From: Pauline Block
To: City Council Public Comments
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Comment on Item 4.1
Date: Thursday, April 10, 2025 1:17:42 PM
Attachments: public comment re public safety budget cuts.pdf Please see attached comment for Budget Reductions Study Session 4/15. Thank you!
PAULINE BLOCK
Marketing + Development
www.cornerstonedowntown.com
From: California Luggage
To: City Council Public Comments
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Comment on Item 4.1
Date: Thursday, April 10, 2025 3:30:49 PM
Mayor Stapp, Vice Mayor Alvarez and Members of Council:
My name is Nicole Gaddis, I own California Luggage on 4th Street.
I know the city is facing a budget deficit and that decisions have to be made about where to spend and where to save money. I’m reaching out to you today to encourage you to maintain as much funding for SRPD officers as possible.
Since the DET has increased staffing, the streets are quiet when I get to my store between 8-9 each day. Their physical presence walking the streets and the cars parked in the square have limited the number of disturbances in the square. They are visible and present which makes people visiting downtown feel safer. While they are not responsible for trash and graffiti, anecdotally there seems to be less.
I am concerned that any reduction in SRPD staff will affect Downtown’s overall economic growth.
We are just starting to see a bit more foot traffic and hope that with housing and hotels downtown that will continue to grow. People will come downtown and spend money if they feel safe. More money spent downtown means more tax revenue and dollars for the city.
My customers and many locals have safety concerns when coming downtown. Before the additional DET members were added, there were daily disturbances of the unsheltered population. I rarely hear someone yelling or having a terribly hard time now.
We have been working for years to shift the negative perception many Santa Rosa residents have of Downtown. That is starting to happen. The DET has had a direct effect on that. We need to maintain a positive momentum that will drive new businesses and residents to the Downtown core.
I ask that you support of Downtown community by keeping as much funding as possible for SRPD officers.
Thank you for your time and consideration in this important matter.
Nicole Gaddis
California Luggage
From: Santa Rosa POA
To: CityCouncilListPublic; Smith, Maraskeshia
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Letter from Unit 5
Date: Sunday, April 13, 2025 11:21:00 AM
Attachments: Letter to council.pdf
Police Historical Staffing.pdf
City Council Members and City Manager Smith,
Please see the attached letter authored by the POA Board. The letter is regarding the budget topic which will be discussed at the upcoming council meeting on Tuesday the 15th. We have also attached a historical staffing spreadsheet, which is referenced in the letter.
Respectfully,
The SRPOA Board
SANTA ROSA POLICE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION | 3345 INDUSTRIAL DR STE 11, SANTA ROSA, CA 95403
City council members,
We write to you today on behalf of the one hundred and forty-eight members of the Santa Rosa Police Officers’ Association, which represents the sworn peace officers of the city of Santa Rosa. We believe this message echoes what all members of the Santa Rosa Police Department, sworn and civilian alike, all hope to convey to the city leadership in these dire times. We would like to address the budget reduction proposals currently being discussed city-wide. Our message below is meant to show our commitment in remaining an ally with the city leadership, as well as the community which we so proudly serve.
The SRPOA is not naive in understanding the current financial woes facing Americans nationwide. These financial pains are being felt across the private sector as well as all levels of the federal, state, and local governments. Businesses and government entities are being forced to make impossible decisions to slash their budgets like never before. The city of Santa Rosa is not exempt to these challenging times and the SRPOA recognizes the deficits of the long-range financial forecast facing the city.
We would like to first address these issues by discussing the historical staffing levels in comparison with the growth of this city. In 1990, the city population was 120,644. At that time the police department was staffed with 211 employees, 143 sworn and 68 civilians, resulting in 1.19 officers per thousand residents. In 2008, just before the housing market crash, the city population was 156,841. At that time the police department was staffed with 275 employees, 189 sworn and 86 civilians, resulting in 1.21 officers per thousand residents. In 2025, the city population is 175,845. We currently are staffed with 262 employees, 184 sworn and 78 civilians, resulting in 1.05 officers per thousand residents. In comparison with 1990, the city has reduced the amount of officers per thousand residents by 12.5 percent. Additionally, in that time period the number of civilian employees has been reduced by a staggering 21 percent.
Unfortunately what those statistics fail to capture is the fact that Santa Rosa is the county seat and the city experiences population swell every day from commerce and people traveling to our city. That population swell is a testament to our thriving and bustling city and highlights just how alive our city is for business and leisure alike. However, this daily increase in population inevitably strains our current police resources. Additionally, anyone who has taken a drive around our city lately will see the unbelievable amount of construction going on, most of which is the expansion of housing. Much of the new housing being built is high-density housing, which is
great for our city but it also means our population will continue to grow with no end in sight.
Simply put, the city is growing and our police department is shrinking.
If population growth wasn’t enough to grapple with, another reality is how complex 21st century policing has become. Our calls for service have increased and require more time to handle and resolve. This is in part due to an increase in the amount of paperwork and mandated forms required for certain calls for service, such as when an officer goes to a domestic violence call or completes a DUI investigation. This increase in paperwork and work load is not a bad thing and our citizens, especially the victims, are receiving a higher level of service than ever before.
