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

We're good? Oh, you have to get your chairs. Ah. Yeah. I I'm gonna have to change that chair too.

Okay. Before we begin, I want to remind the public safety, finance and strategic support committee members and the member of the public to follow our code of conduct at meetings. This include the commenting on the 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 Strategic Support Committee will now come to order. Can the clerk office, please call the roll?

Salas?

Here. Casey?

Here.

Mulcahy? Here.

Vice chair Kameh? Here. Chair Duan? Here. Thank you. Evoquium?

Thank you. Do we have, we're going right into review of work plan. Do we have any drop changes or defer of any items? No? Okay. There's nothing on consent calendar. So we're gonna go straight to the reports to committee, the Fire Department Emergency Medical Services annual report. And that will have, chief Sapien and deputy chief Steve Bohee.

Thank you, chair. Good afternoon, committee members. My name is Robert Sapien. I'm the fire chief here in San Jose, and I am joined today by deputy fire chief Steve Bowie, who oversees our department of Bureau of Emergency Medical Services and Training, and fire captain Kevin Stidham, who is our advanced life support education coordinator. We're here today to speak on item d one, which is the fire department emergency medical services annual report. Chief Bowie will lead us through the presentation, after which we are happy to answer the committee's questions.

Thank you, chief. Good afternoon, chair and committee members and members of the public. The Sound and Safe Fire Department provides all hazard emergency response, training, equipment, responders to operate effectively and safely in all environments presenting in the city. Typically, 901 calls that are not exclusively law enforcement matter will include a fire department response. Currently operating out of 34 stations, the department deploy deploys resources to meet the city's all hazard service demands.

Engine, truck companies, and rescue medics provide response for fire suppression, advanced life support EMS first response, patient transports, and rescues. Our specialized resources are staffed and equipped to meet specific hazards requiring technical training and certification levels including aircraft, firefighting protecting San Jose Mineta International Airport, hazardous incident team for hazardous materials response, and urban search and rescue. The department began providing advanced life support services in early July nineteen ninety five, with paramedics initially deployed on three engine companies and then expanded to all fire stations to provide advanced life support coverage citywide in 1996. To today, each deployed engine company, truck company, urban search and rescue company, American Aircraft Rescue Firefighting Company, and rescue medics are staffed and equipped to provide advanced life support services. Additionally, rescue medics are transport capable and are currently frequently activated to support the county's ambulance system.

Requests for emergency medical services are most often initiated through the 911 system. The initial San Jose PD 911 call taker will transfer the caller to a fire department communication center. A fire department public safety radio dispatcher will dispatch a fire department advanced life support unit and will remain with the caller to further triage the incident and provide pre arrival instructions under medical priority dispatch system protocols. Ambulance dispatch is simultaneously provided by Santa Clara County communications. Upon fire department arrival, the dispatcher will terminate the 911 call, responders will take scene control measures, conduct assessment, and initiate patient care interventions.

Upon arrival of the transporting ambulance, patient information will be relayed, and patient care will be formally transferred. Where county ambulances are unavailable, a fire department rescue medic will transport. And when only a basic life support county ambulance is available, the fire department paramedic may be required to accompany the patient to the hospital. In fiscal year twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, the department responded to 110,255 calls for service, including 68,410 that were classified as medical only. By measure of volume and patient acuity, the severity of the illness or medical condition, the department is a substantial medical provider in the city.

Fire based emergency medical services are highly advantageous to city residents because of the citywide deployment model and because firefighters can operate in all hazardous environments. In observing the call distribution provided in this chart, it is important to note that medical care is often a component of other response types. For example, vehicle accidents are frequently classified within the rescue, hazmat, use, or other non fire hazard call type, and yet frequently involve multiple EMS patients. In fiscal year twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, the top five triaged 911 caller medical complaints were sickness, breathing problems, falls, unconscious and fainting, and chest pain and chest discomfort. The top five initial oppressions noted by responders were traumatic injury, general weakness, respiratory distress, abdominal pain or problems, and no medical complaint findings.

Notable in the initial impression was that ten thousand five hundred and forty one instances of traumatic injuries, twenty six percent of the top impressions, an increase in approximately eight percent from the previous fiscal year. Notable and worthy of further monitoring and evaluation, data reflected downward trends in documented initial impressions of alcohol, intoxication, or overdoses down thirty two percent, altered level of consciousness down seven percent, and chest pain down eight percent. Currently, department EMS staff are engaged in advancing EMS data analytic capabilities to enable a closer evaluation of department clinical performance, generate dashboards that can drive program improvements, and provide foundation for quality assurance and quality improvement strategic plans. On 10/16/2023, the city council conducted its Santa Clara County 911 ambulance services study session, where the department described the challenges related to the unavailability of county ambulance resources. And committee was provided with the Santa Clara County nine one one ambulance service status report on 03/21/2024.

Since that time, the county ambulance provider has continued to struggle to provide ALS ambulances, and department responders have continued to absorb additional workload. This chart shows the continued increase in fire department transports and basic life support escorts. This is where a San Jose fire department paramedic has to ride in when a BLS ambulance is sent to a call that needs an advanced life support level of care for transport. This results in an engine or a truck out of service for a significant amount of time, reducing the response reliability of that unit. Early defibrillation is extremely important in the care of cardiac patients.

The public access defibrillator program currently provides two forty six public access defibrillators across 96 city facilities. A notable stat of this patch here that I wanted to draw your attention to is that there were nine cardiac arrests that had a public access defibrillator on the call on the patient prior to the arrival of the San Jose Fire Department with a one hundred percent return of spontaneous circulation rate of those patients. This really highlights the importance of the PAD program, the public access defibrillator program. This coming year, we are targeting several community education opportunities to promote CPR and AED training. Early intervention for out of hospital cardiac arrest is critical.

A study published in the Journal of American Heart Association in 2018 concluded that for each one minute increase in EMS response time was associated with a ten point seven percent decrease in favorable neurological outcome of out of hospital cardiac arrest victims. In an effort to decrease response time to cardiac arrest events in our community, the department has previously adopted and continues to use the PulsePoint app, which is which will alert skilled individuals, including off duty health care professionals who have the app when San Jose fire department receives 911 call for a cardiac arrest. The department engaged to take part in opioid overdose prevention efforts supported by the opioid settlement funds. The department recruited a graduate intern to focus on the twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five school year to create and disseminate public education materials related to the mitigation of the opioid misuse and drug disposal, discuss Good Samaritan laws, and go over treatment services. This opioid awareness education outreach has taken place in youth youth groups, schools, at risk communities, and also with our community emergency response teams or CERTs.

Consistent with our mission, the department maintains ongoing public information and education promoting community health and safety. In person engagements occur throughout the city with fire companies engaged at schools, in fire stations, community meetings, and other events. The department generates graphics and video content for posting across multiple platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Nextdoor. Information releases are often timed to address seasonal hazards such as swimming pool safety, heat illness prevention, and wet driving conditions or intermittently released to address ever present hazards such as poisons, toxic safety, home electrical safety, suicide prevention, opioid education, and many others. Thank you for your time, and I've enjoyed presenting you today.

Thank you for the report. Do we have any public comment?

We do not.

