Welcome to the regular meeting of the Public Health, Safety, and Equity Committee for April 29th, 2026. I am Jason Chavez, the chair of this committee. Before we begin the meeting, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all members, staff, and the public that are broadcast live to enable greater public participation. These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community. Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast. We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments. At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll so we can verify a quorum for this meeting. Council member Payne. Present. Council member Mosley. Present. Council member Rainville. Present. Council member Vita. Present. Council member Whiting. Present. Vice Chair Stevenson. Present. Chair Chavez. >> Present. That is seven members present. >> Let the record reflect that we have a quorum. I remind my colleagues that we'll be using speaker management today, so please make sure that you're signed in. Our agenda is in front of us, and we will begin with our consent agenda. Item number one is authorizing contract amendments with various vendors for continued services to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Item number two is accepting a grant from the Federal Office of National Drug Control Policy for High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program. Items three and four are gift acceptances. Item number five is approving a legislative directive related to researching drones as first responders. Item number six sets a public hearing for May 13th, 2026 to consider an ordinance related to law enforcement concealment of identity. I will move to postpone this item until June 3rd, 2026 and we will discuss setting a public hearing at that date instead. Item number seven sets a public hearing for June 3rd, 2026 to consider a contract amendment with Sound Thinking Inc. for a gunshot location system. Item number eight authorizes the contract with stored with Restorative Justice Community Action for Restorative Justice Program Services. Item number nine authorizes an increase and extension of the joint powers agreement with Hennepin County Human Services and Public Health Department. Item number 10 refers to the May 5th, 2026 Committee of the Whole meeting, a report regarding an internal review of the shooting of Davis McCutcheon. >> [snorts] >> Colleagues, is there any discussion on any of these items or would anybody like to pull it any item for further discussion? All right, I don't see anybody on queue. So, with that, I'll move approval of all these items except for item six, which I will move to postpone to the June 3rd, 2026 meeting. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say nay. Any abstentions? And those items have been moved to the full council meeting. And one has been postponed to a June 3rd for further deliberation and discussion. Colleagues, our next item is an overview of the summer safety plan on by Commissioner Barnett to begin that presentation. Or Andy. Welcome, Commissioner. Good afternoon. Thanks for having me. I'm Todd Barnett, Commissioner of Community Safety for the city of Minneapolis. Today we'll walk through the city's preparation for the summer. A time where we know that the activities in the city increase and it's the demand on our system during the summer. This is a coordinated effort across OCS and other departments. Our focus is on visibility, coordination and results. We're building on the progress we made and making sure we're ready for a busy summer. I'll start with a quick overview. Like I said earlier, this is a multi-department effort with all of our OCS departments, police, fire, 911, emergency management and neighborhood safety. Summer of course begins and we know that it's more calls to 911. 311 as well as more activity which puts a demand on our system. Our focus during this time of the year is around prevention and our response and also communication. We want to prevent issues before they arise. We also want to respond effectively when needed and keep the public informed. The goal is to maintain strong services across the system throughout the summer and the major driver of that is our large events that we have here in the city of Minneapolis. And on this slide you'll see a list of those events. I won't go through them but you know, Minneapolis once again hosts a significant number of large events. These events are from local celebration to major regional events and national events. This slide of course shows um a list of those events. These events are important to the city, but they also increase demand on our system from crowd management to uh emergency response. Our focus is making sure that these events are safe, well-managed, and a coordinate and coordinated across departments. Our planning for these events are already underway, and that leads us to the next slide which deals with uh coordinating and planning. Of course, coordination is the foundation of our plans. Departments are working together early and more consistently, sharing information, aligning strategies for this summer, and clarifying roles. I don't want to forget uh to mention, you know, we continue to work with our uh local city um partners, our county partners, and our state partners uh during this time as well. That allows us to be proactive and respond more effi- efficiently uh when needed. Ultimately, it's about operating as one system to deliver the level of service that the public expects. So, from here, I'm going to pass it on to Chief O'Hara. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Welcome, Chief. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Commissioner. Uh my name is Brian O'Hara. I'm the police chief. Just going to start off with uh talking about where we are so far year-to-date in terms of crime in the city. Um you know, the the larger metrics uh over a longer period of time uh are a greater indi- indicator, uh particularly when we look at this this particular first slide uh in terms of shootings and homicides was be- when the time that this was due to the city for this presentation, it was comparing against uh a low that we had last year. So, I'll give you the figures as of right now. Non-negligent homicides in the city, we are at 11 compared to 10 at this period last year. Uh which year-to-date is an increase of 10% and the 28 days, the current 28 days now is three this year versus two. Of the 11 homicides this year, nine were the result of fatal shootings. Uh one incident was uh blunt force. A person was punched uh and they fell uh and then wound up dying after the fall, so that counts as a homicide. Another one was someone intentionally struck by a vehicle. Uh so, that also counts as a homicide. In terms of shootings in the city, as of today, there are uh 59 shooting victims in the city compared to 69 at this point last year, which is a decrease of 14% year-to-date. Uh and the 28-day period now is 18 versus 20. The rest of the statistics uh remain uh the changes remain fairly constant. Uh 48 carjackings year-to-date versus 47 as of the the time period on the slide, 789 assaults versus 671. And then the gun violence index, which is a count of uh all of the data metrics that we have around shootings. So, actual reports of shootings, ShotSpotter activations, calls for shots fired, uh and persons with a gun call, those are all aggregated together uh in the gun violence index. Uh so, the the tally of all of those calls is down by 7% year-to-date. Robbery year-to-date, which is good uh calling it like a good bellwether crime uh to tell how you're doing with street crime in general, we had a significant decrease last year. We're on pace to have a decrease again overall this year. Uh overall robbery incidents down so far year-to-date 20% 220 compared to 274. Within that, uh slight uptick uh for robbery of person 72 versus 67. Aggravated robbery, uh the most more serious category, 86 versus 137, so it's a decrease of 37%. Carjacking up by one, 51 versus 50, and business robbery down by 45% 11 versus 20. The previous 3-year average uh for robberies is 345. The average of the previous 3 years coming into 2026, so we're at a decrease of 36% compared to the average of the previous 3 years. Police-focused enforcement details, that's something that we step up during the summer. Uh we intend to do that again this year. As we've done in the previous 3 years, uh we've we've uh had an entire week uh where we gather with all of the different law enforcement agencies, the county attorney's office, city attorney, and we conduct uh week-long operations of targeted enforcement. Um that's the culmination of a lot of in- investigations that are taking place not just in the police department here, but all of the different outside agencies that participate. Uh we'll we'll conduct enforcement with us targeting uh the people that have the greatest propensity for violence. It uh the goal obviously is to try and set the tone as the weather is warming up uh and to show a police presence focusing on those who are really driving a lot of community violence in the city. The objectives are to coordinate resources with all of our partnerships, federal, state, and local. Use available intelligence and data making sure that we're having an intelligence informed approach and ensure that our focused efforts are maintained during the peak periods of violence that we have in the city. And as with everything else we do, we maintain data and metrics around that and follow up on criminal cases. >> [snorts] >> One of the challenges everyone is aware of that we've had in recent years has revolved around auto theft. We've had a slight uptick in auto theft again this year, but a related problem to auto theft that has been affecting the residents this year have been damaged to property. Have been kids driving around in stolen cars and damaging windows out of vehicles. So a new approach that we have just implemented that will be fully up this summer started this week is we have assigned personnel from the police department to the county sheriff's auto theft task force. That's led by the sheriff, Sheriff Witt, and she has a team of deputies as well as some other agencies I believe they are intending to join that will help us further investigate auto theft in the city which by extension should help us better deal with some of the issues that we've been seeing around these sprees with damage to property. So MPD partners with outside law enforcement agencies countywide to conduct combat auto theft, car jackings, and related crimes. A number of the stolen cars, many of them are involved in joyriding and dangerous driving in the city while a number of others uh, are involved in more serious crimes. We have persons arrested uh, for carrying firearms in these vehicles, committing robberies, and other crimes. Uh, assigns dedicated personnel to the task force uh, while still placing them under the supervision of the MPD. So, there's been a supervisor assigned in the juvenile unit uh, who answers to the juvenile lieutenant. Uh, as this is largely a a problem uh, that we have with a small number of juveniles and there's uh, additional officers that have been assigned to work with that sergeant specifically for the sheriff's task force. It provides rapid response capabilities to police when these crimes occur in the cities. It helps coordinate and really expand our uh, ability to conduct investigations around these crimes and enhances our coordination and communication with other law enforcement uh, in the region. So, FAST and VICAT, these two uh, acronyms, the firearm assault shoot team uh, and the violent crime violent violent criminal apprehension team. So, these began these two teams began several weeks ago. Uh, we have a number of outside agencies that are participating with us in these agents in in these task forces in in these units, both FAST and VICAT. We have support from uh, the sheriff's office, uh, transit police, University of Minnesota police, uh, BCA. Uh, there's uh, federal law enforcement is not yet has not yet assigned personnel, but we're in discussions and we expect uh, support both from the FBI and the ATF in-house with us uh, as well as uh, some of the other surrounding towns. I believe Bloomington uh, will be will be assisting with us this summer as well. So, the whole purpose of uh, the FAST team is to have a team once again that's dedicated uh, to targeting specifically uh, non-fatal shootings. I know this is uh, sure, has been an issue uh the council member uh