Thread by @AndyHS

Second day of City of Fresno's Budget meeting. Departments today are Police, Public Utilities, Transportation (FAX),Airports,Public Works,Personnel Services. I am not seeing any documents or Power Points on City Website to share (but I imagine it will be used)@fresnoland #Fresno

You can watch the Budget meeting beginning at 9 am
@FLDocumenters

Meeting beginning 9:05 with Police Department. Chief Paco Baldaramma begis first.@kmkarbassi calling in by Zoom. Rest of Councilmembers present in person. Chief:$206 million which is a slight decrease from last year. Increase to General Fund for 850 sworn Officers & Professional

Staff. Some increase is for benefits.Some decrease due to parts of Department moved to other Departments such as graffiti team.

Shotspotter.

We lose 3-4 PD officers a month so having an aggressive recruiting including retiring soldiers. A PAL ice cream truck for community outreach events. Girls Fight Club to recruit. Reducing property crimes will allow businesses to thrive. Crime is down 6% from last year. MAGEC and

Advanced Peace is occurring. High visibility bike patrol in Downtown. Reduced crime as well as removed graffiti. Homeless accept services from PD at 3% but takes 7 times for services to be accepted. Public comments @IvankaSaunders recruitment that there is room for vetting vet-

-erans that don’t have PTSD or mental health illness first. She has Vet relatives that have issues even from fireworks and PTSD. Mario Manganielo: a narrative of safe neighborhood is the one that has the most police. Actually it is the one that has the most resources. If kids

are not reading by grade 3 they are on road to crime. @LovesMercy Brandi: police reform spent hours into Better Fresno and getting feedback. Please refer back to those recommendations when making this budget. Place money into issues that will reduce crime. Homeless Taskforce has

not been effective despite what Chief said. Please don’t make homeless scapegoats. Shelters often don’t allow pets. Next: adam harrison: new california volunteer. Demand Police Budget be cut. No reason to hire more officers as no proof that it will decrease crime or gang acti-

-vity. Patrick Felton of New California. We should not have to pay to to have our fellow brown and black brothers to be shot. More police doesn’t make a neighborhood safer. @kieltls Pf Lowell Neighborhood/ South Tower. Look at Police Safety Commission recommendations. Police Cha-

plancy Office as well as another PD office near by. Like to see those offices merged to save money. Mother approached Chaplin about homeless having a crisis but was turned down. @sanlens Department doesn’t track cost to outcomes which makes it hard. Main part of PD budget comes

from General Plan which effects other uses. Over reliance on overtime or special units. Look at how department is structured before adding new officers. Fresnans subsidize PD special services like schools or businesses. Brisely Martinez of Barrio ... Cannot continue to react to

community problems with more PD officers. @FresnoBarrios End of Public Comments. @Maxwell4Fresno Thanks chief for good working relationship this past 6 months. Rightfully so we give priority to sworn officers but other positions like crime scene techs are important too. Four new

Of those added. Chief: better training and better equipment for officers and citizen staff. Career development investment. Lease half a crime van asks Maxwell. ARPO list (?). Georgeanne White says we can use that source of funds by freeing up other sources. Dyer: any impact by

Covid such as crime increase should allow us to use those funds. I am confident we can use those funds. Maxwell just to be safe motions to add $60,000 for the van. Chief: professional staff rather than word citizen staff as we are all part of team. We need PD to get out Homeless

business. We are not trained best for that. Often they are on drugs or mental illness. Rely on PD to get criminal Element out of homeless camps to provide safety for other homeless and resource personnel. We tried to stay out of sight until Needed. Perhaps soften the uniform to

Polo shirts etc. Mental Health crisis doesn't always have to be a 911 call. Maxwell:seems like community agrees but this Citizen Police Commission has only once in past 6 months. Chief: agrees. I was excited about the 73 recommendations. I will get 31 going now. Heavy lifts like

mental health will need more than just me. Maxwell:what is preventing contract amounts for private like Apple Store at Fashion Fair. Chief:we only break even. These are places that will eventually have a theft if a Police officer isn't there. Dyer: there is a ceiling Master Fee

schedule that won't allow higher. City manager Esqueda: HARP team is focus on placement of Homeless but will do clean up while there.Keep outreach personnel and maintenance workers while there. Focus Freeway model but eventually target Schools,parks and neighborhoods next.

Maxwell: set schedule for Police Commission like other commissions do. I appreciate Chief being ready to go but the Commission needs to be part of it. Esqueda:we are doing heavy research on items like Mental Health that commission wants. Dyer: initial meeting occurred and Chief

will begin the recommendations that are easier to implement while harder and heavier lifts are being researched. Maxwell: you can see why budget Hearing would be a good time to have those full 71 recommendations. Arias : we pledged $1 M for those to be done. Soria: HART team make

it hard to see data so we can tell our constituents what is happening in their neighborhoods. CAHOOTs model for Fresno where we worked with community. Police Citizen Commission didn't always have a good representative of community. We had outreach folks like Marjoree Mason on it

Dyer: In July and August Implementation Team is going to Austin, Portland, Oakland to see how they do things on integrating mental health with some from scratch. Esqueda:Behavioral Department from County will be attending as well . We can give a Trip Report in September. Chief:

had to let professional staff go and use PD officers to do those jobs. Not the best and hope to move them back to jobs more appropriate. Soria: Do we need more dispatchers? Chief:response to call is from dispatch as well as number of PD officers. Property Crime can sit for hours

and even days which is unacceptable. CFO can handle some of those calls too.Soria:95 % of calls should be picked up within 15 seconds but we are only in 80% range. Soria:LTA issue i brought up with former chief (Dyer). Workers comp over past years. In ten years it is now up to

$11 million which is threefold. I called for an audit on these long term absences but I haven't heard the results. Spending a lot on Workers Comp and she has heard it State law. Promises haven't been kept. Chief has said he has a special team to handle that. Why has LTAs gone up?

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