Public Safety Committee
Tue, May 19, 2026 · Public Safety Committee
https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/1151-public-safety-committee-may-19-2026

== Executive Summary ==
The Public Safety Committee met on May 19, 2026, to discuss a range of public safety issues, with a significant focus on the Alternative Response Unit (ARU). The committee explored proposals for restructuring the ARU, including its organizational placement, staffing needs, and the integration of behavioral health services. There was considerable debate about whether the ARU should remain within the Fire Department or move to Community Services to better leverage grants and behavioral health expertise. The committee also received updates from the Police and Fire Departments, including staffing levels, crime statistics, and wildfire preparedness efforts. A notable announcement was the Police Chief's impending retirement.

Key decisions included the approval of the agenda and minutes, and the reclassification of two Assistant Fire Chief positions to at-will employment. Several action items were identified, such as Chief Rizzo providing more information on the ARU in June, developing new ARU job descriptions, and gathering data on police wellness checks and EMT calls for psychological issues. Public comments highlighted the importance of ARU expansion, the debate over its departmental placement, and the need for input from frontline workers and behavioral health partners. The committee also discussed burn and fireworks restrictions, RECC updates, police staffing, and the upcoming deployment of speed cameras.

== Key Decisions ==
- Approved the agenda for the 05/19/2026 meeting.
- Approved the minutes from the previous meeting.
- Approved the reclassification of two Assistant Fire Chief positions from exempt to at-will employment.

== Motions & Votes ==
- Motion to approve the agenda — Passed 9-0
- Motion to approve the minutes — Passed 9-0
- Motion to approve the reclassification of two Assistant Fire Chief positions from exempt to at-will employment — Passed 9 Ayes, 0 Nays

== Public Comment ==
Public comments and committee discussions focused on the Alternative Response Unit (ARU), with Committee Member Miller advocating for its expansion and emphasizing its life-saving impact. Councilor Wagner suggested moving the ARU program to Community Services for better growth and grant access. A retired firefighter questioned the Fire Department's suitability to run the ARU, proposing EMTs with case management training. The Police Chief announced his retirement after 22 years of service. Other comments included a public comment about the benefits of public fireworks displays in reducing illegal fireworks use, and a committee member clarifying their advocacy for behavioral health services as not being an attack on public safety or fire services.

== Topics ==
- Alternative Response Unit (ARU)
- Behavioral Health Services
- ARU Staffing & Structure
- Speed Cameras
- Emergency Communications (RECC)
- Fire Department Operations
- Police Department Staffing
- Fireworks Safety
- Community Survey on Behavioral Health

== Full Transcript ==
Madam Chair, Councilor Chavez, we are allowed. Thank you so much. Good evening, everybody. I call to order the Public Safety Committee meeting. It is May 19th at 4:01. Could I get a roll call, please?

Chair Chavez? Here. Member Finger? Here. Member Balcher? Here. Member Wheeler? Here. Member Pilcher? Here. Member Crawford? Here. Member Robertson? Here. Member Martinez? Here. Member Liswood? I believe we had that member connecting online, but I don't know if we see her there. Is she on there? No? Oh, there she is. Yeah. Okay. I'm here. Perfect. And we hear you. So great. Thank you.

Next is approval of the agenda. Are there any changes from staff? Move for approval. Second. I have a motion, and I have a second. We do have a member online, so if we could get a roll call vote, please.

Chair Chavez? Yes. Member Finger? Yes. Member Bolliger? Yes. Taylor? Yes. Member Pilcher? Yes. Crawford? Yes. Robertson? Yes. Member Martinez? Yes. Member Liswood? Yes.

This is approval of the minutes. Are there any changes from staff, any changes from the committee? Move for approval. Second. I have a motion. I have a second. Could I get a roll call vote, please?

Member Chair Chavez? Yes. Member Finger? Yes. Member Volacher? Yes. Miller? Yes. Belcher? Yes. Crawford? Yes. Robertson? Yes. Martinez? Yes. Member Westwood? Yes. Great. Motion passes.

Next is presentation. We do have a presentation today. It's an ARU presentation. Assistant Fire Chief Mario Rizzo and Case Manager Supervisor Matthew Martin will be presenting. I do want to say that Chief has been very generous with their time and has mentioned that if we need more information come June after we hear this, he'll work with the committee to bring that forward in additional presentation. So I do know that there's a lot of questions. There's a lot of information floating around right now. I do want us to be respectful to our presenters if they don't have the information in front of them immediately. Please keep in mind that the Fire Department has been working with us in a very collaborative and supportive way in getting us as much information as possible, and they're willing to continue bringing information to us. So if the information isn't in the presentation today and they do not have the answers immediately, I ask for patience as they're working just to get us that information. And so I will turn it over to you.

We have a presentation available. You guys can see that? Yes? Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Chief Rizzo. I'll be presenting with Case Manager Supervisor Matthew Martin. Matthew will be moving into the role of Interim Behavioral Health Manager shortly, and he is a subject matter expert on alternative response. So he's available for questions as well.

I would like to thank the members of the SFFD with whom I've worked for the last 19 years. I want to thank them for their dedicated and professional work amid escalating demand. I've been with this department for 19 years, and during my career, I've worked as a firefighter, paramedic, training captain, training officer, and now I've been the Assistant Chief of Support Services since January of this year. My position oversees six divisions within the Fire Department, which include training, EMS, health and safety, fleet, the Fire Marshal's Office, and Mobile Integrated Health. The ARU is housed within Mobile Integrated Health, and it has been the subject of intense focus over the past several months. So tonight, we're going to speak about it. We're going to focus on what is alternative response, what is case management, and how do these things fit into the structure of the Fire Department, how ARU goals are achieved, the impacts and accomplishments the ARU has made, and the organizational structure, career ladder, and strategic priorities that we are setting as a department moving forward.

So first off, why does the ARU matter? Why does it elicit such an intense public emotional response and debate? I believe it's because it's designed to address an emotionally intense subject, which is behavioral health. Behavioral health is the connection between behaviors, actions, and overall physical mental well-being. It includes mental health, substance abuse, and lifestyle habits that affect wellness. This includes substance abuse, addiction management, stress management, food insecurity, financial instability, homelessness, anxiety, depression, and suicidality. I would venture to say that everyone in this room has likely dealt with some form of behavioral health crisis either on a personal level or with a loved one. So, of course, it makes sense that this is an emotionally charged subject. The members of the SFFD deal with this subject daily, often in very dangerous and life-threatening situations, and firefighters deal with their own behavioral health issues as well. So it's a subject that we do understand, and it's an important one to discuss.

I am here to communicate to this committee that the Fire Department wants to do a good job. The Fire Department has historically adapted to the community's needs, whatever they may be, because we are here to serve the community. And behavioral health-related issues are one of the needs we are attempting to address as well. Not every behavioral health issue necessitates the response of a fire apparatus, an ambulance, and or a police unit, so that is where alternative response comes in. ARU matters because it provides appropriate behavioral health response for vulnerable community members. It aims to reduce unnecessary utilization of fire, EMS, and police resources. It improves continuity of care through case management and follow-up. It connects individuals to behavioral health housing and social service resources, supports public safety through compassionate community-based intervention, and it helps reduce repeat emergency system utilization.

So what is alternative response? Well, it's exactly how it sounds. It's an alternative to those traditional response models that we discussed. It's an alternative and or co-response to the traditional police, fire, and EMS response model. As I said before, the ARU is particularly appropriate for mental and behavioral health-related clients and calls, and the goal is to provide an effective and proactive behavioral health response and time-limited case management to reduce unnecessary emergency service utilization and connect vulnerable community members to the resources they need.

Some of the history I can provide you with on the ARU in the Fire Department is that it was established in fiscal year 2021-2022, utilizing a combination of grant-funded positions and Fire Department positions. In fiscal year 2023-2024, grant-funded positions became a fully funded part of the Santa Fe Fire Department position listing. In calendar year 2023, 2024, and 2025, ARU accounted for approximately 5% of the SF50 total call volume. And in 2026, we are currently on target to hit the same number. But we do want to refine and identify what the goals of this unit are and what we can accomplish realistically with the resources we have to be successful for all the stakeholders involved in the City of Santa Fe.

How are these goals achieved? They respond to appropriate calls and alternative as an alternative and or co-response to police, fire, and EMS. They provide community outreach to vulnerable populations. They connect clients with the appropriate resources. They monitor their UHU as a key point indicator of their productivity. I can explain what UHU means. It's utilization, and it's a measurement of activity on calls. And we want to use the UHU to determine the necessary growth of the ARU program. So we want to use data and metrics to determine the accomplishments of this program and what it needs to grow.

Case management is a collaborative client-focused process of assessment, planning, facilitation, and advocacy. Some examples include connecting clients to mental and or behavioral health, medical, and social services, coordinating with community resources, facilitating follow-up care and treatment access, and reducing repeat emergency system utilization. So these are two main things that the Mobile Integrated Health Division has been trying to accomplish simultaneously with dealing with fluctuations in staffing, and we want to better structure this division to identify what the actual job duties of each position are and what the actual goals that we're trying to accomplish are.

Some of the program impacting the accomplishments thus far is that the ARU response accounts for approximately 5% of SFFD total call volume. The program has expanded from initial grant-funded pilot to permanent SFFD operation. We've added two new ARU units and increased operational capacity. We've integrated this unit into the Santa Fe Fire Department Image Trend documentation and radio communication system. We've got continued growth in mental and behavioral health response and community outreach efforts. We have an expansion from a grant-funded pilot to a permanent SFFD program, and they have been recognized statewide through the Behavioral Health Star Award.

This is an example of the structure that we are looking to establish within this division. Currently, several of these positions are vacant, and we would like to go over the job descriptions and titles of each of these so that we can better structure this division. I don't know how well you can see this, but what we have at the top is an Assistant Chief level position that has not been in the Fire Department for about four years now. It's known as AC3. We would like to bring that division, that position, back into the department and have them oversee the MIH Division as well as EMS. We feel that that top-level management position will help structure that mission of that division. Underneath them is a vacant position, which is titled currently as Behavioral Health Manager. Under that position are currently two Case Manager Supervisors. We would like to consider turning one of them into an ARU Supervisor who would oversee six different personnel. Those six personnel would be titled as ARU Techs and ARU EMTs.

