City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. So we'll call this meeting of public safety to order. Time is 434.

I'M JOINED WITH COUNSELORS ONLINE. WE HAVE COUNSELOR DAVILA AND WE HAVE COUNSELOR CLIQUE BRUCE. COUNSELORS, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING. THANK YOU. AND RIGHT NOW BEFORE WE GET STARTED, WE'LL JUST KIND OF GO AROUND THE ROOM AND DO BRIEF INTRODUCTIONS OF EACH OTHER. WE'LL START WITH YOU OVER HERE.

OF COURSE. MY NAME IS EMILY CRUZADO AND I'M THE MANAGER OF THE FAMILY AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT DEPARTMENT FOR THE SPRINGFIELD PUBLIC SCHOOLS. EXCELLENT. OKAY.

LIEUTENANT BRIAN ELLIOTT, SPRINGFIELD POLICE DEPARTMENT. THANK YOU. Bill Baker, Chief of Staff, Mayor Sarno.

Jose Escobar, Assistant Superintendent for Public Schools. Tim Sheehan, Chief Development Officer for the City.

Excellent. Excellent. So again, thank you again. For being here, I wanted to put this meeting together to really discuss, obviously, the big kind of incident that took place at Union Station last week. And obviously, it's raised a lot of concerns. This is actually something I received calls on prior to the actual incident. On June 3rd, I received several calls about incidents that occurred at Union Station. a union station. I did get in contact with the superintendent acres and he was very accommodating and got back to me really quick and assured me that they were looking in to the issue. Obviously it seems to be a truancy issue. So a lot of kids who are skipping the school during the hours of the regular school day. So I'm glad that people from the school department are here. But I'm so glad you're here. And yeah, so I know obviously a lot of implications come too with the Sheriff's Department too. I know obviously SPD had reinforcements from the Sheriff's Department prior to their budget cuts and losing some potential reinforcements there. And I remember having a meeting on a public safety meeting in regards to that topic earlier yesterday. As well, and it was told me by Deputy Martin that it could be a potential for a partnership with the state police. So maybe this is a question for you, Lieutenant. Could state police help kind of in partnership with the SPD work in kind of filling those gaps, so to speak?

If we could kind of back up a little bit. Yeah. This isn't strictly a juvenile thing. It's not strictly a truancy thing. I wrote the program for the Safe Travels Initiative, so I know all about the Sheriff's Department. I regularly am in touch with the state police. I won't speak on another agency's behalf, but state police isn't the solution. And I can just say that globally. The Sheriff's Department isn't the solution. It's 100% the Springfield Police first. We will gladly partner with outside agencies, you know, collaboratively. And this isn't a mutual aid thing where we are underwater and need help. If they want to join in to try to help and move the needle on a social problem, by all means, of course. But this isn't a stolen car where we need help to apprehend the unknown suspect. This is more of a longitudinal thing. It's happening over the course of time. And speaking with the deputy superintendent here, In short order, we were in the meeting yesterday down at Union Station. I was in the meeting last night with the Springfield Redevelopment Authority. We're at that point where we need to meet, talk about problem identification and program plan. We put a program together, and it's a good program. The Safe Travels Initiative, the superintendent reviewed it, approved it, rolled it out in partnership with the Sheriff's Department. They're funding for whatever reason evaporated. And that's okay. I plan for that. This is a task force. And the task force is usually it's, it could be one agency that pulls officers of special specialty positions. Special specializes in certain things, or we could add other agencies. We work on federal task forces. We work on all kinds. So I set this up as a task force within the city, within the police department. So we're good on all of that. I've been in touch with the mayor and certainly the superintendent daily basis relative to staffing this. In addition, because we didn't budget for this, we obviously were moving resources, current resources. We're still in FY26, so it's a little bit of a scheduling trick, but the superintendent has given me all the latitude that I need to move resources around internally to make sure that we have minimum staffing requirements to make sure that there's officers present during peak hours. And then the Springfield Redevelopment Authority has at the 11th hour come in and said, they'll put additional resources in so that I can expand those hours

to include some of the weekend times that there's the greatest need that's great what are some of those resources from the redevelopment authority what does that redevelopment authority has put in over a million dollars in security on an annual basis to union station So, what the services that Brian's talking about are enhancing. The underlying security budget that the city or that the redevelopment authority already had in play. And to Brian's credit, I mean, he was able to get us more service for at or somewhat less than what we had previously been spending. And it's not just the Springfield Police Department that's down at the station. There's private security as well.

