have happened hasn't happened at the rate where we can see results. So we're dealing with so much disparities when it comes to what is it that we can do to make an impact.

And a big bottom line for me is the resources, disseminating resources where it matters the most because I'm I'm I'm for incarceration only works to a certain extent. I have a young per young adult right now that's currently incarcerated not once but twice. And he didn't kill anybody but his behavior. Allowed him to be in the space that he's in but he needed mental health treatment. He needed extensive mental health treatment.

And because he didn't have that an incarcerated setting was the only option that he could go into. We need other options for drugs, for alcohol, for mental health. Like, those are the options that we need and unfortunately we don't have them. So as you all continue your advocacy, I want you all to be able to partner, you know, as you do with organizations that can say yes we absolutely especially repeat offenders before they even get there because they shouldn't be repeat offenders. We need options for a myriad of alternatives which costs money but if we put a lot of these resources on the front end our community, our city, our state would be better places.

I just don't see us moving in that direction as quickly as we could to a for human beings in this city to on let unnecessarily lose their lives because of reckless driving. So I didn't have a question. I just had to say thank you all so much for your work. I hope that this body here at the city level can do what we can to be able to support that but I want community and I want people to know. This cost money cost money to have alternatives it cost money to put somebody in treatment it cost money just to give somebody mental health treatment.

We have to have those alternatives because for the low level offenses, got I don't want a person that did it for the first time to get a slap on the hand. What what is our response?

Right.

What are the resources that we can heavily provide that person so that it doesn't happen again? And you're absolutely right enough is enough. Thank you so much mister chair.

Thank you.

Thank you. Other questions comments from committee members? Mister chair. Alder Briggs, then Alder Taylor.

Thank you very much and thank you for being here. I know we met at a national night out about a year and a half ago. So it's I'm glad to see that your data driven approach has really shed light on a problem that hits all of us. Like Elder Woman Moore said, everyone in Milwaukee can be affected by reckless driving. Myself, my mom was t boned and her neck was broken in two places. Thankfully, she recovered. But that reckless driver got a slap on the wrist.

And the the the emotional strife from such an incident doesn't go away.

That's

it. It doesn't go away.

And sometimes people affected by reckless driving get elected to office where we can legislate and do better. So I'm encouraged by doing what the city can do and the city attorney's commitment and the mayor's commitment to keep hold reckless drivers accountable. I do want to touch on this is this is a community wide problem that requires a community wide solution. And you've come to the city today, but are you also engaging with our county lawmakers? And commissioner or clerk of court Anna Marie Hodges and chief judge Ashley, I think are really motivated and want to help.

And if this kind of presentation was in front of them, they would also find ways to maybe help you understand what they've done to improve inefficiencies in the court system since the pandemic but also see what else is left to do and I think they would welcome your assistance

to do I appreciate hearing that. I I do have communication with judge Ashley. I wouldn't say regular regularly. I'm I met with him and and spoke with him quite a few times when we were getting our court watch program initiated because they didn't want us to just start showing up. I kind of wanted some approval or some acknowledgement that this is why we're here and but the the I've we've also participated in a few of the Justice Council meetings which he leads.

I'd be happy to give a presentation to him. The response I've kind of gotten is that each judge is unto himself that the chief judge can only go so far in what happens inside of each courtroom. I think it's an administrative you know he can he I think he can influence certain things, but that's the sense that I've gotten, but I'd be happy to sit down with him as well. And the county supervisor is on my list as well. So we haven't had a conversation yet.

County supervisor on the board, state representative doctor Saquana Taylor. I'm not sure if she wants to chime in on this. But but I also wanted to make sure you we're had a platform to share how people can get involved and volunteer or support your work. Where can where can the public find you?

So our our website is and you have it in your handout, like one of your last slides. Is there a thank you slide? Well, we already got rid of it. But e n e, the number four, erin,erin,.org is our website. Our report is there. There, there's information about how to get involved there

as well. One more time, Justine.

E n e, the number four e r I n dot o r g.

So enough is enough for Erin.

And it's for Erin Mogensen.

Alright. Thank you very much. Thank you, mister.

Thank you.

Mhmm. Thank you. Alder Taylor.

Yes. Thank you so much for for being here, thank you so much for the work that you do. So I do share the sentiments of my colleagues in that respect. And and as they have given examples, I think we all have probably been impacted by reckless driving at at in some way. I do notice that the last pillar you have is community education and awareness.

So as you were you were talking, I was thinking of driver's ed, and I think my colleague may have mentioned something about driver's ed too. There was a point where kids were able to parents were able to say, yeah. They can drive. And, you know, unfortunately, that came about with COVID. But have you do you or have you thought about maybe partnering or visiting those drivers' ed class as you do with the court cases, I mean, that's kind of, you know, like the prevention part of it, the proactive part of it, being part of their classroom time.

I mean, because, unfortunately, these two young ladies that you mentioned were that was part of my district, and, so we held a vigil for them and, got to meet with her mom with the mom. Marty. So it was, it was very devastating for the community, needless to say. But so the the thought is maybe being more proactive on the front end, and these cases are so impactful, maybe sharing those with some of the students as they're going through the class, that this is why.

Great idea.

In teaching my own kids to drive, was this is a weapon, or it could be. And you need to be very careful as you're driving. So maybe just doing that so that students understand the impact that they could have when driving.

It's a great idea. And and driver's ed quite frankly and Alderman Moore, you you alluded to that. I think it would be great to get it back into the schools. And I don't know how difficult that would be. I have talked with Common Ground was behind and I think they worked with Bob Donovan on getting the grants for so students could take driver's ed.

But why can't it just be available to everyone? And so one of the things we would like to start looking at is how to make that happen. And because other people that we've talked to safe and sound and the understanding is that kids are taking cars and they're driving fast but they want they want the certificate they want the certificate so they can drive and it's become unattainable. The insurance is expensive, cars are expensive, and so how can that become more attainable and given to them in a way where they're educated, yes.

I will support you on that.

Excellent. Thank you. Great idea. Is

that it, Alder Taylor?

Yes. Is.

Thank

you. Alder Westmoreland, do have any comments? No. Okay. I will note there was an event last year in my district at Pulaski High School to with the Department of Transportation secretary celebrating the fact that the insurance industry has kicked in a ton of money to provide no cost driver's ed to students who have financial needs.

So if you're a Wisconsin high school student, you can visit the DOT website which helpfully here would be a tiny URL we're all familiar with. So tinyurl.com/driveredgrant and

you

can apply online for a grant that covers the cost of your driver's education classes. So there shouldn't be a financial barrier to this important thing. Right. Alder Moore had mentioned there's a host of issues where it would be cheaper to get ahead of the problem rather than to play catch up, but that will involve collaboration amongst the entities you mentioned. And there is this justice council that sits up there in the ether.

Not sure what it's doing these days, but that would natural place for that collaboration to take place. So happy to push from the council side of things, ask the mayor to push on on his side of things, but that's something that's an opportunity for reviving and making it more robust.