Wansley has uh has championed and she has been uh she has been to the unit and met with a lot of the folks uh seen you know how we have this set up and are structured. And the theory behind uh really needing a non-fatal shooting team is the nature of community violence and to try and increase uh try and increase clearance rates. So, for uh for efforts so far uh looking back on 2025 as some of the 2025 homicide cases as have recently been closed including one I think yesterday we're at 80% uh clearance rate for 2025 which is the highest the department has ever had uh in in in recent history. And for 2025 non-fatal shootings we're at 40% uh clearance rate now which we expect that to to go up and to be higher uh for non-fatal shootings this year. The nature of community violence is as mentioning uh the overwhelming majority of shootings share similar similar characteristics. Uh it shares uh a lot of the same folks involved both as suspects uh and as victims and when you compare fatal shootings versus non-fatal shootings uh really the the only difference main reason why we have a difference between clearance rates is just law enforcement's ability to uh to focus uh resources as quickly as possible uh on on investigating non-fatal shootings. The way this had been handled over the last couple of years because of staffing is that the homicide unit was investigating the non-fatal shootings as well. In between investigating homicides. Um you know, just like uh just as I was mentioning before now having a separate team allows us the ability to send uh a specific fast investigator out to the scene immediately, uh, whenever we have a report of a shooting. That is different than in the past. In the past, uh, the practice had been whatever the on-duty investigator was, no matter what investigative unit they were from, that would be the investigator go to the scene, and then it would be assigned on the next business day, uh, to a homicide investigator to follow up. That has changed now. So, now we effectively have the same level of response to non-fatal shootings that we do, uh, uh, that we do for homicides. Uh, and that's why we expect, uh, we expect, uh, the clearance rates to be higher now for this year. Additionally, with the creation of the violent criminal apprehension team, this was a significant gap over the last few years in the department because we just did not have one set group of people to go out and target, uh, you know, fugitives and other wanted violent offenders. So, now, as soon as an investigator develops probable cause, uh, to arrest a shooter or another violent criminal, we have a team specifically dedicated to tracking those individuals. In the past, this would have to be farmed out to, uh, the precinct's committed response team, with the gun investigations unit. There was no central place, 24 hours a day, uh, that would be responsible for it. So, now we have this this team, and that will help, uh, just frankly, that helps get, uh, violent, uh, particularly gun, uh, offenders off the street, shooters off the street faster. And that team, as well, is supported by, uh, the outside agencies that I mentioned. So, [snorts] additional strategies, uh, I'm sure most folks are aware of the the curfew task force. That's our juvenile unit that goes out and, uh, engages with the families and, uh, young people that we know are active, uh, in uh, known to police and active in crime. Uh we've had uh a a number of success stories from that. The investigators are able to develop relationships with parents and guardians and are able to conduct referrals uh when appropriate to uh to the family and and uh other issues that they may need. So, that will continue. Uh part of the issue I think that we've seen this year with some of the damage to property stuff uh is we have had uh some young people getting involved in crime that were not known to us before. So, I think that's part of the lag time in uh trying to address some of this better. Created a 24/7 watch commander. So, what happened here traditionally is the the watch commander position was uh 10 hours overnight uh at night uh and and on the weekends. As a result of the surge, I added a lieutenant's position uh in the operations center downtown and I extended the watch commander shift to 12 hours. Uh so, that effectively now there's a lieutenant on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week that's responsible for operations citywide. Uh one of the priorities of the lieutenant now in the operations center since the surge has ended has been to monitor calls for service citywide. Um that that I think has been effective. Uh I have some slides ahead where I can show you some of the results that we have uh in terms of better response times. That is one thing that plays into our ability to respond uh faster to calls for service, but it also helps coordinate citywide resources and ensures that there is one person responsible for the city 24 hours a day as calls for service are happening. An additional change that we're making, the property crimes investigators remain understaffed. They are dispersed out through uh the different precincts. Um but I think one thing that we're seeing citywide is we're seeing these sprees happen that uh right now it might be happening in Northeast and in the next hour the same crew might be somewhere in South Minneapolis uh and you know, damaging windows and other things. So, just to ensure that we're not losing coordination uh because it's different from the way property crimes have traditionally been investigated, we're going to place that under one supervisor uh to ensure that there's better coordination when these uh these investigations overlap uh and better accountability. We've added a jail efficiency beat. So, that's essentially uh we're identifying times um where we have the uh the greatest uh we have a lot of arrests and we have the greatest wait time for officers trying to get uh transfer the prisoner over in the jail. There's times you know, because of uh because of how this process works, there's only one place and one door that you can go through at the county jail uh to bring prisoners in. There's times that we've had officers in squad cars down there for a couple of hours literally waiting with a prisoner in the car just to transfer the person over. So, we've what we've done is we've identified times periods uh where that's the the wait we think is going to be greatest and we're going to have uh you know, we're going to have arrests coming in and now we have uh officers assigned to a specific beat when there are no arrests, but once there are arrests they can go down and the the police officer making the arrest can transfer uh the arrestee over to the officers assigned to work the jail beat so that they don't have to sit there and wait to transfer custody over. Um and we actually we have a van uh that if there's multiple prisoners coming down, the officers can sit uh in the booking van uh and essentially, you know, hold uh folks in the van inside of the garage as they're then able to uh transfer custody over to the sheriff's office. So, I think that that helps uh both response times because we're not going to have cops sitting for hours sometimes uh with a prisoner in the back of the car waiting to waiting to transfer them over. Uh and I think it also helps for proactivity uh because you know, some of the officers that are out there on proactive beats, whether uptown or in other parts of the city, are looking to remain engaged. We're able to get them back in service and back on the street uh where they're needed. The late night safety plan, um we're going to continue to do that. That has been reduced uh this year um compared to last year. Uh and it's been reduced for financial reasons. But what we're looking to do this year that's different for the summer to really boost that up without um without incurring the overtime costs is we're we're going to do uh the chief's beats, but we're going to do that differently this year. So this year uh we're going to assign officers late at night, Friday and Saturday nights, uh from 6:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. uh in the areas of the city where they're needed, downtown, Dinkytown, uptown, where the bars are. But we're going to have everybody that's not assigned to patrol have to pick shifts Friday night or Saturday night. So we're looking to staff about 30 people every weekend night uh on straight time. So they're going to have to take time off from their regular work schedule. Investigators not go to the office uh sometime during that or you know, training staff or others, including you know, the chiefs and myself, uh and then have to staff on straight time uh those those late nights. So that's that's the way the uh the chief's beats will work and that'll run through June, July, and August, June 5th through September 6th. Uh and that's everyone that's sworn that works in the police department that is not assigned to uh respond to 911 calls currently. So I think that'll that'll greatly enhance uh our ability to have police presence late at night over the summer um without incurring any costs, any additional cost for overtime. And also related to, uh, the response times, uh, we've added to the the CompStat process, uh, every week the inspectors have to brief out on any outliers around, uh, response times. If there any calls that took, uh, unusually long for the officers to respond to, uh, the inspector looks into it and is able to explain the reason why that happened and what's being done to correct it. So, let's talk about response times, uh, a couple times during it. You can see towards the end of 2025, we were on a trajectory. Priority one calls are emergency calls for service. Traditionally, the department, prior to 2020, the goal had been to respond to these calls in 7 minutes or less. As you can see, they had been going up for most of the year. At one point, uh, this year and the last couple years, they'd gone as high, uh, there were weeks where the average was 9 and 1/2 minutes to respond to emergency calls. That's largely due to, uh, the staffing and increased calls for service. There's a number of changes that were implemented, uh, towards the end of last year to ensure that we are having officers clear out faster, having supervisors take take responsibility for assigning officers faster, uh, and and other changes that we're making around staffing and overtime to try and ensure that gaps are addressed so that we can respond to calls for service faster. And if you notice on uh, second from the right there, we had one week, uh, the 13th week of this year, where we were below 7 minutes. Uh, and that particular week was the fastest week the police department had on average for response times since, uh, mid-May of 2020. Um, so it's very significant with the staffing still being much lower and not having, uh, a police station, uh, on the south side where officers were responding from because that's one of the gaps that we have is the challenges around shift change with officers coming from downtown to respond to calls in South Minneapolis. Very, very significant that we that we had met that goal. This this last week we're at 7:15 on average for 911 calls. To compare it to last year at this point we're at 8 minutes and 24 seconds. So more than a minute faster with more priority one calls for service this year. And again, this is something that plays in also to that that full-time lieutenant's position that I have to monitor calls for service citywide and reassign people if we need to. Faster response times also extend to priority two calls which are the non-emergency calls. As you can see they also were on a trajectory going up until we implemented special order a number of changes. This week we are at an average of 19 minutes and 46 seconds. This point last year we're at 24 minutes and 28 seconds. So it's about 5 minutes faster to response times to priority two calls for service. Again, with more calls this year. And with this I'm going to invite uh Assistant Chief Gaiters up to to speak on some of the community programming that's being planned around the summer. Thank you and welcome Assistant Chief. Thank you, Chief. Good afternoon Chair Chavez, Vice Chair Stevenson and council members. Uh just wanted to briefly talk about our community engagement piece and how important that factors in and is worked in with our our strategies over the summer. Holistically when you look at all of this and the things that we've been talking about since the Chief uh brought in