City Council — March 18, 2026

Amen or in the spirit of many traditions may it be so.

Thank you. Councilor Arnauz would you lead us to the Pledge of Allegiance? Right

hand over your heart ready begin.

I

pledge allegiance to the flag of

the United States

Thank you Council Member Ornelas. Madam Clerk, could you please do a roll call?

And we have Vice-Mayor Crosswhite is absent this evening.

Thank you very much. Our Attorney Monica Custillo, do you have a closed session report?

Yes Mayor, this evening Council recessed into closed session to discuss item 4A on the special meeting agenda. Conference of Legal Counsel anticipated litigation significant exposure to litigation pursuant to government code 54956.92 and E1 regarding two potential cases there are no reportable actions taken. This concludes my report.

Thank you very much We have some translation equipment. Also, we have one person who is going to speak in Spanish. We'll have a translator come out. Right now, we have public comment and so each person will come up and we'll have three minutes if you do have one entry or request for two-to-seed time. And unless anybody has a problem they're not going to speak but they'll seed their time to one person. So that person will have nine minutes instead of three people speaking.

Mr. Mayor, if I could just point out in accordance with your rules of conduct that is not a suggestion that's allowed although any aspect of running the meeting is at the mayor's discretion unless the city attorney has other guidance but that's a practice that your policies don't allow or don't support I should say

That's correct. I agree with the city manager.

So what is your

recommendation? That you allow each speaker to speak for three minutes and that you... I'm very sorry, I was not following the conversation

The purpose is that theoretically somebody could show up with a representation of 10 others and speak for half an hour. And it would be out of concert with kind of the orderly flow of a meeting.

Okay, understood. Mr. Melgar, apparently we're being advised that instead of two people ceding their time to give you nine minutes that you get three minutes and then of course if you have other comments that the other two people who submitted speaker cards could follow up on, that would be desirable.

Point of inquiry real quick? Sure Is there discretion for this to be allowed Or are we imposing rules that haven't been applied in the past and we're trying to figure it out? I mean, we only have one speaker. Should we not allow that to happen? Does it specifically say or is it may, wording may recommendation but at the end of the day could be the mayor's discretion for us? Mayor's

discretion. It is the mayor's discretion to

ultimately it's the discretion of the mayor as the presiding officer over the meeting okay council majority has adopted guidelines to help with orderly development and flow of your meetings. And I would Encourage you to consider the purpose and value of that but of course it's it's at the mayor's discretion

Sure, and as I stated before I was prepared to allow this to happen seed time And I could see in those circumstances where there has been times where you have 30 people in the room? And they limit it to two minutes versus three minutes so accordingly Like for example other others Councils and meetings, they go for hour two because they let everybody speak. So we don't have that this evening and so if I had a prerogative then then I will allow Mr. Malgar to use the time ceded by two other speakers.

Thank you mister.

You're very welcome. Okay thank you and thank you for legal and I understand the ramifications if we have a room full of people or 15 speaker cards in one person ties it for 45 minutes

Right. So it's the purpose of economy, it's up to the presiding officer, the mayor in this case, to manage that.

And you know we have a light agenda so if it were a very full agenda we might reconsider that. So again okay thank for your time and thank you for your advice Councilor. Okay so speakers are going to be Nancy Grass followed by Atul Rashid. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Juarez and council members and staff. My name is Dr. Nancy Grass. I own a building and two businesses on main street with my wife and we are deeply interested in invested in the success and vitality of our downtown. I want to begin by saying that I truly appreciate the individuals serving on the PBIT committee as well as the city's economic development director.

It's clear that there's a genuine commitment to supporting our downtown from all involved. That said, I'd like to share a concern from the perspective of somebody who's on the ground. Over the past few years there has been limited visible progress on some of the PBID initiatives particularly the Commercial Facade Improvement Program which I believe in strongly.

