Public Safety Committee (PSC) Meeting Transcript – 2/2/2026 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 2/2/2026 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 2/2/2026 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [2:00:31 PM] I will call the public safety committee to order. It is February 2nd, 2026, and the time is 2 P.M. This meeting is is public safety committee. We're meeting at city hall, located at 301 west second street in Austin, Texas, and we have a quorum present. Vice chair Laine. Welcome. Council member Siegel. Council member qadri will be absent. And council member duchen first we have public communication will begin with public communication. I'll turn it over to Danielle. Love to call any speakers that have signed up. >> We're going to have our first speaker is remote Lauren Earthman. >> And before we get into that, colleagues without if unless there's an objection, we're going to move item number four to item number two, because chief Luckritz is asking for favors already, and we're just getting into the year, but we're going to go ahead and grant him that unless there's any objection to that. Thank you. >> Go ahead. Lauren. >> Okay. Hi. My name is Lauren Earthman. I'm speaking on the [2:01:31 PM] proposed nowruz noise ordinance, item number three. We moved to Austin about nine years ago from our home close to downtown Houston. We wanted a more peaceful, quiet neighborhood in the hills. Austin. What it was like when we first bought our home in cat mountain, in the neighborhood of 2222, about four years ago, the noise from 2222 slowly began to increase. Specifically the sound of revving and high speed acceleration motorcycles. It was gradual and at first tolerable to me, but as the frequency of the noise increased, what used to be an annoyance began to trigger a physical stress response. For me, to be clear, noise is something I'm pretty comfortable with. I raised three kids and we listen to a lot of live music, but this is different. It's repetitive and it's high pitched. From what I've read, noise pollution can cause elevated cortisol, cause sleep deprivation, trigger conditions like misophonia, rage, panic and specific rage, panic at specific sounds and [2:02:32 PM] noise sensitivity anxiety. I was surprised that these repetitive loud sounds would create such discomfort for me, but they did in response. I now spend much of my time back in Houston to get some reprieve until the noise ordinance hopefully passes and allows me to spend more time back in Austin. There are motorcycle groups posting on social media. They brag about the thrill of running from the police dragging me on 2222, which has taken a turn so fast that your knee almost touches the pavement. The complete disregard for safety of others is disturbing. I've had a motorcycle rider come up to the passenger side of my car and hit my side mirror with his closed fist, because I was going too slow for him to get around. This is a two pronged issue the noise and the safety element. We can take alternative routes to avoid the dangerous roads, but we cannot escape the excessive noise. Another negative aspect of this excessive noise is the impact on property values. It's easy to imagine a potential home buyer being dissuaded from [2:03:33 PM] purchasing a home, or constant motorcycle. Noise is evident when compared to similar properties. Without such noise issues, real estate specialists could likely shed additional light on this. Speaking for my family, we have lived in five different houses over 20 years and I can say with certainty that I would never have agreed to purchase a home that had incessant, constant noise problems like we have developed in our neighborhood. This would result in lower property values resulting in lower amounts of property taxes collected. Please help bring some peace and quiet back to our neighborhoods by passing this noise ordinance in the city of Austin. Thank you. >> Up next, we'll have Laurie o'leary. >> Hi, my name is Laurie o'leary and I loved the presentation. The lady before me just gave. I totally agree with everything she said. I've had a motorcycle pull up between me and a car to the right of me, just so they could [2:04:33 PM] go first through the intersection. So besides the noise, safety is an issue. Thank you. >> Up next, we'll have Marisa Lipka. >> Opening with the video. >> Oh my god. [2:05:38 PM] Oh my god. Here we go. Here they come. [2:06:56 PM] >> Okay, so that was our lovely scenic Austin hill country neighborhoods right there. And I'd like to draw attention to how many neighbors are behind me today. Are here for the noise ordinance. If you all could please just stand so the guys can see. Thank you. I just want to say that this is obviously a really important issue to us, and what you heard on the video is nowhere near nowhere close to being as loud and as dangerous as we feel and experience every day. And this is an issue that we started working on five years ago, four years ago, with former council member Alison alter and APD in earnest. And now the baton has been passed to our council member, Marc duchen, thank you very much. And we are here today because of the concerted efforts of all of the [2:07:56 PM] stakeholders. Thank you. >> If we can have Lisa Capps. >> Thanks. Hello, and thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is Lisa Capps and I'm a resident of northwest hills. Also speaking in support of the proposed noise ordinance. I live about a mile away from 2222, in an area where homes and trees should buffer the sound, but they really don't indoors. Even with sound machines on and your TV on, your family is regularly disturbed by motorcycles and other vehicles with modified exhaust systems. Outdoors, the noise is even more noticeable and intrusive. As you saw in the videos. The problem has persisted for years and continues to worsen. The frustration expressed by residents is reflected in the petition that I started about ten months ago. I think I gave you guys a handout so you can see if you want to look at it [2:08:58 PM] in more detail, but it's now gathered more than 800 signatures through word of mouth and through a couple yard signs that we put in the neighborhood. The comments speak for themselves. Repeated laps racing at night early in the morning, frustration that our current laws offer little protection. Over the past year, we've documented numerous near-misses, reckless driving, road damage, evidence of accidents that aren't even reflected in our in official reports. Social media posts show drivers meeting up to run laps, practice turns, film one another, and even recommend 2222 to out-of-towners looking for a thrill ride. I've seen photographers advertising the set up on the roadside and capture the high speed passes. Our neighborhood is effectively been turned into an informal practice track, something no homeowner wants or expects. We understand the enforcement challenges. Many problem vehicles have modified or illegal exhausts and plates [2:09:59 PM] that aren't visible or aren't there at all. Riders flee and officers cannot safely pursue constant patrol. Coverage is unrealistic. This is why an updated noise ordinance really matters to us. It creates a practical enforcement tool allowing officers to act on defined noise thresholds. It should improve public safety by discouraging the high speed racing and reckless behavior, protect citizens from chronic sleep disruption, support our property, valuable values and overall livability, livability of our community, and it will reinforce that our community leaders prioritize our health, safety, and well-being. We're not asking for perfection. We're asking for a practical, enforceable solution that helps restore our neighborhood back to peace and safety. It's not directed at responsible drivers, motorcycle owners, or car [2:10:59 PM] enthusiasts. It targets the very small group whose behavior is disrupting entire neighborhoods. On behalf of my neighbors and the 800 plus residents who have expressed concern, I urge you to move this ordinance forward and give the the police the tools they need to protect our community. Thank you for your time and your service. >> If we can have Cheryl brown. >> Thank you. >> I've been an Austin resident since 1984, and. >> I. >> Have lived in my home for 30 years. Our home is at the very end of cat mountain drive. We look out toward the intersection of 22, 22, and 360. So we have a unique perspective on exactly what is happening. We're on the ridge up above county line on the lake, and I can tell you this is not just a [2:12:00 PM] 2222 problem. It is also a 360 problem. And what we have seen is that this problem is primarily Saturdays and Sunday mornings, starts as early as 7 A.M. And it's increased primarily over the last five years. And we what we see is that when the police come out and and enforce the speed regulations, it drops. And then within about a week or two of when the police stop enforcing it, it comes back and we see the we see the the racers meeting at dry creek. Everybody knows exactly where they meet and what the patterns are. And I'm hoping, as everybody else has mentioned, that the noise ordinance will allow some kind of tool for enforcing at least the