thank you
foreign
[Music]
okay good afternoon everyone welcome to
work session of Las Cruces City Council
today is Monday August 22nd 2022 it's
approximately 1 p.m if you please join
me for the Pledge of Allegiance please
pledge allegiance
of America
thank you
okay as we always start off with our
pets of the week Jennifer Martinez from
our Communications office we'll be
introducing them
good afternoon mayor and Council I'm
Jennifer Martinez with the city's
Communications office
and today I have the honor of
introducing you to two very cute pets
and I will start with nugget nugget is
about three years old and very sweet all
she wants is love and affection she
likes to brush up against you to remind
you that you belong to her this little
diva enjoys spending days getting loved
on and also some peace and quiet time
she hopes you might have the perfect
home for her
and then we have Widow this guy is also
three years old he's very energetic and
playful enjoys an active lifestyle in
order to keep healthy wetto loves going
on the leash and could be trained to be
a great running or jogging partner this
guy is eager to please and knows how to
sit for treats and if you're looking for
a loyal companion and a good workout
buddy this might be your guy
make sure to jot down the animal numbers
for these guys if you forget you can
always go to the Animal Services Center
of the Messiah Valley Facebook page to
get this information and you can see the
animal numbers right here underneath the
pit
there's an adoption event going on this
weekend from 10 a.m to 2 p.m this Friday
at Pioneer Park there are two different
locations one on University Avenue and
the other at the Roadrunner Parkway
location there's also an event on
Saturday at the Borman Autoplex that
runs from 10 a.m to 2 p.m that's at
their location on bouts Road and if you
remember from the past couple of weeks
there is a month-long adoption event
going on called clear the shelters
that's where the cost of adoptions is
just 25 and if you have any questions
about the pets of the week or adoption
events you can call the Animal Services
Center at
382-0018 thank you mayor thanks Jennifer
yes nugget does look like a diva so uh
okay next we have our jobs of the week
and Chris Faber from Economic
Development
will be presenting
good afternoon mayor and city council I
was told I needed to put a little more
pep in my step while I'm up here so I'm
going to attempt to do that so hello
everybody all right
jazz hands all right
and I won't say who up there told me
city clerk that I needed to put a little
more pep in my steps so okay all right
so the city of Las Cruces has two jobs
this week the first one is a community
health coordinator which pays between 35
and 50 an hour and that's open until
filled
then Community Development Department
has a building official 31 to 45 dollars
per hour and that closes on September
12th
Physicians vascular services has a
medical receptionist fourteen dollars an
hour and that closes on September 17th
Smith roofing company has General
laborers and roofer helpers available
three positions thirteen to twenty
dollars an hour depending on experience
and that closes on September 11th
and Quest Diagnostics has a phlebotomist
2 for 13 to 17 an hour depending on
experience and that closes November 11th
and as always in Mexico where's Fork
Force connections can be reached at
575-524-6250 or you can find them at
their offices
226 South Alameda here in Las Cruces or
on their website at employewmexico.com
thank you everyone okay thank you Chris
okay so we have
three items on the agenda
first one being the item 3.1 the police
auditor semi-annual report presented by
the oir group and violo perea will kind
of Kick this off so viola
and what is it now F7
F5
there we go
any chance hands everybody
okay good afternoon Mr Mayor counselors
I'm Viola perea City auditor and today
we have two members of the oir group
with us Mr Steve Conley and Miss Teresa
magula today they're going to present
their second semi-annual audit of the
Las Cruces Police Department
I know biologists introduced you but if
you don't mind the first time when just
state your name for the record of course
thank you uh can everybody hear me okay
yes
foreign
good afternoon Mr Mayor and counselors
uh my name is Steve Conley and I am with
my colleague Theresa magula from oir
group we are very happy to be visiting
here
from our home base in in Southern
California and this is actually my first
time visiting Las Cruces so I'm
particularly pleased to be here Teresa
was here for the first report back in in
January we did arrive into town
yesterday and had the opportunity to
tour around a little bit the the police
set us up with a couple of the community
outreach officers who obviously know the
whole city pretty well and they just
kind of took us on a tour of the
different neighborhoods and let us know
about some of the projects that that
people are working on and I will tell
you your your names came up quite a bit
during the the hours that we were
together and it was all positive I
promise so uh we we definitely got a
little bit of a fast forwarded feel of
the city and and we're very happy to be
here
Teresa and I are two of the three-person
member of the oir group team that that
is focused on Las Cruces our other
colleague Mike gianaco had a scheduling
conflict he met you all here in January
but he was not able to to be here today
he certainly sends his regards and and
we talked to him this morning and and
asked if he had any words of wisdom for
us and he said don't don't mess it up so
uh to with that we have a real spring in
our steps and we're looking forward to
presenting with you today so in terms of
advancing us I should probably know how
to do this but thank goodness Teresa
that arrow button okay so just a little
bit of background and review who we are
as I said we operate out of Southern
California and we are police practices
experts we have some attorneys on our
team and and some folks who are experts
in policy and we have worked in this
field for at least 17 years and some of
us have have been around doing this kind
of work
um for for even longer so we have
clients primarily in California but in
some other states as well and we've been
very happy to be affiliated with the
city of Las Cruces since mark March of
2021 and we actually started our work in
the city
as of May of 2021 so we had our first
report here in in January and and this
is our second I guess semi-annual audit
report based on the work that we have
done since the last time we were here
so in terms of the the specific things
that we're going to be talking about and
and the progress
one of the goals of the work that we do
and we'll talk about it a little bit
more specifically is that the meat and
potatoes of it is to actually look at
specific complaint cases misconduct
investigations that the department
um
that the department does as part of its
internal review and accountability
process
but as we're going through those part of
the goal along with the just the
scrutiny of it and the the added
transparency and accountability that
having some outside eyes on it
represents part of what we're doing is
trying to bring some of our familiarity
with with best practices and some of the
expertise that we've developed in these
systems over over the years and make
recommendations to the department where
we feel like an individual incident has
kind of flashed something to our
attention that we feel like could could
maybe represent a systemic change and in
terms of some of the recommendations
that we had from last time that the
department I'm pleased to say that the
the department has been very responsive
to our ideas really since we first
started working with them we have good
communication with them on a regular
basis and as the slide says one of the
things that we encouraged was for them
to make formal findings for for every
complaint case rather than just it
sometimes they they if there weren't
enough
corroborating facts they would just kind
of inactivate the case without making a
formal finding and we push them just go
ahead and create that record for
documentation purposes and and on a
going forward basis and in terms of the
classification of cases they actually
have a fairly intricate system for how
they slot in their different kinds of
complaints and what kind of
Investigations they're going to get
accordingly and we made some
recommendations to refine that process
make it a little bit more
straightforward and in our view to make
it flow a little bit better and and to
make the the matchup between the
severity of the allegations and the
amount of Department attention align a
little bit better and and that we have
also noticed an improvement in in that
Arena and last but not least one of the
things that that we hear about certainly
nationally and if you follow policing
issues the concept of de-escalation has
been very much front and center in terms
of expectations and and public
focus on on policing and how policing
gets done there's been a huge emphasis
on de-escalation and and really trying
to prioritize that a lot of law
enforcement agencies will tell you that
they that you know the de-escalation
term might be a relatively new one but
the concepts have been around for a
really long time and the more the
familiar officers will tell you you know
we've been doing this ever since I
started back in the 80s or 90s or
whatever
but absolutely in terms of the emphasis
in in terms of some of the new
techniques and approaches that are out
there we have suggested that they they
focus on that and and provide
updated de-escalation training for their
personnel and we're pleased to say that
the department is well in the process of
accomplishing that
other elements that again are kind of
leftover recommendations from the first
report that we've kind of checked the
progress on the first of those on on
this slide has to do with commitment to
training for welfare check and domestic
violence calls and what we mean by that
in particular is
a significant portion of the cases that
we look at involve complaints that arise
out of this inherently stressful tense
family kind of situation uh the the
everybody's emotions can be elevated in
that scenario and the rules of of what
can be done and what should be done and
what the role of the police should be in
those situations there's room for
clarification and emphasis on how to
navigate these sort of inherently
difficult situations that the police are
sometimes expected to to respond to so
because it's it is such an important
issue and because we actually saw a lot
of our actual specific complaints come
out of that we encourage the department
to focus on that as part of the
discretionary training that they're able
to do with their folks and just kind of
give them some more tools and also
remind them of what the protocols are
for what they are allowed to do and not
do in a given context and in terms of
supervisor professionalism and IA
training we are big Advocates of the
idea that the discipline process really
should be something that that the entire
management level of the department has
some knowledge of and investment in
rather than having it be this you know
isolated to Internal Affairs and kind of
a secret that that people aren't
supposed to know about we think all
managers should be invested in
accountability and should be aware of
what the department is doing and be
trained on some of the different
elements of these investigations and
officer rights and how it should work
and last but not least we'll talk about
a couple of policy changes that we
recommended that the department is in
the process of of implementing
so in terms of the the scope of the
audit of the report that we're
presenting to you today
these were cases initiated investigated
and closed by the the department between
December 1st and May 31st of 2022
there's a little bit of lag time between
the the end of our audit period and and
our presentation today just because our
completed reports have to go through
some some internal processes here in the
city before they're they're ready for
release to council uh but that's the the
span of time that we're talking about
and our goal in looking through them is
is to ensure that the completed cases
that we review are are complete in terms
of all of the investigations Being
Framed and investigated and resolved
appropriately one way or the other that
the investigations are objective
and thorough and that when uh whatever
the upshot of the investigation is in
terms of what it reveals we're looking
to see is is Department management
taking appropriate action and response
whatever that might be whether it's
training or counseling or in some cases
a disciplinary actual consequence for
the involved Personnel or a recognition
that hey we need to change something
operationally that we learned as a
result of this process and one of the
things that the our contract with the
city asks us to do is is to monitor
certain aspects of the demographics of
the materials that we look at so that's
featured in the report Therese will be
talking about that
a little bit later in our presentation
so
the report and you you got the
um obviously the
summary report which is I guess about 30
pages long 35 pages long and then the
their the appendices are all the
individual complaint cases that we have
reviewed and and assessed and contacted
the department about and
um all of those are and the department
has offered its feedback all of those
are included individually as appendices
to to your report and we're happy to
answer specific questions that you might
have so it's 16 cases that doesn't
represent all the cases that were opened
during that time period but some of the
cases are still pending and others of
them just didn't reach our scope of work
for one reason or another there were of
the cases that we did review 11 of them
emerged from from citizen complaints
and there were five internal
investigations that were generated by
Department Management in response to
concerns that they had about officer
performance or employee performance of
one kind or another and statistically
you'll hear Teresa talk about some of
the outcomes the numbers don't exactly
line up so 16 cases uh but she's going
to be talking about some bigger numbers
than that in terms of individual
outcomes and just to be clear the reason
for that is because an individual case
might involve allegations against
multiple officers and it will oftentimes
involve multiple allegations of
misconduct of different kinds so if a
complainant is is frustrated or upset or
feels like something was handled wrongly
and mentions two or three different
elements that represent you know
different potential policy violations by
the department the expectation is that
the department is going to look at those
and reach conclusions on them
individually and that's why some of the
total numbers that Teresa will be
talking about are a little bit bigger
than that
oh and and just to go back
another part of our mandate is to look
at litigation
there's certainly a significant Nexus
between ideally there's a significant
Nexus between litigation and police
internal review processes these events
that that lead people to file claims or
lawsuits are oftentimes things that the
department should be looking at and
saying okay what can we learn from this
obviously the legal process is going to
work itself out on a separate track but
what about our operations is sort of
revealed from this litigation and are
there any adjustments that are called
for based on what we've learned in this
process so there are a couple cases that
that were closed during the audit period
that are described in the report
in terms of the kind of big picture
summary of of our findings we have
consistently found that the department
has done a very very
commendable job in terms of of taking
allegations seriously and conducting
investigations that are appropriately
complete objective and and thorough that
said
we are in the business of scrutinizing
these things pretty carefully and we
actually have a lot of experience so we
we have found individual instances where
some aspect of a case we thought could
have been handled differently more
robustly it's going to vary obviously
from case to case but we're we make
recommendations in virtually every uh
individual case report that we provide
to the city and the hope is that the
department is going to look at those
digest those and and you know respond
back to us if they think that that we
have it wrong but overwhelmingly that
they have said hey we understand what
they're saying that makes sense and we
will take steps to to make that
adjustment so the investigations are
good we think the intentions are good we
think the department takes
accountability appropriately seriously
but there's there's always room to
tighten things up or to be a little bit
more effective in in one aspect or
another and Teresa will get into some of
those details and so again
accountability not all of the cases
resulted in sustained findings that
officers violated policy there were
several instances in which the officers
were exonerated and we concurred with
that outcome based on the the process
that we go through and I'll talk about
that very briefly
so just again to to refresh people's
memory or for members of the public who
aren't familiar when a case is complete
we have access through the department to
all of the underlying investigative
materials so we get the police reports
from the original incident we get all
the body-worn camera recordings that
were associated with that particular
event
and then we get all the invest the
internal affairs investigation materials
as well so interviews with Witnesses
interviews with subject officers memos
that the investigators prepare as to the
steps that they took and the and the
findings that they made all of those
things are packaged up and given to us
so that we can really have an in-depth
understanding of what the issues were
what the Department's response was and
we will digest that and oftentimes we'll
have a follow-up question or two for for
the department and Lieutenant Gutierrez
has been very helpful to us as our our
main point of contact in terms of
answering questions or clarifying things
for us about whether it's New Mexico law
or Department policy or some things that
might be missing from the case in terms
of background that that are raising
questions in our mind so we have a
little bit of that interaction as well
which also helps us complete and make
our analysis more effective so that is
the process that we go through and then
one of the last has things that that I
want to just touch on briefly is is we
and we've talked about this with the
Department on a few occasions a lot of
the cases end up with the officers being
exonerated as I said but when there are
sustained policy violations
we have found in a general way and there
are exceptions to this that the the
consequences tend to be a little lower
than than what we are familiar with in
some other jurisdictions and it varies
from place to place and you know it's
not wildly off or or extremely
concerning but some of it just has to do
with what the philosophy of discipline
is what did the discipline process
should be accomplishing and there are
places where we thought hey the severity
of this and the significance may be
warranted a more significant consequence
than what the officers ended up getting
so we've talked to the department about
that they are in the process of a pretty
significant
responsive undertaking which is to put
together a chart of of consequences or
sanctions I think they call a chart of
sanctions where they're going to try to
formalize
their bail schedule some some
departments call it or disciplinary
Matrix they're going to try to formalize
what the consequence is for given
violations of policies so there's a
little more consistency a little more
predictability and we look forward to
kind of seeing how that plays out as
that process unfolds so with that I
think I'm going to turn it over to my
colleague and of course I'm here and and
we're obviously here to to be responsive
to any questions that you have so thank
you for your attention
thank you Mr Mayor and counselors my
name is Teresa magula and as as Steve
and Ms perea mentioned I was here in
January had the pleasure of presenting
to you this time I'm really pleased that
you all had the background material and
and we can kind of speak to some of the
details that we found during the course
of our work in these past six months
so we part of our scope of work and our
mandate is to report out on some of the
demographics that we're finding and one
of the things that we look at are these
um you know what what had the incident
occur so mostly they are initiated by
calls for service okay so we have six at
ten total that are from calls for
service we wanted to highlight that four
of the ten were related to domestic
violence calls so as Steve mentioned
earlier we saw that there was kind of
this trend of complaints being initiated
as a result of those kind of uh
high tension and emotional kinds of
calls right so we wanted to highlight
that we are continuing to look at that
category and specific to see where the
department is perhaps providing more
training or guidance to officers
four of them were a result of a traffic
stop
and then the rest were a traffic
accident a civil standby and a transport
that occurred of one of the subjects