We applied for a facade improvement grant in February 25 and are grateful to have finally been approved however more than a year later we have yet to receive funding Or see the program fully implemented. Delays like this make it very difficult for small businesses and property owners to plan and invest. For example, the front of our game store is in dire need of paint and our antique doors are needing serious repair.

These are important improvements and they wouldn't benefit just us but the look and feel of all of downtown Main Street. But we can't move forward with simply the hope of getting reimbursed. We applied because this was presented to us as a partnership, and we're relying on that partnership to move ahead. I share this not as a criticism of the people involved but as a concern about the system supporting them. And in fact, I don't see this is a personnel problem at all. I see it as a system problem.

For the PBID to succeed, the City must provide clear and updated policies, streamlined procedures and the support needed by both the PBID and the Economic Development Director to turn these good ideas into timely action. There's real potential here. But without timely execution, even the best ideas cannot deliver the impact our downtown deserves. I urge the city to take the steps necessary to help this and other programs move forward and I thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you Nancy Grassley. We have followed Atul Rashid followed by Jose Malgar and as stated Malgar will have his time ceded.

Hi my name is Atul Ranshad from the Santa Paula Inn And thank you Mr. Mayor, council members. As far as the PPIT concerns it's like there's too many restrictions about how to get it done and it's not done in a timely manner so that makes it kind of very difficult to actually say we're going to help you when it's held back That's my thing on that, so I'm like just going ahead and taking care of the things that need to do to improve the facade on my own.

In terms of, my big problem right here now is that I'm losing a lot of business because of the noise that's really loud from Anicider on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Even like in the evening and then they're playing really loud music. The police, when we talked to the city about it, they said about a decibel That's about what you call it. Either thing, but no one's come there to actually use it.

This trash all over because they don't have it. They don't apparently they don't need a trash enclosure so all the trash comes from my side which is not good and then you have a lot of disorderly behavior and so when customers come to my place they don't want to come back That affects business, so that's not good. And police come by and they don't do anything either.

So that's my big thing there. And even on Sunday mornings there was meditation at the church and this loud music, obnoxiously loud music going on. So it disturbs not only the immediate business in the area but that music is heard all the way up the hills. So if there's something that can be done about that, that would be highly appreciated. Thank you.

Okay, next we have Jose Malgar. But Madam Clerk if you could either reset the time after three minutes or if you can set it for nine minutes and the people ceding their time are Kathy Godinez and Gilbert Moreno.

Good evening Mayor Juarez, council members and city staff. My name is Jose Luis Melgar. I have been a Santa Paula resident for the last 36 years and a business owner for the last 20 years. I have had the privilege of serving the community as a member of the Property and Business Improvement District or PBIT Board for short. We're a group of business owners that contribute to a common fund to improve the downtown area I have also served as a Measure T oversight committee member since it was established back in 2016 until late last year. I have served many years as a board member and chair of the Santa Paula Chamber of Commerce.

I am here tonight not just as a business owner but someone who has invested time, money and trust into this city. When the idea of PIVOT was proposed in 2019, it was a difficult task to get approved I asked business owners, many already struggling to take on an additional financial burden based on their building size. But through hard work advocacy it was supported and eventually was implemented. Why? Because we were told it will be a game changer for downtown Santa Paula because we believe in the vision and because we trusted the city to follow through.

Since then, my two businesses have contributed approximately $30,000 into this program. This doesn't take into account the contributions from all other businesses. Back in December of 2021, this council approved a $50,000 grant for the American Rescue Plan Act Fund to pivot aiming into improving our downtown area. This moment mattered. It created hope for business owners who were trying to reinvest in their properties and into the city, but then the process stalled. 2000 came and went. 2023 passed. 2024 passed. Four years with no application, no program rollout, and no clear communication.

