Public Health & Safety Committee Meeting

All right. Okay. Hi everyone, welcome. I'm calling to order this meeting of the Assembly Public Health and Safety Committee. It is November 5th at 10:45.

Let's, let's start by doing roll for the members that are here. It sounds like someone just joined us over the phone, so let's hear who you are. Jared Gerhart. Yara Silvers. Cameron Perez-Rodilla, and on the phone so far we have Member Baldwin-Day.

Are you there? Yes, I am. Thank you. Great, and I'm assuming others will join us shortly. And just a reminder for those that are on the phone, if you want to text me, I will get you in the queue.

I'll check it as often as I can. Okay, we've got a full agenda today, so we should just jump right in and get started. Looks like the Englewood Fire Department here first.

And is there someone from the mayor's office here yet? I have no update from them, but if someone arrives and there is something they want to add, just— all right, welcome. Uh, thanks for being here. Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity. Doug Sharkey, for the record.

At the budget work session, the question was raised about station locations, driving times, and call density. And so I appreciate the opportunity to address some of those concerns. Next slide, please. So what you're seeing here is obviously a map of the Anchorage Bowl, and it's truncated for obvious reasons. So no disrespect is intended towards our Eagle River communities, might not be displayed here, but the point here is to paint the picture and answer the question at hand.

There are multiple layers. The first layer that we're seeing here are the fire stations. So each of the fire station locations is depicted by a red circle with a fire department emblem in the middle of it. There's 12 of them in the Anchorage Bowl, as you can see. The fire stations are located when they are with the goal of getting 4 personnel on scene to every critical emergency within 4 minutes 90% of the time, and to have a full response within 8 minutes 90% of the time.

That brings us to the second layer. The colors depict the driving time from each of the fire stations. Everything that is shaded green are occupancies that fall within the 4-minute time for each of the stations. The sort of blue color is the driving time from each of the fire stations within more than 4 minutes and up to 8 minutes. And then everything that's shaded red are beyond 8 minutes and up to 10 minutes.

So graphically, you can quickly see the areas where we're able to meet our response time targets and the areas that we aren't.

The third layer, we've layered on the fire and EMS incidents. This excludes private ambulance calls, but it's probably pretty hard for you to see except for up close, but that, that map is littered with dots and each dot represents a fire or emergency medical incident we responded to in 2024. And there are a lot of them. So by, by examining this, you can get a sense for the number of calls that we are, are able to meet within our response time targets. We are quite seriously concerned about the areas just to the west of Fire North Bicentennial Park.

You can see there's a large blue area that means a response time of more than 4 minutes that have It may be hard for you to see it if you're in the room looking at the screen. There are many, many calls there, and that's owing to the growth in home construction and population that's moved into that area. And so there's a large percentage of the population that we are able to serve within our prescribed timelines. Also, between Stations 12 and Station 7, there's— parallel to that, there's another large blue area with a significant cluster of incidents that that we weren't able to reach within our 4-minute response time. I'll pause there for any questions.

Thank you. Let me see here. Thank you. And just for the record, we've been joined by Mr. Johnson. Are there any questions at this point?

I don't see any. I have just— I want to be clear about what we're looking at. So this is from 2024. This is the full year of calendar 2024. That's right.

And so these are actual— this is not estimates. These are the responses that happened during that period of time.

Uh, no and yes. So the actual responses are the actual dots that you see on the map. The response times— or correction, the driving times are reflected in the colors green, blue, and red. And is that the response time from 2024? No, those are driving times from the station based on, uh, traffic impediments, uh, road speed limits, and things like that.

Response time does not equal driving time.

Response— driving time is how long it would take if we started off at Station 4 and drove to the edge of their area. Response time is affected by factors such as unit availability. So it could very well be that everywhere that's depicted green doesn't necessarily enjoy a 4-minute response time because that's the busiest station that we have, and the chances are that for some percentage of those calls unit was not immediately available from that station and had to come from a different area. So response times don't equal driving times.

Also, our response times are— one of our measures is trying to get 4 personnel on scene within 4 minutes. So there are situations where a response time— we may have arrived on scene within 4 minutes, but until the second unit arrived and we had that fourth person, it would fail that test. So it's safe to imagine that— it's safe to understand that the location of the station has a direct, you know, relationship to the response time to the, to, to the location it's going to in terms of the, the distance. Indeed. Okay.