noise, although speed is definitely as much or more of [2:13:01 PM] an issue for safety, the the the way in which these drivers operate is dangerous. It's dangerous for them. It's dangerous for other motorists. Both my husband and I have been on the road on 2222, with motorcyclists driving in and out of cars, touching cars, and it makes us all recall the horrible, tragic accident of Cedric Benson, which was in that same area. I'm hoping that this will be a ordinance that's enforceable. I don't know what kind of penalties are proposed to go along with it. That's the one. That's the one thing that's not clear with this ordinance. If it doesn't have any. Real substantial penalty, it may not be it may not have [2:14:04 PM] the teeth to make it happen. And I apologize for not being very organized, but I was just added this morning. But anybody is welcome to come set up cameras or sound machines in my backyard because you would have a very, very unique perspective for both roads and I hope this ordinance passes. Thank you for your time. >> That is everyone. For public communication. We have one for the minutes. >> Let's go and call. >> Him Kathy Mitchell. >> Hi. Oh. [2:15:06 PM] >> I am speaking briefly on the minutes today because my comments are relevant to the items that you saw in your briefing last time, particularly the brydan, APD organizational study. I would encourage you to please put the entirety of that study and the 2025 version that came out about a year ago. Readily available here for everybody to see. But in the meantime, as you are thinking about reorganizing APD, I wanted to propose three things very quickly revise the general orders to require supervisor approval for any APD officer to stop taking 911 calls in order to assist ice, maintain and release the list of cases in which supervisor approval has been granted, with the criminal charge applicable to any person [2:16:06 PM] detained, APD should not be pulling officers offline from, you know, the job of doing things like monitoring traffic on 2222, in order to detain people, and three management must immediately revise procedures for officers to self assign their time when they are on patrol. I just finished posting images from today where a gaggle of APD officers are standing nearby as ice detained somebody in their front yard. This is not what we need our police to be doing. We have all heard plenty of complaints that we don't have enough officers to do the things that we hire them to do, and this can be addressed with organizational reform. We need the chief to put in place strict limits on officers self assigning their [2:17:08 PM] time when they are supposed to be answering 911 calls. So I would ask that, as you consider the brydan study that we you look, you got briefed on last time that we not let the delay tactic persist. This berry done study has been happening for quite some time now, and there is a lot of organizational efficiency that we need to do immediately, not just to be able to better police the problems that we hire police to do, but also to be able to protect our civil liberties and our civil rights. Thank you. >> Thank you colleagues, I'll now call item number one, and that is to approve the minutes of the public safety committee meeting for December 1st, 2025. I will accept a motion to approve the minutes made by councilmember duchen, seconded by vice chair Laine. Without objection, these minutes these minutes are approved. [2:18:09 PM] Colleagues, as I stated, we were moving up item number four to item number two. The committee will now take up item number 2 or 4. Previous two previously for briefing on the austin-travis county emergency medical services recruiting model. And now we invite up chief Luckritz. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your accommodations. Thank you, council members. I'm very pleased to be here to be able to share some information with you all about the recruiting process that we have at austin- travis county ems, both the some historical information on vacancies and other things in terms of how it is that we got to the current situation we're in, as well as what our long term strategy is in order to overcome the vacancies that we currently have. So to give a little bit of perspective, what I've shared here is the historical vacancy rate for the department. [2:19:10 PM] As you can see, fiscal year 1920 we were at a relatively stable less than 10% vacancy rate. And as we entered into the covid 19 pandemic, we did see a significant increase in our vacancy rate. And I'll share over the next couple of slides some of the background and reasons why that did continue to increase until the middle or the end of fiscal year 2022, which happens to be also when I joined the department. We've been working very hard since then to bring down our vacancy rate, and we have brought it down from a 25.4% peak to a 15.1% 15.1% vacancy rate currently. To look at some of the background, some of the reasons, one of the things we look at is the turnover rate, and that gives us a snapshot over our retention. And what you can see here is that over time, we did see a slight increase in our turnover, but it's been relatively flat with the exception of fiscal year 21 to 22, where we did see a number of individuals that left the department in into near the end of the covid 19 pandemic. We [2:20:11 PM] also saw a number of retirements as well. For perspective, about 30% of our separations are retirement. If you look on the right hand side of this slide, I think you give it a little bit of a better picture as to what is driving our vacancy rate, and that is the significant increase in the number of authorized sworn staffing. And for that, we're we are very gracious to the council for their support and the growth of our department. But what we've identified is less of a retention issue and more of our ability to keep up with the growth of the department and the additional positions, the additional ambulances and the additional programs that we've seen added. In fiscal year 20 alone, we had 67 new positions added to the department, and since then, we've had no less than 20 every year added to the department. And with that, it does create for us a need for us to rethink a little bit as to how it is that we're not only going to keep up with our retention, you know, to continue those who leave the department and replace them, but also a growth strategy. So looking back at what we've done since fiscal, since 2022, we did work through [2:21:11 PM] a little bit of a plan in terms of what we were going to do to address that. We did bring in a new leadership team, myself, as well as new assistant chiefs and others. We reduced our hiring timelines significantly. We really worked to simplify the application process. It was a very long and arduous process, and we saw a number of people that were disqualified for technical reasons. We also updated some of our disqualifiers to be more reflective of the current job market, and we streamlined our academy to make to make it a little bit shorter, while still providing the same high quality training that we have always had. We launched this this plan. We also began hiring paramedics directly from other organizations, which was new to this department. Historically, we only hired folks at the emergency medical technician level, which really brought limited our ability to bring on experienced talent. We increased the number of academies from 2 to 4 annually. We secured additional recruiting funds from from the council and from the budget office, which allowed us to hire a dedicated manager and two coordinators. Historically, as a department, what I would [2:22:13 PM] describe what we did was our recruiting department was more of a hiring department and less of a recruiting department, and this allowed us to have dedicated individuals that traveled that really worked towards bringing individuals in, generating interest in the department, while others in the human resources department could focus on the actual onboarding and process. We continued to for academies, as well as two direct hire process annually through fiscal year 2024 and then a couple of operational enhancements. We added additional stipends, expand the number of field training officers, and we aligned our communications division with the field because that was where we saw our largest vacancy rate upwards of 80 plus percent, and that has helped us bring that vacancy rate down this is a snapshot of kind of what I just described. And you can see that we have, with the exception of fiscal fiscal year 21 and 22, outpaced separations with hires, with the greatest one being in fiscal year 2023, where you can see we had 109 in [2:23:14 PM] versus 53 out. And we've continued that ability over the last few years. The challenge being that that is not kept up with the rate of growth that we are seeing in the department in order to to grow and add the additional services that the community needs. We do continue to have some challenges within the department. During fiscal year 2025, we did see a reduction in our pipeline. We delayed an academy reduced by one academy, which resulted in some individuals that may have been hired by the department moving