Okay. Let's go to Councilmember Casey.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the presentation. Ambulance shortages and delays are an issue. Can you speak to the county's contract with, I keep forgetting their names, Rural Metro and the impending extension of the contract or potential for the extension. Do you feel that, what kind of phrases, that the current ambulance provider is meeting the needs of the city?

Thank you for the question council member. The the current agreement between the County Of Santa Clara and its exclusive operating area provider, rural metro of California has been in place since 07/01/2025. In short, your question says does it meet the needs of the residents? I believe it has become a very aged agreement. And in the last several years, the ambulance provider has been unable to provide sufficient ambulance resources to meet the transport needs of our community.

As a follow-up, are there any alternatives that we can think of that we should be exploring?

I believe there are. Statewide there are several different EMS system models in place. We did have the opportunity to present to counsel sometime back in a study session to present some of those models. Those included the current model or status quo which is the county contracts to a private for profit provider. A second model is a third service public model which would be an entirely new EMS department if you will, that could serve the county.

A third is what is in place today in Contra Costa County and it's been in place for several years. It's become known as the alliance model. That is very similar to the model we have now with the difference that the private provider is subordinate in relationship to a

first responder agency where what we have observed in that county is a very, a far more integrated system where resources are deployed to meet the

private needs of the community more frequently. And in fact this fire department has worked to evaluate that type of program and we feel it could work here.

Thank you. Thank you. Given the deficiencies of the current model, I'd be encouraged if we did pursue one of those other models. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'll add, I did attend the county's health and hospital meeting which occurred yesterday, and we did it was a little bit discouraging in that we're hearing a timeline for a possible new provider under the current RFP development process to not occur until possibly 2028. And so there was discussion at that meeting on how that process could possibly be accelerated. And I did share the concerns for the performance that I've observed from my office.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you, council member Casey. We're going to council member Kameh.

Thank you. I'm gonna follow-up with that because I know that this has been a tremendous concern in many ways, where, rural metro really are not meeting their obligations. And so what I wanna say is that, the people of San Jose and Santa Clara County are really, really fortunate to have you. So thank you so much for your service. Thank you for being there.

When someone calls 911, you know we're gonna be there no matter what. And I think that we've been really, really fortunate that you are there. Mhmm. The the the fact that rural metro is not fulfilling their obligations, we know that there's a shortage of of paramedics and, you know, professionals in in that industry. But that is not we should not let them off the hook.

And I think that, the county, I believe, has responsibility. And I think that each and every one of us, if we care about this issue, should be more direct with the county. The fact that they want to extend it that far out and then ding us when we're not able to be able to meet the performance goals of getting to where we need to get to is ridiculous, really. I I just I just I just think that they wanna have it both ways, and that's not okay. It puts I know that it puts the department in a very difficult position because while, you know, you have a obligation, it is hampered by the fact that you have increasingly been burden over time because the ambulance doesn't respond, they don't have the right people on in the ambulance.

And I I I just think that that it needs to be much more front and center. And I know that you've addressed this looking at potential alternatives in the future. I think that's great, but I also think that it is not okay to let the county sort of, like, stretch it out till what did you say? 2028?

2028. Yes.

What you know, why? You know? I mean, I understand they've got a lot of stuff going on. We have a lot of stuff going on too. But I think that since things are, you know, coming to an end on June 30, it is a great opportunity to have a deeper conversation with them and a deeper conversation with the board of supervisors that, you know, there's needs to be a better way of solving this problem.

Yes, we need more trained professionals. We know that. Right? But it should not be an excuse for a for profit organization, which rural metro is a for profit, not to be responsible for their obligations. So I I really I really feel very strongly that we we really need to create some focus around this because we know that there are ongoing shortages and reliance on support paramedic.

I mean, we we know that. Right? But existing conditions is not gonna work. I mean, if if we had some way of being able to figure out how we could sort of even meet in the middle, right, at least it's better than what we have today. So, I mean, we've seen the charts in previous reports as well that the responses are just going higher and higher and higher.

At what point do we say, this is not working at all. Right? So I just I just want to highlight, you know, I've I've been on PISFIS for two years now. And, you know, while I you know, in the beginning, you know, you kind of think, oh, okay. You know, we can kinda work things out.

The burden is is shifting higher and higher every year to the to the fire department, and I don't think that's right. And I think that they know it. They know that we're in a difficult position because, you know, we take seriously our obligation to serve. And I think that we should have, the other day at the council meeting, we talked about accountability. We really need to extend our accountability and compassion on this side too so that, you know, you know, when we're transporting patients, when we're doing extra work, when we're seeing that this is sort of increasing year over year over year, there is a point where we're not gonna be able to sustain this.

And so, I think that we do have to look at these alternative solution, and I know you're working on that. But I also think that I would encourage you to accelerate that as well as think about what are we gonna do before June 30. And I, for one, am happy to go to the board of supervisors and even go to the health and hospital meeting and talk to them about that. You have brand new supervisors who I don't know, their involvement in in knowing the history of this, but this I I find that it's it's critically important. And it's important because we're serving the the people of San Jose and sort of the other Santa Clara County areas as well.

Because I know that you guys will if if there's a need, you will you will help. And I appreciate that. The people of San Jose appreciate that, but I also think that you should not be taken advantage of. So, I just I don't have an answer yet, but I I do recognize over time that this is not okay and it's not sustainable. So, you know, I I don't know what you need, but I I feel very strongly that, you know, we we need to find a pathway to make some changes even if they're intermediate changes.

Right? Maybe they don't ding us for being, you know, like a a minute late or whatever. I don't know what the answer is, but I think that we need something. Because right now, we bear the the the largest burden and rural metro sort of is kinda just doing their thing. And the other day, I saw one of their ambulances and they had taped over paramedic because they didn't have one, I assume, on there.

Right? And, you know, I thought, you know, yeah, we have shortages in many of these professional industries. But but why is the burden on the public and not on a private entity that's really making a lot of money? So I I think I think that I would like to see more movement on this. And if there's anybody here who wants to join me, I think that we would certainly, try to make inroads in in in changing something. So, anyway, I'll get off my soap box.

Thank you, council member Kameh. I'm, I'm standing right next to you regarding that. So, thank you for that. And, we'll get to council member Mulcahy.

Thank you and thank you chief and the gang for making this presentation. I just wanna take this opportunity to say thank you. My family had a very difficult experience. We lost my mother in October. San Jose Fire Department responded.

It was a trauma situation. It was San Jose Fire Department that made the right call to take her to county to console and consult while waiting. Certainly not the ultimate reason that she passed, but the reality was is that your team was doing the hardest part of the work. And so I just want to say thank you from this dais for the first time for that. And I think you've struck a nerve here.

I would echo all of my colleagues to the right in terms of this being an issue. I've seen firsthand the kind of pressure this is putting on our own medics and you know, so we do have a joint meeting that is supposed to be talking about some of our relationship with the county. I think it's centered around homelessness response but you know in your report there's also an enormous amount of response that you're taking relative to our homelessness issues. And so for me, know I don't know if that's the right place colleagues to sort of put that on the agenda because we know hopefully before '28 we get a change here, but we know this is gonna take time and so in the meantime, what do we have to do to make sure that we're still able respond with the appropriate staffing and staffing levels to make sure that we're making up for a bad contract with the county, but also keeping our own public safe. What what ideas do we have for in the meantime?