we look at the complaint demographics
and so mostly we found that they were
coming from the ZIP code 88001 six of
them you can see the rest of the
breakdown there I'm kind of trickling
through the different parts of the city
the race of the complainants was the
majority Hispanic seven were white and
one was a black complainant
and as Steve mentioned we had a review
of 16 cases but that involved a total of
27 Las Cruces Police Department
employees and I say employees not
officers because some involved the
non-sworn employees of the department
one was a detective two sergeants 22
officers one was a transport officer
related to that case that I mentioned
was a transport and one was a non-sworn
officer member of the code enforcement
unit
and we also try to look for some Trends
across office or demographics right so
there's Sometimes some concern of bias
in the way that the police are policing
in the community we saw that of the
officers who were named 15 were Hispanic
and 12 were white we did a little bit of
demographic data comparison and nothing
came to the surface as far as any
systemic bias that we could really
review from
um the very limited case sample that we
have so certainly we will continue to
look at that as time goes on to see if
we identify any Trends or any systemic
patterns of practice that we might be
concerned about but at this point we're
not seeing anything that's really rising
to the level of concern with relations
to the race or any bias that's involved
there
okay and so then every case right will
have one or more allegations so as Steve
mentioned
um a complainant might have an issue
with a variety of different things
related to the way that the police
responded to their incident
so for those that might might not be
familiar allegations are framed by the
department based on the potential
misconduct that is related so the
allegations are based in the types of
misconduct based in a general order or a
policy so to the extent that an officer
may or may not have violated Department
policy the allegation is framed out of
that
and we found that there were 22 of them
that were exonerated and 19 that were
sustained
the ones that are sustained of course
then have that related discipline or
action taken out of them and we saw that
those ranged from a verbal reprimand to
a 10-day suspension and in one case a
recommendation of termination and I want
to be very clear the department
recommended termination and the officer
decided to separate from the Department
prior to that occurring so that was the
recommendation but not the ultimate
finding for that discipline
and we had a total of 48 allegations as
a result of these cases so it gives you
kind of a sense of where we were a
majority of them were found to be
exonerated
okay and so we kind of divide our our
review Into the improvements that we
recommend for the process of
investigating the cases themselves so
for the way that Internal Affairs and
the department investigates the cases
and resolves the cases so these four are
related to that piece of the process
you might recall that in January we
requested that the department changed
some of the language on the Complaint
Form so the public can submit a
complaint on a written Complaint Form
they can also download that from your
website and we found that some of the
language there was a little chilling to
complainants in our opinion we noted
that some of that language that we
requested be removed was still there and
the department has committed to removing
that language we don't want anything
that would be suggesting any punitive
measures or that might dissuade someone
from filing a complaint right on the
Complaint Form the Department's
committed to to modifying that and
perhaps has already done so
we also found that in some limited cases
the department was not following perhaps
the best practices for the investigation
protocols and we found that on two
fronts one was at times they did not
conduct what in our opinion would be a
full interview of the complainant or
related Witnesses so sometimes the
complainant provided the Complaint Form
and it was quite robust they had a lot
of detail there and the department used
that form to base the allegations in the
investigation we applying that it would
be a better practice to always interview
the complainant there might be something
that rises to the surface in the course
of a conversation there might be some
resolution that can be taken within that
conversation and so we would recommend
that the department go ahead and
interview as is in their protocols
we also found that in some cases the
department perhaps did not fully
investigate all of the allegations to
the extent that we might want them to
and certainly the department is working
on doing so in future investigations
one example that's in our report
is an individual who alleged that he
that excessive force was used on him and
alleged that in the course of his
medical treatment he received a variety
of diagnoses that would be related to
that excessive force in some cases we
find that the investigation might seek
that kind of medical documentation to
see if that was accurate and hear the
the officer the investigation did not do
so so it's things like that at the
margins that would probably assist with
providing a full scope of Investigation
we also continue to prompt the
department on timeliness
we have definitely seen an improvement
in timeliness of cases and how quickly
they are being investigated and resolved
and we still noted some delay and mostly
it is due to the involved Personnel not
being available they might be on
military or medical leave and they might
not be available to receive the
notification of discipline and that
causes a delay in the case and so
certainly we're keeping track on those
timelines and making sure that the
department is is fulfilling on their end
with the requirements of timeliness
and finally we saw some transparency for
complainants opportunities where the
department might engage more the
department to be clear is already doing
an extraordinary job informing
complainants of the outcome of their
complaints in some jurisdictions
the department will send out a letter
that says we got your complaint
thanks a lot have a nice day
and the Las Cruces Police Department has
been very proactive in providing a lot
of detail related to the investigation
the outcomes the allegations that were
framed
but we did see that there was space Also
for improvement there
and in some cases it would be like if
there is a delay in the investigation
letting the complainant know hey we're
on it it's going to take maybe 30 more
days 60 more days and so on
[Music]
we also commend the department in our
report and I'll highlight it here for
really having a lot of real-time
communication with the public and the
community they have initiated a text
kind of post response survey
through spider technology where the
community can provide that real-time
input as to the way that service was
delivered
and we find that to be a really
commendable progress step as far as
interacting with the public and getting
that real-time feedback on how are we
doing and do we need to do better
so the other piece that we will look at
is related kind of more to the systemic
operations of the department so now
moving away from what internal affairs
does specifically and more focused on
the larger picture of the Department's
operations
some instances that were remarkable only
because they were so unique of Officer
professionalism perhaps lacking and we
are sticklers for this subject use of
profane language is always captured on
your body worn camera and we will see
that it is of course something that is
human nature especially in highly
charged situations but we do like to
note that officers are held to a higher
standard in particular as their
interactions are always being recorded
we also want to highlight the transport
of subjects by uninvolved officers so at
times if there is a use of force that
occurs and that subject is transported
either to hospital or to jail
is the same officer that used Force who
is transporting that subject
and we can certainly see that there
would be some concerns with that we want
to make sure that the uninvolved officer
is transporting or that the department
is sending out a transport officer to do
so
finally we saw that there was a trend
um of focus on allegations related to
report writing and other kind of
procedural operational things related to
police work so failures to appear in
court
failures to upload body worn camera or
appropriately tag the incidents in your
body worn camera
what we what we believe to be the case
is not that these things are happening
more often but that the department is
catching them more often and so we see
that that's a trend that is actually
positive they're finding where officers
might need some training remedial
counseling on how to do these kind of
more basic operations that sometimes
might
get lost in the course of your
day-to-day
one area that we found
kind of discussion hearing Council and
elsewhere in the city is the application
of policy to all of the Personnel that
are within the police department and I'm
speaking specifically to code
enforcement officers who up until
recently it's my understanding have
their own
your manual and so there was some
confusion when it came to investigations
if the policies of the police department
applied to these particular employees
and so I know that the department is
actively working to incorporate anything
that used to be a standalone policy
right into the police department's
general orders that will help to
streamline and reduce some of that
confusion that's happening when
an officer or other non-sworn Personnel
believes something might not apply to
them
so that's an ongoing consideration one
that the department is very committed to
finally we saw in some very little
live Force this is mostly outside of our
scope of work but if an allegation came
in that was related to a specific use of
force typically an excessive use of
force was the allegation
we then reviewed the the accompanying
use of force report
and out of those we found that there was
some room for improvement the department
has put together what they're calling
their Force review Cadre it is a team of
seven experts within the department that
will do a more robust review of certain
incidents that require that
we also noted that they are increasing
training related to force incidents and
certainly we'll be looking out for those
kinds of developments
and that is our presentation related to
our report I'm sure that there are ample
questions which we are happy to take on
now
well thank you Teresa before we get to
the questions I just want to just
highlight something here real quick so
in the past when we've had outside
police auditor uh it was very common to
find principles in that company
maybe a former police chief or a
high-ranking officer maybe a deputy
chief but
I didn't find any in your in your
company so what's interesting about that
is there's been times there's been
discussions that in the past about
citizens committee right
but in looking at and I just want to
read this for my colleagues and looking
at the backgrounds of many of your of
your of the people who work in this
company one was a chief attorney for at
the independent review for LA County uh
officer of independent review a
volunteer attorney for the independent
review panel director of the use of
force section of LAPD volunteer for LA
County Citizens commission which is
basically a Citizens
past president of National Association
of police oversight of law enforcement
certified group Crisis Intervention
field organizer for hclu and director of
San Francisco police accountability
so I guess what I'm trying to say is
when one might be geared towards more
police someone if I was talking about a
different police officer yours is really
geared toward what the public I think
wants to hear and see and I just wanted
to kind of share that with my colleagues
in case if maybe they've already read
the backgrounds of of the company but I
just wanted to point that out I think
you all provide a whole different set of
eyes I mean you you have that experience
from a from a large city from LA and and
San Francisco
and to my knowledge you probably don't
know a whole lot of officers probably
none here so you have nothing to to hide
you know to basically to to be able to
weed out if what it is that needs to be
changed though anyways I just wanted to
point that out so what that counselor
Flores I think
what did you didn't mention is that
Michael jinoko was with the Civil Rights
division of the Department of uh justice
under
um what's his face
Patrick Nolan or no Patrick well anyway
Joanna's husband no uh Patrick Duvall
I'm sorry sorry Patrick and Nolan but um
anyway so uh Michael actually
um I think I've shared this before with
Council maybe not is that I was
president of the Mexican-American Bar
Association of Los Angeles County and we
were having a lot of problems since the
Fallout of uh Rodney King and so we
contacted Duvall who was friends with
members of the Langston Bar and he said
and so we met with uh with devel we met
with with Michael I don't know if he
remembers me that was about 80 000 years
ago but at any rate Michael is very well
versed because he would go to Los
Angeles if he went out there and now
you're in Marina del Rey but
um but he he did go out to Los Angeles
and they I don't know what the doj did
but I do know that Michael is very well
versed in this field so I think he's
excellent
um and so are you thank you but I do
have some questions and
um
I think that the report on Key
demographics that you did miss magula
that you reported on there was a zip
code in there that I didn't recognize
88047 is that on the moon or something
four six and that's Messiah park that's
right oh four six oh for some oh four
seven I know where that number came from
but yeah four six so that was Messiah
Park and they're included in in this
report evidently or at least they call
the city of Las Cruces correct by virtue
of an internal investigation that
occurred in that jurisdiction so it was
involving Las Cruces Police Officers oh
I see but did not was not a response to
a call for service there oh I see okay
thank you and then
um
um on your on your scope of of uh audit
um the audit was based on the reports
that are available to you by the police
department
so did you
um
do you believe you had a full picture or
did you believe that you had a little
um
maybe presented with a pretty picture of
what LCP
CPD does and and the reason I'm asking
is because this will be covered in the
press and the as as you know most police
departments throughout the country are
under a magnifying glass under the
telescope so I just want to make sure
that
that this does represent
um
I just want to I this should be
representative and and
maybe stated or not that it represents
most of the police force and that the
practice are so
um
yeah so can you answer that please or
address that
good afternoon counselor uh so what I
would say is that that our experience of
the department is that everything that
is within our scope of work
are things that we are being provided
with without hesitation we're getting
full access and full cooperation our
questions are being answered but the key
qualifier there is that our scope of
work as Teresa was mentioning doesn't
Encompass everything that the department
does so for example use of force
incidents uh there are some
jurisdictions where we kind of routinely
audit the use of force review process
and we don't do that here it's not part
of the scope of work there are just
occasional instances where it comes to
us via the complaint process and it
happens to be about use of force so our
experience of of Department management
and our experience of the accountability
measures that that we have been
entrusted with is is a positive one but
in answer to your question it's hard to
know you know what in terms of the
general operations and practices of the
department we're we're limited to what
we see and so the truth of the matter is
that this may not be representative
in the end I mean if your you review
what's presented to you so while we
review what's presented to us but what's
presented to us are all the complaints
that the public makes So to that extent
we are getting a full picture so when
when there is an issue that that creates
Discord from some member of the public
there's some allegation of misconduct or
if it's a department initiated internal
investigation into officer misconduct so
when it comes to the allegation of
misconduct Arena we feel like we are
getting a a complete sampling of of
what's out there it's just other
operational issues okay because there
were
the 11
a total of 16
complaints I think I get more emails of
that in a day with a with a complaints
so I so you still believe that that's
representative and why how
yeah so thank you for that question and
Mr Mayor and counselor I want to
reiterate again that it is related to
our scope
so our particular scope looks at
complaints that rise to the level of a
formal investigation
so the very technical term for that is
an external complaint that is a category
one if we want to get very In The Weeds
about it
we also review anything that the
department again has initiated as an
internal investigation
there are certainly complaints that come
in that are related to other concerns
that the department determines may not
rise to the level of misconduct or where
a complainant ultimately decides that he
or she does not want to do a formal
investigation or a formal complaint so
those aren't reflected that's correct
those are not reflected here it would
it'd be good to accept that you know
just put it out there so that there is a
representative number of complaints
coming in
and then
as to page seven philosophy of
discipline
you say that you've you reported that
you've talked to LCPD about this
to whom was this directed and what
exactly was directed and since you've
presented it to us I think that we can
ask all those questions right you open
the door
so thank you so your legal training is
coming in handy today counselor are you
kidding all the time I mean when I have
to you know pay bills I have to use you
know fair enough so yeah what we would
say is we absolutely have engaged with
our departments with the Department's
leadership in terms of the individual
reports individual recommendations where
or cases where we've said okay good job
catching the the the policy violation
here but we feel like in our experience
this conduct might Merit a a more
significant consequence than than what
was given and I want to be clear it's
not necessarily an extreme thing where
it's the difference between somebody
being you know suspended for 30 days
versus not or being fired versus not
it's really more on the margins to use
an expression that Teresa used but again
we feel like there are some situation
and I'll give you a very concrete
example if it's a repeat offense for a
particular officer of the same conduct
we'd like to see that the discipline be
ramped up a little bit to reflect the
fact that okay there's some history of
this and we want the intervention to be
stronger so when you do have a repeat
offender for lack of better without due
respect
LCPD Danes and
Dominguez when you do have someone who's
not falling into step with the rest
you can see that that
um
particular to a particular officer to a
specific officer is it particular to a
specific officer or is it just the the
the pattern of
information that's repeated so we know
well it's that there are some
allegations that come up repeatedly kind
of department-wide and Teresa was
mentioning report writing issues and
issues with the body worn cameras and
and so those uh more broader systemic
issues are things that we would
absolutely single out on a
department-wide basis but I was speaking
about a you know a not I didn't have
anyone particular in mind but yeah we're
talking about individual officers who
might have repeat instances of of a
policy violation so do you get those
names we get that we get the records of
the of the officers that are involved in
cases so if there's any relevant
disciplinary history that's part of what
we review oh I see yeah all right and
then um
so at page
at page 14 I believe maybe 15 policy and
training recommendations
I I was wondering what exactly do you
mean when something isn't happening but
more often than not
let's see not happening but oh not
happening more often but being reported
so if it's not happening more often
how do you know they didn't report it or
didn't rep how can you measure that if
it wasn't reported
yeah so what we hypothesize and of
course can be proved one way or the
other is that
the allegations related to those types
of procedural concerns are being caught
more often by virtue of the
investigative process
so if a complaint is related to say the
traffic stop and an officer's perhaps
Unbecoming conduct during that office or
during that traffic stop
in the course of the investigation the
department may find that hey the officer
didn't actually appear in court for that
particular traffic stop and so that
allegation is framed in addition to the
original complaint so they're finding
they're in the course of of doing the
investigations finding more things to
frame allegations and to counsel the
officers on
okay and then I understand that now