on to other potential employment opportunities. We did decrease the amount of travel that we were doing, which again reduced the amount of recruiting that we were able to do from other places within the country. I think I've said here a few times, the bulk of our applicants actually come from out of state. As a result, we do see some retention challenges. We do have an increased workload on our staff. As a result, staff increased utilization of overtime. What we're also seeing is an increasingly competitive marketplace. There are a number of new age ems agencies that [2:24:14 PM] have sprouted up in the greater Austin area to address the the growth outside of Austin and Travis county, bastrop county, hays county being very notable with them, significantly increasing the number of resources that they're putting on, which makes it more challenging for us to retain our staff as they look at other organizations with a with a lower workload and, of course, the changing workforce as well. From an infrastructure perspective, as I mentioned during the budget, we do have a limited training capacity, and so we're working through this year on what that plan will look like for us to be able to increase the number of people that we can onboard, as well as the length of that onboarding process. A few next steps for us, really focusing in on those three challenges. The first being on recruiting, and that would be to resume our national footprint, to be getting back out there with the various national and regional conferences to try to drive more individuals to our organization, continuing through our recruiting positions, expanding our recruiting division, reviewing and optimizing our prerequisites, the reasons that [2:25:14 PM] we allow people to work for us. What are the disqualifiers? What are the requirements as well as the academy process? Already? I can tell you, in upcoming academies, we've been able to further streamline our academy down from ten weeks to eight weeks. We're looking at that schedule and the curriculum. We're expanding the frequency, looking at our credentialing process, and then finally, on the retention side, really continuing to focus in on provider mental health, really diving into our peer support program and making sure that that continues to be robust enough. We do have a retirement attainability committee that was part of the last labor agreement. And so we do continue to look at that, both with the budget office, the city manager's office, the association and the department. We are continuing to provide open access to our data, which will be coming up shortly. We'll talk a little bit more about that just so that the both the public, but also the individuals within our department understand the current state of the department, the realities and what it is that we're facing and what our workload looks like, and then [2:26:15 PM] continuing on our efforts. Again, one of the biggest challenges we have is the increased workload on our staff from non-critical emergencies and trying to utilize things like community health paramedics to divert that. Those those non-emergent calls to other resources because, you know, for individuals that have come really looking to focus in on saving lives and focusing in on those critical calls, it can be put a strain on them as well as kind of be disenchanting to have to continue to do those types of calls. And so if we can find other resources so that they can focus in on those more critical calls, it does help morale overall. And with that, I will open it up to questions. >> Thank you chief colleagues. Any questions. Councilmember duchen. >> Thank you, chief, for this presentation. Very quickly, you mentioned that travel had decreased as far as the recruiting strategy. Is that right? >> Yes. In fiscal year 2025. So last year, as we look to reduce [2:27:17 PM] to with our budget constricting a little bit and really focusing, where are we going to spend those dollars on other resources, additional academies. We did reduce the amount of travel as a department. We put a travel freeze on for the second half of the year. And so we did realize that had an impact on the number of individuals that were submitting applications. And so already this year, we have we have upped that. We are looking coming up in our next academy. We already have 35 individuals Teed up, which will again be back towards one of our largest academies ever. >> I'd be curious to work with you or get some data for how you can connect the travel dollars to the impact of recruiting. One of the surprises I had when we went through the budget last time was, I think I saw ems was spending more than both police and fire on travel, and I'm wondering whether they're missing an opportunity there in terms of the successes that you've experienced, or at the very least, be able to justify those dollars if they are [2:28:17 PM] producing the results you hope for in the recruiting space. >> So yeah, absolutely. I would love to to do a deeper dive into that and show some of the success that we're having. You know, one of the things we saw here, we were having a hard time recruiting at the local level. We'd really tapped out with most of our resources. But the unique nature of our department here is a little bit different than other parts of the country. Our delivery model is a little bit different. So by going to some of those regional conferences and bringing attention to those areas that may not have departments like ours, we got a lot of individuals that expressed interest, and we were able to kind of follow those individuals through and into the department. So look forward to sharing with you some of those successes and what the return on investment is. >> That'd be great, because more broadly, the last question I'll ask is related to this as well, which is just trying to understand knowing the other public safety areas are also having the same challenges with recruitment, and knowing that from the data you just shared, it looks like you're doing an admirable job. If you're growing the department. At the same time, you're pulling back on the vacancy rate. What [2:29:19 PM] lessons that we could potentially learn from there that could be that those other departments would be good candidates for also using. So would. >> Absolutely. Yeah. And again, as we'll talk about here in a minute, the collaboration that we're seeing between the three departments and the data we're sharing around overtime utilization, recruiting and others. So really looking forward to continuing that work together as a team okay. >> Thank you. Thanks, chair. >> Chief, I had one question on slide number six. It states changes in experiences and expectations of the incoming workforce have resulted in higher than expected, resulted in higher than expected early, higher than expected early departure rate. What are some examples of that? >> So I'll give you a couple examples. As we look at individuals that are joining the department now, particularly as folks went through the covid 19 pandemic. So really what we're looking at now is a workforce that that was their their their [2:30:19 PM] experience. Right. So they so this is the workforce that went through high school or college kind of through the covid 19 pandemic. We saw. Different areas where they were lacking. So, for example, prior to the covid 19 pandemic, from an experience perspective, we found it very helpful in the industry focusing on really home growing individuals. So sometimes bringing someone in with a lot of experience could bring bad habits. And so if you were able to train someone in the department, you could really focus in on starting them with good habits. And so we reduced our job requirements for a brief period of time. What we're seeing now, however, is that some individuals that are coming in really don't have the experience having public interaction, and much of their workforce has been really digital. And so we're challenged with interpersonal interactions and things like that. We spend a lot of time focusing in on that, of teaching individuals about how to interact, particularly in confined spaces in an ambulance. [2:31:19 PM] How do you breach those conversations? That was a unique one for us. And so one of the things we recently changed was a requirement of some form of job experience or personal experience that required two years of interaction with the public. So it doesn't necessarily be in the ems sphere, but whether you are a server or a waiter or something where you had to interact with other individuals, we found that to be helpful. The other thing is that we're seeing quite a few less individuals that are coming in with driving experience. So we do have individuals that will get their driver's license for this job. And so we had to look at driving experience where we want folks to have driven a personal car or something else before they come to the department. >> Thank you chief. And I wasn't snickering at you. I was thinking about something one one thing that I've always said is that it would behoove most people to go and work fast food for a for a year. So something along those lines learning how to deal with folks in a fast food industry. I have one more question on the