Thank you, council member. In the short term, I do believe there is at minimum an opportunity to open conversation on the conditions within the agreement between San Jose that the San Jose Fire Department delivers and County Emergency Medical Services Agency. That agreement is set to expire June 30 year. And I have heard at least a verbal signal from the county EMS director that they want to begin those conversations. And I my my comment in that moment was that we need to sit down and talk and and not think that this will be just an extension of what exists today.

So I think that opportunity is about to present itself in the in the coming weeks. Beyond that, I think that our interim or our internal strategies are really focusing on acknowledging that things are not improving quickly at all. And so we are certainly working to see if there are opportunities to deploy more of our own ambulances so that workload is better balanced across the San Jose Fire Department and our staff. We're hopeful that we can figure that out in the next two months or so to see what's possible. And then certainly as we've talked about the longer term strategy, we really do need system reform that has to show itself by way of the county's procurement process for incumbent or the successor agreement that will be forthcoming, although may not be in place for several years.

Years?

Well, can tell you what rural metro is really good at, billing. Billing. So not to be snarky about it, but it's true. So switching gears just for a moment, maybe something a little bit more constructive. So you talked about the AED locations and the success with that.

What about some of our organizations out there in the community like CERT and there's another one called the hub which is sort of using people in our communities be responsive to issues that come up in neighborhoods and so forth. That and neighborhood associations, I mean I see more AED units areas and in sort of non governmental buildings. Is there any more work that we can do to encourage more of that so we can get the community engaged, knowledgeable and proactive?

Thank you council member. I think the model program, there's a few across the nation, but I think the one that's been standing most for the longest period of time is the city of Seattle, A very robust citizen CPR program, very robust AED program, the responders. In fact, we just attended their academy where they teach essentially high performance cardiopulmonary resuscitation techniques. And we are looking to advance our program that way. We did support in the past a citizen CPR program with pretty steady outreach to get training done.

Unfortunately, had to contract due to budget concerns during the recession. But I do think you're absolutely right and certainly this small sample of 10 calls is small, but the data is profound to have that many instances of return of spontaneous circulation clearly shows that there's benefit to early defibrillation and certainly early compressions in CPR. So we are in the process of coming up with a strategic plan in the emergency medical services division to see if we can make advancements in those programs and get some improvements. But you're absolutely right, it would be CERT teams, it would be certainly any community group that's willing to come to get the certification even if it's just hands only CPR type training and then optimizing the AED program as well.

Well we can all be ambassadors of it because we're all meeting with neighborhood associations and people that are coming together to organize themselves and so whether it's, you know, we're bringing the crime prevention unit to a lot of these meetings, it'd be great to be able to offer a program like this where we're really asking our community to get educated and be proactive in health and safety in their own communities. So I would be open to it and I'm sure my other colleagues would too to put you on the agenda at neighborhood associations and so forth.

Thank you and we will continue to advance that work plan so that we can get there.

Thank you. Thank you council member Mulcahy. We'll go to council member Salas. Yeah. I just wanted

to echo my appreciation of the report but also in the last year both my wife and I were aided by your response teams and professional, fast, sensitive. It's just been wonderful and we're 100% today, so thank you. Hey, one question I wanted to ask you. You mentioned 68,000 medical only responses. Some of you may have been around a long time, enough a time, how many of those were homeless related, unhoused related as opposed to maybe fifteen years ago when there was not the unhoused situation we had?

Yeah. Certainly the number of homeless calls has increased and I think most profoundly since 2020 COVID had impacts and you all are are working on so many fronts to to address the homelessness issue. And the the challenge there for us is there there's a few things for our responders, of course, is the the environments are always unpredictable. Unpredictable. Often the when there is a call, it's a passerby that makes the call and the address is somewhat unknown and so there's a lot of sort of search and and try to figure out what's going on.

And then ultimately sometimes we have to trek in to places that just hard to find and hard to get to. But overall our I can't remember, do you know the percent? Think I can get you the precise number.

I was just looking for is it 50%, is it two

No, 50, I would say it's closer to 30 ish at the peak but not that high now.

Thank you very much. Mhmm.

Thank you, council member Salas. Well, as a former fire captain, I extremely proud and and of our San Jose Fire Department. And last Christmas, right before Christmas, I just similar to council member Mulcahy, I've lost my mother and I dial 911 on the way home and our fire department got there in less than four minutes. It was incredible. And they went above and beyond to help my families through that traumatized time.

I just wanna say thank you to the crew, thank Thank you to the fire department, which is very endearing to my heart. And every time I hear a fire engine go by City Hall, it's I I miss being in the fire department tremendously. So I know that the CPR training program have lost some funding, but I was just thinking, is it possible we can do the CPR training part of it online ahead prior to the actual physical part of compression. So that way you can cut down the timeline to get our citizen, you know including neighborhood watch, neighborhood association, and those who want to be trained to help other citizen when in time of need. Captain Stidham?

Thank you, council member. Yes, that's an absolute possibility. As long as it's within a certain time frame, we don't want them to watch that video too soon and then lose some of that information that they would that they would have. Having that face to face with us is really beneficial, giving them that information, how to do it, calming them at the same time. But absolutely, we can send out some type of video or online program for them.

Thank you. Can you kind of explain to the public what happened when one of our paramedic is transport a resident to the hospital, how's it affected the ALS call versus BLS call in that geographical first due?

Thank you council members. So the the background on on your question, if you if you don't mind, I'll offer is, when the private ambulance provider is unable to deliver an advanced life support ambulance, meaning they don't have a paramedic on board, we will respond as usual and if the patient or patients require advanced life support care in that circumstance our paramedic will have to escort the patient all the way to the emergency room until transfer of care to the appropriate staff at hospital. And so to your question is is what is the system impact? The system impact is that we have an extended period of time with a resource that is in basic life support status. And in the instance of a call arising in their response area, we have to dispatch an additional unit to achieve the advanced life support level of care.

And so that would be the immediate local effect system wide as it occurs repeatedly, then we have a system wide effect where multiple units are responding beyond their first response districts.

Yeah, I believe that impact on our dynamic deployment, right?

The if you look at the response network network of fire stations, engines, and trucks, what happens is that network of resources becomes thinner and resources have to travel further distances.

Yeah. Thank you. So it's apparently, you know, very apparent to me that Santa Clara County has not honored, their commitment to our residents in in many areas of obligation. And it plays a a pretty tremendous, burden onto our, fire department. We have spent more money, committed more resources to to make up, for their shortfall.

And this has created a need for more rescue medic and the needs to improve our partnership with the ambulance provider. And I think as a public servant, public entity, we should drive, we should be the one that drive the private ambulance company in order to give better service to our residents. What can the council do to support you in this particular area and And how do we as a city move forward to ensure the needs of our residents are met?

Thank you council member. I I think I will maybe echo council member Kamay's comments, which I think awareness is first and foremost in opening the channels of communication. I I will I'll I'll share that the reason I attended the health and hospital meeting yesterday was because the the submitted memo which was a quarterly report from the county EMS agency made no mention of the ambulance shortage or the impact on first responder agencies. And so I do believe there is a need for all of us in the County who are impacted to voice concerns and certainly I will continue to do so and and my peers across the county share the frustrations as well.

