(From left) Fourth District Long Beach Councilmember Daryl Supernaw, 3rd District Councilmember Suzie Price and 8th District Councilmember Al Austin answer requests from Deputy Chief of Long Beach Fire Department Rich Brandt and Deputy Chief of Long Beach Police Department Richard Conant.
Fourth District Councilmember Daryl Supernaw, 3rd District Councilmember Suzie Price and 8th District Councilmember Al Austin were in attendance.
The meeting was the first to take place at a location other than City Hall in an effort to reach out to a diverse group of citizens in all areas of Long Beach.
“Public safety is an intensely important issue for the City and residents alike, so creating an easier opportunity for residents to be a part of this discussion would improve the City’s ability to be responsive to concerns, and improve public safety in our varied and unique neighborhoods,” Price explained.
The meeting consisted of six items to discuss, including the approval of the minutes as the first item.
Item 2
Deputy Chief of Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) Richard Conant explained he would begin the meeting by presenting the audience and council members with a staff report that highlights the efforts of the quality-of-life officers, who serve homeless individuals and offer mental-health evaluations.
The Department of Safety assigned two officers from street patrol to a new position, which includes homeless outreach and law-enforcement responses to quality-of-life issues, Conant explained.
He said that one of the officers was assigned to the South Division, while the other was assigned to the East Division as a part of the Quality-of-Life Program.
“These two officers work in collaboration with the support of the Long Beach Fire Department […] and the Department of Health and Human Services, who takes a lead on homeless issues throughout the city,” Conant added.
In the first quarter of fiscal year 2016/17— Long Beach’s fiscal year begins Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30— quality-of-life officers encountered 624 homeless individuals.
“Of these, they were able to secure temporary housing for 225 subjects and permanent housing for 64 other subjects,” Conant said.
Quality-of-life officers handed out necessary items to homeless individuals they encountered.
“Thanks to the generous donations from the police foundation and other supportive donors, quality-of-life officers [were] able to provide basic supplies to individuals such as water, food and socks,” Conant said.
Conant explained that oftentimes the homeless individuals needed to be transported to a different location.
Individuals were taken to the Multi-service Station, Department of Mental Health, the Long Beach Rescue Mission and local hospitals.
After the staff report, the council members had the opportunity to ask questions.
Austin asked if the Quality-of-Life program of the South and East Divisions has the resources to assist the homeless population of the North Division near the LA River.
“Not only do our patrol officers handle their calls for service but they also respond to quality-of-life related-type calls when our quality-of-life officers are unavailable to do that,” Conant answered. “Though those two officers are assigned South and East, they also move around throughout the city.”
Price questioned whether the Quality-of-life Program would be delayed because of fiscal conflict and an extensive training course.
Conant agreed that the program can be delayed by fiscal and training conflicts.
“Training is extensive,” he answered. “[The officers] have to be somewhat of a negotiator, able to develop the initial contact [with] trust. They have to be a social worker of sorts to be able to identify what the basic needs of these individuals would look like.”
Price asked whether crimes that homeless individuals commit will always be addressed with citations, since there is no official policy in place, and if the action is at the discretion of the officer.
“It is, but it is also a jail-capacity issue,” Conant replied, “If I can use an example, […] the City is very active, and we have a large number of misdemeanor contacts, if we fill our jail with misdemeanor contacts […] then we limit the room for other more serious arrest needs.”
Finishing up item 2, the council members made a statement in regard to what they wish to complete for quality-of-life incidents.
Supernaw explained that he hopes to expand services that are currently in place, such as homeless service groups.
“We hope to put something together, either for public safety or take to the full council to talk about how we can basically reimagine how we’re handling our dispatch calls,” Price said. “So, whether it is additional training, expertise building [or] subject-matter expertise […] because it is not always a police problem, it is not always a fire problem, there are mental health issues that may be a specialist can respond to.”
Item 3
Conant presented another staff report to showcase how the data related to quality-of-life incidents is being tracked.
“The data is stored in our record’s management system, and in response to this committee’s request, I have extracted various data sets from the record-management system specifically related to quality-of-life type incidents,” Conant said.
He explained that seven incidents were listed in the data, which included: public consumption, urinating or defecating in public, sleeping/camping in a prohibited area, sleeping in a vehicle, indecent exposure, trespassing and disorderly conduct/public intoxication. Of these seven cases, there were four municipal code sections and three penal code sections.
“Public consumption is one of the items that we are looking at here, and we have recorded this fiscal cycle 262 incidents,” Conant reported. “Urinating and defecating in public— I recorded 100 incidents versus 184 in [Fiscal Year 2016]. Sleeping and camping in prohibited areas— we reported only three incidents since ’17 versus four in ’16. Sleeping in a vehicle— five incidents [in ’17] versus seven from ’16. Indecent exposure— 59 incidents in ’17 versus 49 [in fiscal year ’16], so that is an increase. Trespassing at posted locations— 32 incidents [in fiscal year 17] versus 40 for [fiscal year 16]. Disorderly conduct and public intoxication— 361 incidents [in fiscal year 17] versus 457 for [fiscal year 16].”
“These seven categories are the types of crime that impact a lot of quality-of-life issues for residents,” Price said. “These [incidents] are the everyday-type things.”
The issue of reporting a crime yielded the discussion of call-back numbers and whether or not the system of a dispatcher giving call-back numbers should be viewed.
“So, here’s an option! how about ‘yes, I’d like a call number with just the call number,'” Supernaw suggested.
In response, Conant said, “That is do-able.”
Item 4
Although Long Beach does not currently have a Safe Ride Program, Conant requested the possible re-instatement of the program.
“The Safe Ride Program is a campaign to minimize or prevent drunk driving, distracted and tired driving,” Conant said. “It is a program that offers round-trip, one-way and hourly ride services.”
The council members were asked if the program would be feasible.
Conant asked that the department be allowed to conduct research into the feasibility of this type of program and report back.
Price and the other council members agreed to pass this motion of researching the Safe Ride Program for possible re-instatement.
Item 5
The council members presented the idea of using electronic road flares instead of the current flares.
“Less combustible things on the streets is what we are going for here,” Price said.
Supernaw began the presentation with an electronic road flare sample that the council members brought in to show Conant and Rich Brandt, deputy chief of the Long Beach Fire Department (LBFD).
“I won’t discuss the negative aspects from an environmental standpoint but from an operational standpoint,” Supernaw said. “I think the chiefs here can say that on a road that has a high center and is not perfectly flat, you put out a flare, it might roll and if a car hits it, it might roll. [The electronic road flares] actually are kind of destruction-proof.”
The electronic road flares need to be charged, and Supernaw suggested that the flares can be kept in the patrol vehicle to be accessible.
“I believe a flare burns at 1600 degrees so there is a danger there for just deploying them,” Supernaw explained. “So, you want something that works quickly and can be set out very quickly and [the electronic road flares] can be deployed much faster.”
Brandt responded that the LBFD is open to considering the electronic road flares.
Supernaw and the other council members then turned to the LBPD for a response regarding the flares.
“When we are engaged in long-term activity, we tend to call public service to put barriers up,” Conant said. “But this would be a benefit from an environmental standpoint or personnel standpoint, so this would be something that we would be very happy to take a look at as [the] fire [department] has also stated.”
The council members asked when they would hear back regarding the utilization of the proposed electronic road flares, and Brandt declared that 90 days to review the flares would be efficient.
Item 6
Conant and Brandt presented reports on Fourth of July activity, which the committee received and filed.
The meeting concluded with all six items carried.