same slide. It states the 1 to 2 years in onboarding, what steps in the [2:32:21 PM] current hiring and onboarding process are resulting in those longer wait times? >> So. The various phases that we have in the hiring process are part of it, right? So we receive someone who wants to put an application because of the structures of civil service and others. We then need to wait for the next opening of applications, which we then follow up with the various screening process, structured interviews, the the medical clearance of psychiatric clearance and others. And so it can be an extended period of time before, by the time someone puts in an application until the actual academy starts. And for individuals that are looking for a job, we lose people to other organizations because it takes us so long to do that. So we want to contract that. And then the other piece that we're focusing in on is once someone is hired, our traditional hiring practice was really focused around bringing emts on board. And so we had an academy process and an onboarding process. But recognizing that the bulk of our vacancies are at the paramedic level and that we've implemented this direct hire process, we're working hard on [2:33:21 PM] figuring out how we can concurrently bring people on as paramedics rather than in sequence. So rather than bringing someone on as an emt and then a paramedic, if they're already a paramedic, how do we blend those training processes together in order to expedite those processes? So those are some of the areas and making sure that those individuals have the experience and the knowledge for the complexity of the clinical medical operation that we have. The skill sets of an austin-travis county ems clinical specialist paramedic is significantly higher than a lot of other organizations. The things that the knowledge base, we ask them to have, the skill set and the different procedures that they do. And so we we really need to make sure that they're fully competent before we put them out in the field. And that can take extra time. And so we're looking to see how it is. We can tighten that up a little bit. >> Thank you chief, and thank you for the presentation. Colleagues. Next we'll take up item number. Item number two. [2:34:21 PM] That is a briefing on the public safety dashboards. We're welcoming chief Davis, chief baker and of course chief Luckritz. If he wants to hang out for a little while longer with us. >> Here. >> Yep. >> All right. I'll also be kicking this one off. So again, thank you, council members. Thank you, chairman, for for having us here to opportunity for us to share with you all a little bit about what the work of the three public safety departments towards developing some additional transparency and providing you with consistent, consistent [2:35:22 PM] reporting around both some of the overtime utilization and our personnel issues, but also with some of our operational metrics. During the budget, there was a city council resolution that directed us to provide publicly posted monthly data detailing a number of things, including the use of overtime by sworn staff as well as leave use. And so we took this opportunity here to not only build something specifically around overtime and leave use, but also to take some of our existing data that we have individually within our departments that really looks at the operational performance of our organizations and provide it to you in a consistent and somewhat universal method to to give you that information on a more regular basis. The development of this, we've we've come together to provide to, to meet those requirements. And as I said, to also provide additional operational performance metrics, including things around overtime, staffing indicators, workload volume, response, performance, geography and other different [2:36:23 PM] expectations. I'll also share with you, as I kind of before I switch to the actual dashboards, but this is a living project for us, so we've really come together to provide a really a first glimpse at the types of data and the types of information that we can provide you all. We really hope that this will be an opportunity to receive feedback from you all. As to whether or not this is the type of information you want to see, whether or not that this is the method in which you want to see it. And then as we move forward, as we continue to come to to you, we will see a refinement to these dashboards to try to be more in line with those that information that you're looking for. And so we do ask, you know, as we're coming through here, understand that this is a first first pass at this. And it's most likely not going to be the final document. We're also working together as a team to look at what is the long term strategy for this. How do we take snapshot data but also potentially build out interactive dashboards and other ways that we can provide [2:37:24 PM] both yourselves as well as the public access to additional information and opportunities for them to mine down and supplement the open data portals that we all have. That may be a little bit more technical, so that we can provide it in a method that's a little bit easier to understand. So kicking this off, austin-travis county emergency medical services, this is our snapshot dashboard of our organization. And I'll just walk you through it real briefly. One thing you'll see here in the top right is this data comes from November of 2025. So this has been a work in progress. This is a good solid vetted data set for you. We obviously over time will make sure that this is more up to date more recent. But this does give you a snapshot. So just understanding that this is a couple months old, but we're working through the process in order to to make it a little bit more timely. On the top left you'll see a snapshot of our budget, our overall budget for the month. That is a monthly snapshot for us. And as [2:38:24 PM] you can see for our department, we are during the month of November. We were below budget for ourselves from our expenses to the right of that, you'll see kind of a meter that's looking over the entire year with the 151 million representing our entire 25, excuse me, our entire 2026 budget. And so at that point, we're at 25 million for the year. To to the right of that, you'll see a snapshot of our overtime. This is one to pay attention to for us. Obviously we're monitoring overtime. But in this particular case, just to show you a little bit of a data limitation, during the month of November, there were three pay periods. And so the the dollar amount here will be slightly inflated. So although it looks like we are coming in over budget on our overtime, it represents six weeks of data instead of the normal four and a half to five weeks of data. And so that's one area as as entities, we're working through how we can better represent that for you. To the right of that, you'll see the overall year to date overtime expenses as well as hours and so forth. Below that you'll see some [2:39:26 PM] operational data, number of total number of incidents and transports that we had. Those numbers are within the city of Austin. And so for my department, that's not reflective of our Travis county data. Likewise, we're looking at those ambulances that we can or those calls that we can divert away from an ambulance. That's about our collaborative care line and how effective we are as keeping those ambulances available for those emergencies. And so at 8.9%, close to 10% of our calls were not even sending an ambulance in the first place. And so that means that those ambulances remain available for those life threatening emergencies. You'll see the total number of community health responses, as well as community health, community health incidents or procedures that they're doing in the field. The number of folks that they are touching just shy of 1000 for the month of November. And to the right of that, you'll get a snapshot of our response times, both median at 50th percentile as well as 90th percentile. And finally, our overall compliance with our individual department standards, [2:40:27 PM] which for us is nine minutes and 59 seconds for priority one emergencies. Below that you'll see a snapshot of our staffing. So that's 602 fill positions out of 715 sworn positions, which is a 15.8% vacancy rate. You'll see the number of separations in the month of November. We had six separations that is high for us. And to tie that back to what I discussed earlier, four of those were going to another local ems agency here in the greater Austin area. Two of them resigned for personal reasons, including a relocation home for family reasons. You'll see the average leave hours per person we did, rather than giving you total hours in the sense to give you because of the various size of our departments. A snapshot here. And so you can see on average, about 20 hours of vacation and ten hours of sick per person per month. So in our case, with 24 hour shifts, that's just shy of one shift a month that they're taking off our leave hours by day of week. Unsurprisingly, Saturday and Sunday being the higher the [2:41:27 PM] highest days, as well as our incidents by priority group. And this gives you a snapshot really of for