Thank you. It's all it has brought to my attention that we may have a 34% vacancy in our fire paramedic staffing. Do we have the ability the ability to hire more? And if so, how do we do it?

So, yes. And the and the background there, again, if you don't mind. So certainly when in March 2020 when we all were were noticed that there would be lockdown and I'll offer this as a maybe a bit of a lapse in my recognition at that time. We had a firefighter academy starting a week after that lockdown and the decision was made and certainly supported by the city manager to continue that academy because we understood that we needed to continue to hire and develop people for the future. Unfortunately, what occurred in the state is all paramedic schools stopped delivering instruction and all clinicals right along stopped and all internships stopped.

And so we've been struggling through that gap in training and development, and it has driven a shortage in paramedics since 2021 or so is when we saw the reduction in available applicants that were qualified as paramedics. Today, we recently graduated a firefighter academy with 13 paramedics in that class. We just began a new academy with 18 paramedics in that class. In total as those people, as those individuals proceed through that puts us at about a 20% level of vacancies in the paramedic position to overcome the immediate demand and the pressure that was put on our medics who were having to work a lot of mandatory overtime to keep services going. We did lean on our fire engineers and fire captains who were previously licensed as paramedics and asked them to reactivate.

And that program has been highly effective. In effect what that has achieved is every day we staff a minimum of 47 paramedics in the field, and between the paramedics we now have hired in the firefighter rank and the other two ranks, every day I have about a 150 people that I can call upon to fill those 47 positions daily. So we we've stabilized, but long term it I think it's gonna take another two years before statewide the paramedic production out of schools is balanced and and and we're able to find a robust applicant pool that is qualified.

Thank you. Another county problem that their failure to adequately address the homelessness here in the city of San Jose or in the county for that matter. They have not built shelter nor mental illness facility like the old Agnews that I used to work there as a site tech. And it's Burton, our our responder. It's Burton, fire department system.

And I just wanna say thank you for giving us the stat that fire department respond to over 11,000 calls and spent over $30,000,000 to address, you know, going out on calls to our homelessness. And and because of that, we able to come up with a program called San Jose Love slash PEM. PEM stands for pre engineering modular shelter. And in order to to respond to this holiness crisis. And I know that it's it's not only affect our our our resources in the fire department, it's also affected the morale of our membership, if you will.

Chief we are trying as a council to address the county shortfall in this area. And hopefully if we can build more shelter that would free up a lot of resources funding for the department to take care of our residents. Now we will need your support moving forward to work with our county counterpart to to make this reality. And not only our police, I mean our fire department but also our police department as well. What are your thoughts on having the paramedic field coordinator in San Jose and what would the requirement for the position?

Thank you council member. So the background again, the paramedic field coordinator was in position since 1995 when we began providing

advanced life support services

'19 and was eliminated due to budget action in 2023 I believe. The economics of the position, obviously we would need funding to reinstate it. It would be three captains position in the city. That that is the gap we're trying to that that is causing the elimination. In terms of the question that was that was requested from council for us to answer for today's meeting, If the county were to release an RFP and the city of San Jose were the provider of record, it is common across the state that emergency medical services agencies require multiple supervisors for the ambulance systems in metro areas.

And so under that premise, if we were to be the provider of record, believe we would be required to have that position and probably more than one likely four to five on duty at all times. And so hopefully that that captures your your question. Yes.

You know our our county had extended the contract with rural metro for ambulance services. Do you believe they are meeting the needs of our city?

As I as I said, clearly not. I I think that slide, I I don't know if we can pull it up, but the the slide that indicated the number of transports and and write ins or firefighter paramedic write ins, 100% of that is workload that that was not designed to be on the fire department. And so from a from a workforce perspective, we're operating above and beyond what was agreed to with the County many years ago. On the customer, the resident side, we've shown a couple of data points, couple studies related to cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but certainly this is true for trauma victims, it's certainly true for stroke victims and also cardiac victims, time really matters. And so when we have a resource model where resources are delayed and compounded by additional delays because the fire department is occupied doing work that it's not designed to do, absolutely we're not seeing the system function the way it was designed to function.

And therefore what are the fire department plans to get those needs met?

As I stated, I think we are closely evaluating the opportunities that we have to strengthen internally our resourcing for that problem, which would be more rescue medics that could be transport capable. And then secondly, as I stated, there there is an opportunity I think to have a conversation with about the terms of the current agreement and whether there's a chance to improve circumstances there. And then ultimately I think the big question is what will be the successor program to the one we have today because I think in many ways the system that we have today is not quite meeting our needs.

Thank you. And we're I think your call volume is now above a 110,000 and I would imagine that you're anticipating it's going to go higher. Is there any plan in the future? I know that station 32 and 36 is is online to 32 being billed right now and then 36 will be coming online. With the amount of calls that you're predicting it's gonna go higher, how many more stations do you think it's do we need in order to really cut down the timeline to get to our resident who are having a heart attack or stroke or an extreme emergency because of our geographical first due is pretty long.

Yes. I I think council member and and and I apologize, I don't have a a graphic to show you. We we have shared several times heat mapping in the city that that shows a couple things and and one in particular is a heat map that reflects the instances where it took more than four minutes of travel time for fire units to arrive on scene. And so I think the question of how many more stations is a little bit complex related to that issue because in some cases if we were to you know ultimately completely eliminate responses longer than four minutes, which again that would be a worthy goal, but difficult to achieve. It would probably involve additional stations and additional resources at existing stations to keep up with volume.

When we put forward the prioritization for new fire stations under measure T, I had done some of that analysis and I added additional station recommendations to that analysis. And so at that time, I believe it was five or six to really start to eliminate that four minute travel time issue and balance some of that call volume. So for now I would say that's probably my best analysis, but I think it would take a comprehensive standards of cover study again given all the changes that have occurred since 2016 when we last did that.

Last question, I know that when there's events there are fire department booth and representation out there. Is it possible that we can have a firefighter on overtime or on disability to go out there to represent us because when people asking what it is that we do. A professional firefighter can answer that very clearly and enable to get more recruitment into our department including women. Is there a plan for that because it is difficult for me and and many other council member including our public to to have a non sworn personnel representing us. You know, trying to recruit.

Because we I don't think we will have a police officer. Well, let's say we have a civilian represent the police department in recruitment and I I think it's do you have any plan for that in the future?

Yeah. Council member, I'm happy to to discuss that further. The the fact is we do. We we we have increased our presence dramatically frankly in the last three years at recruitment events with sworn personnel. So certainly happy to go offline and provide you with an update of our activities there. But it's already in place.

Thank you for that and I'll have my office work with you because as you all know the city of San Jose is represented 40% plus in our Asian community and I like to see more recruitment in in the Asian community as a whole. I appreciate that. Do I have a motion? Oh, I'm sorry. We're going to, council member, Khamenei.

Thank you so much, and and thank you for the the information. I know that you do this, you know, periodically, and so I I'm hoping that we're able to circle back before the June 30 time frame. And I think it was a great idea, to have, maybe an item. I know there's a lot on the docket when we meet with the, county, but I also think that this is one that perhaps we can work, sort of in tandem with the meeting as well as, you know, maybe, going to the health and hospital, meeting or I don't know. I would look to you for for guidance in terms of what is helpful.