I know there's been a lot of discussion about the movement of the EMS captains off that unit and affecting their operational capabilities. That unit has been running calls over the last four months. It does affect their assessment because there's not a paramedic on that unit to do that, but we're looking at this as an alternative unit, an alternative to a Fire Department resource. So we feel that if we can bring behavioral health specialized ARU-focused EMT-certified members onto that unit, then we can alleviate some of those issues with formal medical assessments, transporting to different facilities, transporting to hospitals. What we want to do here as well is maintain case management with a supervisor, and currently, I have two case manager positions on there. Case management is a complex subject. I know that Matthew could speak a lot more on the intricacies of it, but I do get concerned about what the responsibility of the Fire Department and the MIH Division with case management is going to be, and what external resources are available for them to move clients towards to progress them into treatment that they can't provide themselves. So we want to have a robust division that has measurable objectives that we can achieve, but I really do look forward to working with the working group that's coming up in June so that we can discuss that.

And as I said, find a solution that satisfies all of the stakeholders here in Santa Fe. Some strategic priorities moving forward is to establish a dedicated leadership oversight for EMS and ARU operations, to standardize organizational structure and role expectations, to fill current vacancies to improve operational consistency, provide clear direction, goals, and accountability for program growth, to evaluate sustainable case management workload capacity, and to develop a tiered career pathway to support retention and continuity within that division. Thank you for your time, and I want to say the ARU represents an evolving model of public safety focused on appropriate resource, response, compassionate intervention, and long-term community impact. And I look forward to answering any questions. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Any questions? I have, well, just some. I want to make sure that we're clear before we ask questions. The model, this is a proposed model, right? It's a goal right now as discussed, and then the working group is going to determine, because I know that there's been an image of another model going around. So I just want to see if you could highlight the difference between those just so that they're clear that this is just a proposal right now, and then we could go to questions from the committee.

Yes, ma'am. It is a proposal. Thank you.

Alright. Any questions? Yes. Were we going to hear from anyone else as far as presentations, or is that really it? And we just go with questions.

Yeah, this is it. This is the presentation they brought forward. And like I said, this is an evolving conversation, and I think it may be difficult right now to present a lot because they are determining the direction to go. This is a way for them to gather information from our committee to help with that direction. So I think even more than questions, I'm sure our Fire Department would want to hear feedback and input and ideas. But, yes, this is it.

Okay. My first question for Assistant Chief Rizzo is out of the five, you said it was 5% total call volume is ARU, right?

Yes, sir.

Out of that 5% call volume, what percentage of that would require advanced life support, which is paramedic level?

I don't have a solid statistic for that. Is there anyone in ARU who might know that? That's right. And if you don't have an answer, that's okay because we'll keep getting information. I just want you to know because I know there's going to be a lot of questions coming at you. And if you're like, we don't have it right now, that's completely fine. Okay? And just to explain, ALS is advanced life support.

Mhm.

Is what paramedics are trained to provide.

I don't have that. I don't have that answer right now, but I'll work together.

Okay. Another question is when this program first started, was it always the intent to have fire paramedic fire captains overseeing this, or was this just kind of like a fill-in to get the program running? Do we know that?

Sir, I can't speak to the initial intentions, to be honest. I understand that there's been different conceptual frameworks that have moved through this program in the last ten years.

The next question I have is probably you mentioned the task force. Who is the task force and are any of us involved?

We've had this conversation. So, Chief Ouderkirk really wants to work internally with people who are doing the work within the city, but I have advocated that public safety be involved. So that's why this presentation is coming forward, and then he's bringing more information after the first session with internal stakeholders to us in June. So there will be another additional ARU presentation in June that will be giving us a summary of that work and what their next steps are if the task force will be expanding. And I don't know if you have more to add, but that's what I understood from our last conversation.

Yes, Madam Chair, members of the committee. We have a committee that we put together just like any other of our divisions that run, whether it's our wildland division, Fire Marshal's Office. We work with internal stakeholders within the city to accomplish the goals that we have set for ourselves, and this is kind of no different from that. We're bringing together other internal stakeholders within the city that we work with and collaborate with on a regular basis with the ARU to help reach the goals that we want for this unit and for this division to do the best that we can to provide the service to the city and to the citizens that it needs.

Alright. I'll reserve some comments if you want. Okay. Are there any other questions? Committee Member Miller?

So my first question is, is the 5% number, what's that based on? I mean, I'm an old cop, so I'm just thinking, and I've worked with ARU in-depth because I've had a mental health client that has become very well known to the ARU. So I probably know the intricacies of how they interact with somebody in the public more than the general person does. But I'm just kind of curious about that 5%. Is that strictly we're calling and we're saying we need mental health assistance? I, because my understanding is at one point in time, it was actually addressing a lot of the unhoused and some of the substance abuse issues that we had with the people that are unhoused that the ARU is responding to those types of calls. So I find it hard to believe that that's only 5% of the calls that you guys are rolling on. Is that, so I'm trying to figure out where that 5% number comes from.

System Image Trend to extract that information. It's 5% of the total call volume now. What we've put into the reporting system is also a method of them inputting information on whether they self-dispatched, whether they were dispatched by fire, dispatched by police, whether it was a police-generated call, whether it was something they were proactively doing driving through the street because that's another thing that they do is proactive community outreach. But those are the numbers that we have.

So, so that 5% is response by the ARU. So it's not something that maybe the ARU could have responded to if the ARU was a larger entity. That would probably be a more ARU appropriate response team if there was more staff. Is that accurate?

You are correct that that is the number of, that is the percentage of our total call volume that this unit is running between the two units.

Alright. That makes more logical sense to me that that's how many response, ARU responses there were. Because I'm one of those individuals. Because of my client, I identified many times where I needed the ARU. And the ARU staff members and I became on a first-name basis. In fact, they had my phone number, and I would text them, and they would be like, hey, yeah, Eric, we know this is going on, but we're not available. We're not working, things of that nature. So that's, that's my concern, and that's one of those things that I've talked about for a number of years, and I'm probably going more into comments than questions at this point. But moving that piece forward, so we're identifying because I think there's a lot more calls that could be handled by ARU. It's just there's not the staff, there's not the size of the entity that we need to address those issues. And like I said, my particular client, the ARU was a life-saving force. If it not had been for the ARU on at least 15 different occasions, bad things would have happened. My client would have ended up in a bad situation, could have been arrested, could have been involved in a motor vehicle crash. But because of the ARU and me being able to communicate with them and the rapport that was established with the ARU and individuals that have left the ARU or they've retired from the Fire Department, who established that type of rapport. And that goes back into the case management and the follow-up. Because when my client was having a good day and a member of the ARU staff showed up at her house to have a follow-up conversation as to what happened two weeks before when she was hospitalized, that built the bridge within the community that, you know, we can't describe how that prevented her down the road from having more what we call, quote, unquote, episodes. So I come from a place that I feel that this unit needs to be expanded. In regards to medical personnel being assigned to ride the ARU, I could look at it from both perspectives. I think that there is value there. I think when you identify individuals, and maybe this is where we go back to if I have a large enough unit and they're responding to individuals that are unhoused in the streets, and we know that they need medical assistance, we know that they need to be hospitalized at times, then we're going to have that ability to make that assessment right offhand, without having to pull a med from somewhere else to go and respond to that scene. So, you know, those are all the things that I look at and that I question, and I'm a strong proponent of ARU. I think it's an amazing program. I think Santa Fe has actually done a better job than a lot of other communities on how they have put it together. And, you know, but at the same time, it is an evolutionary process. And I think that that's where we do need input. We need input from the mental health stakeholders in this community, and we need input from the youth as well, you know, to see where that's going to assist our community. Thank you so much.

Committee Member Martinez?

Thank you, Chair. I have a couple of questions. How many cases did case management have in the last year? And let me give some background. Understanding case management, I see that in this model, you have two. Case management or what's going on in Santa Fe these days, that might be overloading two case managers. So that's why I'd like to know how many cases that each one would be getting in the next, I mean, foreseeing that?

Thank you for the question, ma'am. I'm going to have Supervisor Martin answer that. But I would also like to say, like, I would love to be able to accomplish all these things. I would love to have a robust EMS reporting oversight quality management program that the Fire Department is in dire need of as the single, the largest, busiest single-tier system in the state of New Mexico, and be able to staff as many ARUs and case managers as the city requires. But the reason there's only two on there is because that is just a proposal, and we're really limited on the resources we have. And so that's why I think the working group or the focus group is going to be very beneficial to hear what the stakeholders would like us to be able to accomplish with this program. But I'll let him speak to the case management part of it.

Committee members, can you repeat the question for me?

How many cases did case management have last year?

So we hold a caseload of clients. No, it's changed over time. In the beginning of time, we had 25 to 30 clients on any case manager's caseload, and we visit each person once a week. And the length of time that those people stay on caseload dependent on their needs and available resources. As the model continues to change and our staffing gets lighter and lighter, we're kind of shifting in with that. So our numbers are a little lighter. We're all still carrying about five, a couple more clients while also running the ARU two, three, four times a week. So our caseloads are much smaller, but we have a much smaller staff. And so, but that doesn't say that as we change job titles to ARU techs, whatever, like, we continue to do case management.

It's just called differently. You get a little closer to the mic. You're fine. Just as you need. I just want to make sure all your words are being captured. So right now, we're just trying to be a little more strategic with the tools we have. So we're doing more in the field, social case management. How do we address these immediate crisis needs and pass them off to the resources that have the stability in case management services? And as we become more robust and we continue to grow, we can add those more supportive case management pieces back in. Thank you. You're welcome.

I have another question. How much input has been taken from the public, from the case managers, from the Fire Department, people who work the ARU? They are the core of this unit. So how much input has been taken and utilized by them specifically?

Well, especially with what's going on and me being new in this role, we had a meeting with that staff yesterday to discuss what we're talking about here today because I don't want to come up and speak for the people who are doing the actual job. So they seem to be on board with it, but with the need to grow that division, we would have to find additional personnel who are willing to come in and get on board with that. One of the things that we've experienced is that we feel that the title case manager was a little bit misguiding for some of the members who had left because they verbally stated they didn't want to be on an alternative response unit. They didn't want to be doing those calls in the streets and in people's homes. And so that's one of the reasons we feel it's necessary to really identify what each of these positions is for.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I do feel that there needs to be an expansion of this, but I really do feel that it's important for us and the public to hear from them specifically, and I'll save those comments for later. But that's something that I feel is really important to hear from the firefighters, from the EMS, from the case managers, and from the public at times on this subject. It's a lot to ask, but at least the ones working the ARU, it's important to hear from them.