And they're wall-to-wall, when they're open until they close. Yes. And then we come in, the sworn officers come in to augment the private security. We have... Rules of engagement and strategies and programming in place. We're not the tip of the spear here. We're not running around chasing kids. The rules of the station are promulgated by the security. And that's worked out with Appleton Management Corporation. And then if that's not working, then we'll step forward to reinforce the rules, whatever the rules are. And the rules are very common sense based. And that's where we... um there's been a trend there's no doubt about it i mean obviously the mayor was there the other night and he saw some of it um and it's a negative trend downward but it's not springfield centric it's across the country and springfield has their share of whatever's going on nationally you know so so there should be no surprise to anybody but we have to adjust based on trends and uh You know, we're in conversations now with the school department because some of it involves school kids and some of it is they're non school kid offenders. And then over the age of majority. So they're not in school. They're adults. There's issues of addiction, mental health. It's kind of. multiple disparate issues that kind of collect in one spot at Union Station. So there's no quick fix. There's no calling in an agency. There's no magic formula that's going to address all of it. It has to be purposeful, planned out, budgeted, and there has to be fidelity to the program. If this is what we all agree we're going to do, everyone has a role. Yesterday we met with Juvenile probation, the head of juvenile probation, the district attorney's office was there just after yesterday's meeting. We're going to now have pre deployment meetings with the district attorney's office and talk about. best practices and next steps so that when we do engage, and there's going to be some that end up arrested, there's no doubt about it, what the court system is going to do to involve the parents. We're synchronizing our effort in ways that we typically haven't, but we know we need to do to address a complex problem. This is not a simple fix. But we have the resources, and we certainly have the intellectual horsepower to do it. And we have the buy in from other city. Certainly the school department. Yes, sorry. The superintendent has given me a wide birth. To work on this and programming is my expertise. Programming, you mean just in terms of- Law enforcement programming to identify a problem, to put a plan in place, to attach a budget to it, and to make sure that we hit our benchmarks, what we expect to have for outcomes toward the actual outcome, which is settling things down, making this a multimodal transportation center where people can come and just conduct their own business. They want to go on the bus, go on the bus. Whether you're a juvenile or an adult, you want to catch Peter Pan or a Greyhound, buy yourself a ticket and go do that. You need to catch Amtrak or CT Rail, go upstairs. All of which is none of our business. And it's no different than going to Bradley Airport or you go to South Station in Boston or whatever. We're just there. We're part of the scene. This is Homeland Security 2026. And that's what we want to reestablish at Union Station. That's great.

So you said part of that programming is developing a budget. What is it specifically for this? Well, we did it in budget programs.

The superintendent allowed me to move some personnel around, and he's moved some of his officers over to our area to deploy in Union Station. But this conversation wasn't had last year.

I think just so that you have the background on it, the SRA used to actually deploy – extra job details to the station. What's happening now, as Brian said, there's a repositioning of existing staffing from the police department to service Union Station as well.

So regular on-duty officers on regular deployments, not overtime. We've now set up a program where that's part of our daily work. We respond there as a planned response in support of the program. As opposed to there's an emergency, I need to have five. Yes, respond to an area on overtime. It's not in a one and done thing. This is an everyday thing now. This is identifying through analysis. He times of need peak times of having our resources. Present as a deterrent. As an immediate response, and as a consistent message that. You know, any shenanigans all the way up and through criminal behavior is not going to be tolerated.

And I think it's important to note that there's ebbs and flows with this in terms of there's bad days and there's good days. It's not every day that things are occurring.

Right.

And typically like seasonal as well. It's not out of control. Let's be very clear on that. And part of the ebb and flow that you speak of is as soon as we get a group managed and meaning everyone's heading off in the direction on other bus calls. And then you start from zero again. And with social media and the ability, these kids communicate as good, if not better than we do at the police department. And this is all pre-planned, which we may or may not know about or have been told. And they come with the knowledge of what they want to do. We're there and we have to be reactionary. And we need to open up lines of communication with the school department more than we do. We need parents. The one group that we're not talking to are the parents. And we're going to rely heavily on the school department to have those conversations, hopefully preventatively, so that the message is out there. You know, the mayor came down the other day. He saw what he saw. And he was very clear in his message that this isn't going to be tolerated.

