e
I
for
[Music]
thank you Jennifer good afternoon
everybody on the call and to our
constituency I'm Cassandra Gand a mayor
protim for the city of lo cruus I will
be facilitating this meeting our mayor
is um on a special call with
president-elect Biden and he'll be
joining us shortly um it's Monday
November 23rd it's approximately 1:02
p.m. and before we recite the pledge I
would like to give my deep condolences
to my friend and colleague um the
Rosales say they lost their father last
week um late last week um Mr Fred alaka
Senior Chief Petty Officer E8 who served
in World War II and um to extend my
gratitude and thanks to all our veterans
and our Armed Forces near and far and
also to also give my thanks to our First
Responders um with that will you please
stand and join me in reciting the
pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America and to
the Republic for which it stands one
nation under God indivisible and liberty
for justice and
all okay Jennifer pet of the
week okay good afternoon mayor proem and
members of council I am Jennifer
Martinez and I'm with the city's
Communications
office let me see if I can share my
screen with
you
okay are you able to see it right
now there we go yes
perfect okay I would like you to meet
dunks a drooling ball of energy this one
is he has an enthusiastic personality
and dunks is always excited to make new
friends dunks loves to eat and suggests
that he do so alone so he can chout out
In Peace So if you're looking for a pale
that likes hanging out and has an
appetite that is him and then we have
lonus lonus is a young Kitty let me see
if I can get this to advance here there
we go lonus is a very young Kitty with a
happy rough and tumbled personality and
he loves to receive attention a family
that is youthful and energetic would be
perfect for lonus and let's talk about
adoptions if you're looking to adopt
either of those two or any other animals
at the Animal Service Center you can go
to ascmv
toorgle number and then call to make an
appointment so that you can go visit
with your new pet the number to call is
38218 right now off-site adoption events
are cancelled until further notice if
you're interested in volunteering with
the Animal Service Center the Animal
Service Center is always looking for
volunteers to help with dog walking cat
caretaking adoption events Outreach
programs photo photography assistance
Foster animals and so much more you can
contact the volunteer coordinator to
find out how you can get involved and
it's that same phone number
38218 and again the Communications
office also reminds you about uh Co 19
we have a testing surge that is
continuing it's the New Mexico
Department of Health that is partnering
with a federal uh agency to do some
extra testing around the state so if
you're interested in getting testing you
can go to the normal channels that have
been available since uh March April and
then now this new one has started um
November 5th and it's going to at
through at least Friday of this week not
to include Thanksgiving day Thursday you
can pre-register at do I ao9 test.com
and the times that are available are
between 2: and 6:00 p.m. so that's today
through Friday minus Thursday um go
ahead and call um go online to register
from 2:00 to 6 PM it's on the NMSU
campus if you're familiar with lot 100
that is where you will go and um we
appreciate if you do get tested because
there is a lot of cases that are popping
up right now and just to make sure that
you're educated and stay safe and help
prevent it from spreading to others
thank you so much mayor proen thank you
Jennifer much appreciated and I just
want to encourage you all out there to
um Cruise the website at the Animal
Services Center there's a lot of
beautiful wonderful furry animals um and
consider volunteering um next on our
agenda is jobs of the week and I think
we have Cindy quillin
Cindy are you on I didn't see you
initially hello everyone I'm here hi
Cindy
hi okay so we're on okay good to see
everybody um thank you everyone uh mayor
let me see where we're at okay so for
today's uh jobs of the week okay so we
have the economic development
coordinator that's with the city of BU
crues and this position closes on
December the 8th um we also have contact
tracers through the New Mexico
Department of Health and these are
multiple positions that are
available we have a front office
receptionist uh for the cancer
department and the radiation oncology
departments uh they are at the Memorial
Medical Center these positions close on
December the 17th we also have a room
service operator uh which is with the
food and nutrition department at
Memorial Medical Center this position
also closes on December the
17th uh we also have a store room clerk
materials with the materials management
department at the Mountain View Regional
Medical Center uh this closes December
19th and there is also a front office
receptionist with the ortho department
at the Mountain View Regional Medical
Center and it also closes uh December
the 19th and for a full list of the jobs
and internships and volunteer
opportunities that we have within New
Mexico workforce connections you can
visit us at www. employ uhne
mexico.com and we also have uh
www.governmentjobs.com
with careers and back/ loss crues and
the contact tracing um this is at at
www.sp po. state.nm.us
and for our New Mexico workforce
connections information our contact
information here at our Alam office our
phone number is 575
52462 and that address is at 226 South
Alam Boulevard Los Cruses New Mexico
88005 on the web page you can visit us
visit us at
www.employnewspaper.in
back
slash thank you everyone I hope you all
have a wonderful week thank you so much
Cindy I have a question yes you have any
data that supports how um if folks are
are
um engaging in this particular jobs of
the week actually um from our website um
and then getting a job actually with the
jobs that you um put forth so what I I
can do is I have we do have a contact
with she's for our All Hands New Mexico
and I can reach out to her and see if
that she can uh give us any kind of data
or feedback or I can ask Darlene to see
uh what information that we can provide
you with to see if we've had any uh one
come up and and you know ask for these
positions regarding these positions or I
have applied for these positions since
we've started doing this yes absolutely
that would be great Cindy thank you so
much you're very welcome have a Happy
Thanksgiving and please thank you you do
the same please keep
safe okay um on to um our agenda item
3.1 mobile integration Health um it's
our work session number
2-46 Chief
hriz good afternoon mayor potim and
Council uh Eric Eric Enriquez fire chief
city of Los Cruses it's it's an honor
and a pleasure to present to you today
our our updates on our mobile Integrated
Health Program um you know it was about
three years ago that we approached
council with an idea of this concept to
be proactive and to help uh individuals
that were frequent caller callers and
high utilizers of uh the 911 system uh
today we're here to share the
presentation of the accomplishments and
results that have taken place since then
you know this program had not have been
done without the teamwork of
lcfd and the Partnerships in the
community uh but especially Paul Ford
who's been the boots on the ground and
he'll be delivering uh this
presentation uh in a few minutes uh I
just want to say that uh we also want to
introduce some next steps as taking this
concept to how utilizers of mental and
behavioral calls and this will take uh
the teamwork of Los trus Police
Department a licensed clinical social
worker and the L truus fire department
uh we've already established an RFP uh
for this concept and we've also included
he should be on the call today and we
thank him uh Dr Ivan the laosa uh with
the NMSU social worker Department to be
a subject matter expert
um also on the call we'll have uh Los
ches police department and other members
of the fire department so that we can
answer any questions or if there's any
further discussion at the end of the
presentation so without further Ado I'd
like to introduce it's my honor and
privilege to introduce our mih
coordinator Paul Ford thank you thank
you
Chief um give me just a moment to uh
determine how I'm going to share this
screen
here
right okay can everybody see my screen
okay yes we I can see all right so mayor
proam uh ladies and gentlemen of the
council as Chief said my name is Paul
Ford I'm the mobile Integrated Health
care coordinator for the Los crues fire
department so we're going to talk a
little bit about mobile integrated
Healthcare and what it is
and uh and the type of things that we're
doing out there in the community to
facilitate good uh outcomes and where
we're going in the future so why did we
create this well it mobile integrated
Healthcare is best described uh and
answering that question with our purpose
statement and that's that uh we're
providing referrals visitations and
treatment services to high utilizers of
the 911 system and it's for community
members with limited access to health
and Social Services to be able to access
appropriate Health and Social resources
and reduce that use of 911 system and
then what is our promise to the
community in in doing this and that's
that we're committed to this program and
that we will constantly strive in
identifying those who have unmet needs
as displayed through recurring 911
utilization and we'll work very hard to
assure that individuals primarily
elderly individuals in our Community
will be given a help to reduce gaps in
their health care so how are we going to
do that well every day we identify at
risk
populations and we go and visit them and
we bring Health and Human Resources to
those individuals in their home and we
focus very highly on those underserved
populations that utilize 911 to obtain
services that can best be obtained
elsewhere um we identify the barriers in
their needs and we direct them to
resources that exist in Los cruus to
improve quality of life and prevent
recurring 911 usage and hospitalization
and we've developed Partnerships with
stakeholders in the community in order
to ensure that we're bringing the right
care to the right client at the right
time so this slide is one of the most
important slides and so I'll go into
detail explaining what is really
happening out there in the community and
how affects the type of referrals and
clients that we're seeing so first and
foremost the number one type of referral
we get is for seniors with mobility
issues who have some form of Medicare
plan for their health insurance we've
done such a good job as a nation
battling diseases such as cancer stroke
and heart attacks that seniors get to
the age that they can no longer walk get
in and out of bed get off and on the uh
the toilet cook and prepare meals these
are called activities of daily living
and at any given time there are a number
of seniors in our community that have
significant difficulties achieving these
these seniors are all on Medicare and
Medicare does not cover caregiver
services in the home caregivers are very
expensive um the seniors now need
someone there all the time but cannot
afford it so it's not going to happen
Medicare forces these seniors into
nursing homes but the seniors they don't
want to give up their independence and
as a result these seniors stay at home
and they rely on the fire department to
come and pick them up off the floor get
them out of bed and get them to and from
the
bathroom these seniors usually become
septic from a urinary tract infection
and wind up in the ICU uh at $10,000 a
day once the hospital has a address this
sepsis they're forced or correction
they're offered to go to Skilled Nursing
for physical therapy to try to get their
strength up to be able to do the things
that they need to in the home some agree
and go to a skilled nursing facility for
20 days which is covered by their
insurance and others refuse and go back
home either way when the 20 days are up
if they've not improved enough the
Skilled Nursing Facility will offer them
to go to nursing home and while the
staff there is trying to transfer them
to institutional Medicaid and collect
the financial documentation to determine
how all that's going to be paid for they
will have to come up with a $100 $180 a
day copay the senior will then refuse
and go back home and unfortunately this
cycle continues and this phenomenon is
responsible for the spending of millions
of preventable Health Care dollars
Across the Nation every year the other
type of client that we see is disabled
lowincome and onm Medicaid these
individuals always seem to be in their
late 50s and have a complicated
combination of mobility issues coupled
with substance abuse or a behavioral
component that has become
unmanageable these people do have
personal caregivers but the Managed Care
organizations in the state that oversee
these Medicaid contracts
cap the amount of hours their members
are entitled to at 40 hours a week for
some of our most disabled clients that's
nowhere near the amount of hours that
they need so they call us to assist with
their activities of daily living when
the caregiver isn't there these clients
are privy to the same rules a as the
senior population they can refuse any
Care at any time all these clients are
appropriate for nursing home uh
placements but they refuse and call 911
sometimes three or more times a day
there is no simple pathway uh to place
these uh patients or increase the amount
of hours they have I have tried both um
the population is very resistant to
change because of some of these
components Behavioral Health factors
alcoholism and drug use and these are
the highest utilizers of 911 of the two
groups and also the most vulnerable to
poor health outcomes and untimely death
so that's reflected by uh the major
issues that we see with the clients that
we uh we normally engage with so seniors
at home with care gaps is roughly 87%
that couples 87% of the types of
referrals that we get of those people
Mobility is their major issue but also
interestingly enough a lot of
individuals have challenges with
Transportation 66% of our referrals have
a challenge with
transportation and then um we have uh
untimely or unsafe discharges uh account
for 36% of the type of referrals uh that
we get and of course Co has made that
more
[Music]
challenging so why does the fire
departments uh involved in doing case
management in the field in this type of
Social Work setting well first and
foremost uh the community has this
inherent Trust of the fire department
and uh they allow us into their homes
they confide in us they talk with us and
we've developed this trust not just us
but the fire department Community Across
the Nation for hundreds of years and so
the these individuals confide in us um
the other important factor of that is
because of the amount of 911 calls and
the amount of people that Access
Healthcare through the 911 system uh
we've become a very widespread Health
Care stakeholder in the community so all
of these two these things allow us to
provide advocacy and assistance in
navigation uh for individuals that might
not be accessing Health Care Services or
visiting with people in their home uh
for other health care stakeholders in
the community and that's very important
uh to us we want to utilize uh that that
Niche that we have to provide that
service to the community um and so
that's the reason why we have this
program
but we also are very proud of a lot of
accomplishments that we have had um
specifically the first one would be New
Mexico State University has a School of
Social Work and uh we have worked to
develop a memorandum of understanding
for second uh year master's degree
social work uh students to deploy with
mih as part of their
internship we're able to do this because
we have weekly Roundtable meetings with
a certified social worker to review
cases and provide guidance to the
interns and this was approved by City
legal for fall semester of
2018 and uh we are we're very proud of
our social workers these are the social
workers that uh uh that we had as
interns last year uh the social worker
on the left is Charlene debus and the
social worker on the right is Jack turny
uh they both uh Jack turn's gone on to
do another internship and and Charlene
is now an MSW that is working um in the
field uh in the area that she was
interested in and so we're very proud of
that and we're very happy to be
providing that uh this this unique
environment for uh for these
interns the second accomplishment that
uh is Memorial Medical Center's uh uh
Family Practice physician uh physician
Residency program and we developed a
memorandum of understanding for Resident
Physicians to deploy with our mobile
integrated healthc Care Program uh they
have the ability to uh not only like
write prescriptions and do all of their
normal physician related duties but more
importantly this is a very unique
setting for Physicians to actually see
the environment that patients are in the
challenges they have with accessing care
and facilitating their own good health
outcomes and so we feel and and and so
does uh MMC Family Medicine Center that
this is a very important uh area of
their training that they get and this
was also approved by City legal in April
of
2018 and it is a lot of Physicians these
are some of the Physicians that have
gone out and worked with me uh in the
fields over the past year and a half um
and uh we think it's a wonderful
partnership we think it's a symbiotic
relationship it obviously helps us uh
it's a very unique uh uh experience for
the Physicians and so we're very happy
with this uh program as
well so earlier I talked about transport
ation and yes um
66% of the people that we see have a
problem with
Transportation so uh we now have a
mobile integrated healthc care transport
van um that we uh secured through the
moving of funds um and uh this program
uh ensures that disabled clients can
safely access the services that they
need uh in the community at the time
that they uh they need them
um it uh this is the van you've probably
seen it driving around it has a
wheelchair ramp in the back um it can
hold a lot of equipment it's definitely
carrying around a lot of cleaning
supplies and food packages right now um
and we're just we're very happy to have
this as an added tool in our toolbox to
be able to provide services to the
community um and we're also very excited
about our developing opioid overdose
response team so we were awarded a grant
um from Cara for
$500,000 for overdose
Outreach um over the next three years we
are going to use these funds to uh hire
a social
worker and develop a response model for
an overdose response uh Team so what we
are going to do is that for every
overdose that happens inside city of Los
Cruses we are going to go out and meet
that individual and the family where
they are at and offer them services to
to hopefully facilitate a good outcome
for that individual uh regarding their
challenges with addiction and uh there
are usually a myriad of things on top of
just Naran and medication assisted
treatment we're going to offer both of
those things to those individuals but
through our years of doing this type of
work and this is very similar to the
type of model that we do with our cas
management model but it's going to
function
independently we anticipate that we are
going to identify food
vulnerabilities uh housing challenges
people that need primary care and people
that need Behavioral Health provider so
we're going to use that as an
opportunity to navigate these
individuals toward those Services as
well so we also wanted to take some time
to talk about the outputs demands and
efficiencies uh that we accomplished in
2019 so in
2019 we went out to somebody's home or
place where they were at and met them
where they were at and provided Services
times and then that next bullet client
resource
interventions has to do with anytime
that I or one of the other mih
paramedics makes a phone call to a
healthcare stakeholder facilitates an
appointment uh uh takes somebody to the
doctor's office uh calls and and uh
enrolls somebody in a service anytime
that we do anything for that individual
that is a client resource intervention
and then it is it is logged in our
system and we did that
1,080 times last
year the demands the number of
third-party referrals that we had and a
third party referral would be anytime
that somebody calls us or generates a
referral for us to assist with somebody
that it wasn't a referral that came from
a fire crew on an engine or an internal
referral with the fire department so 70
out of the 134 referrals that we got
last year were thirdparty referrals and
that number is growing as the community
becomes more aware of the services that
we are providing the community
and then we also uh we identify people
that call 911 frequently and we we
target that population to provide
services as well and uh we uh there were
33 different individuals that utilized
911 uh a high level last
year so the
results um some results that we take a
look at is we want to ensure that 90% of
our mih participants reduced their use
of the 911 system and in 2019 28 out of
the 30 graduates had a reduction in
acute care utilization so this is
93.3% the second bullet down is that we
want to ensure that 75% of our
participants have a primary care
provider and in 2019 29 out of 30 of the
participants that we work with had
primary care that's also a very high per
percentage and then the third bullet
there is we want to make sure that our
mih participants have some sort of
alternative transportation to their
health care provider and we had that
marked very high at 75% and that's very
challenging in the community um but
through our secure of our mobile
integrated healthc care van that we have
we're able to ensure that we can provide
reliable transportation and make sure
our clients can make their appointments
100% of the time so those are all um
very uh we're very proud of all of those
numbers that we've been able to achieve
I wanted to take some time also to talk
about coid because a lot of what's
happening in the community with coid uh
comes across my desk and my my team ends
up going out there to provide services
to to the community um in these types of
situations so from March through May of
um the mobile integrated healthc Care
Program assisted city of Los Cruz's
senior programs with case management of
their high-risk seniors after the senior
centers and their infield case
management program was shut down due to
quarantine so we up staffed with mih
paramedics to provide case management uh
for 43 high-risk seniors and we
discovered a huge need for food and
prescription delivery as well as
checking on their welfare in person or
over the phone in fact the number of
home visits we were providing increased
by
340% by the time we were in the month of
April during the pandemic we provided
comprehensive needs assessments ongoing
infield case management and we adhered
to involving uh evolving uh infection
control policies and procedures we
provided transportation to and from
doctor's offices and we coordinated with
uh food and Supply delivery uh to
include uh toiletries food prescriptions
and those welfare checks that we were
doing uh we have stabilized a tad since
the start of it all but it's very
important to understand that we are
still doubled the amount of home visits
that we normally go on and the number of
referrals that we are getting is still
higher than normal we are averaging four
referrals a day
now so what are some of those challenges
that we see in our program so the
external challenges that we have limited
control over are very important to
recognize so you heard me talk earlier
that Medicare does not cover personal
caregiver services in the home that is a
huge barrier for the senior
population U the pathway for long-term
care or nursing home care uh requires an
admitting diagnosis you know the patient
has to go through this convoluted
pathway that I talked about a little bit
before and that's very challenging
because if we identify somebody that
needs to go to a nursing home but they
don't have an admitting diagnosis to get
into the hospital that can be very
challenging uh to overcome that and then
obviously substance abuse and and mental
illness creates a lot of client
ambivalence towards change that we have
to
overcome and uh citizens can refuse any
level of Health Care at any time which
is incredibly incredibly complicated for
us and creates a lot of
challenges um so we wanted to make sure
that we touched upon the fact that this
is very much a community problem um I
pulled this quote from the Wall Street
Journal in February and it really uh
puts a uh it really puts the stamp on
the senior health care crisis that we're
facing it specifically says how
Healthcare is faced with individuals who
clearly can't manage themselves in their
own homes but absolutely refuse to go to
assisted living facilities or nursing
homes the key to reducing self-neglect
cases is providing services to enable
seniors to remain in their hes safely
such as reliable transportation for
medical appointments and grocery
shopping as well as affordable home help
with chores and regular monitoring so
yes I've been saying this for a very
long time but it's very sobering when it
then pops up that it's in the Wall
Street Journal and that this is a
national problem it's it's not
necessarily just a city of Los Cruses
problem or a Los cruus fire department
problem so what are some of the next
steps that we're looking at in the
future because in Mobile integrated
Healthcare in the fire department we're
always trying to forge that next step to
see what we can do to help the
community um so we want to combine our
mobile Integrated Health Care Program
and the concept surrounding that program
with a mobile crisis intervention team
and we want to utilize this model that
we've developed um that has been very
successful in the community and curtail
it for mental and behavioral
calls we want to improve the crisis for
spot system um and and we are hoping to
by doing this reduce arrests or use of
force
incidents and uh we want to very much
create a curtailed and trained response
to Behavioral Health crisis calls
sending the right people with the right
training to the right individual at the
right time is how you facilitate a good
health outcome and that's what we want
to do and we want to now do that in
mobile crisis and for the Behavioral
Health Community and we're also hoping
that in doing so this will reduce the
number of Crisis Intervention team
police
responses so a little bit about the Los
crus Police Department's Crisis
Intervention team unit um it is composed
of six uniform officers who function
within their respective shifts units or
teams as Specialists they are very
highly trained in handling calls
involving the mentally ill and they do
that every day and they work in
cooperation with all of the mental
health healthare providers and
stakeholders in the community to ensure
that the most appropriate intervention
response
occurs these officers successfully treat
Advanced uh successfully complete excuse
me advanced Crisis Intervention training
and some of that training includes
behavioral uh management and Crisis
Intervention dispute intervention and
conflict
management uh suicide and how to how to
address barricaded subjects the dealing
with persons with mental impairments
crisis communication deescalation skills
and active listening the reason that
this is all up here is I wanted to make
sure that everybody understood that the
CIT team is very highly trained and they
have a lot of of uh they have a a lot of
knowledge skills and abilities that they
can put towards uh assisting with this
population um these officers follow up
on Los cruus police department calls for
service that contain some sort of a
mental health or mental illness
component and it's very important to
understand that this encompasses 1,500
calls for service and that's over a
three-year average um those are all
Crisis Intervention team
calls and it is of those calls 900 of
those result in a protective custody
issue where the police officer places
the individual in protective custody and
takes them to the eer mergency
room so I think it's important to
discuss um at this point that we have
completed a request for proposal for a
six-month pilot
program um where we want to create a
team uh for that will have one licensed
clinical social
worker and a contracted psychologist for
phone
consults and then we want to pair that
with a mobile integrated Healthcare
trained paramedic firefighter and a
crisis intervention trained police
officer so and it's on this page I
wasn't sure it was going to be here but
and specifically a PL close police
officer uh especially when we're looking
at the climate of the nation and the
community that we currently have right
now how is that going to operate they
are going to respond to 911 behavioral
calls within City Limits they're going
to identify these high utilizers of the
911 system that have a behavioral
component they're going to allow for
referrals from Health Care stakeholders
and the community and they're going to
determine the best Pathways for patients
in the field in an interdisciplinary
approach now we think this is important
because this is really prevention we
want to do a proactive Outreach to those
identified High utilizers and prevent an
incident from happening and we want to
intervene where a licensed clinical
social worker is going to be responding
for
treatment and this is this uh this
PowerPoint was actually created in
October this is no longer a draft this
RFP has been uh approved at this
point okay so strategy and
results the other things that we want to
do because we can't just do that without
addressing the entire system as a whole
we also want to get all the mental
health stakeholders together and we want
to create a community mental coalition
to try to get everybody together and to
see what we can do as a community to
ensure that these individuals have
meaningful appropriate Pathways to
access care the other thing that we're
looking for is is that we want to reduce
the number of Crisis Intervention team
calls and then we're going to document
all of the data uh for this program uh
and revisit this after six
months um if the six months is over and
uh we feel very strongly that this is a
good model we're going to request an
extension of time and seek additional
funding so I I certainly appreciate all
of the time today I know I talked a lot
about a lot of different things that are
going going on in the community um and
at this point we would like to stand for
any questions and I certainly appreciate
the the
time thank you um Chief
hriz and um Paul um um Mr Ford are you
lieutenant I don't want to get that
incorrect George firefighter Ford is
fine Paul is fine Mr Ford is fine all of
those are fine ma'am okay fire fighter
for thank you um
um okay councelor
bosquez thank you mayor protm uh thank
you Chief Enriquez and Mr
Ford um uh this is really exciting I I
got to admit I didn't realize the
breadth of services that you were
offering um through this service in the
past and um it sounds like people in our
community certainly are taking advantage
of um of your services you know I know
that
um Aging in place is a is a big deal for
a lot of folks um uh that requires a lot
of personal uh attention obviously
routine Medical Care um and really the
identification of folks who U need some
extra assistance and how to provide that
extra assistance to them either through
a homebased care setting or you know um
uh rehabilitative kind of therapy and
that kind of thing um that sometimes
includes that physical impairment or
Mobility that prevents folks from
driving or or doing those regular things
around the house um so Mr Ford um so you
mentioned that was the the largest uh
essentially user group of folks who
utilize the services is that
correct mayor Pro 10 councelor Vasquez
that's correct uh it it's two different
types of people that we see more often
the first would be the senior community
with Mobility issues it's on Medicare
for the the those challenges and then
the second most prominent would be the
disabled individuals uh on Medicaid that
have a behavioral health and a substance
abuse component however those
individuals when we identify those
individuals they call 911 far more
frequently than the other population but
there are not as many of those that we
identify uh totally understood thank you
Mr Ford um currently for those Medicare
patient that are aging in place and have
mobility issues that require your
services or assistance um who use the
911 Service as there uh any type of
referrals that you give them to um any
local uh options for to you know for
them to receive that type of care or is
it your understanding that there there
aren't any at this
point uh May Pro 10 councelor Vasquez we
generate referrals to all of the various
Healthcare stakeholders that we identify
would be most appropriate for that
individual at that time it could be that
they need Meals on Wheels it could be
that they need to go to their primary
care and get a wheelchair because they
don't have one it could be a variety of
things and over the uh the time that
myself and the other paramedics in this
program have been working we know what
is available in the community and we
know the pathways uh to uh to take for
these individuals to get the services
that they need there will always be
barers Co has created more barriers one
of the large barriers would be if this
person needs to be admitted to the
hospital or this person needs to go to a
skilled nursing facility for physical
therapy or this person needs a nursing
home placement that would be very
complicated right now but we can still
get that individual food we can still
educate them about prescription delivery
from small business pharmacies we can
still facilitate a referral to see if we
can get a rant built we can still bring
them a wheelchair and get them to
primary care and and and get home health
ordered we we can still do things but
those barriers are changing every day so
yes I think it's important to recognize
that tomorrow I don't know what's going
to happen but today I have a pretty good
idea of what it is that we can and can't
do for somebody that changes every day
and we just do the best that we can with
what we
have thank you Mr Ford that that's
really a tremendous service that we have
for our population here um and I say
