Public Safety, Finance and Strategic Support Committee (psfss) - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. Before we begin PISVIS, I wanted to remind the Public Safety Finance and Strategic Support Committee members and members of the public to follow our code of conduct at meetings. This include commenting on this specific agenda item only and addressing the full body. Public speakers will not engage in a conversation with the chair, council member, or staff. All members of the public safety, finance, and strategic support committee, staff, and the public are expected to refrain from abusive language.

Repeated failure to comply with the code of conduct, which will disturb, disrupt, or impede the orderly conduct of this meeting, may result in removal from the meeting. This meeting of the public safety finance and strategic support committee will now come to order. Can the clerk, office please take, call the roll, please.

Tordios?

Here.

Casey?

Here.

Mulcahy?

Here.

Vice chair Kameh absent. Chair Duan? Here. You have a quorum.

Thank you. There's nothing on the consent calendar, so can go straight to item d five is to be heard concurrently with item d one. So please come on down. And I believe d one, we will have Kian Soon and Sylvia Jefferson to do the presentation.

Good afternoon, chair Don, council members, committee members. My name is Sylvia Jefferson. I'm the assistant director of finance. And I'm sitting with my colleague, deputy director of finance who oversees treasury and debt management. As you know, today, we'll be presenting the second quarterly investment management report.

And we will start out with a few items to note regarding the report. We're starting on slide six. Okay. So to note that the investments meet the requirements of the city's investment policy and conform with California government code section fifty three six zero one. Authorized investments are only highly rated fixed income securities.

Securities. The investment policy is reviewed annually and was last adopted by resolution of the city council on 03/11/2025, and the investment program is audit audited semiannually for compliance purposes. Next, we'll talk about investment objectives and reporting. The finance department manages investments to meet the city's investment policy objectives, which are safety, liquidity, and yield. Safety is the foremost objective in the investment program.

We do not take chances with losing principal as this is public funds. Next is liquidity, which the ability to meet our obligations when they come due. And finally, secondary to safety and liquidity is yield, which is a market rate of return of investment purchased them. These reports are available to the public in a variety of formats. They're available online in the city's website under the finance department, in the public safety finance and strategic support committee as we are here today and in city council agenda packets.

Next, we'll talk about our summary of our portfolio performance. The size of our portfolio is about $2,500,000,000. Earned interest yield is 4.018%. Weighted average maturity is seven hundred and thirteen days, which is about two years. The fiscal year to date net income recognized is nearly $53,000,000, and it's important to note that there were zero exceptions to the city investment policy this quarter. Next, I'll hand it over to Chen Yu Sun to present more detailed slides on her team's work.

Thank you, Silva. The city of this portfolio is invested in a variety of asset classes. As of 12/31/2025, to 45% of the portfolio is in are invested in US government securities, including treasuries and agencies. And now the 44% are invested in credit sectors, including corporate notes, municipal bonds, asset backed securities, and mortgage backed securities. We also maintain a fair amount of liquidity in the portfolio.

As you can see, 7% of the portfolio are invested in Leith and the Joint power of authority managed portfolios. Those are very short term portfolios. They generally have a maturity less than a year, so they provide sufficient liquidity needs for the city. Okay. Fine.

I made it working. The the the city's the Citi's investment portfolio is is a commingled funds from a variety various funds of so the Citi manages. Of the funds, general fund is the olive green sector, accounts about the $3.33 26,000,000 as of the December, which is about 13% of the total portfolio investment pool. General fund decreased by 40,000,000 during the quarter because the received revenue was a little bit less than the expenditures. And general fund has a general fund balance in the portfolio demonstrate a very obvious seasonality.

Usually peaks during the months when the city received the majority of the tax receipts in June and in January and declines during the rest of the months of the year. As required by the city policy, we are we are required to ensure sufficient liquidity in the portfolio to cover the city's expenditures for the next six months. We project there's sufficient investment maturities, cash and incoming revenues to cover the expenditures for the next month from January to June. This is just a graph showing the cash balance trending of selected funds in the portfolio. The red line is the general fund as you can easily see.

There are two peaks in the year in January and June. The city come chooses to compare the portfolio performance with two selected benchmark. One is SLAVE. The other one is a Bank of America, one to three year corpgov indexes. Over the years, the the there's quite a bit of change in the interest rate with decrease of interest rate trades, and you can tell that the the spread between the Citi's portfolio and the LIFE and the BAML index has been shrinking.

I'm happy to report as of right now, the city's portfolio yield is exceeding LAVEN and catching up to BMO index. Lastly, I would like to reiterate that the city's consistent investment strategies over the years, we are required to matching known expenditures with suitable investment maturities within about twenty four months horizon. When there's opportunity, we try to expect expand a portion of the portfolio beyond the two year term to provide some income and the structure to the portfolio. Diversification is a key tenant of the investment operation, so we try to maintain the portfolio as diversified as the policy allows, and we always focus the core objectives of safety and liquidity and yield. That ends our presentation.

We're happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you for the presentation. Do we have any public comments?

Yes. We have a couple speakers for this item. The first speakers in group, Elizabeth Argumont, Haraya Amin, Wendy Greenfield, and Yoon. Please make your way down to the podium. You will each have two minutes to speak. Thank you.

Hi. People from San Jose's diverse communities have shown up to today to demand that the city of San Jose passed an ethical investment policy that will permanently divest from corporations with ties to ICE, the prison industrial complex, and Israel's genocide against Palestine. We have the moral urgency to take action and stand firmly on the side of peace, justice, and human dignity. We must show up show that San Jose stands against genocide and human rights abuses and guarantee that our city will be record recorded on the right side of history. I am proud to be a resident of this diverse and multicultural city of San Jose, and our city has a proud history of being a leading center in the struggle for justice and freedom for all people.

I ask that you build upon our city's legacy by passing an ethical investment policy to divest all city funds from ICE, the prison industrial complex, and Israel's genocide against Palestine's Palestine. Other Bay Area cities like Dublin, Albany, California, as well as Alameda County have already taken the courageous step of passing an ethical investment policy. I urge you to demonstrate your leadership and moral fortitude by joining them. In 2020, city of San Jose aligned with its constituents' values and chose to amend city council investment policy so that the city would make no new direct investments in entities that directly engage in exploration, production, refining, or marketing of fossil fuels. Six years later, there have been no negative effects on the fund.

The precedent has been set regarding the letting justice and equity guide investment and decisions. The people of San Jose do not want blood on its hands. Be consistent with our city's clear values by introducing and passing an ethical investment policy. I'm calling on San Jose to divest from war profiteers, Caterpillar, Alphabet, Microsoft, Honeywell, and Amazon, investments which amount to around 4% of San Jose's investment portfolio. Thank

you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon. My

name is Wendy Greenfield, and I speak on behalf of the South Bay chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, urging you policy to make only ethical investments instead of investing our money in companies like Hatterpillar, Alphabet, and Microsoft that together invest $38,465,000 in the government and military of Israel at a time when it has been engaged in an horrific genocide that has killed more than 73,158 Palestinians and more than 2,038 Israelis as of 02/10/2026 according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. That's more than 75,200 precious human beings, all of whom deserve to live in a peaceful and caring environment. These ongoing attacks, this genocide is opposed by the majority of people in San Jose, in this county, and around the nation. The attacks also caused climate pollution principally in Palestine, but also worldwide, producing over 31,000,000 tons of carbon emissions in just the first first fifteen months. San Jose should join the Bay Area cities of Hayward in Richmond and the county Of Alameda in launching ethical investment policies, divesting from companies that support the Israeli support assault on Gaza.

Our money should be invested in companies that support health, education, and thriving local communities and a healthy environment, not destruction and killing. Divesting will stop our money from directly paying for these murders, and it will also send a message to others in the Bay Area and around California and the nation. Choose life. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon council members. My name is Aria Amin. I'm a US history teacher with San Jose Unified. I'm speaking to you today to demand that San Jose adopt an ethical investment policy both to reflect the values of our community and to stand with cities such as Dublin, Albany, and Alameda County in taking this courageous and necessary step. I'm calling on San Jose to divest from war profiteers Caterpillar, Alphabet, Microsoft, Honeywell, and Amazon, investments which amount to around 4% of San Jose's investment portfolio.

Continuing to invest in these companies breaks public trust, it corrodes the value of our city as a public service institution, the benefits of divestment far outweigh any risks or inconveniences associated with this 4% divestment. What is preventing the city council from divesting in genocide and standing up for human rights by introducing and passing an ethical investment policy? In addition, I'm here to demand that the San Jose City Council pass an ethical investment policy related to ICE that divest from companies complicit in ICE's terror operations nationwide. The city currently has $15,000,000 invested in Alphabet whose subsidiary Google is integral to ICE's detention and deportation operations and which has a direct contract with Lockheed Martin and customs border protect protection supplying AI and technology to The US Mexico border. The city also currently has $12,000,000 invested in Microsoft which for years has maintained secretive, ongoing, and increasing business relationships with ICE.

The city also has $31,000,000 invested in Amazon, which provides crucial technology to ICE, CBP, and DHS, which they use to track, monitor, and deport immigrants. We must not be complicit in Trump's terrorization of our immigrant neighbors and

Thank you. The next group of their way down, Laurie, and looks like Dina Saba. Thank you.

Genocide has a legal definition. Numerous organizations have determined that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It is beyond dispute at this point. However, the term does not begin to describe the horrors inflicted by Israel and the Palestinian people. Retired lieutenant colonel Anthony Aguilar, who was hired as a contractor to run a distribution operation for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which he would soon learn to be an utterly sham organization, bore witness to some of the horrors and turned whistleblower.

He described driving through neighborhoods that were bombed to rubble, hearing cries of people buried beneath, left to die. He saw feral rugs, dogs scavenging on human parts. Throughout the sham ceasefire, The US continues to send Israel bombs and other munitions. The vast majority of people reject the use of our public money being used to help Israel commit genocide. But there is our public dollar public tax federal dollars used to supply these bombs or local public dollars spent on holding holdings of companies that are complicit.

I repeat, the determination of genocide has legal implications. San Jose must stop choosing to be complicit in genocide.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi. My name is Laurie Capture. I'm a twenty three year resident of San Jose in District 6 and a member of showing up for racial justice Santa Clara County. And I am here also in support of ethical investment. I believe that our, dollars and where we put our public dollars should match our values, and that is in the dignity of every human being.

I, along with over 2,300 other people, have signed a petition demanding that you divest all funds from Israel's genocide against Palestine. Over 50 community organizations, nonprofits, and small businesses have endorsed the petition as well. It is clear that our diverse and our multicultural communities of San Jose refuse to be complicit in genocide. I call on you to exercise your leadership and stand with your constituents by introducing and passing an ethical investment policy. I believe in the dignity and thriving of every human life, and an ethical investment policy follows that. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi. My name is Dina Saba. I'm a longtime resident of San Jose. I've lived here over forty five years, currently residing in District 6. It's time for San Jose to put Americans first, to put San Jose residents as the priority. This includes divesting any and all companies that are empowering ICE, that are empowering the IDF. These companies like Caterpillar, Microsoft, Google, which is now known as Alphabet, Honeywell, and Amazon, they don't have the best interest of our community. They definitely do not have the best interest of San Jose. Did you know that the IDF trains ICE? Did you know that there are a 121 ex IDF soldiers that have been hired by ICE?

Not not investing in any companies that empower ICE, empower IDF to terror ize our communities is what San Jose should do. That is what the leaders of San Jose should do. It's not acceptable. We must put our residents first, we must protect our communities, and we must ensure that San Jose keeps ethical investment as a priority. Thank you.

Thank you. The next group of speakers to make their way down, Anzu Schafer, Anthony Aguilar, and Philip. Thank you.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Aziza Holmquist. I am a resident of San Jose and also a member of SURGE Santa Clara County. I'm here to demand the city of San Jose show for their most vulnerable residents by introducing and passing a much needed ethical investment policy which will divest city funds from companies which which direct ties to ICE. San Jose is a sanctuary city.