his strategies and for the summer plans, it's extremely important that we continue to engage with our community members throughout the summer. And I'll get to the end of this slide anyway. I'll I'll expound on it a little bit more. Um, but we have instituted the MPD Youth Academy. Uh, if you remember the Citizens Academy, which is the next bullet point down, we reframed it, restructured it, call it now the Community Academy. And what happened from that is it spun off where the chief said, you know what, this is great. We have a program that engages with our adults, trains and educates our adults about the police department, how things work, city ordinances, laws throughout the state. And we have not engaged with our youth. So, what he did was put together a plan and a structure where now we bring in our youth to a youth academy that gives them the education that they need as far as understanding how laws work, gives them opportunity to question officers and why things are done the way they're done, and gives that structure of inviting them in to engage with officers, and they get to know the officers as well in the process, and understand that they're a very important part of our community as well, and not just going to the adults. In the past, it had been where >> [snorts] >> we had have community academies, and teens would show up with their parents, and they wanted to ask a question, but the questions would come through the parents. This way, they have their own space, their own opportunity to engage with the officers in the process. And if you go to the third bullet point down for our Chief's Community Barbecue, one of the biggest hits. Never thought it would be this big, but that's the question we get all year round, when is the next Chief's Barbecue? And what the chief did was in institute a a formula where we could actually be out in the space of community, in the neighborhoods with community, and they can come up and engage with everyone from the chief, the the assistant chiefs, deputy chiefs, our officers who are out, along with community members, and who are in partnership with the police department, and they can gave it engage in conversation and ask about uh what's going on with the the community, what's going on with the next steps in the police department. They can ask the chief himself and hear it straight from the chief's mouth what he's trying to do with the community and his strategies as well. From that spun the people's barbecue. Uh many years ago we had the Battle of the Badges. Uh kind of fell off in round the 2020 piece, and the chief brought that back. And that's a piece where you're having community members have an opportunity to not only meet with the Minneapolis Police Department, the transit police, Hennepin County Sheriff's Department. We're all together with community, and uh we have the opportunities to just uh go over what's going on going on in the community and uh strategies that are taking place again. Getting back into the youth piece again, we have the MPD bike rodeo, and that promotes bicycle safety and skills while providing uh demonstrations, and the kids love of course the free bike helmets to go out. So that also um helps with the safety piece. >> [snorts] >> The other point, and I know at least one council member is paying close attention to this one, the uh PAL piece, uh the Police Activities uh League. That is something that was extremely important, you know, uh prior to 2020, and a robust amount of our our youth were engaged in that process. After 2020 it somewhat fell off, and we were trying to put it back together. The chief was trying to make sure that we had the officers in place, the right officers in place who were able to do that, and we were approached by um Council Member Vita as well. And uh and and this is so important because a lot of times when you're you have uh as my grandmas used to say, idle hands, you know, and uh it never never was a good combination. And if you keep kids busy, and you keep them uh off the streets, A lot of times when they're busy, they're not getting engaged or influenced to do something they shouldn't be doing. The The Peace at Police Activities League is one of those programs that does that for our communities all over. And so, we've been working very hard in bringing that back. The chief has assigned two officers to that program. They're doing a great job with it and they're trying to bring you back the activities that take place in the evenings. And in the future, we want to get the educational piece into that as well to assist them with their homework. >> [snorts] >> With that as well, as you see in the front part of the title of it is the the field trip. So, we're getting into trying to get them to take them on field trips and have experiences outside of just what they see right in their their own neighborhoods. The other [snorts] very close running piece to popularity is the Lights On program. The Lights On program is that program when in the past where people were pulled over for say a headlight or tail light, they had to pay for those tickets. Now, we've changed our strategies in in policing where we're not pulling over individuals for those minor infractions. However, there's still that opportunity that chief put in place where in the different neighborhoods throughout our city, we engage with the Lights On program and they can come out and get vouchers. And they can come to our precincts and get vouchers. And if they happen to have a head headlight or tail light that's out, they can use that voucher to go and pay for getting those equipment violations fixed. So, if they're in Minneapolis or in the suburbs somewhere who don't operate the same way we do with pulling over individuals, they will not encounter that uh activity where they're being pulled over for having a headlight or tail light out. So, that is a very popular program and then we'll continue doing that throughout the summer. >> [snorts] >> And as these events, as I was saying, bring it together holistically, these events are important because it gives an opportunity for adults to engage with our police officers and police officers to do the same, vice versa. However, now with the Chief's added strategy, we now have the opportunity for our youth to do the same with the engagement. How that plays when we have challenging circumstances and we've had more than we deserve over the last year. Um and I think back a few months ago where the surge was taking place, one of the greatest things that I saw from our department, you know, over the the long time that I've been an officer, is one, all of you coming out and assisting with the escalation. That was a beautiful thing to me and our officers on the department. The other piece was having the community members. The community members recognizing officers from these programs that they had an opportunity to engage and them actually helping and assisting with the escalation. And that was the greatest thing. Holistically, when you look at that, that's how we should be operating as a true community, as a true city. And these programs help, like I said, holistically to make those things happen. And when challenges come to us, we can be in response as one, as one Minneapolis and together. And uh like I said, I appreciate you guys doing that. As a police department, we appreciate you being a part of that. And as our community members, it's it's of utmost important that we continue with these programs to make certain that that we stand as one. With that being said, I'll turn it over to uh neighborhood safety. Thank you. And And before we Thank you. And before we go, colleagues, I just want to get a temperature check today. Do we want to wait for the entire presentation and then everybody gets on queue, or is it okay if we break it down to a school now. Let's Let's questions now. Okay, cool. So, the way I'm proposing this is there's the first two will be OCS and MPD. We'll open that up for questions. The next department will be NSD and MFD together. We'll open it up for questions, then we'll finish it with emergency management and 911 communication center and coms together. And we're breaking it down to three different ways that way folks can answer the questions and it doesn't feel like one person will talk more than the other. Okay. We'll first pass it to council member Rainbell. Thank you. Chief, uh could you step up, please? So, I I want to uh compliment you on the work of with the Sheriff's Department for the car thefts. Uh I had a lot of instances right in my immediate neighborhood just in the past couple weeks and it's my understanding that the car thieves have been caught. And as that wouldn't have happened without the cooperation of the Sheriff's Department and your new policies. So, thank you. It's It's been a very rewarding. Do we How are we doing with the county to uh help these young men uh change their lives around and not steal cars anymore? Chair, thank you. Uh council member, thank you. Uh yes, and the uh uh thank you to the sheriff for organizing this task force and the sheriff's deputies are with us, uh you know, every single day in the street working on all of this stuff. Um looking over the the last month, for example. So, five different times that we had sprees, we made arrests uh of individuals. A total of 12 arrests during just the sprees. Um there is there is a a wide variety of who these uh who these uh youth are in terms of their history um and what they're involved in. Some remain in custody and they're also wanted for more serious crimes. But, there's a couple There's a couple uh that were not known to us that were picked up. Um so those are people that are eligible for alternatives. Um but it is uh it is kind of a a wide variety. Um of who these kids are. Uh but it does seem like at least from the people that we are making our arrests with over the last few over the last month that have been involved in this, they are involved in more serious crime as well. So just my question is is the county aware that these young men uh need help? Uh Chair, Council member, yes. Uh our officers work with the the county uh every day on these issues, but I think uh at least what I'm seeing from who we arrested uh over the last month, uh a number of them are also have some serious pending cases as well, which would make them, you know, uneligible ineligible for some of these other resources. Okay. Okay, great. And then one last question and I'll have uh something for AC Gators. So it sounds like a a good plan to staff uh Dinkytown, Uptown, Downtown on the weekends. Is there any concern though that you're pulling these officers away from their regular duties? And and then if you have to work till 4:00 in the morning and you got to report back on Monday at 9:00 a.m., that any any thoughts on that? Chair, Council member, yes. Um it it will have an impact on normal duties. Um however, just with the the budgetary concerns, uh we're trying to do this this year uh as a way to staff up uh late at night, which last year, quite frankly, you're the same thing we were paying uh critical staffing overtime to do. Um this year we're trying to do do it this way uh to impose you know to have it be part of the regular shift. One, I think it uh it helps motivate um the officers who are working the street around the clock every single day, knowing that literally everybody else is going to participate in this. We're going to do the same job as the rest of them and and we have their back. I think that's helpful for them. There is a trade-off, though. Uh there will be for each night that they're out there, there will be uh a day that they are a day for their regular shift um that they won't be there doing their normal duties. So, yes, it's a trade-off. Um they're able to schedule the dates that are convenient for them. And the way it'll be assigned is uh on the basis of seniority. But, I think in order for this to be successful, um it needs to be everyone that's not assigned to 911 fully participating in this. Wonderful. I I wish you the best of luck on that. So, thank you very much. Uh and Mr. Gators, so your your community outreach uh summaries were very very impressive, but I I do have one question about the People's Barbecue. I I believe the Sheriff's Department won that last year, wasn't it? >> [laughter] >> Chair, uh council member, uh I do recall that. And uh there was there were some discussions about the person who created the meal for them. And we're we're still investigating. Oh. Oh, so Ah. So, jury problems with the jury and the