that because if we uh if we were
offering this through a private provider
this same type of response um one is the
the level of care and sensitivity and
understanding of people's personal
situations who are Los cruus residents
and not customers of a company to me um
is is a different level of attention
that I think um some of our folks
deserve and so I think I would love to
continue to to to fund this program and
to have this program work the other is
you know often times when you do work
with private contractors um uh they they
will you know essentially want to refer
folks to businesses that are within
their business Network or have you know
Financial stake in in the referrals that
they make and and I don't think that's
exactly what we're looking for when
we're just trying to help people um not
saying that that can't be done by a
private operator but I just think you
know the F the fire department in Los
crus has no Financial stake or care in
where a person receives services or how
they receive Services um and so I think
it's really important to have that um
independent referral um right that's not
tied to a uh you know any any type of
financial monetary gain for an
individual or a business I think that's
really important so thank you for that
um and then regarding the the folks um
who may be suffering from mental issues
um or drug abuse or drug um related kind
of episodes uh what type of um referral
system is currently available for them
maybe you could walk me through one of
those those situations and what
typically happens uh when you encounter
that and and respond first to one of
those
situations mayor proen counselor um
bosquez uh that's a it's a very
convoluted pathway um when you're well
behavioral health
patients um they access 911 when they
have a crisis and they present at the
emergency room if they don't present at
the emergency room they usually present
at what is known as an acute behavioral
health facility and that would be a
facility like msia Valley Rio Vista or
the peak those are uh the major ones in
this area however in order to intake
these patients oftentimes they need to
get medically cleared and so these
patients might knock on the door at one
of these acute Behavioral Health
Facilities but they ultimately wind up
in the emergency room and that has to do
with liability and that's some of the
challenges and then we could get into a
long conversation about why the crisis
triage Center would potentially remove
that but let's uh let's move past that
so patient uh is then in the emergency
room now one of the challenges that we
have Across the Nation is psychiatry in
the emergency room is very limited and
so a patient might be seen at the
emergency room and they have a soar on
their leg or they might have some
medical problems and it might go missed
that this individual has significant
Dementia or psychosis and they don't
meet admitting criteria for the actual
medical side of what's going on with
them so then they make their way out the
door there are a lot of individuals that
wind up in the emergency room that have
a behavioral health disorder but they go
unnoticed or they go missed or they
don't have an admitting diagnosis for
whatever reason there's a lot of
different Pathways that can result in
them actually walking out the door
without receiving Services that's one
issue but let's say that they do they
get identified as as being uh in need of
services and then uh the case management
team will do what's known as a blanket
send and what they will do is they will
send to all of the acute Behavioral
Health Facilities in the community and
see who will accept this patients and if
one of those individuals accepts that
patient then that patient would be
transferred by ambulance or maybe some
other type of form but usually by
ambulance to that facility that
individual will then get a 7 to 10 day
stay only at that acute behavioral
health facility and that is for the
simple reason that that is what's
covered by their insurance now for these
individuals 7 to 10 days is not really
long enough to facilitate a good outcome
with these individuals and it's
certainly not long enough for this
individual to just be released without
some sort of followup what usually
happens if they're they're discharged
with a referral for a behavioral health
provider that they have to facilitate
getting to that appointment they are
given uh some prescriptions for
medication uh at their local pharmacy
that they have to facilitate getting
over there and picking up and so they
have to do those two things and if they
don't do those two things then they uh
they deteriorate and one of the other
problems while we're on the topic is
that if these individuals go home they
often feel great because they have been
treated for 7 to 10 days and because
they feel great they don't feel like
they have to worry about that
appointment they don't feel like they
have to worry about picking up that
prescription and there's nobody that's
going to go and pick up those two things
and pick up that ball and run with it
for those individuals so those
individuals over time they deteriorate
again and they wind back up in the
emergency room in some way shape or form
or the police officer has a run in with
that individual and then that individual
winds up at the emergency room um and so
so that Roundy uh continues over and
over and over again um and it's a it's a
major issue and that is a whole other
ball of wax compared to the other two
types of patients I was talking about
and I do get patients like that um and
uh and they are they they require a a
lot of a tremendous amount of time and
energy to facilitate a good health
outcome because of all of those things
that we talked
about thank you Mr Ford um and I think
that reflects a lot of what we've heard
in the past in terms of that Continuum
of Care and how to assure that people
are you know getting the treatment in
the follow-up that they need um you know
I think it's we have a pretty broken
system when it comes to um you know
actually following through on that um so
I may have missed this Mr Ford but when
so if you get a 911 call for somebody
having a medical issue uh I'm assuming
if they that individual is um perceived
as non-threatening or non-violent or
non-threat to their Community uh do does
the fire department then respond um
versus the police department or how how
does that get determined in terms of
what kind of response uh an individual
gets who who who is not already at the
emergency room at the
hospital uh mayor proen councelor
Vasquez so when you're specifically
talking about a a 911 call when a 911
call comes in the dispatcher has roughly
a minute to make a decision as to what
it's going to code the call as and what
units they're going to send um since
2013 the fire department doesn't respond
to specifically coded Behavioral Health
calls and the reason was that at the
time um sending four firemen in a fire
engine wasn't necessarily improving or
facilitating a good health outcome for
that individual now we have all of the
we have this whole wing of Community
Health and Wellness uh that we do in the
fire department and as we move forward
in the future we very much want to be
involved in those types of calls and we
anticipate that we will be involved in
those types of calls in the future what
we want to do is with that mobile crisis
response program that we're going to put
together we want to send that individual
or those that specific team to that call
that way we're not necessarily sending
an ambulance we're not sending four
firemen in a fire engine we're sending a
very highly skilled team of people that
understand how to meet that individual
where they're at and navigate them to
whatever level of care that we have that
is available in the community at that
time it might be depending upon what's
going on it might be a that we take that
individual to see a behavior health
provider right right then and there we
might take that individual to messia
Valley for an assessment we might take
that individual to Peak to enroll them
in their partial hospitalization program
we might take that individual to the
crisis triage Center I don't know where
we are going to take that individual but
I know that that team should be the one
that makes the decision as to where we
send that person and we don't
necessarily we want to get to a point
where we don't send that individual to
the emergency room anymore the e
mergency room is not only a very
expensive and these individuals are on
State Health Care programs such as
Medicare and Medicaid but it's also a
very uh longlasting uh experience for
the patient that doesn't yield them the
level of care and services that they
need for a very long time and maybe they
went to msia Valley to seek Services we
plopped them in an ambulance we took
them up to the emergency room they
waited there for 4 hours and then no
acute behavioral health facility
accepted them the hospital determined
that they weren't a danger to themselves
or others so they walked out and they go
what happened I went to this facility I
wanted help and I didn't get any and
that's that's because of that pathway
that we have we want to remove that
pathway and we want to make sure that
these individuals are having a really
good tailored customer service
experience to address their their uh
their behavioral health needs and that's
the reason why we're doing that program
thank you Mr Ford I wholeheartedly
believe in this model and I think when
we talk about um this type of community
response that we all look for for people
that are in crisis for a variety of
different reasons um that this is what
it should look like right that folks
should be met with assistance with
compassion with resources I mean
everything like you said down to
transportation to the actual facility
not just counting on folks to um again
drop them off at the hospital and and as
you said perhaps they get released and
not not admitted to the the type of help
that they need um I mean I Envision this
type of response being you know the the
solution to so many of um the situations
that we often encounter that turn deadly
or that turn adversarial or where people
get hurt in our community um and so I
I'm I'm very much interested in learning
more and figuring out how we can support
this um in fact I mean this takes takes
the Miss I mean it you're the fire
department right traditionally um but
it's it's more like a community care
Department um you know it doesn't sound
as cool as the fire department but um
really I think that's what you do and I
think that's what I'd like to see you
know that I love seeing our our
department transition into that um
because there is that great need and we
are filling that Gap um two more quick
questions Mr Ford one is the RFP that
you posted up there the draft RFP could
you just comment on that on what that
was for and with the process of that it
uh where that's at now so for uh uh
mayor proen councelor Vasquez for for
the specific question related to the RFP
how we arrived at the RFP and where
we're going with the RFP I'm going to
defer that question to uh fire chief
Eric Enriquez okay thank
you all right thank you Paul uh mayor
protim and councelor bosquez thank you
um the the RFP uh was developed so that
we could get a request for a proposal to
get that uh licensed clinical social
worker and then also a clinical
psychiatrist that can be there ver uh
basically like tele medicine but it's
it's a concept of building a team and so
to go out to the RFP to see who in the
community um different health care
agencies mental health care agencies
that will help us with this scope of
work which we're looking at prevention
intervention and treatment and being
able to get that in the field by having
this mobile crisis intervention team and
being able to help the individual as
soon as possible but um you know as as
as you say it's not tradition
traditional for the fire department but
uh it's it's also not what police and
fire do we don't do the intervention and
the treatment that has to be a subject
matter EXP exper who is licensed
certified H has the ability and and has
that mental uh Health Care background
and so we're going to team up with them
to help us to assist these people
because we're the ones that get called
we're the ones that go out and respond
and we have to deal with it and we want
to deal with it as you said in a very
compassionate and caring way to help the
individuals because you know everyone
has the underlying issues and we're just
trying to help them connect all the dots
and and and give them a quality of life
and so the RFP is has uh has already
gone through the sack committee uh it's
it's been approved will be posted here
pretty soon unfortunately you know like
we do have a holiday this week so a
short week but it should be out uh next
week to all the health care uh agencies
uh to bid on and then uh based on the
dollar amount uh we will bring that back
to city council if it's over that 75,000
threshold
and and see what uh you all as Council
are willing to help us out with and see
what we can do with that
RFP thank you Chief uh but follow up on
that real quick so the RFP again is is
that for a um in like a Consultants uh
consultant type of role for a mental
health care agency to help you design
the type or or identify the types of
resources that you need for this or or
is this for a a clinical social licensed
clinical social work worker and a
psychiatrist to uh contract with uh and
and if so what would what exactly would
their job be yeah uh basically it would
be the uh the contract position okay um
you know it's thrown out there that even
if there's a a uh mental health care
provider uh such as a clinic that offers
all that then the agency can also look
at putting into that with with having
the individuals but we're looking for
those that have the certifications and
the background the experience uh the
technical skills and then we're looking
at cost as well and their their past
performance in this field of
work okay great thank you and um uh I
don't know if this is a question for you
Chief or uh Mr Ford but um the role of
the the police uh Las cruus police
department and the evolution of of this
um crisis mobile crisis inter vention
program uh could you just speak a little
bit more to that and what conversations
you've had with um interim Chief
Dominguez on on moving forward on this
where's the talk a little bit about the
Synergy there yes sir I I'll answer that
councelor
bosquez we we we are moving forward
actually uh Sergeant Bob McCord and Paul
Ford uh team up together already on on
calls that warrant someone who has maybe
either uh a background with violence or
uh mental issues so that they can work
on this together so we've already been
doing that I've spoken to interim Chief
uh Dominguez and we're on board that
we're we're not going to wait for the
RFP we're gonna we're going to create a
a team where one of the police officers
it's a CIT uh trained officer ride with
with Paul Ford and some of the other uh
mih uh paramedics so that we can start
building that team and starting to work
together yeah we're we're moving forward
with this as as we
speak thank you Chief um and thank you
mayor poam I see my colleagues have some
comments and questions so I will leave
it there for now thank
[Music]
you thank you councelor Vasquez much
appreciated great questions um next up
is councelor
bomo thank you mayor PM um thank you so
much um Mr Ford and Chief Enriquez not
only for the presentation but for
everything you do in our community I
think Mr Ford you've become a household
name people talk about you all the time
and I think it just goes to the level of
of care that you have for our community
and the passion that you do your your
job um I have a couple questions about
um the presentation on mih and then I do
have a couple questions about the the
larger mobile crisis response model um
oh also and thanks to Dr delosa for
being being on um you know I I purposely
didn't take his research class because
uh students were scared of him so I just
have to say that he's got that good
reputation but as a as a alumni of the
NMSU social work department it's great
to have you on Dr
delosa
um Mr Ford out of the 554 folks you
served in two in
2019 um would you say so what what I
heard you say that the majority of those
were 55 and older is that right or or
what do you think the age breakdown of
that
is Mayor Pro 10 counselor Ben Como um
very rarely is somebody not over the age
of 55 very uh rarely is somebody not a
senior um uh 65 and over
um and that's for a variety of reasons
but I mean obviously we're a very uh
we're very much a senior r retirement
community we're very much a senior
transplant Community where there are
seniors that live here and the rest of
their family doesn't live here for
whatever reason and this is a very
attractive Community for seniors with
which to come and retire and they they
when they when they arrive here their
Mobility is good their health is good
but over time that creates challenges
for them
uh with regard to the other type of
client that I see that's on Medicaid
that individual is usually over the age
of 55 I don't know why that is other
than the fact that if you have a lot of
medical problems and you have substance
abuse and behavioral health component
you age much more quickly than somebody
that doesn't have those things that has
a lot to do there's been many articles
that are written about poverty and how
poverty creates further health problems
for individuals because they can't
always facilitate a good health outcome
but also they have had long-standing
disability behavioral health and
substance abuse so when they get to that
age of 55 and over they are in essence a
senior but they're not a senior on paper
and it's interesting because it creates
a lot of problems because um I can't get
give that person Meals on Wheels um and
uh and and and other things that they
can't get but the flip side is that they
have other things at their disposal if
hopefully they're on medic
they have a caregiver and they have
those things but the short answer is
that yes once in a while I have somebody
that is um that is much younger than
that but it is always a behavioral
health situation and they are always on
Medicaid or Medicare actually I've never
had anybody that was on private
insurance private insurance is very good
at weeding out people that they don't
want to cover and these individuals have
a lot of challenges and so I have never
had any body that was on private
insurance they're always on Medicare or
Medicaid yeah thanks for that that
actually leads to my next question um
right in terms of um economic status
right and wondering if most of the folks
you're seeing are in fact low-income
individuals low-income families um but I
think you just answered that I um I also
wonder if there's patterns in terms of
like Geographic areas in the city of
where you're sort of seeing people and
and um clients um recently I was um
introduced by a fellow social worker
actually um to this really great website
economic Innovation group and they have
this distressed communities distressed
communities index um where really they
break it down by ZIP code in terms of
how distressed these neighborhoods are
in our community in terms of and they
look at several factors right in terms
of um poverty rate high school diploma
PE adults not working housing um
insecurity right like several things and
I'd be curious to to know from you if if
you see somewhat of a pattern in and
where you're finding folks um and where
they live in the
city mayor Pro 10 counselor benom yes
there absolutely is a an an mih Bermuda
Triangle for lack of a better uh term it
it is in various areas I would be very
uh happy to discuss with the chief how
we would go about getting you a map so
you can see where the disparities are in
the community um but yes there are
certain areas in Los crusis and it is
very much tied to uh to income and
specifically housing because um
low-income housing is going to create uh
uh areas where there are more
individuals that that have uh challenges
related to poverty and poor health
outcomes yeah I would I would definitely
love to see um that map that map of
disparities I think probably all of my
colleagues I know I sit on the housing
and transportation prc's and I think
those would be critical for us to
discuss um in those prcs and probably
all the other prcs this is this is so
holistic what you do that I think it
just Cress all kinds of um policy
decision that we need to be making for
sure so I would love to see that map um
I'm curious about your timeline to hire
your Mi so your social worker that you
want to hire is is in addition to the
social worker for the RFP
right uh uh mayor proen counselor Ben
comoo yes so we have our opiate overdose
outreach program we are actively in the
process of hiring uh a a case manager
SLS social worker for that
program and then for the mobile uh
crisis response program we would also
want a licensed clinical social worker
for that and a prescribing psychologist
so those are all these are three
different programs the first program is
our mobile integrated healthc care
intensive case management program that
we currently work on then there is the
opiate uh uh overdose response program
that we are developing and we are going
to implement um in January and then
there is going to be the mobile
integrated uh apologies mobile crisis
response Pro uh team that we are going
to uh look at implementing in the future
and that is going to be yet another
licensed clinical social worker okay
okay great thank you for clarifying that
on the overdose response team who do you
um who will make up that team so this
soci this particular social worker you
perhaps uh mayor proen counselor Ben
comoo so we are definitely going to have
somebody that we hire who is going to be
a licensed social
worker uh or has that type of training
and we are going to ensure that they
have a very high level of of uh overdose
related training that is going to be
provided us through the department of
Health we're going to seek further
training through um through Santa Fe
through our our care Grant and then on
top of that we are going to earmark and
identify a a firefighter in the city of
Los crusis and we are going to make sure
that they have all of the training that
they have I can't say right now because
it's still fairly early in the process
whether or not it's going to be somebody
that already has a high level of mobile
integrated Healthcare Training or
whether or not it's going to be a
paramedic but one of the reasons why we
need that is for the uh the level of
security uh and also the the level of
trust that the fire department brings to
the team in order to provide that type
of
Outreach yeah definitely I think that's
I think that's really important that you
that you all understand that right like
what role you play in the community and
and how people see you all for sure
thank you for that I'm wondering if
there's anybody on um from LCPD to talk
about about the crisis intervention
teams i' I'd like to understand more
about their training and what they
training um you know uh Mr Ford you
mentioned that they have significant um
training and and some of these things
and so I wonder what that looks like and
just how significant it
is good afternoon everybody interim
Chief U for the record uh mayor coner
bomo we uh I have in my office right now
socially distanced of course uh Sergeant
Bob McCord he'd be able to answer that
question for
you yes good afternoon ma'am um thank
you the uh just to give you a kind of a
background on our Crisis Intervention
Program we started it about 12 years ago
we're actually um operating before then
um but it was just beefed up about 12 or
13 years ago in 2008 uh um and basically
what we did is um um we have several
programs that we put on there's uh when
you come through the academy you get uh
State mandated 44 hours of Crisis
Intervention training we actually do
more than that um I think there's an
additional four hours that we put on of
scenario Based training um after about a
year and a half um once the officer is
out of fto we put them through a more
advanced 40-hour train training which
certifies them um to be a crisis
intervention trained officer and
basically uh it goes through as fire
fire Ford explained um a lot of dispute
intervention conflict management
deescalation skills um basically it's
communication and active listening
skills that they're taught in this
40-hour class um in addition to that so
well back up just a moment we have about
91% of the department is Crisis
intervention trained where they have
that 40-hour uh CIT training um we have
six members on the unit um that are um a
part of our what we describe as our
crisis intervention team and the uh
they're spread out across the shifts so
that the whole plan is even though um
with 91% of our department trained in
CIT there's there's always somebody on
on the on the uh um shift who has been
through the 40-hour train and with these
six additional officers hopefully the
the plan is to have somebody who has a
little bit more advanced training in CIT
uh has more interest in and dealing with
folks in mentally mental crisis um so in
addition what they get is just a little
bit more training just simply because of
their interest um they're able to uh
get that more advanced type training so
if if something comes open that I can
send them to I'll I'll send them to uh a
more advanced training or um typically
what we've done in the past also is get
officers to attend the uh CIT annual
conference this way we can stay ahead of
the uh the trends and stuff that are
coming on
Nationwide um it's always been it's been
in our benefit as well uh ma'am we are
the Premier agency in my opinion in in
sou in New Mexico and I know we are in
Southern New Mexico we've trained um
numerous departments um throughout
southern New Mexico uh to include
federal agencies as well and parole
probation so I'm quite proud of those
numbers that uh um we've boasted in that
we've also helped like uh we were
instrumental in giving part of our
program to other departments like Mo to
get their Crisis Intervention team
started so that's kind of in a nutshell
gives you the the training that that our
officers have gone through thank you so
much Sergeant McCord I appreciate that
and then just to clarify it's
44 plus some hours and then after
they're done with their probationary
period another 40 a year and do they
have to do that every year or how does
that work or is it I'm sorry that's good
good point you brought up so the the 4 2
4 hours is not a that they get in the
academy is not a certification it's just
a state mandate um so they through this
uh Department of Public Safety they give
us a curriculum we follow that
curriculum and Implement that training
um we we typically give an extra four
hours of uh scenario Based training for
them in the academy now um we take the
uh the 40h hour is a
certification that you basically shows
you've attended a CIT course where you
get the 40 hours um we do 16 hours of
banal training every two years uh the
state only mandates two hours for that
but we do an additional 16 hours I'm
sorry not an additional we just do 16
hours eight of those are um scenario
based um and pretty much the other eight
hours is just a catch up on any Trends
or um new develop velopments that have
gone on in Crisis
Intervention thank you yes ma'am yes yes
thank you Sergeant McCord I appreciate
you jumping on and thank you um minam
Chief Dominguez for jumping on as well
um I just wanted to understand the C our
internal CIT program a little bit better
um you know in terms of the larger
mobile crisis response model thank you
so much for that presentation and for
you know putting your heads together and
coming up with this think for some of us
on this council at least I know a couple
of my colleagues and I have really been
pushing
for um at least important for me a
non-law
enforcement crisis unit um right one
that is made up of um experts clinicians
people who um you know it's not a matter
of 40 hours uh and then 16 hours by
annually but this is their entire career
right this is what they are trained to
do at school this is what they have to
do um continual education on every
single day so for me um a non-law
enforcement unit is critical and crucial
I appreciate right I think Mr Ford
talked about a plain closed um officer
part as part of this unit I think I
while that's important and I think
that's um critical you know even just an
example right last year with the Asylum
Seekers when I was at the triage Center
working there with the Asylum Seekers
the sheriff's there they were wearing
regular clothes and it was an important
part of of that environment right and I
think at the end of the day it's it's
psychological it's it's going to impact
the way you feel whether you feel safe
or not and so for me um I'd like to
continue pushing for um a non-law
enforcement crisis unit that that shows
up in moments of distress and you know
Mr Ford made a great point about we want
to keep people out of the emergency room
I would add that we also want to keep
people out of jail we also want to keep
people out of the Detention Center um
which for far too long has been used to
um to care for some of these societal
problems that we're talking about right
people in poverty people in with
addiction and so um for me it's it's
really important and and I think over
and over the research show that those
are the most successful
programs um both in the outcomes of you
know People's Health and ensuring that
people don't end up either emergency
room or jail but also in building
Community Trust um and and sort of
gaining that back so I just wanted to
name um those couple of things um I also
have a question for you know I think Mr
Ford or um Chief Enriquez in terms of
longetivity and sustain stainability and
capacity right I think Mr Ford you're
probably the busiest person that works
for this city and I wonder what you know
I'm glad you're bringing somebody else
on I'm really glad that you have social
work interns man if this would have been
an opportunity while I was getting my
masters I would have jumped on it um but
I do you know I want to raise a question
of like sustainability and and what does
this look like in the long term for you
as um a you know a staff that have your
limits right and and so what what's your
vision for for this program and you know
you posed some of those external
challenges Mr Ford I'd like to
understand some of the internal
challenges U mayor proam counselor bomo
yes it is very challenging yes we have
uh limited staff we are always going to
try to push the envelope to expand
especially when we have uh four
referrals a day that we're getting right
now I can't go see4 referrals a day um
my counterpart right now uh firefighter
paramedic Eric Palma he is a tremendous
asset to the fire department he is
currently out there trying to do
comprehensive needs assessments on all
four of these referrals that we got
today but meanwhile there are other
things that are happening while he's
doing those uh those referrals so we
will um we will we will consistently be
advocating for expansion in the
high-risk case management program that
we currently do right now um there there
will probably want to be expansion in
whatever our mobile uh crisis response
program looks like and we may end up
deciding based on the data that we want
to continue and expand the opiate
overdose Outreach overdoses are not
necessarily going to reduce as coid
continues there's more trauma there's
more challenges there's more poverty
there's all sorts of more more more bad
stuff and so there's going to be uh more
pain and suffering and there's going to
be uh and that's going to create more
overdoses and more and more um and more
usage drug usage so I I think there's
going to be room to growth in uh room
for growth in the future for all three
of these programs and I'm I'm very sure
that at some point in the future that we
will be back here discussing the fact
that we want two or three Paul Fords for
this and we want uh two or three Paul
fors for that one of the challenges with
that is that we have a lot of different
firefighters in the fire department
they're all very good at a variety of
different things and we have to
consistently ear Mark and provide
training to those individuals so that we
have the right people that is doing this
type of work absolutely thank you for
that oh Chief Enriquez did you I saw you
reach perhaps to unmute did you want to
jump
in yes uh Chief henriquez again mayor
protim and counselor Ben comoo to to to
add to that uh I think in the convers
ation whether counselor bosquez or
yourself talking about being uh
Community oriented you know one of the
things that the fire service is trending
towards is community risk reduction
whether it's fires whether it's EMS
whether it's Health Care these type of
things and that's where we're headed and
we see that and and and we'll need to
collect all the data so we'll constantly
collect the data I can tell you
cost-wise it it it costs $60 an hour to
send Fort and the mobile uh Integrated
Health van out uh four firefighters in
an apparatus is
$252 but but the cost to send someone to
the hospital to send someone to the
correction facilities it's a community
cost uh it it's going to entail more uh
meetings and coalitions in order to get
those Partners in the community to help
us sustain this as well so that that's
what we'll be looking at doing for the
future as well
I'm sorry May pend and uh councelor bom
if I can just add to that in terms of
the the research and what we know the
effectiveness of these types of model uh
cost Effectiveness Studies have found
that um the cost of of emergency room
visit um is is saved and even greater by
having these types of um mobile crisis
response team uh and the secret sauce is
having individualized care plan these
are marginalized vulnerable population
that are falling through the cracks and
these kinds of teams are able to in an
interdisciplinary format go in and and
look at each individual case and develop
a plan that is you know appropriate to
that particular individual's need so and
that's that's what we're finding from
the research in the long run in terms of
sustainability we will save money thank
you very much Dr delar Roa I think
that's right on I mean all the research
I've read about this right I think even
um from the Cahoots program in Oregon