Yes, ma'am. I don't believe that the general firefighter rank and file have really been heard on this subject too much. No? I would definitely like to hear from them, and perhaps I'll leave that comment for the end of the questions so I can figure out how I'm going to ask that question. I'm sure they do have an opinion on it. Thank you.

Alright. Yes. Member Crawford. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Chief Rizzo, just a question. I take it that what necessitates having an EMS medical professional on the ARU is potential transport to the hospital. Yes?

Yes. So it doesn't they can go to the hospital without that person, but it does help with that process. Yes.

Okay. How can they go to the hospital without that person?

The same way that a police officer would transport somebody to the hospital.

Okay. So what is being used now to backfill the loss of the paramedic captains?

Nothing.

Nothing. Okay. So if that's the case, if you have someone who needs to go to the hospital, how do you get them to the hospital? Do you have to call a med?

Yeah. We've, yes, sir. Thank you for the question. We've met several times over the last few months during these changes and talked about the process of making sure that the emergency scene is cleared by police and fire prior to entering for ARU personnel and then contacting the appropriate resource in the case that you need someone who is medically trained, such as the Fire Department.

Yeah. So they if there was a medical and there is a fine line with some of these behavioral emergencies. Right? Because if someone is suicidal, that can really change the dynamic of whether or not a case manager and ARU tech can deal with that patient or client versus calling an ambulance who deal with those every day. But mainly, you have to you essentially have you're in the position where you have to call a med. Correct.

Okay. Now I'm reading on, it says I'm on the page where it says, "What is alternative response?" And it says, "The goal is to provide an effective and proactive behavioral health response and time-limited case manager to reduce unnecessary emergency service utilization." So is it fair to say that if we haven't backfilled the loss of the emergency medical personnel on that unit, doesn't that kind of negate the full purpose of ARU, which is to cut down on having to call out a med necessarily?

I feel that putting a Fire Department paramedic captain on that unit negates the purpose in this bullet point because it's not an alternative to the Fire Department when you're staffing it with the Fire Department. I feel that if they're responding to a call that turns out they need police, that they have to call police. And if they need fire, they're going to call fire, and that's how I feel about it.

Sure. I mean, I think the concern is not that they're using paramedic captains. What is it being backfilled with? Who is replacing the tool that was taken off the truck, essentially? You want to speak to how many times you guys have had to call paramedics or EMS captains since they were taken off?

Yes, sir. Thank you. I'll do my best to answer your question. So, again, as our staffing has changed, we've shifted our response model. So we are not taking calls that have a heavy medical feel or need a psych evaluation. Those calls, we've just kind of we're a support service. We're kind of second going in, and we take the calls that we know we can be primary on, and we do what we know how to do. There are occasions where we have to call for medical support, but once this new model continues to play out, I think that will start to dissipate.

Go back into our old Yes, sir. And final question, when do you anticipate, if this new proposal is approved, when do you anticipate that to be?

We'd like to have the job descriptions completed by June. We have to have them completed by June and instituted in July. So then we would begin the hiring process.

Thank you, sir. You're welcome.

Yeah. Committee member Iverson. Just going to piggyback on what Mr. Bolater, member Bolater, and member Wheeler said. So my question was on the 5% too. They kind of asked half my question, but I was trying to kind of drill down. So if it wasn't for a shortage of staffing, you might be able to take more than that 5%. Is that correct?

I do believe so.

Okay. And what are the qualifiers that lead to a call for ARU or that a dispatch for ARU?

Madam Chair, committee members, thank you for your question. Can you repeat the question?

Sure. Just wondering what are the qualifiers that lead to the dispatch of the ARU?

Yeah. So it depends. We will either get requested by a PD officer already on scene, maybe a Fire Department personnel already on scene. Typically, and how it started is we self-dispatch. So we see the pending calls, and we can read and understand what's going on and understand how we can or can't participate and help that situation. So we don't put ourselves into situations where we can't be an assistance to that situation.

Does that Yeah. That does help. So, yeah, your hands are tied a little bit. And I just full disclosure. I love the ARU. It's one of my favorite things that we do here in the cities. Thank you.

Any other questions? Yes. Committee member Wheeler?

Can I just follow up on what Committee Member Robertson said? I think a big piece of that is, and I speak because I'm on the 911 board as well. I think a big piece of that is the knowledge of our community knowing about the ARU. I mean, definitely individuals that are familiar with the ARU, they're going to they're going to reach out to dispatch, and I've done it. Yeah. I need an ARU unit to respond to my client. And, therefore, the of course, the dispatcher is asking me the follow-up questions. Why do you feel this is something applicable to the ARU? But I think that would add on to that whole dynamic. The more education that we provided to the community, and I'm actually happy that we're having this dialogue because it is educating the community about the ARU. Because I deal with people all the time, and I have clients that do have mental health issues. And their family members are like, well, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to do this. It's like, well, and I explained. We have an ARU, and this is what the ARU is. So I think that education would definitely change that dynamic and the volume of the calls that you would be seeing. The more education that the community understands that, you know, we're all everybody's talking about mental health. Everybody's talking about all the different resources that are out there. There are tons of members of the community that have involvement, but understanding that we actually have somebody that we can call. You know? It's when I was a police officer, somebody called to turn off their beans because they were going to burn. It's like, well, wait. We that's not the Police Department's job. But understanding, we have a unit that responds for mental health issues that can aid my family member in this situation, and I'm at a loss. I mean, I'm a parent of four kids. I had a teenage son. I wish I had had the ARU when he was 16 years old because that would have probably given me resources that I didn't have as a troubled father. So I think that piece will change that dynamic dramatically where we educate the public, and we'll have a heck of a lot more responses where our community is reaching out and asking for it. Thank you.

Any other questions? Yes. Member Vinger?

Thank you. What are what are the shift schedules like now? I mean, how many officers or how many case managers do you have on the street at times, and what's your goal? I mean, you're trying for 24/7, 365.

Sir, thank you for the question. Currently, we have three case managers, two supervisors who oversee them, and then a vacant position above that as well as the Assistant Chief position that I had in my so it's very thin. And, they're all five on duty from 8:00 till 4:00, Monday through Friday. What the goal would be, that's truly I think that's being discussed right now. It's obviously a very popular program, and the city wants to see it grow. And I I'm just here to help facilitate that, but I think the funding is the big thing. Right? I mean, I would also like to take this opportunity to say, I think our EMS division and support services divisions, they're hurting for personnel and people as well. Maybe if that EMS division was to grow in captains, they'd be able to do paramedic quality management oversights, respond to critical calls, and also do what they do with ARU. But when we removed them from that unit, we wanted them to be a mobile resource that was able to do all of the things that we're asking them to do without being fixed to that truck. But as with most things, funding and resources is the limitation.

Any other questions? I have a ton of questions, but if nobody has questions, I want to give our visiting councilor a chance to ask some questions or to comment. Councilor Wagner?

Yeah. I have some comments and a couple of questions. I think yes. One of my questions, and many of you have asked the questions I had. What I find interesting about this situation is that there have been some people who have been part of the program in the past, who aren't part of the program now, who have been doing a great job of advocating for the program.

The only problem I see is there's been some misinformation that's been presented, and then it just spirals once it gets out there. One of the questions I have is, is there any intention to cut this program back? No, ma'am. Is there any funding that's been taken out of this program in the budget? Nope. So let's put that to rest. Everyone in the community, this program is not under attack. That's not happening. I know that several of us on the council are very interested in this and passionate about it, and we've volunteered to help with this working group that Chief Ouderkirk has put together.

If this program, I'm an advocate for moving the program out of fire and putting it in community services because there's a ton more resources that you can access through that department than you can access through the fire department for this kind of programming. My concern is if it stays in the fire department, it is likely not going to be able to grow as much as it would if it was in community services where you can get state grants and federal grants. This program is kind of in that wheelhouse rather than what the fire department does. So I just want to put that out as a comment. But otherwise, I think the council is looking at this. We take this very seriously. We just want to try to get it in a space where it can grow because we definitely need it after five and we definitely need it on the weekends.

I also think that one thing I found interesting about this whole conversation is I don't know how many people who are advocates for this program on the council, in the community, have actually had a conversation with the people providing the services. I think there's been a lot of conversations outside of the people who are providing the services. I think there's been a lot of back and forth with people who are not part of the program and people in the community and the counselors and maybe members of this committee. The awesome thing, I agree with member Martinez, that we should be listening to the people who run the program, who are in the program and do the services every single day, because I found there's a ton of misinformation. Even some of the advocates did not have accurate information on how many times the calls, the AR units went out, how much money we're spending, whether we're cutting the program in half.

So I agree. It would be awesome, and I'm willing as finance chair to have this discussion on the finance committee because it does lean into finance and how much money we're putting into these programs to do preventative care and then also to take care of the people who are already in behavioral health crises. But I would like to hear from the counselors and the therapists who are providing the services because they're the boots on the ground in this situation, and so are the firefighters and so are the police. We need to listen to those three groups to get accurate information out to the community. That's all, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. Here we go. There's a lot. I'm sorry, but I have a lot of questions. I agree. I think that we need to hear from the people doing the work. I have some insights, but I will not speak for those individuals because I think that they should have grounds to speak for themselves. I will also be fair to the community that are doing advocacy. The reason why they see it as a cut is because there was a shift in structure. So although there might not be a financial cut because we're still paying for paramedics or EMTs that can still serve this purpose, when we're looking at the structure and visually how ARU looked, things were taken away, as consistent. And I think we need to be fair to advocates and not act like we're imagining that occurred because we're not. The structure has changed, and it's okay to say we've changed the structure, everyone. It has changed. Fire has created systems, though, that services can still be available.