We should reaffirm this by divesting and barring any further investment into companies such as Alphabet Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon who have who have with contracts with ICE and other deportation operations. To implement this policy to not support these companies is needed to show alignment with undocumented immigrants, which gives them value worth and strength to carry on. We want our money to match our values. We are a sanctuary city. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello, city council members and staff. My name is Philip Nguyen. I'm an alumni of San Jose State. I now work in San Jose and I'm an ICIU five two one steward. I wanted to elevate what a number of community members have stated so far and emphasize the question, like, how do we show up for the most vulnerable people in San Jose?

We have investments in companies that have historically aided and facilitated the tearing apart of families, the killing of people at home and abroad, with Alphabet having a partnership with Lockheed Martin to make their war machines kill more efficiently, as well as CBP to make their tactics of surveilling the border more deadly. Then there's Microsoft who has supplied their Azure cloud software to the Israeli military to more efficiently track and kill Palestinians, commit war crimes against Palestinian men, women, and children. Microsoft is also enabling ICE's terror operations that have killed innocent people, Keith Porter, Renee Goode, Alex Preti, and the people who have died in ICE's detention centers. There are currently $20,000,000 in contracts with ICE and Dell Federal Systems for Microsoft Microsoft software. Software.

The people of San Jose are demanding that San Jose City Council stand up for human rights, to stand against apartheid, to stand up against ICE. The president for ethical investment has been sent has has been set by Alameda County, Dublin, California, Albany, California, and the list will continue to grow. The council has a huge opportunity to stand for human rights, to introduce and pass an ethical investment policy as an effective way to exert pressure on ICE and apartheid Israel until it complies with international law. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello, city council. My name is Anzu Schafer. I organized with San Jose against war. Divestment from companies complicit in human rights violations has had a real impact in the past. In the nineteen eighties, many American cities and schools across the country divested from South Africa, which is governed by a strict racial apartheid with segregation laws and land seizures, which exploited and disenfranchised the majority black population.

This divestment movement was a key contributor to the economic isolation of South Africa, which resulted in the end of apartheid. Today, we face a similarly deep urgent crisis, the murder, starvation, and genocide of the Palestinian people. San Jose must make the choice to be on the right side of history and choose ethical investment. And this is not a new question. Contrary to the idea that investments must prioritize financial objectives such as liquidity and profitability, in 2020, the city of San Jose aligned with its constituents' values and chose to amend city council investment policies so that the city would make no new direct investments investments in entities that directly engage in exploration, production, refining, or marketing of fossil fuels.

Six years later, there have been no negative effects on the fund. The precedent has been set regarding letting justice and equity guide investment investment decisions. Decisions. The people of San Jose do not want blood on their hands. Be consistent with the city's clear values by introducing and passing an ethical investment policy. Thank you.

Thank you. The next group of speakers to make their way down, Dion, Jeff Warwick, Shana, and Sean. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Anthony Aguilar. I served in the United States Army as a special operations Green Beret for twenty five years. I deployed to every war that this country has fought in the last twenty five years with boots on the ground. And in May and June of this past year, I was in Gaza for sixty days working in the Gaza Human itarian Foundation, and I witnessed the genocide on the ground with my own eyes.

I am here today to demand that San Jose City Council pass ethical investment policy that permanently debates from companies complicit in ICE and the going genocide in Gaza. They are hand in hand. Throughout my military career, I have worked with ICE, the DEA, other agencies within the homeland security and three letter agencies, in special operations and overt operations. The Department of Homeland Security strategy gives $169,000,000,000 to ICE to grow the force to 10,000 agents in the next five years with detention facilities in 18 states, with the ability to flex 200 agents to every state at any given time. This is not an act of security.

This is an act of terror. And The United States citizens are targeted by companies such as Alphabet, Google, Microsoft, Amazon. While I was in Gaza, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation utilized Palantir Gotham, software powered by Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet, to target unarmed civilians. The same technology that is now being leveraged here in our cities through drones, biometric data collection, policing, security operations. US citizens are now the target of these operations, and I have seen their lethal effect firsthand in countries around the world.

The terror that we export, the oppression that we export is coming home, and it is coming home to our streets here in California. Thank

you. You.

Sorry about that. Shall I start again? My name is Jeff Warwick. I'm a long time resident of San Jose. I'm here to speak about the other speaker's interest in divesting from Israel.

I believe that the international politics are beyond the scope of the city of San Jose. Frankly, Israel is an ally. Some of the, positions opposing Israel, some of the, enemies, are not allies of The United States. A lot of the companies here in Silicon Valley would be affected if you do divestment. For instance, Applied Materials and quite a few others have locations in Israel.

They use some of the intellectual, expertise over there. So it would also complicate matters for doing investing, frankly, because if you try to eliminate just one country, a lot of the investments are so intertwined, that would possibly have an effect on the ability of the people doing the investing. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I've also read all the cards. So if you did not hear your name, please make your way down. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Dion Capote. I'm a resident of San Jose, California District 10 and an educator in the San Jose Unified School District. I'm here today and speak in favor of the city council passing an ethical investment policy along the lanes of Alameda County, Dublin City, Albany, California, and many other cities across The United States to promote and protect human rights within our communities. Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Caterpillar have invested numerous numerous millions of dollars into entities such as Immigration's Customs Enforcement, the IDF, and others complicit in domestic human rights violations in The United States and abroad.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker?

Hello, city council and staff. My name is Shana Reyes, and I'm community member of San Jose. I'm here to speak on support of the ethical investment policy. And as a fight as a professional in the financial industry, I would like to reiterate to this council that this is not a complicated matter. As my as previous community members have stated, we are only asking for divestment from 4% of the city's portfolio.

I would also like to reiterate that we don't have to look very far to see president for this within our own city. In 2020, city of San Jose aligned with its constituents' values and chose to amend the city council investment policy so that it would, quote, make no new direct investments in entities that directly engage in the exploration, production, refining, or marketing of fossil fuels. We're six years into that policy change, and there have been no negative effects on the fund. So the precedent has been set regarding letting justice and equity guide investment decision decisions. Letting the democracy of the people of your own constituents coming here on a workday, taking time, taking money out of their day to day, asking you to do your jobs and listen to our voices.

I'm calling on the city to be consistent with our city's clear values by introducing and passing an ethical investment policy against companies that support Israel's genocide of Palestinians, against companies that are funding and directly involved with the terrorism in our own country, in our own state by ICE, by immigration enforcement. So please listen to us and do the right thing. Pass an ethical investment policy. This is not complicated. This is not impossible, and it has been done before.

Thank you. Next speaker.

I agree with everything everybody said except that one guy. As a as a young Jewish kid, one of the first jobs I had was going door to door for peace and to cut out excess military spending and put more money into education, the environment, and housing. I can still do that speech. Like, I could go to each of you and say, hi, and do my little rap because I still remember it, and I've stood behind my values over and over. I mean, I think you guys pretty much know that.

But, you know, there's certain places that I don't get food from or certain actors I don't watch or whatever it is, and I think all of you have certain things like that. There's certain things that are really important to you that you just don't support, and I think it's the same here. Like, if you don't support ICE being in San Jose, then you don't support companies that support ICE. You have to stand by your values. And not only is it because ICE snatches up people, but now we have issues with, ICE coming after protesters or wanting to dox us or coming after us and wanting us arrested just because of what we post on Facebook.

It is very, very personal. And I don't think that you, as a city council, should support the suppression of free speech. And when you do that, by supporting companies that support ICE, that is what you're doing. You're coming after us, people that you know personally, and I can't believe that you would support that. So I'm saying I support everything that they've said, but I'm also saying consider that because that's what's happening to us.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello. Can you hear me? Hi. My name is John I'm a grad student that goes to San Jose State. I also organize with students for a democratic society.

Now on that campus, we've often pushed for our administration to divest from companies Palestine, that support CBP and ICE. And I can see here that the city of San Jose currently has ties with Caterpillar, Alphabet, Microsoft, Honeywell, and Amazon whose ties with Border Patrol, whose ties with Israel and war profiteers are well proven. These corporations provide equipment and services, which Israel uses to commit war crimes against Palestinian civilians. So I'd like to reiterate that divestment is an effective way to exert pressure on Israel until it complies with international law. We've been pushing for divestment on our campus, and we would most certainly would also like to see divestment being pushed through on a citywide level.

It's the normal thing to do. It is the decent human thing to do to show that we are not in league with Trump's war profiteering racist agenda, of deportation and violence abroad. So, I join the call of my fellow citizens here in asking that San Jose, totally and fully divest. I yield my time. Thank you.

Thank you. Back to the committee.

Thank you so much for all the speakers. Thank you staff for the presentation. I'm gonna go to our council. I don't see anyone. Nope. We got council member Kamay.

I haven't pressed the button.

I read you.

But but yeah. Thank you for to all the speakers who came today and and who previously have come. And I know that we did mention that March is a time frame that the council reviews these these policies, so I know you've been very patient. I I think we're gonna my understanding is that we're going to vote separately on item one and then on item five.

Is that correct?

Okay. So I will just go ahead and accept the report regarding second quarter financial report and refer it to the March 10 city council for full adoption. And that's just the report that we received, so we're just gonna do that separately. So I move that we go ahead and do that.

Second.

Alright. Well, this one?

Oh, can Oh, somebody question about

Yeah. Oh, go ahead if

you haven't had a chance.

Of course.

Can I I just wanted to ask a question about the delinquent accounts, the 54,000,000? One of the things we've talked a lot about is city processes around collections and so forth. I mean is that in a Where are we sort of over a period of time? Is that an improvement? And are there any policy considerations your department is thinking about around those collections?

Yes. We are taking a stance. We are taking action to improve collections there, and we're working with code enforcement and with other departments to make sure that we have accurate billing, mailing addresses, and increase collections in that area of delinquent accounts.

Okay. So I think at a future, you know, report maybe have a does sort of ask for a little bit more specificity around that. Just sort of dig into that a little bit. Know we're talking about billions of dollars of investment here, but, you know, these are collections that matter. And it sort of goes in the context with the other authorizations we're making around BIDs throughout the city and so forth. So from a finance perspective of collecting, just sort of in that same vein, I wanna make sure that we're doing everything we can to be cognizant of that. So thank you for that.

You're welcome.

Okay. Anyone else? Let's vote. My monitor is not working, but I will vote yes.

Okay. And that passes unanimously.

Thank you very much. Now we're gonna go to vote on d five. Can I get a motion? Okay. Well Second?

Okay. Just just for conversation. Okay. So I I think that in terms of of when this goes to council, it someone mentioned it one of the speakers mentioned it in terms of the policy that was used in terms of making no new investments. I think that there might be some I mean, it would be helpful so that the full council knows what are implications of any decisions that will be made by the council.

One is make no new investment, another would be restructure to divest over time at the expiration date of the instruments, and the third would be immediate. I know that we are going through budget season and, you know, any changes depending on when they would be implemented would then trigger its effect to the general fund. So I think that we need to balance our decision making with also implications of what that means for the general fund that we have counted on, especially those that we've already committed committed to. To. Right?

So and I know some of those instruments are over time and we'll we'll have to, you know, decide as a full council what that might be. So I think that that would be very helpful.

Can I

clarify, council member? Are you asking us to bring that back when missus cross referenced on March 10?

Yeah. Because the the council will make a decision in terms of which direction they wanna go in terms of making any changes or anything like that. And I think that it would be fair to understand the make no new investments, which means moving forward from this point in time, restructuring over time and divesting, you know, because we have commitments, and then an immediate withdrawal.

So can I ask the finance Sylvia? You've done the analysis on c that was partial on one on Microsoft. That was in our memo on have we done the analysis of the other two if we were to divest over time or no new or is that new analysis analysis that that finance finance department department would would have have to to undertake? Undertake?

We have the numbers for Caterpillar and the Alphabet. We we will we have the information information regarding, as of today or as of yesterday, what the potential unrealized gain or loss should the city have. We will not be able to forecast the future gain or loss because the market changes almost Right.

But

instantly. But as of right now, we can we can provide them the summary of what they Yeah. How would they estimate the realized gain or loss unrealized gain or loss?