they talk about the significant amount
of dollars they've saved um their city
and their Police Department right but
also even um judge areta talked about
this about the the cost between
incarcerating someone and putting
someone through something like drug
court right is significantly cheaper and
it's not just about cost it's about
quality of life right I think we all can
agree on that as well um
and um I did I don't know it uh Chief
Dominguez um Min Chief Dominguez I don't
you might not have this immediately but
I would love to know how about how many
of your
calls um to the to act that police
officers actually go out to the
percentage that are related to mental
health or addiction um perhaps you all
do know that now and then um but if not
that's okay I'd love to maybe someone
can email that to me or to us the last
question I have because I could talk
about this for a really long time as
well Mr Ford um the last question I have
though is um Chief Enriquez you
mentioned um the
RFP you know and if that came sort of um
below the 75,000 what else though are we
what else what's the other components of
the RP like who else are we looking for
right it's not just about cost like who
like what kind of um experience and
expertise do we want um those those
people who to apply to to
have yes right now what we have in the
RFP because it is a New Concept but
we're looking for those mental health
providers that have the license and the
certifications uh that that's what we're
looking at having at this point so that
they can help us and then we'll continue
to build on that the RFP is also being
uh designed that uh we do a six-month
trial and then after six months if we
see that we need uh more mental health
uh providers or or qualification or
things at that point we can bring those
also to the table uh we talked about uh
even being able to get a like a uh
licensed clinical uh physician that can
also uh do prescriptions as well so that
that way we can get the immediate
treatment any medications and things
like that in the field and and be very
proactive so those are some of the
things that we're looking at again this
is a New Concept that we're looking at
and we'll we'll grow and develop from
there
thank you so much Chief andrius that's
right I want I just I think for me the
last thing I'll say right is just really
advocating to set up a program that's
going to set up up to succeed right and
not set us up to fail I think we're
trying to take on something really huge
unfortunately right Mr Ford really
talked about the disparities in the
Health Care system and the and the
Mental Health Care Systems and so as a
city we're trying our best right to to
do what we can and so I just want to
make sure that we set up a program that
is that sets up that sets us up to to
succeed and so um whatever I can do to
support that I will thank you very much
mayor pem and thanks
everyone mayor protim and counselors
this is Fire Marshall Cody Haver if I
may have a couple of minutes would that
be
okay
absolutely okay thank you uh well for
the record I am uh Cody Haver a
battalion chief and also the fire
marshal for the city of Los cruus fire
department uh I am also the uh battalion
chief that manages the mobile ated
Healthcare program and Fire Prevention
so I have a couple of thoughts maybe a
couple of answers to some questions that
have been brought up along the way um
the first thing is you have kind of
asked about um what is our vision what
are we looking for and the truth is um
we're really looking at this as growing
into a community risk reduction
Department alog together um everybody's
very familiar with um fire prevention
right every year we're involved in with
fire prevention we do inspections of
business bu we do education and Outreach
to the community both adults and kids
we're in the schools um we're in the
community a lot um and with that the the
point to that is that we want to reduce
fire deaths and injuries and destruction
of property right it's it's a prevention
model we're just out there trying to
prevent these things from happening we
know that there will continue to be some
fires um but our response model brings
it to the point where most of the time
we're able to get to fires quickly
enough that we're able to keep that
level of Destruction and injury down to
a
minimum that's exactly what we're trying
to do with not only the mobile
integrated Healthcare program that we've
had for almost four years now um but
also now looking at what is the rest of
the need out in the community um
truthfully a lot of what we have found
has been through through Paul's work um
you know one thing that I'll bring up
I'll just touch on just briefly but um I
was actually the person that Chief
Enriquez chose to begin even researching
mobile Integrated Health and Community
paramedicine to see if that was even a
program we wanted to start in the fire
department about four years ago and in
that research I actually went to
Colorado Springs Fire Department and I
did a ride along of their mobile crisis
response unit for an entire day and
their unit four years ago and it
continues to be that way today and it's
been published in peerreview journals
multiple times is a police off officer
with a social worker and either a
paramedic or a nurse and the team of
them have more advanced training
together in how to deal with mobile
crisis response um one of the questions
that you brought up about law
enforcement and I think they're valid
questions but there are definitely
things that need to be you know
understood and talked about along the
way is you know New Mexico is a state
Colorado is a state they're different
states their laws are different the
regulations are different the way that
they run their Health Care Systems and
Medicaid systems and those typ of things
are different and unfortunately here in
New Mexico I mean you're all very aware
of you know the disparities and the
issues that we have in the entire State
and also here in Los cruus and that's
one of the the problems is that um we
are at the the mercy of some of the
infrastructure in what we can or can't
do um an example that I can bring into
that is you know I can remember just
four years ago being a lieutenant on a
fire engine running calls when mobile
crisis
then was actually out in the community
and and seeing many patients I can
remember getting several 911 calls um
from mobile crisis themselves on scene
and um they were advocating for you know
i' I've got this patient I've got this
client we've been here for an hour or
two we've been talking with them and
doing an assessment on them and we feel
that they need to go to the hospital and
potentially get further treatment well
unfortunately if the person doesn't
agree to that the only option is protect
protective custody a police officer is
the only one that can do protective
custody and I think the important thing
to just kind of throw on the table and
think about is um you know obviously the
police department's very busy there's
you know hundreds of officers out there
on the street and I can remember times
when it's just whichever available
officer patrol officer shows up to the
scene and then us as the fire department
and the case worker on scene would have
to then for 10 minutes explain well the
case manager was on scene and they did
this assessment now the fire
department's on scene and our paramedic
has done this assessment and then we
would have to explain to the police
officer and help justify why they needed
to put them in protective custody and I
think that's the key component of having
a very
specialized um CIT trained officer on a
team is they know the system they know
the team they know how mobile crisis
Works they're actually part of the
mobile crisis and um response model and
they have much better information and
they actually get practiced much more in
how to deal with those types of
situations rather than relying on the
next available patrol officer that may
or may not have had many interactions in
the past so that's just one thought to
kind of throw out there generate a
little bit of discussion about what part
law enforcement might play mobile crisis
response uh for us um and then you know
again I I think it's just very um
important to to you know to put on the
table that obviously we' had many
conversations about the crisis triage
Center and our Mental Health Systems in
general what's available to our
community what um agencies are available
to our community and you know as many of
you and I'm sure Sergeant McCord and
Paul will all Advocate um our our
community our city is very distressed
right now in the level of in
infrastructure that we have available
and Co has just just decimated what you
know the last little bit of what we did
have available as a reserve that that is
gone and um I think you know uh both
both Chiefs I'm sure can Advocate to the
incre increase of call volume that we've
had over the last several months um so
with that being said we really are
trying to work toward as quickly as
possible getting people on the street
getting more paramedics on the street
getting a case manager getting social
workers so that we can continue to
provide the level of service that we
have been doing to the community um just
to answer a little bit of a question
about you know what resources do we have
available to us well in truth um most of
the funding to our program through the
city is really just in the salary of Mr
Ford um we've relied on when we have a
little bit of salary savings or a little
bit of depth in our staffing will maybe
temporarily bring somebody over to help
that's actually how the other paramedic
has been involved in the last couple of
months is because through
coid Paul just maxed out he had no
nothing left and um as of today we have
a referral list of 30 people deep right
now on in Paul's you know email waiting
for us to be to see we're getting again
like you said referrals you know four a
day seven days a week and these are
complicated patients these aren't just
you know let's go over and check them
out do a welfare check see if they're
okay I mean these are involved patients
that we see for weeks on end and there
are many many more people in this
community that we could see if we have
more resources but we really are limited
to what we have um right now and so I
think if and if Chief NZ wants to to
step in as I finish um our vision for
this is again just like councelor
bosquez says really a community care
Department the fire department's model
has changed so much in the last 15 years
uh 10 years even since we've been
involved in EMS you know over 80% of our
calls now really um or just at 80% our
EMS calls medical calls we are one of
the largest healthc care stakeholders in
this community now and we are trying to
really step into that role and do what
we can to do more for the city and for
our community uh Chief Enriquez and
thank you for your
time thank you um so
much um next I don't know Chief do you
have something to say further about that
no no that's good thank you okay next up
is councelor
Flores
uh thank you uh Madame chair um or mayor
proam I um a lot of the questions and
areas that have been covered by my
colleague so far um have been answered
or addressed uh but I I have a question
that is maybe a little bit off topic but
I need to know
this Mr Ford and when you've been out to
see someone someone who's in distress
you know and you're saying you're
dealing a lot with senior citizens and
it sounds like most of the calls are for
people if not the majority of the calls
are for people who are in the poverty
range but have you been to homes where
the uh the person who has made the
call is a senior citizen who uh is not
impoverished and Pro 10 counselor Flores
yes that happens also seniors have the
same challenges with their mobility and
their health and wellness regardless of
what their income level is
um uh and also um when you think about
how much it actually costs out of pocket
to have a caregiver in the home it's
about $25 an hour so if you're somebody
that needs 24 hours worth of care you
can expect to pay
$116,000 a month so only the most uh the
most wealthy in this region can actually
afford something like that um so that
there are going to be people that have
funds with which to get a rant built and
get a smoke detector put in and get a
new wheelchair and and uh and maybe get
a caregiver for a certain amount of
hours
and do some things of that nature um
however um they're still going to have
some of those challenges because
caregivers are very expensive and not
very few people know the pathways with
which to facilitate a good health
outcome on their own they don't know
about Meals on Wheels they don't know
that Walmart does uh delivery they don't
know delr Pharmacy does prescription
delivery they don't know all of these
things and so I will go in there and I
will have these conversations with them
and then we'll see what we can get
accomplished I usually have a um a good
outcome with somebody that doesn't
necessarily have financial difficulties
just needs to understand what Pathways
they can take to facilitate a good
health outcome okay and so um so people
who um do have and maybe even have
health coverage like through you know
like through um Medicare the you know
Medicare people who are a certain age
qualified for for Medicare and then you
get the um you know the uh what's it
called supplemental
insurance um so people who feel that
they're being taken care of in that
regard and therefore don't seek your
services maybe short changing themselves
or would that really really really over
burden your what you're doing because it
sounds to me as if um it sounds to me as
if you're you're meeting the needs of th
those who are
uh well urgent care or not in Urgent
Care but in Urgent situation to be to be
cared for to or and the reason I'm
asking this and this is going to a
really weird place probably really off
tangent I think but I have to address it
publicly um some of us have been active
in looking at um cases where seniors
people who are vulnerable have been um
taken advantage of by those who are
quote um guard assigned
guardianships and uh and there's been
one that was um you know heartbreaking
you know just absolutely heartbreaking
and that was uh Mrs Doris uh Hamilton
who was um she was principal at Lyn
middle Lynn excuse me at uh a middle
school I don't yeah it was I think it
was ly Middle School I think that uh the
mayor was a student there at the time I
mean he was there and she was the
at any rate um there's been a gross U
violation of um you know I mean I don't
want to call it illegal I you know I'm
not but um but anyway do you do do you
zero in on any of that have has that
ever come to your attention and if you
did have
any um I mean have you ever had quote a
guardian uh unquote intervene and uh try
to take over or anything like that and
if you did have a situation like that
would you report it to the to the DA's
office or to um Police Department or
do so uh Paul can I get you to as you're
answering questions please remember to
state your name please thank you my
apologies uh mayor protm councilor
Flores this is Paul Ford
um yes uh elderly exploitation is uh it
is quite common it is more prevalent in
the community where there is something
to exploit so yes it it definitely does
happen more with uh uh with seniors that
have some uh some fi Financial cushion
um we do encounter this um and when we
do encounter this there are a variety of
avenues that we take the uh Adult
Protective Services I usually generate
an Adult Protective Services referral
Adult Protective Services is one of the
only um entities that can actually
investigate a cases of exploitation and
they do that on a regular basis they
have a lot of cases surrounding that um
there are usually some other things on
top of the exploitation and the
exploitation is usually something that I
discover after I've been there to
address some other issue that's going on
and I have actually been to court before
four Guardians I felt that were not
taking care of of their elderly
individuals so I have actually gone
above and beyond in the past and so I
think the answer to your question is yes
this does happen yes we do clue in on it
we're good at at identifying uh
exploitation and that we do generate
referrals to address that great thank
you so much Paul or Mr
Ford um I want to thank you for
everything you do and as I said
colleagues my I think uh andom and basz
have pretty much asked you or asked all
the questions or addressed issues that
also concern me it affects us all um but
I want to thank you in particular
because uh there was one woman that I R
literally uh picked up I mean I she was
uh and I and I drove her home and then I
helped her out a little bit um and and
then I talked to Jamie uh Rickman and
she about it and she saidwell we have to
call Paul Ford and then after that um
I've learned and you you came along and
helped her out but you um you have also
not just worked here but you actually
slept out to El Paso and I think or
outside of the city of lasusa at any
rate maybe throughout Don Anna County
taking people all over the place so I
think it's going to be very very
difficult to find another PA Paul Ford
or two or three that we probably need
and I just want to thank you for
everything that you do um I oh I do have
a question on page 17 of the real quick
councelor fles I think ke doing has his
hand up and wanted to answer question if
we could Chief absolutely thank you
thank you mayor Pro mayor proen and city
councilwoman florid is is Sergeant
McCord to the Los cus Police Department
the reason uh I put my hand up is I'm
very familiar with Miss Hamilton and her
family and the the trials that she's
been going through with her guardian and
I wanted to confirm ma'am that that's
she is not alone um there are State
statutes in New Mexico which make it so
that a guardian can basically put a lean
on a person's home um they can seiz
their accounts or put a lean
on and fortunately for the police
department that falls out of our hands
because it's a civil matter um my
opinion it they're covered under State
Statute which is really sad and there
are guardianships out there that do take
advantage I've encountered it several
times over the last 12 years of my um my
involvement with the crisis intervention
team the the thing that I like I did
with uh Mr Hamilton is I advised him to
contact an attorney
and file law and I spoke to him several
months ago he's in the process of doing
that but he that family is not alone
that is you're coming in and out I'm
sorry we can barely hear you coming in
and
out is this any better yes it is okay I
I'm just wanting to reaffirm that yeah
this is a problem and the uh I don't
have an answer for it because it does
fall under State stat
um wow
but I it's aggravating I can tell you
that much but I did want to CHP in and
let you know that yeah it's not a it's
not an uncommon problem thank you well
uh Mr Ford uh did say that um it was uh
under the opes of the um office of
whatever uh Adult Services office or
department but so um but do you uh sir
do you um make any uh referrals or do
you contact Adult Services or do you
contact the Attorney General's office
since this is a state issue
directly Well ma'am the I I don't
because it falls under State
Statute lieutenant or um Sergeant M yes
would you please um state your name as
you're speaking okay please my apologies
again I'm Sergeant McCord mayor PR 10 uh
councilwoman flaud
um I I do know that judge arietta has
been advised um here at District Court
um and that's why I advised Mr Hamilton
to file a lawsuit um and I don't know
where he's at with this but it is a
civil matter and I don't know what else
we can do um I think this would fall
more towards lawmakers in Santa Fe to
change that yes we're working on that
thank so much sergeant and Court thank
you yeah and so uh Mr Ford if I make may
I go back now is is this okay mayor May
councelor Flores thank you so much thank
thank you um so uh page 17 you referred
to the results Mr Ford uh July through
December
2019 and um and you know there was been
a reduction in 911 call of
75% U of uh you know people have other
resources but my question is over what
period of time where the the um was this
is this the first time you gather that
data uh from or do you have data before
then and when did the mobile integrated
um Health Care uh start here in Las
crusis mayor protim uh councelor uh
Flores uh Paul Ford um we've gathered
data since we started Peak
Performance and uh H however um uh and
and and we've been running the mobile
integrated healthc CARE program for
about four years now it it we started in
Fall of uh that would have been 2016 and
we started with just a handful of
patients and then we expanded to have a
few more and have a few more today we're
looking at about 15 cases right now as
of today that we're actually actively
looking at right now um the data we are
always looking at ways to uh gather the
data more efficiently um we have a
software program called image Trend that
we use to assist us in gathering that
data um one of the challenges that we
have is that I am um I'm time on task
from the time that I walk in the front
door here at the fire station until I I
leave sometime after five and so
sometimes Gathering that data becomes
very difficult for me to do on a regular
basis then I have to play catchup and I
have to go back and I have to take a
look at all of that data um so the data
that we're looking at right here is some
of the more recent data that I have I
would be happy to gather up more data in
the future I don't know why my my camera
is doing that but um uh because we
understand that data is important and
and and and we will continue to do that
but also some of the things that we're
looking at right now are not necessarily
in line with what it is that we thought
that was important for us to be
gathering for data in the first place in
the beginning so um sure n 90 we we want
to make sure that people are reducing
their use of of 911 system of course
we're going to try to make sure that
everybody has a primary care provider
and of course we're going to ensure that
people um are are trying to reduce
transportation
um but we're also looking at other
things like how many referrals do we get
for people after their house burned down
how and and who are we working on with
that how many referrals are we getting
in in in in hotspotting areas like what
council uh counselor uh Bena was talking
about earlier um how many how many
people are are coming out of the
hospital unsafely you know we're looking
at that also because that's a big deal
um so we're we're looking at various
types of data all the time we're trying
to determine what data we're going to
want to take a look at in the future how
it meshes with Peak Performance and what
what measures we're currently looking at
right now so that we can determine that
the data that we're Gathering is the
best
representation of of um our our program
and what it is that we're doing in the
future thank you thank you Mr Ford I I
just want to make a comment and this is
generally probably for our city manager
and staff but of course city manager um
and and that is a need for economic
development in this city I mean real
Economic Development not not uh
necessarily limited of course uh to not
that it's not important but not limited
only to um franchises or other
businesses but having a real um economic
base here uh in the city because um I
think that the root of all of this is
poverty I think a lot I think you
addressed it Mr Ford that it has a lot
to do with people you know not eat not
eating well and the fact that if you
don't have that nutrition you will age
faster if you if you have uh if you have
all you know if you have a good
education it means that you you we need
the um we need the economic
infrastructure to eliminate all of this
and it'll take probably a long time so
in the
meantime um I really appreciate
everything you do Paul I think
everything you do is just U I think
you've saved a lot of lives I think You'
you made a lot of people feel that life
is worth living and you certainly
enhance our community in so far as the
care that uh you've extended so thank
you so much and I hope your baby is
going to be a year old now right your
little boy mayor Pro 10 councel Flores
Paul Ford yes uh my son Liam uh turns
one on the 26th so just a couple days
from now and he walking around and
breaking everything and really causing a
ruckus which as I understand is normal
so I'm not to worried about yeah normal
healthy so thank you and Happy
Thanksgiving thank you to the gentlemen
who have spoken thank you thank you
councelor fles um next up is councelor
beta
sty thank you mayor proam thank you uh
Chief Enriquez um Dr DEA Rosa and thank
you uh Mr Ford um for this presentation
and everything that you've been able to
do for our community um as described
before my fellow counselors have asked
some really great questions um there are
a few items that I wanted to touch back
on any um in the commentary it sort of
happened um what type of coordination
are we able to provide for um clients
when they need like Specialized Care
that's outside of the city limits are we
able to work with I know in my district
one of the big issues that we had was um
uh some of our our elders folk that
cannot drive but had to go to El Paso
for Specialized Care um but not having
the either the trans um the funds for it
transportation and caregivers so um yeah
I'm curious to see if we we work with
coordination for those types of items
too May Pro councelor stvy this is Paul
Ford um that is an excellent question so
one of the challenges that we have is
that the fire department is the
authority having jurisdiction inside
city of Los Cruz's City Limits so if I
get a referral I can kind of go wherever
I want go talk to somebody figure out
what it is that we're going to do and
all the rest of that stuff and kind of
coordinate that care however and I Know
Chief Enriquez is going to want to step
in here because he's on the veterans
board um veterans specifically need to
go to El Paso for a variety of things
how are they going to get there it's
been a very big challenge
um also over the past year I've had some
uh seniors that end up needing to go to
El Paso to receive uh detached retina
surgery and other sort of eye surgery I
guess there's this big uh Eye Surgical
Center um in El Paso how do we
facilitate transportation for that it's
not really that big of a deal when
somebody is on Medicaid but as you well
know which I said before the majority of
these seniors are on Medicare and as uh
as councelor fles was talking about
earlier that that Premium plan that you
subscribed to is called the part C plan
or the Medicare Advantage plan the
Medicare Advantage plan is really great
at making sure that you're not stuck in
the in the Medicare dnut hole and and
paying up the Wazoo for certain types of
things and they're really good at making
sure that you're not having to pay for a
certain amount of prescriptions but what
it's not good at is it doesn't provide
transportation it doesn't provide care
coordination for somebody to take over
doing the stuff that I'm doing for that
individual and so I don't really have a
good answer for you however I will tell
you how I had done it trying to make
ends meet and facilitate a good health
outcome for somebody in the past so I
had somebody that had a detach retina
and he was a veteran and this happened
round about when Co started so my wheels
are already turning trying to figure out
how are we going to meet the needs of
the community when I'm just one person
and I don't even have any interns right
now because the school year has hasn't
started yet or it's shut down and we
don't have interns right now how am I
going to figure this out so what I ended
up doing is there are some Volunteers in
the community that are really passionate
about doing good and they called me and
they said give us something to do and I
said absolutely I will give you
something to do so they started making
food packages and they started uh doing
some other things in the community and
they started going and visiting people
and making phone calls and making sure
that people are okay and then they
started going to Casa Pelos and picking
up food packages for me which is great
because by the way I went there last
week and it's an hour and a half wa to
get a food package over there because
the need is so big in this community we
can talk about that some other time um
so they're going and picking up food
packages and then I said okay well what
else can we do so then we got in cahoots
with the Lions Club and they got a food
pantry and they made food bags and I go
and pick up those food bags bags and I
call people to go pick up food bags and
take them places for me so then I can go
over to this house and look at this
referral instead of delivering a food
package to somebody so we're trying to
do everything that we can in the
community and ultimately I had them give
this individual a ride to El Paso and
then pick them up after he was done with
surgery and then take him back home so
we're trying to do everything that we
can but yes there is a huge need in the
community for transportation there
hopefully they won't always will be but
there are people that need services in
El Paso because it is a major health
care Hub in the area and how do we go
about doing that and then I'm sure that
Chief Enriquez wants to talk about the
veterans and and that so thank you thank
you very
much yes if I may mayor protm um and
councelor stuie uh chief
hriz that that is a dilemma it is
difficult I know especially with the co
because uh with the veterans the dis
lable veterans care they have
transportation and they are constantly
lobbying for uh additional resources in
the State uh not just communities
because you You' you've got a van from
lusus and has to transport a veteran
from Silver City to El Paso where they
can see uh be admitted to a Veterans
Hospital th those are some of the issues
that even the veterans are facing So
within our city limits what we try to do
is is exactly what Paul has stated is uh
seeking out the volunteers you know we
we had a lot of uh Community involvement
during the Asylum uh Seekers program and
a lot of faith-based
organizations that we are still in
contact with and have continued to help
out with that uh moving forward as I
said uh and I stressed this to to the
members of lcfd that this this is not a
fire problem this is not a police
problem this is a community problem so
we all have to work together so again
working with different agencies and
groups that have transportations and
that availability uh is is what we'll be
seeking and building that Coalition in
the
future may Pro um this is I can um
counselor St the the the model the
mobile crisis response team model is to
really look at clinical case management
working with Community Partners helping
patients and clients to navigate those
complex systems of care that they may
not be aware of and so and that's what's
unique about this
model thank you for that Dr D Rosa and
thank you Chief and Paul um you know I
I'm very familiar unfortunately with
that Opthalmology Center her daughter
had her surgeries there um but uh yeah
that's one thing that I know in our
community as we do have an aging
population
um that needs Care Specialists are very
hard to come by um even our you know the
uh reimbursement rates are different for
doctors and providers here and so that
you know poses significant issues and
that's not something we can really
affect on the council level um but you
know it all kind of uh comes together um
when talking about capacity
um what on average um how many referrals
a day or assessments can be done in a
day May Pro 10 counselor sty this is
Paul Ford I think it really depends on
what's going on with the
individual um so I'll give you an
example of something that's low Acuity
so I might have an elderly citizen that
calls me because she wants me to uh uh
change her smoke detector batteries now
that sounds really low Acuity but the
the real reality is is that's an
opportunity for me to be in a home to
see what's going on in there and to kind
of clue in on things that I've over the
years been able to clue in on because of
of of my
experiences so I do those and I may only
be there changing uh like four smoke
detectors for a little while but I'm
definitely going to take the opportunity
to talk about a fire extinguisher I'm
definitely going to take the opportunity
to talk about uh loose cords and do a
false safety assessment and I'm
definitely going to take an opportunity
to discuss that by the way your house uh
uh faces um faces to the East and you
have a large shaded area here and it
just snowed yesterday so there's a lot
of ice here in the front and so you
definitely you're going to want to
probably walk out through the garage and
whenever this happens I really recommend
that you be careful now I don't know
whether or not that's ever going to have
prevented this uh this this lady from
having a hip fracture but I like to
think that maybe it did and I'm going to
take the time to do that some of these
larger ones I may be there sitting and
talking with the individual for a long
period of time a long period of time
just to tease out a little bit of
information that I need to kind of
figure out what it is that I'm going to
do other times I might go in there and
I'm told to get lost and so I go to the
Sonic and pick up a hamburger I come
back and I give him the hamburger and
maybe he changes his mind about the
conversation that we were going to have
because I established that little bit of
trust that and and value to that
individual so what I'm trying to say is
that all of these different home visits
vary in intensity Eric's pretty good
time on task he could probably do five
maybe six home visits in a day but again
it depends am I bringing in an entire
truckload of food uh am I stuck at Casa
Pelos picking up a food package am I up
at the hospital for a little bit uh
trying to follow a case because I was
there the person was really ill I ended
up having to call 911 get an ambulance
and I have to go up to to the hospital
and have a conversation with case
management on what's going on with this
person that's a very long lengthy visit
and so that could take up a large chunk
of the day emails take up a large chunk
of the day which um you know we're all
aware of um things take up the day um
