COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA
OFFICE OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
70 WEST HEDDING STREET, 10TH FLOOR
SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA 95110
(408)299-5040 FAX (408)299-2038 TDD 993-8272
WWW.SUPERVISORELLENBERG.ORG
SUSAN ELLENBERG
BOARD VICE PRESIDENT
SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT FOUR
October 13, 2022
Dear Councilmember Peralez,
I would like to offer my sincere thanks to you and your colleagues on the Public Safety, Finance, and Strategic Support Committee for your participation in last month’s joint committee meeting on coordination of City and County mental health crisis response and pretrial release processes. Our public safety and justice systems, particularly where they intersect with some of our most vulnerable residents who may be suffering from mental illness, cognitive atypicalities and/or substance use disorders, are both critical and deeply complex, and getting to the place where we can discuss robust solutions demands overcoming a steep learning curve in understanding the complex work of our respective departments.
Our joint meeting was a significant step in that direction of mutual understanding and coordination, and I applaud the collaborative work our City and County staffs initiated prior to and have continued since our meeting. In the past month and as a direct result of the meeting, the District Attorney’s Office met with the San Jose Police Department to create a training video for patrol officers that will address information on bail procedure. The County’s Behavioral Health Department, along with County Counsel and the Sheriff’s Office, met with the San Jose, Los Gatos, Morgan Hill, and Palo Alto police departments to discuss Mental Health Holds and Jail Booking Procedure and identified areas of current civil detention law on which patrol officers would benefit from updated training.
Beyond coordination of our public safety procedures, the City and County must lean on our core strengths — infrastructure, permitting, and zoning for the City, and safety net services and healthcare for the County — to rapidly expand our region’s behavioral health and substance use treatment capacity. While the County works to build its behavioral health workforce, I will look to the City to assist in streamlining approval of behavioral health facilities spanning a continuum of care from outpatient to residential. The County has projects currently awaiting review, and more are to come as we work urgently to address the crisis of mental illness and substance use in our communities. I look forward to our strengthened partnership in these areas.
With warm regard,
Supervisor Susan Ellenberg
Chair, Public Safety and Justice Committee of the Board of Supervisors Personal Info