Great idea. One thing can I offer on

That the grant

is something that the insurance industries are helping support? But just as an example, there's $6,000,000 a year. They parcel it out quarterly and they had just started that I think it was last week and the grants were taken up like in two days time. So they're trying to show with data that there's a bigger need than what's being provided But people need to know that that, you know, if you if you want one of those, you gotta be on board right away.

Right. If only we had a billion dollars burning a hole in our pocket in

the service. Wow.

The question of what the city can do is kind of the reason I wanted you here today is literally nothing gets done without the judges. Literally nothing. We can push on the rope all we want from the perspective of the cops arresting people, the city attorney prosecuting in municipal court, the district attorney prosecuting in criminal court, circuit court, but unless the judges do something, nothing will happen. So that's why it's so crucial that we have spotlight and we see what the good work is they're doing. And we know what it is we're getting when we elect a given judge.

So that's not meant to be a slight. That's not meant to put, undue pressure where, you know but it is it is meant to transparency, the the spotlight is an effective tool because it makes people cognizant. And as you said, miss Lupo, you have a defendant in court, you have lawyers and such, you have the prosecution, but what can drift off in people's minds is is are the victims and their families. Mhmm. Definitely.

The victims who might not be there because they're not with us anymore. The families who carry an unbelievable burden of pain, that they have to live with the rest of their lives, and I my mind is boggled at how, you all have the courage to do what you do. And, I just wanna honor the work you're doing and the difference you're making. So to the extent that that I can help augment that, I'm I'm here for that. There was a difficult and I'll end with this for me.

There's a difficult question about root causes, how do we get to these problems. The county is obviously a huge source here, but all of this costs money. And the question is, what do you do in the meantime? Do you wait till we get to root causes and don't do anything about it? Well, that's not tolerable.

So we're in the difficult position as policymakers, all of us, to decide how we're going to rebuild the raft while we're on it, how we're going to try to push with certain preventative measures while still holding people accountable as the only way to protect public safety given where we are. So we shouldn't let one eclipse the other. It's got to be joint effort. But the piece you're highlighting is just can't be ignored. I wanna thank you for bringing it into our faces and into our living rooms. So thank you very much for your presentation today.

Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity.

Okay. With that, Alder Bergaus would move that we hold this file to the call of the chair so we can revisit as new reports come out. We'd be happy

to come back anytime.

Yep. And we'll start that conversation with the policy forum and others. This is just the beginning. Thank you. And hearing no objection to the motion to hold to the call of the chair, so ordered.

Item five, file number 251593, communication from FPC relating to standard operating procedures, the Fire and Police Commission so they can come to the table. The files Let's see. What do we got in here now? We're gonna refresh and see what we got. So just for folks who who don't know the process here, the chief of the fire department or the police department can put in place certain policies and procedures.

Before act 12, the fire and police commission could say, oh no, you don't. You should alter it in this way or we're gonna hold back that from being implemented. That went away with act 12. However, the council has very similar authority now that it can exercise by a two thirds vote. So that's why we have passed through ordinance or reporting requirement not just to FPC but also to this body which is the oversight body as it were for SOPs even though Fire and Police Commission is the oversight body over the Fire and Police Department.

So with that said, we have our monthly update on the SOP changes that either have gone into effect or proposed to go into effect stemming from the last cycle from the Fire and Police Commission. So with that I'll turn it over to director Todd to give us our update.

Good morning, mister chair, committee members. Leon Todd, executive director of the Fire and Police Commission. These were policy changes that were heard at the January 8 FPC meeting. There are six policies. So there's amendments to five of them and then one newly created policy which is SOP or standard operating procedure six eighty two generative artificial intelligence.

The policy changes involve as I mentioned five policies. So SOP two fifty communications, four sixty five handheld chemical agent, 900 hazard mitigation plan, nine seventy search warrants, and then one standard operating instruction which is for the US Department of Defense Law Enforcement Support Office program or LESO program. There's a memo in the file that gives a summary of all the policy changes. I'm happy to give a a summary of that or just answer questions depending on what the chair would like.

I don't see the memo in the file. So

It's item nine in the the file or document number nine.

Item 9. 789. Nope. Not in not in our order.

Does anybody else see it?

Public memorandum? The missile key. Where do you see it? Tested public memorandum.

I think I see it. Yes.

Alright. Happy to help.

Thank you.

That's There's a lot of documents in the file in fairness.

A lot of letters.

Yes.

A lot of letters.

Okay. Yeah. Why don't you briefly go through and especially the the new one, the generative artificial intelligence. I wanna hear a little bit more about that.

Well, I'll start with that one then. So this is a newly created policy as I mentioned. It's intended to promote responsible and ethical use of AI technologies within the police department. It aims to provide guidelines and principles for the proper and secure application of generative AI to enhance work efficiency while mitigating risks and ensuring accountability. It also seeks to ensure compliance with all relevant laws and regulations while upholding public trust, civil liberties, and values of transparency.

Like as so my MPD currently does not have generative AI technology that it uses, for example, you know, for report writing or or things like that. This policy was created in advance of, you know, any potential procurement so that the the department has a policy in place that would guide that which I think is a very good move forward thinking. If there's any questions about the specifics, I'm try I'm happy to try my best to answer them.

So why I guess this is good to know. First of all, when will this policy or when has it gone into effect?

It went into effect January 21.

January 21. Well, that's funny because I'm the chair of the city information management committee and I haven't heard anything about it. So the point of that committee is to convene the IT experts around the city and make sure we're all on the same boat with respect to the policies. And there is a citywide policy pertaining to generative artificial intelligence that we passed last, I don't know, September or something like that, last year sometime. And, it would be nice if we made sure that the two policies kind of coordinated.

So I would ask that you be prepared to discuss that at the next CIMC, the horses out of the barn, so to speak, but this is something where, you know, we have the police department IT expert there. Mhmm. This is something that should be discussed in that form. Know, With respect to the other items.

I'll start with SOP two fifty which is communications. So MPD worked with the Department of Emergency Communications on this regarding all these changes and they were approved by the DEC. So the vast majority of the changes or updates are related to updating the reference to the Technical Communications Division, changing that to Department of Emergency Communications. As you know the technical communications division or TCD was a division within MPD. That along with the sister division within the fire department was spun off in its own into its own agency, the Department of Emergency Communications.

So there's a lot of administrative updates with respect to that but there's also some substantive although non controversial updates which I think are very positive. So they updated and added designated points of contact between MPD and DEC. They updated how calls for service will be dispatched on the responsibility of the shift commander when the closest unit available feature is used. Could you

say just a very brief bit about that? What is the nature of that change?

Yes. So MPD with the newish CAD system, one feature that it offers is the ability to dispatch squads from different districts to other districts. So inter district sometimes, you know, there may be MPD is divided into seven districts, but sometimes the closest unit or the fastest unit that can get there, even if it's a call for service that originates in say District 2, it might be that the closest unit is right on the border in District 6 which borders it. And so this allows for the closest or fastest unit to be dispatched under certain circumstances for certain call priority levels. So this

Yep. So before, if you were right up against the border, unless there was a severe emergency shooting or something like that, you wouldn't cross the border. But now it's location based. So even if you're across the border, you might be dispatched because you're closest.