us, the number of non-emergency calls that we are answering versus the number of truly life threatening emergencies, the truly life threatening emergencies being at just 705 calls. And you can see as we work our way down for. 4500, if I'm looking at that correctly, between 4 and 5000 calls already, even getting a lights and sirens response. And so again, we need to reconfigure how it is that we think about things. And we broke that down by council district for you. And below you'll see overall trends from a budget and overtime that started October 1st because our budget changed. And so you can see that as we go month to month, you'll see that increase. And to the right of that you'll see the operations trends which transcend budget years. And so you get a full snapshot there. And with that, before I hand this to chief Davis, I'll see if there are any questions specific to my department or if you would like for us to continue on. [2:42:28 PM] >> Council member Siegel. >> Thank you. Chair. Quick question, chief. I was curious if you have an explanation for the differential of calls by district, does that relate to socioeconomic status, or are there other factors that kind of kind of point to that disparity? >> Yes, I would say that likely the socioeconomic status certainly has an impact. Also, looking at just the geography of those areas in terms of number of visitors that may come, obviously district nine represents not just residents, but also the office facilities as well as any visitors that may come to town, but that is on par with what we see, that those downtown cores tend to be busier than some of the more rural suburban areas. I would say socioeconomics plays a piece, but as I said, really also how residential is a neighborhood is also going to have an impact on on volume. >> Colleagues. >> Anybody else? >> I have one chief. Can you [2:43:32 PM] remind me what types of incidents chp's respond to and how many chp do we have on board and trained right now currently? >> Sure. So our community health paramedic division is really divided into four categories. And we have four different different teams that are put together. They have they have some overlap. But primarily we're looking at a team that's dedicated to substance abuse, a team that's dedicated to mental health, a team that, excuse me, a team that is dedicated to homelessness, as well as a team that's dedicated to other high utilizers so other individuals that may be utilizing the 911 system significantly. And so those programs are a combination of our community health mental health responders, which call our community health paramedic responders. We staff five of those, and they really focus in on mental health response. And they work alongside the Austin first program and our and our partners at APD and integral care. And then on the community health side, we also have individuals that are doing [2:44:32 PM] things like follow ups on opioid overdoses. So within Travis county, if you overdose on on an opiate, we make all effort to follow up with a community health paramedic the next day to see if there's anything we can do to, again, put you into a program. If you couldn't get into a program during your visit to the hospital to see if we can bridge you with some of our medications to help you get into a program. So that's one piece that we do. Likewise, on the homelessness outreach we really try to look at. And this really I call our ems prevention program. But we look at as we go into these encampments or visiting with individuals or persons experiencing homelessness, how can we anticipate future 911 calls and connect them to the correct services? So if we are there and we're treating someone for one emergency, we might identify an individual who, down the road we expect would result in a911 call. If we can't physically connect them with the right services. [2:45:34 PM] And then again, on the mental health side, the responders and and trying to identify these teams will work with data and look at what are who are our high utilizers as a department and what are the reasons they continue to call ems? And are there ways we can partner with other entities integral care, central health, the hospitals? Who can we try to pair them with to to find ways to get them out of that cycle of, of utilization of the 911 system? >> Thank you chief. Councilmember duchen. >> Thanks, chair. I just had a quick suggestion, which is to help me understand the year to date expenses. And I don't know if this is true for probably all of the dashboards and pnl we might expect to see like a remaining percentage based on year to date, rather than having to go manually look at it and say, okay, this is November, and I'd expect five six of the budget to remain, it might be useful to get that percentage reported as part of the dashboard, if that's possible. >> Absolutely. >> Thank you. Thanks. [2:46:45 PM] >> Committee members. My name is Joel baker Austin Fauci. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to present our first try at the dashboard, starting with the numbers at the very top, you will notice that approximately 10,447 calls in November were all total numbers of priority calls priority one, two, three, etc. However, of that 10,447 call, 683 were priority one calls or code three emergency call. A fire unit arrived prior to one incident at six minutes and 40s. That's about 50% of the response time, 90% of the response time. A fire unit arrived at priority one call at ten minutes and 23 seconds. That's about 72% of the [2:47:47 PM] required response time. Our goal, according to nfpa, national fire protection association, is to respond within eight minutes. And that month of November, we are responding to 72.4% of the time. The dispatch center dispatched at 589 call total. I'm gonna jump down to the multicolor chart you see there, district nine. Just like ems, my assumption APD would have the same rating that district nine is majority of our call. Approximately 10,071. Majority of our call volumes are medical calls. However, the second majority are other calls. The other calls can be anything from checking device, smoking area. I think a car wreck or carbon monoxide, carbon monoxide alarm going off or wires down or assist person or assist our other public safety partners. However. If we look [2:48:51 PM] at our budget there, our total budget expense for that period was $43 million out of 263 million that we spent. Of the 10 million, we have a 10.2 million we have in overtime for the month of November, we spent $3.2 million in overtime. We have approximately 1451 employees altogether. We have about a 5.7% vacancy rate. In other words, we have 1367 of our employees. Full time employees position fell in the month. In that month, we have the month of January. I believe we have four members that retired and one resigned. It's my assumption on assumption that the for the four retirees was related to the outstanding cba that the city provided. The firefighters and those members waited to get those benefits [2:49:52 PM] for they retire. Saturday and Sunday is majority of our leave taken during that month? Leave is anything between annual leave, sick leave deployment, iog training, etc. So as you know, the Saturday and Sunday is most of our car. Just like ems discussed the weekends call volume, the slide at the bottom, the numbers at the very bottom. There is just call volume throughout that year and and our response time, as well as percentage of that we made within eight minutes. I'm gonna pause for pause, pass it over to chief Davis in case you all have any questions. >> Thank you chief okay. >> No questions. Great. >> All right. Here's committee chair. Council members, thank you so much for your time. I will now go through the Austin police department's public [2:50:52 PM] dashboard. From your left, you can see year to date, fiscal year to date, we have spent 84 million out of our $526 million budget and 5.6 million of that. 5.7 million has been in overtime, with the remaining for the year of 26.5 million. We've have 51,000 overtime hours. And we have had almost 32,000 calls for service. And over to your far right, that will show the. Nibrs categories crimes against property, crimes against persons and crimes against society as well. In our 90 percentile, we respond to calls within 2,090% of our calls. We respond to within 20 minutes and 24 seconds, with an average response time of 1139. And this is for your priority zero and your priority one, meaning your suspects on scene crime just occurred. Suspect is still there, going down to the [2:51:54 PM] next row. We are at an almost 19% vacancy rate with 1477 and still needing to fill up to 1819. In the month of November is what we're capturing here. We had five retired and four resigned, and I believe two of those resignations were from the academy as well. Average leave hours per person. You have other meaning fmla extended leave for military, maternity, paternity leave, vacation and sick and then our leave hours by day of week. You can see that Thursday is our largest day and that is due to that is a double day where officers come in. The shifts are pretty full on Thursday, so officers can go and get mandatory training, do firearms