judge. But, well, I'm just uh I'm I'm wondering uh and maybe Chief, you can help, too. Don't you have someone in the police department that knows how to barbecue? >> [laughter] >> Well, uh it's not me, uh chair. Council member, I'm sure we can find someone. Okay. >> with the hires that we have, I'm sure there's a a chef in there somewhere. Well, I look forward to the report on that. Thank you. Yes, sir. All right, next up we have Council member Whiting. Thank you, Chair Chavez. Chief, if you're able to answer a few questions here. Uh and appreciate the presentation. Uh just kind of a quick question as it relates particularly kind of these smash and grabs and the kind of property damage that we've seen in my in my ward particularly. Uh we saw over Monday night and I know Council member Stevenson and Council member Chaundry had a kind of a a string of these kind of incidents happen. I think over at least in in Ward 11, I think sounds like upwards of 20 and then a couple weeks ago upwards of of of a dozen. Um kind of just I know you touched on a little bit, but um if you can kind of walk me through a little bit about why we're seeing maybe an increase in those, whether it's weather related or if it sounds like some of these individuals haven't been known to MPD. Uh but just kind of walking through what MPD is doing kind of right now as it relates to those incidents. Chair, Council member, um thank you. There is there is some variety in what is happening. Um there's some kids that we think are coming from uh outside of the city that are involved in this. Um a lot of this is driven, we believe, uh with social media. So, just like we saw a couple years ago, uh the theft of vehicles uh being driven in some of these sprees and the activity being posted on social media and then encouraged on social media, we believe some of that is happening here. Um there's other other issues that are happening at the same time. Um so, some of the arrests that we have made around the sprees and around auto theft, we have recovered um um programming devices. Uh so uh people that are stealing uh Stellantis vehicles, the Dodge and uh Jeep, more high-end vehicles, um they're susceptible to be stolen uh by key fob programmers. So, we've made some arrests uh where we've we've we've we've recovered juveniles that have been in possession uh of those those programmers. So, that's that is a small number, but that is also something that is happening. And then additionally, uh as I alluded to earlier, we have um we have made arrests um where individuals are also in possession of firearms. Uh at least one that I can think of off hand um was connected to a shooting. Um so, there is kind of a variety of things happening. There's some uh we believe some number of these uh juveniles who are not known to us previously that are active now. Um so, there's forensic work that's going on. Every time this happens um that we have sprees, we're utilizing utilizing community service officers to go out and canvas uh once they're uh after the fact to develop uh video. We're using our forensic scientists uh to process the involved vehicles when they're recovered uh whether it's you know, fingerprints or uh DNA, other evidence to try and identify who is involved. Um But it is uh is not just is not not just one issue that's driving it, but I think um part of the problem for sure um it is is the kind of the social media aspect and the negativity that that encourages. Perfect. Thank you, Chief. Uh and particularly just a a note of appreciation as well. I know in in the last one, and we'll be actually knocking some doors um to as well, but uh Inspector Gomez and Lieutenant Muhammad have come with uh and kind of talked to to some folks and residents here. And so, uh I guess then question there of of of when these things do happen, when we're kind of uh connecting with um some of our constituents, what like best practices, uh what should they what should they do? Should they, you know, file a a police report? Should they do the online thing to submit video evidence? Like what what's the best practice for them to Yes. Uh chair, council member, yes to all of the above. What's made the difference at times where we're able to make some of these arrests is when people call the police. And um often times the lag time with these issues, if it's happening late at night or early in the morning, people are not observing when someone's going down the street breaking out a car window. And so, we're catching it a couple hours later. But when people in the community do observe something suspicious, they see a car that they think is circling the neighborhood, casing, looking into vehicles, and they call us, that's when we're able to get involved sooner. Um and there's some level of frustration because if if it is simply a stolen vehicle and uh somebody breaking out a car window, uh if we come there and the person flees, we're not going to engage in a vehicle pursuit. Um but there are other options that we do have available. Um when we are aware that a spree is happening, we initiate a protocol where we ask for help uh from all of the agencies, all the other agencies, the sheriff's office, the transit, the state patrol helicopter, uh they're able to monitor uh some of these folks from from the aircraft above. Uh and that has helped make make arrests. So, the ask for the community, uh again, you know, is all of those levels of of awareness, providing us video and evidence if they have it. Um but really, if they are aware of something suspicious and see something happening, to call us as soon as possible because these particular types of sprees, they're it's not a crime against a person. It's property damage happening. Often times we're not aware of it until well after the fact. Thank you Chief. And then last question here and then and then in a note of appreciation I'm really excited to see that we kind of the fast team up and up and running here. And so thank you to to Council member Wanza. I know she put a lot of work into that to get that off the ground. And specifically kind of I know you kind of talked about there was an 80% clearance rate it sounds like for for fatal or homicides and then about a 40% clearance rate for for non-fatal kind of with that fast. Do you think this I guess from from your expertise is this is the hope here that that kind of those clearance rates will get closer to that 80% and and higher number with the I guess the creation of the fast team? Council member yes. Um You know they they this allows homicide to focus on homicides. You know before they were focusing on everything. In between homicides they were trying to investigate the non-fatal shootings. And frankly not every non-fatal shooting was being immediately assigned. This allows now every single non-fatal shooting that happens it gets specialized investigator to respond to the scene just like it would if it were a fatal [clears throat] shooting. And it draws in these other agencies to help us. The Sheriff's office intelligence unit is helping with that. These different outside agencies a number of our shootings each year involve people that are not residents of the city and are connected we know through ballistics and other evidence to incidents in in other municipalities. So it is a it is a great force multiplier. Literally we're getting help from these other agencies to investigate to get people pulling triggers off the street. And and for sure I believe it will help increase increase the clearance rates. And I neglected to mention earlier, I was mentioning all the other law enforcement agencies. This is something the uh the county attorney's office is also uh one of the main partners in this getting this done. Thank you. Appreciate it, Chief. Next up, President Payne. Thank you, Chair Chavez. Thank you, Chief. Um I was wondering if you could uh maybe expand on more details around how we're collaborating with other agencies. I know in the past we've had joint powers agreements, we've had mutual aid agreements. And then it seems like sometimes other agencies just show up without any formal agreement in hand. And if you could just like kind of outline maybe what some of those different types of either informal or formal ways that we're working with Hennepin County Sheriff's, Metro Police. And then if you could expand on federal as well, that would be helpful. Uh uh Chair Chavez, Council President. Um there are a number of agreements in place. I I I don't know all of them offhand. Uh but obviously, you know, the the BCI is one of the main partners. We're in Minnesota. They have the authority to investigate things here. Same thing with the Sheriff's office. Um transit uh transit police, the university police, similar uh similar uh arrangement with them. Um I believe we are in the process of uh moving forward with some MOUs uh to formalize uh some of this. Um but as of now, um you know, there's no agreements in place uh that that that that provides funding for these agencies, essentially giving us, you know, free help. So, is that kind of the main category difference of like an MOU and a joint powers agreement? It's like which way the money is flowing? Uh Chair uh Council President, I would have to ask the finance director. I don't know the exact difference between that, but one thing, you know, we would like to do that I think would expand uh would expand uh the ability of agencies to participate in this. And I I mentioned this to Council Member is to try and look for ways uh that I believe it is a joint powers agreement that would enable us to then uh if we had funding to reimburse agencies for overtime for assisting us on on our investigations. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Next up we have Council Member Warsame. Thank you, Chair Chavez. Um really happy to get more updates and I know we're working to plan a more thorough presentation on the um non-fatal task force, also known as FAST. I think this is one of the areas where when we target our resources, once again, we can see effective outcomes um move forward specifically in reducing clearance rates, which has been a persistent problem for years within our police department and ultimately for our communities who had numbers or thousands of cases that just went unanswered. Um so, I'm I'm very thankful to my colleagues for supporting um those efforts and for collaboration and actual uh serious implementation um by uh the administration specifically under your leadership, Chief, um in getting this going. I did have a question related also to um ways in which we're responding to the auto thefts. That also was a a major issue sometime uh about 2 and 1/2 years ago, and it seemed that we were able to put that towards a downward uh spiral. Um one program in getting ahead of those thefts, I know was in partnership with uh Hennepin County specifically accounting attorney's office. When they presented, um mentioned this uh I think it's the auto theft prevention program that's targeted at youth and wanted to see um if MPD were still participants of that program. Uh chair, Council member, yes, we are still participants. Uh just looking at the 12 that I'm looking at from the spree we've had recently, I I I think there were probably only two that would have been eligible. Uh just in terms of uh looking at pending serious cases, I I believe, but I just don't have the numbers um available right now. And I know there's other diversion programs that there there is some overlap um with uh with the kids that are involved that they are also uh eligible for other other diversion programs as well. But we can get we can get that information. Yeah, I think that would be great to know what diversion programs we are in formal partnership with. Um I just know the Hennepin County Attorney's program cuz they mentioned it when they presented here, but just to get a sense of what has been kind of our referral um rates, what are we seeing as outcomes? It's good to have that context as part of um this presentation or information shared on slide five, but I think I would like to note that as a staff uh follow-up for that piece. And then going back to the uh slide seven, no no no, sorry. Slide 10. I'm looking at uh more late night safety plans or targeted efforts. Um I think Council member Rainville brought this up in terms of uh some of the more targeted areas that we've talked about. Uptown, of course, is getting tons of conversation. I'm pretty sure there will be some information shared about that, probably in NSC's presentation. Um but I did want to know if you could share