thank you yeah
and then
um
on page 13 you indicated that you
continued focus on timeliness and that
or you
prompted the police department
um
and then you said delay is due to
communication failures I I believe words
to that effect
yeah in in so far as any delay in the
case perhaps the complainant does not
know about and so that's where I was
speaking to the department having an
opportunity to send maybe a follow-up
letter saying we are investigating this
it's taking longer than we think it
might take or than we originally thought
it might take and so that kind of
communication with the member of the
public is is very vital so the public
knows what's going on so those are the
corrective measures that you that you
take at each step
that's right okay that's all thank you
very much thank you Mr Mayor and and let
me just add something here counselor I
know when you say you receive a lot of
complaints you know I get a lot of those
two as well because I'm usually copied
when they sent to you but in all
fairness to uh our police
officers a lot of it is things that are
out of their control I mean they arrest
these uh perpetrators and there's small
crimes and they're back on the street
within hours so I blame the legislature
in the judicial system primarily as well
and I just want to point out one thing
that I enjoyed reading in here regarding
Internal Affairs practice it says this
report in January we again found lcpd's
Internal Affairs practice to be robust
and effective and the department has
shown its responsiveness to the auditing
process by effectively implementing most
of our recommendations in the short
six-month time frame
so I just I appreciate that
counselor Ben Cuomo counselor beta thank
you and thank you for the report and
sending it to us on a good manner it was
very lengthy so I appreciated having
time to review it
I have a lot of questions and they may
not be very well organized so bear with
me
um
there's a couple instances where I felt
like
I was receiving some mixed messaging and
maybe even with additional presentation
today
one of them actually being around
um the transparency issue and the
closeout letters I think in the report I
read at one point I said some of these
letters were misleading and so today you
said the Department's doing an
extraordinary job at transparency so to
me those are mixed messages right in I'm
curious about these closeout letters
um who is writing them
um what do they look like what kind of
is there someone reviewing them for
to me I think empathy matters
significantly particularly when we're
talking about someone who is a victim of
any particular crime and is wanting to
get closure I'm curious if you can tell
us more about that process and if you've
I know the department is still
considering that recommendation so then
I guess my second question to that is at
what point
does a department then fully decide to
take on the recommendation that you have
made
um and then you know yeah so what does
that whole process look like
yeah
good afternoon and thank you for the
question so I I absolutely understand
your point we are very interested as as
you are in the effectiveness of the the
notification letters to the complainant
because oftentimes uh that is the way
that they are going to ideally be
satisfied even if the result is not what
they wanted they'll be satisfied that
the department took the complaint
seriously that they understood the
allegations and and approached them
appropriately and I think there is room
for the kind of of gestures and
interactions that you're talking about
in terms of the discrepancy that you
noticed the the specific thing that we
said about the the complaint letters
being misleading actually is is
um there are two sides to it misleading
not break but the reason why they're
misleading is is something that Teresa
was just talking about which is that
oftentimes the department is going to go
beyond the specifics of that person's
complaint to look at all aspects of the
officer's behavior and it might discover
that's not something that the
complainant was was upset about but we
see that this is a performance problem
so we addressed it and sometimes the
wires get crossed in terms of the letter
writing and so they will say your compli
the allegation was stained and it's
confusing it's misleading in the sense
that the complainant might be led to
believe I was affirmed in my allegation
that the officer was discourteous or
handled that call appropriately and and
that may not be what happened at all so
I I would defer to the department about
your question of who writes them and who
vets them and is there room for more but
but we are certainly sympathetic to that
that approach
yeah I mean chief necessarily have to
answer right now but that is something
that I would like
some to hear feedback from you in terms
of what those letters look like you
don't have to have an answer today
mayor councilor vancom uh to to uh
Steve's uh Point are our letters uh or
our complaint would come in
alleging uh a certain violation or
certain
um uh a violation of a policy so when we
focus the uh officer on it this is what
we're focusing on this one policy after
the investigation is completed uh that
policy wasn't uh the investigation
founder wasn't violated but we found
other violations you know report writing
whatever it is as ancillary issues so
the letter would go out to the
complainant complainant gets a letter
and sees that that they were sustained
they they feel that they were affirmed
instead of doing that what we're doing
now is letting the a complainant know
exactly what the outcome was and so if
they were sustained your complaint did
not find that that your the charge was
uh or the policy was violated but we did
find this
um
Lieutenant with theaters Franken speak
to the letters that we've had to
um change because of this process and we
we welcome this very much because not
only as far as transparency and being
able to speak uh to the complainants at
the end of the investigation that the
transparency and being able to speak to
the complainants at the beginning of the
investigation is where we're really
finding a lot of success in helping our
processes and that's one of the issues
that was coming that came up as part of
this as far as transparency if you'd
like to know what the letters say
exactly I could let Lieutenant Gutierrez
come on up and no I imagine they vary
from case to case but I I yeah I think
for me particularly because of the one
case that stood out to me in the report
that was pretty significant complaint
you know I that's what for me that's
where this empathy piece comes in and
how are we addressing people who are
saying complaining about an assault like
that's pretty significant and is there's
something more than just the letter as
well a phone call a conversation that's
occur mayor concert that's one of the
processes that we're fixing and we're
putting into into uh common practice
great because of this process thank you
Chief
um
thank you Chief I'll move on to my next
question you know the other piece I sort
of this like mixed messaging
oh goodness let me find my notes
um
was around this philosophy of discipline
which I think I'm looking forward to
this Matrix and I have some questions
about that in a second but
um
straight from the report there was a
statement that said an overly lenient
disciplinary response runs the risk of
diminishing the influence of the process
on future officer performance
noting that there had been leniency in
some of the discipline I'm curious then
later in that same paragraph it says
that being said we would not advocate
for significant increases in discipline
in the aforementioned cases so to me I'm
hearing there's leniency and do you know
if there really changes that much about
it to me those are a little bit
conflicting and I'd like to understand
better how we are how we should approach
leniency
um
disciplinary leniency in situations
particularly that call for more
significant discipline
so I think that there are uh the point
that we were trying to make there is
that the the discipline process operates
on multiple levels at the same time and
one level is what does this individual
officer need in order for his or her
behavior to be corrected and because
there are a range of individual
circumstances the officers experience
past history other factors that may
influence the way the department
approaches it it can be appropriate for
a a a a consequence to be relatively
mild relative to another officer who's
done much the same thing but but maybe
the aggravating factors are there in
terms of the past history that we're
referring to or the failure to cooperate
fully with the investigation or whatever
the case may be our point is that while
we look I think the department has taken
a very very individualized approach if I
can generalize a little bit they have
said hey what does this specific officer
need in as a result of this and there's
a place for that but we also Advocate
saying you have to have a standard so
that the next officer that does it isn't
going to come in and say well why am I
getting three days off when this person
got verbal counseling and it was the
same policy violation it's a perfectly
valid question for the Second Officer to
raise so that's why I think the
department there's there's room for the
Department to say hey as much as it's
appropriate to take individual
circumstances into account we need to
get some baselines here to make this
more consistent okay thank you in terms
of the philosophy of discipline and this
Matrix that may be coming out
um I think to be very Frank some of what
stood out to me the most in this report
was instances of
um lack of truthfulness and where that
should fall in line in terms of priority
of discipline and to me that seems
pretty significant it should be top
priority and there was an instance I
think in
um
on page 62 I think where the memos were
um there was a statement on here that
says during his first administrative
interview the officer made several
statements that were inconsistent with
the evidence and was not forthcoming
with all information related to the
incident and this led to a low-level
suspension to me that's significant
truthfulness matters I think if we have
a culture that you don't have to tell
the truth when it comes to a thing and
it won't really
it'll be okay because you're hard
working which was also a statement made
in this report to me that's pretty
significant I'd like to understand how
we are taking that seriously and what
recommendations you are making and how
the department is responding to that and
if you're not making those
recommendations I certainly am in this
moment
so Mr Mayor and counselor we absolutely
agree with you about the The crucial
importance of of truthfulness it is at
the heart of public trust in the police
and credibility at every level so even
if it's a minor operational thing it
still matters to be able to to count on
the police being credible in that regard
so we would be inclined to agree with
you we have communicated that view to
the police and and we look forward to
seeing how uh you know reforms in the
discipline process continue to evolve
thank you
um Chief in terms of I mean I would love
to hear from you what you think of Mike
this question and and how you're
thinking about formalizing this Matrix
and particularly how you want to handle
instances of
um lack of truthfulness
mayor in concert let me start by saying
truthful and student police officers
everything if you've been found to be
untruthful in a criminal investigation
or administrative investigation
um it it uh affects your ability to
testify in court for the rest of your
career it's it it's significantly
impacts the way you can do policing from
there on out most most times police
officers are terminated because of
truthfulness the case that you're
referring to was treated with the utmost
uh
attention when we found an inconsistent
uh inconsistency in the way the
questions were being answered which
uh had us compelled the officer in that
one investigation to a polygraph
examination and it was passed we we
don't take those things lightly within
the LSPD
thank you Chief
um
you are talking about this Matrix and
during in terms of the philosophy of
discipline not something that you're
working on the uh yes ma'am mayor
concert Ben Cuomo the the chart of
sanctions that we're working on I'd like
to take complete credit for her but
attorney Vega Brown would actually
announce or kind of brought this to our
attention or this there's other
departments that are doing this and when
we're looking at some of the uh the
discipline that's handed out we we found
uh based off conversations that we had
that we have a starting point uh to go
off of uh it would help us in being more
consistent there was uh there was some
discussion that was had over a
discipline recommendation that was made
by a sergeant that's called it I believe
used the word willful disregard and this
was in reference to a report calling in
reports so we looked at it as a as a
police chief and head of the department
as well as all of our supervisors I
asked them and I asked myself where did
I fail whenever anybody's just sustained
for anything that we fail the the
process failed that's what we look at at
first so when I looked at that one in
specifically that one I I looked it was
there a Wilford disregard there was a
suspension handed out for that but in
looking for ways to find out whether or
not it was an intentional act I could
not find uh find it to be intentional or
willful in that matter there was still
some uh some Progressive discipline that
was issued based off of what I looked at
and based off of the discipline
recommendation so there was saying
sanctions in place for that but there
wasn't a willful disregard then and
because there's some possible
subjectiveness to the way our discipline
is handed out that's why we're starting
to look at this uh chart of sanctions
that we're involving a lot of uh
officers in and we'll be involved in the
attorney Vega Brown as well so we can
look at it and make sure that we have a
good starting point when it comes to
discipline thanks for that Chief and I
know that Personnel matters you know
they're they don't belong to the city
council necessarily but I think
because we're working towards building
trust with the community transparency
that we have somewhat of a public
conversation when you get closer to
developing this this Matrix or
um I'm sorry I forget what you just
called Charter sanctions thank you yes
um okay thank you Chief I don't I think
my questions may go come back to the IR
folks
um
and I might not have many more actually
I
um
on page nine where you begin to list out
some of the specific cases and you have
um
like there's a case in here that
involves I think three officers right
that's how I'm reading the chart
correctly okay and then some of them are
sustained some of them are exonerated
I'm curious when it comes to these kinds
of cases where you have multiple case
officers and you have multiple outcomes
I guess what I sort of what I came out
thinking when I read this was
how do we look at duty to intervene in
situations like this and are you
is that within your scope how are you
are you thinking about that are you
making recommendations in terms of
duty to intervene
yeah thank you Mr Mayor councilor Ben
Cuomo so when you're you're absolutely
interpreting that correctly so if the if
the First Column there has simply for
example the first case there is
transport officer and there's four
related allegations those are all for
the same officer if there's multiple
officers we listed them out officer one
two and so on so yes certainly you're
seeing that and interpreting it
correctly
as to your question for duty to
intervene typically that type of
evaluation would occur in the use of
force investigations and so those
particular cases unless they are
directly related to a complaint that
rises to the level that our scope
encompasses we would not be seeing those
and so certainly I believe the
department in the cases we've reviewed
has looked at the duty to intervene
but they none of the ones in this
particular scope in this particular
period involved any allegations of a
failure of the duty to intervene okay I
you know I hope that when you're coming
up with this Charter
chart of sanctions wow this is hard for
me to repeat I hope that there is a
piece in there about a duty to intervene
and what it looks like when that is not
done so
um and the disciplinary of that so I
appreciate it just one last question
sorry everyone
um in the case number 2020 I I
um these are the assault allegation
cases that were sustained I'm curious
about the timeline in terms of when the
allegations were made the investigation
happened and then the officer then
resigned before receiving any
disciplinary
to me this was potentially the most
concerning case of all of these
I'm wondering what that timeline was was
it short and that's why the officer
resigned or was there enough room for
before disciplinary that the officer
said you know what I'm going to leave
before anything major happens
so in this particular one if I'm
recalling correctly there was not a
concern related to timeline the
exception being that I believe the
officer had some leave period and so was
unable to receive the notification of
discipline and so there was
to your point counselor Ben Cuomo there
was an opportunity perhaps for that
officer to to have some kind of
self-evaluation but it was not
um the Department's failure to
proactively take this on in a timely way
okay thank you who did mention that at
the beginning
um I guess the last couple things I'll
say are just sort of comments and
statements say two
I mean lots of takeaways honestly but
two made big takeaways for me were one
you know there was instances of Officer
involved DUIs and perhaps domestic
violence and I think to me that speaks
to a level of mental health assessments
within the department and how we are
going about that and taking that very
seriously
I'm someone that deeply believes in
restorative justice and that doesn't
have a boundary it doesn't stop at where
police officers are working right to me
that goes beyond that there as well and
if there is mental health care needs
that are not being addressed within the
department to me that's pretty
significant serious and we'll have these
kinds of consequences so that's to me
why it's so important the second one I
think is this pattern that you've
mentioned in terms of reporting
um
to domestic violent cases and
de-escalation this is a concern that I
have continued to have I don't know if
you've been informed but we recently
voted in and created a crisis
intervention team with social workers
that I hope their scope can also include
domestic violence because frankly you
know when we're talking about victims of
domestic violence we should be having
mental health professionals and social
workers respond in addition I know
there's I know there's procedure when it
comes to domestic violence where police
officers are necessary and I just think
there is this Crisis Intervention team
hopefully will be able to resolve some
of those concerns but I do continue to
have concerns about matters of
de-escalation and how the department is
addressing those and and having the
officers truly
own and practice that on the field and
not just say well we've trained them but
what does it look like to actually
Implement them so thank you and thank
you all for letting me take this much
time
okay we have counselors of beta Gandara
and Koran
education
that we do have
um our chair and former counselor Ekman
and the audience who sits on our
oversight committee another area where
we have seen a few items come before us
and I did want to mention a bit of a
comment that was submitted by the chair
back in July to the mayor and I'm just
going to read it for it because it does
deal with policy and how we kind of
review
and it says it would be helpful if the
oversight committee could review the
improvements recommended by the oir
through a mechanism of displaying the
adoption of the recommendations how the
recommendations were implemented and
whether or not improvements are indeed
raising the quality of police actions
and behaviors without this mechanism for
recording improvements and
recommendations the oversight committee
is able to assure the city council that
the external auditor model is a benefit
to the city and I share this um just as
you've pointed out that some
recommendations have been taken some
haven't if we're not given you know a
lot of information on that then we're
not quite sure of that quality so I do
want to point that out and I think it
goes a little bit with
um
another policy item on how information
gets to you all and do you see any gaps
on
where and it could be with your scope of
contract on if an incident occurs and
how it gets to you what are common gaps
that you see within this industry and
are we addressing those in your contract
go ahead
so thank you if I can speak to your
first point counselor uh the the the the
observation about recommendations I
think is is a very legitimate one and we
in fact have a couple of clients that
we're working with right now that it's
kind of built into the annual cycle
where whenever we we make
recommendations on an annual basis and
you know we might have 17
recommendations and as part of the
process the the department is
responsible for responding to all 17.