Yeah. I mean, I don't I don't mean it in, you know, future dollars. I'm talking about anything that we would decide to change in terms of what that would be. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And is that Annel, anything additional you need to do, can you do by March 10? I'm just trying to see if we need additional time, if this was the committee's direction.

Yeah. We probably need a little bit time to provide information the additional info for the company on Honeywell and Amazon as mentioned by the public. We can but that but we can revise that council memo and then bring that information to the city council on March 10.

So let's clarify that the motion is to approve the report. Move to city council for March 10. Am I correct? What else? Because it that that was not yours.

No. I I I had approved it. I'm sorry. My motion was to approve as currently constructed here, as recommended.

Yes. The staff proposal.

Yeah. Yes.

This seems to be a new

And I and I seconded what he's

Right. Yeah. But but on the item five, we stated very clearly. Right? Referred to the city investment policy. And then for consideration and adoption on March 10, so we have to move it toward March 10. Right?

So so my my my suggestion was that that the the information to the city council would be a little bit more robust in that you would have information of of being able to say, okay. No new investment as of the investment policy moving forward, right, in these in these categories, in these companies. Right? Or there's a option to restructure and divest over time because obviously we're invested in these companies. Right?

But we have commitments over a period of time. And so would we want to say, oh, you know, when the date comes that we can divest, we will divest. Right? So I I That's information as a part of this. So it doesn't really change this. What it does is that it gives little bit more information so that when it comes to counsel, counsel will will have the option of of choosing, you know, okay, moving forward from this day forward, no more investments in these in these companies.

So what you're asking for a friendly amendment to

I guess for me, the concern I have is there's a predicate to that, the fact that whether we're even gonna consider international policies to determine our investment policy before we even have that information. Like, there's a

prior That's why I'm asking for the that's why I'm asking for the information. Because in order for the the full council to be able to make those decisions, I would think that you would want the information to know what are the pros and cons.

Yeah. I'm having a hard hard time with that.

Well, are you do you accept technically as a friendly amendment? If you're don't, it's okay too.

No. Because I

think It's really just to add add when you bring this forward, to add that to the the documents.

I just think it's a separate conversation entirely from this process whether or not we are going to embark on these types of decisions and conversations. Understand you're right. I mean if we were gonna have that conversation on that date, that information definitely is pertinent. It's more information for us to make an informed decision. So I understand the logic and I'm totally behind that.

But I again I think before we even have conversation, we decided whether or not we're gonna even consider these types of decisions on international basis. That's I think I just think it's a separate conversation entirely. If we wanna bring it before the council and discuss whether we wanna entertain these types of discussions, I'm all for that. But within this process, to suddenly embed that conversation without having it first, I'm I'm concerned about muddling the whole process a bit.

Well, it seems to me that the investment policy is done once a year. We have an opportunity to make changes on the investment policy at this time, so that staff is able to either bring us information or what have you. So it seems to me that it is appropriate to have that conversation. Whether we move in that direction or not is a different story. Right?

That's for the full council to decide. But I do think that many of the community members had come last year. We said this is a time to to have that conversation, and I think it's a conversation that we can have because of the timing. Whether we go in whatever direction, I think, you know, is up to the council.

Yeah. No. I agree completely. And

and to think and to think that it's not gonna come up No. It is. In the in the discussion is, you know, a little bit, you know, I mean, I I think it'll come up. And therefore, what I am asking is is for information for the council to be able to make a good decision. That's all I'm asking for.

It is not changing bit, what is recommended by staff, staff, it is just this is gonna come up, council needs to be fully informed of the ramifications of going in whatever direction. And so I just I just thought it would be a good idea to have that information so that we are making a decision that is fully informed as well as very clear. So that's all I'm asking for. It does not change the current recommendation. What it does is that given given that the community wants to know, I think we should fully know what it means for our general fund, what it means for our, you know, sort of budget as we start going into perhaps 55 to 65,000,000 deficit.

Because if we divest, you know, I totally understand that, but it also causes consequences in revenue. So I think I think it's a conversation that I would appreciate more information.

So I I agree we should have the conversation. My concern is the runway doing it now. It should be a separate conversation in my opinion establish whether or not we're even gonna embark on these types of conversations. That's just my take on it. I'm happy to hear other thoughts on it.

I'm gonna go ahead and go to council member Mbokehi.

So I guess council member Kameh, are you so I think our directive, and I think this was born by a memo from council member Ortiz, was to look at our investments around US immigration and customs enforcement, right? And I think what staff has come back with is Microsoft specifically as an example of what it would be to both withdraw from, you know, before the maturity of that asset, but also, you know, the potential impact based on value. I think if I understand what you're asking is, expanding the scope of what we're being asked to approve today by staff to include beyond the measure of US immigration and custom enforcement companies that that we're invested in. Is that a fair clarification?

So when this came to us previously, back in August, I think it was summertime, one of the things that we let the staff know is that, well, we make these decisions in the March timeframe. This is a good conversation to have when we are discussing our investment policy. So what I am saying is that it's not specific to domestic versus international, it is where do we want our money to sit or lie or where do we wanna invest in. Right? And it is a conversation that is appropriate as we look at the investment policy in general.

Now the council can say, oh, we don't want to interfere with anything that's international. It's not in our buck. Whatever whatever the council decides. But it is a fact that it is part of the investment policy that we can decide, hey, moving from this day forward when the council makes a decision, we do not wanna invest in x y and z because x y and z. And I think I think it's appropriate.

I think our public dollars do reflect our values, and so what I'm saying is that this this topic is going to come up, and I am asking for appropriate information in terms of what it would do. Now the council can decide, hey, you know, we don't want to discuss anything international, and it's the council's decision. But I just think that it is appropriate to have that discussion when we talk about our investment

Okay. Well, let's go to council member Todios.

Thank you. I was just looking over the minutes from the August meeting of this committee to refresh my memory. And it does look like we voted unanimously to approve the staff report at the time, but also to have staff report back on trade offs around questions of overall kind of social impact related divestment policy changes in the March time frame. So it seems like this is kind of following in previous direction from this committee. And, you know, we are cross referencing the city investment policy to the March council meeting, March 10 council meeting. So it seems like this is bound to come up. We've already seen one rules committee memo here related to changes to the city investment policy. So I'm inclined to agree with council member Khamenei that at least having the information at our disposal to have a productive conversation come March 10 seems prudent.

Thank you, council member Tordias. We're gonna go to council Mulcahy.

I don't disagree with the the how we do that. I'm just trying to figure out how we get to that, accepting this, but then doing a referral for request for more information. I do think it would be important, you know, we've heard some numbers of our investment portfolio that certainly I haven't heard before from from the microphone today from our visiting public. And so it probably does make sense to make sure that we're we're all kind of on the same page with the information that we're sharing. But how we get there by accepting this report and then asking for additional information is where I'm struggling with the structure of that. And I don't know if city attorney or city manager can help us out with how we would go about doing that.

So you can approve the action as written and direct because the finance department says it's not gonna take much more work that they go ahead and and provide that information at the March council meeting.

So council member Casey, we accept technically as a friendly amendment to to ask for those extra information. Council member

I can take it.

Okay. Well, anyone else? No more discussion. Let's vote.

That motion passes unanimously.

Thank you very much. Now we're going to d two, fire department communication annual report. There is a presentation from chief Sapien and Michael Woodwick.

Afternoon. I am Robert Sapien, fire chief, joined by division manager Michael Wadnik, who oversees the fire department's communications division. We are here to present on item d two, fire department communications annual report. Michael will provide a brief presentation, after which we will be happy to answer your questions.

Thank you, chief. Today's presentation covers fiscal year twenty four, twenty five. While outside that reporting period, for context, I want to note that a reorganization was approved in the fiscal year twenty five, twenty six budget process that resulted in a net gain of one point o full time equivalent position, and I'll elaborate on that when we reach the staffing slide. The department provides all hazards emergency response by training and equipping responders to operate effectively and safely in all environments presented in the city. In San Jose, 911 calls are initially answered by the primary public safety answering point or PSAP, which is police communications.

Typically, one one calls that are not exclusively a law enforcement matter will include a fire department response. In these cases, calls for fire and medical services are then transferred to the secondary public safety answering point, fire communications. Fire communications, public safety radio dispatchers or PSRDs service the department's first first responders and are trained and certified through the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch in both the fire priority dispatch system and medical priority dispatch system. For medical incidents, the department resources are dispatched once the location, caller phone number, and nature of the emergency are determined. That dispatch occurs before the completion of MPDS to expedite response.

PSRDs utilize FPDS and and MPDS to ask callers a series of triage questions, which allows PSRDs to determine resources needed while continuing to provide life saving instructions. Fire Communications is recognized as an emergency medical dispatch accredited center of excellence. This designation requires we meet a performance standard and maintain a robust quality assurance program. The statistics shown on the slide demonstrate the percentage of call reviews found to be compliant or highly compliant with the FPDS and NPDS protocols in fiscal year 2425. As shown, fire communications personnel consistently deliver quality service with compliance rates significantly surpassing the average of all accredited centers of excellence worldwide.

The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, Cal OES, nine one one call answer time standard states that 90% of all nine one one calls arriving in the public safety answering point shall be answered within fifteen seconds. 95% of all nine one one calls should be answered within twenty seconds. This standard applies to nine one one calls received by the police department's primary PSAP and to 911 calls transferred to the fire department's secondary PSAP. Data from fiscal year twenty twenty one through fiscal year twenty four twenty five show fire communications performing below the Cal OES standard. We see correlation between increased call volume volume and reduced compliance to the call answer time standard due to unavailability of dispatchers at peak periods.

Similarly, we see correlation between decreased call volume and increased compliance to the call answer time standard. Simply put, higher call volume creates more circumstances where a call taker is not immediately available to answer a new incoming call. Call answer time performance is best when a call taker is immediately available. In fiscal year twenty four twenty five, fire communications received callers speaking 35 languages. To meet the language demand, we utilize over the phone interpreter services provided by Cyrochrome through a Cal OES contract and by LanguageLine Solutions.

Additionally, we have personnel certified by the city as proficient in Spanish and Vietnamese. To meet performance standards, bilingual personnel must deliver MPDS and FPDS verbiage precisely. Fire communications receives calls for emergency situations through 911 and through 10 digit emergency phone lines, which are most commonly utilized by alarm monitoring companies. We encourage anyone who is in San Jose and needs the fire department to respond to call 911. 91110 digit emergency line call volume has increased by 19.14% from fiscal year twenty twenty one to fiscal year twenty four twenty five and by 54.68% from fiscal year eleven twelve to fiscal year twenty four twenty five.

Call volume is a distinct metric from incident volume. For example, a single large fire can result in multiple phone calls while being only incident. National Emergency Number Association defines abandoned calls as an emergency call in which the caller disconnects before the call can be answered by the public safety answering point or PSAP. In the context of fire communications as a secondary PSAP, it is important to note that abandoned calls do not necessarily mean that the caller is lost, but rather that calls can revert back to the source from which they were transferred. In other words, the initial dispatcher from the primary PSAP still with the caller on the phone.

If all fire communications personnel assigned to call taking duties are already on phone calls, police communications has a policy to cancel the transfer attempt, gather basic details from the caller, create a computer aided dispatch event for fire department and ambulance response, and then attempt the transfer again. This ensures that the department and ambulance response resources can be quickly dispatched even before fire communications dispatchers can speak with the caller to triage the event. The second transfer attempt is important as it positions fire communications to utilize FPDS and MPDS for these calls. Otherwise, abandoned calls do not benefit from the critical instructions contained in the FPDS and MPDS. Santa Clara County Communications has a similar policy where they will cancel the transfer attempt if needed and directly triage the abandoned call rate increased from fiscal year twenty twenty one to fiscal year twenty four twenty five.

Abandoned call rate is recorded for 911 calls only. 911 call volume increased by 19.20% from fiscal year twenty twenty one to 2020 to 2425. Abandoned 911 call rate increased from 7.76% to 10.26% during that time. The phone system records abandoned if the caller disconnects during the transfer process or if the primary PSAP cancels the call transfer attempt before fire communications answers the call. Abandoned call rate is impacted by situation.