Now where I hear there's issues with that is that, and I'll start with transport. So you said, yes, they can be transported the same way they're transported by police. Can you expand on that? Is that police is the one transporting and that's why it looks like that? Is it the ARU that's transporting? So what does transport look like? Yes. Thank you for the question, counselor. What I meant by that is that if this is a non-EMS call, they should be able to take that person to the hospital if that's where the resources that that particular client patient needs. I hesitate to call them a patient because if they're a patient, they should be in an ambulance. Okay. And so ARU is able to transport within the ARU vehicle to receive medical or if they volunteer to go to seek medical attention or no? I'm hesitant to answer that question. I think that's a difference. And so I just want to make sure that's at the surface, and that's what we're hearing from the community is, why does this look different? It's because when we show up without people that can see them as a patient in need, but still a patient that wants a support system or support model to get them the help they need, it looks different. It's not going to be the same. I think that's why people are feeling a difference in the service. So I just want that to be clear.

So when people are talking about a cut in funding or cut in staff or a cut in ARU, it's mainly for that reason, and that's just a fact. Is fire completely supporting everything they can to make sure services are provided? Yes. But when we don't have EMTs responding to a call in the moment, a patient can change their mind very, or a person can change their mind very quickly where they don't have potential to be a patient anymore. And that's where the concern from the community is coming from. So I just want to be very clear about that concern because I think it's a real concern. As I said this at a previous meeting, if I have a person who is talking about needing help and is right there about getting help, but we don't have the services or we have to wait for a call or suddenly what has been servicing that patient in the moment shifts because new people arrive and questions are being asked again and all of that is occurring, all of a sudden, they're not a patient. And now we can't help them. So I just want to be clear about that perception from the community about cuts, and I think it's because the service itself has shifted in the way it looks.

The other thing I would like to say, though, is I like this model, actually, a lot. I like the idea of having an ARU tech, but I think we need to explore what that role would actually look like and if we can keep a patient looking like a patient. If it's a patient we could transport, we can provide the services that an EMT did. And I don't know if we can because I don't know liability-wise if that's possible if they're not certified EMT. But I think that's ultimately what is needed. I like this. I think this is a start. I think that team members of this team would like the fact, this whole concept of an ARU tech, if that would be possible. But as I said, when I look at this, I'm like, well, what does that role look like? How is it defined? What kind of services can they provide? Is it going to be the same thing, but we're just calling this role something else? Is it this that's already concerned, but we're just calling the role something else? We don't, I don't know if we know all that, and I get that. And I think the working group's going to explore those things, but I want to make sure that we're not doing that.

Also, in risk, and I'm just going to be very transparent. The 5% means nothing to me, for a few reasons. We can't measure call volume when there has been instability in the system, and it's by no one's fault. Case management, just for the community, if you don't know already, case management is probably the hardest position to keep filled across the nation. There's such a need that people can find something better, less stressful. There's just options. So case management's really hard. So we have positions kind of running this, running ARU or involved in ARU that can have high turnover. We had a shift in, we had a shift in the model itself that impacts volume. We heard it. We're taking different calls. We're functioning differently. And then there's also been a shift in police. So when I think of ARU, and I've been having conversations with RECC, and I'm going to continue those so I could bring them forward here. RECC gets a lot of calls for welfare checks constantly. We just had a huge increase in police, build positions. Our vacancy has been cut. Police respond to welfare, and they're able to respond quickly. They have a lot more individuals than ARU does out there, and they're there a lot longer. I would be very interested to see if police welfare checks have increased in response due to us filling vacant positions and due to their availability to community, compared to ARU. Because we're really trying to measure ARU success based on call volume or, we're going to use data to make decisions. We don't have accurate data in my opinion because there's all of these factors that I just named. So I said, like, police impact and the fact that they have more patrol and they have more availability to do those things. We also have a change in structure. We have a very unstable workforce of case managers within that as well. There's been a lot that have left. There's been vacancies. There's been things that have occurred. So when I'm looking at call volume, I'm like, to me, that number doesn't give me a lot of information.

So what I think needs to occur, I agree with Councilor Faulkner. I don't think it belongs in fire. I will say that. I think fire will be needed. The services that come from fire, the services that come from police will always be needed within ARU, but I also think it should be in community services. I think community services has a more consistent connection to behavioral health providers. I think that they know how to do case management, or they know people and work regularly with people that know how to do case management. I also think if it does move into community services, though, it's going to require cross-training. If we're going to have any police officer, and I don't know if that's going to happen, but when any paramedic or EMT that could respond to these calls, we're going to have to have very clear goals on how that would look. So everyone knows how to walk into these situations and provide the services that our community needs when they're in crisis and for it to be an alternative approach.

Now speaking, and I'm talking a lot, I know, but I have a lot to say. Speaking about alternative, I've heard a few times, when we speak about alternative, we mean something alternative to police or alternative to paramedics. I argue that alternative means an alternative approach. It means that these same people that keep our community safe are showing up, but they're working with behavioral health individuals, and they're trained in a way and collaborate in a way with a team that responds in an alternative way. It doesn't mean that people in uniform cannot show up. It doesn't mean we're trying to avoid the look of the service. We're trying to, we're trying to think of an alternative to the service itself. That's how I look at alternative response. So I just want to clarify, and I'm okay with anyone saying I'm wrong about that. But when I think of an alternative response, that's what I think about.

I would be curious, just because I think there's numbers all around. I will be curious. I want to know a few things about case management, and we won't have that information now. But when we're talking about case management, when we're talking about ARU, how long are those calls? Because I've had ARU respond to a teen when I was an administrator, and they were with me. They hadn't even transported the teen, but they were there probably half a day at the school servicing this young man. So I would want to know the length of the call, and I know that's very dependent, but to get data on what those lengths look like. And I'd also want to know how case management follows up because this is a response that has follow-up case management.

I also would like to know how outreach in the community looks like that aren't being logged as calls. I don't know if that's occurring, but exposing yourself to community members that are in need is probably part of this work. So what does that look like? So I think that all of that information, and if you have insight now, that's great. I know some of those numbers you might need to dig into, but I'd love to hear if you have any insight on any of that now.

Is your mic on? Is it on? Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. So for our proactive engagements, we do call out. We call it an F93. We'll call out in the dispatch so they know where we're at, what we're doing, and then we'll call back in service. So those are documented. They know where we are to keep us safe.

And is that part of this call volume of the 5% we're hearing about? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. That's good to know. And would you be able to look for length of calls to bring to us at a later time? Yeah. So that's part of that UHU number. Perfect. So that'll give you the amount of hours per shift that we will be on scene.

Alright. Great. Since I brought it up and we're all here, can you give me insight? Can either one of the chiefs, Chief Ouderkirk or Rizzo, on what you envision in this proposal of roles looking like within the model that you've shared? What is an ARU tech? What will they be allowed to do? What do you envision a successful team like this? How would it function? What would the roles be?

Yes, Madam Chair. These roles will be very similar to our case manager positions now, except they'll be more of a role on ARU. It gives us the opportunity to run both ARUs full time, 100% of the day, and it gives us backfill to make sure if someone does call off sick, if someone's not able to be at work that day, has annual leave, is on vacation, that the ARU unit is not compromised with that personnel, and they'll be able to continue to operate and run.

With these ARU techs running full time, they're experts in running these calls and going to these individuals and helping them out. And then having an ARU tech EMT with them gives them the opportunity to do these patient assessments to be able to assess this person medically just in case they do need that medical component of that kind of call.

One of the things that we're looking at that I'm going to be a proponent of, we recently sat through a presentation at the RECC, and it's called EPD, and it's a way that they can generate the calls and how they are dispatched out and how they name the calls. It's a very cool process, and it can distinguish calls directly for ARU. Instead of just calling it a welfare check, that can be a huge gambit of different things. This can really ask certain questions and be able to dispatch our ARU specifically for those things that fall within that realm.

Right now, our ARU takes a lot of those welfare checks and PD calls as they pop up on the screen and as they triage those appropriately. This will give them the opportunity to know what calls they need to respond to immediately when it comes out.

Alright. Awesome. Yeah. Our ACC is amazing. I want us to increase collaboration with them because that team can provide a lot of good information. Chief Grundler, something I'm curious about. Can we get data eventually? And I just think I know it might be a while, not by June, but can we get data on police wellness checks of community members and how many times they have to call EMT due to psych issues off-hours?

Because we're talking about running from eight to four, and I'm sorry, when it's daylight, I can imagine there's a lot less issues in regards to behavioral health than when we have evening shifts, which is why we see a lot more crime occurring in the evening. I would like to see, I'm very curious what that need looks like in the evening because we do. We have this volume for ARU, but what is the potential volume they could be responding to at night?

And this is why I'm saying we heard, we saw the 5%. It's great data that we have, but there's so many pieces of data that we're missing right now that I'm very curious about, and I think we're going to need as a working group, which I will be on. Let me make sure if I have anything else. I probably like, please don't.

Madam Chair, just to answer your question. Oh, yes. Yes. We can get that for you. Do you think you could do it by June? I know. It'll get done, ma'am. He can't, but that would be great. And Madam Chair, the ARU runs eight to six with our community partners. And so there is our case, our case managers have a time frame from eight to four, and then they're working overtime for those last couple hours of their shift to keep the ARU online for a little bit longer as our community partners are also still working on those hours. Eight to 6 PM.

Alright. Alright. So I said I think we need more data. I'm just trying to think. I think we need to consider the increase in place. I'm just making sure I'm going over everything because I'd want to work with you within the working group to bring this information to our next meeting.

I also think that I would, is there a way that we could survey some of our behavioral health partners? And I know this won't come by June because if we're going to do a quality survey, we'd need more time. But I'd like to see how they'd envision ARU existing so that they could provide quality service to community members. And we could collaborate with that, Chief Ouderkirk, within the working groups to even develop a survey. Maybe we could work with one of our behavioral health providers to even help us come up with some of the questions so it's an actually quality survey.

But I'm like, if we're changing the model, then let's do it right. Right? Because I think part of the issue is we need ARU to exist where anyone could look it up and know exactly what kind of services they should be provided. That's what needs to occur, where they know what ARU should consist of in regards to staff, what kind of services are attached to it, when they respond, what that could lead to in regards to support for an individual, and all of that be in writing.

And I think that that development, the development of that plan needs to have all of those individuals' input, as everyone has said, part of it. Right? So our behavioral health partners, the people working ARU now, I think that we need to hear from both teams, police and fire, on their opinion of ARU, whether it's had negative or positive impact on their departments or not. But, you know, how they can still be a part of it because you're going to have to be a part of it.