I think that there was some ability to do that previously but the new CAD system makes it much more efficient and GPS tracking, that kind of thing.

Okay.

Yeah. They also added that MPD will provide DEC with a command staff roster and contact information, added how MPD must contact DEC if lineup changes are made after the dispatcher enters the lineup. They updated that members who would like to make internal audio file request must email it to DEC for processing. And then they updated how DEC may contact MPD to investigate or follow-up on minor violations of communication standard operating procedure.

So, in that batch of items, anything substantive that rose to your attention or the commissioner's attention that's worth mentioning here?

No, I don't think so. I think this is just documenting clear standards for the interaction between these two departments so that they're not miscommunication miscommunicating or that things are getting lost due to the fact that we now have two departments.

Okay. Are there any questions, comments from committee members? So there was a Fire and Police Commission meeting where something that was potentially controversial was heard and that's the change to the pursuit policy. We're not going to go into that detail because we're not noticed for it. But my understanding is that policy change would go into effect February 4? I believe it's

it's something like that. I can't remember if it's February 1 or February 6, but it's early February.

So given that the Fire and Police Commission meeting has transpired where that sort of communication and public input happened, why wouldn't that be an item before us now? Because if we were gonna do anything about it, it's nice to do something before it happens.

Well, the FPC meeting on that just happened last Thursday. There were a number of other SOPs on the commission's agenda that had to be held over due to a lengthy meeting that we had. There was also a request by another commissioner to potentially consider a formal recommendation related to the the vehicle pursuit policy. And again, primarily because of the the short window of time between that meeting and the creation of the agenda for this meeting, it didn't cycle through so to speak.

Alright. Well, we had Thursday to Monday. If something's controversial like that, I expect it to be and we did have a meeting with the chief, president Perez and I did, so I'm not gonna say there wasn't communication. There was, but it was more telling what the change is gonna be. So for this body to exercise its function of of making a recommendation, if there is one we need to make to the full council to say, woah there, we need to hear it in a timely fashion.

Doing it after it's already gone into effect is not desirable. And I can put in an ordinance that says or put in a resolution that says, knock it off or to the Fire and Police Commission, please make the chief knock that off. But in general, that should be the expectation is anything controversial, don't put it into effect till we have had a chance for the oversight body to, I don't know, exercise oversight. Does that make sense?

It does.

Okay. Questions, comments from committee members? Mr. Chair. Alder Moore.

I think just with that Lee that would that's that would be my only ask. I think this body is pretty flexible enough especially with our chair. Those are the things that are so important. So if there are opportunities, you know, we would move things if necessary to make sure those controversial issues are heard. What's funny is I was an expectation of that being a part of today's discussion.

And when I saw that it was not, you know, I was a little disappointed that it that it wasn't just because it was such a hot topic during FN fire and police commission meeting. So, yes, please, you know, even during the short notice, please get in touch with the chair so that this body can at least provide something back to our community because they definitely deserve that. Thank you so much, mister chair.

Thank you. And it's entirely within the chief's authority to say, nah. I'm gonna delay it. He has that power. They're just once things start rolling, it's not unstoppable. He's the chief for god's sake. So he could say, we're gonna delay the implementation of this policy until there can be a discussion at public safety or until one of the FPC commissioners can, you do another file where they make a recommendation to this committee. That's entirely within the chief's power.

So point noted, I will make an effort to push forward in the future if there's any quote unquote controversial SOPs as soon as possible. That said, I I would I would also say I I'm not even I'm not always gonna be able to, in the future, read the committee's mind. If there's something that you want on an expedited level, please let me know. Sure. I would note that we did have a meeting on this offline with the president of the council and yourself, mister chair.

So I think, again, I don't want to make too big a deal about that. But will your point's taken. I will make sure

that committee. I'm not the committee. So I want to be respectful of my peers who put in a lot of hard work and may have perspectives different from my own. A good chair is a fair chair and doesn't try to make decisions unilaterally. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? If not, then Alder Taylor would move that this item be placed on file and hearing no objections ordered. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Just to clarify, you didn't want discuss any of the other SOPs changes?

Okay. Not with this timeline. Now that I see the COOLIE file and had a chance to review it, I'm good.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. Item six is file number 251583 communication from the Department of Public Works providing a status update on the implementation of the habitual parking violators ordinance that's sponsored by me. So if folks remember correctly, there was this ordinance we passed last September went into effect November 1 which basically said for those folks who are have five or more tickets over sixty days due, they fall into this status of habitual parking violator, we're gonna do a couple things. We want you to pay the tickets because right now what we're doing is we're towing you if you're parked illegally and sometimes people don't know what the policy is.

That was the case as of September. It was the case prior to that. They'd find out about the policy by us towing it. That's no way to run a railroad. So we did a public outreach efforts. DPW sent out how many thousand letters? 28,000. Yeah. Nearly 30,000 letters to folks saying, look, you're eligible as a habitual parking violator to be towed and here's how you can get on a payment plan. Here's how you can do something about it.

And we urge you to do something about it because come January 1, we're not only gonna tell you whether you're, you know, if you're a repeat offender, whether you're parked legally or not. But also to get your car out of the lot, you're gonna have to reckon with these tickets. That wasn't the case in the past. It is now the case under our new ordinance. That to get out of the lot, you either have to pay off your tickets or set up a court date so you can discuss with the judge what you're able to pay and on what timeline.

So that just went into effect, in practice now, January 1. So this is our first check-in to see, well, what happened? What have been the results so far? So with that, I'll kick it over to mister Knox if you'd like to introduce yourself.

Yes. My name is Peter Knox. I'm the parking services manager for the City of Milwaukee. I do have, if you don't if it was in the file, I do have some updated data. I apologize. I'm trying to get you as most up to date as possible. I actually pulled this this morning because it's a very fluid fluid number that's ever changing. Alright. So, yeah, just a just a brief recap. So November 1 is, yes, when the audits went into effect, we did have a sixty day moratorium.

So one the things is we did we mailed out two 28,874 letters to identified habitual parking violators. The the department's hope all along is to get education out there. Towing's a last resort. We are focused on educating and, you know, making arrangements and the pain plans and court dates, paying your citations. And as we said in the beginning when this order just went through is that's an ongoing goal and I believe in that passionately and we are continuing to do so.

So this first set of data, even though we're just into our fourth week, it's not a large set. I will say I've seen some trends already which I think are encouraging. And I'm very anxious to see where this goes moving forward. As far as implementation of the ordinance, do want to share this is kind of a it's a slow process because there are a lot of moving pieces to this. One of the biggest challenges is we had to work with municipal courts, know, people want to pay the signature to court because we have different systems so forth.