And so with that, I wanna accept the annual report on the fire department emergency medical services delivery. Just wanted to note on the meeting with the county, I think we we think it'd probably be better a separate meeting, but we can talk internally about that and Yeah. I think, you know, whatever is appropriate, I think would be well. You know, I I just think that it's important to, take some kind of steps before our June 30 time frame. Because I think that if we if we wait, then, you know, their extension is like, you know, it'll just happen without even acknowledgement acknowledgment of of of what's going on.

And because we have new members of the board of supervisors, I certainly think that it warrants at least, you know, some kind of a of a briefing, some kind of, you know, mention that this has been an ongoing problem and it's not sustainable. Thank you.

Well, thank you. We, we got first and second. Let's vote on this.

Sorry. I didn't get the second. The mics weren't activated. Okay. You. Thank

Council member Mulcahy second. And we have a unanimous vote. Okay. Thank you. Now we're going to item number two, innovation and technology project status report. And I believe that it will be Colette, Jesse Juarez and Shirley Duong.

Good afternoon Chair Duan Council members and members of the public. I'm Khaled Talcic Chief Information Officer and I'm joined by the project management team, Jesse Juarez, Division Manager and Shirley Young, Project Manager. We will start with the agenda. We'll start with the status of the project management by our project management office also known as the PMO. And then we'll discuss the information technology department strategic plan and then we'll highlight some of the projects and successful projects for your reference.

I don't see why the clicker is not working with me today. All right. The city's priorities guide our effort to leverage technology in meaningful ways. That information technology department is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life in San Jose through innovation, collaboration and engagement. Our vision is to anticipate where services are needed and proactively deliver solutions that support a thriving future for the city.

We are committed to strategic initiatives that emphasize community engagement, innovation and security ensuring access to city services for all residents. Our approach is centered on people driven innovation, streamlining processes and systems to improve efficiency and service delivery. Through data driven decision making, we use insight to inform policies, drive action and create meaningful change. We also prioritize responsible AI adoption ensuring technology enhances city services while upholding safety, transparency and ethical use. With increase of risk in cybersecurity, cybersecurity is definitely a top priority.

We continuously are working to understand, protect and educate staff to safeguard city systems and resident data. We integrate strategic measures throughout our work to monitor progress, emphasizing equity, efficiency and automation. Our success is evaluated through real time performance dashboards and customer satisfaction feedback gathered from surveys. I'll now turn it over to Jesse Juarez to discuss the project management topics.

Thank you, Khaled. Good afternoon, Chair Duan, Vice Chair Khumai, council members and members of the public. I'm Jesse Juarez, Division Manager for the Project Management Office in the information technology department. I'll provide an overview of the types of projects my office manages. Our projects are typically large scale or complex, meaning at least one of the following criteria as you see on the screen.

The projects cost over $500,000. We handle large projects with a significant financial investment ensuring budget, timeline, and quality prioritized. Another criteria is multiple departments may be involved. Many projects require collaboration across departments fostering a unified approach. Projects greater than one year, complex projects may take longer to complete and we ensure continued progress.

And lastly, high profile or sensitive projects. These projects often align with city initiatives and are crucial to the city's future and public interest. Our offices and our office ensures that each project is executed efficiently, transparently, and with the focus on meeting the needs of our residents. This is the PMO team you see on the screen. Once accepted, projects are assigned to a dedicated project manager.

Our skilled PMO team oversees a diverse range of IT projects. Currently, we're managing 33 high priority projects valued at nearly $54,000,000. Each project manager handles all aspects of the project life cycle, ensuring completion on time within budget and the high standards aligning with the city's objectives. Our team fosters collaboration and communication ensuring that city initiatives create lasting value for our residents. In addition to the 33 ongoing projects, I'm pleased to report that the PMO has completed 22 projects since October 2023.

These projects span across a wide range of IT initiatives, which directly benefit city operations and its residents. They support the city's goals for growth, sustainability, and community well-being. For more details about these projects, please refer to appendix a in the provided memo. Now I'd like to introduce Shirley Young from our project management team who will highlight key projects we're currently managing. Thank you.

Thank you, Jesse. Good afternoon Chair Dwan, Vice Chair Kameh, council members and members of the public. My name is Shirley Yeung and I'm a project manager with the project management office. On this slide titled City Focus Areas and PMO Project Statuses, we are showing projects led by the project management team and their current project statuses. Our intake process ensures that projects managed by the PMO aligns with city focus areas that are important to city leadership and residents as well as other initiatives.

We are happy to report that the majority of our projects are green, which means they are on track to meet its timeline, budget and scope. We have one project with a gray status, which means it has not officially started yet, but we are preparing and laying the groundwork to start the project. We have two projects with yellow status, which means there are slight delays however it does not impact the timeline scope and budget. And lastly we have two projects that are red which means there are significant delays that impact the timeline scope or budget and there is currently no path forward yet but we are actively working on it to determine the best path forward. One of the projects we'd like to highlight that improve city services and increased resident awareness is the SJ three eleven vehicles concern dashboard, a project in partnership with the Department of Transportation.

This dashboard is an updated approach to customer satisfaction and focuses on outcomes such as timeliness and communication offering more actionable insights. As you can see the data is disaggregated so that it helps inform our understanding of responsiveness in areas of improvement. For example, previously all vehicle concerns were in data point called abandoned vehicles, but we've since disaggregated it into five data points which allowed us to pinpoint the city's responsiveness at different stages and has also resurfaced other resident concerns such as vehicle trash. With data informed improvements we were able to increase customer satisfaction for vehicle concerns from 15% to 60%. This granular level of data helps the city improve resident services and it also increased resident awareness on the services provided by the city and the city's efforts to address vehicle concerns.

I will now hand the presentation back over to Khaled to talk about the strategic update.

Thank you, Shirley. By leveraging data, innovation and exceptional customer service, we are transforming city operations to be more efficient, effective, equitable and resident focused. Our investments in San Jose Jose three eleven, a strong data strategy and effective AI policies help us achieve our goal of delivering seamless services ensuring San Jose remains a model for efficiency, transparency and community engagement. Our data program helped drive informed decisions that lead to better services. Data is one of our most valuable assets, shaping policies, increasing efficiency and fostering public trust.

Our data strategy ensures secure, well governed and accessible information for smarter decision making. Through staff upskilling and training, we empower employees to harness data effectively optimizing resources and proactively responding to community needs. The San Jose three eleven is the city's forefront for customer service providing residents with quick reliable and multilagral support for accessing city services. By utilizing a three sixty degree view of resident interactions, we ensure seamless communication across departments enhancing service delivery. Data from San Jose three eleven request help us identify trends, improve operations and proactively address community needs.

Our IT strategic plan promotes seamless, accessible and transparent government services. By aligning strategy, governance and technology, we ensure an efficient experience for residents and businesses. We are investing in digital platforms, automation and AI driven solutions while maintaining a people centric approach to services. In December, San Jose hosted its first GovAI Coalition Summit at San Jose Convention Center reinforcing the city's role as a leader in ethical and responsible AI adoption. This event aligns with the city's council priority of attracting investments in jobs and strengthening our position as a hub for innovation and forward thinking.