And then the, the locations of our stations, how long have those been there? Is that, has that been— has that historically been there for a long period of time? What I'm curious about is just how how the city has grown over time and how that relates to the location of these stations, and if they've moved due to shifts in our population or changes in our city. We have relocated a couple of our stations over the years. Station 9 moved from Huffman Road to the Armen, and Station 3 moved from Airport Heights Road over to Burgos, so just a few blocks over.

All the other stations All the legacy stations— oh, and Station 1 moved from 7th and C to 4th and A. The rest of the stations have basically been there since they were first built. The new stations, Stations 14 at Camilleri Road in Tudor and Baxter Road in Southport, were added in the 2000s. But at the same time, we closed Station 2 up on Government Hill, and we've had a net increase of 1 fire station since the birth of the municipality. Thanks.

I can see no other questions. We can move to the third and final slide.

The question was also raised at the work session about increasing call volume. So what you see here are 4 columns. Each column is one call type, and they are— the first column are our basic life support calls. This is the— for the period from 2014 to 2024 inclusive, and you can see that BLS call volumes has skyrocketed for the most part with a, with a 2 or 3-year dip in the middle. The second column is— let me back up.

The first column reflects a 39% increase in call volume for BLS calls from 2014 to 2024. Can you tell us what BLS is? Basic Life Support. So I can just speak momentarily about the differentiation between basic life support and advanced life support. Basic life support are those activities that require significant training for our EMTs, and they perform life-sustaining care.

An advanced life support provider, which is a paramedic or ALS, they provide.

Adjuncts that are intrusive, so they can do intubations and intravenous therapy, they can do intramuscular injections, so they can make— they can perform invasive procedures, chest decompressions, tracheotomies, things like that.

So basic life support calls up 39% overall. The second column is mobile crisis team, which was new starting in 2021. During that period of time increased by 89%. The third column advanced life support calls are up overall 23% from 2014. And then the fourth column is fires of all types, and, uh, you can see that they've been rising as well, an increase of 24%.

So the question was raised during the work session, is it possible that the lower acuity calls are taking a larger share are about the overall call volume. And the answer is apparently yes, as you can see, call volumes have gone up across the board.

And, uh, that's all that I can present to you, and I'm happy to take any questions. Great. I had just a couple. Going back to the map just for a second, I have another person in the queue. Um, I guess I'm just curious, what are we to make of this from your version perspective, is there, in terms of, of locations and call time— or I'm sorry, not call time, but response time— what is your assessment here in terms of what needs to change or if it may be best?

My assessment is— thank you for the question— my assessment is, is that there are some underserved areas in the municipality. For example, People that reside in Potter Valley and Stechogate Heights can't expect a 4 or even an 8-minute response time a lot of the times. Those, we consider those to be outliers based on their distance from the central part of the bowl. There are areas within the bowl that I think are also being underserved. Station 12, we think, is not ideally located.

That is the station that's right in the middle of the map, on the— just maybe below the midpoint, with the long section of green below it. If— so, so what you— the conclusion you could draw is that a fire station would be warranted in each of the areas to the west and east of Station 12, those blue areas that I described. Two additional stations would serve a significant portion of the population and address a very large number of calls. We don't think we need 2 more stations. We think if we were to relocate Station 12 to the east and add a new station to the west, we could add 1 new fire station and much better serve the people within the bowl.

Thanks. And then I have a question from Mr. Johnson.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. Uh, my question to Chief is, looking at the increases in calls um, on the third slide here. Are there any particular factors you could point to that have led to, um, the escalation, especially the BLS calls, right? And this is obviously not tracking the changes in the population acreage, um, or, or anything as easily identifiable as that. So is there anything you can point to that would be the causal factors here?

Yes, thank you for the question, Mr. Johnson, through the chair. There I can generalize. We know that the population that we serve, not just in Anchorage but elsewhere in the country, tend to rely on 911, the emergency services, for their primary care more so than did— than people used to. So in other words, people are using— they're calling 911 instead of going to a physician or going to the hospital themselves. People have just, for reasons we can only speculate about, are calling 911 for their primary care.