some details around um your engagement with UMPD around Dinkytown in terms of um how you all are looking and keeping the broader and most immediate campus community safe. Um some creative tools that you are using in addition to um sworn personnel. I know most recently there should have been a funding request approved by a community organization for some barricades that I think is going to be helping with some congestion issues that has also led to increasing of incidents. But if you could share a little bit about about that. And also in that, if there's community partners you're working with too in addition to UMPD that might be a piece on NSD's presentation which I will note for questions when they come up. But I know Somali Youth Link for instance has been a community partner that you all have worked with before. So want to know if they're part of those conversations, too. Yes. Uh, Chair Chavez, Council member, uh, yes, the University Police have been taking the the lead um, around uh, late night safety uh, in in Dinkytown the last couple of months. As I mentioned with the Chief's beats, those 30 additional officers, uh, a number of them will be assigned every weekend late at night to work with uh, University Police and to staff up Dinkytown as well. Uh, and I know there are uh, some uh, traffic barriers um, uh, that are that are being provided to assist in, you know, uh, disrupting some of the the uh, the traffic patterns there to help try and ensure safety. They've had some success with that in the past. In terms of uh, community organizations I would defer to uh, the Neighborhood Safety Director to speak um, more specifically about what is ongoing there. But for us, um, when we know of uh, major events that are going to be coming up. So, particularly like the July 4th weekend and that type of thing, we will be reaching out uh, as we have in advance to some of the different uh, community organizations that we think might be able to be helpful there as well. Thank you for that. And I wasn't sure just clarification too for our Council President Payne, if you wanted to staff MR, also time to have the financial director come up. I know we had a meeting with the UNPD chief that really also brought up this conversation of how we're formalizing agreements with some of the agencies that MPD partners with if it's through MOUs or JPAs, but it's kind of left un ended or you're if the director wants to come speak on that, the financial director around or if if this is a staff follow-up of looking at which contracts currently are zero dollars that has a MOU versus those that might have some funding and if there is a JPA or MOU in place. So, what we can do is if someone from MPD would have an answer to that, that would be great. If not, a follow-up memo would be appreciated. Sure, I think we should follow up with a staff memo so we can be precise in the response. But I know earlier I know like Council member was mentioning also the federal agencies. The only ones the ones that I'm aware of with the federal agencies are um to allow us to have officers to be deputized to work on federal cases. I don't think we have anything in reverse. Oh, no. And I would I know Council President Payne mentioned it more so on the federal I he also mentioned some of the local agencies. So, if we do have for some of these you mentioned non-fatal but also I know we talked about training services too like you there is a agreement a formal agreement that we had to pass as a body for you all to enter into a relationship with the University of Minnesota to do that. >> [clears throat] >> And it codified there was a zero fiscal note or zero dollar fiscal note tied to it. So, I think we're just trying to get clarity to of like we know there's informal. We would like to move towards formal agreements if it's through MOU or JPA and just getting a sense of okay, what's what type of in kind of services are being um given to the department to also address, you know, safety concerns, provide safety services, and help um in addition to your existing budget. Chair, yes. Next up, we have Council Member Vita. Thank you, Chair Chavez. Thank you, Chief, for the um presentation. Just a couple questions about um the Chief's beats. You said that it was specifically around like bar closing or these entertainment um kind of venues. And I'm just wondering about um how the Chief's beats would fit into North Minneapolis. I mean, we do have some bars, but I think certainly [clears throat] our issues are more around liquor stores than it is bars. And we had Operation Safe Summer, I think was the name of it um when you first got here. So, just wondering how the new approach is going to fit into the needs that we have on the north side. Yes. Chair, Council Member, thank you. Um Yes. Uh we can adjust this depending on what is happening in the city, um particularly very late at night. Um the concentrations of violence that we have have happened in those areas, but we can absolutely adjust this late at night depending on what is happening around the city. Um and this should also free up some of the other officers um that frankly otherwise would be pulled from some of the precincts if there was uh a large group downtown. The way that we're or or any of these other areas. The way that we've been staffing this this year uh is we have cut essentially in a half the staffing of of late night safety. So, when there are issues very late at night around bar close, what's required now is officers who are assigned in other precincts that are available to be pulled in to supplement that. Um so this is this is trying to both have additional people available late at night that we can have them highly highly visible, but they're they're citywide. So depending on what is going on, they can absolutely be deployed if we know there's a gathering happening uh somewhere else or there's some you know event or or anywhere else that there is a a need for police presence. Maybe I'm asking the wrong I think I'm asking about even beats during the daytime because the need isn't always late at night everywhere. I think what we see is a regular occurrence like during the day, during the So like is is your beats just like a nighttime thing or how do we transition it from helping us on Penn and Lowry to the nighttime beat is what I'm asking. Chair, Councilmember, yes. Uh so this is focused on late at night on the weekends. Um but we do have a separate need exactly as you are saying. Uh and I'm I'm hopeful, you know, we got 31 recruits in the academy that'll be out soon that'll be able to spread around the city. Uh we do need to expand beats in some of the other precincts. You know, we have a a beat in the in uh in in the third precinct. There's a beat in Uptown now. And yes, the the goal is ultimately to staff up uh you know, like the the fourth precinct CERT team has lost some people recently because of the creation of these other units, uh but also to add beats back into these other neighborhoods like there used to be uh prior to 2020. Yeah. Thank you, Chief, for saying that because we have lost some officers. Of course, we're we're gaining some, but some of these new initiatives mean that we've lost officers in the fourth precinct, and it's not always nighttime, it's daytime that we need assistance. and um so yeah, I'm just advocating for that, making sure that we get the support we need during the day and into the time where you're going to do these um these nighttime beats and hoping that, you know, the most amazing inspector in the world can be worked with on this um Inspector Adams. I think the Fourth Precinct is doing everything they can um with the resources we have, but you know, certainly having additional resources to help out >> Yeah. >> with uh presence and patrols. Also, Metro Transit has been doing a fantastic job of help of helping us with the bus stops in some of these problem areas and the sheriff has always and previously partnered with MPD to to help in these areas and so has the state troopers. So, I'm looking forward to those uh partnerships continuing, but but hoping that we won't just think of it as this nighttime thing, but that resources need are needed in North Minneapolis during the day and that we certainly have bars that close and have problems also a little further north on Washington Avenue. You know, we got to we got to get out of the North Loop and there's a a few places up there that we have some challenges. So, I just want to make sure that that's on the radar as well while we're looking at um how we operate this new initiative. And and thank you so much for um your work and your help with the PAL program. The of course like it's it's something that community asked for. I think it's going well. Happy to see them continuing to do the work and I mean really starting all over again. That program had been completely um just taken apart and there's some wonderful officers doing great work on engaging young people specifically at Cityview School, one of the schools that um need the most attention, I think. And they're doing a great job at getting these kids new experiences and exposing them to uh police officers who are not there when they're at their worst, but helping them through life and showing them new experiences and and you know, helping them with their homework. They're offering tutoring services now. It's not just a athletic initiative anymore. They really are mentoring helping these young people. So thank you for that Chief for bringing that back up and assigning officers to it because we can talk about it, but if there's not officers assigned, then there's really no program. Um and then my last question um is around like how do how are we going to measure these things? How are we going to know that these new initiatives that you um are starting is working versus like what we've previously had? Uh Chair, Council Member, um thank you. Uh so we're taking we track data on all of this. Um essentially the the biggest change last year versus this year around the late night stuff um is going to be having it done with straight time as opposed to uh critical staffing overtime. Um so it's getting the same number of people hopefully out there with a less expense. Um and then we will measure the crime and calls for service around that. Um you know, in terms of some of the other uh initiatives like you were mentioning during the day on the north side, we do have Operation Safe Summer, but we are additionally planning uh focused enforcement details during the day, not just that week. Uh every week uh there will be some level of focused enforcement during the daytime. Uh a lot of that is concentrated in North Minneapolis, so you will be seeing uh you will be seeing that um stepped up. That had been uh decreased uh particularly during the surge and in recent months, but you'll be seeing uh an increase in that as well. Um, and then just in regard to the, uh, PAL program, I have to say thank you to you, uh, for your leadership and your nudge getting us, uh, back on the right track with that and helping lead and and advocate for, uh, the program that it has become. So, thank you. And next up we have Vice Chair Stevenson. Thank you. Thank you, uh, Chief and others for coming and presenting. Um, I'm really excited about the non-fatal shooting initiative as well as the, uh, the updates to the property crime investigation. Both of those things have plagued my ward for some time now. Um, I was wondering, uh, my staff will follow up actually, but I was wondering if you or others from the department would be able to come to a a community meeting and present on these. I think my constituents would really appreciate hearing more about them. Chair, Council member, yes, if you if you could let us know when and where. Yes. Great. Yeah, we'll follow up. Thank you. That's all for me. Thank you. No one else is on queue. So, next up we have the Neighborhood Safety Department, I believe, Director Harrington. Thank you. Good afternoon. Amanda Harrington, Director for the Neighborhood Safety Department. Before I start on the, um, summer safety plan, I just want to quickly mention that today is Denim Day. So, me and people like me around the globe are wearing denim in observance of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It's a small way to show that we stand in solidarity with, um, sexual assault survivors and that we need to change harmful narratives and create safer environments for everybody. So, thank you for letting me divert for a moment. Um, regarding our summer safety plan, I'm very