The first ever Gab dot AI Coalition Summit was a great success attracting more than 600 attendees from 160 local, state and federal agencies. This landmark event fosters critical discussion on ethical AI policies and shaping the future of AI governance nationwide. Beyond policy, the summit also had a positive economic impact on Downtown San Jose supporting local businesses through the Holiday Shop Local Campaign. Thanks to the collaboration of the City Manager's Office, Mayor's Office, Office of Economic Development and Culture Affairs and the Information Technology Departments. Attendees were encouraged to explore and support local residents and businesses and some of the numbers on the screen reflect some of the impacts or results.

Building on this momentum, we are actively planning this year's Gavii coalition was expected to be attended by 700 people. San Jose is leading the way in shaping the future where AI serves all residents responsibly, ethically and effectively ensuring technology remains a force for good in our community. I would like to highlight the city's effort in supporting innovation and digital transformation. San Jose was recognized by the Center for Government for leveraging technology, data and innovation to improve city services to the community. The city's What Works City Gold Certification acknowledges our excellence in using data demonstrated by the city's commitment to transparency, open data and performance management.

The Gold Certification positioned the city among top cities nationwide for data driven governance and excellence as less than 1.5% of incorporated city in The U. S. Hold a certificate. These achievements reflect San Jose's ongoing commitment to innovation, service excellence and responsible governance. It also highlight leadership and skilled and committed staff.

This concludes our presentation and staff is available for feedback and questions.

Thank you for the report. Do we have any public comment?

We do not.

Okay. We're gonna go to council member Kameh.

So so you know where my pain point is with three one one. I like the dashboard. I think, it's very useful. You can see a lot more than you had in the past, so thank you for the improvement. The one thing that we're still not, able to get clarity on is the responses to the public.

And, you know, one of the things that I imagined is, you know, whenever you get a delivery and you wanna track where that package is or, there's a way of understanding that it moves from the warehouse to, oh, it's on its way or whatever. And I don't know if something similar is, available for when someone has a something coming in to, report to, s j three one one to be able to determine, okay. Where's that thing? Where'd it go? Instead of saying, oh, the vehicle was already reported.

You still can't report it again on for sixty days. And I think that, you know, I I did, you know, learn that it is an outside vendor and that it takes at least fifteen days. I know that in the mayor's budget message, there is a suggestion to bring it in house so that we have greater control and flexibility. I think that's a good idea if we have the staff to do it. But I also think that, you know, we can look to other systems that seem to help us know, well, where is this thing?

Right? And and I think that if we're if we're able to make changes in this next fiscal year, I think that it would really, really help us. You know, the fact that it takes fifteen days for a vendor to respond or to, you know, get some kind of information to figure out, okay, what can we do to change this? And I know it's a system that is, I guess in technology terms is antiquated by now. Right?

So it's it's time to refresh it in a different way, reinvent it in a different way. And so I'm very hopeful to see other ways that that we're able to serve the public in a more open and transparent way because I like the dashboards, but it doesn't really tell you, like, where did your concern go? Right? So I I think that as you think about any changes, it would be really nice to be able to to understand that, yeah, you know, when it was originally put forth, three one one was at a different stage. Now, you know, we we can graduate it to to something even better.

So I wanna thank you for report, and I'd like to move acceptance of the status report on projects, managed by the city's portfolio products and project office.

We have first and second. And now we're going to council member Mulcahy.

Thank you. Thanks for the report. And Khaled, I on one of the slides it talked about, the sort of the scorecard and where you are in process. Can you talk about the videos camera management? What is that specifically related to? Is that people registering their Ring camera with PD or what is that directly talking about?

Thank you, councilmember. The camera management system is actually a system that is designed to bring a number, if not all the city's cameras that are owned by the city, airport, DOT, otherwise, into one system so that there's visibility. So it's not a residential camera system, but rather it's for the city operations. And right now, there are multiple departments that have different contracts for different camera management systems. The idea is to bring it all into one system so that it's easily managed, easily viewable just from one system and easily maintained from there. And also, the hope is that it will also provide a better costing because it's all on one system as opposed to multiple systems.

And is the drawback the fact that we have all these outstanding contracts that we're committed to that it's hard to wrangle those all together?

That's part of it. System is a little bit different, different cameras, different operational systems. And so so bringing them all together will require one program, one not one type of camera, bringing these different types of disparate cameras and different systems into one. That's really where the complexity comes in.

Okay. Thank you. So going to three eleven, my favorite. It's going to sound crazy, but I sort of think about three eleven as the TikTok of our community where it's we're asking people to be really interactive with our system, right? And it sort of goes to council member Kamay's comment about what we're giving back to those people that we're asking to tell us how we're doing.

Right? So I probably use it. I used it seven times already today. And now that I've got people on my team, we have a, text chain where I drive it down the street and I've taken a photo of a graffiti mark and I can just say, market in San Carlos making that up, right? And it goes into the system.

So we're using it every single day. And I so that sort of what comes back to me is not really encouraging me to keep going even though I do. And so we've talked about this like, how do we make it easier for people to get their information in and how do we make it even more rewarding when they do so that they know that their if their case is closed, what have we, the city, because now I'm on this side, I have to say we, what have we, the city, done with that information? And I just think we're missing a huge opportunity, and that's why I think about it as like TikTok. Why are people so crazy crazy about, maybe that's a bad word to be saying in this room, but social media sites that warrant kind of a reward for participating.

And I want us to think about that like how do we drive more people to the site to to do the reporting. That we just don't have enough city staff to cover ourselves. But then allow us to be more effective in kind of solving some of those everyday issues that are just driving people batty. I know that's a very, it's not even a question, it's an editorial, but I think you understand what I'm getting at.

Absolutely. Thank you for your question and thank you Councilmember Kemet also for your comment. I share your views on

Can you get closer?

Sure. I share your views that we want to be engaging and fighting and friendly. There is nothing more pleasing to me than to feel that our community is addicted to our three eleven app like they're addicted to TikTok. We are having challenges with not controlling the application and having to rely on a contractor that developed this solution few years back. And I welcome the message and the budget message from the Mayor's office that direct some funding to, so we can address this.

We were very successful in fixing a lot of the backend in the last two years. And I think now we're ready to do something about the front end. It's almost like building the foundation. You cannot build a building with cracks in the foundation. So the foundation has been rebuilt from the ground up in the last two years and now we're ready to really do something great.

And we're looking forward to the funding to make it happen. I'm going to share my view on three eleven just to let you know that we are online, but also where I'm going with it. Today we're celebrating that we're getting 300 interaction with the public on 03/11. I think our success is when we get zero. And the goal here is we're using AI as a pilot to see can we detect these failures or these issues that we see on the street before the public.

If there is illegal dumping, graffiti, potholes, if we can identify that and feed the three eleven and be proactive in delivering the service and this is part of our vision is to be anticipate where the service is needed and be proactive in delivering that service. We're hoping that one day and hopefully soon that when somebody sees an issue and they try to report a three eleven that we will say, we got it. We got notified. We found it ourselves two days ago. Here's the schedule.

Here's where we're going with it. This is really what I would call the TikTok equivalent of 311 that the public will have trust that the government is always one step ahead of them in identifying issues and resolving them. So this is really where we're trying to take the app. I know we're not there yet and it's hard for me to discuss the vision where we're still having some fundamental issues with the current app. But I'm hoping over the next twelve to sixteen months that we'll be making drastic enhancements that reflect that vision and get us closer to where we want to be.