Finally, in March of 2025 applications were released for a grant that will pay up to 80% of the business improvements costs. I submitted my application the very next day not because I have just learned about the program but because I had been waiting and following that since 2021 from 2021 to 2025. I followed that consistently with community and economic development director James Mason and city manager Dan Singer After submitting, I continued following up through dozens of emails and I will be happy to send you all those emails. Dozens of them.

Meetings and in-person conversations. Each time, I was told the same thing. It's reprocessed, be patient Jose. As the months went on and frustration grew through the lack of following up from the city staff, I reached out to members of this council and two different city mayors. That's how long this goes back. Every time I spoke to each one of you, you acknowledged the problem and the issue and assured me it will be addressed.

I appreciated that because I was taking your time but the outcome never changed. In December of last year, I met in person with James Mason. He came to my studio. He apologized for the delay and told me I will receive my first check for the improvements a week later so I could begin painting my buildings. That did not happen. Instead after waiting for over three months on March 9th, I was told something difficult to understand. He texted me that morning saying that he had lost my paperwork that I needed to submit again After nearly a year and two, three weeks I've been told the application was progressing. About to be approved about to receive the check and then I had to resubmit that means they never had the application they never had the paperwork so I have to ask how can an application being processed in the city staff did not notice?

I was once again told I will receive a check by the end of the week Then, just last Thursday I learned for the first time that the painters working on my project by California law were required to pay $52 an hour to be able to work in my buildings. That requirement nearly doubled the original cost of the project that has been submitted in March had already increased by $5,000 just for the time being waiting for it.

I negotiated back to $3,000. And now after more than four years, we're being told we'll figure it out. We're going to make it move forward from this which bring us back to where we started. To put this into perspective, back in 2016 I took the JCPenney building 13,000 square feet under one roof for a renovation. The project was very complicated included planning commission review and a conditional use permit an extensive seismic retrofit fire sprinkler system for over 20,000 square feet multiple inspections construction from application to receiving the certificate of occupancy the entire process was completed in less than one year Today, we're dealing with painting a building in a grant.

It has taken over four years to reach uncertainty today. So the question is what changed? From my perspective the answer is accountability and strong leadership. This was a time there was a time in Santa Paula where leadership acted with urgency when decisions were made follow-through was suspected and promises were kept Whether those decisions were popular or not, things move all forward.

Today, the urgency is absent and that should be a very huge concern to each one of us in this room. The experience has had a personal impact on me. It is one of the reasons I stepped away from PIVOTS and that's also why I resigned Measure T oversight committee after its implementation back in 2016 These were not easy decisions for me to take because I believe in public engagement, in my anticipation. But participation only works when there's responsiveness on the other side.

I understand that the city operates under a tight budget. Tell me about operating with tight budgets when Gilbert and I were the only staff for all our events? I understand all that but I would have seen suggested a bigger issue It's not funding. The bigger issue is time management, organization and follow through because when resources are limited leadership matters even more.

Strong leadership requires discipline in time management, smart allocation of resources, awareness of liability exposure and we all know how we're doing with that. Accountability and clear strategic plan. Without those things, limited resources start being a challenge and start becoming an excuse. I have to call it short because we're running out of time. What confidence can the public have when their concerns are not addressed? After reaching out to four council members, two different city mayors, you told me that things were moving forward And you relay the information. And things never change to this day.

And trust is fundamental for public service, a profession that each member of staff chose as their career. One thing that stands out to me is just not a delay but the absence of accountability. Not even a meaningful acknowledgement that this process failed because if there's no recognition of the problem There's no reason to believe it will be corrected. Public service is not a favor to the community, it's your responsibility.

When people interact with the city they're just asking for special favors. They're asking for the city to do its job what we're paying them to do. Nothing more, nothing less. Public servants are held to the highest of standards, professionalism, integrity, reliability, communication because they're entrusted with something very important, the public's trust and the public's money.

When that trust begins to erode, confidence in the system follows and when that happens it only reflects not only on staff but on this city council as well. Because accountability should come from the top. And for a long time, I stayed quiet hoping and praying for change. I trusted the process. I went along with the process. I believe things will eventually change but they didn't.