Right? Yeah. Multiple players also changing technology, you know, to account for this so we can identify vehicles, work with the vendors. I'm very proud of my team also with Municipal Court. We've been meeting every week, especially since this rolled out January 1 with the start of the of the towing to kinda just, you know, if there's an issue, fix it. So far, every challenge we've run across, we've been able to handle and rectify. The goal is when we started this, our actually our first tow is actually January 3 because of the holiday. We did a soft rollout because the last thing we wanted to do was to tow a bunch of people and find out that it wasn't working. There was a court date and all of a sudden their tickets are still showing. So we weren't towing a lot that first week.

So that was kind of a goal of ours to streamline that process, which we have done and we'll continue to do so. It'll be ongoing. Right now, I know a lot of people ask for data. It's still a manual process for the most part because we weren't tracking this data before. There really wasn't a need to because now we're looking at, hey, here's all the potential parking by violators. Are they doing payment plans? Are they paying their citations? Who's getting towed? So we're working with vendors. They've been very cooperative trying to build reports so we can get data in real time and a lot easier.

And because I really believe that the effectiveness of this ordinance is gonna be use the data to drive decision making. So we can recognize what's working, what is not working, so we can address that. So I do wanna go over some of the numbers with you. These are, like I said, I think you have the sheet in front of you. So the data you see in front of you is all the financial data would be we what we did is we chose just to kind of lay this out was everybody that received that initial letter, those over 28,000 So we were tracking out of that to see who was making payment plans, who was paying citations, and ultimately who's been told.

One of the encouraging things is if you look in the green box where we say 2,025 payments, these were payments made during this initial sixty day pause. We did not enforce we give citations, we weren't towing vehicles. And what we found is 455 individuals, you know, vehicle owners, paid a total of 1,172 citations, totaling a $102,000 and 550. So then we moved into now okay. So now we're gonna ramp it up.

January 1, we're gonna start towing, which was actually January 3. What we see is we saw I think I think the media did a really good job and Alderman Spiker, you did. I know the I think everybody, DPW, we were all very vocal about all this, and I think people started seeing the urgency as the New Year came because we saw quite a bit of a jump right after that before the January 1 deadline. We've seen 531, this is just January alone, we're even to the month yet, 531 citizens paid 2,111 citations for a little over a $116,000. Okay?

That gives a grand total of nine eighty six citizens off that list of 28,000, you know, make arrangements. Now, I do wanna make one note of that, of that nine eighty six, the one twenty two from the toll lot is actually part of that because that's how we collect citations. So, if we look at this from a big picture thing, is we take collectively from November 1 to actually last night, we've had a total of 864 people pay citations. We are also able to track down for the first time is how many people set up payment plans and we see 254. So, you look at that, that's close to 1,200 citizens have made arrangements.

Okay? So we go down to the tow data. Right now, where we stand is as of this morning, as of, I think I said 05:00 this morning or 06:00 this morning, three hundred and four people have been towed. Okay? Out of that, we've been tracking at the toll lot just to kind of guide us. We weren't sure how this would go. Out of the 100 out of the 220 32 that had come to the toll lot to get their vehicle, a 112 had a 122 have elected to pay their citations right at the toll lot, and 110 have set up court dates. Okay? So just a little bit over. I think it's fifty seven, fifty three percent.

Don't quote me on that, but I think that's kind of the ratio. The other thing I want to point out is if you look at like the 1,200 or so people that were did things preemptively to avoid being towed versus what's towed, you're almost looking at a four to one ratio. So that shows that we're tracking, more people are electing, and there's small sample size, mind you, more people are tracking to try and make arrangements, and that I do find encouraging. We are continuing to, you know, communicate. We did work with DMV recently, so stuff's posted on all the DMV centers in Milwaukee.

Our website, we obviously have our mailings, you know, that go out. We have flyers posted. I also encourage all the alders, you know, help us. We're open to suggestions, ideas. I do know just being in the towing industry for over thirteen years, generally when there's a major change, word-of-mouth does catch on really quick. So I do think ultimately is we're consistent with this, consistent in our messaging and our practices. I've risen to somebody that got towed. It'll be, hey, you wanna pay those tickets so don't get towed. I just like to say the end game for, you know, for DPW is there's always gonna be have people that are gonna, you know, maybe have five or more. But what we're really looking for is we want compliance. We want people going around just thinking they can park where they want. I'm not gonna pay my ticket regardless. Right? Because we do see that. That does exist.

And then for those that maybe just, you know, they have some tickets and they're struggling to afford it, to take preventative measures, you know. Set up a payment plan, pay your citations, set up a court date if you want, a municipal court. There's a lot of options there. They can do community service, payment plans, all different things. So I can tell you at the tow lot, at parking, we do scripted phone calls. So we are very kind of hands on, taking an educated approach to it. We do it most things there. So just trying to guide people as they call. I mean, if you're here for, not for this, in an accident. You know, have flyers posted, different things like that. So I encourage everybody to help us out with that. And if you have ideas, are open to it. With that, I'll open up to questions.

Thank you for the presentation, mister Nachs. So looking at the data, it looks like 1,800 almost 1,900 citations were paid in 2025. That's going from the November 1 date.

Mhmm.

So sent out the letters. What happened? Well, almost 1,900 people paid citations. Or almost 1,900 citations were paid by those four fifty five individuals. That's actually how you read the data.

So that was over the course of two months. And already in January, which we're not quite to the end of and had a little bit of a late start January 3 because of the holiday and then the the slower rollout of of the activity, it looks like we beat that two month number in under a month, 2,100 Mhmm. Citations. And revenue isn't the whole point. It isn't the main point, but it is a straw in the wind.

That's a 116,000 that came in this month and a 102,000 that came in last two months prior in the last year of people paying up on tickets that were owed. So there is a fiscal impact as well. It's interesting to know for the habitual parking violator tows, the 300 tows, that it's kind of split between those who pay the citation versus those who elect to set up a court date. My question, I guess, is is anything here proceeding differently than you the department anticipated? Or is this kind of what you had hoped for all along?

What's what's your six fifty thousand

foot You take on know, and we're we're happy that people our goal is for people to find solutions. I can tell you, I did talk to toll out staff the other day, a physicist preparing for this and saying, hey. What's the what's the vibe of, you know, the citizens coming in that have their car towed for this? You know, are they angry? Are they upset? You know, confrontational people. And they said, actually, no. It's the opposite. They were all afraid that they got towed and if they couldn't pay it, that they'd have to wait for their court date to get their car out. So they were actually very pleased that they're in on the toll in ten minutes. I mean, literally. So the way we have set up just to kind of fill you in, when you come the window you're given your options. You're given all your citations. They have to pay the ones that are past due. And so we will explain the process.

At that point they fill out a form I have right here that we just basically send right over to to Muni Court. Once they give us that form and sign it, they're on their way. And then they give us a court case number. We put it in the system so then they appear for court. I do know, I think it was about two or three days ago was the first hearing from municipal court.

So obviously, moving forward as we maybe revisit this down the road, you'll have more more data on that as well. To answer your question, I I I wasn't quite sure. I thought maybe more people would pay the citations outright just from like we get people that come with other things that pay, but overall just if you want to know the average, this is a small sample size, you can know outliers, so I take this with caution. So the people that are paying the citations the total out, their total outstanding citations on average is $475. Now there could be an outlier there obviously, right?