we've had other clients that we've
worked with where we did an after action
report on a significant incident and a
couple years later they brought us back
to say Hey you made 53 recommendations
can you go back and say did the
department Implement these and if not
why not and so that is a very common
feature and I think there's a lot of
legitimacy to it so we thank the
oversight committee for the observation
in terms of your other question and I've
already blanked on it because what was
your the the actual question you had for
us um if within the scope of your
contract
if you see that there are gaps on how we
get information from the time the
incident occurs to how it might get to
you if there are gaps so I would say
that that again within the four corners
of our understanding with the city and
with the Department we get everything on
a timely basis they they are following
the procedure that is in place to the
letter and when we have an issue or
concern or a question about something we
get an immediate response when when we
reach out to Lieutenant Gutierrez or
someone else to get some clarification
so we're not concerned about aspects of
what we're reviewing being held back
from us or not arriving to us in the
appropriate timeline but at the risk of
of repeating ourselves we only know what
we know right and we and we are working
within the parameters of of our scope of
work and so as far as other issues that
might be of concern to the counselor
Community we you know we may have some
gaps there that are relevant okay thank
you and cancer Ben Como kind of brought
this up a little bit ago but just to
kind of look at that of timelines again
and from the time from your review of
all these cases from the time a incident
is happens to the point of possible
resolution are we within standards of
making sure that is happening are things
taking a little bit longer how does that
look like
yeah thank you Mr Mayor and councilor
abetha I wanted to just jump back to the
previous question quickly and and do an
add-on which is that the department is
tracking internally each of the
recommendations that we provide they
have a position that they call the
compliance sergeant and that Sergeant is
diligently tracking each of the
recommendations we try to follow up and
loop back and make sure hey did you do
the things that we requested but as
Steve mentioned it is not in a formal
capacity that we're doing so but they
are doing it internally
um to the question of timeliness in the
first report where we spoke to you in
January we were concerned that the
timelines were a little lengthy and a
little beyond what we see our most
effective practices we've seen the
department tighten that up quite a bit
in the time that we've been reviewing
and so with the exception of those
instances where the officer is on some
kind of leave and cannot receive their
notification or if the officer is
choosing to do some form of
administrative appeal
then we see that perhaps the case was
taking a little longer to get to us but
those are typically factors that are
outside of that departmental control so
they're typically getting the cases
resolved within about 90 days and we
believe that that's an appropriate
standard
thank you very much for that and then I
think my quick comments on some of what
we read for me one of the other I think
really concerning items is that of the
comments about professionalism and how
it relates to everything from
de-escalation you know to transparency
and things like that and I know that
there are a lot of reasons for a lot of
things but I think just as we all have
to be held to very high standards this
is also another area that if you lose
that public trust especially in these
areas that it's very hard to get it back
and it is also not the best way that we
can serve our community so I hope that
we are addressing some of the all of
these issues with the seriousness that
it deserves thank you
thank you counselor before I get to the
mayor Pro tem my response to Chairman
ekman's letter was that
I was going to suggest to you my
colleagues that that be included as part
of his of Evo's evaluation either
quarterly or semi-annually yeah okay
mayor Pro Tem
thank you mayor thank you
mayor I think
Viola excuse me Mr Mayor counselors
thank you just as a follow-up I wanted
to advise the council that the current
contract does allow for follow-up Audits
and the contract says specifically that
we can have the oir group conduct
follow-ups as requested by the city and
then at that point then can determine
implementation of those recommendations
so we have at any point an ability to
follow up on any particular case or all
the cases as deemed fit by the council
thank you thank you
thanks Viola um thank you mayor thank
you for your presentation and for being
here and touring our city I think it's
always good to get a you know a
perspective in that way
um my questions are around some
clarification
counselor Flores was leaning in that
direction of asking more specifically
what the the scope of work entailed and
I think it's always important and I'd
like to see that you in your
presentation review that with us because
there's people new in the audience
people who are viewing that are not
familiar I mean we get lots of different
things and I forget what very
specifically those are so if you can
include it in the packet as a one-pager
that would be helpful if you can very
quickly you know run through them for
the the public that that is also helpful
the scope of work if you'd reviewed that
with us yes absolutely thank you Mr
Mayor and counselor excuse me mayor Pro
tem Gandara
um
so our scope of work as we've now
mentioned a number of times is limited
it is the cases that the department has
determined are external complaints so
from members of the public
that rise to the level of potential
misconduct okay so those would be any
cases where the allegations could result
in a violation of departments policies
general orders
there are as I mentioned other
complaints that come in that do not rise
to that level of formal investigation
those are outside our scope
the other area that we review are those
internal investigations those would be
the areas where the department has
initiated through the course of their
own findings of misconduct within the
department they've initiated an internal
investigation so that doesn't
necessarily require a member of the
public coming in and saying an officer
did X Y or Z but rather the department
learns of potential misconduct and
investigates internally those are also
within our scope thank you
um did I hear you correctly that the use
of force is not okay that's correct it
is not in our scope of unless it comes
within those two or three guidelines
that's correct
deliverables correct so an example if an
individual a member of the public and
some several of our cases had this set
up alleges that excessive force was used
against them
the department internally does a use of
force review okay
as a result of the complaint and are
seeing that excessive force is one of
the allegations either the department
provides or we request that use of force
review so it's a whole separate stream
and so we will review those in those
very specific cases where an allegation
is related now there are many uses of
force that receive that internal review
process that we do not ever see yeah
because they are outside of our scope so
it's only by virtue of oh
here's an excessive force allegation
let's look at that sure that we see them
I appreciate that I'm lean
asking you
it's all over the nation and what in
your opinion is the best contract that
you have that really helps you know
counsel and people get to the Crux of
what their issues and concerns are can
you give us sort of the the download
about what those are and then I'm going
to say to Steph I find it very difficult
because the contract went we are two now
councils different we don't have anybody
that represents Us in there and we are
now two chiefs
um different right so Council was very
clear back then what we wanted is what
we wanted to see and I want to say that
some of that got negotiated off the the
the and and that doesn't help us nor nor
does it right nor can we go back and say
oh no remember this is for us for
Council and for the public absolutely
um first and foremost but there's
nothing that we can negotiate with
unless our
[Music]
no not not during the the the
committee if you will right that goes
and negotiates this contract and so I
find that very
difficult and disturbing because Council
has certain things that we'd like to see
happen and use of force was one of them
if I remember correctly and I'm looking
at councilor Ekman back there but that's
like six years ago five years ago I mean
who remembers every detail but um anyway
I think and I'll say that publicly to
Viola and others I want to see use of
force put
um put on the contract and I know you
were looking at doing that but please go
ahead and answer my question that was
like
the best contract that you think really
gets to the Crux of
I was afraid you were going to do this
uh and this is usually a Mike gianaco
question but thank you mayor Pro tem and
Mr Mayor um so we have a lot of
different arrangements with a lot of
different jurisdictions and and we
always make the point that it is not our
place to say this is what you need or
this is what you know better than this
we try to be responsive to the
individual needs and preferences of the
community and one of the things about uh
oversight in general is we've been
affiliated with the the National
Association of Civilian oversight of law
enforcement the nacole group that is
probably the best resource nationally
for all the different overviews yeah
it's Nicole
n-a-c-o-l-e
nicole.org they have a great website and
we're all members of it and they do a
lot of excellent work in terms of
providing resources for communities to
just say this is what's out there and
these are the different options that are
available so we as I said we have TR
worked in a lot of different contexts
and so we we are very very deferential
to what the community needs and what the
individual council is most uh excited
about in terms of what they want to try
to accomplish that said I will tell you
we do have uh contracts with with
communities that are extremely robust in
terms of real-time actual invest
monitoring of Investigations sometimes
participating investigations and we do
use of force audits for for different
agencies so there is a lot critical
incident review is a big part of our
practice and that obviously those high
profile incidents generate a lot of
attention and we we have a lot of
experience dealing holistically with
those events so it really does vary and
we are very very deferential to the the
preferences of each place that we work
in I appreciate that thank you so much
and then
um I it you had a couple of paragraphs
speaking to the use of force and some of
the investigations and and auditing that
you were conducting I appreciate the
Force review Cadre I think that will be
very helpful and moving forward and I'm
wondering Chief we also have a police
um
what are we calling it
police committee police Public Safety
Public Safety Public Safety there we go
public safety and I like to have some of
those conversations about how it's
rolling out and and and and what you're
finding I think those are important
things we just need to find ways that
it's being discussed but also funneled
to council and to the public and I think
that's for me really important and then
I'll I'll move into the customer service
metric
I think important to note that the lcbd
responded to 54 552 calls for service
that's significant and as far as
complaints it was 0.06 percent of those
calls for service
do you find that statistically relevant
it's kind of like is that the the going
number for that amount of calls and if
not then what do we do to inform the
public right there's numerous things
that we do we have a transparency page
on our website we have that internal
that number that people can call both
internally and externally but some
suggestions around around that and and
what you think about that spread there
it doesn't seem significant
so Mr Mayor and mayor Pro tem that last
part that you just said when you say it
doesn't seem statistically significant
what do you what do you mean by that
well what I mean is
um for that amount of calls is that
you know we're getting those number of
complaints is that relevant so are that
number I think it's yes and no if I can
give you a real lawyerly answer to it so
what I would say is it's absolutely
relevant in the sense of giving the
public and giving council members and
giving folks like us a sense of the
incredible high volume of encounters
that the police have on a daily basis
the vast majority of which are resolved
effectively professionally and without a
complaint emerging when it comes to the
number of complaints we are
um
we are interested in that but that that
number alone is a starting point and not
the end of the analysis and it could to
your point it could very much be a
function of well we don't have
confidence that anybody's going to take
it seriously we don't know where to go
we didn't even know the police
investigated complaints so uh there are
a lot of factors that that can go into
it but I would say it is absolutely
worth having the reminder of the the
very high volume of stuff that the
Departments yes and I think that's
important where they have handled those
things professionally and
expeditiously and I think those are
those are important but I I I'm
interested in this spider tech and I
think I was a recipient of that I there
was a fender if someone hit me it
happened up here on Campo a few months
back I made the call but then you get I
think it's the text that says thank you
for your call we appreciate it this is
the things that we're you know we're
doing I think specifically so like oh
this is cool really cool
um and and I think Chief and
um officer um I'm sorry DC Danes we need
to let the public know that that's
something that automatic like if you
call these are things that are going to
happen I think it's important that our
public is aware of that
um let's see I too had a bunch of
training is my next thing I've been
concerned about the about the kind of
training and I know that our number of
reports is a relates to domestic
violence is on the
unfortunately on on the uptick and um
and and and there have been times when I
have felt like
the training specifically just having
someone come and talk about domestic
violence I I I I I feel like we need to
take this very seriously in a number of
ways and I want to lean on your
expertise and
um experience of what other communities
doing when they see this kind of
domestic violence in their community and
what are their local PD in terms of
training
um specifically
um I'm looking at really
professionalizing that training and
bringing in National Speakers
specifically working with our DB
Partners in town and Mr I think you're
familiar David Mendel who's a guru in
addressing domestic violence and and so
just really wanting to hear from you
what you you weren't very specific and
and I think the
um Chief and others responded that
they're doing this training there was a
change in their orders and there was a
training in February 2022 I think I read
um so I'll stop there and you can answer
that
so thank you Mr Mayor and mayor Pro tem
as far as what the department is doing
exactly what you have commented on here
and and I would like to defer that
question to Chief and others who might
have more information about the
specifics of training because again it's
something that we did not review as part
of the scope what type of training and
is it appropriate as far as what is
happening Nationwide certainly
much of the items that you highlighted
in your comments are what departments
are trying to take on so bringing in the
community that is knowledgeable in this
field Crisis Intervention practitioners
social workers others who have this
professional expertise and background to
better handle potentially better handle
the calls that are coming in related to
these kinds of incidents now certainly
there is space for the police officers
response and for public safety's
response in this but to the extent that
other jurisdictions are involving as
I've heard mentioned here
um
having those teams that are together as
Crisis Intervention a mental health
practitioner or others that can ride in
with the officers certainly something
that others are trying and seems to be
effective at them at this time yes I
know we're seeing some good results
other other places so looking forward to
that when it begins here thank you for
for your comments I appreciate it thank
you Mary those are all my questions for
now thanks mayor Pro tem so I just sent
an email to efo copied Eric and Jennifer
and yourself asking if that could be the
use of force could be added to the scope
of work and if so then they'll probably
contact oir for a price and then bring
back a resolution and Council wants to
add that to it then move forward
thank you
okay uh next Council Quran and then
Council Graham
thank you mayor thank you so much for
your presentation and for the report
which I thought was really helpful and
making clear a lot of things and I would
say and not that I would argue against
um us expanding the scope of your work
but I would say that you did indicate a
number of times things that I think
allude to this conversation about use of
force and de-escalation you you
mentioned the temperature being
increased by by human interactions and I
think what I'm curious to hear actually
is is
now knowing that you all don't
necessarily provide recommendations and
how to address it I'm curious I know
that I've heard from the chief that this
is really part of the conversation of
what what sort of the evaluation of of
both discipline and the types of
conversations you're having are the use
of force Cadre I'm curious to hear if
the chief would be willing to share some
of the concrete actions I think that
you've already taken a number of things
and it seemed like from your report that
was already that accountability was
already happening so I would really like
for you to share some of those concrete
things that have been happening that you
all have been doing especially related
to reducing the temperature of
interactions
um mayor concert
as far as to be clear we review every
use of force we have an internal system
called Blue Team an officer has to use
force that a call he submits it at the
end of the day it's reviewed by the
supervisor and it goes all the way into
IA we have had internal investigations
where uh a use of force uh reviewer
would look at it and say this looks like
it was excessive we need to look into it
and and then it would uh result in an
internal investigation the use of the
Cadre puts more more eyes on it so we
decided through uh through some
recommendations made by oir to look at
uh look at each use of force in a more
robust way so by having more eyes on it
and the number seven came up because
that's the number of use of force
reviewers that we have within the
department ideally we'd like to have
more but take some training it takes
some specialized uh training that the
the officers have to go through so
that's that's what we're doing as far as
the Cadre and I'm sorry your your last
uh
your last question the other the other
thing is and I know that um you've
mentioned this or alluded to it but when
things come up in these so these are
sort of not necessarily use of force
interactions but you I know that there
is sort of a conversation about if
they're indicators of of a potential
um sort of to the idea of progressive
interface and Progressive discipline
um sort of intervening early with any
officers that might have those sort of
conditions that raise the temperature
and how how that works within the
department and I know that you all are
taking proactive steps to to address
that
mayor concert Quran to your point we
just actually had an interpersonal
Communications course uh where we have
officers that uh are finding themselves
in uh uses of force a little more uh
often than other officers so we looked
at you know what they're doing wrong and
or they can could they de-escalate uh
situations a little bit more effectively
could they communicate a little more
effectively we found that there was a
need for this class and we we selected
people or officers that have been in in
situations that they could have probably
used their communication skills a little
better so we
asked them to attend this class and we
just actually just completed it we had
20 officers but this is something that
we want to continue as an ongoing uh
process for the Department
thank you I appreciate that and I
appreciate I feel like I just want to
point out that you all I really are
triangulating your experiences the data
that exists and the feedback that you
give and I think that's really
meaningful in terms of this process so I
just really appreciate that you all are
open to that and thinking about it so
thank you that's all all the questions I
have
thank you Council Graham
thank you thank you all so much for
presentations and for being so
thoughtful in your answers too I guess
the beauty of going last is that most of
my questions have already been addressed
I have one really micro question
um remaining we were talking about the
modification of language on the
complaint intake forms so that is page
number 15 on yours uh 21 of 170 on the
larger packet and you'd mentioned that
you were recommending removing the under
penalties as provided by law pursuant to
dot dot dot
um
is that something that should stay on
the form legally though if a complainant
would be subject to
charges if they did falsely accuse an