and so it it really varies I think that
I can do four really long Assessments in
a day and then go somewhere else and try
to actually facilitate some sort of an
accomplishment for that individual and
then I have to go back and do all the
charting and everything too so it varies
I would say four to six would would be
fair for one person to try to do in in a
day thank you and you know that's good
to know for my reference on thinking of
what type of capacity and resources you
do need um and and how much if we see
the
increases um on how many uh other staff
that you might need um so I really thank
you for uh for all the work that you've
done I I have a another question but
it's directed more towards um our our
police um and it's regarding our CIT
program as well and that's um what is
the measure of success um that or
measurement of success that you have for
a call um and what type of data do we uh
track on the program um and any sort of
uh different um statistics that you have
on on successful outcomes with
it mayor proten and uh city councilwoman
sty is did I get that name right AA Stuy
okay uh Sergeant McCord um so I want to
make sure I understand the question as
far as tracking I I keep track of all of
our numbers of calls that we get um and
I've done
that I I want to say for about six or
seven years just to see what our Trends
are um I would say we haven't seen a lot
of increase um maybe some with the the
coid shows this year a little bit of an
increase
um but as far as the the tracking um
that's how I keep track of it um I
think I I would say that our success is
rated within the community um I know
when we first started 12 years ago um
the meetings we would go to um we we did
not have very high Community Support um
I think if you were to go into the
Mental Health Community today they um
would basically say yeah we've come a
long way from from the uh the way it was
prior to 12 years ago um I know when I
go to meetings I I'm greeted by old
friends who who basically were there
when we tried to start the program so
that's how I think our our success is
really um compounded is not So Much by
numbers but just by the support that
I've seen in the mental health community
over the years okay that help you and
answer your question ma'am um partially
um within when you attend an event um
given the nature that they're going to
be so different every single one um and
I'm sure though uh at each event you're
looking for specific outcomes um and
then I'm wondering if you track
those types of outcomes that you wanted
um and then if it wasn't um an outcome
that you wanted um afterwards uh what
type of debrief is there or um
documentation that you do to look at it
and to you know move forward with
perhaps uh different practices or
anything like that well major major
incidences we we wouldn't we would not
be able to uh on a daily basis debrief
every incident involving mental health
that we go to when we have major
incidences we will do debriefs um that's
part of uh the unit that I I do with the
crisis intervention as well as with the
hostage negotiation unit so
uh basically we will sit down we'll do
debrief see what we could do um you know
to learn in the future but it's pretty
much by Major incidences because it's
that's a daily thing for us to go to
crisis call
um
we not had a lot of success in trying to
keep track of
deescalation but the truth is from the
classes and of De escalations that I've
gone to um just about every incident is
a
deescalation um because you're you're
out there with somebody who's either in
crisis or not happy even if it's just a
domestic um or simple neighbor dispute
um it's a deescalation you've G gone out
you've you've um thwarted the crisis
from taking place by either talking the
neighbor down making somebody happy um
so it's almost every call we go to is
really a deescalation or an attempt to
deescalate I mean we we go to calls
where there's disputes and that's what
we do deescalate the
disp thank you um and then when looking
at this other programming that um we're
talking about here um would you I I
would imagine that we would want to keep
um pretty good um data on um on our
events and how we're we're looking um
into this program just to make sure that
it's working and that it's been
effective
[Music]
um and and I'm not sure uh what types of
data that you all were thinking about
tracking um with this new program to
make sure that after the 6 months that
we can say yes this was an effective
program and this is
why um mayor Pro and councilwoman stuie
Sergeant migan uh basically we we have
keep track of our numbers through the
years what I would like to see happen is
when uh we're responding with the um
with the fire department for this uh
program what I'd like to see is a
decrease of the numbers that we've
averaged over the last three years um
and I think that's that's going to be
the goal of the the unit for the police
department as well um and so that at
this point once we get started that
would be my goal is to see after six
months if we've seen a trend of our
protective custody issues decrease um
our calls for mental health services
decrease as well does that help you out
ma'am partially thank you I think
there's a lot of questions that I I
still have and would like to follow up
on um you know as we look at programs
like this I do think it's very important
for us um and not just within you know
the mobile Integrated Health but with
the CIT program uh about tracking how
successful um these
uh this program is and
and and I'm not sure we can track that
if we're not capturing that data um and
that I I think can be problematic so
that would be something that I would
like to see councelor St I have Eric and
um sorry Chief hriz and Mr Ford um
wanting to ask the answer the question I
think thank
you thank you uh mayor proam and then
counselor sty uh in in in that what
we're looking at is also in the RFP to
get the mental Health provider on board
that there's the intervention and
treatment and what they have also is the
ability to do an assessment and with
that assessment then we can get into the
intervention and treatment and be able
to capture all that data so we're going
to rely a lot on the mental health
provider to do a lot of that data
collection for us to see what are the
results that we're gaining from these
individuals after they've had the
intervention and treatment from a LI or
clinical
[Music]
professional thank
you uh mayor proam uh counselor abeta
stui um I just uh this is Paul Ford I
just wanted to add um so when we're
looking at outcomes that would be ideal
we would want to really take a look and
say okay we went and saw 500 people but
what were the outcomes of these 500
people because that's really important
well one of the challenges that we have
in the Behavioral Health Community is
that the behavioral health Community
especially the stakeholders when they
have a patient especially a patient that
has mental health is that they don't
share that information and so it becomes
really difficult to track a patient
through a stay uh at a a and follow a
patient through a 7 to 10 day stay and
an acute behavioral health facility uh
and a especially one that uh went
through that facility and is homeless
because ideally I would have liked to
have had a conversation with them before
they discharge that person but I didn't
get the phone call and then they they
discharge that person and he's homeless
and so it makes it really difficult to
provide wraparound services to somebody
when when we as a Behavioral Health
Community aren't coming together and
sharing information in interest of
continuity of care now in my case
management program we have something
called called an Roi or release of
information and we usually try to get
that individual to sign that paperwork
because then that allows us or gives us
permission to talk to other people and
we can fax that and we can send that
type of stuff but what about the
gentleman that I I I saw who was having
a severe psychosis and I want to follow
that individual and I want to help that
individual and I went to his house and I
talk with this landlord and he's evicted
but I have his brother's name and his
brother says he can go live with him
that now this person's at the hospital
and now this person's going to an acute
behavioral health facility somewhere and
I want to share this information and
which I found but I can't get a phone
call back because the Healthcare
Community doesn't share information
about behavioral health patients even
when to do so would lend itself to a
good health outcome and it falls under
continuity of care under Hippa those are
some of the challenges that we can
expect to have that we're going to have
to overcome which is why in these slides
we talked so much about the fact that we
really need to come together as a
Behavioral Health Community and get all
the stakeholders together to say this is
what we're trying to do to achieve a
good health outcome for the community
and this is why we're going to need to
this is how we're going to have to do
that so that we can all talk to one
another we can reduce siloing and we can
facilitate good
outcomes thank you for that um with a
followup with that one do we then do we
at least track here at the city um those
that are able to be part of our programs
um like at least to kind of um see how
long that they might need those services
at least within our own um
programming M Pro 10 counselor beta sty
this is Paul Ford yes we do track how
many referrals we get how many home
visits we go on uh how many people we
enroll how many people we expel how many
people we graduate we're able to track
all of that data internally and we'll in
turn be able to track that data as to
how many mobile crisis responses we get
how many mobile crisis referrals we get
how many um and and uh and and and also
how many uh individuals that we
transport to Alternative Care
destinations which is a a magical term
for something other than the emergency
room which is a really hot topic right
now because everybody wants patients to
go somewhere other than the emergency
room um so we we can track all of that
stuff my concern is that if we want
determine how good of an outcome we get
with this individual that we took uh to
um uh to a a facility somewhere and what
happened to that person afterwards
that's going to take a little bit of of
work as a community to try to gather all
that information and we have the same
challenges in the fire department if we
place somebody in a helicopter and we
send them to El Paso obviously our
paramedics would like to know how this
individual is doing we provided all of
this care we did all these things for
these individuals and we want to know if
that individual is okay or what happened
to them so we can self-reflect and see
how we did as a crew and and tracking
some of these patients sometimes is is
complicated because of HIPPA so I just
wanted to throw that out there and uh
and thank you for allowing me to to to
speak on that
matter I'm thinking and I'm hoping that
Dr dear R Roa because I know he's the
researcher extraordinaire evaluator that
he will be able to help us and form some
metrics for us moving forward I just
know I have confidence in him and he
wants to speak here so yes thank you Pro
um mayor um councelor St this is iand L
Roa uh one of my uh role in in working
with this team and is to really help
them to think about evaluating success
so I really appreciate your comment
about how do we know we're making a
difference from the research on this
model we know that um uh it reducing it
has uh been effective in reduction in
alcohol use um drug use reduction in uh
emergency room use uh reduction in
overnight stays in hospital and so we
can uh capture that information about
utilization of service but also what
difference has it made in terms of
individual lives uh in the specific
issues and there's a wide uh gamut of of
problems that the the um um patients and
and cases come before for before the
team but for each individual case how do
we know we've made a difference so
there's ways and models that we can
capture that information and so uh with
the proposal was to capture information
um in terms of utilization but really
work with the individual contractor to
find out exactly how are you measuring
and capturing that so I really
appreciate you asking that
question thank you Dr De Rosa um I I
want to make sure I think this is an
amazing program I think it can be very
effective and very useful um and I think
being able to have the data that backs
it up will make it that much easier to
be able to make sure that we're
advocating as strongly as possible for
the right amount of funding for it to be
able to expand upon it too so I really
appreciate that dror and thank you
Sergeant McCord and um thank you Paul
and um for answering my many questions
thank you mayor Pam thank you councelor
beas Tov next up is counselor
or thank you mayor proam and I'd like to
say to the fire department of Las cruus
uh um you've always done an excellent
job and this is another example this is
the kind of thing we've been talking
about for many many years and so I'm so
glad it's uh moving forward
um I would like to ask Paul uh Ford a
question about uh the care for uh senior
maybe but anybody who uh is um is is
having health problems at home shall we
say um have you ever uh discussed with a
company in town here called Addison care
from uh electronic
caregiver uh company that we have here
in town have you ever discussed any of
this information or what you're doing
with
[Music]
them mayor protm counselor sword yes
I've actually had meetings with
electronic caregiver I think they're a
great organization they have a lot of
really great tools um uh at their
disposal um I think one of the
challenges in our community is um and
and this is uh very important and I'm
obviously I'm going to go back and I'm
going to have a conversation with Tim
Watson at electronic caregiver about
this a lot of the individuals that we
have um they don't have wireless
internets uh some of them have
challenges with power their power gets
turned off so it's not without
challenges but a lot of these
individuals um uh some of them would
benefit from having that service I'm
especially thinking about uh the uh
congestive heart failure uh individuals
so uh for those of you that are not
familiar congestive heart failure is
probably one of the number one Hospital
readmissions Across the Nation um and
why it's complicated for hospitals is if
they readmit Within 30 days CMS doesn't
pay for that so this individual is then
uh uh intubated in the ICU at $10,000 a
day and it's it's tying up a bed and so
it's very costly for the hospitals um
one of the things that electronic
caregiver do with their uh with with
their equipment is they can monitor that
individual they they can put a a scale
there um they can uh they can do blood
pressure they can electronically notify
um and I'm I'm not a 100% whether or not
they would need wireless internet um
oddly enough a lot of the individuals
that the that the seniors that I I see
is far more complicated than whether or
not they have fall detection on their
wrist or or things like that um they
have uh Dee rooted problems with
ambivalence towards change they don't
want to go to Primary Care they don't
want to go to the doctor um and and they
certainly uh don't want to go to the
hospital because they're they they fear
every single Health Care stakeholder
that they Lo themselves in somebody
somehow is going to wave a magic wand
and they're going to wind up at an
assisted living facility or a nursing
home and I I work very hard with my
seniors to try to explain to them that
that's not how this works I've had lots
of conversations with Tim over at
electronic caregiver on how we can work
in the future um we have yet to iron out
what that would look like in the future
um but we have had conversations with
them and now that you've had this
conversation with me I certainly will
revisit it with him because I think that
there's some some wiggle room to
facilitate some good health outcomes
there okay very very well thank you very
much and thank you mayor
proen thank you what a rich and robust
um um dialogue here I'm so excited about
the possibilities um as you know I had
been working on this um some time with
um um the ngo's
um
and other or um people Chief Dominguez
others um and had recommended to Mr pey
to um work with Dr Delarosa he had
graciously agreed to you know work
through this as we prepared in RFP or
staff prepared in RFP so I want to um um
just say how grateful I am to um the
work um there's so much here um this
this is probably one of the best
meetings I think we've had um with staff
and directors sort of hearing from you
um um data but also gaps in service as
we um navigate to ensure that um that
100% of our population get 100% access
to important medical and Behavioral
Health Services so um I I have a couple
of questions that weren't asked um and I
want to ask ask those questions um Mr
for you talked about um the the seniors
quite at quite at length and something
that I'm I'm very concerned about as we
keep advertising that you know we're a
retirement community and I've often have
asked since my first term are we
prepared for the our aging population
and there you know from my perspective
I've I've often have said no we're not
talked to our city management about how
do we get prepared have really encourage
and advocated for senior services to do
um an a a wide assessment on where we're
at what we need um moving forward and so
my question to you is how do you work
with um senior um
Services um around sort of coming
together and understanding from your per
both perspectives what the needs and
gaps are and then Solutions and
strategies moving
forward M proen Paul Fort um I'm really
glad that you brought this up uh this is
a really challenging conversation yes we
have a we are a senior retirement
community we're very Community oriented
um it's important for us to take
ownership for that make sure that every
everybody can be here safe some of the
challenges that I'm talking about are
challenges at the state level so what
are what what do we do as the city of
Los crusis in order to kind of reduce
that risk for their for those seniors
knowing that they're going to be on on
Medicare they're not going to get care
coordination they're not going to get um
personal caregiver Services how do we uh
and and and knowing that you know every
senior is entitled uh to live in their
home as long as possible POS what do we
do to fix that problem um and that is a
a major uh conversation and I definitely
think it's one that we should continue
to revisit in the future um and i' I've
had several conversations with uh with
with other um City entities recently
discussing what that what that major
plan is going to look like in the future
what we're going to do in the challenges
that we're facing and so my
recommendation and and and the direction
that I think that we need to go is this
if Medicare is not going to provide uh
caregiver services in the home we need
to bolster caregiver services for those
at risk seniors if Adult Protective
Services right now doesn't have uh Title
20 personal caregiver services with
which to provide their members which
they don't um we need to figure out what
it is that we're going to do in order to
provide those caregiver Services uh for
those seniors um and um another
challenge that I'm seeing right now is
chore Services cleaning hoer housee
cleanup you know who who's going to pay
for all of that stuff right now I I I've
got several referrals for houses in
squalor that that need to be cleaned up
they take a lot of time there's nobody
available in the community with which to
clean those up what do we do about those
things those things are are largely
centered around the senior population as
well so how do we what do we do to make
sure that the homes are safe the homes
are sanitary these seniors have what it
is that they need in the home and how
are we going to go about making sure
that those seniors have have have those
needs in the future and I definitely
think we need to come together with city
of Los Cruz's senior programs and see if
we can kind of supplement what Adult
Protective Services was doing at some
point and provide some personal
caregiver services for those atrisk
populations and uh for clarification
senior programs already does have that
program they already have uh case
managers for their seniors I feel like
in the future we're going to need more
they already have um um uh individuals
that are providing chore services in the
home I feel like we're going to need
more we already have transportation in
the community for seniors I definitely
think we're going to need to bolster
dial right in the future if we're going
to need the needs of those communities
and that's what I've been uh voicing is
that we we bolster senior programs with
the amount of caregivers that they have
the amount of case management that they
have the amount that D that uh that
meals on Wheel can serve in the
community and the amount the dial arrive
now one of the challenges that I I think
is is is challenging is that certain
amount of senior programs is funded by
the state a little bit of Meals on
Wheels if not all of it is funded by the
state how do we bolster that to make
sure that every single person that calls
Meals on Wheels is entitled to get a
meal and and and if they don't qualify
how do we get them to qualify if we deem
that the need is there how do we get a
caregiver place if we deem the need is
there and how do we get this individual
to uh a doctor's appointment when they
were at the hospital and they have
discharge paperwork that says follow up
with your primary care in two days how
do we make sure that dial ride has
enough Vans and and drivers and vehicles
to accommodate those seniors uh so that
they can be seen at the time that the
hospital and Primary Care wants to see
them and I think those are really some
of the directions that we would want to
go in the future if we were looking at
that
thank you um Mr Ford I appreciate that
those were are my sentiments exactly um
often you know honestly we one of the
things when Mr petley began um was um my
frustration and concern about really
never hearing from directors the Chiefs
about your needs being able to have
really a transparent dialogue about the
amount of funding that is that's going
to be required I hear from the periphery
and you and I go are kind of hang in the
same circles behavioral healthwise right
at at the local collaboratives and
different things and so it's been a huge
frustration for me to not really be able
to have this sort of conversation with
you all about the needs um and honestly
this is sort of the first time that
we're hearing from you all um and I'm
grateful to that and and honestly I'm at
advocating for a consultant to come in
to work specifically with both the
Integrated Health Senior Services to
really those services and I and EO and I
EO and I have had a a glar conversation
about that but also I want to encourage
um we have had just recently a
conversation with Burell College um
stemming from um the work that you've
done Paul with um Rebecca frell the
establishment of the liance club sort of
helping with a food distribution side if
you will um but it meets that need of
the Gap there of those folks that don't
quite meet Medicaid and or
Medicare um or Mills on Wheels but still
need all this help getting to and from
um medical appointments Food Bank um
those things that are that are dire
right for our seniors and so I I I thank
you for for saying that in the
background you and I don't talk but I
want you to know that I have enough
folks that are giving me information and
then I'm I'm filling it to Mr beetley in
hopes that we can make a real dent on
this issue so I would recommend that
from our cares funding that we start
looking at we funded drivers to help
with some of this stuff we funded um I
um I don't see how you know I I think we
can we can do this actually rather
easily and I'm I'm counting on Mr beely
Right to insist that we're collaborating
and coordinating not only internally but
externally with our partners and not
only that all of us have relationships
on this council with State our state
delegation and our federal delegation
these are some of the first times that
I'm hearing these kinds of things and we
need to hear more of it and have that
pathway to be able then to um um
organize resolutions to send up to Santa
that says absolutely we are going to do
these things Medicare doesn't reimburse
Medicaid doesn't reimburse um councelor
betas duy talked about um our our
funding is is is Li our funding is
different in fact um our our providers
get reimbursement differently than up
North in El Paso but we did put a
resolution together and counselor um
former counselor emman and I worked with
our insurance um um Team Up in Santa Fe
to really look at that so I see us
making you know small steps to really
building a a cohesive
consistent um seamless um system but we
have to hear it more often and so my
other recommendation is Paul we really
need you on the health policy review
Comm committee I mean that's the only
way that we're going to um hear um from
you on the ground so that we make um
better
decisions
um moving
forward so mayor protm uh Paul Ford I'm
happy to be on that um I I'm I'm trying
to be involved in as many healthc care
uh committees as possible because I very
much feel very strongly that it's
important for the fire department to
have a seat at the healthc care uh table
um and I I definitely think that we have
a lot of of uh of experience and I've
seen a lot of things over the years and
the fire department sees a lot of things
and I think we know where some of the
challenges lie and I I definitely would
love to be involved in that um I think
one of my greatest challenges is like I
said before 170 emails all of the home
visits and everything else and just
trying to make it all work and then make
all the meetings uh that being said I
very much would love to be involved in
that I will do my very best as I always
do um so um uh if somebody would just
forward me that information I'd be happy
to be involved in that Mr peely and
without with please forgive me I'm not
directing your staff you figure out who
needs to be there but fire is an
essential part and they're not they have
not been a part of our health Review
Committee and they need to be if we're
really going to make a dent and our
seniors are someone representing our
seniors really needs to be there again
I'm deeply concerned Co just exposes us
more we need to need to hear this
regularly so that we
act a pro Tam absolutely if if uh we'll
talk to I'll talk to Mr Ford and see
what the time you know the availability
is there and also Chief uh but we'll
make sure somebody from fire is there
thank you thank you um um you made
mention um Mr Ford about um your opad
overdose response team now is that
similar to lead and if not why how what
is what is um the differences or
similarities as well and is this
overdose um Response Team
evidence-based mayor Pro and Paul Ford
um so lead or law enforcement assisted
diversion is a program where law
enforcement has some sort of a runin
with an individual that has a certain
level of crime they've gotten themselves
into a certain level of trouble but
there's also um that trouble that
they've gotten themselves uh in is
directly related to some sort of an
addiction maybe it's a shoplifting
charge maybe it's a a break and entering
charge but it's all facilitated uh based
on their addiction so the way law
enforcement assisted diversion works is
that they are given an opportunity to
rooll in a a case management program
where they're going to get mat and a
couple of other things and the reason
that it's successful is that well if I
was faced with two different
opportunities where I could either go
into a a a community-based program and
and do a case management uh and and
medication assisted treatment or I could
go to jail I think that I would probably
choose to go into the program and so I
think that That's the basis for law
enforcement assisted diversion this
specifically our program is going to
specifically Target people that have
experienced an overdose because after
you experience the overdose if there is
any uh ambivalence towards change it's
Fallen away a little bit and so if we
get there quickly and we have that
conversation with that individual and go
hey my name is Paul with the fire
department this is so and so and this is
so and
so um we're in this overdose response
outreach program and we know that
recently there was an overdose um and
I'm really sorry about all that that
happened uh but we're here right now and
we want to help you um and I I want to
hear what type of challenges that you're
having and then and uh tell me a little
bit about yourself I'll tell you a
little bit about myself and and by the
way are you do do you have food are you
okay how's your housing situation uh I
noticed that you got holes in your shoes
can we maybe find somebody to get you
some shoes by the way have you ever
heard about medication assisted
treatment and Naran you know and and and
and so it's different in that way
because there's really no teeth behind
it it has to do with how Savvy and how
good with words I myself and the case
manager and everything are to try to
facilitate something good there and so
that's really the difference between the
two and it's also the timing the the
timing is key and if you get in there
right at that time then you can possibly
do a little bit better good than you
would if you went there 6 weeks
afterward
right Mr Ford I appreciate that I know
that we talked um in the past and and
and I probably heard this from you at a
local collaborative meeting um our lc3
meeting about um the the issues that
we're having with folks that may have
been given Naran release from the
hospital and then go back right into
another overdose situation right um and
and I know I received those numbers a
couple of years ago um is that continue
to be an issue
today may protim I think especially
during coid patients that are making
their way into the hospital um it's it's
difficult to determine what pathway it
is that they're going to take yeah also
these uh like I've said several times in
this before and I I very much want to
drive it home anybody that is that is
deemed competent can make any decision
they want to regardless of whether it's
in their best interest or not if there
was an mat clinic right there at the
hospital and they said we're just going
to bring you over here um we've got uh
burritos and coffee and you're going to
love it um they if if they don't want to
do it they're going to walk right out
the door and addiction is hard you know
I get it as much as I can it's so hard
to facilitate that change when that
window opens we just have to capitalize
it uh it on that at that time and rest
assured I'm going to give everybody my
card they're going to get an overdose
response kit they're going to get all of
these things and hopefully they hold on
to it and one day when they finally
reach rock bottom and they say I can't
do it anymore they're going to give me a
call we're going to go over there we're
going to swoop in we're going to get
something done for them we're going to
facilitate a good
outcome I appreciate that thank you so
much I think it's very much needy hey
there's battalion chief Cody yes Haver I
hope I'm pronouncing that
correctly yes may protim and counselors
thank you um I just wanted to add a
little bit of information in there real
quick to add on the poll so just to make
clear the grant that we did receive it
was a four-year Grant um a lot of
acronyms but this is a Federal grant
that was given to the state through
samama um through the office of
Substance Abuse Prevention through the
state and that's how we received this
grant it's BAS Bas off of similar work
that Santa Fe fire department is
currently doing and the scope of work of
our grant is for the next 3 years to
again the case manager with the EMT
together as a as a team going out and
doing followup um uh as a preventive
measure for people that have experienced
an overdose to give them Naran and the
education to use the Naran and then like
Paul said the other um follow-up
Services uh this is truly a an Outreach
from the state um to um couple of fire
departments that they wanted to try to
Pilot this type of project to see what
type of prevention they would be able to
provide with a fire department involved
um but just to make clear it is a grant
and it's only for three years so at the
conclusion of the three years um if not
extended or something else doesn't come
up at the end of the three years that
would be the completion of the opioid
outreach
program but favor what is your what are
the metrics that you're that you're um
that you're actually striving for
obviously reduction in opioids maybe the
linking and referring to resources but
what
what are I know that through the state
they're very big on performance measures
so I do you know what they are off hand
and if if you don't know that i' I'd
love to see that in an email if you
would absolutely uh mayor Pro Tim and
counselors I can provide more of that
information we do have a scope of work
in fact I'm looking at it right now um
just a couple of metrics right off the
top are the number of uh Naran trainings
and the number of Naran kits that we'll
actually uh give out um the number of
people that have actually been
outreached so is it just a Survivor or
were there also several family members
or friends within that household that we
were able to provide education to as
well um also there will be some metrics
on uh uh knowledge uh a pre and post
test is what the scope of work calls it
but basically their knowledge about
their situation prior to us engaging
with them and then a followup after the
fact to see um if in fact they ended up
getting to if they had to go to the
hospital again or what knowledge do they
remember after the fact there will be
quite a bit of followup in this um there
is a a contractor through the state um
for data collection called py that we've
actually been working with very CL
closely through the the the Grant and U
we will be providing regular metrics to
them and you know we'd be happy to share
any of that information as we can with
with Council and City Administration as
well thank you I really appreciate that
and I ask you that because I think it's