We, the people of Santa Paula and taxpayers deserve better.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Melgar and also Kathy Godinez and Gilbert for ceding the time. Next we'll have Efren Covarrubias followed by Ima Alvarez.

Efren Covarrubias. Hi there everybody. I hope you guys will understand my English but I'm in business here in downtown for more than 35 years And I think I've been paying big quantity taxes. And I'm trying to work for the city, growing with my merchants. I got four tenants plus my business so we got a full retail commercial business and The reason that I'm here is because I'm completely disappointed for the extra taxes you guys included in my property.

For something that, I don't know where my money was and somebody come to visit me and says they got a program to make a nice downtown The program was to improve the fascia on the business. And I submitted all kinds of applications, and I just contact with personnel for one time or two and never happens. And then this town has big taxes that I'm being paid And I got five business here.

And then, I'm not agree with the extra taxes that I've been paying. I would like to know where is my money goes? Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Covarrubias and the tax you're talking is at the PBID? Is that about the PBID, Private Business Improvement District? Yes. Okay thank you. Next we have Ima Alvarez. Do we have a translator?

My name is Irma, and I've been here in Santa Paula for 27 years in business. And in this 27 years, I've not seen any changes, any progress. Everything is still the same. Not only me, all of us, what are you planning to do to help Santa Paula grow or do something That we can progress because it's still the same since then I know all this time. That's it.

All right, thank you Inma Alvarez. That's in our public comment unless there is any others? Okay at this point the council may briefly respond to public comment and ask for questions or clarification Council members The other action we can take only on public comment is we may direct the City Manager to report to City Council on any item at a later meeting.

Oh, do you want to speak sir? No, you didn't come out. Yes thank you. Just state your name and afterwards if you could fill out a card please.

How's it going? My name is Pedro Duran. I'm a business owner here as well, 949 The Barbershop but I didn't come for that. I came because we did...I'm part of the ASO thing and we took it pretty far top four in United States unfortunately we didn't have the money to make the tournament not just Santa Paula it was the whole organization in general But I would like to have some acknowledgement from the city, maybe in the next parade. Have my boys, I don't have to be there but at least for them because this has never been done in the history out of I think it was 120,000 teams this age and we're number one, 15 players.

And I'm very proud of these boys. I never did it as a player, I almost did but things happen when our best players got injured at that time. It's beautiful doing it as a coach and all I'm asking for if that's possible, that would be really appreciated.

Well thank you very much. That's been on social media so if you could give your information to our city clerk we'll see about some kind of city recognition.

Yeah, if you have your contact info...

Thank you very much and what an accomplishment.

I have a follow up question. Go ahead, Councilman Chavez. This has been going on for awhile now to have folks come through the podium and share their frustrations it really takes them To the boiling point that they have to do that. And so I want to acknowledge the courage it takes to go before the whole city and share your concerns, and invite anybody who has those concerns to know that This is the people's house and that microphone is for you to speak. So this shouldn't be, should be always welcoming to anybody in our city who wants to speak so I do want to make that comment but I do want to ask what now?

Mr. Mayor what can we expect as council members for follow up because as council members we We've worked through our committees, we've asked for updates. And we're at a point now where there needs to be specific follow-up and we need some action. So what is going to happen from this point on? Because we have a lot of concerns regarding PBIT and it's been bubbling over time. And Council Member Cornejo has shared these frustrations.

And we're at the breaking point where we need to do something. So what is that going to look like? I'm asking for leadership. Thank you. Did you have a comment, Council Member Hernandez?