officer I understand I understand the
spirit of making the form seem as open
and
Cooperative as possible but would that
cause a problem for us
if that situation did present itself
like I said it's a super micro question
Teresa is usually our micro person
so Mr Mayor and councilor Graham thank
you for the question
um some of it comes down to the
technicalities and I will tell you in
California law we have literally been
going through this issue with different
agencies for for 20 years because the
the case law has flipped back and forth
with people making First Amendment
claims and and there it's it actually is
a really good question and a complicated
question I would actually defer today
and we can actually do some research and
get back to you because it's a great
question as far as New Mexico law and
and what the status of it is regard to
the you know the federal litigation
um relating to this point but yeah our
emphasis is on the the chilling aspect
of it but you're you make a very fair
point that if there should be a fair
warning component too if in fact they
are subject to prosecution for using the
system irresponsibly all right great
thanks appreciate follow-up on that and
then I think no no further questions
um so much of what I was thinking about
has already been expressed very
eloquently by my colleagues
but I I do remain in my very brief
tenure up here the overarching theme is
mental and Behavioral Health and I think
all of us have alluded to that and I I
can only imagine I recognize no Police
Department LCPD no Department anywhere
operates in a bubble
but you end up under very intense
scrutiny in what I think is it's
probably fair to say a job that has
changed a lot in especially in recent
decades in terms of how much you are
dealing with with things that people go
to school for lots and lots of years
just specifically to do that job
so I think I I just want to add my voice
to
to the spirit of collaboration and that
we as a city are trying to address this
on so many on many different fronts
um because I don't want to see it be
something that is
pointed just specifically at the police
department when in fact they're just you
know they are responding to symptoms of
much much larger challenges
that are going on and I'm just happy
that the conversation evolved in a way
that is recognizing that as well and
that's all I have thank you so much
thank you counselor
okay so now we're going to go ahead and
get to the public comment part and if I
could just have my show of hands who
wishes to speak
I'm sorry
well no they're not done completely
we're gonna let the public and then
we're gonna probably bring them back for
they may even ask us to have to answer
some questions
I'm sorry
oh councilman home with you mayor as
long as you allow me to speak after
public comment I'm gonna have two more
questions of course
so how many members here on the public
wish to speak this is a public comment
section on this
nobody
all right counselor thank you mayor um I
just have two follow-up questions
um
I vaguely remember us having a
conversation last time about uh the
issue of body worn cameras and them not
being turned on and there was some sort
of software we had discussed back then
about like voice activated or something
I'm curious if there's follow-up on that
or did I dream that Chief pretty sure we
talked about it
mayor councilman Cuomo the technology
that you're talking about there's
there's several uh
pieces that go on with with these
cameras and it ties into our our tasers
and things of that nature uh we're still
uh trying to get the money to be put
together so we can get that technology
we actually have some quotes that we're
working on right now but as far as our
policies on the body worn camera they
pretty much got to be on almost all the
time and that's that's really uh cleared
up that issue
the comment was made earlier that it was
getting used to it Old-Timers like me
didn't have cameras when we first
started we had these little clunky uh
cassette recorders that we had to
activate only in certain circumstances
because of the the legislation and the
and the technology coming together at
the same time newer officers have no
issues just tapping you know takes took
a while to get the older officers used
to doing that but we're seeing the the
instances where there are the cameras
aren't activated uh really reduced
thanks Chief and my next question is for
you as well I think
um the Cadre that is being formed
um seven people right all in the
department
uh mayor concert Ben Coleman that's
correct their use of force experts that
go through the specialized training so
that they can take a closer look at uses
of force and and match them up to uh you
know policy case law things of that
nature yeah and I I understand for sure
that it's highly Technical and you'd
have to be trained to really understand
those pieces and I and I I think it's
important for me to note that
um often this is where there's lack of
trust between community and the
department in terms of who's uh
overseeing what right and it continues
to be police officers overseeing use of
force by police officers and and that
creates a mistrust and I'm curious if
there's any room for this Cadre for
um
citizen participation
mayor councilman we'd have to have that
conversation internally the again the
the Cadre looks at it from uh from a law
enforcement perspective and and I will
again point out that we have seen
violations and they have led to internal
investigations and uh and and discipline
um so we we do have a very good internal
system in my opinion and I know that
Chief because there is conversation
happening right now in our community
about citizen oversight and just
wondering where there is room for
improvement in terms of communication I
think frankly people are looking at that
because they feel like there is a lack
of that kind of transparency and line of
communication and so if it's not that
again because I get that it's Technical
and people go their whole careers
training to review these kinds of things
and I think they're on the other side
there's a perception that
um the
that there's very little transparency is
what I will say to that thank you
well I just want to first thank Steve
and and Theresa for your presentations
and come in here today and and Chief and
your team for all that you all deal with
I mean you're the only Department in the
city that really gets scrutinized that
has their own outside auditor you know
and has has this type of report but I
have to earlier when I began my
discussion as to the background of oir I
did so not knowing that I was going to
re respond to councilor Ben Cuomo I
think that
you couldn't ask for a better
organization you know because you all
have actually I don't know if you've
actually picketed or or you know I don't
know maybe even got arrested but anyways
it sounds like you all actually as
organizers at one point in your life and
you have that education and know what to
look for and that's why I've always been
you know I don't know very few
departments that have the type of
transparency that LCPD does I you know I
don't know how many departments I I was
reading how many clients you have
but I think that when we started this
back in 2009 or 10 I can't remember
exactly when we started doing outside
auditing a police audit it's really
worked out well in my opinion I mean I I
see how other cities deal with
constituents and complaints we are by
far have got to be one of the leaders in
dealing with that I mean we I know my
colleagues are very conscientious they
don't like to just not respond to people
and I think the the team here at lcpdn
City Las Cruces as a whole does the same
they they want to make sure everything's
responded to and dealt with and so I'm
uh I mean this is and I think councilor
Graham said it so well you know the the
police work has evolved so much
throughout the years I still remember my
next-door neighbor he was uh he retired
as a lieutenant a police Las Cruces
Police Department and and over 20 years
and I think he only pulled his weapon
out twice but that was he retired in the
70s and it's just a whole whole
different ball game now and so having to
deal with so many issues and and all the
things the facets and the people who
just it's almost like they they just
want to get they want to harass the
police I mean some of them not all of
them but they're the ones that I've seen
but nonetheless I just want to thank you
for what you all do and thanks to our
Las Vegas Police Department for for what
you all do because it sounds like you've
been very Cooperative which is good and
my my colleagues as well for their
support and so we looks like depending
on how we can work out an additional
scope of work we'll see you know and
it's good because I think if we cover
that as well as what we're currently
doing right now what more could you ask
for really when you get right down to it
you're you've got a whole fresh set of
eyes who have that experience to be able
to see exactly what Las Cruces Police
Department is doing and what if what if
anything they could do to better
themselves so
thank you very much have a safe trip
home
did you guys get a chance to taste any
of the chili when you were here oh
tonight's the night okay
all right so next we're going to go to
3.3 progress report on Realize Las
Cruces
Catherine Harrison Rogers and friesa
Nichols company
Mr Mayor members of city council bear
with me one second we'll get this
presentation loaded
all right thank you again Catherine
Harrison Rogers for staff I just wanted
to introduce our Consultants assisting
Us in in working on this project to
rewrite our development codes freeze and
nickels uh we have Erica Craycraft we
have Don Warwick as well as Karen Perez
here to answer any questions and Erica
will go ahead and give the presentation
and of course I will be here to answer
anything as well
good afternoon mayor and Council again
my name is Erica Craycraft with Frieza
Nichols here to give you an update on
the development code revision
as Catherine mentioned I'm joined today
by Dawn Warwick and Karen Perez also
with friesa Nichols and two other team
members that you may see at other times
are Fred Lopez from Quantum engineering
and Dana Kyle who is a local attorney
helping us out with this project
today I would like to share with you a
reminder of our process and give you an
update on our current status and also
look forward at our next steps and the
community engagement plans that we have
for later in the process and then lastly
I would be happy to take any questions
or comments that anyone may have
first starting with the process this is
just a reminder of our scope the items
of your current development code that we
are looking at on the left side you can
see these sections that we are doing
what we're calling a major review the
main focus we're really looking at
zoning subdivisions the design standards
which is things like parking and
Landscaping
drainage and also signs and on the right
side you can see some of the sections
that are we're expecting a more minor
review
our process is about a two-year process
structured in three different phases in
phase one that's what we call the
diagnostic evaluation we began that last
spring and during that time we reviewed
your plans that you had in place like
the Elevate comprehensive plan active
Transportation plan Parks plan and
others also reviewing your current code
so we've made sure we had an
understanding of where you are today
we had a virtual open house where we
invited any additional public input to
be shared and we also conducted what we
called code user interviews where we
wanted to hear from the folks who most
frequently used the code so City staff
also the city councilors and planning
and zoning commission who were seated at
that time so we spent about the first
six months through this process working
on documenting where we are today what
are some of the issues and how do we
plan to address them moving forward
today we are in phase two which is the
process where we are actually drafting
the content and we're doing that by
different sections working very closely
with City staff and we are currently
about two-thirds of the way through this
phase
looking ahead to phase three we've
reserved several months toward the end
of the process once we have a completed
more polished draft that's ready for
public input so at that time during
phase three we want to work on really
refining that document and making sure
that that is ready to move forward with
the um adoption formal process
so I mentioned that we're currently in
phase two and we are drafting the code
you see on the right side the four main
chapters that we're really looking at
General Provisions subdivisions design
standards and the zoning and as we
prepare each one of these sections we
the consultant team draft that section
and we provide it to your city staff and
they do a great job at reviewing each of
those sections and sending their
comments back to us
then what we do we revise our sections
based on what we've heard from City
staff and we continue to repeat that
process usually a couple of times before
we get most of City staff's comments
addressed and we get a draft that's
ready to move forward and so you can see
on the right side
the highlighted sections are the design
standards and the zoning that's what we
are really focusing our effort on right
now because the first two general
provisions and subdivisions are actually
our initial drafts are available on the
website right now if you look at realize
lascruces.com on the documents page
you'll see a initial draft version
of each one of those chapters along with
the video each one is about five minutes
long that gives an overview about what
the chapter is and what are some things
to take note of if anyone wants to
review those so those are currently
available
as we were working on drafting these
sections we're frequently referencing
back to the Elevate Las Cruces
comprehensive plan whenever the city
developed that plan you all did a very
robust public engagement effort and a
lot of visioning that informed the plan
and the plan includes about 500
different recommendations and those
recommendations range across whether
they may be related to the development
code they could be Capital Improvements
some of them are follow-up plans or
studies that might be needed or others
can just be general policies for the
city so we're looking of course mainly
at the ones from the development code
and there are about 200 of those items
related to the development code
so what you see here is our working list
where we took those 200 items and we put
them in a checklist and we're making
sure that we're updating each one of
those items or addressing each one of
those items in the code update so we are
keeping track of that in terms of the
policy framework from Elevate in terms
of the physical framework from Elevate
we are also looking quite a bit at the
place types and overlay Place types
especially
as we are working on the the code update
and you'll be able to see those in the
zoning chapter especially
related to the zoning districts and then
also in our roadway design also the
Landscaping all references back to the
Elevate recommendations so you'll be
able to see how those have been pulled
forward
in addition to implementing the plan
we're also looking at ways to streamline
both processes and also the document so
it's easier to develop here in Las
Cruces in general and also it's easier
to review the code document it is a very
technical document and so we want to do
the best that we can to make it easy to
understand
looking ahead in our next steps and our
plans for Community engagement
you're probably aware that meetings have
started with the technical advisory
committee that's the committee that was
appointed by the mayor and city council
there are 15 members on this committee
and there are representatives from the
development Community local community
organizations local professors and so
it's a nice mix of people who have a
technical background and also some who
may not but they're also very useful in
the sense that they can help us with
making sure that the code is clear and
it is readable
as we're working through those sections
the technical advisory committee is the
city staff flood initiative
assistant city manager Eric Enriquez is
the leader for for that committee so
that's something that your city staff is
handling and once they have reviewed
those uh that process and they have
comments from the technical advisory
committee that is passed on to us at the
consultant team
staff is reviewing draft sections for
preliminary feedback with the technical
advisory committee all of the sections
and the content that they are reviewing
is the same as what's available on the
website so everything is publicly
available if anyone is interested in
looking at it but we aren't really
requesting community-wide input at this
time on those drafts they are generally
just available for transparency and if
anyone is interested they are available
on the website
looking ahead at our next steps we will
continue to be working with City staff
as we move forward through the rest of
phase two to finish developing and
refining the draft code and also
receiving that preliminary feedback from
the technical advisory committee
once we have gone through that process
and we have a more complete polished
draft we'll plan to bring that back to
city council and to the Planning and
Zoning commission for any initial
comment that you all may have and that's
really making sure that we're ready to
move forward with the public process are
there any issues or changes that you all
would like to see before we share a
community draft where we're actually
requesting that input
so once we have gotten the green light
from the Planning and Zoning commission
and city council we'll move forward with
hosting an open house event where we
will be officially requesting Community
feedback on the draft
that open house event we envision that
happening probably in Spring 2023 toward
the the earlier part of the year
at that event we expect that that will
be an in-person event and it will likely
be occurring over two evenings it would
be the same event both nights just being
more flexible with folks schedule
at the open house
we like to start any of our public
meetings with an educational component
so everyone can have an understanding of
what the code is for what is in it and
generally just trying to make sure that
everyone feels that they have the
background knowledge they need to be
able to provide meaningful input on on
the code draft
we'll also highlight some of the key
items from the draft that most people
may be interested in seeing a lot of
times this is like a top 10 or top 20
things that people are most likely to
care about for what's in the code draft
at the open house event we will have
feedback opportunities both those
evenings but then also for an ongoing
period of time after that if someone
comes to the open house and it's the
first that they're hearing about a
development code and they're really just
learning what's going on we want to make
sure that we're allowing them some time
afterwards to go back and review the
draft if they would like to and get
their thoughts together and give that to
us so that will be an ongoing feedback
opportunity
and similarly both at the open house and
then an ongoing period we would like to
be able to conduct one-on-one
discussions and these are envisioned as
a one-on-one sit-down with someone who
may be a property owner a business owner
someone who's interested or concerned
about how the new code may affect them
personally so we can have that chance to
sit down with them look up their address
and talk through how the code applies
now and how it will apply in the future
to their specific situations so that's
something that we want to be flexible on
and continue those discussions for a
while not just those two evenings
in addition to the in-person events we
would also like to offer a virtual
alternative
we envision that similarly not just
being a short time but that would extend
for a period of at least two weeks
and for reference this is from back in
the phase one process when I mentioned
that we were collecting Community input
this is the virtual open house that we
launched back in last spring it is
actually still available if anyone would
like to leave any open-ended public
comments it is available still at
realize lascruces.com
um at a similar timeline whenever we are
collecting that Community input we want
to revisit with all of the code users
who we interviewed again back in phase
one where we heard from them what would
they like to see in the code update with
the point of that being to really just
close the feedback loop did we
adequately address your concerns that
you expressed previously do you have any
other concerns or feedback that they
would like to provide
just as a reminder this is the list of
the folks that we spoke with back during
phase one
so during phase three whenever we have
that polished draft we want to Circle
back with all of them and invite
everyone to come back for any additional
comment
then once we have completed that round
of public input both from the community
as a whole and also more specifically
the code users we will bring that
feedback back to city council and back
to the Planning and Zoning commission
and share that feedback with you along
with our proposed revisions that we
think may be needed to address that
feedback so we'll bring that back to you
for your review and direction at
and then lastly once we have gone
through that process we will eventually
be moving forward into the formal public
hearings that would be needed to
consider adoption of the code and again
we are looking at that to be likely in
Spring 2023.