excited to announce the first of what I'm hoping is an annual Office of Community Safety summer safety kickoff community event. June 6th from 12:00 to 4:00, we're going to be holding an event at Peavey Park. We chose that area because of shootings that had happened in that um neighborhood this spring, but next year we're planning to have it in North Minneapolis so that everybody gets the love around summer safety. We're hoping to have resources, fun activities, just to really start everyone off having a safe summer. And even though um I was allowed to talk about this, this isn't actually an Office of Community Safety coordinated event. So, it will not just be focused on gun violence prevention and human trafficking prevention. We'll have kind of the larger scope of safety hope throughout the city hopefully represented as well as some of our other governmental partners. Although I will note that June is gun violence prevention month, so there'll definitely be some gun violence prevention stuff there. Uh the department is also focused on some um programmatic changes for this summer regarding the Community Safety Ambassadors. We're hoping to shift their hours um along Lake Street and Franklin Avenue to 10:00 to 6:00. We have an earlier shift right now because we want them to be able to accompany students as they get from transit stations to school, especially um South High for example. But when school gets out, we've heard a lot from community that they wish the safety ambassadors were out later. And so we're working to accommodate that. We also hope to have safety ambassadors present at large events along Lake and Franklin. I know they'll be present for the um Native American Month parade um May 1st for example, so hopefully you'll see more of those presents at large events. We're also going to be engaging in engagement in the Uptown community to talk about our expansion there. While Uptown won't have safety ambassadors this summer, that will have to wait till November, folks will see us out engaging on the street and at community events so that we can hear from them about what the specific needs for community safety ambassadors are in that particular area. Regarding violence interruptors, we have moved to larger geographic areas. We moved to those areas based on crime data, but then also input from contractors that they felt that they could cover larger parts um of the city. And so both South and North Minneapolis have much larger geographic areas. Those new maps are or will be reflected on our dashboard. That's always available on the neighborhood safety page. This is also the season where a lot of the violence uh interveners host events. And so they do a lot more events um throughout their communities. They are really in charge of of knowing where those events need to be. Hopefully they're displacing negative activities with positive activities, but we'll be sharing those um information about those events as they come out. With our violence prevention services program, what we've really done is extend contracts that were set to expire this spring or summer because it was important to us to make sure that there was coverage during the warmer months. Some examples of those um I think it was Council Member Warsame you were talking about Somali Youth Link. We're ensuring that they continue to be present in Whittier and Stone Arch Bridge um through at least the end of October. We're also planning on working with um Trajectory Changing Solutions to make sure that they're present in Steven Square and and Lowry. Um that work order was set to end in June, which would not have benefited those communities. This summer neighborhood safety is also focusing on improving our processes related to coordination and communication. We're starting a pilot um a shooting alert process which will increase the timeliness and consistency of communication from the city to contractors when shootings occur. We're going to start that pilot with violence interruptors, but hope to expand to other contractors. We're also going to start having monthly contractor meetings so that we can increase communication, training, and collaboration. That uh monthly meeting will start with gun violence prevention program, so the next step program, GBI, YGBI, and the violence interrupters, but again, we hope to expand that as time goes on. And then we're increasing neighborhood safety staff presence in communities. So, we uh plan to go to more community so that we can hear concerns, connect contractors with neighborhood groups, but with also with other community organizations that are doing this work. There are a lot of good people doing violence prevention work in Minneapolis, and they don't all know each other. So, we feel like we can step into that role and make more of those connections. That concludes my presentation. I will pass it on to fire. Thank you. Welcome, Chief Rucker. Good afternoon, Chair Chavez and council members. I am interim Fire Chief Melanie Rucker. Um my first slide is starting off to um notice that there during the summer months, the department consistently experiences a notable rise in total emergency incident calls. Um and this is due to increased temperatures, higher public activity levels, and seasonal environmental conditions collectively contributing to the elevation of operational demands. Um as you can see, there is a peak in July, and as we know, that is significant to fireworks activities. But in regards to overall fire-related incidents, there also is an increase in the summer um months due to, again, the Independence Day, dry weather conditions, and often, you know, drought conditions. And again, the recreational fires associated with like the outdoor fires, campfires, grilling, and outdoor gatherings also increase those fire incidents within the overall summer months. In addition to the increase in fire activities, several other incident types show a seasonal spikes. Um, as we can say, vegetation fires, and so that's outside grass fires, and the contributing factor to these, again, is the dry weather um and the increasing combustibility of the conditions of the outdoor um conditions, along with um the stress droughts of the grass, bushes, and again, even also the the wildland fires around the river uh banks. And then if you have um some, you know, unhoused populations that are in those uh grass areas as well as if you're uh flicking out cigarettes or anything like that, with these drought conditions, it can cause fires. Um, and then also the, you know, the human activities of yard debris burnings, um you know, again, the fireworks, the recreational fires, and equipment sparks that can also contribute to these fires. Um, and then also the increased activities in the parks, along the trails, and in natural areas um also increase these actions. And then the windy windy conditions of the of the summer also increases the fire spread of these outside fires. And then again, you know, as you know, water conditions uh water rescues increase in the summer. Um, there's increased swimming, boating, and water recreation activities. Um, alcohol use also on in the summer and summer event gatherings. Um, and then overestimations of swimming capabilities and and lack of life jackets and things like that. And then the rapid weather changes um, that can cause hazardous conditions on the waters when people are on the waters. And then this is a um, the power line um, is is kind of like a spike that you know, was unexpected as we were doing that the the plan out of uh, the averages over the five years. And this is included because of the severe storms um, and the and the wintertime and the high winds. Um, and then you know, the drought conditions also sometimes with the trees falling down in the winter storms can contribute to those power lines down. And then again um, you know, in the summertime there's also a lot of street activity, roadway activities where where power lines, gas lines and things like that are hit in the in the um, in the summer as well that increases that volume for us in in responding to that types of incidents. Um, and then again also the vehicle accidents having increase over the summertime. And that's due to higher traffic volumes due to travel and tourism and you know, holiday events and people out in outside enjoying the weather. Um, increasing the road congestions um, and then you know, the festivals and things like that and street closures and also you know, with a lot of construction that happens in the summer. Um, and again with on top of that and that and that heated summers vehicles sometimes catch fires because of their um, their tire blowouts, overheating and things like that. So we do have a lot of fire incidents uh, and accidents related to that. And so overall the summer summer elements um, highlighted in these seasonal trends create a high risk environment uh, that requires us to elevate our preparedness, Um, heighten operational awareness, proactive resource planning, and target public safety messages and outreach throughout the summer operation periods. So, the preparedness that we do for our summer operation periods that we really focus on again is the water rescue. Um as you might not know, fire department has seven boats. Um one of those boats is airboat, which is mainly for winter winter operations that we can skid across ice. So, that one doesn't really get utilized in the summer, but we have two boats that are moored on the river. So, we have the upper lock, and then we also have one by the boating and by the University of Minnesota that can get get deployed right away. And then we have five additional boats that are on trailers. One at fire station 2, 12, 19, 22, and 28 that can be launched on the rivers and the lakes as well as like on So, for 22's is the is Lake Nokomis is at the that's where we launch that one at. And then the other ones usually are around the river, Boom Island, and things like that where we can launch and get to the upper locks and lower locks and get to those boat rescues. Um we In addition to the boats that are on the on prepared and on ready to deploy, we have training refreshers which regard because we the river is swift water training and rescue. So, we partner with Hennepin County Sheriff's. We go over our boat rescue operations, our rope rescue systems as well. And then again, you know, by the river banks, we do sometimes have people that fall down the river banks or we have different things of happening on the river. So, we do make sure that we practice those rope victim rescues and approach techniques. Um we check our PPE. We prepare again high-risk areas where we're going to be doing those deployments and high rescue activities. And again public safety education, promote wearing life jackets, and then avoiding intoxication around water, and then supervising children. Um and then we also again coordinate with the local agencies aligning with the park services, lifeguard agencies at the joint pools and lakes. And then we also partner again with the Hennepin County as well as Mac fire, St. Paul fire because sometimes our rescues do span across jurisdictions. So we do make sure that we are practicing and training with those partners. And again with the brush fires, we just make sure that we're ready, have our tools ready. We don't really We're not like trained for you know forest fires as as you do like the large areas, but we do have specialized equipment. We have that foam. And then we also try to monitor the red flag conditions and humidity and the fire high fire indicators for those types of responses. And then you know community engagement is key. We partner with family and youth safety campaigns and focus on water safety, firework risk, recreational and ceremonial fire rules and regulations and safety, and then grilling practices as well as you know during public events and festivals we are usually tabling and having that outreach materials and equipment and demos and really pushing that safety materials. And then summer storms and severe weather, we you know review the procedures for lightning strikes, down power lines, and roadways, and hazards, and and collapse um structural collapse readiness. And then we're big on um heat-related incidents and mitigation and support during the summer months. Um, it is not only for the community, but our responders cuz we are out um, you know, and encouraging the hydration and rehab cycles. You know, it's hard to It's We have based on even the cold versus the summer, you know, having all that fire gear on and you're fighting fires, you