I just wanted to echo on what Council Member Chavez said And how much it took for those that came to speak today. I know that I always try to, you know, figure things out one way or another until there is no other way and so this mic is an opportunity for that and I thank you for coming. And I would have the same question. When I worked for the chamber, I would go to P-BID things or have conversations with John Marquez About what it was and I remember when the concept had been presented to us as chamber staff. And what it was supposed to do for downtown and the improvements that were going to happen, and then I remember that there was some disagreements on what the big first big project was going to be but I mean I can hear the frustration, and I understand it if it's about just painting your building and getting a grant.

There has to be something done to fix whatever the process is or if there is no process then let's make that happen. And as a council, I would hope that we're able to get some sort of response so that we can keep that transparency. We talk about having with the community on how it is that we do things here in Santa Paula and how our business owners who pay those taxes can understand where their money's going like one of our speakers said.

Thank you.

Thank you Okay So leadership, you know there's a lot of components to the PBID right? You have the business owners that own the property. You have the PBID board and then they work in conjunction with our city staff and economic development director. It's not agendized so we don't have the luxury of having any discussion because that'll quickly turn into debate but somewhere in there there is a problem, a breakdown in communication, a break down in process. And so what we need to do is figure out how we're going to fix it And how we fix that is we try to bring those people together.

We're a governing board that makes policy, but our city manager hires all these folks and so I believe that first responsibility should fall on Mr. Singer to take to heart all these comments that were made tonight And try to get to the root of the problem and work with our staff to figure out how to fix it. And not just with our staff, it's going to mean reaching out to every one of these people that are part of the PBIT or downtown merchants and find out what concern they have because if there's these many people here tonight, there's probably several others that have the same concerns But they just can't come or are afraid to be in speaking public So that would be my direction is to if the council agrees just to give the direction of city manager To follow up and to report sooner than later Anything that you can report on how we're gonna fix this Okay, all right.

Thank you all right, and thank you very much again for all those speakers that came in tonight Okay, we are now moving on to a Presentations, our first presentation seven will be by the police department and that'll be our Police Chief Don Eggler.

Good evening, Mayor and Council and our viewing audience tonight. I'm glad to appear tonight to report on the progress of the Police Department and we're going to just cover a few main areas today. We're going to review our annual crime statistics for year 2025. I'll provide you with staffing update for sworn and civilian staff, talk about our upcoming recruitments Our community engagement that we've been doing and also our employee development within our agency.

First I'd like to go over our crime statistics, and I'm pleased to report that our total Group A offenses which are the crimes against persons, crimes against property, and crimes against society overall are down 15%. Our crimes against persons is down 1.4%. Now our crimes against persons include murder, manslaughter, non-consensual sex offenses, assaults, kidnappings, consensual sex offences and human trafficking.

Within that category are non-consensual sex offenses are down 8%. Our crimes against property, which includes burglary, robbery, theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, fraud offenses, embezzlement, extortion and stolen property offenses. That is down significantly. The number of crimes reported in 2025 was 381 under this category In 2024, there were 500. So it's a significant drop and I will add to that this past year 2025 we had 3,000 less calls for service overall compared to year 2024 Our crimes against society, which includes narcotics violations, pornography, prostitution, weapons law violations and animal cruelty.

That is also down, that's down 6.75%. So overall, I'm happy to report that our men and women of the police department take the law enforcement component very seriously. And we continue to be proactive in the community with not only our first line response but also our investigative services. Before I

I have a quick question. Yes. I know that the animals that are rescued are held here, what with this intense heat that's happening? What happens if you were to pick up an animal because I mean we're having to make changes at home for our pets to not have them in the heat so is there a change in the way that you handle if you were to rescue an animal when we're having this intense heat

Yes, so we have to when we collect a stray animal week we house them. We have two places to house them either outdoors in the shade which we have plenty of that available. We have a large kennel outside that can has a lot enough space for a dog in the shade all day with food and water and is covered And then we also have several other kennels. For example, in the cold weather we put those kennels inside our Sally Port area and the dogs stay cared for in a comfortable temperature so they're not cold. And the same is for when the heat is turned up, so outside. So when we get a hot weather like we have this heat wave, we will actually put the kennels inside and house them where they have cooler air and they're provided water and are taken out several times a day for walks.