A contributing factor may be that fewer people have insurance. It could be that there are gaps in the continuum of care that is available in the community.

And, uh, I guess that satisfies— those are my generalizations.

Okay, thank you. Great. Any other questions for the chief? No? Wonderful.

Thanks for great information and for being here. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, uh, we're going to move on, uh, to the Office of Emergency Management. Like to come up.

Welcome. Say your names for the record. You can begin. Thanks.

Good morning, my name is Amanda Loetsch. I'm the Office of Emergency Management Director, and today I am also the Emergency Operations Center Director. As well. We are currently activated at a Level 3 for— in response to the 2025 Western Alaska storms. Today we're here to give you an update regarding the response and pending recovery for, for this event.

I have brought with me today a member of our command team at the Emergency Operations Center, Mr. Sean McKenzie. He is, um, the liaison officer that has been stationed for 22 days now as a forward operator in the State Emergency Operations Center, providing technical assistance and support to make sure that we are working with the state and all the partners involved as effectively as possible. In a normal incident command system, he would also be the person that would help our elected officials, um, with any issues that they might, uh, see surfacing as well. So that's why he's going to review today. Mr. McKenzie, go ahead.

Thanks, Director. Uh, like Director Lynch said, my name is Sean McKenzie, so I'm the Anchorage Emergency Operations Center liaison officer for this disaster.

So for some opening comments, as you all I'm sure are aware, on October 8th and October 11th of 2025, fall sea storms and remnants of Typhoon Halong caused catastrophic impacts across western Alaska, including widespread flooding, damaged infrastructure, and numerous homes pushed off their foundation. A significant multi-agency coordination effort was immediately established and continues to support western Alaska community-based recovery as well as Anchorage-based shelter and wraparound services and animal pet transition operations. So Typhoon Halong brought record storm surges and hurricane-force winds up to 107 miles per hour in some areas especially across the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Entire homes were swept off their foundations and floated inland, some with people still inside. Over 1,500 people were displaced.

Many homes were destroyed or severely damaged. Roads, boardwalks, boats, and critical infrastructure like power, sewer systems were also impacted. Emergency crews were deployed to repair runways and airlift residents to shelters in Bethel. The Alaska National Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard conducted air rescues, saving at least 51 people from flooded homes. Some residents sheltered in school gyms, often running on generator power.

One woman was confirmed dead. Two others remain missing as of the last report. Pictured here is an aerial view of the flooded community of Kipnuk, Alaska on October 13th, 2025. Next slide, please. So the state of Alaska emergency response to Typhoon Halong was one of the most extensive in its history, involving mass evacuations, search and rescue operations, and infrastructure stabilization.

Alaska conducted the largest airlift in its history, evacuating over 1,500 residents from flooded villages using National Guard helicopters and C-17 aircraft. The Alaska National Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard deployed 5 helicopters and 2 planes to rescue stranded individuals, especially in Kipnuk and Quillagong. On October 9th, Governor Dunleavy issued a state disaster declaration for the 2025 West Coast storm, enabling rapid mobilization of state resources. State emergency management specialists were deployed to Bethel, Nome, and Kotzebue to coordinate local response efforts. On October 22nd, President Donald Trump approved a major federal disaster declaration unlocking FEMA assistance for individuals.

And public infrastructure. The state focused on stabilizing damaged infrastructure and housing before the onset of winter. As you know, many residents were temporarily relocated to shelters in Anchorage. Pictured here is an Alaska National Guard C-17 transporting evacuees to Anchorage. Next slide, please.

So a timeline of the Anchorage support. On the 14th of October, the OEM director was called by the State Emergency Operations Center requesting shelter for up to 1,500 evacuees from western Alaska storms. A unified command was set up with the University of Alaska Anchorage. Uh, the Anchorage Emergency Response Team was notified. On the 15th of October, the MOA Emergency Operations Center, the EOC, activated at a level 3.

The first shelter opened at UAA Alaska Airlines Center. On the 16th of October, Egan Center was ready to receive evacuees and opened as a second shelter. On the 17th of October, a local disaster was declared. The Anchorage Emergency Operations Center was staffed to support shelters, pets, volunteers, donations. In addition, MATSU assisted with the pet sheltering mission.