Immunity courts just a little higher. They're at sorry, $5.33. So there's not a big difference, so it doesn't look like it's like, okay, there's that much higher, so we're gonna go to court over it. And I don't I don't it it doesn't matter either way. I think that the thing is the message is being sent, you know, that they're, you know, they're taking care of that.

What I'm curious on, I'm a data person and I'm I'm thinking every way we can look at this. When we we've always told for unpaid citations, one thing matrix we measured was how many repeat offenders we would get. And in the past, it was really only like thirteen percent. Eighty seven percent of the people that got towed for unpaid citations, and they weren't required to to pay them, mind you, did not get towed again. So now I'm wondering, I'm hoping that, hey, now that you had to pay those citations, it wasn't just a $150 toll fee and the other, you know, $25 storage you'd pay citations.

I thought that's even more tea to say, I don't want to be here again. That was expensive. I could save that money and pay my Right? So time will tell how this all unfolds, but we're trying to take a lens every direction with this to just kind of really get a good picture and how we can best service the citizens, educate them, also get what we need from, you know, as a parking service manager, we want compliance, we want people paying their citations. So there's a lot of good things that can come with this and I think we just gotta gotta keep working on it.

Mister chair, clear quick clarifying question on. Yeah.

Alder

Moore. Just really quick. I I want to make sure that I'm hearing you correctly so. If an individual was told they come down you'd say you know your staff say here your options. Mhmm. If they go with the court option, forms are sent over right away. You said they're sent on their way. They're not getting their vehicle out.

Get the vehicle out. They They do.

They do get their vehicle out. Yep. Do they have to pay something to get

They will no. They're they they they would pay their toll fee and there's they they their toll fee. And if they have, you know, know, money storage. But the citations itself actually go to UniHort.

Okay. So just the tow fee is paid. They're able to get their vehicle out. And then they just wait for their

Yeah. The date to go and then whatever the judge decides, you know, based it's a case by case situation. Yeah.

Okay. So judge decides maybe a payment plan, etcetera, etcetera. And what and if they break that agreement, then what?

Or miss the court date.

Or miss the court date.

Yeah. At that point, DPW has the right to go tow the vehicle again.

How do you all follow-up with that information?

So what we do is so we we are we have a good communication path going with municipal court. We we correspond daily. So they're sending us reports. Here's the people that are set up cases and they send us a report back. They will as we think these cases come through saying, okay, these people did not show up to court or did not meet the requirements. So then we will receive that information if anybody defaulted on their obligation to a municipal court.

Okay. I'll kick it back to you Mr. Chair. Thank you for that.

Thank you. Just quick clarification. So what in future presentations of this data it would be good to know of those folks who missed their court date how many do we tow again? Definitely. Because one of the things the state law change allowed us to do, which we enacted through our ordinance, is before we could only tow them if they were illegally parked. Now we can tow them if and if they're legally parked. And my understanding is the department policy will be, hey, if you said you were gonna do something and you don't follow through, you missed that court date or you don't follow the judge's orders, then we're gonna come looking

for you. Mhmm.

Correct. Okay. Thank you. Alder Bergales.

Thank you. These citations are tied to the to the vehicle tag

or to the plate. Was registered owner. If they to the owner of the plate.

To the owner of the plate. So can we tow a different car if some if my second car has parking tickets on it?

It's tied to the plate. So when the parking person's office is going down the road, they see a license plate, that license plate has five or more, six days past

the registered owner has multiple vehicles, we can only tow the one that has the tickets not

We're going out the plate. Yes.

Alright. And then what happens if I've sold that car that had a bunch of tickets on it or I moved out of state? Do we still try to collect? Collect?

On the plate? So we're trying to educate people if you sell a car, make sure you can go on the the DMV site, DOT site to report it as sold. If you lost your plate, got stolen because otherwise they could follow you, you know, and that's we kind of say sometimes where we have, you know, citation that it's not all collectible because there are situations where there's plates out there that don't belong to people in the racket of citations. Mhmm. Alright. Thank To answer your question, yes. So we do work with people. So if you if you are a victim and saying, hey, I sold my car with this plate on it and you have the document to show that we can we we take out case by case.

But if I sold a car with tickets on it?

It's got tied to the license plate, not the car.

Yeah. It's tied to the Yeah.

You could tell you could sell your car. Mhmm. Keep your plates and see a lot of lot of tickets on it. Throw it on your new car. We're gonna tell you your new car because we're going off the plate.

And then the Okay. Got it.

Thank you so much.

Alder Okay. Alder Moore?

Thank you so much. That my colleague took the question right out of my hand but wanted to expound on it a little bit more. So the the plate is connected to the person. Let's say I, for whatever reason, want new plates because people do that. Right? I get new plates. Then then what?

So at that point, if you're let's say, theoretically, you were put your license plates in the garage, it doesn't go out there. Right? You're not gonna get towed for being a virtual parking lot because the plates are in the car. However, keep in mind, you still have citations. You'll still go to our collections that will still you'll try to recoup the money, and then you're also eligible to go to tax intercept because you did not pay those. So you still have citations. It's just you're gonna that plate all of sudden disappears. It's on the cards that get towed, but you're still tied to those citations.

So that individual is still tied to the citation regardless of how many because, you know, I've I've had plates where I didn't, you know, I I bought I may have bought a new vehicle. Mhmm. And I don't want to use my old plates. I want to use new plates or you know I just allow them to expire and you know again I'm I'm getting new plates right That's what I'm trying to find out. What happens to that individual because I can go to the DMV, you know, and and get new I have new plates because I still get letters about my old plate. I'm like, I don't have that, you know, that don't have that anymore. What happens in situation?

Your citations stand for seven years before they're written off. So you'll still get letters saying, hey, this plate, hey, you owe us this amount of money.

Okay.

And then what'll happen is you'll be referred to tax intercept. So if you get a tax return and you owe, say, the city Milwaukee $400, they will take $400 out of your taxes.

So the DMV can continue to issue me new plates as long as I request them even though I may have citation on old plates? Yes? Yep.

So to to jump on that, so we we have a a income tax refund intercept but the city no longer does a vehicle registration intercept. Correct.

That we stopped that in 2013.

And have you decide have you explored returning to that practice? Because it costs $5.

It's it's $3 a citation to put on there. Yes. $3 a citation to put on there. Yeah. A lot of cities around here do it. You know, it's like if if there's an appetite for it, you know, you know, we do have the We there's the ability to do that if that's what is

Would you be able to project how much revenue or how many how how much revenue we could expect to to get if we were to return to registration intercepts?

Yeah. I have it here. I have some

And that that'd a data request for later. Wouldn't ask you to

I actually do have it.

But Oh, you do

have that?

I do Here's my little sheet. I had it. Off the top of my head Because over overall Yeah. Overall the big so what what's totally collectible because you look at in state, out of state, there's different variations. There's like 42,000,000 in uncollected citations, but when we look at what we actually have address on plates, and it changes daily around 25,000,000.