I have seen the walks but I was just wondering about this intense heat we're having. Thank you.

Thank You councilmember All right, on to our police volunteers. This is another component we're continuing to expand and grow over time. I'm happy to report that we have one reserve officer in background for us. Our law enforcement explorers are always an available option to assist us with traffic control at special events and other volunteer events to provide services to the community As you know earlier this year on Martin Luther King weekend, they were awarded a first-place Recognition at the Chandler tactical competition super proud of them I was there with them and it was really exciting and these young men and women or have bright futures ahead We've added two police volunteers. We have a animal services support person to assist our Animal Control officer in case There are Significant number of dogs and kennels that need to be taken on walks or assisted with food and water.

We have that convenience now for us as we move forward in our animal services, and we also have added a volunteer to support our equipment acquisition and technology. And this volunteer has a specialty in those areas and will provide very good support for us. So we're happy with that. And we also have been out in the community developing our young men and women. I was approached by the Community College District over at Ventura College, and they asked if we would accept an intern, and we always do. We take them from Santa Paula High, but this particular intern was from Santa Paula, and we accepted him with open arms.

We appreciate the opportunity in developing our young men and women for potential careers in this field. We have two recruitments that will be coming soon. Around July we will start our police sergeant recruitment and after that recruitment is complete, we will start our senior police officer recruitment. We do have vacancies in both those areas and we will attempt to fill those vacancies with this testing.

Our community engagement has just been phenomenal with our staff, both our volunteers and our civilian and sworn staff. To round out the end of the year we served Thanksgiving meals to those in need. We delivered toys and food supplies to those in need on behalf of The Rotary who does an amazing job during Christmas and their event We had a recent neighborhood watch meeting in the Oaks community, which was well attended. I counted over 50-55 people attended and they showed some great concerns not only for their own for their community where they live in but these residents also brought up very good topics about overall police services and we were glad to provide feedback for them.

Both of my commanders were there. I was there. We had an officer and also a dispatcher there to answer questions During and after the meeting, so we're very glad to continue that. And our volunteers who coordinate the neighborhood watch meetings were indebted to for keeping the communication lines open with our community. We also have provided education on pedal assist bicycles and e-bikes. We conducted a public service announcement as well as press release, and more information over the city internet sites to continue to provide input and information for safety reasons out there.

We recently participated a couple of weeks ago in Read Across America, amazing kids in our community at our schools. I went to McEvitt and read to the kids there and it was just amazing the attention they give and their desire to learn to continue to read. It was very inspiring and we all left our civilians and our sworn staff left the schools with really touched by the heart of all their outgoing efforts and the teachers and educators doing their work, so we appreciate that. March 5th we presented our first parent student awareness forum with the school district.

We narrowed it down to three important topics. Parent roles and best practices, the dangers of vaping, and mental health crises. We had over 50 to 55 parents and students attend this. We had community-based organizations, and also governmental agencies who support the community from the county. And it was very well received. McDonald's supported with a free meal for the dinner for the evening. And it was well attended, and we plan to continue this forum with some more topics in the first semester of the next school year.

Our emergency services coordinator has been busy conducting Spanish Community Emergency Response Team graduations for the most recent class. And just, I always like to share pictures just to share with you what the men and women of the police department do. We're out there serving the community. We're out there our officers actually have one of our officers presented the public service announcement for our e-bikes and pedal assist bicycles in Spanish he appeared on the camera and did a great job And on New Year's Eve, I assisted our patrol team including our dispatchers by working the shift with them overnight. And it was so enlightening and helpful for me to be out there with them and to show our support from our management to be out there with them during the evening hours.