I said in our last meeting, behavioral health is a thing. It is a real thing. It is a crisis. It has been a crisis, and nobody, we're not doing enough about it, and that is people above us that I feel like need to step up for that as well. I think that's all of my questions. I don't know if my questions cause any other questions, but does anyone else have any questions or comments?

Yes. Yeah. I've got a few comments I'd like to make. I've got an opinion about this. First thing is there's been a lot in the press, and there has been some, what upsets me is there's been a lot of fear-mongering. Mhm. And there's been things saying that if these changes were made, the community was less safe than they are right now. And as someone who retired from the fire department, that really bugs me.

And I can tell you, when I started, and I'm going to go back a little. When I started in the fire department, we didn't have paramedics on every ambulance. I can tell you in 1980, the fire department took over the EMS program over a weekend when the ambulance service in town called the fire chief and said, "Hey. 5:00, we're done." And over a weekend, Chief Broom figured out a way to get one paramedic in the fire, you know, staffed in the fire department and take it over. And from that, we've become one of the best, in my opinion, the best ALS service in the state.

On top of that, you know, I'm going to say this. People in the community might not like it. I think this should be moved. I agree with you. I don't think the fire department should be running this service. And you mentioned a C3 in the proposal. I know being, I used to be a C3. My last three years with the fire department, I was a C3. So I know that position well. And sometimes the fire department is told to do something because that's the policy that the, you know, the policymakers up here say, "Figure it out." So that's where this proposal is coming from is what I'm guessing.

I truly believe, you know, I know what it takes to hire firefighters and to hire paramedics and to get them into the system. And I know that to get to the level of a paramedic captain in the fire department takes eight to ten years of training. You know? So we're taking, and we're taking the highest level trained non, I mean, non-management position that's not, you know, exempt and not in the union and moving it over into that position.

I was an EMT. I was an Ivy Tech. I believe these positions, we would do a lot better with recruiting people. You know? I know I'm going to put my daughter on the spot because she's back there and she works for the fire department. But if they had these EMT slash case managers six years ago, she probably wouldn't be working at the fire department doing what she's doing now, and she'd probably be in the ARU.

I can tell you I worked ten years at the community college after I retired from the fire department, and, you know, they're running three EMT courses a year. And most of those people that are becoming EMTs are not joining the fire department. You know, I see this as an advantage. We could have, we could recruit so many people who want to do something like this, give back to their community, and do something good for the community without having to be able to drag a 180-pound person, you know, or go up a flight of stairs and do all of these physical things that are required in the fire department.

I think it would make it much more, you know, a broad program. I know what the fire department has proposed is good from them. And if they're tasked to do it, they're going to do it, and they're going to do it well. But, you know, when it comes to, I was watching a meeting of the city council. They had a special meeting, and the union president got up and spoke, and most of the counselors had questions about it. And Counselor Castro made the best analogy, I thought. And she said what's required for ARU is like a Swiss army knife. You know? And you look at every position in the fire department, and there are a bunch of different Swiss army knives. None of the positions in the fire department are the right Swiss army knife for ARU currently. They can develop that. They'll do it, and they'll come up with a really good program.

But I think the right pocket knife for the ARU would be someone that is an EMT and possibly trained in case management as well. I bet if you worked with the community college, 25 years ago, there was no EMT program or no EMT paramedic program at the community college. But we went to the community college, told them there's a need for this program. They developed it, and now they're pumping out anywhere from 50 to 100 EMTs a year. So I really think this program should grow. I think it's great. I can tell you, back in the Stone Age when I was working on an ambulance, we had to start an IV to give Narcan for an overdose. And now pretty much anyone can give nasal Narcan in a spray. We had to have medical orders, and when you start getting into the whole paramedicine deal, you're dealing with written, standing medical orders and working close with doctors, and there's all these inner idiosyncrasies that you really wouldn't need in the ARU program unless they call for advanced life support. And then the fire department could come take over and do the advanced life support. But that's what I have to say and probably hear some things about it after this, but thank you.

Thank you so much. I think I want to say that I think all of this should be owned by the policymakers, because we often, and I am one of them, will create policy that isn't, I think, detailed enough to offer the staff the guidance they need to build what policymakers think should be built. Right? You're handed something. You're like, do something. Okay. Do it. And you all do the best you can. And then who comes at you? Policymakers. And you're like, well, why didn't you tell them in the first place? Because we didn't, unfortunately. So I want to give credit to the fact that the fire department has taken it throughout these years and done their best with what it should be. I also want to acknowledge the leadership that we have in front of us that is, like, it's broken. And it probably may not have been perceived as broken in the past, but I can guarantee it was not providing as much service as it could have been. Right? And in my mind, that's still broken. So we are in a place right now where we're like, we have something that's broken and not because the service that's being provided is bad or not because it's not making a difference, but because we know it could be more. We know that we could create a structure that's better defined, right, which would help with service in general, but also recruiting for this. So people have a true understanding of what they're walking into. None of that is in place that I can see, and I think that you all are trying to bring this forward to say, okay. Let's create something that's solid, well understood by everyone in the community, and well understood by the people that we're trying to bring in to build this better, and to have more impact on the community. And so I know and I trust the leadership we have because I already see the work that's coming. Right? We're going to have the work session. You've been really, really willing to have these conversations with public safety because I said public safety has to be involved. I see that even with this plan, you are hearing what people are saying, and you're trying to come up with the proposal to present during this work session. So you're doing all this work. What I say because we have set a vulnerable population right now around behavioral health is, like, let's just be very intentional and not create anything until we're absolutely sure that it's exactly what we want to build. I think this is something that we have to do that with. It might mean that ARU is running with minimal staff for a while, but you will be at the table because we're going to keep asking for you. And you're going to tell us how do we build this intentionally so that it's sustainable and so that we're meeting the need of the community to the highest degree because that's what it should be. I don't want our response, and I could tell you right now, our leadership is not headed this way, but I don't want a response to turn into, like, the community wants something, so let's present this, and this is what it is. No. We have an opportunity to create something that can be a model for the nation on how to do an alternative response. We have gone through the growing pains of this so far and how it exists so far that we know what doesn't work. We know what the issues are, the positives, the negatives. Now we could take all that, and we can be open to bring people to the table to actually build something that could be really wonderful for the city of Santa Fe. So I know there's a lot of frustration out in the community, and I would say I completely get it because there was a change that cannot be denied, and I've already made it very clear. However, it's also opened a door for us to create something that truly meets the need that is out there. It allows us to have all of our resources running, meeting that need. It allows us to be available 24/7 potentially. So please be patient with us and know that this is important. Behavioral health is important to all of our committees, all of our counselors. It's important to our mayor, and our chiefs have brought work in front of us to make it what it needs to be. So that's what I will leave the community with. I apologize for the shift. I apologize if you felt the impact of the shift, but it has created and opened this door for us to do the work to make something better. So that's all I have to say. Thank you for your presentation before, though, because I talked a lot. Does anyone else have anything to say?

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have first a comment and then a question. In my background, I was a crisis counselor. I was also an investigator who did case management. It's not easy. I love, I do like this model. I do feel that case management is a little bit different from firefighters and police. I have worked with police. I can say I have not worked with firefighters. The one thing that I can say that I am going to agree with Madam Chair here is that when someone is in crisis and they are having suicidal ideation, they can immediately go, oh, never mind. But in their mind, they've just made that decision whether they're going to go forward or not. So when you have that person right there, you have them, you need to get attention to them as soon as possible. Not case management later. We'll see you in a little while. It's really important, and it's really sad to actually be a crisis counselor when you're actually right in the middle of it. And then they say, hey. I'm out here. And they hang up, and you don't know what they're going to do. You have no idea. It's pretty frightening. So it's important when you have them to get them on the hook and get them going. So what I am going to ask is for next session. I agree with almost everyone up here. I'm not sure if everyone agrees. I would like a presentation. I would like to hear from the case managers, the police, the firefighters in this, and there's a reason for this, is usually the people working day by day, knowing everything that's going on in there, have a better idea than policymakers. I know that just from actually working it. We always had better ideas and saying, hey. We work with this. We know how to go forward with this. Let's work together. So I think hearing from them, getting that info and doing a presentation, June, and I know that's when you were possibly having these descriptions. But I think getting this knowledge would be more helpful before the job description so we can get those job descriptions down. So this model can be exactly what it needs to be. Behavioral health needs to be involved. I also heard two hours of overtime case managers, burnout. The reason why I am not a case manager anymore is that burnout. It was, I have a picture from my days as an investigator. I had taken a picture, and it came up today. It was waist high of files, and I was just overwhelmed. So I really just need to hear from everybody else so that way they can come together at the table and say, here's what we do need, and here's how we go forward. So that way it is built correctly. So if we can ask for that presentation, Madam Chair?

I think we can. I want there to be safety, and I see our assistant city manager in the audience. And I don't know if this is possible because we do have to be careful about staff. But I do know that we see data on staff surveys, or we can have those conversations. I think this is a great topic because of the dynamic, I'll say, amongst staff involved or not involved. That I would think that the best way for us to get a clear understanding is to have a survey that is anonymous that we can receive data on on the topic specifically of ARU. I think having members from ARU respond to this survey, firefighters, police, even if we send it to some of our partner community managers, but where they can identify what role they play if they feel comfortable to do so, and we get their insight on ARU. And I think that would be a good way to do it because I don't know if all of them feel comfortable. I just picture myself being part of ARU and then hearing from individuals that I don't belong in fire, how that would make me feel when I've existed there and I've been contributing to the safety of the community, and I have leaders that have stood up and said, I don't belong there, when I'm in a role that's within that department. I would not want my name known, and I sure as heck wouldn't want to be standing up there in front of all these people to say how I feel about my position and what I need in my position to be successful. Unfortunately, we've created that dynamic, because it's them, within a department, which creates tension in any organization. So if we can, maybe you and I can chat on how we can survey that staff so we can get and the partners involved and the stakeholders involved so that we could get some insight and really bring that forward to our leadership who's trying to put in the work to build something really intentional and meaningful around ARU. And I don't know, Chief, if you feel like how you feel about that, if you feel like that would be insightful. But I know I would love to kind of get the insight from those involved or not involved, but are impacted by this.