Also, it should be clear that not all of the youths come from the Springfield public school system either.

Pioneer Valley Transit are pulling passengers in from Pioneer Valley, the greater Springfield area. The catchment zone are multiple towns and cities. This isn't Springfield School Department 24 in its palace. And this isn't a Springfield Police Department mess. We're trying to manage something that comes in from the greater Springfield area. And it concentrates about the...

So I'm just curious, so like, you know, reviewing some of like the, you know, the articles and the reports, it doesn't exist. Some of the reports and whatnot that were talked about, you know, they were estimated between 50 and like 70 kids at that one particular incident. Is it possible to identify maybe like roughly like percentage how many could have been non-Springfield, either like residents or kids or anything like that?

And those numbers are not shocking or unrealistic when you have a bus. A bus can carry between 30 and 50 people, depending on the type of buses. Peter Pan coach, I know, will carry 54 people in a seat. Well, the young lady that the mayor referenced was from Ohio, correct?

Correct. Oh, she herself was from Holy Cross.

And I just want to give you some perspective from the school department. This is not a new issue for us. We've been working with Union Station for a while. And we get the reports of the trespass. And just to give you some numbers, because we like to work in data. Over this past year, we had 81 students from Springfield Public Schools trespass. And we have 24,000 students. So if you think about it, that's less than 1%. Out of those 81, and I don't have, we couldn't identify all the incident times, but identifiably at least 21 of those incidents were not during school hours. So I appreciate the lieutenant talking about the complexity because It's not one issue. It's not one group's problem. It's going to be a collective process. I work with the probation. I was in a meeting before that incident with probation in the courts talking about how we address this. So I just wanted to give some perspective on that. We also have charter school kids. We have Like they said, kids from Holyoke. We dealt with that last year a lot. A lot of kids were coming from Holyoke or Chicopee because that's the union station. That's the hub. They'll come in and hit transfers. And so not, you know, some kids are overage. And so they look like they're in school. They're 18, 19 years old. Maybe graduated. Yeah. So it's a complex issue. And so that doesn't mean that we're not taking proactive approaches to deal with it. Just from the school department's perspective, we have a couple of things that we've been working on for years and that we're implementing. For example, we piloted a texting platform that took period attendance at Central. And what the feedback we got this year is that skipping dramatically decreased at Central. And so what we're going to be doing next year is we're going to be implementing that same platform district-wide. Because of this working collaboratively with probation, what we heard was when these kids got trespassed, the parents had no idea that they were skipping. So in this way, parents are going to be informed. We can kind of weed out kind of the followers and which ones are really causing the problems. And then we can create a more comprehensive plan of how we're going to address it. The other thing that we're doing, we've been in talks for the past year about creating teams where we're trying to re-engage students that may have dropped out or who are skipping. Starting in the fall, we're going to have a staff member there two days a week with a team to try to re-engage students back into the school system that may have dropped out or may be going around path. So from the school department's perspective, we have things in place. We definitely have been proactive on this front and we're definitely not reactive and we've had things already in the works. But we definitely want to be a part of the solution because we understand that youth are involved. So whether there are, whether it's after school or whether whenever it happens, we definitely want to be part of that solution. And we're going to work collaboratively with any department agencies to make that happen. But it just wanted to, one, give some real data numbers about, you know, how many students are being trespassed from Union Station that are Springfield Public Schools versus, you know, we did the numbers. It was less than 1% of the students getting trespassed from Springfield Public Schools.

That's a really good point. Nobody should leave thinking that this is isolated only to the Springfield Public Schools.

It's a complex social problem. That's sweeping the nation. And back to your question, is there any way for me to know? And the answer is no. We see a sea of people, 20, 30, 40, 50 people. Some of them are getting off the bus, have nothing to do with this. They're just there. And everyone's going to stop and pause. That's human nature. They're not involved. And then when we have to respond, we're going to the nucleus of the problem. And we're not there to say, okay, all of you that are present, now you're trespassed. All of you that are present are subject to arrest. That doesn't make any sense. And that's not what we're looking to do. We're looking to stop whatever's wrong, restore some order, and reestablish the rules of what you have to do. This is where you have to be cool about your business. And the mayor saw that in play the other day. And this girl from Holyoke, and there was a group that were vocal, they're antisocial, they're criminal in their behavior, and we acted and engaged them and arrested them. I mean, it's that simple. But to paint this with a broad brush of it's juveniles, it's truants, it's all Springfield, Couldn't even be further from the truth. And we reject that as a state. We have to sit down and we have to sort this out outside of an incident where everybody's calm and everyone's rational. And we certainly have the ability to do that. And we're doing it. That's right. Just to tell you how this is really happening. It really works. So a bad incident brings us closer together. And it has, and the systems are working as you would hope they.