can definitely get overheated and exhausted and having heat illnesses and injuries to our firefighters. So, we just need to make we do excessive monitoring and and pull people out more often for those heat-related um responses during the summer. Um, and again, the community met messaging regarding the heat exhaustion as well and warning signs and hydration for the community to to know cuz we do respond um to our EMS calls to a lot of heat-related um EMS calls. And then again, the targeting and approach and outreach to try to put out that message for the cooling centers and things like that for our unhoused population. And then when we were um parting partnering with those large events, we are present. Um, we all uh set up the command post as well as um during large events, it's hard for our fire trucks to get out and about in those large uh crowds. So, we have a way um gators that we will um staff up with our medical equipment and and things like that as well as uh help support those uh cooling stations and uh provide EMS and water at the events that, you know, the large events that we have, you know, could be Pride, Taste of Minnesota, Aquatennial. Uh, we definitely make sure that we're there to support those events and and support our community partners. And that is it for fire. Thank you. Now a little bit of we'll open it up for questions. We first have President Payne. Uh thank you, Chair Chavez. This is for you, Director Harrington. Um I know that we just announced uh safety ambassadors for Uptown uh and I had to remind myself uh what this budget amendment was. I I I went back to the record. Uh it was originally we worked with uh DID to kind of get a rough estimate on how much it would cost to implement per corridor, and we originally had it slated for the seven cultural district corridors. Uh that got extended to, you know, thanks to working with Council Member Rainville, uh Council Member Chuck Taton include Uptown, Dinkytown, uh Mill District, and East Hennepin. And again, with a rough estimate of $300,000 per corridor. Uh you know, if I was selfish, I wanted to launch this just for Lowry and Central Avenue. That was the number one reason why I wanted this to be a budget amendment, but I saw the value of the citywide. Um and I absolutely understood why Lake Street and Franklin were prioritized over Lowry and and Central, but um I'm wondering if you could expand on why there were choices to uh only focus on Lake Street and Franklin, and then now how we've arrived at Uptown, and how budgets may have shifted over over that duration, because I still would like to see these resources coming to Northeast. I'd like to see these resources coming to Dinkytown. Um and it's not clear to me where the budget is right now, and I'd like to get ahead of that, cuz I'd like to see these all of these corridors followed through on. So, if I have to make budget amendments this year, I need to understand what the operational realities are now compared to when we uh put those budget amendments together back in 2023. So, I don't know if that was a There's a succinct question in there. Chair Chavez, uh President Payne, that's actually good to know that you did the initial um kind of budgeting in talks with DID, Downtown Improvement District. When we initially were working on the pilot program, we looked at how many safety ambassadors Downtown Improvement District has per square foot. And we realized um the 3 million that um was allocated for this was not going to cover 11 areas. Um unfortunately, um we did decide to start with two, and I've talked about this before, piloting two areas. Um we can do that a lot better than trying to pilot something in 11 areas at the same time. We did decide to go to Uptown next because when we looked at data of 911 calls, 311 calls, Uptown had the next highest by a significant amount number of calls, and it remained high even when we looked at um population, because we didn't want to just assume that it had a higher number of calls cuz it was a bigger geographic area. If you look at population density in that area, it also remained high on the list. So, that's why that's the next area for us to expand to. To your point of where are we with the budget, we will make it through about November 2027 with the initial appropriation that was made for safety ambassadors. And then we will have to look for general funds or another funding source for us to continue safety ambassadors, and certainly to expand the program. Let's work closely on that, cuz I'd like to see at least some additional corridors get included within existing resources and that means probably before 2027 we need to start thinking about how we're going to allocate resources. So, let's work closely on that so that we can get real numbers. Thank you. Vice Chair Stevenson. Thank you. Thank you, Director Harrington. I have a question community member brought up to me that was an amazing idea and I couldn't believe I didn't think of it myself. Um they asked are there going to be any violence interruptors in George Floyd Square during the street reconstruction? Uh Chair Chavez, Council Member Stevenson. We do not currently have violence interruptors in George Floyd Square. As you know, there's another community group that feels that they have really strong relationships in that area and that they didn't need additional support of city contracted violence interruptors. And so when we redid the boundaries for South Minneapolis, we took that information into account as well as looking at shooting data and we moved them up a couple of blocks so that they don't go all the way down to George Floyd Square. Now, that being said, if a shooting happened in George Floyd Square, our safety ambassadors are allowed to work outside of their zone if it has a nexus or a relationship to the area that they generally work in. So, they could likely go to that area if they were needed. Okay. Thank you. Um and then another thing this is about budgets. This is something we've talked a lot about and I know you've you've worked on that. The cut of Sabathany's contract was extremely painful in in my community and I know the overspending last year is the source of that. So, please this is just me calling out. We'll we'll need to work closely to make sure in the future to make sure that that kind of abrupt contract change doesn't happen to other vendors and and maybe do some repair work between the the relationship between the city and Sabathany as well. Um but thank you so much. I I appreciate your your presentation and I hope uh at this event that I mentioned previously that you'd also be able to be there or some one of your staff. Thank you. Council member Warsame. Thank you, President. Lord Jesus. Um Chair Chavez, uh just a follow-up question. I'm was looking also for the coverage areas for some of the service providers or like violence interrupters and I just wanted to note that right now the dashboards currently under review or temporarily uh unavailable. So, if there could be a follow-up staff memo to talk about what areas are receiving that um expanded coverage um in terms of whoever is in Wait, yeah, for Minneapolis specifically. Um and I'm not sure if some of our violence prevention contractors, like if there was demographic data being shared for them on that dashboard, too. But, I think it just would be good to have a visual aid to show where the coverage will be extended through all these services. I think that happened before um in a prior presentation last year and with the dashboard being down, I just wanted to bring that to you all's attention. Chair Chavez, Council member Warsame, thank you for letting me know um that the dashboard is down. We will definitely follow up with the maps. And next up we have Council member Rainville. Thank you, Chair. So, I got a little confused there, Director Harrington. Uh we're Mr. uh Excuse me, President Payne had brought up the uh the budgets uh we're going to be depleted by uh you had said the budgets would deplete by 27 for the safety ambassador program. Is that Does that include his area, my area, the Dinkytown areas that have not been implemented yet? Chair Chavez, Council Member Rainville, $3 million were appropriated to neighborhood safety for safety ambassadors. And what I'm saying is the $3 million will be utilized, fully gone, um, just before the end of 2027. Okay. But would would that include putting safety ambassadors on Lowry and Central, Dinkytown, uh, the Mill District? Um, Chair Chavez, Council Member Rainville, as I mentioned, we would need to find additional funding for us to expand. Okay. I'm I'm trying to say this so I'm I'm clear, and I apologize I haven't been clear. I haven't seen safety ambassadors on the riverfront, on East Hennepin, in the Mill District. Although $300,000 was allocated. So, are you telling me that it's not going to happen in that area and that it's not going to happen on Lowry and Central? Chair Chavez, Council Member Rainville, what I'm telling you is the $3 million has been used and will continue to be used for Lake Street, Franklin Avenue, and then Uptown. We do not have the funding to expand that program into any of the areas, even though 11 areas were contemplated when that appropriation was made. That's really disappointing cuz, you know, this city goes beyond It goes north of Hennepin Avenue. So, you just might want to take a look at a map. Thank you. Um, I put myself on queue. Uh, Director Harrington, I am excited about the shift in times for the community safety ambassador program. So, I just want to thank staff for working on that. I think it's going to better affect some of the needs that we have in the community. So, I just wanted to show my appreciation for that. And colleagues, I I think as we look into the Safety Ambassador program, I think uh we should all work together and figure out in the budget what it would mean to put more funding into the program to go into other areas. So, I think we can work on that as the budgets come. So, all right. Seeing no one else on queue, we will proceed with the presentations. Next up, we have I believe 911 Emergency Communication Center. Welcome. Hi. Chair Chavez, council members. I'm Leticia Cardenas, assistant director for Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center 911, and I'll be presenting on behalf of our department today. We see an increased um call volume during the summer. The increase begins about mid-May with the highest call volumes normally occurring in June, July, and August. Currently, we um are on average about 40,000 calls um monthly. Um you'll see an uptick about 5,000 to 7,000 in the months of June, July, and August. We increased our staffing minimum starting April 15th to ensure that we have the people on staff to handle the call volumes and the radio traffic, which is created by the addition which creates additional overtime expenses during the summer months. We also add additional staff for many large events that occur during the summer months. These events require an additional dispatcher either on site at MECC or working out of a command post at a designated location within the city. We also found out that 311 will be open during 4th of July um and the Taste of Minnesota weekend again this year, and we will be working with them closely on joint messaging for fireworks safety and complaints like we did in 2025 since we saw a reduction of about 800 calls on July 4th by utilizing the messaging that we did. Our summer safety guidebook geared toward current geared specifically for MECC and 911 will be distributed to all of our staff in May. And that's the end of my presentation. Thank you. I appreciate it. Next up we have emergency management. Welcome Director Sayer. Thank you Chair Chavez, committee members. My name is Rachel Sayer. I am the director of the city's emergency management department. This summer we're focused on making sure our city is as ready as possible for severe weather, which is the main hazard category that we face in the summer. So I'm just going to talk a little bit about the hazards, readiness, and an important siren reminder. So in the summer months our most likely type of severe weather is a large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes are actually the least among those. Um the sirens, which are sounded by Hennepin County and we maintain by my team, would sound if we hit certain triggers. So it's really important, I can't emphasize this enough, when you hear the sirens take shelter. The thing that stresses me out most is when I start seeing social media videos