And for for next time, would you be able to provide us how much of that debt is five years old, six years old, seven years

old that we're about to

write off? Okay.

You're right. Mister chair, if I can just finish really quick. Oh, yeah. Please. Thank you so much. I just wanna get some clarity. Of the 28,000 plus habitual parking violators, those are individual people or is it? Those are people. Yes. Okay. So those are individual people that have multiple citations. Yeah.

All together it's like 200 and some thousand citations. Yeah. Those actual plate owners.

Plate own. Okay. Plate owners.

Yep. So people that own the plate, yes.

So of the 200,000 then as far as those individual citations, do we know just I wanna sort of go back to my question of the plates itself. If if the plates are connected to things that are just out of date, longer serviceable. I mean and I and and it might go to Alderman Bergalis' point around the the length of time because some I'm just assuming some people may not own those plates anymore and they're just like, well, I don't own this these plates anymore or they're, you know, they're not registered so I'm not paying this this citation.

Yeah. And and that's their choice, but it will still go to the collection part and then we go to tax intercept. And if there was ever, you know, you know, registration holds, it would go to that.

So it doesn't matter. So the plate the the plates itself doesn't matter because it's connected to the person.

To the person.

Got

it. And that's why I always advise people, those listening, you get rid of a car, make sure you keep your plate with

you. You know?

So Yeah. No. I appreciate that. Yep. Thank thank you Peter. Thank you mister chair.

Thank you. Any other questions? If not, then Alder Berglis would move that we hold this item to the call of chairs for a future update. And thank you very much. With that, I'll pass the gavel.

Thank you mister chair. Moving on to our next item. Item number seven, file two five one three seven four substitute resolution relative to acceptance and funding of the public health crisis response grant from the center, centers for disease control and prevention. Welcome to our Health Department partners.

Good morning Mr. Chair, committee members. Aaron Schapinski, Budget Administration Manager for the Health Department. This is acceptance and funding as the chair noted of a $394,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The goal is to conduct blood lead testing clinics for select MPS schools. It's a continuation and sort of evolution of our short term partnership with MPS on lead abatement. They will be carrying out the entirety of the work and we are essentially passing these funds through to them. There's a community engagement component and a lot of that information is in the file.

And just for clarification purposes, we have a proposed substitute two. Thank you, that sub two be before us. Hearing no objection, so ordered.

Thank you. I forgot about that. We do have a sub. There's a modest change. There's a small city share required of this of about $1,500. So we did have to modify the resolution. Thank you, mister chair,

for putting it before you.

And Tyler Weber, deputy commissioner environmental health, adding more to the grant. We expect this to provide funding for screening, blood lead screening about 35 to 50 schools over the course of the calendar year. We're targeting elementary schools and this is continuation of, again, as Aaron shared, our work over this past year. I think about a 100 schools have been worked on, tens of millions of dollars have invested but doesn't mean we're just gonna walk away. We want to continue monitoring the situation and we'll have a pulse on every single blood test.

If there's an elevated level, we'll follow-up and we'll work on investigations as we normally do in their homes. We'll look at the schools and continue to paint a picture of the lead exposure in our schools and or in our community.

Thank you for that. And just for clarity, this is only an MPS not Choice or Charter Schools in the city.

Right. And we

have a Choice and Charter School relationship for for doing water testing and we're looking to expand that relationship this year. But right now, let's just focus on MPS because that's where a majority of the concern has come from this past year.

Excellent. Thank you. Any questions or comments from committee members? Alderman Taylor.

We can do thank you. We can do the city of Milwaukee charter schools though. Right?

I believe so. Yeah. This is what's direct this is directly with MPS. We may be able to see if there's additional screening that we can do with other partners in our other schools so we're looking into that as well. Okay. We're still working with MPS to identify the schools. We have a I don't have the list of the first few but we're working with them to identify the priority, youngest children, the schools that had the most work. We'll start first and then see where it takes us over the year.

Okay. Excellent. Any other questions? Alderman Westmoreland moves adoption of item number seven. Any objections to that? Hearing none, so ordered.

Thank you much. Moving

on to our next agenda item, item number eight, file two five one six zero seven, resolution relating to the acceptance and funding of a cops anti heroin grant. Welcome to the department.

Good morning, mister chair and committee members. Laura Ingen, Milwaukee Police Department. The file before would authorize the city to accept and fund the 2026 allocation for our grant. No changes there. This grant provides overtime funding to help us investigate narcotic narcotics cases. There also is a $5,000 component to our program, but because of that amount, that file doesn't come before this committee. So again, this would authorize us to continue our efforts with a total of $30,000 that would be provided for overtime funding.

Thank you very much.

So is the file need to be referred to finance and personnel?

No. It's just there are no positions involved in terms of creation. It just simply provides funding for overtime.

Got it. Thank you for that. Any questions, comments from committee members?

Move for approval.

Alderman Taylor moves for adoption of this resolution. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Thanks so much. Moving on. Item number nine, file two five one three zero eight, appointment of j o Hasselhoff to the pedestrian and bicycle advisory committee by the mayor.

Jay Hasselhoff is a resident of the 11th Aldermanic District. Welcome Jay. Is anyone from the mayor's office here to introduce the appointment? Nope. Anyone on the board?

Well, we'll let you introduce yourself. Welcome, Jay.

Oh, thank you. My name is Jay Hasselhoff from the 11th Aldermanic District.

Please share a brief explanation on your history and why you wanted to join the advisory committee?

This started through the West Allis Transportation Academy and I got to understand what happens with people on streets and bikes on streets. And so that moved into writing a grant with AARP for a traffic audit and we did that in the Jackson Park area and just the interest continues and realize that as part of the board of the Jackson Park Community Association and also part of the board of the Friends of Jackson Manitoba Parks, we need to be connected into the pedestrian and bike arena. So I'm here.

Excellent. And I hear your alderman has a annual bike ride with Butler bikes in in the district as well around Jackson Park.

It is absolutely very fun. Been there. I've done that. We'll do

that again. Alright.

Any questions or comments from committee members?

Thank you for your

service. My pleasure. Yeah. Thank you for yours.

Alright. Alder Wool.

And and I wanna be invited to that bike ride. Absolutely. Mister chair. Okay.

We are

we are penciling in a date. It'll be a Thursday in July. Yes. I'm not quite sure when yet, but I'll I'll make sure everyone gets invited to Excellent. And get a and you can ride a free bubbler bike and try out those new e bikes for free as well. Any other comments? No. Alright. Thank you. Alderman Moore moves confirmation. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Thank you very much. Thank you for your service.

Thank you.

Moving on to item number 10. File 251372 communication from the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault relating to its recent, current, and future activities. This is sponsored by Alderman Spiker, Alderman Moore, and myself. Welcome. Thank you for your patience today. We've had a long agenda. Please introduce yourselves.

Yes. First of all, I just wanted to thank everyone and address the alders. I know the chair is away. We appreciate that you guys put this back on the agenda after our mishap with the last meeting. So thank you so much for allowing us to come back and readdress that. My name is Liza Herbst. I am the family violence prevention manager.

