Public Safety Subcommittee

City Hall, Council Chamber City of Santa Rosa 100 Santa Rosa Avenue Santa Rosa, CA 95404 Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting Minutes - Final Wednesday, July 1, 2020 2:00 PM 1. CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Present: 3 - Tom Schwedhelm, Victoria Fleming and John Sawyer 2. ANNOUNCEMENTS None. 3. PUBLIC COMMENTS ON NON-AGENDA ITEMS 4. NEW BUSINESS 4.1 SCOPE AND MISSION Discussion of the scope and mission of the Public Safety Subcommittee. Mayor shared Public Safety Subcommittee is charged with reviewing public safety issues, annual reports, and after action reports for fire and police. Public Safety Subcommittee will review Santa Rosa's Public Safety policies and procedures and independent police auditor. Council Members discussed what they each hope will develop from the Public Safety Subcommittee. PUBLIC COMMENT Eric Fraser spoke on supporting Vice Mayor Fleming's statements about approaching the work in a broader way. A lot of these are systemic issues, understand the basis of what makes people safe would be hand and hand with creating the metrics and the mission between safety, and justice is a fine place to start when it comes to safety and the nexis with justice. Enforcement activities should broaden your scope to understand the efficacy of enforcement activities when it come to shelter in place orders, City of Santa Rosa Regular Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 8 Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting Minutes - Final July 1, 2020 which were enforced haphazardly and discriminately. Show the community you are serious about this discussion. It's really important that everyone is on the same page. Mani (Roman) commended Vice Mayor Fleming for her statement on what safety means; to me it revolves around preventative measures and criminality justifies why cops are here. SRO's are paused on campus, having an officer sends a message that implies criminality and that some of these kids are criminals. The scope of what a crime is keeps becoming broader and more vague. Safety in not part of the scope of their job. I don't see this as safety. Carla Wiking spoke in support of Mayor Schwedhelm's request for more data on types of calls being serviced by the Police so public has more of an understanding and it can help show where restructuring can take place; who is calling and why, concerned about people weaponizing the police department; find ways to have serious oversight of the SRPD, with community accountability, beyond auditor. Encourage the subcommittee to find alternative ways, other than internet based meetings and comments, to reach out to the community for input. The subcommittee members continued their discussion of the scope and mission of the Public Safety Subcommittee and future agenda items. A motion was made by Committee Member Fleming, seconded by Committee Member Sawyer, to waive reading of the text and adopt: Discussion of the scope and mission of the Public Safety Subcommittee. The motion carried by the following vote: Yes: 3 - Chair Schwedhelm, Committee Member Fleming and Committee Member Sawyer 4.2 8 CAN’T WAIT 8 Can’t Wait is a Campaign to address eight areas of police reform. The campaign is a national movement. The Santa Rosa Police City of Santa Rosa Regular Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 8 Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting Minutes - Final July 1, 2020 Department will report out on where the organization stands as it relates to this campaign. This update includes steps taken and policy evaluation. Attachments: Presentation (Uploaded 7/1/2020) Presented by Police Chief Rainer Navarro who shared the mission of the police department, discussed each of the measures of 8 Can't Wait in relation to SRPD's policies and procedures, answered subcommittee member's questions, and subcommittee members provided direction moving forward. PUBLIC COMMENT Eric Fraser thanked Chief Navarro for the update on the 8 Can't Wait program and discussed his concern about 140,000 calls that were responded to and less than 1/10th of 1% involved a use of force; deescalation "once we have compliance" with police 300 and 300.5, that framework can be used to analyze what happened with the protesters; offended that a deescalation technique was used to ramp up force during the protests. The public needs to understand their roll; read a quote on force vs. power. Lyn Lanto questioned what steps police are changing that they are not qualified for (i.e., mental health and abuse); are officers being held accountable when use of force is used?; what is the increase in SRPD's budget used for? Bob Wohlsen thanked Chief Navarro for taking initiative in implementing the 8 Can't Wait program; urged changes on using "when possible" to "mandatory" and "should" to "must"; as the subcommittee is determining the scope of their work and things they will be addressing and looking at, this is an opportunity to use work done by major organizations on this, (i.e. International Association of Chiefs of Police has an initiative called Shaping the Future of Police, and National Resource for State Communities). How can these resources be submitted to the subcommittee for consideration? City of Santa Rosa Regular Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 8 Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting Minutes - Final July 1, 2020 Mani (Roman) spoke on deescalation language used in the presentation, "after compliance" deescalation should be the mentality before going in and deescalation should come before compliance; and wants policy language changed about the duty to intervene the language "should" changed to "must". Keith Rhinehart spoke on responding to a friend in crisis, asked officers to offer the services of MST, and the officer's failure to do so contributed to his son's death; suggested defunding the Violence Prevention Partnership. Kichi voicemail was played on cops helping her when she went through a psychotic crisis, was treated nicely because she was white; when a black friend went through a psychotic crisis she was abused by the police; hire more firefighters; employ social workers. The subcommittee members continued their discussion of the language used in