training, all of that. So that's one of our heavier days. And if you're looking at November, we're looking at these hours here. That was a holiday month. So we're looking at an average of if you add all [2:52:55 PM] those hours up about two days out of that month that maybe an officer took off. And then we're looking at our incidents by priority level. The majority of those leaves over 20, almost 25,000 are non urgent calls. And then there's our urgent and emergent calls are more serious calls. And then also to the right of that you can see incidents by council district and again council district nine with the most calls for service. Just like fire. And then again going the average response times by initial priority for the month of November. Priority zero 920, priority ones 1335 and going up to priority three is one hour and 26 minutes. So you think of a call where someone broke into a shed. No one is there. But I would like to say that we have in the year that I've been here, we've we've knocked off that priority three by about 28 minutes. And so we're heading in the right direction when it comes to those response times. And then [2:53:55 PM] there's our budget broke down from 2511 and ten. And what we've spent and the top ten incidents for initial problem category that is broken down there. And that's what I have. Any questions for me. >> Colleagues. Thank you chief. >> Oh I'll just make the same request, which is it'd be helpful when we're looking at year to date expenses to get a percentage of what's remaining in the budget, to not have to just run the calculation ourselves based on where we are in the budget. Thank you for fire as well. >> Okay. So these dashboard considerations, these are first drafts and these reports will evolve. And certainly taking your opinions and your recommendations into consideration. And then data sourcing remembering that this information is provided by a multitude of teams and systems. So we have hr we have workday. We have you know, nibrs. We have crime reports. Those are [2:54:55 PM] coming from multiple different sources. And not all data can be automated. Some requires the manual production of reports and then manual entry for publication. And that's looking at you can think of fiscal for that. And then these reporting periods are not the same for all data. So you're looking at calendar year versus fiscal year. And so those are just things to keep in mind as you're looking at these reports. >> As we as we close out. Let me just pause and say a big thank you to chief and chief Davis and all the members who helped support this dashboard. And with that, the public safety team. You know, we will continue to work on this dashboard like the feedback you just gave, sir, on getting the percentage that remain left in the budget after our report out. That's a great recommendation, as well as any assistance we would get from the Austin technology service. As far as how we publish the products for all three departments. So kudos [2:55:55 PM] to everyone who helped us work on this project. Thank you. >> Colleagues. Any questions? I have a couple. What is a timeline for the for the dashboards to be finalized, and how will council be consulted before they are finalized? I know they're the numbers and information will be ongoing, but until we're comfortable with with moving forward. >> If I understand your your question correctly, I think that this will be an ever evolving dashboard. And I think from a month to month basis, we will take your feedback, make adjustments, and then come back to you with a with a new document, a new presentation, and then look to get additional feedback from you as well. I would imagine that over the next few meetings that we'll see multiple iterations of this to to really refine it down to, to what we want to see. And the honest answer as well, is that [2:56:56 PM] at some point, even once, we feel like we've got it a good place, depending on the different nature of what's going on within the city or whatever things we've identified as core issues, you may provide us with direction that you want to see something a little bit differently, and we can make those real time course corrections. So we'll take the feedback you have. And if there's any other additional feedback that you want to share with us outside of of this meeting, we'll take all that back and come back to you with some edits for the next meeting. >> So I had one. And for staffing and separations, is it possible to see historical information on the vacancy rate and the separation rate in the dashboard? And could we see it month to month and year to year changes with in vacancy in vacancy rates? Or is it in a different portal or report? >> I'll take that back to our data team. I believe we could get that done. Just have to to to tighten that up. And if we have any questions we can reach out to you for clarification. >> Okay. And I have one more for chief for APD. Excuse me for separations. Can they be differentiated by the average number of years of service at [2:57:57 PM] separation? And also can we do something similar to this for the training academy? >> Break it down, whether it's from a cadet or a a separation of someone else. Yes. >> And what is included in the other category? Chief for the type of leave hours. And why do you think this leave is so much more common? >> So this is the comp time fmla, parental leave, administrative leave, etc. >> Okay. >> Those are all the questions I have. Anybody? Council member. >> Duchen thanks, chair. I just wanted to ask, I've always got a couple of questions about the data itself, but that's not why we're here. So I want to focus on the the actual dashboard and the layout. And my question is if these are going to be designed really for the public as much as us, I wonder if it would make sense to define some of the terminology that's on here in the legends. I don't know if there's a way to click through and see that, or if it's there's an assumption [2:58:58 PM] that's going to be there automatically. But I would want to make sure, for instance, that the different priority numbers are defined in a way that people can understand what they mean, because priority one and priority three might not mean anything to the average person. So if we can just think through the terminology that's on here and make sure that that can somewhere be defined in the dashboard or in a or help place within the infrastructure, I think that might be a lot of it might be very valuable for anybody that doesn't understand the proprietary technology, you know, terms that we're dealing with. >> Thank you. One more, vice chair. >> When we're looking at the leave by day of week, I'm wondering if it might be possible. For example, if you click on it, see a breakdown of scheduled versus unscheduled leave because I think. When when we're looking at how the impacts are on overtime, knowing the unscheduled callouts has been a significant point of discussion as it [3:00:00 PM] related to fire, fire, leave. And so perhaps that type of a drill down would be helpful. >> We'll have to see how we could do that. But yes. >> Okay. >> Thank you all colleagues. >> Now we will take up item number three. This will be a briefing on proposed on the proposed ordinance amending city code chapter 12 one traffic regulation and administration to address and create an offense for unreasonable vehicle engine noise and colleagues. There was some misunderstanding on this earlier. We were taking the five general comment speakers and we're not posted for action on this item. So therefore people can sign up to speak on the item itself. >> Just to. >> Clarify that. And with that, we will welcome chief Davis again. Thank you. >> Hello. And I also have captain Craig Smith, who the neighborhood behind me will absolutely know who he is. So I thank him for his coming here with me today to to give most of this presentation. But I'm [3:01:00 PM] going to go ahead and start it off. When I first got here, one of my first conversations, well, not one of my first, but with council member alter was this was 2222. It was a issue for her, her constituents as it is now for you, sir. So when I first got here, that was one of my first little task forces I put together a little over a year and a half ago was to address that with our traffic enforcement, and some motors put a lot of overtime into that as well. And we did see some to their point. We saw some reductions, certainly, but it is when you're not keeping those those those plans up consistently, you're going to see it come back to the way it was. So this is the background. Austin police and council offices have received numerous complaints from residents about dangerous driving behaviors and loud and excessive noise from motorists. And thank you for the video. That was very telling. Notable trends. Vehicle noise complaints were mostly concentrated in that 2222 area in baker sector, with [3:02:01 PM] motorcyclists were being the top contributors for that excessive noise and speeding. There you go. >> Thank you. Thank you Steve. >> You push the green button. >> Can you hear me now. All right I said thank you guys. >> By the way, you didn't get demoted did you? >> They call it captain. We call it