something that we can mirror um um with
the help of of Dr dear Rosa the um the
metrics used for for the behavioral
health arm as I'm calling it for your um
mobile crisis um unit I think that is um
important um and and I I hope that it's
a part of our request for proposals as
um so that people uh agencies or
entities that are interested that they
know exactly what we're going to be
asking um um related to that but I think
um Mr Ford you have another something
else to add you're on
mute
mayor protm my apologies Paul Ford I
just wanted to tag on there that the the
car Grant is the comprehensive addiction
and Recovery Act um and this is a state
uh Federal money that has been handed to
the state and what they're trying to do
specifically is we have this opioid
epidemic and it's not just the it's not
just New Mexico it's not just Bernal Leo
County it's not just doniana County um
it's across the nation and so what there
specific trying to do is they're trying
to determine what is going to be
effective and so that's what the reason
that they they want the data for we're
going to reach out to a bunch of
different people uh we're going to offer
some medication assisted treatment we're
going to provide a lot of Narcan
education if if we revive a lot of
people we save a lot of lives because of
the Naran that we gave out that's good
they're going to like that if we are
able to send a lot of people to
medication assistant treatment that's
great if we come back with data that
says that we went out to see a whole
bunch of people but nobody wanted to go
to Primary Care and nobody wanted
Behavioral Health and nobody was
interested in medication assisted
treatment that helps them decide how
they're going to curtail their response
in the future to try to uh to try to
attack this opioid epidemic that we have
and so I really think that's what it is
that they're trying to do with this
three-year Grant and we're very happy to
help them with that and to kind of
engage in the community and raise
awareness I want many people to know
that the fire department has this
program I and in in all walks of life so
that if they need something they they
know that they can call somebody and we
can help them in some way shape or form
and if that's what it is that we
accomplish with this and that's
great yeah I appreciate that um lastly
just to tag on I I know that that
um one of the components is obviously
fire and licens social worker but don't
forget about peers I think peers are
really important per appear um
Navigators as I know um Chief domingus
um refers to them I I think that is an
essential part of that um and and just
so you know I've been talking a lot
about um there's a waiting list to train
uh peer the peer-to-peer
um um training and so talking a lot
about about freeing that up or getting a
train the trainer here to be able to
offer that um the
that that piece that I think is so
valuable as well so that just a
recommendation that I that I have um the
the other questions that I have are are
largely now um about the this the the mo
the mobile crisis unit if you will
um how will
you um integrate
911 in in that in that process and and a
number is it uh would it be the 911 or
the non-emergency number and how so I'll
stop
there uh mayor protim and counselors
this is Fire Marshall Cody Haver um I
believe I might be able to answer that
um in with the help of Chief Enriquez
one of the the purposes of the RFP is to
truly get a better sense of how that
might work and so at the exact moment we
don't know exactly whether um that would
go directly through the 911 system if
there would be another non-emergency
number uh there's many other communities
that do different things including nurse
triage within the 911 dispatch Center or
they have another number that the 911
dispatcher would the you know transfer
to um so I think all of those things are
um pieces of the puzzle that will have
to be figured out during the that uh
consultation phase with with the
contractors that we're looking at okay
okay so I'm I'm assuming that with the
help of Dr delosa and maybe this is um
for him a question for him what
evidence-based programs did you look at
and which one are you basing this
particular model
after we were looking at um a model from
will you state your name please I'm
sorry this is iand De Rosa excuse me
mayor
um we're looking at a model uh from
Colorado specifically and uh Chief ha I
believe um referenced it when when he
said that he went and did a a site visit
uh and the model again is using uh
collaboration inter disciplinary
approach of of law enforcement mental
health and fire as a team working
closely with the support from um uh
psychiatric for those cases that needed
um and the evidence there um is very
promising in in in their ability to
address specific needs of of patients
and and clients evidence related to
reducing uh cost related to um um
emergency room visits uh stay in in
hospital uh being able to access primary
care providers so connecting them into
the system uh keeping them in the system
uh one of the things and I think we've
been kind of talking about this but just
to reiterate that uh Co has um
multiplied the vulnerability within our
community so it isn't just exposing but
really multiplying and so working with a
an effective team to really address Case
by casee basis of those particular
vulnerabilities that the patient and and
clients are are experiencing is the key
so those are the models that we're has
been based on perhaps um Chief ha can
speak more to you
mayor protim and counselor this is uh
Fire Marshall Cody ha again uh yes so
just in general there like I said there
are uh some other uh communities that
have done very similar things San Diego
fire department within San Diego has
done something very similar um also in
the Seattle area King County uh the one
that's closest to us really that has has
been a model for several years is
Colorado Springs are actually one of the
very first communities to do something
like this at the time when I visited
them four years ago they were already an
established program with all of the arms
of you know community paramedicine that
we were just talking about or Community
uh you know risk reduction they had
already been doing that for about four
years before I visited so they've
actually been an established program
doing mobile crisis response for uh the
better part of five years and even
developing as a pilot program before
that um and again they've been
peer-reviewed and published in several
EMS and medical medical journals be be
happy to try to get that information to
you if you're interested so so Chief
haer um is this the star program or is
this your more of the medical Integrated
Health I I guess I'm concerned and want
to speak to specifically the behavioral
health and one of the models that we had
been sort of batting around in
conversation is the Cahoots model that
um is is known um very specific to
behavioral health response and and so um
although I think many of our call any of
the calls it sounds like have have like
a duel right or diagnosis if you will
medical Behavioral Health but I I just
want to make sure that that um and and
the reason I know a little more is I've
I've been doing some research and I've
I've just recently attended the national
uh League of cities and they had these
programs um the Cahoots um staff out
there and the star program which came
out of Colorado and so I just want to
make sure that that um my interest is of
course helping fire but also to
especially help law
enforcement um with these calls there's
just so many calls and I I think as
counc bomo eloquently stated um you know
these are you can have the CIT training
and and do a lot of work but I think
from the Prof from the standpoint of
having professional folks that work that
do this every day is an important
element to me and I want to make sure
that we're that we're getting
um you know that we're selecting an
evidence-based program that is going to
really give us what I would like to see
happen which is the reduction I I I
don't want law enforcement a piece of
this um
um even a non-uniform or um person on
this team I I think it's very important
that we have case managers social
workers uh prescribing psychologists
that meet that team and you know vans
that go around that are unmarked you
know that go around um you know and and
that these calls go through the 911
system or have a specific um um number
um phone number if you will um I I just
feel very strongly about
that mayor PRM this is iosa if I can
respond to that I I think the the
the what's special about this model is
that the the case will drive who is the
lead on that particular call and perhaps
it would be more of a Law Enforcement
issue in terms of De escalating or
perhaps stepping in and it would be more
fire or um the social worker in terms of
resources in the community or a clinical
assessment we really can't say that one
particular discipline is going to be
driving the bus if you will it's a
collaborative effort among the different
disciplines really adding their
knowledge and their expertise to that
particular situation because the the the
complexity of the cases before um before
us warrant bringing all those pieces
um together and so uh it really isn't a
a a police model or a fire model or a
social work model it really is uh an
embedded team working together very
highly focused very trained able to
communicate with each other um and
really focus on addressing the needs of
that particular uh patient before them
and getting them into the system and
keeping them in the system as I
said sure sure okay thank you Dr dear
Rosa so are you familiar with the
Cahoots um program and was there an
opportunity to look at that or speak to
this particular group I mean they've
been doing it for decades um I don't
know how long this particular program
that you're referencing has been in
existence but they've they've seen a
reduction of the number of calls a
number of call the the hours that it's
is spending that law enforcement and
others are expending on these particular
particular cases um and not only that
they're like they've seen an $8 million
reduction in terms of um of the money
that it's costing all of us right
because they keep presenting to the ER
there's not a seamless system of
care mayor PR this is vosa I I looked at
a number of models when I was doing the
literature search in terms of the
evidence of the different types of
models and each model was somewhat
different in terms of what they're
trying to do nationally but uh the
common theme was that it was an inter
professional interdisciplinary team um
working effectively or together to to
address those particular needs but I
will look specifically at that Cahoots
model and and and look to see what we
can use from from their approach that
may be applicable to our border area
absolutely I appreciate that um they do
offer technical assistance
toolkits um again i' I've I've been able
to um you know listen to their program a
few times and and so if if I'm I'm
satisfied with you on the case there um
Dr De Rosa and looking at that I I trust
you implicitly so I'm I'm thank you
thank you for that um the other the
other U mention and I don't know if it
was on slide 29 was on on the creation
of a mental Health Coalition and I I
would caution us doing that we have a a
amazing um local Behavioral Health
collaborative the lc3 that's working um
closely on on assessing evaluating um
our system there's a group of folks that
are you know Rosanne Vasquez Jolene
Martinez um people that we're all very
familiar with that are that are are
working on this and doing some excellent
work um I just don't see the sense from
my perspective in developing a whole
different Coalition when there's one
already that's doing all things
Behavioral
Health mayor proen Paul Ford yes um so
the lc3 model I'm actually a board
member over there and uh it's that slide
was written that way because I I we
wanted we wanted to make sure that um
that that it was a clear um that we can
do the mobile crisis response program
but we also have to have Buy in from the
community we have to have places with
which to take these patients in order to
facilitate good outcomes and so yes I
don't feel like it's necessary to
reinvent the wheel there uh I have
conversations with um uh with uh Miss
Roseanne um on a regular basis I'm
actually in the uh having a conversation
on the side here with her right now um
and and we will I will work with
Roseanne to kind of make sure that we're
doing that I I think I've talked about
widespread to share information until
I'm blue in the face I will always
continue to talk about that and I think
that that's a good Avenue with which to
accomplish that so thank you for
bringing that up and I apologize for the
confusion thank you um Mr Ford
appreciate that I also want to remind us
that um in the state of the City address
um mayor mosima spoke specifically about
the development of a behavioral health
district and what that would look like
in terms of our um our County bringing
in our municipalities our commission uh
um County Commission um throughout our
um doniana County and all the little
townships and Villages um to be a part
of this um Behavioral Health
collaborative
and and maybe looking at the behavioral
health district as a funding source
right for for organizations and agencies
and I don't want us to lose sight of
that I think it's it's really important
um that that we are that we're tying
this in in some shape or form um because
I think it will be successful
collaboratively and it sounds like you
all want to be with a multi-disciplinary
team um approach and understand the
importance of of
that um sorry I'm looking through my
notes you know the other the other
things are what I think and I keep
hearing you know and I hear this often
and something that Mr pey and I have
talked about and what I have our Lo is
lobbying and I've advocating for is
paying for an evaluator for the city to
be able to look at these programs that
you have and um to include um the CIT in
terms of the
effectiveness using qualitative and
quantitative research this is so
important you know this is important to
council it always has been we're asking
about data we're asking about about um
effective you know efficacy and um how
we can improve um moving forward um and
so I would like that to be a component
of this this um is making sure that
we that there's metrics that we're
following that we're not creating
something at the end that that we go in
already with um these in in mind um and
again I I've talked to um city manager
peely about that I just think there's an
immense amount of time being spent um um
on this when that's not your expertise
and we can find people to be able to do
that and so that not only and and I'm
envisioning going for bigger grants um
there are grants from samsa and other
organizations that we could easily um
look to um um moving forward so that the
state and the fed you know aren't the
only um individual entities providing um
resources to the
city Mr peely did you want to say
something
May Pro no I just turned on my camera
because you mentioned my name I just
wanted to let you know I wanted to see
your face yes okay um let's
see I think that here we go here's some
of
there yeah I I think I mentioned
everything um and just reminding folks
that as part of our comprehensive P plan
Elevate our Elevate Las Cruses you know
some of these social um emotional types
of which probably for the first time has
been Incorporated in our plan making
sure that um that 100% of our folks get
100% of quality services um to and and
so I I want to make sure that we're
referencing that that um a lot of work
has been put on you know Elevate Lis is
real proud of that comprehensive plan um
but you know as you talk about housing
opportunities and that's where I'm super
concerned is is here we are you know
working towards building up this
Behavioral Health arm with a crisis um
response and I think what we're going to
find is our struggle as housing folks
and what are we going to do about that
and so I want to advocate here using
some of that our cares funding to
develop um be it a
hotel um you know that's not no longer a
a a hotel but finding um a a a facility
that we can utilize to house folks um is
going to be really important in in my
estimate moving forward and and and if
we don't do that alongside building this
crisis mobile um response I think it I
think it's going to be in vain
frankly that's all my questions um thank
you so much I've appreciated this um I
see councelor Boma has uh her hand up
thank you mayor PM yeah earlier um Mr
Ford was talking about some of the
concerns and issues that he was seeing
and I wondered and the thing that um
sort of struck me was particularly the
list he says he has regarding um homes
that are really not
um uh whether it's hoarding issues or
like just really not livable and unsafe
and you know one of my biggest
frustrations with the state is that
there is this giant 20 billion Permanent
Fund that we call the rainy day fund
that we refuse to tap into even though
it's pouring in New
Mexico um and that's frustrating right
that FR frustrates me that we refuse to
tap into that to take care of someone
the most vulnerable now I know that we
can't use the telshore fund to alleviate
all our issues I know that it's not
going to be there forever I know I know
all those things I also wonder you know
how we can better utilize telshore funds
when it comes to things like this like
this problem is very acute and it's very
unique and it's
very specific and I wonder right if
there could be a way that we can start
issuing grants or some sort of um
program that helps with these really
serious cases where families or elderly
particularly are living in situations
where it's just not safe and and so I I
wanted to pose that um I you know again
you know I I'm I've only been here a
year less than a year feels like a
lifetime um but I don't understand quite
yet right like how to how the city plans
to utilize those resources and so I just
wanted to lift that up I'd love to have
a conversation with um Mr peely about
that but I think it's worth mentioning
right that there are these funds that um
could be used potentially for some of
those really serious
situations thank you councelor bener
really appreciate that we do as you know
offer up um grants there's funding
opportunities that Natalie Green is um
facilitates for us um but I I wondered
um with that and maybe um Jennifer Vega
Brown and others um may be able to help
us facilitate this idea with the
question that Conor Sor had to Paul
about the electronic caregiver and the
just the amount of barriers that our
seniors are are uh have in relation to
um um internet and you know
utility um not having you know
consistent utilities is if we can offer
hotspots and those kinds of things so
that if they did get the electronic
caregiver Tech you know um that that
that we' be able to I mean because these
are our most vulnerable these are people
who have serious medical conditions and
and if we can offer that up
um I I would say we're better for it and
I think we are able to do that as a you
know the safety and well-being of our
elderly
so with that I'm GNA I see mayor mosima
back on um and um next up um mayor
welcome is um Chief
Enriquez okay
chief um were you guys which one are you
guys on number
one
you're you're you're still on the first
one 3.1 mayor yes sir okay um
you okay uh Chief go ahead mayor proam
and councel I just wanted to finish up
by saying thank you thank you for your
support
um next month it'll be 23 years that
I've been in the fire service and I can
tell you when I came in it was a rook
rookie duty to call the Vinos because we
had a vasino program to help those
individuals that were living by them M
themselves and needed some attention and
we would call them by phone uh today
with the mih we're doing it as house
calls and following up and aligning
their resources so as I said from the
beginning it it was not only a pleasure
but it's an honor to introduce and to
give this update that Paul for presented
because we're very proud of where we've
come and what we've done and now we're
moving on to the next steps of a mental
Crisis Intervention team with the police
and working with the community so uh I'm
I'm glad that we were able to do this
I've tried to get it on the work session
for a couple of years uh but here we are
today and we will continue to thrive and
and work at this so thank you for all
your support I really appreciate it okay
well great Chief thank you for that and
um I'm sure all the questions have been
answered so um if there's nothing
further let's go ahead and move to item
number 3.2 limited English proficiency
plan I believe uh Joe Richard and Gail
Estelle are going to be
presenting good afternoon mayor and
Council this is Joe Richards Human
Resources Director with me today are two
other HR staff members Gail Estel and
Debbie chis I want to thank you for
having us and allowing us the
opportunity to present to you some
updates to a proposed Citywide limited
English proficiency plan so we'll we'll
start with um the presentation I believe
it's getting prepped right now bear with
us so you guys are serious this really
is 3.2 you guys uh spent three hours on
item
one yes it was very Import in okay no I
got
you when when when you had Chief come on
I thought he's barely starting his
presentation I didn't know if if you
started at 3.3 first and then backwards
but okay
good no problem is very important so
we'll we'll go ahead and get started
mayor with some a little bit of
background
information sounds
good so there are three regulations that
pertain to the require requirement of
having uh a limited English proficiency
plan or LEP the city's been uh compliant
over the years with these regulations um
as one of the requirements is that any
organization that receives federal
assistance have a plan in place um once
this plan is in place then it pertains
to the entire
organization those uh that are in place
right now have been developed by a
couple of specific departments to use
for Grant funding uh a couple of years
ago it was recommended that we develop
and Implement a Citywide plan that can
be used by all departments so we uh
initiated that work Gail worked on a
plan that was developed a couple of
years ago but it never got fully
implemented so when Gail brought that to
my attention we Revisited the plan and
decided this was a perfect time to
re-evaluate look at our statistics and
then maybe expand on the plan and how it
gets
implemented um so Gil uh proposed a
committee that included Jamie Rickman
Jennifer Martinez and Carla Walton as
well as de Debbie childis Who provided
some invaluable feedback and
recommendations so I want to thank them
for their
contributions their work is really a
result of these updates and
recommendations that we're bringing
forward today those will include a
component for training staff making them
aware of the availability of these
resources and how to implement these
resources as well as a communication
plan that goes out of course to staff
and also to the community so that they
know the resources that are
available we took a look at what's
called a a four Factor
test next slide
please so this four-f factor analysis
was completed to identify how we
properly administer and um use these
resources to assist people with limited
English proficiency we want to make sure
that they have full access to our
programs and activities as well as any
information that they need from the
organization so the first factor is used
to assist and determine the scope of
languages that may need to be
interpreted um we can evaluate that by
looking at our demographics and
researching that information of course
by using census information as well as
other Community Partners the schools and
things of of that
nature the second factor is an
assessment to determine how often these
Services may need um to be provided and
that's information that we can really
Pro we can really obtain by getting
feedback from staff and those people
that interact on a daily basis basis
with uh residents that may have limited
English
proficiency the third Factor uh will
determine the impact on our actual or
potential services that we may provide
to our residents so any impact not
having a plan in place and having these
resources available could prolong
services that are being made available
to these
individuals and then the fourth Factor
will um provide analysis to determine
the demand um this will help us to
ensure that we have available resources
so that if we need additional resources
we can make that determination and
proceed
accordingly with that I'll go ahead and
turn this over to Gail Estel so she can
provide you a little more information
about the plan and the data that was
collected thanks true good afternoon uh
mayor and and councel this is Gil Estel
I'm the eeo Ada coordinator for for the
city um so what I'm going to do is I'm
going to tell you just a little bit
about the assessment that we did with
the four factor analysis and the data
that we came up with um the definition
of a limited English proficiency person
is is a person who does not speak
English as their primary language and
and also who has a limited ability to
read write or speak or understand
English and so the the data you're going
to see on this one is taken from the US
Census bureau's American Community
survey and this survey has two
classifications on how well people speak
English and the classifications include
very speak English very well or speak
English less than very well so when when
we took this data we took into
consideration um minor children who may
be receiving services or in programs uh
that the city had and that they may have
um you know LEP guardians or or parents
that the city may need to communicate
with need to interact with as far as
their child is concerned and so that's
why we use population over five to
gather our our data um so for the
purpose of this particular slide and
then also the next slide um we used
um an analysis it's an P threshold
population and what that's defined as is
a population that has at least 5% or
1,000 people whichever is less uh that
speak English less than very well so
what this um shows you on the screen is
data from Don Ana County and what it
tells us is that 56% of the people in
donana County speak a language other
than English and of those 52% % folks
50% of those folks are Spanish-speaking
households and of those 50%
Spanish-speaking households 15% of those
households speak English less than very
well now you'll notice that this data is
from the Census from
2017 um this will be updated as soon as
the 20120 data um is published and now
we'll review our limited English plan
we'll review statistics to determine
whether we need to you know update and
change the statistics and the data when
identifying individuals with limited
English
proficiency okay and then the next
slide talks about uh specifically Los
cruus and the population in Los crusis
uh we use the same lap threshold the 5%
of the population or a thousand people
whichever is less that speak English
lesson very well well and so what it
showed for Las cruus is that
39% of uh the household speak um
languages other than English and then of
those 39% 36% of those households are
Spanish-speaking households and then of
that 36% we have 8% of those households
that speak English less than very well
and so this does show you between donana
County and Las cuses County that we have
a fairly large number of households in
da and Las Cruses that speak English
lesson very well and so what our this
plan is and this is not to say that we
don't already do a lot of this stuff but
with this plan and the update what we
wanted to do was enhance what we are
already doing and provide more services
and better Services than what we have
been providing and so the these
statistics will help us you know
determine that too also what the data
showed was that the most prominent
languages in donana and donana County
and the city include Spanish Navajo Zuni
German and French and when we're
determining the uh identifying LEP
persons what we have to do is determine
the the six um prominent languages in
that community and so those are the ones
in our
community so now that we have identified
and in our plan we identify the LEP
persons with these statistics uh then on
the next slide it will show us um how we
are identifying these percentages of
folks who have speak English less than
very well the staff is certainly going
to be the first point of contact in
identifying individuals uh that may uh
be limited in their English proficiency
and you'll know noticed here on the
slide uh there's a part of a a poster
it's your right to an interpreter and
what this poster says is you have the
right uh to an interpreter at no cost to
you please point to the language and an
interpreter will be called for you and
there's like um you know it's A8 and a
half by 11 uh poster and it's the front
and back with the different languages
and so you know when the person comes in
and they are identified as an LEP
individual ual then this poster will be
used to also help that staff identify
what language that this uh person may
need to U you know needs assistance in
and then from there we have resources
that will help U allow to um you know
procure the appropriate languages for
the assistance that that person may need
so then the next slide talks about um
you know the the language assistance and
there's there's two kinds right there's
the oral and then there's the written so
with the oral communication you know
that's delivered by a qualified
bilingual staff member that's commuting
communicating directly with that lap
person in their own language all right
and then an
interpreter um as part of the oral um is
is taking a message spoken in one
language and then interpreting that into
another language and that can take place
you know a one-on-one person over the
telephone or via internet or video
interpreting and then the written uh
translation is a replacement of the
written text in in one language to
another now the city um the LEP plan has
to identify is required to identify what
we call Vital documents and these vital
documents refer to information that's
critical in accessing um you know
programs activities or Services a
document that maybe require a signature
or something that you know is is very
important now each department within the
city will identify what vital documents
are in their particular Department um a
lot of documents in in are already
translated into Spanish and according to
what the statistics say here the city is
only required
to uh Translate vital documents into
Spanish at this time however if someone
comes in that speaks a language other
than Spanish and requires or ask request
us to uh provide information written
information translation we are required
by the federal law to do that okay um so
the city is going to arrange for those
vital documents that are meaningful so
that um each individual no matter what
language they speak have the ability to
read and understand what it is that that
they are asking
for so then the next slide um we talk a
little bit about the different resources
that we have at the city some of these
resources we already have some of the
these resources we um are are still
developing but certainly bilingual staff
is going to be bilingual staff will be
identified by each each department um
you know we have some staff that say
well you know speak uh Spanish a little
bit but you know I don't really know if
I can get across you know what somebody
really wants to know uh you know I'm I'm
from Tennessee and and my my Spanish is
Mikasa and and I say that with the
southern accent so uh you know clearly
I'm not going to be someone that's going
to be uh you know a bilingual staff at
our city but each department will
identify and then we what we'll do is
we'll have a register of B people who
are uh staff who have been uh designated
or identified as a bilingual staff and
this is you know probably the most
economic use of our our dollars to serve
LEP persons and this is uh bilingual
staff will be used more like on daytoday
when somebody comes in and and dayto day
with that but then we're going to use
you know qualified interpreters and
translators uh when when we really need
to make sure that the that we're
providing to an individual is accurate
or if there's a lot of details or it's
really important and critical that they
understand every aspect of what it is
that we're interpreting or
translating uh video conferencing um is
another interpreting Service uh that you
know we're pretty excited about we
currently have a vendor and I'm going to
tell you a little bit about that in you
know in a few minutes so so that's
really you know I'm really pumped about
that piece of it um but we do currently
have six interpreter Services vendors
and those are individ those are um
vendors that do interpreting and they do
some translating and they are mostly
local I think one of them is in al passo
but those are local and we can call
those folks uh most of them require
24hour notice uh there are a few that do
you like emergency things but then of
course there's going to be an extra cost
attached to that the next one there is
video conferencing and we um and this is
one of the things that I've worked on
I've been with the city for about three
years now and when when I came in at at
the time we had a different HR Director
um my I think it was my second day on
the job and he said to me um you know
you need to develop or update our LEP
plan um I came from a nonprofit um you
know organization I had no clue what an
LP plan was and so we got together with
this and I said what what I think we we
need is some video conferencing so we
did some research and we now have a
vendor who will do the video
conferencing for us in addition to the
video they do the phone and then they
also do translation services and so uh
certified language
International is the um video
conferencing vendor that we current have
and they um have can translate into 200
plus different languages and so there's
a large r large range they can do that
um and they're are 247 365 you know
organization so that we can call them up
you know anytime any day if we need
translating Services uh and they do like
I say over the phone video interpreting
and then also translation so let me kind
of give you an example of how that video
conferencing might work with the