of people in some part of the city just wandering around the street as the sirens are going off. You must take shelter. The next thing you need to do is seek information. So our sirens run on batteries. Those batteries only last for two or three minutes. That does not mean that the danger has passed. That just means the battery has run out. So you take shelter, then you must seek information from a trusted local source, any of our great local news channels that are talking about tracking the weather. But you need to do both of those things. The other extreme weather that we're prepared for the summer is extreme heat, air quality. Please sign up for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency alerts. They send out when air quality is especially bad. And then of course, around the country we're seeing extreme weather events such as very significant rainfall in a very short of time. That is would be very unusual here, but it's been unusual in the other places that it's occurring as well. So, the things we can all do and I would ask you to encourage your constituents to do would be to sign up for the city alerts. We have set up our city alert system to automatically push forward National Weather Service alerts. These are the best way to get immediate watch and warnings, and especially when there's immediate take action information. Two, we have Ready Camp available. Those are available through our community education partnerships. Those are household family level preparedness courses that are open to everyone. Three, we encourage everyone to now assemble your at home readiness for severe weather kit. Make sure you have a flashlight, you have a numbers that you need to know written down in case power is out, you know where you're meeting your family members that's outside of your home in case something would happen to your home, all of those things. So, now is the time to have those conversations. And then finally, before you head out to those large summer planned events, check the weather. Take the items you need to be prepared in case severe weather strikes while you're out and about this summer. That is it for me. Thank you. Thank you. And next we have the Communications Department. Welcome. Good afternoon, Chair Chavez and Council President Payne. Thanks for having the Communications team. We are always eager to share all of the great resources and programs and initiatives going on in our city. Director Sarah had a great introduction of why communications is important is to make sure our community knows, obviously, what to do when those sirens goes off go off or when to go back or seek shelter. Our communications team, we amplify the summer safety work of all the departments delivering timely, accurate information, resources, and education to the community. And of course, we want to demonstrate how the city is enhancing community safety through cross-department and community collaboration. Without the community, we can't get our message out. We will highlight visible action and measurable progress through our communications team. We're going to have educational PSAs during our summer safety plan. We'll do some storytelling such as featuring our community safety ambassadors and the new dispatcher who can coordinate things like safety escorts for the community members on East Lake Street and East Franklin Avenue. We'll have updates on our police efforts including how they are reducing crime. And of course, we'll be spotlighting summer safety initiatives and programs that directly support and impact community safety. Great. And we want, obviously, the community to understand the full range of summer safety initiatives as they celebrate, of course, with their family and friends this summer. From outdoor burning safety, the gun violence prevention, the mobile medical unit, knowing when to call 911 versus 311 as Director Sear mentioned, obviously, anything that's related to severe weather. We want to highlight a number of key focus areas this summer with OCS departments and our departments across the city. And we will are trying to make these decisions and going to make these decisions through data-driven communication decisions to highlight our safer streets, neighborhoods, and our communities. Now, we will also provide critical safety information and resources that you can use and how the community can participate in community safety with their family. So, we're going to provide those educational resources through many of our city channels, our external channels such as news bites where you guys can share, obviously, our information, our digital with the web, and of course, our social media. And we're going to have several campaigns throughout the summer. One of course will be the gun violence prevention and that awareness campaign will be in June highlighting safe gun storage as we did last year at the direction of Chief O'Hara and education and of course community resources and we'll work with neighborhood safety on their initiatives for gun violence prevention. 4th of July last year we had an amazing event where we had city, county and state partners where we held a news conference where Chief O'Hara gave a strong message about not having any violent actions during the 4th of July celebration where in the previous year we had a lot of people were as Chief said were focusing or not focusing were shooting fireworks I should say at people and through Chief's words last year this messaging that we had that news conference in collaboration with others helped reduce the violence during the 4th of July and also we had a great message about calling 911 verse 311. We were able to reduce our calls to 911 which opened up of course those lines for emergencies instead of there's a noise complaint by our neighbor. So we directed them to 311 and we'll continue to do that and we'll obviously encourage people to celebrate responsibly, find a designated driver and helping their neighbors. And of course we're going to have a summer digital campaign that'll be on our social media so we encourage everyone here listening online to follow our social media channels and we're going to highlight those safety programs, the resources we have and educational content throughout the season. And finally we are really investing in highlighting the amazing events and opportunities in our great city to bring people to Minneapolis. You know we've recently obviously seen people out in our community in large numbers after several challenging months as we all know and through our many city communication channels we are really going to emphasize and highlight and show how the city has come together, how we're having fun during the summer, enjoying the parks, lakes, street events and have everyone come support our community and businesses and we welcome everyone. Not obviously just in Minneapolis, but outside of Minneapolis, throughout the state and throughout the country to show all the great events and parks and lakes that we have here. So, with that, I think I turn it over to questions. Questions. We'll first have Council member Vita. Thank you, Chair Chavez. Mine isn't a question, and it's more of a comment because I've gotten a lot of questions recently from constituents about communications in relation to emergency management. So, just wondering if there's going to be a plan or some opportunity to get more um information out about what the emergency management department does. I got a lot of questions during um the ice occupation around like, are we ready for this? How do we do this? Can I use my church building to do the you know, and I and I explained to people that, no, we have a department and they work on things, but it became clear to me that people just don't uh really understand that this department exist in the city of Minneapolis and that we are behind the scenes preparing for these um unfortunate events. And just wondering if we're looking at a communications plan to really talk through what what happens in the emergency management department. Uh thank you, Chair Chavez. Council member Vita, I can start and happy to um hand over to Director Wasserman. Um so, first of all, I'll just say I am always happy to come and engage with your constituents in some forum if helpful to talk about what we do as a department um and how we prepare as a city. Second, I do want to mention um a presentation I gave to this committee sometime ago. Um was about something called the three W's or five W's. And that is a service mapping of all of the organizations that do the work in responses. That's something we've had to put on hold for months now between the annunciation response and OMS, but it's something I'm very hopeful we can pick back up soon. So there is a lot where we've engaged recently with the the Northside Resilience Hub partners as well. So there's a lot that we are really excited now that we're back and have time hopefully to put effort in these areas that I'm really excited for where we're going to be in the next few years as a city in preparedness, but always happy to communicate where we are now and where we're going as helpful. Anything else do you want to add? Thank you. So Director Sarah and I actually had kind of a robust plan until we've kind of got derailed by all the incidents that took place starting last summer highlighting how emergency management works, highlighting severe weather, what people can do, how they can take action. We obviously are going to try to will continue that during this summer. Director Sarah and I have talked long about the siren campaign about what to do when sirens go off and we actually did a news article a couple months ago. I think it was right as the end of operation metro surge about what emergency management does that is in our OCS dispatch. If you are a subscribed to that, if you are not, I encourage you to do that and we can send that article to you guys to read it and share it with your constituents. So we have highlighted that and we will continue to look obviously for communication ways to highlight ready camps, to highlight ways people can take action during extreme heat which we all know is going to come up. So we have already news releases ready to go. We have resources ready to go. We have pages where people can find shelter, cooling stations, and of course during the winter heating locations. So we we do amplify those and we will help you guys amplify those with your constituents as you ask. Thank you. And the communications has been absolutely wonderful. I'm sure I've told you that before, but I I love it. It's It makes my job a lot easier. It's clear. I would love to see more videos with Director Sayersol. She has a way with um words that, you know, it just makes people understand a lot better. So, those newsletters are great. It's a lot of information sometimes for some people, and so like, you know, those little clip videos you do, those those help out a lot for people that we can just text them to them or, you know, send it uh to them attached to our newsletter. So, you know, you're doing a fantastic job. You really are at communicating, the both of you. You don't need to look back, you two, Director. >> Yeah, I was just looking for a chief communications officer Adam Fletcher to see if he was here, but we are um actually have a a robust plan uh to uh improve and update our social media, which includes more videos. So, look forward to uh sending you more videos that you can link to. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much Thank you so much staff for bringing this presentation forward. We really appreciate it. As you all could tell, we're really passionate about this work, which is why we have a lot of comments and questions. So, thanks for all the work on this. Uh with that being said and seeing no more discussion, I'll ask the clerk to receive and file that report. And before we end, colleagues, I just want to clarify for the public that item number 10, uh the shooting of David McAtee, legislative directive, that item was referred to Committee of the Whole on May 5th, where we're going to have further discussion. I also want to acknowledge that Mr. McAtee is in attendance today in this meeting. Uh Mr. McAtee, uh thank you for continuing to push the city on accountability. Just know that uh we I'll speak for myself, I will continue to push for justice in your case, and want to acknowledge your presence in these chambers. Uh that being said, colleagues, seeing no one else on queue, and seeing no further business before us, I would declare this meeting adjourned.