with that that concludes my presentation
I'd be happy to take any questions or
comments that anyone may have thank you
thank you thanks Erica
doesn't look like any I I see George out
in the audience I don't know if there's
any members of the public who would like
to comment on this
no George no no okay
all right well I guess everything is
going pretty good then all right
comments from Council or Republic well
thank you again for your presentation
and the work that you're doing we
appreciate
you okay last item is going to be the
automated speed enforcement
I think now I know why uh
counselor sorg is here so uh
the lieutenant Sean Mullen will be
discussing well this came up during his
administration and uh he's probably here
to see where we're at on that because he
probably still has constituents or
residents that are
foreign
this is the speed cameras
you don't want to stay for this
remember when the ones we talked about a
long time ago
there it is
I don't know how to lift the desk so
hopefully everyone can hear me clearly
let's
all right good afternoon mayor council
my name is Sean Mullen I am the
lieutenant for the traffic section of
the Las Cruces Police Department and
today I've been asked to come and speak
with you about automated speed
enforcement
now this is just going to be an overview
of what automated speed enforcement is
how it works what its purpose is and how
we could implement it here in the city
if decided
so automated speed enforcement units are
essentially radar devices that are
connected to cameras and monitor a
specific section of a roadway for speed
or speed violators this equipment can be
fixed position or mobile and what I mean
by that is if it's fixed it's uh in a
mounted to a pole or something in its
stationary mobile units are not
necessarily driving up and down the
roadway with you but they can be
positioned at different areas throughout
the city based on need or trends that we
see
so what is its purpose
increased traffic enforcement resources
to positively affect driving behavior
this is reduced Speeders who endanger
our pedestrians cyclists and other
motorists on the roadway
uh there's a design excuse me to
identify violators in less than uh the
need for police presence on the roadside
so how does it work
so specifically this equipment is in
position and it monitors vehicle speeds
on the roadway and takes a picture of a
vehicle that is exceeding a threshold
limit of speed as it approaches
it documents the video there's going to
be documents in a video of that speed
violation as well as takes a photograph
of the vehicle the license plate and the
speed at which it's traveling
a secondary picture is captured after
the vehicle passes the unit to document
the license plate
system captures high resolution
photographs and video
before a notice of violation is ever
sent to anyone it's reviewed by a
commissioned officer to determine if the
violation is valid if the violation is
valid the citation is issued
some statistics how effective are they
according to the cdc.gov website
a 2010 study saw average speed
reductions between 1 and 15 percent a
reduction injury crashes between 8 and
49 percent
and fatal or Serious injury crashes
between 11 and 44 percent
a second one from the U.S Department of
Transportation Federal Highway
Administration for fixed units up to 54
54 for all crashes and 47 for fatal and
injury crashes mobile units saw a
reduction up to 20 percent on major
principal arteries
pros and cons list
uh
one pro is Public Safety they're out
there 24 7. we have three shifts at the
police department they'd be out there
continuously all day and all night
monitoring for Speed violators to ensure
that our roadways are as safe as can be
this allows for law enforcement to
attend other calls for service video and
photo evidence of the violation is great
in speaking with a legal about this
previously they run a program and I saw
a lot of success when someone would come
in for a violation and see a video of
themselves or their vehicle speeding
through intersection it's kind of hard
to argue with with the video and the
photos of it
unmanned unmanned means that we won't
have personal out there actively writing
these citations and there's less a
chance for offender and officer contact
some concerns that have been uh brought
up I shouldn't say brought up or that
I've read about the Big Brother concern
that is uh the cameras are always
watching cameras are a part of our
everyday life they're here in this room
they're in grocery stores gas stations
everywhere you go
it's just one thing that would be on the
public roadways to make sure the drivers
are doing everything they can to be safe
for the other commuters on the road
pedestrians cyclists and everyone else
a profit raising mechanism
there are two tiers or two types of
speed van programs that I've read about
one is a tier based where there is a fee
paid to a vendor based on the number of
citations issued the other is a flat fee
whereas a municipality
signs a contract with a vendor for a
flat fee every month for those cameras
equipment issues and vandalism
this is self-explanatory if the
equipment were to fail or be vandalized
Rio Rancho has seen some of this as well
as there's a recent article in
Albuquerque where one of their speed
cameras on so it does happen delayed
enforcement and that is when an officer
pulls you over it's a media you know you
were speeding or the officer has you
captured on radar or lidar to capture
your speed whereas this delayed
enforcement after it's reviewed by an
officer it would be sent out for in the
mail and you'd receive your violation
weeks after the event
some local statistics
and these are from our agency the data
was taken up to 731 so it'd be from
January 1st through July 31st 2022
reason I stopped it there for 2022 is
because that was the last completed
month
averages
so the national average 29 of all fatal
crashes were speed related New Mexico
according to Nitza data this number is
actually close to 40 percent for all
fatal crashes
and here in the city of Las Cruces we
are at 20 percent
what would this program require it would
require current update to the current
stop safe traffic operations program
ordinance appointment of hearing
officers staff for this program
dependent on the work that we contract
out to a vendor or um
a company that provides the services
selection of the locations
an officer dedicated for this program
notary Court monitor attorney legal
assistant and then also the physical
office space where the hearings would
need to be conducted in all essential
equipment to conduct those hearings
any questions I assume there is
thank you well I'll just go down the row
here counselor Graham Ben Cuomo and
Flores
hi thanks sorry I didn't realize that
you're going
backwards thank you so much
um
this could just be my failing memory but
we had these at some point right mayor
council Graham um yes several years ago
Back 2010 era we had red light cameras
and that was a red light and its speed
enforcement incorporated into one
okay I'm horrified that it was 2010
because I was like oh it was like two
years ago but that's how my timeline
spins as I age
um I specifically remember when maybe
intersection of Lowman and Walnut
I think yes okay great why so what what
was the story last time around and why
did we move away from them
and speaking with those who were there
before my time at least taking over this
program my understanding is that the
program was done away at the request of
council and from the community
if I may add to that so it was redflex
and they were it was actually working
out quite well unfortunately there were
some cities that they had found that
um some of the higher-ups in the in the
company uh were doing some things with
some of the elected officials that they
weren't supposed to and and
um the council just wanted to just get
they didn't think that the company was
going to be around so we just got rid of
them but let me just tell you something
they worked out really good because it
really changed the behavior of people
just running red lights I mean they
they're not running yellow lights I mean
they're running red I mean two or three
afterbred now to the point so and I know
Council Flores probably was a recipient
of one or two of them that's why she's
shaking her head but I have to tell you
something but I have to tell you
something when I was a council for that
District
they really appreciated it very much
because they were you know they were
getting everyone it really was slowing
down and changing behavior and we hated
to get rid of them because it worked
okay thank you except for being made to
feel even older than I typically feel as
I was like oh God it's forever ago
um
no I am well so I'm just I'm just
interested to hear the rest of the
conversation
um particularly that that intersection
popped to my mind that's currently in my
district and
um I know it's a it's an intersection of
concern for Lynn Middle School
um particularly uh before and after
school when some students need to cross
that I mean it's a long intersection
also so I'm just going to I'm curious to
hear all the discussion
thinking if I may add the money wasn't
kept wasn't did not go to the general
fund they went to
public to Public Works to help with the
roads and we we didn't keep it a lot of
cities use it for generating Revenue but
it went to public works for for streets
and improvements and I don't you know
because we we didn't do it to raise
money we did to slow down traffic and
avoid accidents and I I still remember
there was a situation I very rarely go
on ride-alongs I know you all like to
like to do that just that I just
I don't know they don't let me see the
action I'm two or three cars behind
right but anyways there was something
that there was it was a really bad
incident and everyone was there a state
police County City
and I remember the red light cameras and
they were working fine and I was
thinking here these cameras are working
to keep our Cities Safe from Speeders
while these other and they finally
caught the bad guy there near the
Holiday Inn well the old holiday and I
don't know what they call it Ramada but
it was it was a while back so I'm a big
supporter of it
and um yeah and did it a year before the
election and that was the highest ever
not I'm saying that it was good for
votes but that's the highest percentage
I ever received
thank you for that thorough hands so
Council Ben Cuomo thanks mayor I might
come as no surprise but I disagree with
you
um not on the votes I don't I've only
done this once
um I have I have a lot of concerns about
these cameras
um and Lieutenant I'm I am curious to
hear from you I know you're here to
present the facts I think Council asked
for this presentation and I'm curious
though if the department has a leaning
towards one way or another whether you
all support something like this or would
preferred above your pay grade perhaps
but
um I am curious to hear from the
Department which way you are leaning
towards these cameras and then I have a
couple questions
uh Mr mayor council big Coleman deputy
chief Paul Brock Deputy Chief of
operations for the record I I would have
to say that the department is remaining
neutral and this is this is kind of a a
proposal to put forth to council or to
bring the idea up I've been brought up
and the mayor had requested some
information that we provide to you in
regards to this and that's the purpose
of this today what a great answer thank
you
um dce
um okay so here maybe this this will
help I think frame my concerns and I'm
not necessarily totally against it I
think there's been plenty of
constituents that have reached out to me
about speeding in any particular down
Hoagland particularly or wherever right
McClure so I'm not necessarily against
it especially if if funds go towards
Public Works
um for traffic calming measures I think
for me some of the biggest concern
concerns are around where you place the
cameras and that low-income communities
often are disproportionately impacted by
these kinds of fees and fines and
they're the folks that then have the
harder time paying for their tickets
that then lead to driver's license
suspension like it causes a ripple
effect for low-income individuals
low-income families that I that I
particularly have a concern with I think
I imagine this is also not a cheap
alternative to traffic calming I imagine
this will be pretty expensive Endeavor
do you have an analysis of cost
mayor uh councilor Ben Como so
to answer your first part of your
question
um as far as communities that will be
disproportionately targeted by the
system so the system is intended to look
for violator speed violators not a
specific vehicle type specific driver
anything just solely off of speed so a
threshold limit is instituted based off
of a posted speed limit in a given area
Hoagland is a great example it could
change its speed at two points of the
road and a lot of times because there's
such new I shouldn't say new because
there's always freshmen coming into that
school every single year it takes a
while for people to understand the speed
limit on that street and so we actively
try and Patrol it from the traffic
standpoint to make a positive impact on
drivers who are speeding up and down
that roadway however this system
specifically would just Target people
who are driving over the speed limit
regardless
[Music]
as far as cost as stated before it's a
tier-based system is one option also a
flat fee system so tier-based
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to kind of sum it up if there were 200
tickets written in a month it would be
based on each individual unit so if one
van wrote 200 tickets the first 100
tickets from systems that I've seen
would be at a certain percentage to the
vendor certain percentage of the city 60
40. let's just throw that number out
there
150 to excuse me 100 to 150 would be at
35 percent
150 or 200 30 and so on and so forth
um a flat fee system
um or
a contract much like uh and the way you
can compare this is Albuquerque's uh
platform to real excuse me to Rio
Ranchos Rio Rancho runs a tier-based
system right now and Albuquerque is flat
fee based and from Reading Albuquerque's
contract my understanding of it is they
pay 7 900 per camera per month
that's the base fee there is additional
charge per
options I guess you can include onto the
camera system and it would just increase
from there but their bottom number is
from what I read in their contract is 7
900 per camera per month
okay thank you for that
um I am glad Public Works is here as
well because I think this conversation
goes hand in hand with traffic calming
measures
um I mean I'd be curious to hear from
you all about
um
the kinds of resources that you that
Public Works has in order to implement
um coming
traffic coming infrastructure and
measures I know that the process is
I'm going to say lengthy it's diligent
right when you go to a community you
take surveys from the people who live on
that street and all of that and I'm just
curious if you feel like right now you
have what kind of capacity you have
resources in order to address traffic
coming infrastructure
mayor councilor bin Como I can take the
first half of that question uh from a
police department standpoint
when we look at speed in a given area as
a problem I received many of your emails
forwarded to me from the chief and what
we do is we put that onto a list of
traffic studies that we perform in an
area so we have radar equipment that
monitors in a different measure than
Public Works they're looking for
different things than we are but when
the complaint is specifically for Speed
and for violation of speed we try and
monitor that up front and see what we
can do with a law enforcement
perspective before we turn it over to
infrastructure and I know you guys are
all familiar with but one great example
of that how we work together and we're
able to accomplish this goal is Alameda
stream where speed and speed was a
concern we had our Traffic Unit out
there monitoring it trying to enforce is
peak hours permitted and we saw the peak
Speeders on that roadway it wasn't
enough Public Works was able to come to
the road diet on the street and it
really brought the speeding down into
lots of good feedback about that
mayor councilor Ben Como Davido Public
Works director great question your your
question is on the resources for Public
Works
um as as you just heard the we do follow
a step process
typically we call them the three E's
right we call them Education First to
educate the public on those types of
issues number two that we go to is then
enforcement
of that education and then lastly the
solution is engineering and and that was
a perfect example of that working now
the resources that Public Works has for
that budgeted we have about sixty
thousand dollars a year to address any
traffic calming issues that are reported
from the public that go through the
process in our municipal code
however as we look to do our
reconstruction projects we look at those
traffic calming measures as we go
through and we improve or re do full
reconstructions of roadways we take a
look at all of that information and
Implement that thank you David yes I'm
very familiar with the three E's is the
first thing you all drilled into our
heads when we came on board you said 60
000 per year for our traffic calming
that is correct counselor do you usually
go through that
typically we do
um we do based on the requests okay
thank you
um thank you David those are all my
questions I just I do feel like there
are a number of alternatives to this
system that I think we need to
um get smarter about like traffic coming
infrastructure working with communities
to address that Public Works is working
with me right now on melendras
malendra's folks on melenders have had
significant issues with that I've been
talking to ifo there's this new trend
across the country around unarmed
civilian servants executing traffic
stops as opposed to
police officers and so I just I I think
this is an important conversation like I
said I'm not necessarily against it
because I do understand that a lot of
our community has been dealing with a
lot of
um
traffic control issues I mean it it
seems like I recently read something
about
Peta history and safety in New Mexico
being
some of the worst in the country and so
I know that we have significant issues I
just also think that
um there are alternatives that we can be
looking at or perhaps implementing at
the same time as these cameras that can
be I don't know in hot zones if you want
to call them that I just do have
concerns about
um the disproportionate effects on
certain neighborhoods yeah before I get
to Jennifer counselor let me just share
with you how the city did it before they
took the top five intersections that had
the most crashes and that's where they
assigned them one was Lumen until Shore