It's tremendous. So you're saying that it's now kind of, or it has been a little bit, part of the kind of like the day-to-day of SPD. So what does that look like in terms of how many officers?

It's a post. It's a detail. It's connected to the Safe Travel Initiative. And we named that on purpose because it's not anti-juvenile crimes. shoe deployment. It's none of that. We just want everyone who's there for purposes of travel. It's not a hangout. It's not a mall. You can get yourself a drink and a bite to eat and get yourself some candy. But everybody there is either there for purposes of travel or they're a commercial real estate tenant who's going to park their car and go to work like we all do. Park our car and we go to work. And they want to just park their car and go to work. And they don't want anything to do with basically anybody who's traveling because they have their own agenda for the day. And so the officers through Superintendent Akers, we position them down there with an assignment for the day. There's a supervisor there. And it's my job to make sure that they're staffed. They have everything they need. And then I send... Most recently, additional officers through there to fortify the officers that are assigned there. Some of these posts were filled by the sheriff's department. We're sending the new officers and the field training officers through. We're sending a lot of officers because we just had a class of 50. There was only four sheriff's department sheriffs there. And now I have 26 new officers assigned temporarily to me, but we're taking advantage of that temporary assignment. I'm sending them through randomly or as needed.

Are those 26 part of the new graduating class?

They also have a field training officer with them. So it's not just 26 new officers standing around. I'm using that as an example of where am I getting all these bodies? I'm telling you where I'm getting these bodies.

It's very important that when sheriffs had to pull out, there was no loss for a spell. Oh, as soon as the sheriffs pulled out, we did not lose police presence or public security presence. Continuity of enforcement is consistent. Those bodies that left from the sheriff's office were supplemented by Springfield police officers. So the sheriff's office was just a force multiplier that complemented Springfield. In addition, on top of it. Exactly.

So when those bodies were removed, Springfield PD just inserted the bodies to replace them. And the relationship is strong. And there's a mutual respect. And if tomorrow they call me and say, hey, we're good to go. I have a place for them and they'll be woven in without delay. And as far as the state police, you raised it earlier, so I might as well finish that piece. They have a community action team and We're out through basically the whole city. Our unit has become the conduit relationship with the state. And when they're not working elsewhere and they're up in Hoyoka, they're all over the place in Western Mass. We've opened our door and said, hey, when you get some time or you want to come and partner up with us, by all means. And they do when they can. But it's on occasion and it's not planned deployments.

The mayor has had communications with Colonel Noble from the state police. And they've been more than generous helping us with the dirt bike patrols with the eyes in the skies on the helicopter, supplementing and partnering with the Springfield Police for certain events.

We're across. It's a great partnership. Not to concentrate their support at unions. Yeah.

And they're kind of as needed basis.

It's a finite resource that they offer. And we make good use of it when it's good.

So I do see we have either a comment or question from counselor Cliff Bruce. Take it away if you'd like to speak.

Thank you, Chair. I just want to make a sort of a comment and really hone in on what Lieutenant Elliott has been saying. It's a complex situation. I know I've been involved with this for over the years, obviously dealing with the youth and working with the Channing and all the other complexities that come with my job so i know we've been having these discussions for quite some time and um i really look forward to just working with the springfield police department also jose escobano and his team and everybody coming together to make sure you know we we uh you know calm that situation down at un station um so and a lot of it is also putting in some some legislation at the state office as well, which I won't get into at this point in time, but really just here to support our police and our school department. And I'll just let you guys know that you guys are doing a great job and I'm here to support any time that you need me. So thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilor. I do want to give Councilor LaVar a quick shout-out, too. I think it was a couple of years ago when we had another incident. The mayor got all the community centers together and did a universal community center pass to hand out to juveniles and youth to go to the community center, whether it's the Springfield Boys and Girls Club, the South End Community Center, and it's a universal pass. So they were not turned away at any of the community centers across the state. That's right. To use all those programs in your school. And they have their own internal database to track. So if someone went to the South End Community Center for basketball, or they went to the Boys and Girls Club for the pool, that paper trail followed so they could track where that particular child was going and utilizing those brokers. That's tremendous.