certified language
Internationals let's say somebody comes
in to visit with me and I determine that
um you know English is not their first
language and we're going to need some
assistance in communicating what I do is
I go to uh C's or the vr's website the
city has an access code I'll put in this
access code then I'll sign in with my
name and my ID number and the department
that I'm from so we'll know when the
bill comes in you know who who's going
to get the charge and then I select the
language that I want uh to be
interpreted and I am then Within two
minutes I'm a a connected with an
interpreter and it's on the screen and
so then what I do is I just you know I
can talk and then The Interpreter
working with a person that's sitting
with me that doesn't understand English
So within two minutes of someone coming
in that doesn't speak the same language
that I do and that we need some help
communicating with each other we can
have that service provided which I think
is is pretty
cool and then family members or friends
family members or friends are not
typically used and it's not a good
really a good idea to use interpreters
unless that person
specifically um you know wants a family
member to do that and then that would be
after the city uh staff has told the
person that you know we're going to give
you an interpreter we're going to
provide this without uh any cost to you
because some folks may think there's a
cost there's absolutely no cost for us
providing inter interpreting services
for you now in some cases children under
the age of 18 will not be used because
you know to ensure confidentiality or
that the information is actually uh
provided and communicated in an accurate
way and so you can see now that that we
have a good foundation for providing the
services um our our plan and Joe's going
to talk about this a little bit later on
on as to you know what's our next step
and making sure that all the departments
in the city really know and and how to
you know access these Services um and it
it was it's kind of cool because I had
somebody call me it's been several
months ago and they said I have a person
standing here in front of me that speaks
German uh do you speak German and I said
no but I speak Southern slang that
wasn't what they were asking for um and
so it was really cool that we were able
to Prov find uh you know someone who
could translate and speak with this
person in in Sp I mean in German at that
particular
time so then you know with our plan you
know we're going to monitor and update
it you know as needed and it's going to
be on an ongoing um basis this is going
to be like a living document and so some
of the things that we're going to use uh
to Monitor and and update our slide is
um we're going to you know re-evaluate
and identify the lap population I can
say so in the new 2020 data comes out uh
we'll look at that again to see if if
the numbers have changed and if the
numbers have changed then we're going to
assess the current level of the services
that we're we're being are being
delivered and what do we need to do to
enhance it what do we need to change
what do we need to to do so uh
individuals who are are limited in their
English
proficiency we make sure they receive
the same service that everyone else does
and then we're going to look at the
availability maybe there's new you know
technology that's come out and so we'll
look at that when come to updating our
plan and then we'll evaluate complaints
um and the the language access
discrimination Complaint Form procedure
and that's actually in our plan and what
it does it's it a stablishes a way for
members of our community who feel that
they have been denied had um you know
language access discriminated against as
far as language access um have a way to
file a
complaint and these this document will
be placed on the city website it also be
P placed on SharePoint so if someone
comes in let's say you know to human
resources and says you know I feel I've
been discriminated against as far as
language access I want to file a
complaint um that staff person will be
able to go on to SharePoint and give
this person a copy of the Complaint Form
then the Complaint Form will come into
my office and then you know it will be
evaluated and so annually what we'll do
is we'll look at those complaints and
that's going to help us determine you
know have we been successful and what
else do we need to do uh going forward
with that and so we will look at uh
periodically um you know updating and
revising our plan as as necessary so
also part of our plan is training so I'd
like to introduce now Debbie Childer
she's an organizational development
administrator and she's going to discuss
the training part of our LEP
plan well thank you Gail
so I I knew a Gail Estelle like from 30
35 years ago that's not you uh probably
I've been around at least 35 years
okay nice to see you again thank you
okay and I'm sorry who's gonna who's
going to speak now debie childis debie
childr good afternoon mayor and Council
my name is Debbie childis organizational
development administrator staff training
will help ensure all city employees
understand the importance of and are
capable of providing effective
communication to individuals with
limited English proficiency and City
programs as well as services and any
activities um and the the training plan
will encompass uh going over the city's
LEP policies and procedures when and how
to access and utilize the oral and
written language assistant services that
Gail talked to you about earlier how to
work with the in uh the interpreters and
the translators another component will
be how to communicate effectively and
respectfully with individuals with
limited English proficiency uh a couple
years back we had a program where we had
dacc come in and U provide some uh
Spanish Lang language training for
business needs and we really focused a
lot on customer service and culture and
respect so we look forward to
incorporating that as well and then also
identifying and requesting translation
of
documents so um departments will keep
track of their bilingual staff and as
Gail mentioned we'll continue to update
people uh move in and out of departments
move in and out of the city will'll
continue to keep track of those people
that will be helping assist uh those
individuals and then we're also planning
on adding all of our uh training for E
for LEP excuse me to our new hire
training and so this is something that
we want to make sure we have a good
communication effort uh that we're
providing information out to everyone so
that not only they're aware but that
we're also providing
training that's my part of it and I
believe Joe is up next okay thank you
Debbie you're
welcome Joe Richards it's our director
for the record um so going forward next
slide please these are our next steps so
we will seek approval of the plan uh and
of course as Debbie mentioned doing some
uh communication and training and then
provide also information uh to Residents
and the public about the the information
that we have available and the resources
available um so with that with these
next steps we'll stand for any question
questions that you all might
have thanks Joe so basically what this
was was primarily informational and then
later on bring it to council for
approval is that
correct mayor and Council Joe Richards
for the record um I'm I'm believe that
this would just go to the city manager
for approval oh okay so you don't need
us to okay good uh looks like we have
councelor bomo beta stui and gandera
thanks mayor and welcome I'm sure you
thought we were you going to get in here
at the end of this meeting yeah no I was
already and I turned on the TV and it's
like what okay so I better no I'm just
kidding I just um thank you and thanks
so much for the presentation this is
very interesting I you know um those
statistics are really important I'm glad
that you uh presented those to us um I
mean I had some idea right I think New
Mex Las Cruses is probably one of the
communities that has one of the um
largest immigrant populations Deming
Luna County being probably the biggest
Las Cruz is definitely one of the
biggest with 12% so um I'm really glad
that you brought that to
us um you know I just have to say a
quick story because I think it's
important that when you were talking
about considering populations five and
older I cannot tell you the amount of
times that I translated for my parents
um at multiple places I translated often
my own parent teacher conferences which
was pretty fun being a pretty devious
child at the bank at the doctor which
got pretty awkward at the mechanic which
got tense because my dad wanted me to
translate things to the mechanic that I
didn't even know in English so um it's
definitely really
um language access is actually um
uh a really critical issue you know and
I think that when we're as a city um in
order to provide great customer service
we really have to consider um language
access so this is this is incredibly
important and ensure that you know kids
aren't translating for their parents
when they go to utilities or whatever um
honestly my biggest question is
around um Council meetings and work
sessions I recently heard that
Albuquerque through their office of
immigrant Refugee Services um and their
office of um equity and
inclusion that they have been working on
ensuring there are interpretation
services at any public meeting um and to
me I think that that's important um
whether it's even on like an RSVP basis
I'm not sure but um will there be a
piece in this plan that really advocates
for having interpretation services at
Council meetings whether they're through
virtual or you know when we're back in
person okay Mr Mayor counselors I'll
defer to Gail on some of those resources
but I do know that some of the vendors
that we have can be made available um
she had referenced I believe there's at
least half a dozen different vendors
right now um so I believe their Avail
availability could be made at those
Council meetings Gail do you have input
yeah and and right now it is on a um you
know we put on all of our agendas and
everything if you need um you know
assistance it's not just with you know
an ADA accommodation kind of thing but
if you need language assistance too if
you let us know in 72 hours in advance
we can make sure that there's an
interpreter at you know that particular
meeting however we have discussed in the
committee meeting and Jamie Rickman was
really important uh was real uh you know
with putting this in is that we need do
need to come up with with a plan and add
this into our plan about allow having an
interpreter at each city council meeting
or what or any other meeting Community
meetings Jamie in particular with her
community Comm meting when she goes out
to do community uh access and research
and those kinds of things um and so yes
we are looking into that uh to see if
you know maybe some of the vendors we
have now or do we need to look out
further and broaden our scope and see um
you know who else is out there but that
is something that we're aware of we do
think it's very important and that we
will be addressing great thank you so
much I think even it
for let let me just share that something
with you so uh just real quick in the
past when um usually if they do need an
interpreter their their friend will ask
the city and they'll have that
accommodated because I've seen that it's
usually it's when it's like it's a
hearing let's say they have to they go
before the city council for something
maybe they need a you know something
done and then a lot of times when it's
on TV I think the the close caption
provides that but I just want to let you
know that a lot of times they've been
really good where they'll just ask
they'll give the city a little bit of a
head start and then they'll have The
Interpreter in fact it's not just for
Spanish they even had for one time uh
gentleman needed for a different
language but this was really impressive
what the information that we were just
given so I didn't mean interrupt but I
just want to let you know that uh
usually the a friend of the person who
needs that interpretation is is has that
they let the city know in advance and
then it's usually accommodated but it's
good to hear that they're looking into
the other like like Gail just mentioned
great yeah that's that's really
important honestly I didn't know and i'
been I've been working with
predominantly people who speak Spanish
and doing lots of advocacy and at the
city and county and state and off and I
did not know that was available so I
think that that's important to make sure
that we're very clear and open and and
advertise that service and then my last
other point is just around um
compensation for City staff who are
bilingual who get used for those kind of
um in those kinds of situations you know
it's I I am English is my first language
and just because I speak two languages
does not mean I'm a good interpreter or
a good translator um and that's like a
very specific skill and it's a very
specific career choice even right there
are people who make their careers out of
translating interpreting and so I want
to make sure that even if we are for
internal use tapping into bilingual
staff that they are being compensated
for providing that additional work for
whatever department they might work for
thanks mayor sure and um Gail or or Joe
do we have and you see this especially
in um other meetings that I've attended
where let's say it gets to the point
where um we may need some of those
headphones and then you can have someone
the good thing with the Internet is they
someone could be watching our meeting
and literally interpreting from home but
while they're interpreting it the the
ones that need uh the English
translation uh they'll be able to have
headphones do we have headphones do we
have those
available um not to my knowledge you
know I could I could speak with Dominic
I don't know that we do right now uh but
he would be able to answer that question
and I'd be more than happy to find that
out and then you know let you guys know
yeah well or just we'll let EO know and
if we don't have any we I think we
probably should have some because that
it's it's as our population grows it's
going to get to the point we're going to
need some and then we can just always
add to them you so I think that's
probably not a bad idea okay thanks and
uh next we've got hey chief Enriquez I
don't think you have a question you
probably just didn't put your hand down
so I'm just going to guess here
councelor AA
stui thank you mayor um and thank you
Joe and Gail and Debbie um my question
revolves around that of a um American
sign language on what types of um
platforms we utilize right now um for
those types of systems and if they're um
well I know uh one business does it's
like a almost like an iPads that you tap
into so people can view back and forth
if we use that type of technology or if
we have different systems that we need
to utilize for
that well we actually have both uh some
of our vendors will actually come on
site so if they know ahead of time
they'll come on site and provide that
also certified language International
American sign language is one of the
languages that they interpret in and so
we can also use that from the computer
uh you can also use it from your cell
phone if you need to do that and so we
have according to what the situation
might necessitate if somebody's you know
if we know it in advance you know we
might use the the onsite interpreter if
it's someone that comes in we can always
use a certifi language
International okay fantastic um and
that's all my questions
mayor thank you um mayor PM Gander and
thanks for running the meeting
my pleasure mayor thank you good
practice
um thank you um Gail and um Joe and Miss
um ch ch did I get that correct um I I
wanted to ask something that was said am
I I was assuming that this particular um
policy has been in existence for some
time
and then two years ago or whenever
someone started the former um director
said let's update it so we've had it or
is this all
new
Mr coun this is Joe Richards for the
record um yes ma'am there had been plans
in place for a number of years in order
to comply with those federal guidelines
that re require you to have an LEP plan
in place to get federal aid um but the
plans that were in place had been
developed by specific
departments uh so we've been in
compliance because those plans would
apply to the whole organization if
needed um but then a couple of years ago
uh we were notified that or recommended
exactly that that we should have
something that's more Universal for the
whole organization something that we
could uh develop and have consistent
resources and provide that to every one
for their use and make sure that we have
that available to our residents that
need those those
services so miss Richards the forms and
the you know that you that were
presented or a part accompanied the
agenda item electronically to include
the poster are all those new elements or
are they old and and you're just
updating Joe Richards for the record
mayor and counsel um so of those forms
are newly developed some of the
information that Gail was able to
research and obtain from other
organizations and from other uh
resources are new in the
plan now does that include the release
um releasing um the city um from any any
wrongdoing or liability in the event an
individual wants to use some other um
translation service or translator
Mr Mayor and councel yes I believe one
of those documents does include for
instance if they choose to use their own
family member um then there is a release
that they're essentially saying this is
my choice I've been provided access to
this at no cost however I've chosen to
have my family member interpret for me
and so what if they didn't want to sign
it Mr Mayor and Council that's um I
guess that's a really good question we
would have to do a little research on
that to see what um what we could do to
document that
appropriately now did all these the
policy and the forms and that particular
foam get vetted by our legal
attorney those the plan has not gone
through legal yet um and again that's
that's part of our process we be vetting
those things and reviewing with the city
manager before gets um
implemented so is this a um a you have
funding attached to
this mayor and councel uh Joe Richards
again for the record we do have some
funding available on HR that we've used
for these resources right now it's it's
not determined as to what the cost may
be going forward because it'll depend on
the utilization for the resources that
we've um we've been able to outline um
so that's part of what we're going to
have to be tracking to evaluate needs
going forward what is the current
amount um mayor and counsel uh Gail
correct me if I'm wrong but I believe
we've allocated $66,000 for these
resources so that includes like um a
list of the list that you mentioned of
contractors with the V that um have the
skill set for the various languages and
and those kinds of things yes mayor and
Council Joe Richards yes
ma'am okay and
then
um I guess I I didn't I wasn't aware
that you know that statement that says
if you need assistance or whatever I
thought it was more Ada um requirements
I I don't know that people know that
right those of us that have participated
and so I would like to encourage a
different sentence there that that
encourages you know that we have
translation if you need it it's
available I I hate and and not only that
I guess I I wish that we would just do
it at not um
have someone um you know notify us with
you know a certain amount of time and
you know those kinds of things I I I
would like for us and I've been
advocating for this for some some time
that we at least have the Spanish you
know speak the the uh um simultaneous
translation um provided at every meeting
um I think it's important um and and I
I'd like to get to the point to where
the county is at they offer that all the
time regularly they don't leave someone
saying you know um so many days in
advance that it's required I i' really
like to get to that so if if that's not
only mayor to your point about having
the
devices um um I I think it I would like
to see that I think that's also
important for not only um our our
regular and our work sessions but any um
committees um boards um that we have
that we should we should make do that as
a just a natural thing that we do um
moving
forward so with that mayor thank you
that those are all my questions sure I
think um if the city can take a look and
see what that would what that would run
May fortim um I think that' be good and
then bring it back to council because I
think you'd be uh if we have it for
every meeting board meeting that we have
I think it'll be a fair amount of money
but um you know we'll see we'll see how
much it runs uh I don't think it's a
requirement from from Ada I think we
just have to make a reasonable
accommodation but um you know I don't
know we we'll see from what Jennifer has
to say at least we're not like um what
was that what was that case
uh um was it Maldonado versus the city
of Altus or something like that you
don't know what I'm talking about I was
I was reading that one day it's it was a
totally different thing uh Council
florus are you gonna volunteer to
interpret for
us no you you want another job yeah
I um actually a simultaneous uh
translation I've only met maybe I mean
people at the UN are simultaneous trans
uh interpreters and I don't know how
they do it and I I know one person and
you know her too mayor CM who is
probably the most amazing talented um uh
simultaneous translator that's Susie
chaparo I mean she is amazing it's like
I don't know how they do it because
syntax and word you know which is word
order and then then Spanish and English
have a lot of cognizance so you have one
word that sounds like it means this and
it
doesn't um and then we have a lot of
slang and then people uh a lot of people
uh that I know uh who I think all of us
know a lot of us know will use the word
breas well that doesn't exist in Spanish
breas is is breaks in English and in
Spanish it's fenos so you know there's a
lot of words like that so no I don't I
wouldn't volunteer for that job wouldn't
pay me enough money to do it because it
is a work I mean the brain um the
person's people who do that translations
I do beautifully you get you know you
get me to do translations a written word
I can sit there and I actually there you
go we'll cut our cut cost in half right
there something okay I didn't what else
can you do and and to that point I I
totally agree with I think it was uh
councelor a beta stui who asked about
the comp the compensation for that added
task um because it is a big task um I um
this is very important to me too um I as
um as counselor benom I wasn't I wasn't
speaking English till I was 8 years old
and um and my father was fluent enough
and my mother I guess to an extent but
at home we only spoke Spanish but my
question to Joe is if it's hard law
pursuant to the Civil Rights Act of
1964 why doesn't the city already have
something like this is it is this what
we're doing today driven by the fact
that it's contingent on getting some
funding for something else or I'm just
I'm baffled by
that mayor and counselors Joe Richards
for the record um we have had plans in
place um I'm not sure how long they've
existed but I can tell you we were as a
city we were required to have a plan in
place in order to obtain any federal aid
uh so like grant funding or other
services U but in in years past the
Departments that had that funding had
developed their own plans but once a
plan is established it can be utilized
by the entire
organization um so if there was a need
for um that service those plans could be
utilized uh again a recommendation came
forward a couple of years ago that said
you know as as an organization you
should have something more Universal
that can be uh implemented and staff can
be trained on so that we're we're
complying uh universally with one set of
of um policy if you will as well as
providing the same types of services uh
so in those are the services that again
Gail has researched that we've obtained
in order to offer to all the Departments
to
use so well if I guess I'm not following
this very well uh Miss Richards um so
please bear with me so if the plans in
place for grant funding existed in other
uh uh departments or parts of the city
am I correct in saying that so far yes
ma'am okay then why do do we need to do
this at this point I'm just trying to
get at why we're doing it now this way
for what purpose what drives
it the drive it excuse me mayor and
councel Joe Richards for the record um
again there was a recommendation
received a few years ago I'm not sure if
that came from uh some grant funding
agencies um but it was received by HR
and at the time Gail initiated efforts
to develop the plan um was developed but
it never got fully implemented or
approved um so that's why we've circled
back to that now and said well you know
we need to make some updates to this we
can expand on it and provide additional
services that weren't identified
before wow okay so
um as far as
um as far as the employees who will be
um interpreting uh the the the the oral
language or translating the written
document are they trained in doing this
and how is there going to be any
training any education any testing any I
mean you know
this mayor and Council Joe Richards for
the record um we do have some positions
that are identified as having a
preference for bilingual um skills and
typically when we hire for that there is
an assessment and we do have some
different assessments available that are
utilized in other departments that get
people certified if you will uh in their
proficiency level so my recommendation
would be that we you know utilize that
same service going forward when
individuals are identified to make sure
that they have a certain proficiency
level excuse me one second looks like
Jennifer wants to jump in real quick
counselor FLOTUS Absol
thank you Joe yes ma'am good afternoon
uh mayor and councel I I'm not familiar
with this um I I haven't seen
the the um presentation or talk to
anybody about this yet but just this is
probably for title six not title seven
in title six um there's an
anti-discrimination for federally funded
programs and um activities which usually
include airport and know that in a lot
of our grants that we receive we have to
give assurances that we are complying
with tile six and the non-discrimination
so I imagine that this is why we are
doing it um it probably is centered a
lot around federally funded
projects okay yeah and I understand
thank you attorney Vega Brown I
understand that it's title six not title
7even but uh I was just wondering what
was you know making forc it almost seems
like we're being forced fored to do it
otherwise we're going to be in you know
in a place we don't want to be so thank
you so much for that and then um also
what um a counselor AE stbi brought up
was about the American Sign Language
well what about sign languages a sign
language in other
languages not just and then the American
Sign Language person would also have to
be because sign language is not
Universal that's why it's American Sign
Language so I'm just just wondering how
that would
work Gail can you address
that um yes I I know that um with
certified language Internationals they
have like I said you know more than 200
250 different
languages I and I know they have
American Sign Language you i' have to
look and go back and do some research to
determine if they need sign language in
language other than American Sign
Language of how that would work so I
don't have an answer for that question
right now but I can certainly find out
that would be good to to know because I
imagine there are people who um you know
aren't able to speak for whatever reason
and uh have to rely on on on sign
language so that would be good
um okay those are
um yeah I want to thank my colleagues
for the question that they brought up
and and thank you very much Mrs stelle
and and Miss Richard Miss Richards and
thank you Mr Mayor okay thank you
counselor and thank you very much for
the presentation U Joe and and Debbie
and and Gail so looking forward to some
other good stuff thanks okay so now
we're going to go to that last item 3.3
terms of the settlement between the city
and the estate of Antonio Valenzuela
City Attorney Jennifer Vega Brown will
lead the discussion
thank you mayor and Council this is
Jennifer Vega Brown your City attorney
I'm going to present a portion of of a
presentation there's a lot of
information involved in it and we're
going to have to kind of tag team
between myself and um interm Chief
Dominguez and Damen Martinez there's um
a lot of detail so if you if you have
any questions please feel free to
interrupt and ask questions or and I'll
back up if I need to okay Jennifer
before we began I I got the impression
and I I I think it was
um this is really more for the the terms
of the settlement but I don't know why
one of the I thought I read were it
looked like we're were going to be
discussing and possible different
changes to policy which is that's not
what this was advertised for so I just
wanted to let the uh council members
know you know we're they're going to go
over the terms of the settlement um hold
on to a lot of your you know you can ask
questions hold on to a lot of your your
items we'll have another work session
later and we'll discuss what what
possibilities we can change but this one
here was not advertised to discuss
changes to the policy this is strictly
terms of the settlement uh and and how
it that in the city of Las
guses that's correct thank you mayor I
will um share my
screen
are you able to see my screen
yes and let me see if I can make that
better where's counselor
sword usually he says uh what is it F5
or F3 five and I do rely on his yes
five
okay I'm working from two different
computers here so bear with me um on
July 17 in 2020 the city entered into a
settlement agreement in the case of the
estate of Antonio
Valenzuela Val Valenzuela and versus the
city of Las cruus the settlement
agreement requires the city to consider
various policies for formal adoption by
Las Cruses Police Department many of the
requirements that are contained in the
agreement are were already implemented
prior to the incident in
question I want to go over the authority
to create department policies because
that's an important aspect of what we'll
be doing um the authority to create the
department policies comes from the
municipal code and the charter the
charter article 4 section
4.01 mandates that all organizational
units are under the direction and
supervision of the city manager that
allows the city manager to have
authority to set policy um as far as
inner inner policy for
departments also the municipal code
division 5 authorizes the city manager
to determine the duties of all officers
and employees of the
city in the city of Los cruus we have
various levels of internal City
policies the first one is the city
manager policies we call them
cmps the second is Department standard
operating
procedures and then we have LCPD and
lcfd general orders they're all about
the same thing they're they're all
administrative rules that determine how
the employees in each of those
departments functions and accomplishes
their duties and
tasks city manager policies cmps were
created um many years ago currently they
are housed in CMP 1.0 which states that
they provide supplemental Personnel
rules and regulations Beyond those
required by the city Charter the city
code and Personnel rules all of the cmps
in the city are vetted through the CMP
committee and recommendations are
forwarded to the city manager so
whenever there's a need or for a rule to
be addressed it is addressed by the
committee the committee currently um
includes the City attorney and the
assistant city managers and the HR
Director anytime that a recommendation
is made to change a CMP it requires
notice to collective bargaining units
each collective bargaining unit has a a
comment and an input
period and the city manager must approve
all
[Music]
cmps the other policies that we talked
about are Department Sops these are also
authorized by the personnel manual
section
601 they require city manager approval
and they may require notice to
collective bargaining units for comments
and
input and finally we have general orders
those are vetted through Department
committees and these are LCPD and
lcfd they are approved by the chief of
police or the Fire Department chief and
they also may require notice to
collective bargaining units for comment
and
input we'll go through the settlement
terms now I'm G to turn this over to
Daman
Martinez um and then um Chief domingus
will have
to add some comments because there's a
lot of information that um will be
needed to add it to add to it so Damian
I will hand it over to you and just let
me know when you want me to switch
slides thank you Miss Vega Brown
Mr mayor council thank you for having me
um let let's start off with what the
settlement provides excuse me Daman I I
know we identified you but can you for
the record state your name and and who
you are what you do please I'm Sorry
Miss R uh my name is Damen Martinez I'm
an attorney with Minette Martinez
Springer I uh represented the city in uh
the lawsuit filed by the estate of
Valenzuela thank you um thank you Mr
Mayor
let's talk about what the
uh the agreement between the parties
does and doesn't
do the the agreement between the parties
does not require the city to change any
formal policies what the agreement
requires is that the city needs to
consider eight policy probable possible
policy changes is but the city is not
bound to make any of those changes as
Miss Vega Brown told you changing a
police policy goes through different
levels and is handled it at different
levels what the city council has to do
is uh consider the different aspects of
the um agreement between the
parties and so so the first one there's
eight there's eight things that the city
council has to look at so the first one
is to adopt a policy uh that bans choke
holds choke holds have never been
authorized within the Los cruus Police
Department what was authorized by the
Los cruus Police Department is a a hold
known as a vascular neck restraint a
Chokehold blocks
oxygen uh getting to the lungs a
vascular neck restraint is a a type of
of move where where you block blood