one was Lowman and Walton I think there
was Solano in Maine and I can't remember
I think there was one on Valley but but
what I was thinking a couple things one
one this is was a civil matter it's not
a criminal so it doesn't it doesn't go
on your driver's license it doesn't
affect your insurance rates or anything
like that two it was what I was thinking
if we were to do this as a test would be
Loman and Telshor and Sonoma Ranch
Boulevard and Lowman so they'd both be
outside of your District it's in
District Six and uh so I want traffic
lights in my district that's what I want
North Alameda yeah so but mayor I think
can I just I'm sorry just one thing
because I think David noted that the
system the Public Works follows is he
just said the threes and I'm forgetting
them education enforcement and then
engineering so if there are significant
fatalities and crashes at intersections
then it might not be an Enforcement
issue it could be an engineering issue
and those are the kinds of things that
we should be looking at investing in
versus perhaps somewhat Band-Aids I
seriously doubt that we have the video
but we they actually had video crashes
of those intersections so you could see
the many people who ran the red light
and caused the accidents but anyways
Jennifer you had a comment
thank you mayor and Council just to to
follow up with your concern
um this is not a criminal action is a
civil nuisance abatement action and so
it would not go on anybody's criminal
record it's a civil nuisance abatement
action that would begin at
administrative level and go on through
the district court if on appeal there
are several things that we would have to
ensure in order to survive a possible
constitutional challenge which is the
placement in in arbitrary and capricious
Manner and so my suggestion would always
be to make sure that the the technology
is placed based on
statistical data crash analysis and
that's where you want to focus so if you
do that and you rely on that then you
can survive usually survive any kind of
challenge to that
yeah and that's thanks Jennifer that
reminded me it wasn't just red light it
was actually speeding but it was the
worst kept secret that you could go nine
miles or below and still not still not
get the ticket because it wouldn't flash
it was only when you hit 10 or above
that it would flash and it would get you
so so counselor Flores could be doing
you know eight miles over and fly right
through there so she knew to go under
10. so we have counselor Flores and then
Abita thank you Mr Mayor and thank you
lieutenant Mullen you have a very Irish
name Sean Mullen but thank you again for
your presentation I um I am against it
and yes I did receive one ticket
I did I ran I but I didn't well
in my home alone we have the picture of
you too and you're seeing you no no no
this is what happened I appealed it I
wanted to see the tape guess what
happened there was no tape where's the
cop that yada yada blah blah where's the
calibration how often do you do it who's
a company duh no we don't know it was
judge a retired judge and it was on the
second floor it wasn't muni court
counselor uh Darden judge Darden Council
well I think it was Judge Darden very
very nice man
but it was not District Court it was
upstairs on the second floor here City
Hall and
um but at any rate
um and and the reason and I I thought it
was you mayor maybe it was another
former city councilor who said that it
that it was expensive
and that there were some
um that there were some problems at
least with red X throughout the country
and I know that El Paso took theirs down
as well but
um but my biggest concern is that the
the calibration and then and then so I
appealed it and then I had a five dollar
fine because they said no we can't find
the judge said didn't he said on the
federal bench judge Darden anyway he
said
yeah yeah and it was like what you can't
how are you gonna where's the tape I
want nothing
so um and I did get a picture of my rear
license plate but it didn't show the the
it didn't show the speed it didn't show
anything so I think there's a problem
with it I think it'd be more expensive I
think what we should do is hire more
um the the solution to my objection
would be to have more police officers on
motorcycles so they can see when the
lights are beginning to turn and they
can weave in and out of traffic if need
be to to get the uh and you'd have a
police officer to say yeah I saw it
myself and and yada yada and so if
someone goes to court
the you know the the uh the officers
there to to confirm that that he saw it
or she saw it so
um I I think it'd be a big expense uh
I'm glad that you brought this to us
um but I'm I'm directly uh yeah and I
and I think that uh bencomo councilman
Como raised a good point answered uh
very uh wisely by our uh by uh attorney
Vega
um but really are we going to take this
to the Supreme Court somehow about about
prosecution you know selective
prosecution I don't know some of the
solutions sometimes aren't you know
really attainable to people who get
tickets
so anyway I'm against it but thank you
very much for your very very interesting
presentation thank you Mr Mayor sure
thank you councilor the tickets was 100
were a hundred dollars
well I think they gave you a little bit
extra but anyways and a second
redflex paid for the entire installation
they pay for everything and it was just
based they would receive a percentage of
whatever tickets that were actually
given so it didn't cost the city
anything yeah
and so well as I mentioned to you but
anyways I just thought I'd share that
with you I think if we were to move in
that direction at least entertain how
they would how it would be done and how
it was going to be paid I I agree with
you I wouldn't go that far because we
learned how to do this from the City of
Albuquerque Albuquerque paid to have it
all done they still owed a lot of money
to them and when we when we saw what
they did we changed it we just said
we're gonna you pay for the installation
you take them out and then we pay you
based on the number of tickets not not a
set amount not a set fee and so it
didn't cost the city anything it was
able to help benefit certain departments
and it slowed down the traffic your
honor for all with all due respect and
that was an incentive for them to rig
their their cameras
we're going to pay you based on the
amount of tickets that's why we had nine
miles over so nine miles over I mean it
was a calibrated so if you were up to
nine miles so if you got a ticket you
hadn't been going 10 or above so instead
of 35 you'd be going 46 so what's the
big deal that's the same thing I I don't
get it anyways nobody was aware of it
except a few select people I guess I
don't know but that was that was
calibrated okay counselor beta
limit and I slowed down on yellows
instead of speed up so
um my personal views are to have them to
keep other people safe but I was curious
and thank you mayor for the education on
why the last ones were taken out I was
curious about that I thought it was
about case law which I went kind of
trying to look about some of those items
so some of the things that councilor
Flores brought up were included in some
disputes about
um who was driving that side of things
so I was curious if that was something
that we had to consider but then I also
noticed for New Mexico law
jurisdictions that use red light cameras
must also install signs and yellow
flashing beacons or rumble strips to
warn drivers that the cameras are
operating at the intersection so I'm
curious if we'd have to put in other
like something like that too for a
speeding one like any sort of indicators
that we're using it
we actually did have rumble strips when
you were coming in especially on Lowman
when you I don't know they're not there
anymore but I don't know if David was
still in public works at the time but
when you could if you would go over it
and then you knew that there was a
camera coming up okay
Maryland councilor Baker there was also
signs posted that said there was photo
enforcement that's right if we're going
to have a cost analysis for all those
elements be included
with how much it would take to operate
this type of program
so uh mayor councilor beta in speaking
with Rio Rancho their program is
entirely violator funded
so I can we can do a cost breakdown if
you guys decide that you want to proceed
forward with this that's something that
I can try and look into I am not a
research specialist or a financial
analyst by any stretch of the
imagination but I will find someone who
is and we can make sure that we present
you some accurate numbers
thank you and oh hold on a second
counselor and counselor beta saws the
floor thank you and
um I guess a question for our legal is
just are there considerations that we
still need to take in if we were to
install
this type of equipment
mayor and Council I'm not um there are
there are several things we would have
to
obviously introduce
an ordinance that supports it we would
have to invoke our home rule Authority
in abating this nuisance you can write
the ordinance in many different ways in
Rio Rancho we dedicated the funds to
public safety education enforcement and
prevention so you can you can write it
into the ordinance any way you would
like and how you would like the funds
dedicated if you if you so choose but
there are there are many different
options for that and like Lieutenant was
saying in Rio Rancho the program is was
self-sufficient when I was there and so
it was also in Albuquerque so it becomes
self-sufficient at some point but the
important part is to make sure that the
funds are dedicated usually
to whatever purpose you would like
okay
thank you
I think that's all my questions thank
you
it's just a couple things we're not
looking to vote on this right away I
think it I think it would at least be
beneficial to see what exactly how much
which companies would be willing to do
this and how much it would cost and if
they would pay for it I agree I'm not
here to I guess I look back at the old
system and it didn't cost us anything
and it helped Public Safety and also
provided some funds it wasn't a whole
lot I mean because remember they don't
have to pay it I mean they there are
some who didn't pay it they just flat I
didn't pay we couldn't do anything to
them well you know we didn't have any it
wasn't a criminal it was civil so but
the majority I'd say maybe 75 80 percent
paid and um you know they it slowed down
the behavior of running red lights and I
I think and recently Albuquerque I don't
know is that the same one who's that's
using uh are they using the same that
Rio Rancho is because I know Albuquerque
just went to this about
three months ago I think
so mayor Albuquerque uses a couple a
company called novola Global and Rio
Rancho uses redflex to speak to your
comment about cost the national roadway
safety strategy just implemented earlier
this year actually dedicated funding to
photo enforcement programs or excuse me
automated speed safety cameras
and Albuquerque and Rio Rancho both
employ a model where if you cannot
afford the citation there's community
service options
in lieu of
counselor Koran I guess has your light
on thank you I I really appreciate your
presentation I think I look forward to I
I think I would just share that I went
from being I think my constituents
really do wish there were less beaters
in their neighborhood and I understand
that this will actually not change that
at all so for me the idea of buying
votes with the speed cam is pretty
um not not going to work I don't think I
think we probably need to come up with
some more meaningful solutions for
neighborhood traffic calming
and I think actually the police
department you all do a really great job
of that and I've seen it sort of in
action and in a number of places in my
area and so I appreciate that if we did
continue this conversation I would hope
to see
um
data not just related to the relative
safety or the efficacy of these at sort
of reducing crashes but I would like to
see that compared to some other
strategies that might exist which might
include
um
and and you just said you're not a
research person so I don't think that
I'm not like charging you with this but
I think if we're going to to evaluate it
I think it would need to be in the
context of
costs and benefits to both the community
individual Community like numbers of of
dollars numbers of people's sort of
inputs and then also
um other potential outcomes that might
have a broader impact
that positively affects people's sort of
behavior I don't think that enforcement
is the best way to change people's
behavior I think there are multitude of
other things that have been demonstrated
that actually do better that's why
education is the first of the East
and so I hope that if we do continue
this conversation
I I know that my constituents care about
speeding I don't see that this is
necessarily going to be the kind of
thing that would really help for that
but I hope that we can continue the
conversation with enough information
that we know all the options that might
be available for
for addressing neighborhood speed
related issues so that would be my hope
if we continued to have this
conversation
specifically about the cameras or more
broadly I would argue we should about
speeding
so counselor how do you want to continue
the conversation
and and when I said about the it was
during an election that was actually one
of the questions brought up by the um
you know you know the uh they have these
Civic groups that and they say do you
support it or are you against it and so
yeah I support it that's basically what
I was referring to but how would you
want to con continue the conversation
um I guess if we were looking at all of
the options for how we're reducing speed
I would like to know sort of in the
context of how they all of the data from
the that was sort of presented related
to reducing speed what are the other
things that we can do to reduce speed
and I would want a conversation about
these to be contextualized with other
options for reducing speed or making the
street safer in whatever ways we
possibly can and the costs and benefits
to those as well
so I would like to have more context for
the conversation but if someone asked me
that in a
forum and I'm not running for
re-election I would say no I don't
support them okay so getting back to at
least wanting to see what the cost would
be and what if we were what what a
proposal would look like are you saying
you don't want to have that conversation
I'm
I'm from from my perspective
I feel like that would be
not enough data and unless he's going to
become a research
artist exclusively I don't know if you
really want to do that but I don't know
that this that it would necessarily
um
well I mean I guess I defer to you all
to see if we want to go forward or not
but I I would say I don't know that
that's a good use of our
effort
okay
mayor Putin we had a
thank you mayor thank you lieutenant
Mullen I appreciate the
your presentation
um I like to move forward with the
conversation I like for you to
specifically address those areas where
we are seeing uh speeding fatality
fatalities crashes those things I think
that information is important to us I
also know that since I got elected speed
is a big deal in our neighborhoods and
there's a process right there's that
neighborhood the calming program there's
the signs that you give to folks that
say respect our neighborhood and then it
moves up to enforcement and when when
you enforce in all these areas specific
at least to my district speed does does
is there is a reduction in speed but it
goes right up after you leave and
there's other things and and so that are
implemented as well and so I I like some
collaboration and coordination on the
presentation from public works with all
the number of things that we have
implemented in our community and some
analysis whether that has reduced the
speed overall I think there is some of
that that some of that data that out
there I mean when you look at and
Lieutenant Mullen will you please go
back to our statistics I mean those are
you
we should be very concerned about this
and
um
we should be very concerned about it and
I don't think it's one answer I think
it's a spectrum right of several things
that should be happening alongside this
but
um I I hear you I think this is
everybody has very valid points we don't
want our communities that are
underserved being over policed and and
this is probably something that people
might think but I think overall the
general feeling is people would like
this to come back and that has been sort
of something that over the last couple
of years unfortunately people email me
and feel like this is a solution is it
the be-all and all no but I'd like to
see it come back with a number of data
points and departments presenting on
this
and maybe a national look at a
comparison of of cities that don't have
it in cities that do and has that
actually reduced the the speeding and
the fatalities and such so
excuse me Council thanks mayor another
this conversation is sort of being
um sifted through
um I I guess there's two different
conversations to be had and that's
whether something like this will work at
Major intersections versus traffic
coming within neighborhoods and I don't
imagine
that we would buy a significant amount
of cameras to put
in neighborhoods is that correct are
these better here we go I'm getting some
nods over here and so then I to me then
the conversation is okay out of these 20
of fatal crashes were speed related
where were they right how are we then
better addressing traffic calming
measures within neighborhoods that again
support perhaps a higher budget item for
Public Works to address those and maybe
that's the next work session is how on
traffic coming how are we educating the
public how are we you know working with
neighborhoods that have come to us and
said there are significant
um
Speeders down my small residential
street right like that there's I just
think we're having two separate
conversations mayor and I'd perhaps I'd
like Clarity from you in terms of when
you thought about this being a solution
to speeding how did you imagine it where
because again I I think councilor Koran
is right this isn't going to help people
in District Six unless we're talking
about North Main and Elks or whatever
right and so I'm curious about how you
thought about this and then if the next
step from here is how do we talk about
and better Implement strategies to
address trap traffic control within
neighborhoods well thank you counselor
so let me just share this with you and
it's interesting that councilor sork
left so prior to him leaving office and
councilor Quran taking over he would get
the most emails on UTV writers who were
going into off of off of elks and just
driving on to to the dirt at all hours
of the night and so originally when I