Is that a program that is being utilized this year?

And if not, can it be? I believe so. Yeah, I think it's, I don't think they dropped it yet. Okay.

Yeah, we have. It's basically through our Shannon Grant partners. And that's something we're looking to bring back, but we still have it in effect with our Shannon Grant partners.

Following up on Shannon Grant, they are doing a pop-up event at Union Station on the 17th.

They had one there previously in April, I think it was.

Okay. So, yeah, our Shannon partners are going to be at Union Station. And they're all throughout the community working with the Springfield Police Department, doing outreach and stuff. All the partners do a great job.

That's great. That's great. Yeah, I mean, again, I wanted just to put this meeting together to hear this explanation and to hear... Plans that you guys are working through. Obviously, I support superintendent acres and the efforts that you're doing as well. Lieutenant. They go with councilor clip who said in conjunction with the school department. I know you guys are doing great work. Put this together and. Make sure things run smoothly for our citizens. So I appreciate you guys taking the time to be here and. You know, give us this this information forward to this going out and. go to the public. But before we wrap it up, Councilor Dablu, would you like to say something?

Yes, I do. Can you guys hear me okay? Yes. All right. First of all, thank you everybody for being there. Lieutenant Elio, Tim, good to see you.

And everybody else, Cubano. I'm going to...

There was a lot that was said here today. But before I say anything, I want to First of all, thank you guys, because I'm aware that you guys are working on this situation. However, I'm going to speak to you not only as a city councilor, but also as a concerned husband. My wife goes and takes the bus daily to that station on a daily basis. And she works in a nearby building. I myself, a public servant, have personally witnessed the nonsense that happens there. This is nothing new. This has happened before. Maybe not to this magnitude, but there has been some serious issues before. Overdoses, psychiatric calls, drunkenness, you name it. And like the lieutenant said, this is a national trend. And this is a social problem, so it takes more than the cops to solve this problem. However, just because it's a national trend does not satisfy me. We need to address this issue here. And I know you guys are going to tell me that you are addressing it, and I know you are. And there's more conversation to be had, in my opinion, Mr. Chair, on this. But let me ask you something, if I may, Lieutenant Elliott. I want to make sure that I understood you correctly. So you're saying that you have some 26 new officers and they rotate as part of their regular duty to patrol the Union Station. Is that what I heard?

Well, those new officers are connected to training officers. So... And it's not all 26 at once. It's spread out over days off and all of that. So we're utilizing them out of the Metro office. I send them down every morning, depending on who's there and what's going on. We have to look at the day's business. But based on need, based on time of day, based on weather, there's a whole host of... attributing factors on the decision on who's going down there when?

So my succinct question, do we have assigned SPV officers to be there every second of the day as part, as an extra detail or part of, on a regular basis? No rotating on a regular basis.

We're there, if the station's open 16 hours, we've been covering close to 16 hours, Monday through Friday, and on the weekends based on need, and that's in collaboration with the building management when they see that they're either having an event or there's an expectation that they're gonna need some help. So we're not 24 seven, the station's not open 24 seven. We're there for, I would say more than two thirds of their operating day.

Okay, so that will, okay, 60% more. Now, who's footing the bill for this?

The superintendent and the mayor.

Okay.

Because these are on-duty officers on FY26 budget, which... we've had to reorganize some things to get there because I'm speaking out of turn here, but I don't believe the superintendent asked for additional funding to fund the safe travels initiative. So that's why I'm working hard with scheduling this time of year to make sure that we have good coverage. And it's not an overtime thing. This is on duty personnel.

Over time, well, over time is a concern of mine, of course, but I'm never going to be afraid to spend overtime to maintain law and order and to preserve life. So respectfully, if I may, Lieutenant, I think you're trying to do a good job, but I think you're chasing your own tail, not of your own doing. You said a little while ago, you... You finish with one crowd, another boss pulls up. So this is literally a full-time job. But if I may, Timmy, good to see you, Tim, Shannon. Is the SRA helping us financially with the offices there?