Pictured here is Red Cross cots that stood ready to receive evacuees. The Red Cross has been a critical partner in the sheltering mission. Next slide, please.

So this is a picture of non-governmental and volunteer support. In addition, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium acted swiftly to ensure the medically fragile evacuees were transported to ANTHC facilities and have been providing tremendous support for the response. Next slide, please.

So picture here of one set of shower trailers, the United Methodist Church shower trailer.

We also had the Department of Forestry, the Salvation Army, and a rented private company called Rent-A-Can shower trailer. A total of 31 shower heads were provided at the Egan Center. Next slide, please. So a picture of the Alaska Public Library. They supported the shelter with library books.

For those who are familiar, they have a Read on the Fly program, which is typically associated with books at the airport for children. Utilized that program in support of this mission. Next slide, please. So People Mover information and training, a 30-day bus pass was given to the evacuees. In addition, People Mover provided training on how to use the bus system and interacted with the evacuees on the Anchor Rides program, which provides transportation to those over 60 and those who are mobility challenged.

Okay, so back to the timeline. On the 28th of October, the state of Alaska contracted with a private company called Tidal Basin to assist with the transition of evacuees into hotel rooms while awaiting long-term housing. So if you hear the word congregate shelter, that's typically something like the Egan Center or the Alaska Airlines Center, and non-congregate is hotel rooms. So non-congregate shelter, the hotel rooms. On the 30th of October, 100% of evacuees at the Egan Center were transitioned to hotel rooms at 5 local hotels.

So here are some numbers about the sheltering mission. The total evacuees were 655 people flying mostly to Anchorage. Families placed in non-congregate shelters, uh, those are the hotels, 143 families representing 577 individuals. Currently there are no residents at either the Alaska Airlines Center or the Egan Center. Both have been shut down as shelters.

However, the Egan Center remains a post office capability for the Western Alaska refugees, at least until the end of the month. So departments from throughout the municipality assisted with the shelter mission. We're grateful for the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility for assistance with connecting the shower trailers to municipal water and wastewater systems at the Egan. Anchorage Police and Fire enhanced the safety and protection of the evacuees. Municipal employees coordinated with the State of Alaska to implement traffic calming in front of the Egan Center.

Municipal parking was made available to Red Cross volunteers. The American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, and many other volunteers and partner agencies are coordinating mass care operations, medical care, behavioral health services, and culturally relevant services. Municipality is working with the Red Cross and the State Emergency Operations Center to utilize the Spenard Rec Center to support evacuees, including reception and processing space and overnight space for future evacuees if needed. We are also pursuing an MOA— MOU with the Red Cross with the support of the Municipal Attorney's Office for identified area-wide shelter facilities. All right, the pet evacuation mission.

Uh, pictured here are the temporary emergency pet shelter facilities. So Beth Friend— Bethel Friends of Canine, Best Friends Animal Rescue, and the August Fund have been working feverishly to airlift dogs out of evacuated communities and reunite them with their families. As of the 1st of November, 175 dogs have been rescued Many of these dogs were sheltered in other local villages in western Alaska. Many are sheltered in Bethel, and some were flown to Anchorage and Fairbanks by volunteers and Bethel Friends of Canines. On several occasions, Bethel Friends of Canines exceeded their capacity to house and care for dogs.

As a result, Anchorage set up an emergency temporary pet shelter to receive dogs from Bethel and facilitate getting the dogs to foster care. Matsu has also been assisting with this mission. So this is the temporary pet shelter. If you go to the next slide, this is what the inside of the pet shelter looks like. And again, we receive dogs and process them through intake and then facilitate getting them to foster care.

We're grateful for the assistance of street maintenance. For setting up the pet shelter tent, heating and lighting systems. To date, 52 dogs have been flown to Anchorage, 40 of those to Anchorage Transitional Animal Pet Shelter for processing, 20 to Matsu— or 12 to Matsu, I should say. 24 Dogs have been placed in foster care. This is for Anchorage, not including the, the work that Bethel has done.