For instance, in the example of a single large fire resulting in multiple phone calls, the greater the number of simultaneous calls, the greater the likelihood of abandoned calls. This heat map displays nine one one abandoned call volume during fiscal year twenty four, twenty five. The highest concentrations are found within portions of council Districts 36, And 7. This correlates with the council districts with the highest call volume and the highest incident volume. In fiscal year twenty three-twenty four, this data focused on cellular 911 calls.

For fiscal year twenty four-twenty five, it has been expanded to include all 911 calls with available location data. MPDS triage is a preliminary assessment of a patient or casualty to determine the urgency of their need for treatment and the nature of the treatment required. In the fire communications environment, a medical event is considered triaged if an MPDS determinant is assigned, meaning an emergency medical dispatcher has determined the appropriate classification within the MPDS based on information provided by the caller. CAT events are classified as either triaged or untriage depending on whether the final event type assigned to the event was an NPDS determinant or not. In fiscal year twenty four twenty five, for events created at fire communications terminals, the medical event triage rate was eighty six point five six percent.

For all events, which include events created at fire communications terminals, police communications terminals, and received from county communications through a computer aided dispatch system interface, the medical event triage rate was sixty four percent. From the thirteen point four four percent of events with an untriaged final event type created at fire communications terminals, the chart on the following not limited to language. Other situations involving communications challenges can include third party calls with limited available information, poor phone connections, or calls where the caller is highly distraught or otherwise unable to respond to questions during the triage process. Situations where the event was triaged but the computer aided dispatch event type was changed to an untriage event type often facilitate the upgrade of an event to send additional resources or a higher level response based on additional information received after triage. Law enforcement related events have both a law enforcement and medical component and may be generated by law enforcement communications personnel or field personnel.

These reasons reinforce that not all calls can be triaged. The reasons are not unique to fire communications. The underlying conditions are relevant to calls in general regardless of the agency processing them. Fire communications maintain standard staffing levels of six personnel on duty during day and swing shifts and five personnel on duty during midnight shift. In the fiscal year twenty four, twenty five reporting period, budget authorized full time equivalent positions within the dispatcher classification series were in place since 2010.

It should be noted, however, that through the fiscal year twenty five, twenty six adopted budget, the department increased its total authorized budgeted budgeted positions by one point o FTE resulting from the elimination of a vacant senior public safety dispatcher position and adding two point o public safety communication specialist positions. Vacancies and absences result in voluntary or mandatory overtime to maintain standard staffing levels. The department provides support for unanticipated middle of shift absences due to illness or traumatic events. These situations may result in operating below standard staffing levels until backfill personnel arrive or change of shift occurs. During employee breaks, remaining dispatchers cover all incoming calls.

The department has taken steps to improve efficiency and reduce workload at fire communications to optimize operations with existing staffing Many of those initiatives were described in last year's report. In fiscal year twenty four-twenty five, we worked with our partners at Santa Clara County Communications to develop and test additional enhancements to the CAD to CAD linkage agencies with the goal of further reducing the number of telephone calls between the PSAPs. We were also actively engaged in planning for the nine one one center expansion enabled by Measure T, which will result in nine additional consoles consoles yielding a 100% cap capacity increase. In accordance with recommendation number five in Office of the City Auditor Report 19 o one, the department developed a fire communications recruitment plan. In our previous report, we noted the implementation of strategies identified in the plan correlated with a significant increase in public safety radio dispatcher trainee applications.

That trend has continued and applications have nearly doubled when compared to a recruitment prior to the implementation. PSRdT hiring strategy continues to accommodate larger academy sizes and utilization of temporary overstrength positions. The temporary positions continue to allow us to make additional conditional job offers to offset the loss of candidates who do not successfully complete post conditional hiring steps. These strategies supported being able to fill all permanent PSRD vacancies in August 2024. The department will continue to leverage strategies identified in the fire communications recruitment plan to fill current and future vacancies.

We look forward to being able to report on the impact of the staffing reorganization authorized in the fiscal year twenty five-twenty six adopted budget in a future annual report covering fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven. The public safety communication specialist positions will focus on call taking to offer incremental improvement of call answer time compliance and reduction of abandoned call rate. We appreciate the committee's time, and we're here to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation. Is there any public comments?

No public comment.

Alright. Well, congratulation for exceeding the call taking compliance. And congratulation for reducing the vacancy down to zero, with a, you know, 98% increase over the last year or so. And we as a department have done an incredible job with the amount of resource that we have to continue to serve our communities and and our resident right here in the city of San Jose. This time, I just wanna say thank you. You're doing a great job. I'm gonna turn over to council member Khamenei.

Thank you. Thank you, chair. I just wanna say thank you so much for all the work that you do, and please thank the dispatchers for me. If you haven't had chance to go visit, it's really remarkable what they do and how they do it. I'm actually looking forward to when their space is going to be redone and because it's a it's a very challenged currently in in in the area, and and it's just amazing. They really, really are amazing, and I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for the report, and I would go ahead and accept the report. I'd move to accept the report.

Second.

Thank you. Any other discussion or comments? Okay. I I do have a quick question for you regarding the large percentage of call that is Hispanic and then the second largest is Vietnamese. Vietnamese. And I believe you have one full time staff for Hispanic and one full time staff for Hispanic I mean, the Vietnamese. Is there any plan in the future to promote or hire more either Hispanic or Vietnamese dispatcher?

We absolutely do welcome bilingual applicants or multilingual applicants. We do include recruitment materials in multiple languages during our recruitment process. Ultimately, the option to go through the city's certification process to utilize those language skills is up to the individual employee. Not all employees do choose to go through that process even if they do speak another language, but we certainly welcome it, and it adds value to our process.

Alright. Thank you very much. Alright. Let's vote. I vote yes. My monitor is frozen again.

That motion passes unanimously. Alright.

Now we're gonna go to item number three, which is the fire department emergency medical service annual report. We do have a presentation, will be presented by chief Sapien and deputy chief, Bogie.

Good afternoon again. Robert Sapien, fire chief. This time presenting on item d three, which is the fire department emergency medical services annual report. I am joined by deputy fire chief Steve Bowie. I will start us off with just a little bit of background that the committee has seen before, but just to remind us of our deployment model.

The fire department provides services out of includes 33 engine companies, nine trump truck companies, one aircraft rescue and firefighter company at the International Airport, and one urban search and rescue company. We also provide three rescue medics currently, which are two person resources, which provide, like all other resources, advanced life support level services, meaning they're equipped and staffed to provide paramedic level services. From the 911 callers' perspective, we receive calls, as you just heard, at our at our secondary public safety answering point through the police department 911 call taking service. We receive requests for emergency medical services. As soon as we know the location and the general type of call, we initiate dispatch and begin service response.

In the meantime, our dispatchers are providing both triage and pre arrival instructions. And then once our units are on scene, we initiate care at the advanced life support level, perform patient assessment, and initiate any necessary treatments. From that point, the patient has traditionally had two options only, one being transport to a local emergency department, or secondly, the patient could choose to refuse care against the medical advice from our responders. However, I wanna call out a new program that Santa Clara County Emergency Medical Services Agency has authorized, which is called nurse navigation. Nurse navigation now offers a third option to 911 callers.

Under nurse navigation, 911 callers may be transferred to a telehealth nurse, or responders on scene may refer patients to the telehealth nurse. In San Jose, we do not have nurse nurse navigator through our 911 system at this time. However, responders can work patients to nurse navigation. The implementation of this program follows a pilot. I provided a little bit of the data from the county EMS report from that pilot where they indicate that that during the pilot, which was conducted in South County and and part of West County, they experienced about a 1% transfer of calls to nurse navigation.

In this case, it was a 197 calls of the eighteen hundred and seven hundred fifty four calls. And then, ultimately, ultimately, from those that were referred, about point 89% were ultimately handled by nurse navigator with 31 callers declining nurse navigator and returning to the 911 system. Just a little more background, about 30% of these calls did end up in a transport. However, it was a scheduled transport by the ambulance provider. Oops. And with that, I will transfer to chief Bowie.

Good afternoon. The EMS division uses data to monitor system and provider performance. This chart provides a breakdown of incident responses that the San Jose fire department responded to in fiscal year twenty four twenty five. In that year, San Jose Fire Department responded to over 111,000 calls for service. The chart shows a further breakdown, and I'm gonna highlight a few areas.

Over 11,000 of those calls were what we call good intent calls, 12,000 were classified as other, and 68,492 were medical calls, which breaks down into 61% of total responses for the organization. It should be noted that some of these medical calls as well as many of the fire calls, rescue calls, and other service call types result in resulted in over 90,000 total patient contacts by our providers.

Next slide, chief.

The EMS division uses call data to evaluate system trends. This slide shows a breakdown of major observations on patient primary impressions reported by our providers. A primary impression is the working diagnosis made by our providers after arriving and providing an initial assessment. Sixteen point seven percent of the ninety thousand patients seen in fiscal year 'twenty four-'twenty five were trauma in nature. Some notable trends we saw in twenty four-twenty five were one hundred and eleven percent increase in abdominal pain, primary impressions. Alcohol related responses have decreased by nineteen percent to the previous fiscal year, and overdose related responses decreased by thirty three percent. As

we have reported previously, there have been some recent changes within the county. These have been primarily driven, post COVID by a paramedic shortage, which has impacted the county's ability to provide advanced life support unit ambulance response. The result has been a transfer of workload to first responder agencies, meaning fire departments, whereby fire departments are providing more transports, than we previously had, and there are many more instances where a basic life support ambulance, meaning an ambulance staffed by EMT level trained personnel only, arrives on scene and the patient requires continued advanced life support care. In these cases, firefighters would escort patients on the county's ambulance to emergency rooms, and we have indicated here in this reporting period fifteen hundred and eighteen rescue medic transports. Those are our rescue medics providing transport in lieu of the county's ambulance, and 2,132 times where firefighters were required to escort patients to the emergency departments.

The standard dispatch order ten and eleven activation are indicate where the county is, either unable or has limited capacity to provide response with ALS ambulances, and so that is the increase that we saw in that time period. We are looking looking at methods for both managing workload and providing improved services. The department is currently evaluating the opportunity for a community para medicine program in this model, which would need to be authorized both by the county emergency medical services agency and the state emergency medical services agency. Pilot a program whereby we would have responders go to patients who would perform an assessment and work to connect patients to the right available resource rather than an emergency department department response. The the program is currently in place in the city of San Francisco where we had fire department personnel able to go through their training program and experience experience their system, and the feedback that we got was very positive in terms of being able to connect patients with the right resource.

So for example, if it's a patient maybe struggling with an addiction problem, being able to connect that patient to a program where they can either be sheltered or receive service and not end up in a cycle of emergency department visits and repeated 911 calls. And so they've decrease in 911 repeat callers. Mobile integrated health is is sort of the umbrella concept of community paramedicine, essentially that more direct line service trying to connect patients to the right available either social services resource or medical resource that is available in the county or community. So just some program highlights there. We can see by way of staffing a community paramedicine unit, it would still be paramedic and an EMT, so we wouldn't be diminishing care in the event that we did arrive and find someone who was in need of emergency response.

We'd have those services available. We would be operating operating under under the the Emergency Medical Services Agency medical director protocols, and so the standard of care is delivered, and then we would be delivering essentially a non code three response, which would be a safer response and would be able to take more time with patients than we normally would where we transfer them to the emergency department. And we would be hopefully benefiting by a reduction of 911 calls and repeat callers. And then the best, I think, outcome of all would be we would be providing the right connected care for our patients who have struggled to find care over periods of time as they've had to revert to 911 calling. Throughout the year, the department maintains a very active public education and information, calendar.

And so throughout the year, our emergency medical services are enhanced by continued public education, both targeting areas, as chief Baui mentioned, for example, instances where we see increased trauma such as driving in rainy conditions, perhaps heat related emergencies, those types of things we provide continued education on, and then messaging that can help also relative to just general community health. And with that, we're happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much for the presentation. Do we have any public comments?