spoke with ifo so what I had sent him
originally were mobile mobile cameras so
how it morphed into more stationary or
interesting but that's okay I'm good
with these as well but that's that was
the part so that they could be used to
because they were going supposedly at
all hours of the of the day 12 o'clock
midnight one two o'clock so
um
you know if if that's still happening I
mean there's let's put it this way
counselor Karen's had the most I'm just
I'm not picking on that District but you
know they copied me and she probably has
the most number of residents who are
complaining about Speeders I have one I
can't find his name he sends me an email
every other day of how many people he's
catch a speeding you know and I think he
copies the chief on that and um but I'll
I'll be real candid with you it's
getting to the point where
I think members of the public of the
community need to know how their
representatives feel about these issues
I mean because you guys some of you are
just turning a blind eye you you talk
about wanting to have Safe Streets and
and make sure our people people are are
not run over yet you know here here is
an opportunity to at least entertain
what is it going to cost how do they
think they can address it and if you
want to shut it down okay I understand
that and this is a democracy it's based
on what the majority wants
but I have to sh you know I've I haven't
responded to them because I said hey
this is coming before Council and and
there you go so I I don't know what
where they live I haven't asked them but
I have a feeling that they aren't
necessarily in counselor Flores District
uh for some reason I get this feeling
because I think they're in District Five
because they're seeing so many people on
Elks you've got the you've got Sonoma
Ranch Boulevard North that are there's
just a lot of people that are that are
you know that's the they're speeding
down there uh that that's possibility I
I but no I don't see it in in
neighborhood streets by no means but
this is
a way of funding some of these other
traffic controlling measures and some of
the in some of the smaller streets you
know and because money's limited and and
so this is just I guess what I'm trying
to say is an opportunity to at least see
what's out there see exactly what what
is being proposed you know I I explained
to you why I read why we did away with
redflex
um
the majority of the council uh just got
spooked and they just said this is crazy
we don't like this and they just got a
little scared and they just said get rid
of them and that's that's that's why it
happened
mayor I I do think it's on
to characterize this conversation is us
not caring about traffic control I think
what I've heard from my colleagues is
very much the opposite of that so I just
think it's important that you refrain
from saying that because I don't think
that's what's happening here okay well I
guess that should that comment probably
should go to council Quran primarily
okay so I mean she doesn't even want to
entertain it I I think this is something
here that I mean I'm I'm saying the
majority comes from District Five and if
she's not reading those emails and she's
not understanding that people want want
some type of traffic control okay but
hey I can only handle you know the
emails that I get and I'm just done you
know I'm I'm at least giving them the
resident some sense of hope that council
at least entertain this you know instead
of just shutting it down before it even
literally no one is shutting it down
mayor that's not what's happening here
that's that's what I've I think I've
heard from at least three council
members
no I said if I may your honor if Council
yes
go ahead
I um what I said is that I'm against
having those red lights I am not against
education and
councilor Koran can speak for herself
but I heard quite differently maybe
because I'm sitting right next to her
and I could hear what she said she's not
saying what you just recapped attributed
to her she does care she did say that
would be education those three E's
whatever they are but it definitely
education and I think all of us up here
are trying to find ways to make our
streets safer and I get the emails and
so do you on all the noisy uh you know
the racing out in the East Mesa
a lot of it I think is taking place on
County Land but
um yeah I don't think it's fair to
characterize it as you know it's it's
not a black and white issue I just don't
think it's practical I don't think I
agree with the counselor Quran 100 I
don't think that this is a good way for
the police department to be here today I
I think it's a it's an issue that should
be discussed in so far as education may
be working with our Public Schools
seeing what they're doing in terms of
teaching the children how to be safe
when they're Crossing low men when
they're leaving
Lynn Elementary and trying to go north
on on Walnut across Lomond I mean
there's just safety issues I think
everybody's concerned about it safety
but my my personal opinion and it's not
just based on that silly ticket my only
speeding ticket I've ever received in my
life
that's just that's just you know humor I
don't think that should be the
determining Factor my subjective
experience but
um
I think everybody wants education we
also want the traffic to move along
Lowman
Lowman Avenue I mean it would just be
wonderful if people knew that when the
light turns green you you go so you know
it's that kind of stuff I mean I think
we're going to be living in that kind of
situation but we do need safer streets I
don't think this is the answer because I
don't think we're going to get a study
out on McClure or Hoagland or some of
the neighborhood streets where this is
occurring it's going to be education
thank you you know what councilor that's
exactly where it was the valley and hope
I believe the was the other camera but
let me just share something with you and
I've I've kept it reserved you talk also
about safety let me tell I'll be real
candid with you also I'm also concerned
about officer safety I don't think that
I it's a different time right now I see
maybe not necessarily here thank God but
I see you know I travel fair amount
places and I see where officers merely
pulling people over
and they're just being attacked or shot
at and and what I'm trying to say is
this is this is very difficult here you
know we've got a very tough Balancing
Act here we've gotta we've got to help
help run the city we've got to do our
best to protect our our employees our
Police Department our all of our
employees but yet we have to make our
streets as safe as possible for the
drivers and and those those that choose
to break the law
and and
um you know I I you know I was in LA
just a couple weeks ago a few weeks ago
a young officer who just one week out of
the academy was at the gym and get shot
killed this is not right these are these
are things that that that
um if we can help
uh keep the Speeders and the red light
Runners down using technology instead of
you know I have emails from saying well
just hire more police officers or
someone just said put more police
officers up no that's
that's just like saying throw away your
your cell phone throw away your
computers and just go back to put things
on hand let's use technology at our
advantage it's not a criminal citation
it's civil and it's something there to
help make our streets safer you know I I
I know that maybe you haven't been that
involved in city government throughout
the years
but I can tell you that well most of you
and if the shoe fits I'm just saying you
all weren't here when it was when it was
bad and it's getting that bad they need
to learn how they need to stop you know
stop when the red when the light turns
red and they're not and and so this is
something here for fortunately we might
have if it doesn't look like but I would
like for it to at least have that
discussion and to see exactly what it's
going to take and how much it's going to
cost that's it you know instead of not
even moving forward into that now again
I was talking about the mobile cameras
and when Jennifer said we have to use a
certain criteria okay well that makes
sense and I don't know if that that
criteria about three four or five
o'clock in the morning with utvs riding
out there but I'm gonna have to respond
to these constituents one way or the
other okay and I'll just be real
connected with it I'll tell you right
right up front now if we have to I'm
going to have them reference this video
because I can only put them off so long
and and that's all I'm saying because I
I I feel that you know we're doing our
best to make our city as safe as
possible and I think if we owe it at
least to see what it takes and what this
is going to cost
that's my opinion
uh was there you know councilor bate
them yes thank you
um I have found um councilor Quran to be
very responsive and caring for her
community in all aspects and the
comments that she put here today were
that of just making sure that we were
using facts and data to make smart and
wise decisions for this community which
I don't think is
unnecessary if we are going to spend
money for a program then we need to make
sure that it is effective otherwise it's
a waste of time and resources
um and there are other ways that we can
address the issues perhaps that can
still preserve
officers time like speeding tables
education those types of things so I
don't think the two conversations it's
not one or the other here but it was an
ask that if we are going to move forward
that we need to have probably the the
facts and a lot of data for both options
so that we can look at them and judge
and View and that doesn't make one
uncaring that doesn't make one better
than the other it just means that we
need more information and so I do find
it
the comments here today I don't think
were necessary for the my bell account
slurs I don't
I understand but I still stand by the
comments that I made and so it's just a
matter of do you want to move forward at
least entertain uh this information or
or not
I mean that's just really when it gets
right down to it I'm happy to have both
options available to make a reasonable
Choice okay and I agree I mean that's
something something there that I think
we need to have we need to show what
intersections are causing the most
crashes and also how would this be
implemented and how much it would cost
that's it that's all I'm asking for but
it sounds that didn't need the con that
did not require the comments that you
gave to the fellow counselor than to
have both of them
yeah
counselor Abita I understand where
you're coming from but I have to tell
you as I mentioned to you before I I'm
sure you feel the a lot of questions or
concerns I feel six times as many okay
and I'm just I'm just telling you I've
uh have put off a lot of these residents
saying hey you know what this is going
to come to Council in a work session and
I'll let you know then and I hope you
can reference that then we and counselor
Quran was concerned but wanted facts and
data to make the best possible choice
that is what is going to be shown on the
video I'm just going to reference this
this video this this today's meeting
that's that's it councilman Como thank
you yes I hope you do thank you
councilor beta for your comments I
completely agree with you it's been
incredibly disrespectful mayor
um additionally though I would like to
also have a conversation around
um our calming traffic
programs if they need more funding how
we're reaching out to constituents to
address calming traffic measures within
neighborhoods outside of the big
um
intersections
let me ask David one question David
regarding traffic calming I know there
was a time where
a city didn't like speed humps and I
have seen him on occasion but what what
is uh and the main reason is because of
you know Public Safety if they're
especially if an ambulance is having to
go down a particular Road and there's a
bunch of speed humps and you know
what what has what's been the policy on
that lately
mayor David sedillo Public Works
director for the record so we've moved
away from speed humps on roadways more
specifically residential roadways our
code does not allow traffic calming
measures that we use on local streets
for collectors and arterials
So based on the municipal code we only
addressed those within the residential
areas so we have moved away from speed
homes which before were just about a
three four foot section of asphalt piled
on in a hump
we have thus moved forward with
speed tables and speed cushions so speed
tables are a lot longer have a lot more
of a gradual slope as you come up to
them they top out at a certain height
and they go back down
our speed cushions do allow a gap in
between that to allow for emergency
vehicles to get through there as they're
responding and not have to go over those
so those are the types of improvements
that we've done as far as going from
speed humps to speed tables and those
speed cushions
thank you good thanks
Council Flores you had a do you have
another comment
yeah I did but I already forgot now
um I think that we should um
I think that I
I think that we should have
um maybe a work session on
safety but um I I don't think we
um
I don't think there's a lot of consensus
to well anyway I I'm I'm opposed to this
being a a solution we really don't know
what the problem is when we we have to
look at different solutions but I don't
think this is the answer and there there
had to have been a good reason why the
city got rid of it before and when
there's a tick when there's a traffic
violation now does some of the money
that gets collected go to our city or
where does that money go do you know
mayor that I have no idea okay you see
judge goldbaum in the audience we may
want to ask her I don't know it's okay
I'd rather not but um or Jennifer
thank you mayor and Council um a few
years several years ago there was a
change to the law that required that if
you had traffic enforcement for red
light cameras that that Revenue would
have to go to the state so it would be
deposited into the state's general fund
and the city would only get a portion of
that so a lot of cities started
eliminating the red light cameras
because of that there is a provision in
the um
in the state law that allows for the
nuisance abatement so those are mobile
Vans and they cannot be placed on state
highways or state roads they have to be
on local roads and local highways so
there's that that was one of the reasons
why a lot of cities got got away from
the red light cameras
yeah is that your question or was your
or was your question for a city
um citations
like camera money or city citation money
well if there was a city citation it
would go to the city I imagine wouldn't
it
mayor and Council like um like I said
before this isn't a criminal action so
it's a civil nuisance abatement and it
would go to wherever the funds were
dedicated yeah it would be it would be
the city's money to determine where it
would go correct yeah okay thank you and
so
um
it just seems to me that I I don't I
don't think that this is going to
um take care of all of the traffic
problems that we have in the city and I
I think the money that we would spend on
this isn't going to justify the fact
that it isn't serving every corner of
our city because we have problematic
areas where we're just not going to be
having those red lights we're just not
we're going to have them on low men
we're going to have them on Valley and
that's it so I I frankly I
yeah I don't want to be rude or anything
but thank you mayor
okay so what am I hearing here do we ask
that they bring back information with
costs and and certain areas that they
have crashes and if we were to move in
that direction this is where they would
be placed and this is how much it's
going to cost
oh well yeah exactly to see what just
like just like we did before we they
took the five top uh most dangerous
intersections
well I think the I think they can do it
internally I think that's how they did
it before how they did it before is they
took the top five
intersections that had the most crashes
all right and then uh that's when they
came back and that's how they they
brought the information to council and
they reflects said okay we can install
these cameras all at their costs it
didn't cost the city anything
and um
okay that that's that's what I was at
least wanting to at least the scene
if you're just going to be intersections
well you're not on you you're gonna have
to speak into the microphone so they can
pick it up so I'm looking to see what
the rest of you are saying
yes okay all right looks like the
majority said yes so thank you I
appreciate that very much
oh George you have a comment
we'll give you three minutes okay thank
you uh Lieutenant Mullins
George Pearson is volunteering with safe
routes to school I hope you can look at
the mobile option so that you can set
these up and do enforcement in school
zones because that is a big problem
throughout the city
as I remember with the red light cameras
that was the state mandated a 50 100
maximum and 50 of that went straight to
the state I don't know how if this is
also affected by that
and as far as the funding for the from
the stop program I don't remember any
Street improvements no new bicycle lanes
were built because of the stop funds but
you did purchase police cars and that's
what I that's the only my memory of
where the stop money went was to
purchase police cars
um part of the discussion that was
lightly covered is equity and that's
something that councilor Ben Cuomo
addressed and the sergeant
briefly mentioned so as you build the
ordinance you should have a
consideration maybe income level based
fines you know the community service
component built into it
and as far as the three E's education
enforcement engineering well it should
be education enforcement re-engineering
engineering's already failed thank you
thanks George I don't recall a bicyclist
getting a red light or speeding ticket
but you never know but thank you for
that information
okay all right so looks like we're at
least moved forward with that
information so that we can identify the
top five areas or whatever areas you
feel that are are needed and um
find out exactly how much it would cost
and how it would work so good good
okay I think that's it so if there's
nothing further further entertain a
motion to adjourn so second motion baby
councilor Graham second by councilman
Cuomo that we adjourn Christine
this is on the motion to adjoin the work
session counselor beta yes councilor
Graham yes councilor Ben Como yes
councilor cran yes councilor flood is
yes councilor Gandara yes mayor yes
okay it's 407 p.m we are adjourned thank
you very much for all those of you in
attendance have a good day
we don't have agenda setting today
Adrian it's next Monday
thank you
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