Yes, Madam Chair. We've spoken with a lot of our staff on this subject, and we meet, try to meet with the ARU personnel on a regular basis over the last several months and to get their insight and what they feel, what their, what their future is and what they would like to see out of ARU. And there is a lot of emotions around this and that has to do with a lot of how this was set up in the past and previous personnel that was here and how it was presented in different ways and we want to bridge all those gaps and I just want to say our ARU staff is absolutely amazing and they do a wonderful job despite other information that's been put out there, they work extremely hard day in and day out, and they're doing the job that a lot of people don't want to do. Right? That's the same with police and fire. We're doing jobs that not everyone feels passionate about, not everyone wants to do, and they're doing amazing job with what they have. We're limited resources, and we've had different struggles within that division itself. We have our own struggles within our entire department, and we have to figure out how to use those resources in the best way that we can and to put them in a place where the community needs them.

And sometimes that EMS captain, if they were on an ARU call, they wouldn't be able to respond to that person in cardiac arrest. And so we weighed that heavily when we were making that decision. And we thought for them to be a little bit more mobile, to be able to go to where they truly needed to be in that moment, or their expertise for that advanced life support to that person that needed it, that could save their life in that minute, within that timeframe, that that expertise needed to be more mobile and have that opportunity to go to where they needed to be at the time.

And just so everyone knows, leadership has the right to staff how they see appropriate. They have the expertise of how their department functions, and they're able to do that. But I do think survey information, anonymous survey information, would be helpful in us even assessing whether this belongs in fire in the first place. And I think that, yeah, there's a lot of data pieces that we need to come forward. I think an anonymous survey would be helpful. I know you guys have been putting in work because I've heard from a lot of individuals how appreciative they have been or they are of you having very genuine conversations. I just know from being in leadership, because I would often do temperature checks with my staff, I always thought something that was completely wrong once, and it was an anonymous survey. I was like, "Whoa." So I think that it would be just very insightful on the topic to get everyone's really raw, genuine opinion on this topic. I would recommend that. It's ultimately up to our city management, I believe, if that can occur, but I would be willing to have that conversation.

Alright, so that was a long, where are we at? Okay, we've over an hour. Any other questions or comments? Yeah, comment. Regarding resources, so Council Faulkner had mentioned that moving ARU under community services might give you the ability to apply for more grants. You might have access to more grants. And if that's the case, that really could help with capacity building. So just a comment. Absolutely, I agree. Alright, thank you so much for your work. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the conversation. I appreciate it. And everyone, thank you for your time. I know that was a long one.

Action items. We have one action item, request for approval to reclassify two Assistant Fire Chief positions from exempt status to at-will employment to align with executive-level city employment standards and enhance operational flexibility. And I will turn it over to you, Chief, if you want to say anything on that.

Madam Chair, members of the committee, this is kind of fairly standard. We're trying to get in line with the rest of the other city departments that kind of do the same thing. This would move our Assistant Chief positions to exempt at-will. And there's benefits of that that we see. And so we're putting it through all the committees, or going to make this change. It's a governing body vote for this. And so, if there's any questions, I'll stand for questions. It's fairly simple. Just going to move for approval.

Move for approval. Do we have a second? Second. Alright, we have a motion, we have a second. Could I get a roll call vote, please? Yes. Member Finger? Yes. Member Valleta? Member Valleta? Yes. Member Wheeler? Yes. Member Pilcher? Yes. Member Crawford? Yes. Robinson? Yes. Member Martinez? Yes. And Member Westwick? Yes. Great, thank you. Motion passes.

Next is matters from police. Interim Chief Thomas Grundler. All you. Thank you, Madam Chair, committee members. Just going over the numbers for April. In 2025, last year, that time, we had 2,371 calls for service that were self-initiated. For the same time this year, we had 2,592. That's an increase of 9.3%. Our calls for service where we are responding to calls from individuals in the community wanting our assistance, in 2025, it was 5,076. And this year in April, it was 4,513. So, 11.1% drop in that, about 500 calls less. Total calls combined for service in 2026 was 7,105. And in 2025, it was 7,447, which is a drop of 4.6%. So, basically, the good news is, the public's calling less, and that's a good thing. Our self-initiated remained pretty close, but even that's dropped off a little bit, and that happens when we're not seeing the issues in certain areas.

So total calls for the year up to this point, and that's basically from January 1 through April. In 2025, it was 8,285. In 2026, it's 10,776. That's a 30% increase in total call volume. Just for calls for, or that's for self-initiated. I apologize. So that is self-initiated calls. So it's a 30% increase in self-initiated. And then for total calls for, or calls for service from the general public, this year, we have 17,323 versus 2025, which was 18,755. That's a 7.6% decrease. Again, the public is calling us a little bit less. And then total calls combined for 2026 is 28,099, and then 2025 is 19,040. That's 47.3% increase, but that's almost 100% pushed by self-initiated contact. It's proactive, proactivity by our officers. So not a bad thing at all.

When it comes to staffing, right now, we have six sworn vacancies in staff, as of today. We do have four laterals and two cadets that are in the background phase. We also have eight cadets that graduated the academy today. Just so you understand, when they go into the academy, we have, there's usually a high attrition rate. We started with eight, and we finished with eight. We're really proud of those guys. So, they powered through, got through certification, and now they'll go into field training. And then we have four cadets that are scheduled for the July academy, but they'll be starting with us on May 23rd, start getting geared up and prepared for the academy. And we also have 16 civilian vacancies as of today, but we do have seven that are in the background phase that have been made offers. So, as long as they get cleared through their background, they should be starting with us pretty soon.

And then final numbers for Agape House. Again, this is 2,000-foot radius for our homeless shelter in April. Let's see. April 2025, we had 320 total calls for service. April 2026, we've had 162 calls for service. That's a 49.3% decrease in call volume. And, let's see, 193 of those calls in April 2025 were response calls, that means they were calling for us to come. This year was 116. That's a 39.9% decrease in calls for service. And then for self-initiated, in April 2025, it was 127 calls, and this year it was 46, and that's a 63.7% decrease in calls for service. So in terms of when it comes to police resources, whatever model they're using, we like it. So. Right. And then I do have a couple. I'll stand for questions, but I do have a couple of my captains that'll come up and provide some information.

Sounds great. Any questions so far then? Alright, it's all yours still. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to call up Captain Trujillo. He's going to stand in both for himself as investigations captain, but also for our patrol, our patrol captain who had to leave abruptly. So thank you, Cap.

Alright, sir. Madam Chair, members of the committee. So first, Captain Trujillo, PD investigations captain. I'm going to start with the case of the month for patrol. On April 19th, PD responded to the Allsup's 4680 Airport Road in reference to a stabbing. When they got there, the employee reported that he was stabbed, and he was stabbed in the chest, and he was holding his paper towels around the wound. He said that a male had come into the store, was verbally confrontational and threatening, and he was threatening property damage to the store and to the employee's vehicle. I guess the argument continued outside where the employee and the, went outside with the suspect, and he was struck with a beverage container and stabbed. While Officer Norris was collecting a statement about the altercation, Officer Torres located the suspect vehicle, and they conducted a high-risk stop, him and several other officers inside the vehicle. They detained four people, but they all denied any involvement in the altercation. While they're reviewing the surveillance video from Allsup's, it does show that one of the suspects had stabbed the employee, and they had a, but they also determined that the employee and the four suspects had committed, or had participated in a public affray outside of the store. The stabbing was a result of the fight outside. But the, there was the, one of the suspects was ultimately charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and assault. Another suspect was charged with battery and public affray, and then the third subject, third or fourth subject, was charged with public affray. And the victim was transported to the hospital, and he ended up with non-life-threatening injuries, but he was still a stabbing at the Allsup's.

So for my two, I just want to highlight New Mexico Organized Retail Crime Association. You guys have heard about it several times already. But, basically, what they're doing is House Bill 234, which passed in 2023, is being put to use. The law gives prosecutors the ability to aggregate the retail market value of multiple shoplifting cases, and a suspect charges more serious, they can charge him with a more serious crime. So in other words, if somebody goes to TJ Maxx a number of times and each time they commit a misdemeanor shoplifting, well, instead of charging them with 10 misdemeanor shoplifting, now we can aggregate all those crimes together and charge them with a, with a felony, for a more serious crime and, and hopefully some more serious consequences. But on, I have a couple cases with ORCA. The first one was from, is Daniel Lopez. He started his investigation last year, but he went through a series of, looks like 12 shopliftings of the same person. He was shoplifting from Best Buy and Barnes and Noble. And the total amount of the shoplifting was right under $3,500. So each time he went in there, he, he, you know, a lot of times when the suspects go in, they know that the felony rate is, what, what it is. So they, so they shoplift just under that rate so that they know all they're going to get is a misdemeanor, and they'll be, you know, whatever the punishment is for that misdemeanor in that case. But, after Daniel Lopez was able to, or Detective Daniel Lopez was able to aggregate all those charges. And, during the course of the investigation, the suspect even tried to sell some of the stolen property, unbeknownst to him, to an off-duty officer who just happened to be at a gas station putting gas. So, that helped with the whole process there. But that was the, Detective Daniel Lopez filed the first New Mexico ORCA criminal case for the Santa Fe PD.

Since then, we filed a number of ORCA cases. Another one that was highlighted by Detective Brandon Dietz. He was able to get a, a suspect for shoplifting from Ulta. Ulta's a, a big-time place to shoplift because a lot of the stuff there is very high-priced, and, and I guess they're able to sell this to other consumers within the community for a, for a discounted price. But, Detective Dietz was able to get his suspect with a total of $4,766, with, over, looks like eight shopliftings there at Ulta. So it's two really good cases that, that otherwise would have just been misdemeanor cases and maybe just a revolving door for each case. But instead, the DA is taking them on as, as felony-level cases. And, hopefully, there's some more serious consequences for those two offenders. And the third thing I want to highlight, I'll probably, I'll bring it to the case of the month for the next public safety meeting.