I don't believe so. Let me just confirm with that speaker card submitted.

Comment. Thank you very much. Sorry that I butchered your name there, chief Bowie. I I think I'll correct that. Well, amount of calls, it seemed like it's it's reduced a little bit from this year from last by barely, I I think like a thousand or two.

One of my concern is this that we have eight available rescue medics vehicle is in the fleet. And and we have three that is in service. We I know that we put a budget together to have those extra available rescue medics. When can we implement those rescue medics in order to better service our community? Thank

you for the question. Yes. I I believe you're referring to the total number of of rescue medics that we have on hand. We have three in service and five more essentially The that are in answer to the question is we don't have currently budget allocation to add resources. Council has discussed previously the evolution over time in terms of revenues related to transport, which I will offer is a a great uncertainty because the county, I believe, is poised to revert to an exclusive operating area whereby fire departments would would have very few instances where they would respond.

However, the current inventory of of ambulances does give us tremendous surge capacity. Of course, it does give us reserve capacity for when our ambulances go down as well. So they do have some utility for us, but we don't have, again, allocation for staffing.

Thank you. So looking toward in the future, the county EMS is not willing to allow us, the the San Jose Fire Department, to have the latitude to have more rescue medic to support when they're in the red?

So my point about the future is that as the county proceeds towards a new request for proposal for ambulance providers, which it it very much appears that they're headed that way, the indication we we got by way of board of supervisors' direction was that they would be putting out a bid for an exclusive operating area agreement. In that case, as has been the case in the past, it it would be the private provider that has the exclusive right for transport, and it would be in very limited circumstances where fire departments would be allowed to transport.

Thank you. And how is the first responder fees program moving along?

Thank you for that question. So the first responder fee was implemented after this particular reporting period. It started in January 2026. It has, frankly, been implemented rather seamlessly in terms of response. Right now, what is occurring in in practical terms is units are responding and charting is occurring to ensure that those calls that are billable get billed.

That information is transferred to our third party billing firm, and that process will get going. We we were informed early on that it takes quite a long time for for revenues to to be realized, but the process has started. We have provided our responders with information cards that they're able to leave with patients in case they have questions about the program. We did engage in community meetings prior to implementation to try to get as much information as we could out there. And, course, of we have our website which has an FAQ page to help the community understand what the program is about.

Thank you. With the city budget deficit, I know there will be some cuts that is asked of the fire department, believe it's like 2.5%. Am I correct on that? Yeah. 2.5%. How are you planning to meet that cut without cutting their services to the residents within the city of San Jose?

That that in fairness, that might be conversation it is a conversation currently being had with the budget office and the city manager. We've put forward proposals that that do exactly what you said. We preserve current staffing and service levels. I think I might be spoiling the the soup a little bit if I tell you what fire department proposals are without you hearing all other department proposals.

Alright. Well, thank you very much. Gonna get them oh, sorry. This is council member Kamay.

Thank you. Thank you for the update. Excuse me. On the on the ambulance escort, I know that that was an issue in terms of of pulling away our staff to, you know, be waiting around for a while. And, you know, just following up on our chair's question regarding the county, and it sounds like there's gonna be a new RFP.

I'm wondering, you know, if they designate a particular area as an exclusive for for whoever the transporter is and the fire department doesn't go there, then will will it result in better numb you think it will result in better numbers for our response times for other things?

Short answer, yes. Every time we send a firefighter paramedic to a hospital, that renders that particular company that they came from BLS. So they're they become a basic life support company.

Right.

So if I get get another emergency medical call within their district, I have to send an additional company to meet the ALS need, meaning our response time's slow every time that happens. So if it happens with lesser every frequency, then our response times would improve. I would add the concern that the county has introduced currently and appears to be intent to introduce basic life support ambulances to the system, which previously was required to be all ALS or all advanced life support. So with that change, it does, in simple terms, seem to be a transfer of workload towards first responder agencies where the BLS ambulance doesn't meet the patient needs. So we are somewhat tentative about what expectations we have in the system, and we're we're trying to get some input on making sure that there's understanding that there is an impact to the first responder agencies when those types of changes are made.

Yeah. I think it'd be helpful to

Can I have the chief clarify one Chief, she had mentioned an RFP? We have not have we received any confirmation from the county that they are doing an RFP?

Effectively been informed that they are developing an RFP currently.

Yeah. Thank you. I guess, you know, I I think it'd be helpful to try to before things get done done to us, to be able to push back a little bit in terms of setting the expectations. Because at the end of the day, community does not care whether it's county, whether it's city, whether anything. They just want the service.

Right? And and if we're gonna be hamstring in terms of services that we provide, I think it needs to be very, very clear to let the board of supervisors know, you know, in terms of their decisions impacting our first responders. Right? I think that we've kind of been dealing with it and dealing with it for a bit. And and I think that as they're developing this RFP, I think it's good for us to be a little bit more proactive in terms of of not waiting until it's too late to be able to do something that would help the community.

I mean, I I I just I just look at the response times and I think, you know, there is a reason why these numbers are the way they are. Right? If get pulled and you have to wait because they don't require that you have paramedics, then, you know, the burden is on us. Why? Why?

And I think that that, you know, as far as I'm concerned, that is not okay. So I think that if there's anything that we can do well, I don't know. I can't speak for my colleagues. I I should say I can do to be able to help that, you know, I think that now's the time to do it. Because, you know, I just I just think it's not it's not right to be able to put the burden on first responders, and then, you know, the private companies, you know, they don't have to do it. So I just I just think that that that's not okay.

I just got a quick last question. How does the call volume associated with the unhoused residents population comparing comparing to to the the past past fiscal fiscal year? Year? Thank you for the question, chair. In fiscal year twenty three, twenty four, our our

unhoused unhoused call volume was around fifty eight thirty one, and it's at fifty three forty nine for 2425. So had a reduction in that between the two fiscal years.

Thank you. Alright. Did we get a motion?

I would I would I would move that seconds of the report. Alright.

No other discussion. Let's vote. I will be voting yes.

That motion passes unanimously.

Alrighty.

We are going to item number four, neighborhood quality of life team and enhanced engagement program status report. There is presentation. Captain Donahue, captain Randy Torres, I believe it's also Olympia Williams, and Eric Sullivan Sullivan from from the the housing housing director. Director.

So thank you, chair. So Eric Soleivan, director of housing for the city of San Jose. And I'll go through a brief presentation here on our neighborhood quality of life unit as well as the work being done with the housing department's enhanced engagement program as part of the overall work that we have done with the code of conduct for encampments as adopted by counsel in June 2025. And so just a quick overview here. The police department is gonna go through stats and details related to neighborhood quality of life unit.

Our partners in that PNRS will then discuss our work around no encampment zones and our code of conduct and good neighbor policies and the work around that space as it bridges to the work that we'll be doing with the enhanced engagement program. And so now I will turn it over to captain Ami. Thank

you, counsel. Thank you, staff. First and foremost, I'd like to recognize that the neighborhood quality of life team has joined us for this meeting this afternoon. Just in assessing what they've done over the last month and just kinda evaluating their work, I can point point out a case that they made a a successful arrest on an a serial arsonist that plagued the entire city. The media picked up on it.

It was attacking vehicle dealerships, car service businesses, residences, and, ultimately, they he attacked a attempted arson on a police vehicle, so it's personal to all. Well, our detectives did a fabulous job identifying who the suspect is and gave it to the quality of life team who has the knowledge and the skill set and the presence to go make a quick arrest and conducted some follow-up that concluded dozens of cases of arson and ended ended months months of of of investigation on a serial arsonist. So I wanna thank you, team. Thank you very much for that. You bring a good good light on our department and make our community safer.

Thank you. Alright. So transitioning to our slide here. The neighborhood quality of life team consists of a group of hand selected officers who've demonstrated initiative, enthusiasm, and professionalism. Our NQL officers understand the mission and the expectations of the specific type of enforcement.

The team is the required skill set, tactics, and strategies required to complete its objectives. We use centralized approach to what we know is a citywide need. The officers that make up the centralized team service all four of our divisions. This structure allows us to move resources quickly and strategically to areas experience experience an an immediate impact to its residents and businesses. Deployments are guided by criteria identified by our chief of police.

First, we respond to identified operational priorities based on calls for service, officer observations, and the needs of the department. Second, we support council directed no encampment zones, ensuring alignment with community concerns and policy direction. Third, we deploy based on referrals from our division captains when attention is sustained need in a specific area has been identified. From an operational standpoint, the team emphasizes proactive patrols rather than reactive responses. Officers focused on early intervention, visibility, and problem solving strategies to prevent quality of life issues from escalating.

This includes follow-up enforcement to ensure compliance and accountability rather than short term or one time responses. A key component of the strategy is maintaining a sustained presence in high impact areas, and we intentionally focus on areas with repeated encampments and ongoing quality of life concerns, allowing officers to develop personal knowledge of locations, individuals, and underlying issues. This approach promotes accountability, consistency, improves outcomes, and ultimately enhances the overall livability and safety for our city's neighborhoods. Thank you.

Thank you, captain Torres. Good afternoon, chair and committee members. My name is Steve Donoghue. I'm the support services division captain at the police department. So I'm going to briefly discuss the neighborhood quality of life scorecard and what it is and what it tells us.

The scorecard was developed in May 2025 coordination with PRNS, the housing department, environmental services, and the Department of Transportation. The purpose was to create a clear, data driven way to measure proactive enforcement, service connection, and operational impacts related to encampments and the quality of life concerns addressed by the quality of life team. For the 2526 fiscal year, the data reflects a highly proactive unit. During that period, the team made four seventy four contacts with unhoused individuals and supported 49 abatement operations. Those numbers demonstrate sustained presence and follow through.

This is not a reactive call for service unit. Most of the team's activity is officer initiated, focusing on maintaining those no encampment zones, following up after abatements, and stabilizing high impact locations. In addition, the scorecard reflect reflects a true 360 degree approach. It doesn't look solely at enforcement activity. It also tracks service offers, referrals, education on code of conduct, and key demographic indicators.

So, for example, we see a significant number of individuals presenting with substance use issues and mental health concerns, and that reinforces the complexity of the work that they do and the need for coordination coordination with with the outreach teams and county partners. When we look at services offered, 435 individuals that were contacted were offered services in quarter two, but approximately ten percent of them took that information and accepted it. And only a very small number of people were willing to be taken directly to services at the time of the contact. So that data is important. It shows that service refusal remains a significant challenge even when officer offers are made and documented.

The scorecard allows us to measure the reality clearly and consistently. When we look at enforcement types, roughly half of the violations were misdemeanors and more than a third were municode violations. Now that context is important because this team focuses on quality of life issues that includes municode violations, public nuisance activity, and other low level offenses that have a significant impact on our neighborhoods, waterways, and public infrastructure. The higher percentage of misdemeanors and muni code violations reflects that mission and the expectations placed on this team. It's also important to note that about one third of the enforcement actions were warnings.

Now that team is not simply going out and arresting and citing everybody they contact. They are using discretion, providing warnings, educating individuals on the code of conduct, and escalating only when necessary. So that reflects a balanced and professional approach to how the team is engaging with the public. Overall, the scorecard reflect reflects this true 360 degree approach. It captures the enforcement, the service officer offers, the demographic indicators, and operational workload in one structured framework.

It highlights the exceptional work of the neighborhood quality of life team. They're engaging, educating, and coordinating with partners, and they're working to stabilize areas over time. This data reflects that this is a disciplined, balanced, and highly professional team focused on improving the quality of life in our city. And with that, I will turn it over to PRNS deputy director Olympia Williams to discuss the no encampment zones.

Thank you, captain. Good afternoon, chair Dwan and members of the committee. My name is Olympia Williams, deputy director in PRNS. I'm here to provide an update on the implementation of the no encampment zones. For some background, PRNS established the city's first no encampment zone in 2024 along the Guadalupe River Park And Trail between Julian Street and Walls Way.