Thank you. Good morning, all. My name is Adriana Watkins. I'm the coordinator for the family violence prevention division.

Good morning, chair. My name is Jasmine Morton. I am the recast program manager with the division the department of community wellness and safety. Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. Thank you.

So we have been diligently working to support the nomination and appointment process to ensure that the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault is is fully staffed and positioned to resume its work. Throughout the process, we've provided periodic updates to our listserv which includes survivors, other partner organizations, so that we are able to, you know, keep our stakeholders informed of what is going on. We've also maintained our subcommittee meetings, although the main meetings have not been happening, and that really was done for the purpose of collaboration across the city and, you know, once the commission is fully appointed, it will formally reconvene. And at which that time, you know, we will they will review the bylaws and ordinance, come up with a regular meeting time.

And relaunch and reinvigorate the commission to restart and do more and do better.

Yes, exactly. We've also met with epidemiologist who will support the commission by providing quarterly data updates to you all as instructed. And, you know, we look forward to the commission's work moving forward, you know, partnering with our dedicated appointees who some are present here in person and some virtually, and really advancing the work around domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking.

Excellent. And these are all mayoral appointments?

Actually, Can some

just explain of why why we have 15 of them all at once?

Yeah. I, you know, I am not sure, actually, actually, as to why we have this many. And we do have some that were not included. So we had three people that were not put on the agenda. But I'm not sure why they weren't split up more equally. So I'm sorry I can't answer that question.

Alright. Mister chair. And can the department chime in? And I mean, this is a a report to recent current and future activities. How can OVP give us a recap?

Yeah. Essentially, I believe that what occurred was there were a lot of transitions within department and the oversight of the commission went through a number of different changes and so with reconvening and restructuring the commission, that is why we have filled all of the positions through the the 15 that are present on today.

Excellent.

Does that answer your question?

I think so. Okay.

And so we'll pass it on to the committee. Alderman Moore.

Thank you so much mister chair. Because I I do know these individuals have to be reappointed every year. So I know that there were new folks that came to the table and some that, you know, chose whatever for whatever reason not to be invited or not to continue their appointments. So I see the reason for, you know, the 15. Can you please share what is the what what number are we at for the commission?

So the current ordinance has 19. 19.

Okay. And and then, Liza, can you please share again why the other three are not on this particular agenda?

So that I'm not sure. Okay. I was told to bring that up to you all after we discussed the issues for today to make sure that they do get on a future agenda at some point. I can share the names of those individuals if you would like.

If they're not on the agenda, we'll No. We'll talk about it next

time.

Okay. Okay. Thank no. Thank you for that. I just wanted to make sure that I just had clarity. So 19 commissioners per per the ordinance, three are still not on. Once these folks move through, can you please talk about timeline as far as when the next when the first official meeting will then happen?

So the first official meeting will happen once everyone has been appointed. So with that in mind, we know that there's an upcoming meeting next month. So whenever these individuals are scheduled and appointed, everyone will come to the first meeting. Our meetings are usually on the third Thursday of the month. So depending on which meeting everyone is appointed by, will adjust accordingly.

So just for clarity mister chair? Yeah. Yeah.

With the calendar, you'll have these appoint assuming these appointments are confirmed by the full council that happens the Tuesday after next. So on the February 10, you'll have most of your commissioners active.

Correct. And that's just the clarity that I wanted to ensure because of the, I mean, they're they're on the agenda for to the 15 are on the agenda for today. Do we have counsel on the on the tenth where if again if there are no objections it'll go through. Should we then anticipate a meeting happening February or a meeting happening March?

I would say we would probably aim for February, but it may be more reasonable to anticipate March given the short time frame between the tenth and then The

next following meeting. That makes sense. And then Liza, who makes that decision? Because I want, you know, again, this is such an important commission and I I value Alderman Taylor being a part a part of that. I just wanna, you know, understand whose decision it because I I I just like clarity around particular things. So whose decision would be to say, you know what? You know based on this timeline we will definitely be starting March because I don't want to see it April and May. You know what I mean? I just want to make sure that I'm very clear on when the commission is started up.

Yeah. So that will be my decision and you know of course there will be input from our new commissioners and their availability.

And would you be able to communicate that back out to the council? Yes of course. Perfect and I do want to say thank you so much for your email in in regards to the last committee our last committee meeting. I appreciate and value. I'm just taking the responsibility and saying, you know what? I'm so sorry. Right? There was a snafu and and just addressing it. So, I value and appreciate appreciate that. That. Thank Thank you. You. I think mister chair that for now that's all I have.

Thank you very much. Any other comments? Alright. Alderman Moore moves to hold this item to the call of the chair so that you can come back and give us regular updates as needed. Hearing no objections to that, so ordered. Oh. Alderman Taylor. If you could, you could just add me

to the

Alderman Taylor asks unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor of item 10, file two five one three seven two, hearing no objections are ordered. Alderman Moore still retains her motion to hold to the call of the chair hearing no objections are ordered. Thank you all so much. Thank you.

Thank you.

We will move on to our next agenda items and we'll call a couple people up at the same time if you're here presently. Neil Thorenson, Antonia Drew Norton, and Matthew Torbenson. Our next agenda item is file is item number 11, file two five one three zero four, appointment of Neil Thorison to the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault by the Mayor. Good morning. Will you be making introductions?

Yes. So Neil Thorison, he is our representative from the commission from the Department of Corrections. Good morning.

Thank

you. Good morning. Does the mayor's office wanna make an introduction or Very good. Please introduce yourself and share with us why you'd like to join the commission.

Yes. Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Neil Thorson. I'm the regional chief for probation and parole here in Milwaukee County. I work for the department of corrections. I've been an employee of the department since 2002. I started off as a Spanish speaking agent on the South Side Of Milwaukee and in that time developed a specialization working with clients that have interpersonal violence in their background. And as I moved up to be supervisor and then regional chief thirteen, that continued to be a passion of mine. And I've been a member of the commission since 2013. Historically, the regional chief has been the appointee from the department of corrections and I would welcome an opportunity to continue in that role.

Excellent. Any questions from

the committee?

Thank you.

Move confirmation. Alder Spiker moves confirmation. Hearing no objections, so ordered. Thank you very much for your

Thank you.

Thank Neil. And the gavel is passed back for item

Oh, okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you, alder Bergalas. Item 12 is file number 251303 reappointment of Antonia Drew Norton to the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault by the mayor. She's on the It's on the big board.

Morning.

Hello.

Thank you, missus Kieran and this body, and I thank the mayor for my reappointment to the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. Again, I'm Antonia Drew. I desire to continue on the commission because I feel a responsibility, not just to the history of the victim services ecosystem, but to the future of that work. I serve because many lives have been lost lost and more lives are being lost, resulting in family devastation and more children winding up in the child welfare system. And we can't dismiss the astronomical costs At over $2,000,000 per homicide, I believe the commission must continue evolving intentionally to eliminate these kinds of damages to lives, families, and the community experiencing these atrocities.