That's great. And I love your idea that our goal is to get to zero. I mean that would be a joyous day. So I think it's fine. I could go on about the question about AI and how that's going to affect the user experience, but I think it kind of goes without saying that if you're focused on AI relative to getting ahead of it that the system would have to reflect the AI improvements as well that would help a user experience like geo tagging when somebody puts a photo in and they don't have to put the address in as well which is always a fumbly thing to do, right?

But I would assume that improvements to the app would include that kind of update?

The geotagging is a little bit tricky because if I'm taking a picture of that wall and I'm here across the street, then the geotagging is where my phone is versus where the issue is. So that's why it's but it's something that we're looking at how can we make it seamless and intuitive for them so they can do couple of clicks and they move on with their lives. But yeah, this is the spirit of what we're trying to do for the engagement with the public.

Thank you. I'm done with questions, but I just want to say thank you because I think it's such an important tool for us. Thanks. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Mukahi. We're going to Council Member Salas.

Yeah. I like to tell people, I've been on the outside for fifty years and I tell people the reason I took this job is because I've been complaining about the city for fifty years, and it's a good chance to be inside. Except for the three one one app. I love the three one one app and there is that janky part about the the geo thing that I wish we just put an address in, but I know you're working on it. I wanted to ask you two questions.

One is, do you have times when you have users who sit around and say, you know, here's the thing, here's the problem, or how you get feedback relative to when there's going to be an opportunity to improve but you actually talk to users? I don't use it as much as Michael does, but I use it quite a bit. I occasionally say, boy I wish you'd just talk to somebody that was really focused at that moment on what are the improvements from the user standpoint.

Usually the process when we add a new feature to three eleven like we did with the vehicle concerns application. We worked with the community to have community meetings and solicit feedback and concerns from them before we enhance the app or we add to it. So part of that process will be engaging the communities, different parts of the communities just to make sure that we have good representation. And also we have been collecting a lot of feedback through comments, through the surveys. So we have a decent understanding of the pinpoints for the public.

It has been just the funding and resources that can have been impeding our ability to move forward. But it looks like hopefully we'll get more support during the budget cycle and we'll be able to implement some of the enhancement that we've been thinking

Okay. And I think this is mostly editorial, but I have never seen this exhibit four, it's the vehicle concern performance metrics. Is that fed from three eleven or is that a whole separate dashboard or application? So

on our Web site we have the graphs. You can report issues on our Web site, but also on the banner we have dashboards. So some of the dashboards data related to three eleven. The performance metrics is one of them And the other one, we had a dedicated one for the data concerns, which pulls data from three eleven and also pulls data from other systems. Because the challenge where residents were frustrated that we're not towing cars enough, we're not dealing with abandoned vehicles fast enough.

So that dashboard was an attempt to present all our efforts so the public will understand that it's we're doing a lot of things. It's just there is a lot of issue that we need to address. And so that was really the main reason behind that dashboard is to communicate and be transparent with the public.

Great. Well this is before the editorial comes in because I don't think this applies to you because this is a beautiful dashboard, but if I showed this to my constituents they would laugh at me and they would be this is not right. And I'm going give you two examples. Number one, there's a bar chart that says DOT abandoned vehicles 60% satisfaction. I've had community meetings and all I hear is how nobody I reported this abandoned vehicle, it's been there for four weeks, no one's done anything. So again this is editorial because it has nothing to do with the technology I don't think, it has to do with how real this information is I believe.

So this is valuable information because when we did the vehicle concerns with DOT, Department of Transportation, we realized that the abandoned vehicles was a catch all phrase. So if somebody party illegally they call it abandoned vehicles, somebody lived in vehicles abandoned vehicles. If it's truly abandoned vehicles, it's abandoned vehicles. So when we broke it down into five categories that really allowed us to understand is it about cleaning around the vehicles, is it the lived in vehicles, is it the abandoned. So abandoned vehicles currently at 60% and these are the truly abandoned vehicles.

But if somebody reported abandoned vehicles because it was lived in, then that's a different classification. And it was important for us to kind of divide the information so we can pinpoint where exactly we need to put more emphasis to address the issue.

This makes a lot of sense that way with that exclamation, so thank

Your comment tells me that we did not communicate this correctly on the dashboard. So we'll take a note and we'll add a note or something to help explain the difference between the five categories.

And it is a beautiful dashboard. One other point that my constituents would believe it. I see that there was 41,469 total requests and there were 22,000 that were no violation. Again I think sometimes when I get the feedback from the 311 it says well we didn't do it because x y or z. So it sounds like half of these someone decided in three eleven universe that there were no violations, but I bet there were. It just wasn't they didn't put it in right or something.

So I think and I have to speak for DOT, but a lot of times when they investigate, they cannot find a legal justification to tow the car. And if you hover on that statistics, it will give you explanation why it wasn't, it was investigated and not towed. And we made a lot of attempt in communicating, but regardless we still need to look into better ways to communicate this information in maybe simpler terms. But this has been a struggle for us to, we get the feedback and we change the language, but I think we need to continue to improve in how we communicate why and the difference between the different categories.

Yes, and it is a beautiful, this is a beautiful improvement. It's wonderful, and again I'm a huge supporter and believer in three one one, so thank you for what you do.

Thank you.

If if I can add to what Khaled said, council member Salas, after each service request is closed, a customer satisfaction survey is gathered for those who want to respond. And in 2024, there were 16,000 respondents to those. So that helps us improve the app and helps us understand where we're doing well and where we're not doing well. So hopefully that helps address your initial thought.

Let me just comment on that. I'm trying to think. So when I get some of those sometimes and they say I didn't do it because of this, I wish I had a thing that I could comment right away and say I'm not happy, but I don't know. It's just there are a lot of times I'm frustrated because they closed it out by saying well we didn't get it or we didn't find it or we didn't do this. Anyway, just a comment. Thank you.

No other comments? Great. Let's vote. Okay. We got five zero.

Unanimous. We go to item number three, the police department operation and performance quarterly status report presented by lieutenant Paul Hamlin. And we do have our police chief and, couple of captains.

Thank you, chair, and good afternoon. I'm Lieutenant Paul Hamblin of the research and development unit of the police department. And with me today as you said are Paul Joseph, Chief of Police Captain Ali Mary of Central Division and Lieutenant Nakwai Sherri of the Traffic Enforcement Unit. And today we will be presenting the department's operations and performance quarterly status report. In today's report, I will provide the latest citywide crime statistics, which will take us through quarter two of fiscal year twenty four-twenty five.

And prior to giving you the stats, I'm going to provide a little background on the national incident based crime reporting system to put the numbers into context and to help explain why we report to the way we do. After the crime stats, I'll give an update on our redistricting project. And then finally, I'll provide a brief report on the department's preparations for Cinco de Mayo weekend twenty twenty five. Going back to at least as far as 1960, the department had used the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting System or UCR to report its crime statistics. On 09/22/2022, the department submitted a memo notifying counsel that it was transitioning to the National Incident Based Crime Reporting System or NIBRS.