No encampment zones are areas that have been cleared of encampments designated with posted signage, marked with a clear map outlawing the no outlining the no encampment zone boundaries. And it's also important to note that no encampment zones do not cover other jurisdictions' property, such as Caltrans or Union Pacific Railroad. Once a no encampment zone is designated, any encampment reestablished within the zone may be abated without an additional seventy two hour notice. These areas are regularly monitored by the Beautify s j no encampment zone team in coordination with s j p d's neighborhood quality of life team. This coordinated model was designed to allow staff was designed to allow staff to monitor and immediately remove reencampments, therefore preventing encampments from remaining longer than forty eight hours.

Currently, no encampment zones are primarily located along the waterways to protect sensitive environmental areas, ensure compliance with storm water permit regulations, prevent debris and hazardous waste from entering our creeks and rivers. No encampment zones are also strategically placed near emergency interim housing sites to prevent encampments from forming adjacent to these facilities. To date, we have established 25 miles of no encampment zone areas near waterways, 10 no encampment zones near emergency interim housing sites, and one no encampment zone near the Santa Teresa Safe parking site. We have an additional seven miles of no encampment zones planned near waterways and areas around new emergency in term housing. The no encampment zone pilot was originally staffed with four team members to monitor approximately 15 miles and select locations.

The performance target was to visit each of these sites two to three times per week. Since the pilot launch, coverage has expanded significantly along the 25 miles of waterways in areas near our emergency interim housing locations with no corresponding increase in staffing. This has led to a decrease in monitoring frequency from the two to three day two to three times per week to every seven to ten days, resulting in over 100 reencampments that have occurred in 2526. PRNS is working with the budget office to evaluate this issue during the 2627 budget development process, particularly considering the projected general fund shortfall. Overall, the no encampment zone program has proven effective in preserving our progress and protecting waterways in neighborhoods.

It has also generated strong community demand for expansion. Maintaining the integrity of the no encampment zone model requires sufficient capacity to monitor consistently and to act quickly for us to meet community expectations. With that, I will now turn it over to Eric Sullivan, director of housing, to complete the presentation.

Thank you, Olympia. So I will go through very quickly just our enhanced engagement program and fit it within the overall strategies that we have taken to reorganize how we do our outreach program. As the committee members know, we have built out an internal team for outreach, and with that came a reorganization of our approach as we decreased the number of contract values to our two outreach service providers, PATH and HomeFirst, and have then reorganized our approach to the work by breaking out the city into five quadrants, including the Southwest, East, North, and then one in downtown. The goal here is to better react to issues as they arise into the community, and within downtown, continue to deploy our internal teams so that we're better able to capture information from our engagements to better coordinate our work with our partners in PRNS and PD, as well as the SIB and other partners operating within downtown and throughout the city with a goal of advancing consistency, accountability, data integrity, and collection to ensure that our overall outreach goals is achieving the stated outcomes as articulated by council. So part of this work, as I had mentioned, is thinking through our targeted outreach and engagement program or TOEP strategy, and then aligning the different contracts we have with Pass and Hole First to go within our downtown, focusing our city our internal teams on that coordinated work, particularly in light of all the events and activities going throughout 2026 so we can ensure a comprehensive and continued approach to bringing more engagement with our unsheltered neighbors, more comprehensive data collection, as well as better strategies for ensuring that the vast shelter system that we have now built out, which now exceeds over 2,000 beds at over 21 different sites as we're having more throughput into more permanent housing options, the contacts and communications communications that our outreach teams have with our unsheltered residents throughout the city, they're able to direct them towards available beds in order to ensure and continue high bed utilization.

So as we continue continue this this work, work, we're looking at some of the unique challenges. One is as we bring on the team, which is finally going to be fully staffed by the end of this month, we're looking for ways to continue to expand and share data within the limitations of HMIS and privacy laws with our partners in PD and PRNRS to best identify individuals that may have more immediate needs, individuals that may be able to benefit from a more immediate access to shelter beds or to other services as part of the collaborative work we've been doing with the county, particularly within the downtown district. And that work and practice we're putting into place to fault solving and mapping each individual that's within downtown is intended to scale up to the overall work we're gonna do within the city over time. So in addition to building that trust and that data collection, we're also gonna continue to implement our work around the code of conduct for encampments as adopted by council in June in order to ensure continued collaboration across departments and communication with our unhoused neighbors. In addition, as we're improving our overall case file management, that ensures that our improved customer service to getting back to our unsheltered neighbors so we can map them to bed opportunities in our expansive shelter system and then onto continue to permanent housing placements through our partnership with the county.

And so as part of this work, we're gonna be releasing a we have developed a downtown GIS mapping strategy that tracks our engagements. We're piloting right now this in downtown in order to more comprehensively capture the data of engagements and opportunities, how do we map all the individuals we're interacting with to beds and opportunities and services, and then collaborating across departments to ensure that those engagements are captured and we're able to route them to services and other opportunities. And so we'll be refining this dashboard as we put it into practice in downtown and then growing it out to a more citywide application in the coming months. And so finally, what's the sort of data that's being collected? Again, just recapturing the intent here of outreach consistent with council direction to ensure that as we integrate all of the specific outcomes council laid out for the outreach teams, were to build that into our dashboard reporting similar to the work that the police department has done and PRNS has done with their dashboards where it gets more comprehensive syncing of the data.

Then I think that's the end of our presentation for today. So thank you very much. We're more happy to take your questions.

Thank you for the presentation. Do we have any public comments?

Yes. We have 11 speaker cards. The first first group of speakers to make their way down to the podium are Azazel, Laurie Catcher, Maria, Emma, and BEA, b e a. You will each have two minutes to speak. The timer and translation is provided above. Thank you.

The first thing that I wanna say is what's most important here are homeless voices. People are here today, and I hope that you will rely on them for not just their two minutes of testimony, but for expert testimony. So if you wanna ask them questions, ask them questions as well. Their testimony is just as just as important, if not more, because they are the ones suffering as a result of this policy. I'm holding up this. It's a transfer form from SJPD to the sheriff's department. I'm trying to cover their name, but it's, do you have any medical issues? Do you have any mental health issues? You can see the clear line, no. No. No. No. This person had just been released from 5150. Everyone was saying what was happening with this person. Do you see?

It says, no. Straight down. I have 12 of these from the same day that everyone got arrested. They all say no for medical, for mental, for everything. I don't know what the hell is wrong, but they were all left at the site, which I am grateful as hell for. But why was this all left at the site? I have all of them. I don't know what's up. They don't stay void. But when you talk about engagements, the city of San Jose housing department's reputation is crap. Nobody who's unhoused is like, yay. I like working with them. They're gonna get me housed. I trust them. No.

They lie, and people will tell you that. They will say they said when I get to this hotel, it'll be an LGBT LGBTQ hotel. It's not. They said when I get here, I'll get this. I'll get that. It's not true. And then they talk about permanent supportive housing. Everyone knows the end of the road is a tiny home, and then that's it. There's nothing. And then people are being arrested in just boxer shorts. Women being arrested barefoot. People are being yanked out of tents. 18 people are being arrested at once from one camp that's never been arrested. Why? There's something wrong. Ask the experts. The experts

experts are are there, there, not not here. You.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Azazel Holmquist. Yes. I'm San Jose resident. I you know, I had a whole thing prepared. I I had this professional it just doesn't fit here. I have lived experience. I have three years off the streets, three years of sobriety, three years of of recovery. I work now. I do all this. I used to be homeless most of my adult life. The trauma that happens on the streets is it's horrendous. When I got when I got off the streets, I could barely speak. I could barely put a sentence together, and I see my friends still out there in survival mode. This is gonna take lived experience team.

I'm willing to work on that team. This is not working. It is not. And and it seems like they're being the unhoused are being corralled. I mean, when I when I first got off the streets, and I I was I was in judge Manley's court, and I I graduated, And I was housed in in a in a slumlord's house. It was it was horrendous. And something had happened to me there, and I went to a meeting, and and my friends asked me, are you okay? And I sat there injured, very brutally assaulted, and said I was fine. Is this gonna take a whole new approach? We we need lived experience.

We need trauma therapists, mental health workers. I I I don't know how to communicate. Please seek lived experience. Seek people that have lived this and have succeeded, and seek their recommendations. This is scary. Guns and handcuffs are scary. Thank you.

Thank you. The next group of speakers to make their way down, Jackie, Elizabeth, Robert, and

Kyle. I have a oh, I'm sorry. Can I start now? Yes. I I have a couple of letters just here. There's there's many more that I know I can get. I don't know who I have this to, but, you know, I was one of the ones that got, you know, got arrested. You know, I went to jail or I went to the twenty four hour, you know, after study. But, you know, along with my brother Mario, who is a type two diabetic, and he's had adverse to substance. He's you know, he he his medication was just taken.

I mean, we were not able to get no property whatsoever. My my sister-in-law, Sarah, she has a mental health condition. You know, she is you run her name, and it it shows that she has a mental health condition. Also, some another person got almost run over with a tractor by sleeping in a box. Like, I'm telling you that I was one of them. You know what mean? And this is not right. You know? It's not right. Please pay close attention because it's not fair and it's unrighteous.

You know? There's there's a lot of things that have been happening out there that, you know, you guys are unaware of. Maybe you guys are not aware of. But those officers up there, all four of those, I I see I was there that day. And, you know, there was a man pleading to use the restroom and was and then at the last minute, that's not right. You know? And they'll be you know, if I if I gather these people, I will gather them up, and we could be here to for they can tell you themselves. So I'm just asking you guys to please, you know, pay close attention. You guys have community resources. You know?

And listen to what I'm saying. I'm here vouching for those right now today, but but it is true. And it's and it's wrong, so please pay close attention to that. And I also have not been offered no housing. You know? Since then, I still sleep outside the train tracks. You know, where the where we got arrested, now I'm outside the gate. You know what I mean? Nobody's come to me. I want housing. You know what mean? I I have kids. You know I mean? I have children. You know what mean? I need to get back to you, so please help myself all out. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

So I'm here out of solidarity with people who are in house and also out of tremendous frustration because we knew last year that, you know, passing the criminalization against homeless policy was not going to be something that would support people. And so now we're live now there's living, you know, proof of it. And so, you know, especially being a woman of color, being a woman with mental health issues, like, all my life, I've never had a good relationship with the police, and it still just continues. And and so it doesn't make any sense if you're going to have people if you're gonna have the police who, in our lived experience, have been responsible for abusing and traumatizing people. If you're gonna try to have someone's abuser come to them and say offer them things like, hey.

Like, take this. Do this. Get this service. It doesn't make sense why people would even want to accept and even those that do, you know, and so then wind up, you know, with a misdemeanor and then getting arrested and then going to jail and then getting released and not with not not with no change at all, with added trauma and less belongings, like physical less belongings do They're gonna be to that. Informed care.

They do They're need social workers. They do need people who have empathy and compassion and are not law enforcement and don't have guns. They're not in uniform because that has been a long history of violence, state sanctioned violence against people. And so we need to invest in resources and programs that are actually going to care for people and that people can trust.

Thank you. Next speaker.

So I I'm out there every day. I hand out blankets, gloves, warming gear. I talk to people constantly. I'm always in the streets. I'm formerly unhoused or I'm in one of the housing programs myself at the moment. And people are scared. They're really afraid out there. They're afraid of the police because everybody knows the police have one job, and that's to put you in jail. It's not to help you, not to protect and serve, but to arrest you and put you away. That's what we believe out there. So when we see the police coming, we automatically skitter away or we we we shy off. We don't help them because they don't help us. I've been a part of the housing program right now through Home First, and it's a joke. They they lie to you at every turn. They tell you things that that aren't true.

They give you misinformation constantly after misinformation. It's it's it's shameful how much they're doing to people who just can't afford to pay rent. So we're no longer people. We're no longer anything because we're poor or we're homeless. So this whole team is basically built to target poor people. That's what's what's going on here, and everybody's scared. They're all terrified. Nobody wants to go to jail. We want help, though, but we don't wanna go to jail. So what's our option? Nobody's offering housing to anybody. I've not seen PATH out there once in any of these districts to go help anybody. Home first, it very rarely goes to do outreach. So it's where is everybody? Everybody's just standing around waiting for the police to come and arrest poor people, pretty much.