And 16 dogs remain at the animal transition pet shelter. And we are currently in the process of demobilizing the pet shelter tent system and using existing facilities in Anchorage and Matsu pursue to house in process and foster any future dogs that may come. Next slide, please. So this is a slide just for general information. A website was set up, the Alaska Typhoon Dogs webpage, by folks in Bethel.

The 175 dogs I mentioned, when they receive a dog, they take a picture, capture as much information as possible, particularly if they don't have a collar with identification on. And posted here with the hopes that the evacuees will be able to recognize their dog, and then they have a telephone number they can call to get reunited with their dog when they're ready to receive them. Next slide, please. I mentioned this was a team effort. At the start of this response, Anchorage School District used their buses to transport evacuees.

In addition, approximately 169 evacuated children have been registered for school in the Anchorage School District. Municipal HR was instrumental in ensuring that the EOC was properly staffed using municipal employees on loan from departments across the muni. This includes rotation relief for key positions, coordinating onboarding, and providing expertise in timekeeping. Municipal Safety Officers ensured that the operations both within the Emergency Operations Center and at our Anchorage field locations were conducted safely during what was often long work hours. The Municipal Attorney's Office has helped us navigate a myriad of legal issues surrounding this response.

I mentioned the Anchorage, uh, Transportation provided training and support to evacuees on how to use the bus system and Anchor Rides program. Anchorage Park and Rec supported evacuees with ADA-compliant showers at Spenard and Fairview Rec Center and by making these rec centers available for evacuees for recreation. I also mentioned they're helping us right now with the SonarGraph Center. Municipal employees from over 20 departments and offices from across the municipality have been staffing the Emergency Operations Center, including significant support from the Anchorage Health Department. Municipal employees have spent a total of 5,564 hours supporting the mission.

Next slide, please.

For future efforts, we continue to work with the state on financial reimbursement. On November 3rd, an MOU between the the State of Alaska and the municipality was signed, which lays out the terms of reimbursement for the municipal expenses from the state and federal funds. The MOA has tracked $1,053,000 to date in services and supplies, which does not include personnel costs. We want to be ready to receive additional evacuees if needed. We want to be responsive to the State of Alaska for requests of their support The state of Alaska is in the lead for the response and we are supporting them.

We want to maintain our good relationships with the Red Cross, Salvation Army, private industry, and a host of other partners supporting this operation. We want to right-size our operation to return immediately.

Employees to their department. We're very thankful for the department heads for all the time they generously allowed their employees to spend at the Emergency Operations Center. As of Friday, we hope to have everyone return to their departments, and we are charting a way forward for steady-state operations, which does not include their, their standing duty at the EOC. And then finally, we're gathering lessons learned and conducting improvement planning so we can be even more responsive to the next disaster. Uh, that's the end of my report, pending any questions.

We do have some questions. Did you have anything to add at this point before we start going to questions? No? Great. Uh, then Ms. Lovers.

Um, will the personnel costs additionally be reimbursed by the state or the federal government? Yeah, thank you. Um, so the, the conditions of our, uh, MOU with the state do include personnel costs. Thank you. Well, first I'd like to say thank you.

Thank you for being here and thank you for the incredible work. This is absolutely amazing, and it's a testament to how when things happen, we come together as a city to respond. And I couldn't be more proud of our city today, seeing the response and seeing the collaboration. Thank you for your work and where it has come up with. I do have a question about a timeline.

Do you have sense of how this will unfold over the next few months, year, and if we have any sense of when people will begin to return back to their homes. Yeah, so it's our understanding that the state is working towards emergency work being completed so that some, some people could return to their homes. The program that they're utilizing right now for, for non-covered shelter could last 6 months, but of course there's extensions available to that. But it is our understanding that some people will return to homes, will go to different communities, whatever that longer-term permanent or temporary permanent housing option is, it is intended to be implemented as quickly as possible. So as you can imagine, living in a hotel is, is perhaps more comfortable than living in a recreation center or in a congregational setting, but certainly not a place that people want to spend an extended period of time.

So as quickly as possible, each individual and household will make their own decision about how they would like to spend the winter or even the coming weeks. And so the state is working feverishly with the federal government to do that.

I don't see any additional questions. Let me just check this one. No, I don't see anything at this point. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for being here. Anything else you want to share before we close? No, thanks for the opportunity. Thank you. Thanks for being here.