commanders. Okay. Just making sure. >> My apologies, commander. >> It's okay. I've been called worse. So. What I realized is we were not going to be able to just ride our way out of these citations. So when I got over to to west Austin, which is baker sector, I partnered with dps with Travis county, the constable's office, txdot Travis county, and also with the with the da's office in order to try to come up with a more collaborative approach. That way, we can better serve the citizens that are that are here today. So my lieutenant, lvt Castillo, he started setting up quarterly stakeholder meetings with a lot of the members that are here [3:03:01 PM] right now to in order to try to better hear the needs of the community. So we set up directed patrols. We're working with transportation to do a signal synchronization. We also have the helicopters out in the when they do helicopter training, we'll have helicopters out. We have an unmanned patrol vehicle, which is sometimes very unpopular with some people. But when they are out there on 2222, we are currently working with txdot still have to get an update from them, but they have to have rumble strips down on 2222. We have the speed trailers as well as social media campaigns which working with our Pio just to get the get the message out that hey, we are going to be we as in all the partners are going to be out on 2222 riding citations. So here is a this is through September of 2025. This is all of the our partners that helped us with this issue. We have 223 hazardous citations. Those are just moving violations such as speeding. We [3:04:02 PM] have 69 non-hazardous citations. Those are such as registration stickers, 207 warnings, 27 motor motorcycle contacts. So we have been spending a lot of money on overtime trying to bring down the noise that's going on at 22, 22. And and I know 360 as well, but that doesn't I really don't have 2220. I don't have 360 in my area. So mainly upon 2222, we spent 175 hours of overtime, which almost 20 hours a month. So the new proposed amendment, as you saw in the video, it's it's a lot of noise. When I go out there, especially at nighttime, I can hear how noisy it is. It is it is pretty. It is pretty bad. So I do sympathize with our community for, for for the noise that they have to endure every single day. But this new ordinance will give us a vehicle noise, engine noise that will help us curtail some of the noise issues that you saw in the videos. So it will allow an officer to cite motorists for an unreasonable noise. And unreasonable just [3:05:02 PM] means when a typical or fair minded person, when given the same sets of circumstances, would not think that the action made sense or is justifiable. That's what unreasonable noise will mean. So it will allow officers to more effectively address residents complaints about the excessive engine noise. So the proposed amendment is for March 26th. It's coming up and how we will roll it out. We'll do it the same way that we did when texting was an ordinance. We take a couple months, we start educating. We'll work with Pio city and and our local Pio just to work with the community, let them understand what is about to go into effect before we start issuing issue citations and to address, I think it was not Lisa's, it was one of the other members concerns. These will be class C offenses. So it will be the same enforcement violation as speeding or registration. So these are classy offenses. Are there any questions for me. >> Colleagues? Councilmember duchen. [3:06:03 PM] >> First of all, thank you for preparing the presentation and walking through that, I want to just cover a couple of questions and then make a few comments on this, mainly to help. Just explain for everybody here what one of the central challenges that my understanding is you deal with for noise enforcement of this nature. So can you step through quickly what sort of the fundamental challenges, like if there is a if there is. To have enforcement right now, don't you need essentially a civilian or citizen report of the noise issue that the officer would need to rely on to be able to enforce it? Isn't that the status quo right now, or can you help walk through what this looks like and how this would change it and make it better and empower officers to be able to use more judgment for enforcement going forward? >> Well, one of the main issues is are to get the noise violation, we need a decibel [3:07:04 PM] reading, right. So this one would give us unreasonable right. And as we've been in here a couple of times, we've heard some unreasonable noise, probably outside, I would say. So that would give us the opportunity to just cite, have give us the probable or reasonable suspicion to pull over that vehicle, to cite them without having to worry about decimal meters and all those other things that would be needed. So this would just give the officer more control. Where, where if a neighbor calls us and says there's an excessive noise outside, we could go in the area and just identify the noise. That's unreasonable, which would make it a lot easier on our end without having to do a speed trap or anything like that. >> And that's because by the time that you guys might even show up, if this is a lower priority call, as we just saw in the data for the dashboard, chances are the racing is over. Long gone, right? >> Correct. By the time we do get out there because it's a lower priority call, it could be 30 minutes or 45 minutes. So they're long gone. But if there is a vehicle that's making noise, we would have the reasonable suspicion to pull that vehicle over, right? >> So if an officer could get [3:08:05 PM] down there, there's a way that they can make a determination without having to do all of the other requirements that they might be subject to right now to try and just get to try and just initiate the enforcement. >> Correct? Correct. And this will be all over the city as well. So this could be used downtown off of 360. This could be used all over not just 2222. >> And out of curiosity, are there any other particular areas you guys are familiar with that this could be deployed that are sort of pain points right now? >> For sure. Downtown would be one. I live out at the Y in oak hill. That could be another one with. They're doing a lot of construction out there. So 360 as you've heard earlier. So yes, there would be different parts of the city that this could be utilized. >> Okay. I think that's all the clarification I'm looking for on this. And as far as the timeline, the goal would be to try and bring this to council in March and late March. Is that correct? Yes, sir. And then we'd be looking for and then maybe I can get clarity from the chair. We'd be looking [3:09:06 PM] for this committee to make a recommendation on this item at the next public safety committee meeting. Is that how this would work? What's that? Okay, so we would be back at the beginning of March, presumably to make a recommendation on this. Then I just want to make a couple of comments if the chair will indulge me. So first I just want to thank if people want to, obviously thanking all the residents that have been suffering under the status quo for, as you talked about, five years or more, and this has been getting progressively worse, and this area has been becoming increasingly well known on the 2222 360 corridor as a place to do the kind of racing and activities that are generating a lot of noise and safety complaints that we heard about during testimony. So really, I want to thank them from taking time today to come and share their testimony, put together the video, and just generally share their experiences with us over the last, you know, 6 to 9 months [3:10:06 PM] that we understand the gravity of the problem. And that includes, you know, the meetings and discussions numerous that we've had about how to approach this and really just understanding everything that this problem entails, as we've helped, as they've helped testify today. And and part of that is just making sure that I reinforce the incredible patience they've had with helping us get to not just this a solution, but potentially other solutions. You covered some of them, commander, that we're hoping to roll out. Physical solutions txdot solutions. Obviously more enforcement is going to be, I think, a vital piece of this. And so to that point, I want to thank you. I want to thank lieutenant Castillo. I want to thank chief Davis for their cooperation and taking this seriously since day one, since this really came up for us, I don't think we'd have, even though I know for the community it's taken a long time to get here. We wouldn't be here without y'all's support on this. [3:11:07 PM] And I want to be clear for everybody here also, including my colleagues, this is not we're not here because this is violent crime, right? We're not. Part of the challenge is these are priority three calls. It does take time to respond to them. And by the time that they get out there, the problem could have been resolved or their enforcement might make a difference. But that's not to say this is a victimless crime just because it's a nonviolent crime. And I think we've heard about how this has been a struggle for many people on a