The SRA pays for the extra details that are on top of what the department's assigned to the station. And it also pays for the private security staff that's there. The SRA on an annual basis pays approximately a million dollars in security for Union Station.

Yeah, but that includes the private security, right?

That's correct.

So we have officers that rotate through there. Are you telling me then that the SRA pays for officers to be there as extra detail doing business hours?

Yes.

Okay, so I want to be clear because I... To be honest with you, I'm hearing otherwise. So you're telling me that every day, every second of the day, while they're open, there's going to be a police officer there paid by, oh, there is paid by the SRA.

I am not saying that. I am saying that on top of the assigned officers that Brian assigns, there's extra detailed officers that come in to supplement that as well. And on top of that, there's the private security.

So are there times in which there's no extra detail officers there?

There are times that there are no extra detail officers there, but there are assigned officers that are there out of the assignment pool that Brian has been talking about.

Which we are paying for. Now, that million dollars, does that include cameras, all the equipment, or is that just manpower?

I'm sorry, I missed the question.

The million dollars that you keep talking about, is that for cameras, manpower, or just manpower, just salaries?

It's manpower.

Just so. So between the police detail, extra detail, and security, they spend $1 million a year.

That is correct.

And there might be times that there was not an extra police officer involved. there, we fall back to our guns. That's basically the plan, right?

I think Lieutenant Elliott was just saying that on the weekends, it becomes more of a question if there's actually a need to have an officer at the station. But there's always some level of security at the station when the station is open to the public.

No, no, I get that. But I will argue to you, Tim, that something is not working. Something is not working. And I know because I've been there. I've been there in different capacities. Something is not working here. And so I understand about you single guys. Maybe the SRA can foot the bill more and put extra speedy offices and extra detail, but I'm very concerned. I'm being a little...

uh you know consequential of this because i am very very concerned oh which we all are so with that as i said mr chair uh i thought it should be clear counselor should be clear to you that spd actually has come up with the plan and if we need to modify the plan we certainly can modify it but oh timmy i'm very aware the sra is not the expert in terms of security for the building We are relying on the police department to give us a plan. We've got the plan. We've been implementing the plan.

Tim, I realize who's who. I realize who's doing what. I don't know what gave you that impression. I don't realize that. If something is not working, Anything happens to that building, it does not belong to the city, but also the SRA.

Well, one thing I can tell you that's not working is people that are coming off of the buses that get on for free fare, there is no acknowledgement or registration for free fare. So we have no idea who's coming into the station from those buses.

Well, you're talking about registration, and that could be part of the solution.

We think it is part of the solution.

Well, if it is, then it is. But what I'm saying to you, where we stand right now at this moment, I am very concerned. Tim, let me finish speaking, please. And please don't get defensive. I'm just telling my observations. I realize I opened by saying that we're actually working hard, but I'm very concerned. One, as a husband, and two, as a counselor. I am speaking because I live in the trenches as well. I'm concerned. I think with the chair, there has got to be more conversation about this, and we just cannot sit back and wait for something big to happen. So, plus I'm concerned with the money that we are putting up We sent in officers there because now Lieutenant Elliott has to send officers to the Union Station, which is fine, but then who's taking care of the rest of the city? That's a legitimate question. So anyways, there's more to be discussed here in my opinion, Mr. Chair. And Lieutenant Elliott, I do thank you, sir. I do respect what you do. I believe in your talent. Team, I also appreciate your work that you do, because I know you work hard, especially to have downtown to be a place that we can be proud of. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You're welcome. I do want to also acknowledge we have Councilor Hurst joining us via remote, too. I do kind of want to ask a follow-up question to what Councilor Davila seemed to have raised. If we do go through a registration process, processed and would that be through the pvta could that be through the city what is what does that process look like because i i do believe that we should have you know a fair free system i think it's it's traditional right now because prices are going up so if we were to do a registration process or have a track system would that be in conjunction with the city and the pvta would that be just the pvta can i just add through like that yeah the mayor does support free fare system.

It's just the structured system of how it's rolled out. And we understand the PBTA is a regional transit authority funded by the state. And it would be extremely difficult. I know the PBTA shared that just having Springfield registration. So it would have to be a system wide. That would have to fall on PBTA. Tim?