going to the brain and that causes you
to essentially black out since the uh
event that occurred involving Mr
Valenzuela the then uh City police chief
chief
Gallagher decided Pro prohibited the use
of the vascular neck restraint
so the the settlement agreement asks for
a policy banning all forms of check
choke holds City Police Department never
uh allowed choke holds and and if uh
Chief Dominguez would like to add
anything uh now would be the
time good afternoon uh interim City
chief Miguel lingz for the record so uh
there was a special order placed by uh
former Chief Gallagher on March 2nd of
this year um specifically stating that
the vascular neck restraint was no
longer an accepted a use of force we
have uh since updated our use of force
policy uh which is right now under legal
review and uh this part of that use of
force policy that uh the pro uh
prohibiting uh the vascular neck
restraint will be uh specified in the in
that use of force policy so that that's
where we stand as far as that's
concerned and and uh Damian is correct
that we we never authorize choke holds
as a
department next slide please
so the second um aspect of the
settlement
agreement requires uh the council to
consider the adoption of a policy
requiring officers intervene when they
are aware of any unconstitutional uses
of force by fellow
officers um
so here is what goes on when it comes to
unconstitutional uses of
force the uh officers who work in in the
Los cruus Police Department or work for
any Department are already obligated to
intervene when they believe that an a
fellow officer is violating somebody's
constitutional rights that doesn't have
to be in the policy the Supreme Court of
the United States has already
established that um but there is a code
of conduct within uh the the uh city of
Los crusis which allows a violation of
this policy where an
officer clearly violates someone's
constitutional rights that is grounds
for termination immediate termination we
also have to remember one thing a
violation of a constitutional right
isn't something that that we can always
see on its face what I mean by that is
it is not always clear if a violation
has occurred the Supreme Court has has
numerous cases on what's a violation of
constitutional right the the big thing
the past year has been qualified
immunity and qualified immunity allows
officers uh to to their actions to be
protected and not violations of
constitutional rights and and the key is
when you look at a constitutional right
the Supreme Court has said they get to
determine what violations of
constitutional rights are and when I say
the Supreme Court the United state
supreme court and and a violation of
somebody's constitutional right is
clearly established and and what the
what the courts have done over the years
is they they look through through
through a lens in use of force and it's
the gram the Graham lens and that's the
test and um when they look at that test
part of that test is whether something's
clearly established because a lot of
these cases a lot of these incidents
where where officers use Force are fast
moving so so what does that tell us it's
really hard to create a policy where you
can col connect all the dots if this
then that uh there used to be a use of
force um type of of tool that was used
it's most departments have have gone
away with it and and it had color
codings right and it made people think
that you needed to follow these steps to
ensure it's a continuum force is what it
was called to ensure that no that the
use of force was was proper most
departments have gone away from a
Continuum of force model and have based
their use of force on grah V Connor so
while it is helpful to have have a
policy let's remember the Supreme Court
has already declared what the law is and
a violation of a policy is not t to a
violation of someone's constitutional
rights
okay chief
Dominguez inter Chief Dominguez for for
the record so as we're talking about the
duty to intercede uh daman's correct we
already had it covered in our code of
conduct uh policy prior prior to the
incident that we're talking about uh the
new use of force policy which I I spoke
about during the8 can't weight city
council session
a few months ago uh would have a uh duty
to intercede a portion in that policy uh
again that policy is isn't legal review
but it is uh we did specify that uh
officers have a duty to intered and uh
and uh identify the case law that that
requires it so it is in the new use
Force policy so um just moving forward I
know that that policy is is very close
to being uh being uh put into
place so so the third part of uh the ISS
the the proposed policies that that the
the city needs to consider is a policy
requiring an annual or at a minimum
biannual deescalation training for every
law enforcement officer in the city this
was already part of City policy and City
policy as it relates to officer
training is based on the New Mexico Law
Enforcement Academy um the the city of
Los Cruses has has followed those
guidelines and continues to follow those
guidelines you know earlier we were
talking about on in the first
presentation with the fire chief about
the CIT units and and the training that
is available and that is done with the
officers city of Los cruus has been out
there doing this this type of training
for a while now as was pointed out and I
I would uh have the chief uh comment on
on any internal aspects that I've
missed before we get to the chief um
Damian councelor Vasquez has a comment I
don't know if it's on this or if it was
the one that just passed councelor
Vasquez uh thank you mayor and I I this
question may be premature so if it's if
it's better for the end of the uh
session here that's fine but I'm just
wondering in in terms of the terms of
this agreement um
assuming that uh lawyers or or attorneys
looked at our policy um you know I'm
hear I'm seeing these first three policy
asks and they apparently are already
policy so I'm just wondering why did the
attorneys for the
um the the uh Valenzuela estate not due
their due diligence or are they or are
they talking about other things that we
need to change because I'm so far I'm
hearing that we we've already
implemented these things or they were
already implemented so I'm just I'm just
wondering if you could comment on
that uh councelor Vasquez um thank you
for that question you know I can't
really comment on on what Mr ragman did
uh with respect to presenting and
preparing his case Sam bregman's a a
very good ATT attorney he's well
respected what I can tell you uh with
respect to the terms that that are
within this release I I've represented
the city police department for almost 16
years now
um the the city of Las Cruses has taken
police and police use of force seriously
now um the the city of Los crusis was
one of the first departments in the
state of New Mexico and probably in the
country to adopt an internal policy
Within the city of Los cruus now this
was you know technology has changed and
changes and Leaps and Bounds on a daily
basis it seems like and as 20120 has
pointed out um you know but the city of
Los cruus Police
Department was really at the Forefront
of requiring recordings and at the time
it was what what they used to call Belt
tapes which were I don't even know if
they were digital there they might have
been uh you know Magnetic Tape but uh
would require recordings of police
interactions with uh individuals in the
city of course it was during certain
types of of interactions it usually
related to
[Music]
um domestic
disturbances but but city of Los Cruses
was at the Forefront of those changes
within their their policy back in 2007 I
want to say and that was in relation to
a a police use of force shooting that
occurred in 2006 so I I can't comment on
what Mr bregman said what I can tell you
is in in dealing with use of force cases
that have come up over the years the
city of Los crisis's policy as it
relates to the police department has
always been at the Forefront of
changes in in law enforcement and when I
say at the Forefront of changes of law
enforcement when other departments were
still using the use of force
continuum the Los cruus Police
Department chose it wasn't required by
anybody but chose to move from the use
of force continuum to a constitutional
matter under grah V Connor so I I can't
explain why Sam asked for these you know
the these are eight terms that we're
going to go through uh that
really are are born out of what has
happened in police interaction with
individuals in in uh in this year these
are the same eight terms uh that um that
have been asked for in different states
involving high-profile cases of use of
force okay thank you Daman I appreciate
it and thank you mayor I I was wondering
about that um and and just thinking
about um you know if we are interpreting
these to fit within the policies we've
already established or or if Mr bregman
and uh his clients actually met
Something Different by them um because
like I said I mean it would seem not to
be too productive to have uh included in
the settlement things we're already
doing um but I will I will just say my
questions for for for later on that
thank you uh mayor and thank you D thank
you counselor and that was a good
question and I will tell you I was
around when we had the Continuum use of
force and I'm glad we moved away from
that because it was it was really uh
huge challenges mayor Port you have a
comment or question I do mayor it was
sort along the lines of coun vasus is
but so I've heard and as you know
um I I have appreciated that the
leadership right of LCPD being the front
one Runner the Trailblazers as you um
you might call it as it relates to a lot
of these and I continue to hear that all
these policies are in place but I can't
help but to think then why are we in the
predicament that we're in currently
right what needs to happen and as you
know and we've said this publicly um we
have a Public Safety Committee that we
haven't um got um ramped up but we have
um you and I conserv Vasquez sit on a
mitigation community community
mitigation um committee that meets every
couple of weeks we've talked a lot about
our policies being transparent you see
the transparency page on lcbd that's
been created um we are talking a lot
about the train TR ings that are
available the caliber of training with
resumés um but I I guess I'm I'm
concerned that although we
are the the the leaders if you will
Trailblazers and and then we have this
and this has been very costly to us so I
guess I want to be assured that um we
have some um assessments about our
supervision and and and kind of a plan
of action moving forward related to how
we're going to handle
this yeah M Pam I don't think this is
really appropriate for us to discuss
anything in particular uh regarding this
I think it just strictly go over the the
policies have your comments I'll be more
than happy to share with you in in
private uh my my take on on what you
have to say but I can assure you that
the city has always worked to to do the
best that they can and and um you know I
think I I think I mentioned before you
um the newest the four newest council
members there was there was a time where
we were just um the the claims against
the city were were so minimal uh for or
even the amounts that we paid that I
just knew I just knew that it was going
to come back and and and swing the other
way and just things just things seem to
even out but if I may with all due
respect follow up with you on that yeah
personal okay uh Damon you want to go
ahead and or who who's finishing up the
other portion and i' just like to point
out uh you're not going to get every
slide that says City Police Department's
already done this we're doing it uh you
know we're we're on slide 10 uh section
uh request C so we're GNA as we're going
to move through uh the council will be
able to see some some issues that that
are out there um so so so the next uh
slide that we're dealing with is uh the
request that the the city adopt a policy
requiring annual or at a minimum by
annual deescalation training for every
law enforcement officer of the
city uh so so what the city is doing
here is uh we're the city's going to run
some scenarios in 2021 with you know
training to to try to build up the
training that uh the officers already
have
uh they're going to the city of Las
crusis Police Department is already
going to bring in reality Based training
that that will address this aspect of
the settlement agreement and chief chief
Dominguez if if you could add to
that you're uh interim chief lingz for
for the record so there's a there's a
request that we look at deescalation
training uh annually or biannually as
well as racially uh racial bias training
so you do several trainings on these two
topics and I actually have our Academy
director on uh online right now that can
speak more to that uh this is Lieutenant
Jeremy
story good evening mayor council
Lieutenant Jeremy story The
LC um I'll speak to deescalation
training first um as a multifaceted
approach deescalation in of itself is
one of those words that can be very
simple but it's also Nuance
so terms it's communication and it's
emotional in ability to handle stress at
an appropriate level without
overreacting based on the C
circumstances so we talked earlier about
um several of the things we
already
Academy and as well as in service so the
New Mexico Department of Public Safety
Law Enforcement Academy through the
requires two hours every two years of
dealing with the mental ill which is a
big our department
is really hard to
hear there's a lot of of feedback mayor
yes
um
is is there another computer you can use
or is there just a lot of feedback where
you're at no it's pretty quiet in here
I'm not sure where that's oh now it
sounds now it sounds really clear okay
yeah I apologize were you able to hear
what I said initially or you if you want
to repeat again it probably wouldn't
hurt please okay and it's and it's
simply terms deescalation is
communication and emotional intelligence
or the ability to handle stress um at an
appropriate level and so what New Mexico
requires for um in service every two
years is two hours of Crisis
Intervention and we currently provide
eight hours but in addition to that some
of the things that we've we've done to
look at how we can improve that because
eight hours every two years I think most
of us would agree it's probably not
enough um we started to look at how do
we actually incorporate the escalation
and make it part of of the culture and
also um make it so that it can be
applied under stress and so that's when
um Mr Martinez started talking about the
scenarios we have planned for next year
which is um what we call reality Based
training or force on Force training high
stress training that um allows officers
to practice these skills and be
successful at them while under stress
those are very effective for teaching a
skill and then allowing that skill to be
used under stress and recalled the other
things we're looking at you uh the
council approved the axon contract which
as part of that is the axon VR empathy
training um it allows officers to only
not only experience what certain
conditions may be like but also to see
it from the other end um and to
successfully deescalate those while in
kind of a virtual reality environment so
that will be a part of the training I
think that's going to be very effective
for um building empathy but uh just
awareness when officers have better
awareness of different conditions
they're able to handle those situations
a lot better um another thing we're
looking at is our a video trainer system
which allows us to go through uh dozens
or potentially hundreds over a year
period of scenarios that deal with
people with different circumstances
different um disorders or um crisis and
successfully deescalate those and the
amount of times they do these um
increases their chances of success on
the
streets um for this year with Co
unfortunately our inperson training has
been reduced but one of the things that
officers did do this year is um an
online course through Target Solutions
which is the city's learning management
system called the essential components
of deescalation and conflict and
conflict resolution which is the first
and a three-part series they'll complete
the other two parts next year but
essentially it's communication skills
and how to apply those skills to
successfully resolve conflict um and I
think this approach where you have it in
the classroom or academic setting and
scenario based setting um is the best
way to try to increase our success in
the future and obviously we're all human
we can only um do the best we can but I
think it's a good approach going
forward very good thank
you okay Damian any you want to move on
the next
one hello
Damian I'm sorry that's Zoom I was you I
was on mute my apologies uh this next
section is is the part of the settlement
agreement requesting that the city adopt
an annual or at a minimum biannual
training on empathy and racial bias for
every law enforcement officer in the
city as Lieutenant story told you with
the axon contract that's going to be
included with scenarios and also uh bias
training was implemented by the city
required requiring everyone one to
complete that bias training by the 20th
of of November so a few days ago last
Friday Daman I do know that um and the
chief can correct me on this but the I
know they the officers in part of the
academy they also do sensitivity
training or some type of training like
that but I'm pretty sure it's called
sensitivity training for uh you know how
to deal with with members of the public
so um I I saw the bias training but I I
I thought that Sensi sensitivity
training also kind of veered a little
bit towards that bias training as well
wasn't too sure but I'm pretty uh I know
the I know the instructor um for the
last several years and he he's uh pretty
well versed in that
so mayor I can that Lieutenant Jeremy
story Council what you're referring to
is cultural awareness which is a part of
the academy but they also receive uh
training in a number of areas that um
kind of are in this realm in the academy
to
include um dealing with the heart of
hearing Autism Awareness will be a part
of this Academy of course they do the 48
Hours of Crisis Intervention in the
academy um they'll also receive duty to
intervene in the academy so there's a
lot of areas that kind of touch on this
in the academy okay thanks um councelor
Vasquez did you have a question or
comment or did you forget to put your
hand down from last time I I didn't I I
forgot to put my hand down thank you
mayor okay councelor FLOTUS
you do you have a question I have a
question at this point and um perhaps uh
Lieutenant story can answer it maybe
Damian but um I um in terms of the
racial I'm talking about the substantive
aspect of uh racial uh bias training um
we have a lot of of our officers I
believe are Hispanics or Mexican
American or whatever I I'm I don't know
if they are or not um but there's also
so I'm just wondering about the kind of
quote uh racial bias training unquote uh
we're talking about is it an awareness
that perhaps uh racism or race uh yeah
racism is so institutionalized that um
perhaps a a Hispanic and because that
phenomena does exist um where there's
this self-hate so that self-hate is
projected uh even though that onto a
fellow another person who is of a
Hispanic Mexican or another racial
minority um of course we're in the
majority but I mean you know in terms of
sociological speech um so is that taken
into account in the training or the
substance of aspect Lieutenant story are
you familiar with it or are you Mr
Martinez familiar with that aspect
because a lot of that goes on I think I
can that department I'm just saying just
sociologically speaking I'm not speaking
specifically but in terms of really ra
raising Consciousness and knowing who we
are yeah I'll try to answer that it's an
Jeremy story um mayor councelor fles the
the training that we've had several
implicit bias trainings or um what we
call Fair and partial policing training
um over the years and that's one thing
that they have addressed maybe not as
direct as you bring it up um the last
one earlier this year we did uh again
through Target Solutions caliber press
implicit bias training but we also
brought in a company called fair and
impartial policing which is I'm sorry it
was called what fair and impartial
policing is the name of the company okay
started by a PhD um Dr Fidel and it's
become um it's there's other companies
out there but it's become definitely one
of the main companies in the country and
they we brought them in to certify Aid
instructors in Fair and partial police
and in part of the main part of the main
tenant of that program is recognizing
the science of bias um helping officers
to recognize that all human beings have
biases some are good some um can affect
our judgment in a negative way and then
learning ways to either um uh get rid of
those biases or mitigate their effects
and so that would include the the
specific one that you brought up great
thank you so much uh liutenant story I
appreciate that thank you Mr Mayor yeah
thank you uh councelor
bomo thanks mayor um thanks Lieutenant
story I wondered so you might have
answered that question just now but I
wondered who does the implicit bias
training um for example the one that had
to be done by
11:20 so that one actually all the
officers completed that by early July
that is done by a company called caliber
press which is a nationally recognized
training company um and that was through
our learning management system this the
ones going forward since we just brought
in this company specifically to
certified officers with their program
and it's their program that has to be
taught um that will be the company that
we use for the least the next two years
it's a two-year period and so that's
actually literally the name of the
company is fair and impartial policing
okay and you said caliber press caliber
press is the name of the company for the
one earlier this year and how also did
the escalation training how long were
those was that
training the caliber press training is a
four-hour training okay but it is online
so it it depends on how fast the officer
can successfully negotiate the
course okay um and so this is 4H hour
these four-hour trainings on racial bias
are happening how often So the plan
going for that was for this year because
of of Co and the difficulty with in
person the plan going forward is that it
will be an 8 hour training our policy
requires that the training um already
that the training is yearly or annually
so this program is meant to be an 8 Hour
program every year okay thank you
lieutenant yes ma'am thank
you okay
Daman um the next section of of the uh
settlement
agreement relates
to
investigations of use of force that
officers are are alleged to have engaged
in here here's what we can tell you
about use of force policy and
investigations within the city of Los
crusis the city of Los crusis already
investigates the police department
already investigates use of force every
use of force and and when I say every
use of force if somebody says they've
been handcuffed that the handcuffs were
too tight that use of force is
investigated ated now the uh Internal
Affairs professional responsibility
division of the Los crus City Police
Department are the ENT is the entity
that that that engages in the use of
force investigation they maintain those
records my understanding is the the uh
police department is going to change
their policy slightly to uh match the
the the retention of public records act
which requires 3 years to to retain
those use Force records three years
after Separation by by the officer now
the other thing that the Los crus City
Police Department does is when when
there
is a lethal force that involves a death
and the police officers involved there
is a multi-agency task force that
investigates that that's
important that's important because there
there's oversight over the Los cruus
Police Department it's not one of these
I'm watching after my boy type of stuff
it's the state police is involved the uh
Sheriff's Department's involved I
believe the New Mexico uh State
University Police Department's involved
and they do the investigation to that
use of force where a death
occurs uh so that is already done that's
been done for years that's really
important I don't know other agencies uh
in the state who have a multi- agency
task force like
that um again if there is a use of force
that another officer this gets back to
one of the earlier slides about uh
intervening in a unconstitutional use of
force if an officer sees uh or a witness
sees uh a use a use of non-deadly force
that'll be reported to the Los Cruz's
Police Department that will be
investigated I will defer to uh Chief
Dominguez and Lieutenant story to to
fill in any holes that I've
left um interim Chief uh migz for the
record mayor city council uh ding is
correct all all uses of force are are
investigated and and even prior to the
an internal affairs investigation it uh
it starts off at the supervisory level
so any use of force uh that occurs there
there's a A system that we call the blue
team it's a a record management system
for uses of force specifically uh they
have to submit that use of force before
their end of the duty day uh and it
immediately goes into the supervisor's
queue uh for uh for
review uh it starts as uh at at that
point if a supervisor finds anything
wrong with it or or needs uh further
further review he can or she can send it
off to a uh use of force uh uh expert or
instructor uh to look at the use of
force just to make sure that everything
uh was done by the book so uh more uh
more than just the internal affairs we
have uh several uh several chains in
that or several links in that chain that
have an uh opportunity to review the use
of force just to make sure that it is
okay by the time it gets to uh use of
force or uh Internal Affairs it's it's
already been looked over uh three or
four times she video reports uh
sometimes uh uh witness statements and
and the like so it's a very thorough
process of
reviewing and chief isn't that uh after
that review of the from the multi
agency task force and that's presented
to the district attorney for for
possible uh criminal uh charges if if
any and then and then they clear it if
if they find it was justified uh mayor
you're correct on the on the lethal
force uh absolutely everything goes to
the DA's office for uh for their uh for
their review and or investigation okay
thanks M Mr Mayor I would also like to
note uh in in my time representing the
city of Los Cruses I've seen incidents
in in uh in use of
force where you get a use of force
history on an officer where uh
initially the use of force was found to
be in in uh within policy but then the
chief asks for a second look and and the
initial uh use of force being in policy
is reversed because they get a second
set of eyes on it when when the chief
doesn't think that you know that when
when the chief thinks it needs to be
investigated in Greater detail and I've
seen uh reports where where uh the the
initial good use of force turns into a a
bad use of force and discipline is is
doled
out
and mayor and Council I'd also this is
Jennifer bega Brown your City attorney
I'd also like to um just tell you that
the retention policy is going to come
before you sometime in January our
records manager was already working on
that um we've updated our retention
policy a while back to Mir um to
basically mirror the state but we do
have because we're a h roll jurisdiction
we do we are allowed to have our own so
that will be updated and it's
already um we're already working on it
you'll you'll be seeing in January
sometime okay thank
you okay Daman mayor I'm sorry can can
Chief domus just talk about the there is
like a database or something some kind
of program that that used supp force of
goes in to is that
true uh mayor mayor Pro inter amus for
the record that's correct it's a the
database We call we call it's called
Blue Team uh it it
captures all all uses of force and
that's tool
that thank you Chief yeah we're having a
little bit of a bad connection there
with Chief Dominguez
[Music]
yes okay Damon uh this next
uh relates to the request of an adoption
of a red flag warning system to track
uses of force by
officers uh pivoting back to what the
chief said uh there is what's called a
concise history which gives you the use
of force that each officer has had since
their employment as a police officer but
the city of Las cruus since 2005
implemented an early intervention
system and uh you know as I previously
said all these use of forces are
documented within any officer's uh
Records within the
department um we we have disclosed use
of force these concise Histories on on
several cases they're available in IA if
somebody would want if somebody requests
them in short the the city tracks uses
of forces and and is able to determine
whether or not somebody is one of these
you know red flag bad officer somebody
who uses unreasonable Force um so so
that's already in
place very good
okay mayor proam you have a question I
do um with Damian's statement um when he
says the city tracks the use of force
who do you mean is it law enforcement is
it our manager it and to include our
City attorney like Jennifer Vega Brown I
mean how is that when you say tracked
what does that
mean it's a database within the Los
cruus Police Department that tracks it I
I I I cannot speak to whether or not
it's something that is easily accessible
by other employees of of the city of Los
cruus are the chief's going to have to
answer that
one
mayor mayor protm yeah those they are
all tracked and they're uh their
internal records on our end their
personnel issues uh so they are uh they
are just held within the police
department and and to the Early
Intervention system that uh that Damian
was referring to the Red Flag Warning
system uh this this system has been
around since 2005 uh the the software
that I was talking about the program The
Blue Team program uh initiates we put in
several uh several things to include
citizen complaints internal
investigation supervisory matters real
Pursuits uses of force there's several
indicators go in there and they all have
different parameters uh for example a
use of force if you had an officer had
two or more uses of force within U the
same month it it initiates a red flag
and then the officer's supervisor
immediately looks into it has to
schedule a meeting and go over um the uh
the performance and just make sure
everything is uh is working the way it's
supposed to in burth
policy okay thank you Chief when you
said that um it's just kept there with
the with the department does uh Joe
Richards and her her HR department also
have a
copy uh mayor if uh if it's requested
from uh from Human Resources yes sir we
usually provide a copy to them
okay okay looks like councelor Vasquez
you have a question uh thank you mayor
yes um one I I thank you for that
question I mean I think it might suit us
to make that part of this policy is just
to send all of those directly to HR so
that um it goes through a different I
mean just so it's housed somewhere else
so that I think the public maybe would
like to know that it's not just the
police that's holding these records but
other City depart I think that might
just add some confidence to this process
um if if we can incorporate it into this
policy uh the other thing is yeah around
the police audit report so I know when
we uh when we got the reports back from
our previous auditor um I I think it was
General sense of the council especially
last time that we we really like to know
more than just a substantiated or
unsubstantiated reports um because I
think part of the solution to solving
some of the issues we have um around bad
behavior um when it exists is being able
to see it early on and so um I don't
know other than the numbers um of what
you know how many times um use of force
is reported um it would be great to know
if it is a recurring um report uh you
know use of force recorded in a quarter
for the six time against the same
officer to me is different than use of
force recorded for the first time
against a veteran officer
um I think those are important details
to know that don't necessarily have to
dive into the Personnel issues or even
the identification of course of anybody
um but there's got to be some different
ways that we can look at this data to
start noticing Trends around this
particular on around the use of force um
and I won't go into the details of why I
think that's important but recent events
make me think that's very important for
us to know that um and so I think
figuring out how we can make the best
use of these numbers to figure out
Trends um is going to be useful in a way
that's appropriate to not release any
Personnel
information yeah no very good thank you
mayor thank you
Chief okay
Daman thank you Mr Mayor uh Damian
Martinez again and I think this slide
will uh address some of councelor
vasquez's concerns as part of the uh
release there was a a request to
consider the adoption of a policy where
the Los Cruses Police Department would
report to the Council on a six-month
period uh use of force incidents and and
discipline related to those use of force
incidents this was included in the
previous by by the previous police
auditor this this was done a more
detailed version of of of what the new
police auditor will do is in the RFP so
I think this is one of those issues that
is out there that is going to be
addressed and uh and the city is
planning to get this addressed through
through their through a new
auditor okay very
good okay um request H was is a
request that would um require officers
to submit to a mental health exam on an
annual basis administered by a licensed
psychiatrist who will ify um a fit
Fitness for
Duty so the the
department is currently
implementing uh mental health
support as as part of their
policy um but the requirement of a
mental health exam for Fitness for Duty
there there's different things that we
have to look at here you know there's
the Ada the Americans with Disability
Act you know if if somebody has a
disability can the department uh
provide um an accommodation in that in
that uh in that officer's job category
to to to to allow him to to essentially
meet his job qualifications and the
other thing is the collective bargaining
agreement that the city currently has
with its law enforcement Union remember