It's what it is. And it's deplorable. It's horrible, and then and you guys need to be, more attentive to it. And they need they need better care. They need mental health. They need other than police coming out to arrest them every time they turn around. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi. I just wanna make a public comment solidarity with everyone who's here and those who are unhoused in the streets. The city's policies have been just detrimental to people's health, to people trying to find a better life. And, you know, fundamentally, you're not gonna arrest your way out of this problem. It's not gonna be solved through arrest, through enforcement. People need somewhere to go. They need somewhere to be feel safe in order to get the services that they need and to get finally get off the streets. So people are just gonna rely on enforcement. Are just gonna keep moving our neighbors around, and worse, just taking their stuff when they need it most. So now they have lost their belongings.

They've lost important documents. It's just that much harder to get off the streets. So the city's policy just needs to change at a fundamental level. And until it does, we're just creating a bigger problem. Thank you.

Thank you. We have one more card for Kyra. Please make your way down. That is all the cards. If you did not hear your name, please make your way down.

So,

frankly, these cops aren't talking to arsonists day in and day out. They're actually talking to our unhoused neighbors. 99% of the time, it's not an arsonist. And to bring that as a specific example is egregious and a stereotype that's being of like affecting all of our unhoused neighbors. This specific group of people are they're hostile and pathetic.

Their attitude and harassment is what makes everyone without a home hate cops. When choosing the officers notice in their presentation, it wasn't about empathy or their skills and social services, which is what you would actually need. In reality, at an abatement, we hope and pray that these people camp out inside of their cars because the alternative is always worse. When they are outside of their cars, it is always a bad situation for everybody involved. I once saw a dozen cops appear at Columbus Park where they made no arrest, and all they did instead was threaten to shoot one unhoused neighbor's dogs.

When she yelled that that those were her babies, they detained her and put her in the back of a police car. She was later released because there was no crime that was committed, but she was traumatized. I saw them with my own eyes, issued two bogus misdemeanors. These were later dropped by the DA because they were on baseless claims. I've interacted several times with Donahue at the abatement of Columbus Park, and to be honest, he's hostile and rude.

The biggest obsession with was residents and talk them through what was happening, but rather to talk to me and ensure that I was standing in the right place. And interestingly, I've, at several different abatements, had to mediate between these cops and residents because the way that they inspire fear is not the approach that is needed for these unhoused people. Phrases that I've heard them say in reference to people collecting their stuff and moving, these people have nothing but they always want more. And another phrase that I

Thank you. That's your time. Next speaker.

Thanks. Good afternoon, chair and members of the committee. Kiera Kazanza, CEO of the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits, and proud co convener of the REAL Coalition. I'm not gonna walk through the full letter REAL submitted. Hope you had a chance to look at that, but I wanted to emphasize three core concerns derived from that letter and a couple of, like, examples counterexamples of sometimes when we do things really well here in the city.

First, nearly eight months into implementation, there have been zero documented throughputs even though throughput is described as a central objective of the strategy. Meanwhile, the compliance expectations and proactive police staffing have advanced. That is not a balanced strategy. What's been implemented appears much closer to the previously rejected responsibility to shelter proposal than to the scale back outreach centered approach ultimately approved. Second, the framework measures activity, contacts, enforcement coordination, but not real and durable outcomes.

We're not seeking seeing tracking of permanent housing exits, retention, health stabilization, or returns to homelessness. The numbers that are provided don't even transparently provide the number of arrests and citations. Third, this system appears to have been designed largely internally. When San Jose developed major successful initiatives like the child and family master plan, the SJ Eyal strategic plan, and the name change, the city and and many other examples, actually. The city invested in deep community engagement and codesign. That level of engagement is not evidenced here, despite the fact that this policy directly affects our most vulnerable residents. REAL and our partners stand ready to partner in building a truly services first housing centered approach. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Mister Eric, mister George, if you could give us a minute to talk to them about our problem slash situation. I come from Santa Teresa from four orbs that are being taken out of us right now, and what I ask is if they can give us 111 spaces for our orbs or more time for. Well, there is another place where you can send us because we are very stressed right now with this problem, and that is why I'm asking the lord to if you can help us with this and well, very kindly. And I ask you from the bottom of my heart if you can help us with a space for our orbs.

I don't know.

My name is Laurie Catcher, and I'm a D Six resident. I'm a member of showing up for racial justice. I'm here in solidarity with my unhoused neighbors, and I also encourage, if you haven't, to please read and thoroughly respond to all of the questions that the real coalition put forward to you.

I

I just wanna start by saying that police are simply not the right responder for the need of our unhoused residents. That's not what they were trained to do. I don't expect them to have to do that job, and I think you shouldn't either. We need a response of trauma informed social workers, therapists, people who can listen and ask what our neighbors actually need instead of showing up to coerce them or offer offer shelter that may not be appropriate to meet their needs. I would ask every council member before you agree to continuing policies of no encampment zones and responsibility to shelter that you actually participate in sweeps and that you see how it actually happens and how people are actually treated.

I did that. I have seen RV shelters crushed with people's personal documents and IDs inside, leaving them poorer than they already were. I have seen RV shelters towed without prior notice in causing emotional and psychological stress and further financial harm. Did you know that when someone's RV is towed, it costs at minimum $600 to retrieve it? We are making our people in poverty poorer. We're not actually helping them

get out

of that.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi. I'm Emma. I'm also here to speak about NQL and about unhoused engagement. First, I just wanted to echo, in case anyone wasn't watching the translation, echo Maria's invitation to Eric Sullivan and to George Casey to meet with her and with the other four or five RVs at Santa Teresa who are facing displacement. She's happy to wait until after the meeting if you're available now.

And she also wants everyone to know just how, like, sick she and everyone is from all of the stress that they're under of the displacement. I'm also, that said, here speaking for myself and for other unhoused residents who have been dealing with the NQL team and who are who are also afraid to come forward with their own personal testimony because of the fear of retaliation, right, when you know you live on the street and you know that this team knows where you live and can track you down anytime. Over just the past several months alone, I, as one person, have observed people get arrested on very discretionary failure to appear warrants in the process of having their RVs towed, warrants that other teams had been happy to ignore in the past, arrested for asking for more time to prepare for their shelter placement, people cops on the NQL team going through people's very personal belongings in front of them, mocking them while towing their mobile homes or taking their tents, towing their vehicles with their pets still inside, ticketing them for things that they later acknowledge like ticketing, for example, for trash even after acknowledging that the area is clean.

And just the number of time that I have seen people I love traumatized by this team with no offers of services, no offers of housing, no offers of safe parking. I know them all by face at this point. And we as advocates, right, have also been arrested or threatened with arrest for things as simple as not walking slow enough out of an area while we're seeking to assist people going through the worst day of their life. So just to say, you know, especially as we come up on budget season, really asking folks to take a hard look at is this team and is this traumatization? One of my one of the residents said, I don't call this quality of life. I call this cruelty. Right? Like, is this the best use of our city funds, this team? And I just really hope that you all will really deeply consider the experiences that you heard today. And, yeah, George and Eric just echoing Maria's invite. Thank you all.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello, everyone. It's great to hear all the different perspectives of how this team has been making unhoused people feel and the community feel. I am a senior at San Jose State University, and I know a lot of people who are very close to homelessness. And I think a lot of you have children. I think a lot of you have daughters and sons.

Just imagine the way that these this team up here is handling these unhoused people. Imagine how that would make you feel. How imagine how you would feel seeing your daughter go through these things. And just witnessing the body language of the four police officers up there is it's very harming to know if these are the people who are at the top and the people who you are relying to do these things, your body language and the way that you're making faces when certain people are saying certain things should definitely be watched and understood. So thank you.

Thank you. Back to the committee.

Thank you for the presentation. My understanding that even though we offer our unsheltered residents some type of shelter or housing, 10% only 10% accept. Is that correct?

Are you I'm sorry. Council Member, can you just refine the question? 10% related to total offers of shelter and housing from the outreach program globally or Total. So total, the average is about 70% of acceptance, about a 30% rejection rate globally across sort of all outreach offers that includes all of the shelters that we opened up in the last year.

Alright. Well, I look at I forgot which slides it was. It's four and four and thirty particular contacts, and only 45 accept the services?

Yeah. Council member, thank you for your question. That's regarding the neighborhood quality of life team statistics for the scorecard. Okay. So what that's saying is that they had all those contacts, right, the 474 contacts. Then you have 45 people that accepted information on housing. Of the they're offering everyone housing or nearly everybody housing opportunities when they contact them in the in their environment. And what's happening is very few of them are saying, yeah. I'd love that information. Right?

They're most of them are saying, no. I'm good. Thank you. So that's that statistic. And then so much fewer of that are accepting the offer of being taken to housing services or opportunities for outreach at that time. Right? You only have a handful of people that say, yeah. You know what? I'd love to go right now and get some help.

Thank you. Can you walk us through the process for offering shelter or housing per this program?

Are you talking about offers from the neighborhood quality of life team or from the housing outreach team?

Because you can give them Yeah. Process. Let's go with the the the NQL.

Okay. So when NQL contacts somebody in, say, the waterways, they're gonna make contact with them. They're going to offer them services, ask them how they're doing, see if they have any particular needs that can be met at that particular time. Maybe it's mental health. Maybe it's substance use. Maybe it's housing assistance. And if they accept that and they say, yes, I'd love to make contact with someone at housing, we will facilitate that. We will directly contact housing people at that time, at that moment, via phone call and say, hey. I've got somebody somebody here that needs some help. So the neighborhood quality of life team provides that intimate contact at that moment.

It's not just handing them a card and saying call later. Right? It's it's it's then there and very quickly able to access those services.

Thank you. Do you have the data for racial demographic of the said you know, the arrested and the citation?

So for the demographics for arrests and citations, we don't break it out based on the neighborhood quality of life, team's efforts. So we have department wide demographics that we report to the federal government through our our NIBRS stats that we're required to do according to the DOJ. So those get reported, you know, based on all of our arrest data, not just the neighborhood quality of life. We don't break it up by team. We don't neither have the staffing nor the ability to do that right now.

Thank you very much. And I'll go to council member Casey.

Thank you, chair. There's a number of city departments involved PD and presumably the county as well. I think Eric alluded to it on this last slide in term of data sharing some of the limitations there there. This is for captain Donahue, though. Does housing or county, do folks share information with you in terms of the folks you're encountering and trying to keep track of?

Thank you for your question, council member. The the housing department keeps track of their contacts in the homeless management information system, HMIS. That system is a contracted system that we work with the county on through the housing department, and they keep who they contact, what services were offered, how often they're contacted, where they're contacted, all that in there. However, as part of that contract with the county, that that system's contract says that information will not be shared with law enforcement except in very limited circumstances, basically emergencies. So we don't have access to any of the information on who housing contacts, what services are provided, what what issues they're having, anything like that.

So we we've been we've been talking quite a lot about this within the city, trying to figure out a way to share this information so that we can know if people are already connected to services when the neighborhood quality of life team contacts them. Unfortunately, we don't have that technological ability right now because of this contract with the county on HMIS. We have a system where we keep track of our personal contacts when we contact someone in the field, you know, and fill out a field interview card or maybe, you know, there's some kind of enforcement or not. That's kept in our system. But our system has Department of Justice requirements that we're not allowed to share with people that are not criminal offender record information certified.

Right? So because we can't talk with these two systems, there's this gap in the middle of information sharing. Anecdotally, like I mentioned with council member Duan, we do call housing and say, hey. We have someone here that needs help, needs housing, and we transfer them over. But then we never find out what happens from that. We're working on a solution. We do not have a solution right now. They are contract limited. We are legally limited, so there's that gap.

Thank you. Eric, is there a way for us to amend the contract with the county or devise some system between PD and the lease housing where we can share information? I would imagine this is vital information that will be helping us operationally.