My understanding from PBTA is that that would require action from the advisory board as well as the legislature.

And I wonder, because, you know, somebody from the mayor's office, is that registration process been done in other regions of the state as well? Or is that, would we be the first to kind of go forward?

Every conveyance that you get on requires a ticket. And it could be a free ticket issued to you. And then you know who's on your vehicle, whatever it is, planes, train, cab. Everything has a start and a stop. I mean, we all went to school, we all had a bus and there was either bus tokens or an ID or something. With all the software that's available, I don't think this is a heavy lift. It's an expense. And this isn't an exercise to deny access. We're not saying that you can't enjoy a free ride on the bus. It's just who's on your bus. And we're not telling you how long you can stay on the bus. But we now know who's standing in the busway at PVTA, just like we would know who's standing at the busway if they're standing next to Greyhound or Peter Pan. And there are times where we get a call and it's like, hey, there's somebody on one of those named carriers. This is the bus they got on. This is where they left. And then we'll go down there for some level of engagement.

Well, and as you brought up, God forbid there be an incident on the bus itself. Nobody that's in a security role would have any understanding of who's on that bus.

Yeah, I think identification is the key. We would have no idea. And we'd have to count on the driver. How many people are we looking for? I have no idea. Was your bus full? That would be the question we would ask. And then we'd have to count seats. And in this day and age, that's not good. Yeah. And we have people that we know use the bus, people that work here, and the counselor, nevertheless, wife is on there. We would want to make sure that we accounted for everybody.

Yeah. Like I said, I think having that identification, if that requires a registration process, I think, like you said, it's not a heavy lift. I would support that.

That's the structure I think the mayor is talking about.

Yeah. So, you know, any other support for that, let me know. I'd be happy to support that structure of the system. Councilor Hurst, I see you have your hand up. Councilor Hurst, we can't really hear you that well. Hello?

Hello? Can you hear me now? Yes, sir. Councilor, yes, we can hear you. Okay, are there any cameras on the PBTA? There are cameras on the buses. So we wouldn't know based off of the cameras who is frequent if there's a disturbance on the bus, no?

Councilor, again, you were kind of breaking up a little bit as well. I don't know if... Gotcha.

Okay. It's a bad area. Can you hear me now or no? If not, then I'll defer. No, we're kind of getting choppy in and out. All right. That's all right.

All right. I think he was saying if there's cameras on the bus. Yes, there are cameras.

I think the issue is you don't a camera is not telling you if actually who's on the bus specifically. If somebody had to scan something that actually gave their identification that they were on the bus. I think that's the point that Lieutenant Elliott made. indicating that if there's something, I think you used the example, if there was an awful accident that happened with the bus, you wouldn't know specifically the roster of people that are on the bus. And I don't know what the accessibility from the main hub of PVTA, I don't know if it's a direct feed or what, but I don't think the camera is going to tell you who exactly is

Right name. Writing it. Yeah. The camera is just a general view, whether it's a video or still shots. And we use that camera system. If there's an assault or there's something that is connected to the bus and we do investigations all the time. But we have to go to PVTA. We have to get that bus back. The bus has to be downloaded. And then we have to go through the process of obtaining that video and then processing it. And that's all of an hour or more. And our duty to act is immediate. So there is a delay in any type of data recovery process. which is the video or whatever. So it'd be similar to your body. I have experience doing that. Whatever we have has to be downloaded, captured, reworked, and then disseminated.

A chartered bus is going to give you a log of everybody who's on that bus, a printout of it. You can't get on a plane without having identified who you are. And there's a roster for the plane of everybody who's on a plane.

A train is the same way. Right. One of the mothers that was at the meeting yesterday said that six flags, you can't get into six flags unless you show positive ID, and they will not let anyone in under the age of 21 without being accompanied by someone who is 21, older. You have to have somebody 21. So now of the age of majority, which is 18, they upped it to 21, and that's a positive ID. and then they'll spot check in the park. So IDs are important, for purposes of access and safety. Well, it's 100% safety.