Miss Brown told you or or discussed
early on in this uh in this meeting that
there's various things that you have to
look at in determining policy and one's
the collective bargaining agreement
although it sounds you know something
that's easy to accomplish the collective
bargaining agreement is a contract
between its police between the city and
its police officers uh so you just can't
make a requirement to adopt mental
health uh tests without going through
the collective bargaining agreement
um and I would if Miss Vega Brown has
any comments or or anyone from the
Department
uh yeah Jennifer I think what this re
you going to make this recommendation
that it go to get vetted through the the
public safety PRC is that what your was
that what that means here at the bottom
thank you mayor and Council this is
Jennifer VAB Brown yes um in order for
us to really discuss the implications
for this type of the possibility of this
type of policy there are many many many
considerations um so I think it would be
appropriate for it to be vetted through
the public safety select committee to be
um with recommendations back to city
council okay coun bomo councelor
Fus thanks mayor I just I also I have
some questions but I I was obviously
waiting till the end we did this a
little bit different than usual so are
we at the end of the presentation or or
no we're just going slide by slide
because after we finish the slides and
that's it for the
questions okay well that was news to me
so I will ask all my questions then um
Jennifer since you're off me I'll ask
you a couple questions you um earlier
you went through the different kinds of
policies right cmps SRO general orders
where in
this sort of process does council policy
recommendations fit
mayor and Council this is Jennifer Vega
Brown um there are no policy
recommendations necessarily from Council
that's um one of these things would be
vetted through that's why I suggested a
public safety the the public safety
select committee so that um when it
comes to some of these like the U mental
health that is something that does not
exist an annual mental health evaluation
the way that it is outlined in the
agreement does not currently exist so
that would be something that we should
already that we should vet through um
the select committee the other types of
policies are operational and
administrative policies which are
already in place um any of those changes
can be made through recommendation to
the chief um or the city manager they're
not NE the kind of operating policies
that you're talking about like the
standard operating procedures those are
not
policies per se those are ad more of
administrative rules that's how the city
council lays out the policy of what they
would like to achieve and how they want
things to be and the administrative
rules determine how that occurs and
that's up to the city manager that's why
we have to be very careful in how we are
establishing policy you can set some of
these things by ordinance um if that's
the decision and the determination that
you make um that certainly is something
that should be vetted carefully for
legal
reasons right okay um yeah I mean I
think right there's definitely something
to be said about
um
agencies internal Departments of the
city like LCPD that are very outward
facing right that have significant
amount of their time face time with the
community that I think require a
different kind of sort of perspective in
terms of policymaking right so they're
not just internal administrative like
they actually have a huge impact on the
community um so I was curious about
where some of those things fit and then
in terms of the items that need to go
back for it for to the collective
bargaining agreement you said uh you
said for comment and input what happens
in the event that Council moves forward
with a recommendation like this like a
mental health screen training and um the
folks in charge of collective bargaining
say no we don't want that like what
happens
then U mayor and Council this is
Jennifer Vega Brown you would have to
follow the process for negotiation so
that would be included in initial
negotiation and the collective
bargaining units would would negotiate
that with with management if it came to
an impass then there are pro policies
and processes for how an impass is
handled and that eventually would end up
in an arbitr a binding arbitration or
could end up in court um one of the
things you have to consider is that our
city Charter always it our city Charter
outlines that the city council cannot
get involved in administrative matters
and
so there could be some gray area there
this is something like this would be new
to have as a um a resolution ution or an
ordinance there are ways
to um there are ways to communicate your
desire to have a certain policy there
are ways to communicate that and to make
sure that that gets implemented I don't
know if it has to be done in a
collective bargaining agreement but we
would have to
explore okay thank you for that um I
mean I think what I find interesting
about this presentation is that most
most of the things if not all of them
except for this last one you know you
said that we have right and so what I'm
hearing from the presentation is that
we're good like this
is
great the problem with that is that
that's not what I hear as a city
counselor right from the community it's
not what I see from the community I
think there's we have to be really
serious right about the kind of tension
that exists right now in our community
and how do we address that and so to me
some of these things that were presented
today are the floor like they are the
floor they're the bare minimum of what
um Equitable fair and just Police
Department should be right so what are
we doing as a city collectively as a
community to raise the bar right to to
have um to ensure that police community
relations are in a in a healthy place
and a good place right and um I mean we
just finished talking about the lack of
capacity the lack of resources for
social workers and and the the mobile
health unit right like I'd rather use
$6.5 million to hire more social
workers um than settlements and so how
are
we I want us to have a conversation like
a good and hard courageous conversation
about how we're raising the floor on
some of these things and you know mayor
you said that today was not the time for
some of that I'd like to know when it
I'd like to know when it is I'd like to
have a firm date about when we're going
to have some of those
conversations um and and be serious and
be serious to the level of
accountability that the community is
asking of us yeah well thank you
counselor i' be more than happy to have
a set up a meeting with um the chief
yourself the City attorney and myself
and you know you're saying that that's
what you hear well yes you get elected
to by the people of your District to
make decisions on on their behalf but
then also to also we hope disseminate
the information that's correct you know
earlier I saw someone emailed me say
saying that uh when they when those two
grocery stores closed down that that
represented onethird of all of our
grocery stores well you know didn't so I
guess what I'm trying to say is you know
we know what happened we know what what
the real truth is and so it's a it's a
matter of you know do you do you take
that and and disclose that to your
constituents say Hey listen you know
what I'm sorry that I know you think
this but this is how it really happened
but anyways getting back to your
original question you more than happy to
have that discussion with you and and Sh
and that way there you can because there
there are things here that I think that
you you well meaning but um can put
unfairly the city and the department at
risk so I would just appreciate if you
would uh and and and be more than happy
to also include uh mayor PM Ganda
because I know she wanted to talk about
a few things as well may I I think the
important about thing about this in
conversation though is that it shouldn't
happen in a closed room with four people
like this is a conversation that should
be had with the community right and the
community listening and and yes I hear
you mayor there's a lot of
misinformation this year has proven that
Beyond right there's a ton of
misinformation but I'm also
you know I've been here 11 months and I
also sit in close sessions and I also
hear what's happening I also there's
also Washington Post um steady that says
Las Cruzes had a pretty troubling rate
of police shootings um between 2015 and
2019 so you know you can't just tell me
that I need to be better filter
information better when I do my research
I I don't come here and say things that
are baseless right I come here and and
ask questions ande present ideas and
thoughts about things that I know um are
important and so you know I I appreciate
that we should have a public
conversation about some of these issues
yeah and I appreciate that councelor
bomo but what I don't want to see is a
future lawyer when they're suing the
city having a snippet of you saying
something that is wrong I'm sorry I'll
be real candid with you uh remember I I
serve prior to this as
uh for three years I set we settled
nothing but law enforcement claims and
I'm telling you I've seen that happen
someone will innocently say something
that's not true that's why I'm I'm not
saying that this is behind closed doors
I just want you I want the attorneys to
tell you you know what that's just not
right that can't be done and if it does
this is where it could affect us so
although on one hand you do represent
your constituents the other we also hope
that you protect the the City resources
as well you know saying something that
that is right I'm just and I'm not
saying and then after after uh was
disclosed or discussed with you and you
still choose to say Hey you know we
can't stop you but um you know if if if
we say you know if you say there are
certain things that that I think that
that need to be uh discussed and and
sure I I have no problem in having a
work session to discuss various policies
but as was was mentioned by Jennifer
there are certain things that that that
we can try to do but we also ultimately
have to listen to our legal counsel
because if we try to go above
that um you know then then aren't we
doing the same thing that you're trying
to avoid I mean I think we're mayor this
is definitely about both protecting City
resources and protecting City residents
as well you know and and and I'll admit
and I was talking some to someone the
other day you know I've been with the
city so long that I I I think of our
police officers as my sons and daughters
I'm old enough to be there probably
their their dad and it's like hey you
know what our guys don't do anything
wrong it's your guys it's your
department that does but I know once in
a while our our people will mess up but
the fact of it remains is they're they
put their lives on the line for us every
day every day I mean the stuff they deal
with I know you know that I know you
know that I know you understand that but
all I'm just asking is that we have that
meeting so we can share some issues and
if you still choose to to to you know
discuss them great that's all I'm asking
I think it's really unfair mayor for you
to make a correlation correlation
between the people who want
accountability between not realizing and
respecting the kind of sacrifice that
our law enforcement a those two things
are not related I I I absolutely have
respect and
um gratitude towards our law enforcement
agents this isn't what that's about your
accountability and my accountability
come every four years people will choose
they will decide whether they want to
keep us around or not it is then our
duty within those four years that there
is accountability everywhere else and
that's what people are asking us to do
it is not a hard lift it's about
accountability and people wanting to
feel safe I think you want to feel safe
in your community I want to feel safe in
my community and we should all have that
and that I hear you and with all due
respect the the emails I got was that we
conform to the eight cat weit and and I
think it's fair to say that other than
maybe one item we were there so but
again I'm just merely asking you uh as a
consideration and then also to allow
this to go to the Public Safety
Committee you know earlier when when
when we'll propose something you'll hear
one of the council members or two of
them say hey you know what that's what
the PRC is for let's follow uh uh
procedure yeah and it's kind of hard I
forget that we have the prc's but that's
that's what was uh dis that's why they
were made and I think that's what we
should follow
procedure uh councelor FLOTUS thank you
Mr Mayor so I
um going to the uh AG adopt a policy
requiring officers to submit to mental
health and um and I agree with or I
think that either I can't even think
very well now we've been here over six
hours of five hours but um it was either
uh attorney Martinez or attorney Vega
Brown who said that that might be a
hurdle that can't be
overcome um because there may be Ada
violations and uh the the collective
bargaining agreement would have terms
that would agree to that and then you
know that might create some but you know
I don't know um I know that I've uh
maybe brought it up in one of our
meetings um but I don't see it so much
as um you know a quote mental health
exam unquote to to assess um Fitness for
the job um I see it more of
a um
you like the um that uh simulated uh
training that you that we went not went
through but we experienced you know to
see how fast you pull out a gun and what
you do when someone is pulled over and
you're the cop remember that mayor meash
yeah I know I think you got injured I
think you got injured no no I got I was
I was dead you're the only survived that
damn thing but anyway um I um you know
it's that trigger uh for for lack of a
better word uh the trigger what is it
trigger happy or trigger whatever but
and I I'm not sure it's a cycle I'm not
sure it's a quote mental health unquote
issue I think it's something that can be
seen in so far as um a police officer
respon or a potential police
officer uh or applicant responds to
um response to a certain situation or if
it's already a police officer I guess
this is assuming these already police
officers um and to all of them to submit
on an annual basis okay so um the test
wouldn't have to be psychological I
think there could be another way of
assessing whether an officer doesn't
have that trigger happy that's what it's
called trigger happy finger whatever uh
where you know the person just seems to
be nervous I don't think that the person
has I don't think a person has to have a
diagnosis to determine uh that you know
the person is just like a nervous person
that does that and there are people like
that you know there are people that
sometimes you're standing behind them in
life before coid and uh you move a
little bit and all of a sudden they turn
around like they're being attacked so
there's just you know personalities like
that so it' be more like a personality
thing because I really think that um the
way some officers have behaved or have
you know just just because of the
different cities I've lived in uh major
cities Los Angeles San Francisco
Sacramento um issues like this come up
and uh invariably it's it's not the um
it's not the way most officers behave
and that's what we have here too it's
like one apple one rotten apple is
spoiling the barrel so um I think that
um if if that language could be changed
and and and really um tailored to really
uh say something what you mean because I
don't think I mean to submit to a mental
health exam on an annual basis I mean I
I think that's harsh I think it's
unrealistic I think that someone would
may be in mental health care already
maybe under the care of a psychiatrist
or a psychologist maybe receiving
medication and um so so all of that I
think triggers too many issues but I
think that there's a different way of
getting around that and I just wanted to
share that Mr Mayor thank you very much
and thank
you thank you counselor I think the
chief wanted to jump in real quick um
and make a comment or two Chief
Dominguez mayor and councelor FLOTUS I
just wanted to talk about this uh the
mental health thing so so I just want
everybody to know that we do have a
psychiatrist uh that that uh any any
traumatic incident or whatever he they
he does debrief our officers uh it's
voluntary obviously but uh we he's
available and and several of our
officers actually go go to him and and
on on their own and they they don't have
to talk to us about it they they they
seek his guidance uh as part of our
wellness program we we're trying to
expand on that so and and there's going
to be uh the opportunity for our
officers to get more mental health and
physical health as well um there's
there's a lot that goes on the mayor ke
in on a little while ago with a lot of
the uh traumatic incidents that these
officers go through uh uh some that I I
don't even want to talk about but
there's some there's a lot of PTSD that
happens to be amongst officers uh
suicides are at a at a huge uh increase
right now is uh Nationwide and we want
to take care of our officers that's
ultimately we want to make sure that
they're doing okay not just physically
not just you know lifing weights or
running but mentally as well uh so we've
we've invested in this uh this app uh
that's part of our wellness program to
to deal with uh depression and and anger
issues
PTSD uh family supporters a lot of uh
divorces and things like that that
happen uh with officers because you
change as an officer and uh I won't go
into it any further than that but you
you you you need that and you need the
peer support so we we do uh feel for our
officers we're doing everything that we
can to make sure that they have an
outlet uh so just to say I just wanted
to to say that because the mental exam
the the issue is mandating it but it is
available already thank you thanks Chief
let me ask you a question do officers
have to have a year annual
physical not required they do not
okay uh counselor AA
stui thank you mayor um Chief Dominguez
uh when officers um first go into the
program um I suspect that they do have
to go through um a psychological exam
correct coner that's correct okay and as
you just described um officers
are really put in very unique situations
um tragic situations terrifying
situations and that can lead up to um
different types of issues including
depression PTSD uh those types of items
um and you know it can be it doesn't
even have to be one major event um it
can be the sum of a lot of smaller
events and I would say especially for
officers that
are um are veteran officers um with that
in mind is there any point even a five
10 year um time periods that officers
are re-evaluated because the person that
they are when they go into the program
um isn't necessarily going their
experiences their life their changes
everything is going to be different um
you know uh in the future and so are
there any points where they are um given
reiven these um evaluations that they
were given at the beginning of um their
uh time at the
force uh mayor C there there is not uh
but we we try to use our tools like the
early intervention system uh to give us
indicators of of some some sort of uh
issue or some sort of trauma that
they're going through there's there's
more than just uses of force that that
are keyed in by the early intervention
system we're also talking about
absenteeism uh not not going to court
being tardy uh being very uh um like
having the supervisory matter where the
supervisor had to go and talk to you
because you've been withdrawn so these
indicators uh all that that's what we
use to try to get get them to the
services they need uh without being
specific there is there is times as a
supervisor where I uh I brought in our
psychiatrist and and told him I have an
officer that that need your help and uh
and he stepped in several times actually
and and and it worked out he was able to
provide that but no to answer your
question there isn't a time frame where
they have to get re-evaluated mentally
and even if um the psychiatrist you
bring in it is still all voluntary is
that correct the person at any point can
even if you think that there is a
problem it is still a voluntary um issue
or not mayor coner uh that's correct the
psychiatrist will uh will let us know
notify us if there are any issues where
we need to where we need to step in and
take uh take actions uh Personnel action
uh and and it's happened before so uh if
it does occur and there is enough red
flags there for a licensed psychiatrist
to determine that then then we will step
in and they can determine that if
somebody has refused
service mayor coner Su no I to your
point again it's it's all voluntary uh
unless it's a critical incident then uh
then they they will debrief but what
they disclose uh to the psychiatrist is
up to them and they are mandated then um
if it is a one of those critical
instances to see the psychiatrist or is
that still voluntary a mayor C that's
still it's still voluntary the debrief
is voluntary but they we do make it uh
where they they go there and if they do
not want to share anything that's that's
up to them so if there is truly a if
somebody knows this system then there is
unless it is mandated there is a
potential for an issue to be missed
because they can refuse
service mayor counc of course there's
always a there's always a way around
things that's why we try to put as many
tools uh together as possible again this
Eis system works very very well and we
we key in on on these uh these uh
E's weekly or daily sometimes uh with
different officers because of the
different indicators and parameters that
are set okay thank you thank you mayor
mayor um if I may yes Jennifer this is
Jennifer Vega Brown City attorney um
there is there is a mechanism for a
fitness for Duty process that is
contained in the general orders it's
also containing our Personnel rules um I
would have to refresh my memory of the
collective bargaining agreement but I'm
pretty sure that the collective
bargaining agreement refers to the
Personnel rules so if there is an
identified issue by a supervisor of
course there are many many legalities
involved in that Reasonable Suspicion
probable cause other other things like
that but if there is an identified issue
there is a fitness for Duty process to
be for an
evaluation okay very
good um all right uh Daman
oh Chief you had another question or did
you forget to put your hand
down my apologies may I forgot to put it
down no
problem Damian uh I believe the the
following slides are training
requirements for the LCPD I believe uh
Lieutenant story is probably the best
person to discuss these
okay Lieutenant Jeremy story mayor and
Council these are just the inmac
requirements so this is what's the the
required training for all law
enforcement in the state of New Mexico
this this is literally the bare minimum
training we exceed all of these um and
then we add our own as well to
it okay you want to talk a little bit of
what you add more to it or uh you're
welcome to let's put it that way so some
of these are annual requirements things
like insuring child safety um is just
essentially ensuring that if a person is
arrested that we make sure that one we
we check if they have children and two
if they have children that those
children are safe and they have
somewhere to go to um there's spe
specific uh procedures for who to
contact and how to vet that person um
obviously firearms training there's
mandated firearms training um child
beuse training that I think the spe a
lot of these are just kind of hitting
all areas not necessarily specifically
the areas in uh that were addressed here
except for the two hours in interacting
with persons with mental impairments
which is the house bill 993 training and
again we do that's 2 hours every two
years we do a minimum of eight hours
specifically on that topic and then
there's other things that complement
that so again these are just this is
what's required in the New Mexico
Administrative
Code that that slide that's a a flyer
for the company that came in to do the
um fa impartial police or the implicit
bias training just for reference if um
the counselor or the mayor want to see
it I guess
okay very
good well we kind of uh I'm going to
open up to counselor um well if I may
councel bomo counselor Vasquez because I
he was going to wait till the end of the
meeting and he's the one that I had uh
but then everybody seemed to be asking
questions so let me ask councelor vasus
he has any questions if not I'll go to
you councelor pom after him Council
Vasquez did you have anything you want
to say uh sure thank you mayor and I'll
be quick um I know Council Momo has some
some comments uh but you know I think
this is a I think this is a good start
to to the transparent process I think of
where we really need to move um forward
with discussions in our community about
U police reform and about uh
accountability and really giving um all
of our residents the confidence that
they um you know are being served and
that their best interests are at heart
uh when it comes to Public Safety in in
our community um you know I think
historically a lot of communities have
um you know felt that they've been
targets um uh you know unfairly targeted
by police for many different reasons um
certainly the color of their skin um
certainly uh the place where they live
their income level uh car that they're
driving um any variety of things I mean
I grew up um you know with with folks
who plenty of stories about you know
being dead scared of getting pulled over
or you know just just a fear police and
I'm not saying that that's happening
here I'm just saying that that's those
are real sent real sentiments that
people have those are people really feel
that way and so I think um being
transparent and and talking and having
these conversations with our community
about what our police is doing like I
said even with those police uh during
the audit process when we get those
numbers back um really explaining any
trends that we're seeing or explain in
um what we're doing to to be better um
and taking citizen complaints seriously
um is going to be an important part of
that process on those on those updates
that we get from our new auditor um so I
do welcome the opportunity to have um
you know a more robust discussion
obviously with coid it just limited our
public participation but um you know I
think I can imagine maybe even a town
hall format type of discussion in the
future you know doesn't have to be a
work session format even but something
public that we can have a an Engaged
dialogue with with different members of
our community and and our um you know
City Representatives or Administration
and police there um so that that we can
all continue to have dialogue on this in
a way that um that is open that's
transparent and that really lets folks
know that that we care about everybody's
um experience in this community or even
in other communities where they may have
faced some trauma um for for many
different reasons and so um I I'll just
say that um you know regarding this
particular particular settlement well um
I think this is a good example of of
where we don't want to end up in in the
future right and the lesson learned for
me here is like um even if we have
things in place that uh are meant to
prevent these types of things from
happening uh they may happen sometimes
but it's always good to do more it's
always good to try harder it's always
good to uh to try to do better um so
I'll leave it at that thank you mayor I
appreciate it and thank you Daman and
chief thank you thanks councelor
councelor bomo thank you I actually just
had a quick question on that last uh
slide that you showed um Lieutenant
story and you don't have to put it up or
anything I just um you mentioned there
was a train the trainer implicit bias uh
type of training who are the trainees or
is it other officers being
trained yes so that or Lieutenant Jeremy
story Mr Mayor counc that training is
geared towards certifying um Law
Enforcement Officers to teach the
curriculum so we had eight from our
agency you had um other agencies there
we had the most we hosted the class but
we had a variety of different um
officers uh sergeants and lieutenants
that attended they have other classes go
ahead man okay um I'm curious what um
what was the decis decision to do that
kind of model where officers are being
are doing then training on implicit bias
rather than have you know
profession like people who you know this
is their profession do the trainings
instead mayor councelor Ben coma the the
reasoning behind that that's the model
that's being used um by hundreds of
departments across the country now and I
think the reasoning is twofold one the
program itself is very much vetted in
both science and it's um constructed by
professionals and um I went through the
course myself it's a great course I
think it opens a lot of people's eyes
and officers are more likely to um
hopefully hear something that another
officer has to say and internalize it
and I think it's easier to change the
culture when that happens that being
said that's why it's only two years
because um there has to be mechanisms in
place to make sure that we are keeping
the spirit of the curriculum there are
other programs they offer one of them is
a a command and Community which is a day
and a half course for Command Staff
community members and elected officials
and so I think all those are probably
important but the rationale is that it's
easier for officers to hear it from
another officer at least
initially um and that's pretty much it
okay thanks Lieutenant yeah I mean I
hear you right the messenger is
sometimes Make It or Break It I think I
I also want to make sure that um that
information is being you know given by
very well- trained people I mean I've
been through some implicit bias
trainings and there's no way that I
could turn around and train on that like
that stuff is in tense you know and so I
want to make sure that um the folks who
are training are are well trained and
can understand the complexities of
identity and race and how that plays out
in life and so um you know I think I
just wanted to make that point um there
towards the end I saw that so um thanks
so much
Lieutenant thank you it looks like Chief
Dominguez wanted to make a comment or
two mayor inam Chief Dominguez just one
last one last thing I wanted to add uh
uh attorney Vega Brown brought up the uh
Fitness for Duty and and there is a
psychological exam it's as part of a
city a city policy uh and and that's
what I was referring to when uh when we
uh bring in our psychiatrist uh to
undergo that that Fitness for Duty
examination but it does have to be a a
pretty severe issue that's going on for
that to happen but I just wanted to add
that thank you so Chief thanks let me
just ask you something and and I don't
know if you're doing it right right now
but I'm I'm envisioning um whether it's
an email or a flyer that says something
like uh you know the heading could be
hey you you know you feeling kind of you
know really stressed out or you got some
something on your mind uh you know the
City offers this this and this uh for
for free um you know confidential
whatever and you know send it out every
six months or something to your officers
does something like that happen or or is
that even available I mean I know it's
available but does that something like
that even happen um mayor actually it
does we have our employee assistance
program uh Bernie mccant is great he's
come to visit our our officers as well
and he wants to partake into these uh uh
yearly exams if or interviews with uh
with our officers if it if it becomes
available but him and uh our Dr dasto
work together uh they work hand in hand
they he's been instrumental in helping a
several our officers with some issues
but uh it does it does occur okay good
you know I uh I just want to share this
with my my colleagues I think and I
always considered a team effort but
years ago when I I know I spearheaded
the um the texting while driving and
what what precipitated that was I saw a
picture this wasn't the real thing but
it was the picture of a of of a a person
who was literally cut in half he was
texting he he wasn't paying attention
flat bed of a trailer you know he
slammed into it and you know just
severed him that was just that was years
ago that was just one picture and and um
although now it's kind of fuzzy but I
can still remember I mean and they and
they laid them out laid him out and it's
you know he's cut in half and um those
are those are traumatic things that that
officers go through hopefully not that
often but I mean they do and and
compounding all the various things that
they go through is really difficult and
so I I um I know I get a little
defensive but you know that that I I as
an emplo me as an employer of my own
business I always try to I would never
have my employees do something that I
wouldn't do but but then switching hats
like I've told you guys many times I
think I could probably only do be a
police officer one day and and then even
then I just want to be the guy riding
all the speeding tickets you know other
than that you know I don't want anyone
shooting at me uh and and and I can't
thank uh the men and women of the Las
cruus police department and the Las crus
fire department the same you know I they
they see the same traumatic things the
fire department uh I can't thank them
enough for for what they do they put
their lives on the line daily for us and
uh keep our city safe and first First
Responders even the ambulance I know we
don't have the ambulance service but I
just want to just make that that closing
comment okay so I think that's
it correct Damien
Jennifer I believe that's it for me
okay all right well I appreciate
everybody appreciate everyone's
attention and presentation and with that
I'll entertain a motion to
adjourn
moved second a motion made by councelor
florus second by councelor Vasquez and
uh
Christine this is on a motion to adjourn
the work session counc bet
sty coun Vasquez yes
councelor boml yes councelor
Sor it's gone
off councelor
flotes
yes councelor G yes mayor yes okay well
good night everybody be safe and have a
happy uh Thanksgiving and try to
celebrate it just with your family
members okay all right good night
everybody
630 Happy Thanksgiving to you thank
you