But we had a joint operation with the FBI and several other agencies in the state, or ICAC, for Internet Crimes Against Children. You probably saw the FBI release, but our two detectives were part of the operation. During that operation, which was all week long last week, they were in a place in Albuquerque, and they were just opening up chat rooms. They were going into chat rooms, and people would come to them. Fifteen travelers ended up coming to these law enforcement officers. The highlight of that is that out of the 15 arrests, eight of them belong to the Santa Fe PD. Everybody else put together only got seven arrests. The two ICAC detectives from PD, Detective Ian Freeman and Alex Durham, were able to get eight arrests out of this. So I want to highlight that. This is probably a 30 or 40-man task force. Our two detectives had the most arrests, and they're also becoming a leader in the state. Other agencies are asking them to train them on how they're doing what they're doing. So they're definitely trailblazing a trail and providing a service that, quite frankly, it's unfortunate we need, but we need it bad. I have some more details at the next public safety meeting, but I just wanted to highlight that so we can hopefully get some more positions and bring us some more ICAC detectives.

Sounds like it would be great for us to bring in more positions there and maybe offer training so we have an impact on saving other children's lives across the nation potentially, since it sounds like we're a spotlight. That's really amazing work. Thank you so much. Are there any questions? Yes. Thank you. I'm just curious about the shoplifting. Does it have to be one victim? Can it be numerous stores collaborating for that amount, or does it have to be X amount of dollars from just Best Buy?

Sorry, Councilor Finger. Madam Chair, Councilor Finger, what the DA is asking for is one store, but they can aggregate if they're shoplifting from two stores. For instance, one of the offenders was shoplifting from Best Buy and Barnes and Noble, so they were able to aggregate those into one. The other one was just shoplifting from Ulta. A lot of times, it's Home Depot, Lowe's, the big money stores.

Thank you. Anyone else? No? Alright. Thank you so much for your time. Back to you, Chief.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The last one will be Lieutenant Ramirez, and he'll be coming down to provide some traffic stats for the month of April.

Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the committee. Excuse me. I'm just going to cover some of the support operation sections' stats for last month. We'll start with our bike team. The bike team primarily these days, their primary function has been to address the illegal camping within the city of Santa Fe. There was an operation that they participated in two different Fridays, April 10 and April 12 of the month, in reference to going out with not only the two full-time members and the sergeant that are assigned to that shift, but also a couple of auxiliary bike team members that are assigned to our day shift team. They went out those two days. Throughout the operation, they led to 17 total arrests. Most of those were for illegal camping. There were a few outstanding warrant arrests for those, but that is pretty much primarily their daily duties: going out and addressing the illegal camping within the city. I know some of you have probably received emails from constituents about the camping in certain areas around their neighborhoods. So that's their primary job: to address those and try and clean those up a little bit.

Our traffic team, in terms of last month's stats, they had 839 citations. They handled nine crashes. This number is a little low for last month compared to months prior, and the reason for that is three out of the four full-time traffic members and the sergeant were in a class for three weeks, the last two weeks of April and the first week of May, in Colorado getting their instructor certifications for police motorcycle instructor. In the past, we've only had one police motorcycle instructor for the department for a very long time, and he retired back in December. So we didn't have anybody since December. These four people stepped up, and they decided they wanted to do it. So we sent them to the school in Colorado, and they all successfully passed the school. It was a three-week class. Unfortunately, they had to deal with a lot of weather during that time because there was some snow that came in. So they were on the track pretty much the whole three weeks with either rain or snow out there. Not only did they earn the certification, but they also taught a class out there, which was part of their certification. So, again, those numbers are a little low, but that's the reason: we didn't have all our full-time members and the sergeant here for half of the month, basically, of April. But if you've noticed, though, this week so far, these two days that we've been back this week, they have been killing it out there on the streets. So you'll see them a lot more. You'll probably see our motors out there a lot more. Now that it's starting to get warmer, they want to take the bikes out and start running traffic. They're a little more inconspicuous that way, so they're able to catch a lot more of these speeders, red light runners, that sort of thing.

Public safety stats for last month: they wrote 172 parking citations, and they handled 108 crashes. Our DWI team had 14 arrests for the full-time team, which consists of two DWI members. Right now, one of those DWI members has been on FMLA, and he was pretty much on FMLA most of April. So those 14 arrests for the full-time team came from pretty much one officer during that month. There were 12 arrests from our auxiliary DWI team, and those primarily work swing shift or graveyard. They will handle if there's a crash or a suspected DWI that maybe another officer pulls over. Those auxiliary members will come in, and they will handle those DWI arrests and investigations at that time. They also wrote 237 total citations for the month between the auxiliary and the full-time members.

Great. Thank you. Any questions or comments? Alright. Great work. Thank you so much for sharing. Oh, did you have a question? Did I miss you? Okay. So I just, alright. Okay. Alright. Thank you so much, Chief. Back to you.

Madam Chair, committee members, that's all I have unless you have any questions for me.

Awesome. Yes, absolutely. I've just enjoyed working with you all these years. Chief, I know this is your last meeting with us. I don't know if the rest of the committee knows that, but you're retiring in what, 12 days?

12 days. End of the month.

Yep. And how many years total?

22.

22.

When all is said and done, it'll be about 22.

I'll welcome you to the other side. It's way better on this side. You get to say a lot more that you want to say.

Ah, this is true. Thank you so much.

Yes, Amber Martinez?

I just wanted to say thank you so much for all your many, many years of service. I know you buy TJ, so I can't Chief Interim, but thank you for the many years. You've done an amazing job. I am so grateful that Santa Fe has had you in this interim. Would love to have you longer, but I'm so happy for you.

Thank you. I appreciate it very much.

Well, I'm here because of you. It's all your fault.

I was going to say it's your fault.

I am honored to say that I was the recruiting officer that brought you to Santa Fe PD, and I'm honored to say that we worked together for many years. I'm sad that you're leaving the PD because, you know, it's my family. It's your family. It's going to always be our family. But the other side of that is that the schools are getting a fine gentleman to take over that role, and I'm proud of you. I'm proud of everything you've accomplished, TJ. You've always been a man of honor and integrity. I've always considered you somebody that calls it the facts or the facts, and I've always loved that about you. So it's a loss for the PD. I'm sad to see you go, but I wish you the best. And you and I are going to go hang out anyway, so it's okay.

Thank you. Thank you very much. And believe me when I say it's been an honor serving the city of Santa Fe. There's not a thing I can say bad about it. The fact is, everything I have and a lot of who I am, I'm blessed because of the city of Santa Fe and because of Santa Fe Police Department and the leaders, the people who've come before me, and even my peers. So understand that I am very, very grateful for the time I've spent, and thank you.

Anyone else? I want to say that myself and many counselors were hoping you were going to be staying for a long time. So there is some disappointment. But I think when I found out where you were going, I felt really excited. I've worked in Santa Fe Public Schools, and now I work in the state. For the state of New Mexico, I concentrate on discipline. I concentrate on building safe and healthy school climates and culture. I concentrate on all of that statewide, and I think it's people like you that we need in positions to keep our youth safe. I feel like you say what you feel is absolutely needed and right from your heart, and no one could sway you one way or another. And those are the only people that we should have advocating for anything having to do with our youth. So I just want to thank you for your service. I look forward to you keeping my kids safe because I have kids that are going into high school next year. And I literally, as a parent who knows the system, seeing your name bought me a sense of security. So I want to thank you for that.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm right there with you. I got two starting first grade next year.

Well, they're in good hands. So that's wonderful. So good luck to you. Alright. Chief Ouderkirk.

Madam Chair, members of the committee, we've had a lot of hot topics lately, but one that hasn't seen the scene quite yet is wildfire and wildland fire kind of stuff. We've been doing a lot of work around that. We meet on a regular basis with emergency management, and Kyle's not here today, but we work very closely with him. We've been doing training sessions with multiple city departments to get them prepped in case we have an incident here. We work closely with water. We work closely with public works and streets. We've had training sessions with all these other departments, and we have more to come. I wanted to report back on the fire yesterday that was out in the county. This is kind of out by Los Campanas, and this fire was approximately 5.1 acres in size, at the end of the fire, our last estimate that I received. Between the county fire department and the city fire department, they were on it pretty quickly. Our Pano AI cameras did alert us within three minutes of the RECC getting the phone call. So that system was working pretty well for us. The first phone call was from our emergency manager, and he goes, "Is this legit?" And I said, "Yes. Crews are headed out there." So it went very well. We were on scene from about 5:20, 5:30 until about 8:00, and then the scene was turned over to State Forestry.

So it went extremely well, and we're still gearing up for wildfire season. And it's going to continue to go until we start getting some rain. And so we have our crews in town. There's fires around the state, and we're going to keep them close by here in Santa Fe as we need them. Great. Any questions or comments? Yes. Member Martinez.

I just wanted to say and commend the Fire Department on two occasions in the last couple weeks. One was just, one was a personal one, but they were impeccable, and they were amazing. And I'm just so grateful for the training that you guys go through and how compassionate you are with people. The other one was a fire behind my house, and I got to see the ladder and everyone working so quickly. There was only white smoke, never dark, and it was awesome. And it was amazing to see everyone working so hard. So thank you for all that you guys do.

Thank you. I wanted to mention, I was going to reach out to you and Kyle because it did come, I don't remember when it came up, but it did come up by a few councilors. The just wildfire, what our plan is, just putting some more information out there. How is the city prepared? What do those conversations and collaboration look like? What's the plan? Right? I think people are feeling a little worried because of how dry it is. So maybe that is a presentation that we could maybe fit in in June as well. Maybe not if we have that ARU presentation, but I do know that it's a hot topic for everyone right now. So thank you for giving us a little update, though.

Yes. I wish we had a lot of passion around some of the other things we do as much as we do around ARU and wildfire. Right? We have a very robust wildfire plan in place, and we have continued ongoing training all the time. We've had our Wildfire Preparedness Day, open to the community members. We had two different events in two different parts of town already. We're planning on putting out a mailer in the mail that will go out with the water bill to everyone, with more information and how to mitigate fires on their own property and things that they can do to help be prepared for wildfire. And so it's something that we look very closely at here in Santa Fe, and we'll keep preparing and always have an ongoing conversation with it and, hopefully, have our plans always up to date and all our guys trained up appropriately.

Thank you. Yes. Chief, I just, I'm pretty passionate about the wildfire stuff and fire prevention. And I'm wondering, I'm hoping in June, we get something about burn restrictions and fireworks restrictions and all of that because I know it's a lot worse than when I was, I mean, I haven't seen any measurable moisture, and the winter, we have nothing. So I'm just wondering, are we going to be expecting to see open burning restrictions in the parks and fireworks restrictions and all of those types of things, and if we should start working on those declarations now?