I also wanted to give some perspective to around what our kids are doing. We have a lot of kids right here in the Mass Live building. They take early college. So they're taking the PBTA to stick to HCC. They're taking throughout the day. And that's not the only early college program we have. So I just wanted to give some context. So I think You know, just coming in and sweeping in and, you know, question every single kid. You know, one, we don't know if they're, again, adults, 18. So now you run into the risk of like you're questioning kids, somebody that looks young or somebody that's going to college or something. So we don't want to create an environment where we're harassing people. But at the same time. we need some accountability so um you know i just wanted to give some some of that perspective and this has nothing to do with the police we're not looking to create checkpoints and and you know access restriction area we're not set up for it we don't have the manpower for it and that's certainly the last thing that we're looking to get about it and i think that's why it's it's it's it's really important that we continue this collaboration again this is i know council Bruce was at the meeting last year when we were talking about this. He's been a part of it, the school department, the police, probation. And so as we collaborate, there's going to be incidents of things that happen, but we're going to continue to work to making sure that we're and that we're looking, continue to look at the problem and saying like, how can we improve?

If we had the ID, however, if somebody created the disturbance at the station, we would be able to go back to PVTA and say, did they come here via the bus? Then PVTA would be able to say, you came to the Union Station. You created a disturbance at Union Station. You no longer have services from the PVTA.

And to build on that, PVTA would say, you came on bus 123 off of Sumner Avenue. We can go get the video and verify all of that. We can see where they got on, where they got off. That gives us the opportunity to work it backwards. If need be. And that's what we need. Because otherwise it's a sea of kids. And we said, is there any way to identify them? It's a sea of kids. A sea of riders, let me say. And they're youth, adults, whatever. Whoever got off the bus. It's a sea of people. And we can't hand sort. I don't have 100 officers there.

And that would be improbable. And then meanwhile, that first bus coming in, somebody's texting to say, I'm at the station now. Then the next bus comes in. They know that their friends are at the station. So now you're getting a group that started with maybe four. It's now going up to 12. And then it gets to 25. And then it becomes a problem.

Right. There's no way to really track. At what point they can't make it.

The bottom line is we're just trying to create a safe place for transit so people of all age can use it to go to work, medical appointments, families, visits, whatever. It's that 1% that are the troublemakers. We can just create a system to isolate them and remove them from the equation. It's a peaceful, safe transit for everyone.

Yeah, it seems like registration identification is really like the key to keep that fair.

It's part of the solution. Parents are a big part of it. Notification that these kids are not going where they're supposed to go and they may be hanging around Union Station. I'd much rather have the school let them know than us calling them from 50 East Street saying we have your kids. We would much rather be ahead preventatively.

And as I had conversations with probation, and I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but they've told me directly that they've had kids trespass. And the first time parents are hearing about it was when they go to court.

Correct.

So this is why we're being proactive to eliminate at least that part of it that parents don't know their kids.

Sharing information is cool.

And I just wanted to bring up, because there was other conversations around kids showing IDs, but as this conversation really uncovered, that not every student is a public school student. So just showing ID and saying, I'm a student, I can get on the bus, or show an ID, they can say I'm not. from spring football schools, from Chicopee, from Holyoke, from wherever. I'm not in school. I'm 18. I dropped whatever. And so just showing a student ID at spring football schools is not enough. It's not going to really solve that problem. But we're working again collaboratively to come up with solutions.

Yeah, that's great. Again, I can't thank you all enough for being here and again, explaining all this. I think you did a great job and I have full confidence in our school department and our police department to get done with this. Like I said, if you sign off on a structured system or anything like that, you might be happy to do that. And again, so counselors, you want to try Again, see if you can.

Let me see if I can try it. Do you guys hear me?

Yes, we can. Yes, we can. All right.

Just a quick question. You all said that this issue is not new. Is the issue that you all started to work on last year? Is that correct?

Yeah. Well, from my point entry into this was last year, school department got involved with Union Station.

Okay, and so the collaboration that is occurring now did not happen last year. Is that correct?

Well, we're increasing, for sure, the collaboration between the school department and the police department. Yes.

So just to answer some of that. So there were things that came out of it. Obviously, it's a year out, so not everything. So one was the sheriff's committed to putting officers there. On our end, that's when we started piloting the texting platform just to, at least on our end, notify parents. on the skipping. And so that, that probably went well. So there was some things that came out of it, obviously not enough because we're here again this year, but just to give you some context about what happened last year.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I won't ask any more questions as I did come in late.

All right. Thank you, counselor. So again, thank you guys all for coming. Meeting adjourned by 25.