The goal for most cities is to have officers out on the street handling calls for service for fifty percent of their shift. The other half is expected for reporting writing, completing paperwork, booking evidence, completing DA follow up from past investigations, preparing for court testimony, or completing many of the minute tasks our profession now requires. These tasks increase the daily workload of an officer and make it difficult to accomplish that fifty percent goal of being available to handle calls for service.
In addition to the day to day tasks, the number of mandated training hours for officers have increased exponentially. When officers have to go to these trainings we often go below minimum staffing on patrol because we don’t have the ability to fully staff the patrol teams without spending overtime. Training and staying up with the times is crucial and is the reason law enforcement in California, especially in the Bay Area, is the pinnacle of law enforcement nationwide. Officers are more trained and advanced in their capabilities and decision making.
These 21st century policing standards and training requirements are inevitably better for the communities we serve, but it is another example of the strain it creates when a police department doesn’t grow with the times.
In addition to the increased workload for our officers on the street, our detectives have seen a staggering increase in what is required to complete their investigations. The criminals are smarter and more advanced due to technology, and keeping up with them requires more time and resources. Authoring search warrants and forensically reviewing electronic devices often engulfs our detectives. Sifting through gigabytes upon gigabytes of electronic data is vital in almost every investigation completed by our detectives. We are fortunate enough to have some of the greatest detectives and a department that provides us with the advanced technology and tools needed to complete those investigations. However, our staffing levels amongst our detective units has not increased to help offset the amount of time required to complete their investigations. Technology has been one of the greatest blessings yet sometimes the ultimate curse for law enforcement, our agency included. We can have the most advanced tools and the smartest detectives in the world, but what we often lack is time. Unless we grow our detective numbers, we will always be playing catch up.
The lack of growth amongst our patrol and detective units has equated to an overworked workforce that struggles just to get by on a daily basis. On patrol we are often only able to handle the priority 1 calls while the priority 2 and 3 calls pend sometimes for hours. That is unsustainable and it leads to quality of life issues for the residents of our city. When case loads amongst our detectives go up, they too have to prioritize which cases get handled. There are countless cases stacked up right now that our detectives will never have the ability to investigate. These backlogs on patrol and amongst the detective units equates to a lack of prosecution and an increase in crime. When crimes go up, our residents quality of life diminishes and businesses will move on to a city where the grass is greener. Furthermore, when residents or businesses move away or choose another city to live or do business in, this means less of a tax base for our city, which further exacerbates the problem.
We have seen what happens when our department staffing lowers to an unmanageable level, which occurred in 2019 and 2020. We lost our Gang Enforcement Team and our School Resource Officers. When we lost our Gang unit, we saw the aftermath and the effect it had on our city, especially the most vulnerable lower income areas. We saw a record number of homicides and sadly broke our own city record for the most homicides in one year. It was not until the creation of our Special Enforcement Team and the revamp of our Gang unit that we have finally seen a decrease in crime and homicides per year. Unfortunately that took several years to reverse and anyone who follows our social media and press releases knows the staggering amount of illegal gun possession arrests we made, and continue to make to this day.
Our local school campuses also still feel the impacts of losing the SRO program. Never before have we seen so many students possessing weapons, including bringing firearms to school.
Sadly we even saw the loss of an innocent life which took place at one of our campuses.
Luckily things did turn around and staffing reached full capacity last year. We finally saw the positive impacts of hitting the streets with full patrol teams, and our detective units almost reached their staffing capacities that haven’t been seen since the early 2000’s. Unfortunately while we took a step forward, 21st century policing and our population growth leapt past us. Our agency has hit a ceiling that we cannot break past unless we see an increase in our numbers in both sworn and civilian personnel. For those of us who have been around long enough to see this swing of events, we are grateful for coming out of those dark times, but now more than ever we realize we still have so far to go. Just as it seemed we were getting our stride back and making headway, we are now faced with the slashing of our budget, which will inevitably cripple our agency and diminish the quality of life for the community we protect and serve.
We write to you today on behalf of our membership, however the SRPOA doesn’t want to see a reduction to any of the other city services. We know the importance and value of our coworkers citywide that are vital to the infrastructure and advancement of this city as a whole. We will always protect and serve our community to the fullest extent possible but we do not want to see our parks, our roads, our fleet services, our utility systems, and our transit systems diminished either. The citizens of Santa Rosa deserve to live and work in a city that provides adequate services that are core to the fundamental functions of government.
As we mentioned in our opening remarks, we hold steadfast in our commitment to being an ally in these tough times. We do not believe our department can have its budget reduced, however if it must, we would like to provide a meaningful proposal. That proposed reduction would be the freezing of two sworn officer positions, one sergeant, one Community Service Officer (CSO), and one Field Evidence Technician (FET). This proposal equates to a one million dollar salary and benefits savings annually. We are willing to share some of the pain the rest of the city units will ultimately be facing as well. We believe this proposal is manageable for the time being until the city can recalibrate its finances. However, if you should choose to adopt our proposal, you must know that our department will never be able to staff an SRO program. As highlighted above, we can hardly stay afloat as is and we simply don’t have the manpower to expand any farther. That is a tough pill to swallow and it’s painful to know that such a large trade off must be decided.