Yes, Madam Chair, Member Bolster. Yes. I've already had the conversation with our Fire Marshal and his office, and all those are going through. He's preparing all those documents, so they should be going through committees for approvals, for the fire restrictions, for those that are in parks. The normal stuff that we do around this time of year every time, right, with fireworks and all that. And he's working on those documents, and those should be coming through governing body anytime.

I just wanted to make a comment since we are being filmed and live today. A lot of people talk about not having a public show at all. And I want to iterate to everyone because I was an expert and subject expert in this for so many years that when you don't have a public show in the City of Santa Fe or something available for people to go to, you would see the numbers spike almost 200%. So when people, I realize that there are, there's a big contingent in town who don't like fireworks because of their pets. My pets don't like them either, but I can tell you if we don't have public firework displays, it's going to be a lot worse. We explained that at town halls because in town hall around the show, a lot of people were saying, well, the conversation shifted for a concern around the amount of illegal fireworks that are in use. And I was like, well, take away the show, and you'll really have something to complain about, because it's a reality. This is a strategy in reducing illegal firework use. Can we eliminate all of it? No. And let me just also stress that it's not that easy to respond to because a lot of people are like, why aren't you going to the illegal firework that you see from across town, fire and police? Doesn't work that way. Unless you could report it with an address, that could have come from anywhere. So just please, if you're unclear on how the process works, feel free to ask. But all of the things we do, the way the people that do the work respond are responding to the best of their ability with the information the community offers them. Alright. Sorry. Back to you, Chief.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. Along those lines, we are prepared for this year's fireworks show. We're putting extra units online for that day. We'll have roaming units in the neighborhoods. We'll have people on-site. We'll be very well prepared for anything that may arise. We're working closely with Parks and with our PD, of course, on keeping everyone safe. We have plans on wetting down the entire area. We've given them a lot of things that they have to accomplish before that show is going to go off, and they're going to adhere to all those, all those things that our Fire Marshal office has given them.

Great. Any other questions, comments? Anything else, Chief? That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Everyone received an email from Emergency Management. If you have questions, please direct them to Kyle. He put himself out there for questions if you might have them. And then we have Deputy Director Keisha Chavez here for our ACC update. Is it on? It's on. You might want to bring it a little closer so you don't have to lean forward. There you go. There we go.

Alright. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the committee. I have a super quick public safety report from RECC for you guys this evening. We have for the month of April, a total of 24,847 calls received. 6,021 of those were 911 calls, and our PSAP answer time was 84.64% within the 15-second restriction. For the City of Santa Fe, I think we already heard numbers from the Chief. Our numbers do match up with their information for the totals of calls and accounts for 59% of our services to agencies. Looks like a total of 8,787 calls that we handled, involving Santa Fe Police, and that's up 1% from the previous month. We don't really have anything else special to share. Any questions, comments?

Yes. How close are you to being fully staffed? Well, we do have 11 vacancies now, as opposed to 10 vacancies. The last time that we presented, one of those is an administrative position, which we may be opening sometime soon. There's, you know, always a lengthy timeline for anything to do with hiring in local government. But I think we have interviews tomorrow, and we'll see how well we go for our most recent hiring process. Any other questions, comments?

I just want to thank you. I feel like since you've been on board, you've been super responsive and helpful, and I've enjoyed working with you. And I love just the insight and questions you ask, and you genuinely care about public safety. So I'm just so glad you have that role, by the way. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Alright. Matters from the committee?

I just want to, I know that Deputy Chief Valdez is in the back of the room, and a lot of work has gone into him, his staff, ensuring that we have got to this point as far as vacancies at the PD. And so, under the leadership of Chief Joy and Interim Chief Grundler, but I know that Deputy Chief Valdez has been the driving force, and we've had a lot of conversations about this. And I just want to acknowledge the fact that that hard work is paying off. So now we're going to the next step where we need to get those positions that are necessary for us to have the staffing, to have the officers that we now need to actively community police. So thank you, Chief Valdez. I appreciate all your hard work, sir.

Yes. I just had one real quick for PD. I know that the speed cameras are, they're coming. Are we getting them deployed pretty soon here? And I was going to ask because I've already, a story I saw, it already listed some of the streets they were going to be first deployed to. And I'm curious, how does one get their street on the list? And I'll even, I'll even, you know, offer my second driveway as a place for them to put it if they want to on Osage. And if traffic wants to put a motorcycle cop there too, anytime with traffic, guy wants to park in my driveway and run speed checks, have at it.

If the programs run much like it was in the past, it's always data-driven and also constituent-driven. If we're seeing issues, if we're getting a decent amount of complaints in a certain area, a lot of times, we'll, we'll, we'll do a traffic survey beforehand, and then if we see that there actually is a problem, then we'll make those deployments. So, we have a lot of, you know, we have a lot of data coming in, and, obviously, though, that that's how they're going to be deployed. So, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that could end up there. I know that is constituent, we've gotten lots of complaints about Osage. So.

And I know, I'm not sure, but nothing, nothing came from the legislative session as far as getting it where we could put, do it on state highways. Right? Nothing changed with regard to the state laws as far as Cerrillos, Saint Francis, Saint Michael's, Agua Fria, those things that are state highways?

No, Madam Chair, Member Bolger, it's, the thing about it is no. There has been no change. But because this is a program that is a force multiplier, this allows us to put it in places that otherwise we would be sending officers so our officers can actually focus on those big arteries that are going to be issues. So the fact of the matter is, is even though we can't place it there, it doesn't mean that doesn't help us in terms of enforcing those main arteries.

Looks like Daisy Valdez would like to say something. Thank you, Madam Chair. So one thing that has just recently changed is the state has granted waivers to place these devices on state roads. So we're going to be working with other communities that have requested waivers, have, have received approval. That includes Bernalillo County, Albuquerque Police Department, and the Rio Rancho Police Department. So, our project management team is working with them. And as soon as we can get those waivers in place, then we're going to make the request so we can put these devices or others like them on state roads within our community, including Saint Francis, Cerrillos, et cetera.

Actually, DC opened up a question I have now. Is there going to be an additional cost to this, or is it just a waiver? My understanding is just a waiver, but I can bring an update once I get more information from those other agencies. But, already, we pay 50% of every citation paid to the state. So I, I think already paid one charge ticket. Because they get a percentage on those state highways anyway. Right? Don't they? For, they get tickets written? They get a percentage on everything. So it doesn't matter on which highway it's at. That's why I was curious that if, if there's a possibility that there's an additional cost to the waiver.

50%. Yes. Any other matters from the committee? Matters from Chair.

Just a few things. One, both of my boys had a promotion ceremony today. They will be going to Santa Fe High School, freshman basketball players, hopefully. Yes. And my daughter got more rewards to list. So I just want to congratulate them.

And to go back to ARU, I want to be clear because it seems as I've taken a role now, because I'm advocating for ARU, that some people may not like. So I just want to be clear now that I have the floor to say, this is not a fire thing. This is not a police thing. This is a service thing for behavioral health that we could have impact on. Me advocating for it says nothing negative about fire. In fact, historically, I have been a huge advocate for fire because you guys do amazing work. And I want to be very clear that because I'm advocating for a service that just happens to exist in fire, does not mean I'm against fire. Historically, if you look at my track record around votes, you'd see that's not the case.

However, I am a huge advocate for behavioral health because like those in public service, I have seen lives lost. I have struggled myself. I've had people I care deeply about lose their lives, their lives to behavioral health issues. It is something that is a huge problem. It is something that a lot of state federal policy, state policy does not address and fund so that we actually fix the problem that's killing people. Now we have this little gem that's a little broken right now called ARU. I'm advocating to address the issues and to put it in the right place, to resource it appropriately, to fix it appropriately. It is not a fire problem and it is not me attacking fire. I want to make that very, very clear.

Now the issue around ARU is people are making it a them problem when this is a behavioral health problem. This is not a fire problem. It's not a them problem. It is a behavioral health problem. It just so happens that fire is having to do the work to have the conversations to make this what it needs to be. And I have given our leadership a lot of credit in every single conversation I've had that they're taking the stance on let's figure this out to make it what it needs to be instead of just going along one direction or another and we're not meeting the true need that's present right now. But I need to say that. And I think everyone who has advocated for this is feeling a little tension from a group of people. And I want to be clear. It's going to expand the gap around the problem if those tensions continue to exist.

So I just want to be clear. Huge respect for public safety. I live in this city. My kids live in the city, people I love. And I love a huge population of youth because I work in education. And you are what keeps our city safe. Me advocating for behavioral health does not take away from that, and I will refuse to allow people to imply that that's the case. So I just wanted to take time while I had the moment to clarify that. If anyone cannot see the separation between me advocating for behavioral health and they're interpreting that as me being against fire, please call me because I will be happy to clear the air for you and explain what my work is so you understand. But I just wanted to say that.

I look forward. Chief Ouderkirk, I have a lot of respect for you in taking this on. I don't think it's something that should have even been within your department or a problem for you to fix in the first place. So I appreciate your work, and just being innovative and being collaborative and being willing to hear us out and everyone out and realizing this can be done in a better way. So thank you for that.

Our next meeting is June 16. I will be working on requesting a presentation that could potentially, if possible, and like I said, I don't know if it's enough time, and I wrote this down. We'll bring pieces of information back to us around ARU. One will be an update from the work group. One will be information on call length in regards to ARU, case management timeline in regards to ARU, current aspects of the role and function of ARU, so specific examples of what that looks like, what timeline looks like around those calls, and then police wellness check calls and their request for EMT support.

And I will be working with Assistant City Manager for this survey because, like everyone said here, I think we do need to hear from the community. And in all honesty, we just had a budget conversation, and I never feel like we talk enough about behavioral health within city budget. But this survey may shine light on the fact that we need to start to. So, I think this will be valuable. We may not have, we will not, we won't have this information from any survey at our next meeting because that would mean we didn't do the survey right, but I will be advocating for this. If any of you want to brainstorm with me and the Assistant City Manager in that, I'd love to have you at the table. Just shoot me an email, and I will make sure you're included in my request from her and from our City Manager. I say Chief Moya, but, Brian Moya. And with that, we are adjourned. And I think I said our next meeting is June 16? June 16. Alright. Great. Thank you, guys. Have a great evening.