Yes. And so we've discussed just anecdotally just various cases that have come up where, you know, there's multiple contacts with that individual, particularly the work we're doing in downtown in collaboration with the county that has now spurred where can we find a way around some of these limitations. Yeah. Some of the limitations that are in the contract come from HUD through as a primary manager of the HMIS system. So we're trying to work through some of the mechanics here about what we can share and cannot share so we at least improve the collaboration of the delivery of services across all the departments Mhmm. For the individual. So we're working through that actively now with the county just based on the downtown pilot model for where those individuals were trying to resolve.

Is there independent of amending the contract, a process that we could devise? Let's say we can't overcome the county's contract. Is there something we can do citywide in terms of sharing information with PD?

There is. We have to talk through some of those mechanics with CAO, but we can talk more about that, what those mechanics are. It's just there's limitations that the county has even contacts with HUD about how do we how do we change some of this. So we have to look there's opportunities. We just have to figure out kinda where that is and map it to a solution.

What can we do as a council? Can we give you directive? Is there something you need from us in order to push this along or expedite it, or is this something that's percolating right now? You guys are working on it.

It's something that we're working on now. As part of the downtown collaboration that we're doing with the county to solve, you know, the specified list of individuals who are repeat service recipients, we're trying to work through this issue now. Because if we could solve it for that particular area within the city, then we could solve it and scale that out. So this is something we're actively working on at the moment. Mhmm.

Yeah. I wanna give some sort of directive that we

Sure. I'm happy to receive a directive on that.

I'll I'll wait for the language. Yeah. Okay. I'll add it to whatever language. Hopefully, he'll get it passed by.

Yeah. We'll go to council member Mulcahy.

Thank you. Thank you for the report and for each of the departments here today. You know, we're working in a very imperfect system, and, you know, I know that we can come to these meetings and feel the stress of our community, and I wanna thank the advocates that are here today, and just sort of recognize that, you know, I've heard words like pilot, and we're trying this, and we're, you know, starting this. And I think, you know, as we continue to navigate these challenging times of trying new things to get to the place that I think everybody wants to get to, which is to have every last person, you know, in in a cared position and and off the street. We gotta work with what we have today, and I just want to acknowledge, you know, what I'm hearing from you.

And I do wanna lift up the letter that we got from the Real Coalition, because as we're trying and investigating new things, while I don't agree with some of the characterizations and, you know, in some cases, accusation in what was written, there are definite threads of opportunity for us to learn from those people who are working with people who are, you know, have that lived experience. So, you know, whatever directive comes from council member Casey, I do wanna use what we've learned from from these letters to see if we can work that in, especially areas around the data collected and what we can learn from that data. Right? The city council is all about data today and we need to figure out what we can learn from that on an ongoing basis and be willing to be open to how interpret that data and how we disclose it. So, I also, you know, I know the neighborhood quality of life team is, you know, not just working, you know, with our unhoused community, but they are out.

And captain Donahue, you raised this before, as a district who was really impacted by, you know, the arsonists that that they eventually caught, I just wanna lift them up again. You know, in about a week and a half's time, we had, you know, 12 cars that were set on fire in neighborhoods adjacent to homes, adjacent to some of our density residential downtown, and I just want to make sure we lift that up as a huge accomplishment to keep our community safe. And then I also wanna point to PRNS and Olympia, the work that you're doing in our no encampment zones, specifically in and around the Guadalupe River Park. And, you know, when we have, you know, and I know we had a lot of folks that were living out in our waterways, and you know, many of those people didn't come in doors, but many did. And not only did we, you know, provide that opportunity, but we also have created an incredible public resource for our community and for our city, and it really is a regional draw, And I just wanna acknowledge the work that was done in around there because we're sort of celebrating kind of the renaissance of the Guadalupe River Park.

So I'll just finish. I don't know, council member Casey, if you wanna circle back to, what you were asking and look to other colleagues to add to it. But I just wanna again lift up some of the elements of the Real Coalition's letter and make sure we, count that in to the data that we'll consider moving forward. And then just sort of to the advocates, look, I know the county doesn't meet as much as we do. County supervisors meet a couple of times a month.

But I really hope you're showing up at those meetings as well, because we cannot do the work that you're asking unless we have the county as partners. And we've made good headway in that regard over the last number of months, but we can't lay all of this at the feet of the San Jose Police Department, or at the feet of Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services, or at the feet of our housing department, because we need county partnership to do some of the things that you're asking for, like mental health and addiction services. That's not the business the city of San Jose is in, and we need your voices there as well at the county supervisor meetings asking for their support to make sure that this coalition of the city and county can stay together. Thank you.

Thank thank you council member McKayhi. I wanna go to council member Kamay. Let council member Kamay speak.

Thank you. Thank you for the information. I have I have a a few questions. And I'm just wondering, the chart that was shown of the neighborhood quality of life, those numbers are only for the neighborhood quality of life, not for the enhanced engagement program. Is that correct?

That's correct. We we bifurcated those out

just for Okay. Neighborhood quality.

And then

and then the the bar graph that shows types of enforcement and types of violation, that's all neighborhood quality of life.

Right? That's correct. And it's only for one quarter of the neighborhood quality of life.

Okay. So I'm wondering, as I'm looking and I think it's on your slide number six. I I was wondering, are those when you say unhoused contacted incident count, are those unduplicated individuals, or are they just contacts it could be the same individual multiple times.

You're talking about the 474 number?

Yes.

Yes. So that could be more than once on different days. When the neighborhood quality of life team goes out into an area to to make contact, if they contact an unhoused individual, they will keep track of that that number for that contact for that day. So it could be repeat contacts over time. Somewhere else in the quarter, they contacted the same person more than once. They're not unique contacts. They're they're the number of times they contacted an unhoused individual within the context of their job parameters.

Regardless of who they are and so it could someone could contact this person 10 times. Because I I going back to the chair's original question in terms of the 10% accepted, you know, it seems like if you know, it it it's hard to understand what these numbers say because if the for example, individuals offered services, if it's 435, but, you know, multiple people or multiple times they the same person has been contacted, it gives you a different sense of what that means when you say 45 accepted. And if your definition of accepted is, oh, they nodded their head and said, yes. Thank you very much. But only three out of the 45 accepted, then that's a very, very small number.

So thank you for your question. That that's a great distinction that I'd like to point out. Let's start with the first, with the 470 mentioned, 474 is not unique contacts. It's 474 times they contacted an unhoused a person who's unhoused.

Okay.

K? So let's say, for example, that's me. They contact me, and over the quarter, they maybe run into me three times, four times over the course of a quarter. I'm just throwing out a number, not that that's an average number. Okay? Each time they contact me, though, they offer me services. So we wanna keep track of that. So if they contact me three times and I say no three times, then I've refused those services. Right? But if I say no twice and I accept them once, that would show up on here.

So even with repeat people, it's key to collect that data to show that, hey. They're offering every time. It's not like if you say no the first time, I'm not gonna offer it to you again. They're offering it every time, and that person is refusing refusing every every time. Time.

So we like keeping that data number separate, showing the contacts from the offer of services. And then when you look at the total of 435 times people have been offered but only accepted 45, that that could be any number of offers of service that they accepted. Remember, they're offering housing assistance. They're offering substance abuse assistance, mental health assistance, you know, the the whole gamut. And it could be pieces of information or as far as a ride to a facility right now.

Only three people in that quarter accepted that ride to the facility, but 45 times, people said, yeah. You know what? Why don't you give me the housing information? I may contact them later. That's that 45. So when we say that 10% number, that's a pretty key number to look at. 90% of the time, they're saying, no. I'm good. I don't want your help. And for the neighborhood quality of life team to go out there and despite being told 90% of the time, no, they continue to offer it, that's key for us. We want to show that they are out there doing what they can to help people when they come into contact with them. Yeah.

I I I would say it would be helpful to have some kind of, I don't know, description of what these numbers mean. Because I don't know if you're talking about 12 people or a 100 people. Right? So I think that that it it's great that they're offering and they continue to offer and they continue to offer for 474 times. But but in the context of, you know, understanding what's going on there, I think it it it's not that clear.

So I think that it would be helpful to have a little bit more detail about what these numbers mean. And and, you know, because I I think that that if you're dealing with 10 people, right, it's gonna be different than if you're dealing with a 100 people, that only three accept it. And earlier, we heard that 70 of the people do accept something. Right? So it it sort of sounds very, very different from, you know, other experiences.

So I just put that out there. And then I'm just wondering, I know that the Neighborhood Quality of Life team is was brought together. Was there special training, or did they have any specialized, you know, sort of additional training that that they were given?

Sure. I'll touch on a and then I'm gonna pass it to captain Torres, who's their day to day commander. The the neighborhood quality of life team, everybody in the police department is trained in the crisis intervention model that that is the standard for law enforcement, for engagement with those going through mental health issues. So we have that training under under our belt, if you will, already. The individuals that were selected were selected based on their history in the department.

They are not they they weren't they weren't just picked because they're next up. These are individuals who are highly proactive, that are highly motivated, that are very good at talking to people, at taking care of others. They they have this reputation of this is something that they've also been interested in in the department that they've been doing prior to their assignment in the neighborhood quality of life team. And so I I you know, to be hand selected amongst your 1,100 peers to be part of this is pretty spectacular. I'll pass it to Caban Torres for their training.

Perhaps I can call down sergeant Aponte, who's the supervisor of the neighborhood quality of life team, and you could share some of the experiences in the inception and the start up of the neighborhood quality of life, please.

Good afternoon, committee. Steve DeVonte, sergeant for the neighborhood quality of life team. Thank you for the question. In regards to the training prior to the inception of NQL, we spent about three weeks working together both with housing staff during the EHs. We worked with Stephanie Mu, who's our internal CIT coordinator, to take an advanced course in CIT, what is equivalent to what counselors take on a daily basis.

So it's beyond the standard CIT training that our officers receive, but just a little above that. And then in addition to that, obviously, there's familiarization to the terrain and areas that we work in. Right? As we do enforcement in and about the EIHS, housing was fantastic in taking us on tours and visitations and knowing where these camps are. That, coupled with PRNS' assistance with the known encampment zones, as well as many of the sites we enforce along the waterways, kinda give us the general familiarization.

But overall, beyond that, I think there's the professional conduct of the team itself. As the captain and the the captain mentioned, these were hand selected officers because everybody saw in the command staff something special about these officers, something that could help both provide productivity and enforcement accountability to people, but also offer a gentle hand and assistance sometimes. And, yes, there are times where enforcement has to happen, and there are times where we, as officers, have to use a stern voice and put handcuffs on people. But I think at the end of the day, you'll see that it's done in a manner that is legal, professional, and abiding all the duty mail policy.

Thank you. Thank you. Captain Donahue, I wanted to ask you about the types of enforcement and types of violation. You had percentages there. Is there a numeric that you know, in terms of the number of warnings, the number of arrests, the number of warrant arrests?

Thank you for your question. Yeah. There is a number, but beneath those percentages, I don't have that with me. Okay. But, yes, those numbers exist. I saw the the that was a question in the the letter. The of course, the numbers are or the percentages are based on a number.

Yeah. It would be helpful to have them. And I know my time is almost up, but I would agree with council member Mulcahy regarding some of the questions that need to be elevated that came from the letter from the real coalition in terms of I think as we go to the next quarter, be able to respond to some of those some of those questions. So I wanted to also lift up some of those questions that were raised. Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues. No further discussion. Can I get a motion?

I'll give a motion to approve with and I'm gonna let council member Kamay and Moke add on the language they want to from the letter or and Tordias as well. But if we could review or analyze a way of amending the contract with the county and also identify and it sounds like you guys are already on this path, but an opportunity for us to share information with PD and housing through PD and housing. And then whatever, Michael, you

Yeah. Yeah. I don't particularly think to modify the motion as much as in the spirit of the public testimony that was given, specifically the real letter that we got, that that's considered evaluation.

Okay. So my motion along with what I mentioned and the spirit of the letter?

Can I get a second? Second. Thank you so much, Shiga. Alright. Let's vote. I will be voting yes.

That motion passes unanimously.

Alright. Well, thank you for the report. Thank you to the speaker. Do we have any public comments for the open forum?

No public comment.

Well, meeting adjourned.