current Santa Rosa Police Department policies. Mayor recessed the meeting at 3:47 pm and reconvened the meeting at 4:05. presented Present: 3 - Tom Schwedhelm, Victoria Fleming and John Sawyer 4.3 POLICE AUDITOR The Police Auditor position works under the City Manager’s Office. The initial Auditor position assisted the Police Department in forming a Professional Standards Team and feedback on improved tracking and response of complaints. The Department seeks assistance in auditing timeliness in investigations, community engagement, transparency and accountability. City Manager Sean McGlynn requested direction from the subcommittee regarding the police auditor. City of Santa Rosa Regular Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 8 Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting Minutes - Final July 1, 2020 PUBLIC COMMENT Mani (Roman) thanked the subcommittee about hearing his request about changing the policy language; Jerry Threet, with IOLERO, encouraged public engagement but no access to data and the Sheriff's Office challenged and ignored his recommendations; the previous Santa Rosa Police Auditor had unencumbered access to data but no structure for the public engagement portion; wants to see that gap bridged with the new auditor; City should be obligated to see through any findings of the duties of the Police Auditor, proper funding and staffing, structure of reprimand, and means to report out to the community. Eric Fraser spoke regarding the former police auditor and was expecting a more substantive discussion; the previous auditor was fired; with the last auditor the intersection of the role unions played in the fate of public employees as well as the political process needs to be more transparent. Carla Wiking spoke on being confused on the City Manager's description on why Santa Rosa does not currently have an auditor; this opportunity to change this going forward, requests new position has lots of transparency and teeth to make change and some autonomy. Keith Rhinehart, a former member of IOLERO, shared that an auditor is not the way to go; we need to look at existing laws to super protect law enforcement officers and to not allow transparency to the public; recommends a citizen's oversight committee with some powers to change laws or rewriting public safety MOUs; look at IOLERO and community action committee as a failure; auditing reports that have already submitted by Internal Affairs to an auditor will not do much; consider a citizen's oversight committee. The subcommittee members continued their discussion regarding the role of the police auditor. City of Santa Rosa Regular Meeting Minutes Page 6 of 8 Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting Minutes - Final July 1, 2020 presented 4.4 AFTER-ACTION REPORT The Police Department responded to several days of protest following the death of George Floyd, which sparked violent protests throughout the nation. Santa Rosa experienced several days of protests. Many of the protests started out civil, but became dangerous and unlawful as the evenings progressed, resulting in use of force, including less lethal options. The Department is seeking an after-action report to review, evaluate, and provide a report regarding the Department’s response. The report should include actions done well, areas of concern and improvement, and how the response aligned with best practices. City Manager Sean McGlynn provided an update for the subcommittee regarding the after-action report, distinguished between the after-action and the investigation authorized by City Council, and answered subcommittee member's questions. PUBLIC COMMENT Eric Fraser spoke regarding the subcommittee's disservice to the urgency of the issue to say that this is the "beginning"; regarding the scope of the after-action report should have treatment to what lead up to the curfew- timeline, process, and decision making; show of force to put at jeopardy the lives of young people; a serious breach of public trust. presented 4.5 FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS Discussion of future agenda topics. The subcommittee members discussed items they would like to bring to future agendas. PUBLIC COMMENT Eric Fraser spoke on adding future agenda items: an City of Santa Rosa Regular Meeting Minutes Page 7 of 8 Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting Minutes - Final July 1, 2020 understanding on how healing happens, what public processes are in place to help citizens who see themselves as victims of injustice - how do they get their complaints addressed, what are the reparations?; guidance on how citizens, outside of a citizen's oversight committee, have access to facts and the mechanisms to verify those facts. Keith Rhinehart shared his thought that this was a constructive meeting and thanked the subcommittee for considering community input; I stand ready to assist in making policing our community something we can all be proud of. Charlotte spoke regarding the benefit of agenda documents to be ready before meeting instead day of; to provide details in advance to achieve level of community involvement subcommittee wants. Carla Wiking echoed Vice Mayor Fleming's request to look at Measure O and how to work around the measure; broader public safety picture more than just oversight as a future item. Gloria echoed Charlotte's comment regarding presentations needing to be uploaded earlier to provide awareness of the public; subcommittee needs more community input by broader promotion and transparency of these meetings; would like more info on the previous Police Auditor and disappointed on not hearing more at this meeting; more money in police will not help make the public safe. Mani (Roman) echoed the previous speakers on making this more accessible to the public; Measure O intertwined with the message from the public, no vote on bringing the SRPD budget down to the baseline, more explanation of the City Council's attachment to the measure. presented 5. ADJOURNMENT City of Santa Rosa Regular Meeting Minutes Page 8 of 8 Public Safety Subcommittee Regular Meeting Minutes - Final July 1, 2020 Hearing no further business, Mayor Schwedhelm adjourned the meeting at 5:07 p.m. Approved on: November 23, 2020 /s/ Elizabeth Licursi, Recording Secretary