We stand committed in working together and to uphold our oath we swore to our community. In order to do that we as the police department cannot go backwards.
Respectfully,
SRPOA
Year Positions Sworn Civilian Population Year Positions Sworn Civilian Population 1990 211 143 68 120,644 2008 275 189 86 156,841
1991 217 144 73 123,052 2009 252 178 74 158,727
1992 224 146 78 124,975 2010 258.75 177 81.75 167,302 1993 223 145 78 126,112 2011 251.75 171 80.75 169,212 1994 223 146 77 127,141 2012 246.75 170 76.75 170,197 1995 240 159 81 128,377 2013 246.75 172 74.75 171,820 1996 251 163 88 129,569 2014 251.25 174 77.25 173,773 1997 260 169 91 131,827 2015 258.75 174 84.75 174,727 1998 263 170 93 134,111 2016 256.75 175 81.75 175,155 1999 257 183 74 136,898 2017 264.5 181 83.5 177,684 2000 265 175 90 147,532 2018 266.5 181 85.5 177,586 2001 272 182 90 152,749 2019 260.5 181 79.5 174,972 2002 268 185 83 153,774 2020 254 177 77 178,134
2003 269 179 90 155,184 2021 256 178 78 177,412
2004 252 169 83 156,304 2022 259 181 78 176,078
2005 271 184 87 153,257 2023 264 184 80 175,845
2006 281 190 91 153,506 2024 264 184 80 175,845
2007 281 189 92 154,473 2025 262 184 78 175,845
-
20,000
40,000
60,000
80,000
100,000
120,000
140,000
160,000
180,000
200,000
-
50 100
150
200
250
300
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 202 1 2022 2023 2024 2025 Police Positions
Positions
Sworn
Civilian Population
From: Evan Adams
To: CityCouncilListPublic
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Dispatch Supervisor Position Cut
Date: Monday, April 14, 2025 4:41:30 PM
Good afternoon,
I am a Dispatch Supervisor for the City, and I want to address the critical issue of cutting the number of dispatch supervisors in the 9-1-1 dispatch center from three to two. This proposed cut would eliminate a budgeted supervisor position, which constitutes 33% of our staff. I strongly urge you to reconsider this decision for several reasons.
Firstly, our current staffing levels are already stretched thin. With three supervisors, we aren’t able to achieve 24/7 supervision, and cutting to two supervisors, we can only adequately supervise 80 of the needed 168 hours in a 24/7 workweek, roughly 48% of operational hours. The department needs four dispatch supervisors, not two. The proposed cut would also result in a supervision ratio of 14 to 1, which is far from ideal for maintaining efficiency and safety. There are dispatchers who will receive virtually no real-time supervision. This is alarming for a bureau with such risk for liability.
Additionally, each supervisor will be on call every other week. When one supervisor is on leave, the remaining supervisor is left alone to manage the entire communications center of 24 full-time and four part-time dispatchers.
Comparatively, the sheriff's office, who has fewer dispatchers, has four supervisors and a manager. This disparity highlights the already significant cuts we have endured to civilian staff. Further reductions would exacerbate the strain on our operations.
Dispatch supervisors play a vital role in emergency management. There are only five individuals in Santa Rosa with access to the Code Red system which is used to send out emergency messages including WEAs - emergency alerts sent to cell phones based on location. Two of those five people are dispatch supervisors. We are responsible for guiding dispatch operations and ensuring staffing during wildfires and other critical incidents such as active shooters and officer involved shootings, and for ensuring minimum staffing levels to ensure the city has enough staff to answer 9-1-1 calls and to manage critical radio channels.
During the Glass Fire, it was a Dispatch Supervisor who first realized the fire was heading from Calistoga toward Santa Rosa. This was because there was an on-duty supervisor on a Sunday night monitoring calls for service, a timeframe that will remain vacant if cut. This quick action set in process the first steps in the emergency response and initiating the first evacuations. This was pivotal in saving property and lives.
Supervisors also fill and work vacancies for sick calls and assign overtime to maintain operations while ensuring dispatchers get required rest periods. They ensure dispatchers receive necessary training hours and meet minimum state mandated standards to limit liability and to maintain a high functioning staff.
Additionally, they manage equipment failures 24/7 and ensure the safekeeping of confidential information.
By reducing the number of supervisors from three to two, the city is opening itself up to increased liability.
This cut would mean inadequate supervision of our 24/7 9-1-1 center that serves 175,000 residents. This would jeopardize the safety and efficiency of our emergency response system.
Maintaining our current number of dispatch supervisors is essential for the effective operation of our communications center. I urge you to reconsider this proposed cut to prioritize the safety and well-being of our community.
Thank you,
Evan