The transition was made on 04/04/2023 and since then we've intermittently reminded and educated both the full council and this committee on the effects of this transition. Since the committee is comprised of several new members I've decided to go over some of these effects before we delve into the numbers. The primary difference between the two reporting systems is that the new system NIBRS is far more comprehensive. The old reporting system reported on a smaller number of crime types and only reported one crime type per incident based on a built in hierarchy, whereas NIBRS reports on over 40 different crime types and collects data on the top 10 offenses for any given incident. For example, under the old system, if an officer took a report involving a robbery, an aggravated assault and a burglary, only the robbery was reported because it was the highest on the hierarchy chart.

Under NIBRS, all three crimes are added to the city's crime statistics. Also unlike UCR, NIBRS collects data regarding the event, the victim, the offender and crime characteristics. For these reasons, comparing the new any new data to data gathered before April 2023 is misleading, which is why we currently keep our comparisons to quarter to quarter. However, by the end of this fiscal year, we will have two full years of NIBRS data and we can begin comparing year to year again and also given quarter to the same quarter the previous year. Okay, NIBRS if you'll remember is split into three general categories.

The first is crimes against person. Overall crimes against person were down slightly in quarter two from 4,223 in quarter one to 4043 in quarter two for an average of 4,133. Looking at the specific crimes in this category, we see an improvement in every single crime type except for manslaughter which remained at zero. The biggest improvements were in murder with an almost forty three percent improvement and human trafficking with a 47% improvement. Obviously these less common crimes are going to see larger swings percentage wise from quarter to quarter.

For example, if we do report a manslaughter next quarter, it'll represent a 100% increase. Turning to crimes against property, we see a slight jump from nine one hundred and twenty one in quarter one to 9,394 for a February average of nine thousand two and fifty eight. And then when we look at the specific crime types in this category, I'll point out the main reason for the overall jump. Reported theft and larceny cases are up 14.7% and we attribute that largely to our organized retail theft detail, which is reaching out to stores and taking reports on thefts that were previously going unreported. Our third and final category is Crimes Against Society, which stayed almost exactly even with quarter one going down by 18 total crimes in quarter two.

And, breaking down this category by individual crime, we see the biggest swings in animal cruelty, which was up from 32 in quarter one to 46 in quarter two, and prostitution which went down from 38 project. We'll start with a look at the timeline, which is the same timeline we've been showing since we undertook this project in 2022. As you can see, it has been a long eventful road to where we are now, involving a lot of hard work and collaboration from contracting with the consultant to gathering comprehensive data to community engagement to consulting with city stakeholders on the findings finally drafting an information memo with the department's response to the report's recommendations. The memo is complete and is currently in the vetting process. Now I'm going go over the four major projects the department has agreed to undertake pursuant to the redistricting report.

We mentioned each of these briefly in our last quarterly report in December. The first and most imminent project which is district wide dispatching. This is where officers working within a district are not assigned to a particular beat, but instead can and will be assigned based on GPS location anywhere within the district. We believe this will help lower call response times. We are planning the pilot for Central Division, which is four districts on all three shifts beginning in May.

The work group has already been formed under the direction of Captain Mary to work out legal, logistical and budgetary issues. Next in line is the redrawing of district boundaries to include reducing the number of patrol districts from 16 to 12. The department will convene a work group including community stakeholders to draw the new boundaries. Implementation of this proposal may require the meet and confer process between the city and the San Jose Police Officers Association as well as a realignment of the department's technology systems with the new district boundaries. Next is the Detention Services Officer Unit.

A budget budget proposal has already been submitted for 12 new positions in a new classification of employee that will be responsible for picking up arrestees throughout the city, transporting them to county jail and handling the booking process at jail. This will keep sworn officers in their districts for longer portions of their shifts, so they can continue to respond to calls for service and conduct proactive law enforcement activities. And finally, the two person unit deployment which we plan to begin with a pilot in Foothill Division at a date to be determined in the future. And now I'll end our report today with a status update on preparations for Cinco de Mayo weekend, will be Thursday, May 1 through Sunday, May 4. Members of the department's command staff, including Lieutenant Sherry here, have been meeting with District five staff for several months as they plan for the d five event, which will be held on Saturday the fourth.

Sorry. Excuse me. Sunday the fourth. Like last year, the event will include a parade which will necessitate the closure of South King Road from McKee Road to 680 and will culminate with an event at Emma Pruce Park. No other road closures have been preplanned and closures would only implemented on an emergency basis.

The department's media relations unit will continually update the public on any road closures or diversions or any other pertinent developments throughout the weekend. The department will utilize operational hours which incorporates twelve hour patrol shifts and contingent traffic diversions only if absolutely necessary in the downtown and foothill corridors for Thursday through Sunday and a contingent operations plan for Monday the fifth in the event that any unexpected activities occur on that day. And that concludes our report. As always, we're happy to answer any questions.

Do we have any public comment?

We do not.

Okay. I need a motion. Second. Well, thank you. Let's vote.

We got four zero missing, council member Kamay. We have open forum at this point.

Yes. We have two speakers, Julia and Carrie. Please make your way down to the podium and, whoever speaks first, if the other one of you could wait at the stairs.

Hi, I'm Julia Hug and I'm an eighth grader and I live a street away from the intersection of Bird Avenue and Pine Avenue and Willow Glen District 6. I emailed the city recently asking about better traffic control at the intersection and it was put onto the pedestrian safety enhancement list for a potential upgrade to rectangular rapid flashing beacons. This is a great step forward but it isn't enough. With both the public park River Glen and two public elementary schools Hammer Montessori and Goulars Elementary at the intersection, the lack of safety and chaos at the intersection as well as people frequently running the stop signs at many times of day are concerning and very dangerous for many young children. I have talked to the principal at Hammer Montessori, Stephen Bingham and he agrees that the intersection is a problem.

We need better traffic control and we need it now. During drop off and pick up on school days, the intersection is flooded with people in cars. People end up taking their anger out on the crossing guards who are just trying to do their jobs and it is difficult and dangerous for everyone involved. At other times, people often don't stop fully or just don't stop at the stop signs. I have data on this if you would like to see it at a later time, and the number of partial stops and non stops are alarming.

And people speed through the intersections as well, leading it to be very unsafe. I can remember multiple crashes happening during my and my sister's time at the elementary school. There were two specific very large crashes that I remember that were not cleaned up by the next morning. It is my firm belief that no child should have to walk over broken glass to get to school. There is no reason for this to happen again. It is completely avoidable. Please improve the traffic control at the intersection. Thank you.

Thank you, next speaker please.

Hi my name is Carrie Wallach and I live on the same block as Julia and we just so happened to realize that we were coming for the same thing. So I frequently walk my dogs in the neighborhood, and there have been several times where I've come close to being hit by cars while crossing the intersection at Pine And Bird. The last time was really close, and it was just me and one car. And then I decided to email the transportation department. And I have to say they've been great at responding and they've kept me updated on everything that they've been doing.

I also had asked for more signage lights and they had said that they can't do blinking lights when there's stop signs. So I don't know what that means, but they did agree that the intersection needs updating and my hope is that this will just be a priority. As Julia was saying, it's really dangerous. It's super chaotic. Nobody knows when to go. I just feel like it should be a priority because since there's that park and then there's the two schools, and then just there's a lot of us walking dogs in the neighborhood, and we all have kids. So appreciate you listening, and thank you.

Back to the committee.

Well, thank you for taking the time to attend today meetings and thank you young lady and and being have the courage to come up here and speak. At this time, the meeting is adjourned.