As the founder of Osha Family Services in 1988 to this current date, I bring more than three decades of institutional knowledge, content expertise and direct victim services. But also I bring a deep commitment to ensuring culturally specific communities like those served through the community. And in the community. I I want wanna help elevate newer generation voices, different strategies, and bold ideas that reflect where we are now because that is how we save lives. I'm here because the moment demands it.

And I want to ensure the commission is not stalled, but moving into next its next chapter with forward movement, not repetition, and with systems that serve all survivors. With that, I thank you.

Thank you. I guess a quick question for the mayor's office. I know with reappointments, typically, we look at attendance records in in making our deliberations. I don't see those provided in the file. Is that something you could supply between now and council so that we have that record?

Amber Daniels, common council liaison officer for Mayor Johnson. Yes. I can make sure that those records are in the file. I do think the city clerk might hold those records so I'll check with them but

You do what now?

I I believe the city clerk has those records.

Okay. Yeah. I just didn't see them in the file.

Double check. Don't have it in the file.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Typically appointments we get the resume and we hear hear the deal with reappointments, the attendance record just to make sure you know folks are able to fulfill their obligations. So any questions, comments from committee members? Mr. Chair, move confirmation. Confirmation is moved by Alder Moore and hearing no objections, so ordered. Thank you very much for your willingness to serve.

Thank you.

Item 14. Item Actually, we'll skip ahead here to item 18, file number two five one four nine eight. This is the appointment of state representative Sequana Taylor to Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault by the Mayor. Apologies, representative Taylor. I wanna acknowledge your presence here. Thank you very much. Would you like to say a couple words?

Absolutely. Thank you all for this opportunity. Ask someone who is not only a survivor but a thriver and gives back for domestic violence. This is an opportunity that I don't take lightly. Trying to make sure I find some really good light. Sorry, you guys. That I don't take lightly, and the restructuring of the commission is something that I look forward to. Once again, this isn't something that I take just to sit on a commissioner board. I have way too much on my plate, but it is something that I feel like is very important and the impact that it can make on our community. I usually say if we are able to save one life or inspire someone to be able to keep going and thrive, then we have get our due diligence.

So once again, thank you all for this opportunity. I look forward to serving with the other people on the commission. Also, of the work that they do at OCWS was once work that I did as well with the commission. So I look forward to continuing that with the city and other partners as well too. Domestic violence is something that affects us each and every day. Domestic violence isn't something that have a race, religion, creed, or financial background. It can happen to anybody at any time, and it's something that we need to speak more about, not just in the month of October, but throughout the whole year.

Very good. Thank you very much for your willingness to serve. Alder Berglis.

Thank you, mister chair. It's always a a pleasure to see former colleagues, and it is my pleasure to, move confirmation of representative doctor Sequana Taylor to the commission. Very

good. So Alder Bergales has moved to recommend confirmation. Is there any objection? So ordered. Thank you very much for your willingness to serve. Appreciate it. Thank you for your patience today as well.

Thank

you. Item 14, moving back in the agenda. 13. 13? Oh, I already crossed. Wait. 13. I thought that was Torbinson. We

did Neil Thornton, which was number 11.

Oh, okay. Names too similar. So item 13, file number 251302, appointment of Matthew Torbenson to the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault by the Mayor. Mister Torbenson.

Move to hold.

Motion is to hold to the call of the chair. Hearing no objections so ordered, if it appears if the mayor's office is able to get him online or something, we'll take care of it today. Item 14, file number 251301, appointment of Alfonso Pettis to the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault by the mayor.

On the board.

Chair? Yeah. If I'm not mistaken, miss Herbst, were these items

that they were not gonna be

Speak into your mic, ma'am. No. Item Or they were gonna be virtually. Or I'm sorry. Item 14, yes, is virtual. Mister Pettis is online. He is our representative from the Alma Center.

Okay. And was that the same case for mister Toberson?

Yes. He was going to appear virtually. I'm not sure if he had to step off Okay. For a legal matter.

Clarify that.

So we're on item 14. Mister Pettis, would you like to say a little bit about yourself?

Sure. Thank you for inviting me, and thanks for being on the commission. My my name is Alfonso Pettis. I am the community outreach and facilitator for the Alma Center. I just wanted to, you know, be a part of the commission because because I work with youth.

I'm a youth worker by heart, you know, by heart. Also, a child where my mother was a victim of domestic violence. So being a part being a part of this commission is just really, know, a part of my passion for working in the community. I spent the past thirty, I guess, I'm kind of aging myself, past thirty five something years working as a fatherhood fatherhood advocate between the Next Door Foundation, Rosalie Manor, and just working with fathers and families, it's just that I've seen all these disconnects where children were being impacted. And I know one of the issues that, you know, children were being impacted was through, you know, domestic violence.

And then working with youth, I was seeing high numbers of intimate partner violence, dating violence. And that's one part of my mentoring program I have outside of my career that I put a lot of work into and a lot of passion into to where I just want, you know, in my spirit, just want families to, you know, to have, you know, just a health healthy lifestyle. It just that's part of the reason why I take you know, this is a great honor just to be a part of this commission. So I can be on my soapbox a little bit longer, but I know you don't guys don't have all day.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your willingness to lend your expertise to this commission. Any questions? Alder Taylor moves to recommend confirmation and hearing no objections ordered. Thank you very much. Item 15, file number 251300, appointment of Kelsey Leopold to the Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault by the Mayor. Constituent. Yes. Alright. Love that.

And Kelsey Leopold is our appointment from the domestic violence and sexual assault attorney section. She works for Legal action. Legal Action. Does a lot of work with human trafficking.

Okay. Very good.

Yeah. My name is Kelsey Leopold. Like she said, I've worked with Legal Action, which is a nonprofit civil legal service provider for those eight years, I've always served in our victim service role, so I've worked with domestic violence survivors, survivors of sexual assault, and I'm currently one of the staff attorneys on our human trafficking project. So, in that role, I'm able to assist with the civil legal needs that come up, but no individual comes to us with just a legal need that needs to be addressed. There's always an unmet need and it's usually a pretty drastic one safety, security, housing, economic needs.

So, I'm really excited like partnership with the community and working with other organizations so we're able to work together to like meet those needs is extremely important. So, I'm very honored to be nominated for this and very excited to get to work on the commission.

Very good. Thank you. Any questions?

Move for confirmation.

Alder Taylor would move to recommend confirmation and hearing no objections sorted. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Item 16, file number 251299, appointment of Raven Jones to Milwaukee Commission on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault by the Mayor.

Hello?

Raven Jones falls under the category of the Department of Community Wellness and Safety Youth Advocate.

Yes. Good morning, community meeting. My name is Raven Jones. I work ambassador of critical response team. I wanna thank you guys for the opportunity. I believe my purpose is just to guide and help others, and really, I myself am a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault. Not basically solely based off my experience, but other experiences too. I just wanted people to know that I see them. You're not alone. You know? Like, the healed parts of me just not always saying you know? Not being able to say no or just over giving. Now I'm able to, you know, set boundaries and understand that it's not abandonment. It's just more so self respect. And I want others to know the same thing. So Very