So we had a great time and everybody was safe. It was well received. For our employee development and recognition, I always like to not only talk about our achievements but what are the things that we're actually doing inside the department internally with our employees. How are we engaging with our own employees? And I'm always glad that we have our commanders who help schedule meetings. These are connections, connectivity issues, challenges we address and resolve issues So we had during this period of time over the last few months, we had one sworn and civilian supervisor meeting. We had a dispatcher meeting with all of our dispatchers and dispatch supervisor Mark 43 who's our records management system and computer-aided dispatch new technology we have.

They've revisited us for a little mini summit to work with us to continue to develop our system and work out a couple of challenges that since we've had it online. This staff, Mark 43 works well with us they're very complimentary about Our ability to want to work with them and our staff members are very approachable for them to improve the system as we move forward.

We've also expanded our homeless liaison officers. We had a supervisor who was working handling the liaison duties, but we expanded our efforts by adding four other officers in a collateral duty capacity to better assist with the unhoused and those Decisions were made based on issues that have come up in the city, either on Main Street or at the shelter where we want to provide more services and referrals and help our backpack medicine and all their other social services. So we see this as a good asset to continue to provide services for our unhoused and find programs that also address the concerns of residents and business owners in the community.

We also rounded out the end of the year with our police station employee luncheon. This was done and presented to all of our employees complimentary, and also the community development personnel because we finished our first phase one construction project at the police station which was requiring a lot of patience by all of us. We were displaced out of the station for awhile and This is one of my favorite slides.

The city nominates our city employees throughout the year and nominate employees of the quarter. And at the end of the beginning of the next year, the employee of the year, and I'm so proud of our employees not only for those who achieve employee of the quarter. But I'm proud of employees at all over the city who nominate their own colleagues, which is an amazing feat that they all do. And they contribute to the success of all of our organization and all our departments.

So records technician Yolanda Garcia was selected as employee of the quarter. We're so proud of her in her work and customer service she provides in our records bureau. Our community service officer Hernan Navarrete was selected as Field Employee of the Year And Officer Robbie Mann was selected recently as Crisis Intervention Team or CIT officer of the year for his empathetic and caring support in working with those who have either developmental disabilities, mental health crisis and whatnot. We're very proud of our employees who continue to get nominated and selected for these amazing achievements. And it shows the dedication and loyalty, not just of the police department employees but all employees throughout the city and much appreciated.

And to round out some of the training we've been participating in over the last few months, this is training that has been provided to our civilian staff, our sworn staff, our management, our commanders. We have a commander who's currently taking a course in executive development. We want to mentor all of our ranks. Other operational trainings such as high risk stops, narcotics training giving the officers updated tools to be able to do their job effectively and deter crime or reduce crime by their actions. We also again sent several of our employees, our sworn staff to promotional preparation. Our priority here is to keep our employees here and we want our employees who stay here to promote here and so that's our contribution and our vision just to keep our employees and have them promote within the system here.

And with that I thank you for your time and I'd be happy to take any comments or questions

Thank you, Chief. Councilman, questions for the chief?

I have a

question. Chavez?

Chief can you tell us the status on the Chief's Advisory Committee and when do we expect that?

Yeah so this week we're actually launching our application process so we'll be sending that out and those will be distributed and people can turn those in so that will be going out later this week.

And then too you had a training site on there Could you share anything specific about training tied to addressing some of the deficiencies in the audit?

Yes, so I'll back up on the slide for a second. Prior to this reporting period we had also sent our detectives through additional training. Homicide school for the supervisor of the unit and also some other forensic interviewing training for sexual assault victims that are younger in age or underage. So that was the last reporting period. That was taken care of last.

This past reporting period, there has not been any additional training that is needed at this time. So we're getting them back to their caseload and they'll continue to develop those skills. If there is a skill set that they need to acquire, they let us know and then we look for another course that they could develop a skill set in such as advanced search warrants or Some other advanced law enforcement training, but the basic core training that is mandated by The Commission on Peace Officers the standards and training they have met all those mandates And that was a priority for us and that was already done several months ago