daily basis. This is reckless driving. It's noise, it's racing, which my understanding is a felony. And these are all things we can't enforce well, right now. And that my hope is that this tool and the other things that we're working to implement can get us there. We heard how residents can be woken up multiple times at night, how their business can be interrupted during the day, and how the racing can make what would be just ordinary travel up and down the corridor [3:12:07 PM] incredibly unsafe, almost sort of in their face, unsafe. So it's not a victimless crime. These are real consequences. And that's why I'm grateful that we can make some progress on this. The next month and a half. I also want to make sure that I thank Chris Coppola legal for helping us research. We looked at a lot of other cities, as you know, commander, for how to approach this and figure out what worked and what didn't work, and what are the sort of ways that we can empower officers and sort of grab some language to make sure that we are focusing on the specific issue here and not too overly broad, so that we would impact other communities where people are just trying to enjoy, you know, their ride or their music or their vehicle, but not to the extent of the noise that we're talking about here. And then the last thing I'll just say is that to commanders point to the slide that he had. There's a number of solutions that we're bringing to bear here that this is just one piece of it. And though I think this will be an important piece [3:13:07 PM] for the enforcement, and I think it will be particularly important once we get our motors unit back up and running, which I don't know if you want to speak to it all, chief Davis, but I think that would be a very welcome addition. My understanding from talking to assistant chief chancellor is that he's thinking about bringing back a sort of scaled down version of the modus unit this year, which is ahead of schedule. So do you want to speak to that real quick? >> The goal is once we get another academy class out, is to put, I believe, six and one sergeant out. So if at the end of the day, this is at least beginning to build back up to where we where we were. >> Thank you. I'm looking forward to that. And then we're also working on, I know with my colleague here, councilmember Laine, working on like traffic enforcement Zones where where we do have problematic areas that need more enforcement. We can deploy resources there. We're looking at, you know, the txdot speed study and, you know, things like temporary rumble strips or, sorry, less than permanent rumble strips, I think is what they call them. We've worked with commander Smith and the traffic engineers [3:14:08 PM] to desync the lights and test that out at night and see how that's working to change behavior. So bottom line is it's going to take a multi-pronged approach to address this. This is as as y'all indicated, it's been building for five years. It's not a trivial problem to solve. And we're just going to need to be smart and nimble and dedicated to make sure we can get the right solutions in place, which I think this is an important step. So I want to just thank you all again. Thank the folks that came out here. Thank Marisa for putting together the video. I'm sure it was not pleasant to listen to that as you were editing it a million times. All that noise. But I think it's important that we all understand. And when it comes to council that they, the full council understands kind of the gravity of what you guys are dealing with on a daily basis. So I just really appreciate you all showing up and, and doing the heavy lifting to make sure that we can do what we need to do on our end. So thank you all. >> Thank you. Thank you chief. >> Sorry. Council member Siegel. >> Thank you chair. And yeah, [3:15:09 PM] thank you, councilmember duchen, for your remarks and for leading on this issue. I just want to say thank you to the community for showing up. I don't represent this part of 2222, but I do drive it, you know, to go to mount Bonnell and bull creek. And the idea of these motorcycles weaving around, obviously, that's terrifying and puts a lot of people at risk. And in our district in d7, we have a different noise issue, which is basically commercial haulers picking up garbage in the middle of the night, waking up residents in nearby residential properties. And we hear the same thing about the impact on mental health of excessive noise at all hours of day. So I definitely heed your remarks, councilmember duchen, about the gravity of the impact of this kind of noise. I had a couple of questions about the framing of the ordinance, and I don't know if I should direct them to you. Councilmember, I don't see the law department here. I did want to actually thank commander and chief for all your engagement in the problem solving, reflected in those slides of trying to figure out what tools in the toolbox we do have. But I guess my questions relate to the framing of the ordinance and how it relates to [3:16:09 PM] a similar state law we have. So we do have a state penal code offense for disorderly conduct, which I believe, commander, you're referencing the 85db. So, you know, in the state law, you know, there's a prescription on unreasonable noise and it's a misdemeanor offense. And, you know, 85db is per se a violation. And so we do have that enforcement tool. But the difference between the drafted ordinance and the state law is that the state law requires intent. You know, mens Rea, as we call it that. To be guilty of a misdemeanor offense, you must intentionally or knowingly, you know, commit this noise offense. And so I wonder if that's something that was considered I don't know if anyone doesn't I don't see anyone from the law department here. But if that was considered, maybe adding that in to make sure that we don't create a tool that could be used against inadvertent, I don't know, loud breaking or, you know, pick your inadvertent excessive noise because it [3:17:09 PM] seems like we're really trying to focus on people that are intentionally revving their engines and using, you know, their engine brakes. And so I don't know who I should direct that question to, but I wanted to ask that. >> I'm not sure if legal is here. Do you want to take a stab? Otherwise I'm I'm happy to try. >> I would say I'd worked with Chris on this. I'll probably just let him know your concerns and see. I think we wanted to get away from the decimal simply because we just we just don't have enough of them. And it's it's hard to if a, if a the noise ordinance or the issue that you're just talking about with the dump truck, I'm not sure it would even register. Right. So if it's unreasonable at 3:00 in the morning to be picking up garbage at unreasonable, right. So, you know, we that's why we roll it out. Like I said, like every give them a couple months, educate the community, let them know that, hey, there is a new ordinance. So, you know, be careful with your excessive noise. But I'll bring your concerns to, to to Coppola. >> Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's possible if it comes [3:18:10 PM] back to maybe consider adding that kind of intent aspect because I just want to avoid unintended consequences, right. That we criminalize, you know, innocent behavior or create a tool that's not really fit for for what we're trying to solve. >> So have you had a chance to spend time with the draft ordinance or not? >> Yes, I'm looking at it right now. >> Okay. So you'll notice that the language in there is, I would argue, particularly targeted towards, you know, excessive acceleration, shifting and transmission gears racing or revving engines. We've tried to be very focused about how we approach it so that those things, I think, inherently express intent. >> Thank you. Yeah. I mean, just to put some objective criteria right in there that and, you know, one of my concerns is that unlike the state law offense, which if you were charged with that offense, you would be assigned a public defender for our our city misdemeanor offenses. There's [3:19:10 PM] no lawyer provided for folks who lack ability to pay. And so I just want to avoid kind of unnecessary criminalization of innocent conduct. >> Well, let's loop in Mr. Coppola and make sure that those concerns can be addressed or that he's got an explanation for what you're referring to. But we did start with the state statute to figure out what we could currently do and and recognize that, per other municipalities, that they had adopted similar rules to focus on this particular kind of violation, knowing that their state rules didn't seem to address it fully. >> Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you chair. >> Thank you. >> Okay, colleagues, that will take us to item number five, items to discuss for future meetings. If anybody has anything that they'd like to daylight, let us know. And if if you don't have it to daylight right now, if you can reach out to our office and we'll get working on it. Members, there is no other. There is no further business to come before the public safety committee of the Austin city [3:20:10 PM] council. Without objection, this meeting is adjourned at 3:20 P.M. Thank you everyone.