Okay, wonderful. Next up we have the Anchorage Health Department.

Good morning. Good morning. Hard transition. Yes.

Anchor Tails Department. Today I'm going to give the body an update on WIC funding. So as you know, the current federal government is shut down. On November 1st, the National WIC Association announced that $450 million in additional federal Section 32 funds have been allocated to the United States Department of Agriculture to sustain WIC operations nationwide. Section 32 funds are derived from customs and tariff receipts and serve as temporary child nutrition resources intended to prevent service disruptions while Congress continues to negotiate fiscal year 2026 appropriations.

The White House Office of Management and Budget initiated transfer of these funds to the Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees WIC program administration through state agencies. This funding provides a temporary bridge and is not long-term solution— is not a long-term solution. The National WIC Association anticipates that it will sustain program operations only for several weeks depending on individual state expenditure rates.

As of today, there have been no interruptions in WIC participant benefits here within Anchorage, and all Anchorage WIC sites remain open and fully operational. At the state level, the Alaska Department of Health confirmed that the Section 32 funds will flow to state agencies within approximately 2 days of the federal transfer. As of November 4th, the state has not issued an update allocation table or revised days of funding remaining estimates for Alaska. State WIC leadership advised agencies to monitor the Friday state WIC updates in the Alaska WIC webpage for current information. The most recent, recent projection from mid-October indicated approximately 61 days of food funds and 49 days of administrative funds remaining as of October 16th, with sufficient administrative coverage through approximately December 4th and food benefits through December 16th.

So what does that mean for our team? So as of December 4th would end potentially the funding for our WIC staff. We currently have a 12-member team with 2 supervisors. Most of that team is 100% funded from these state funds. And then December 16th would be the cutoff date for participants receiving WIC benefits.

The Public Health Division remains in direct communication with the state WIC team and will immediately relay any guidance or allocation updates upon receipt. Last night, the mayor confirmed and asserted during her speech that she will continue to work with us on figuring out ways that we can continue to pay for employees. So I've been working very closely with the mayor's office as well as the municipal manager to ensure that we can continue to pay staffing during this potential shutdown. In addition, contingency planning remains in place in the event that federal or state funds are delayed or insufficient. The Anchorage Program serving approximately 676 infants has developed an emergency municipal formula distribution plan to safeguard infant nutrition should federal WIC funds lapse.

Under this plan, the municipality would procure approximately 6,084 cans of infant formula per month, an average of 9 cans per infant at $30 per can, for a projected monthly cost of $183,000. Excluding tax and storage. Formula can be stored at the, at the L Street WIC site and distributed directly to caregivers under strict inventory controls using municipal rather than federal systems. Staffing and logistics have been developed to ensure that either WIC or non-WIC funded personnel can carry out distribution depending on available resources. In coordination with pediatric providers, hospitals, and the Alaska chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the WIC program manager continues to promote consistent messaging around safe infant and community practices.

In summary, the additional $450 million in Section 32 funding provides short-term stability for Alaska WIC programs, including Anchorage, and ensures continued benefit issuance and services in the near term. However, it does not resolve the broader federal funding uncertainty that we currently have. That is the update. [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] The, um, the, again, the, the potential staff cutoff is on, uh, the December 4th— December 4th is the staff cutoff, and December 16th is the potential current. And can you share us a little bit more about, um, the— what this looks like in terms of actual benefits?

What is somebody who, who— if this were to be cut off, what would they, they lose? Uh, they would lose the ability to receive food for their children, formula for their babies, which is why we're trying to put in a plan at least to provide that formula in the interim. They would be— they would lose also nutrition education and then connections to services. And what is the relationship between WIC and SNAP? Great question.

So two very different programs. WIC is administered here within the municipality. SNAP is administered directly by the state of Alaska. SNAP benefits do provide food benefits to individuals. Sometimes the clientele overlap and they receive WIC benefits and SNAP benefits and Medicaid.

There was a current document that was released this week by Governor Dunleavy issuing some emergency funds for SNAP participants.

So hopefully that will assist here in the interim, but those are two very separate programs. Just one last question, and I'll see if others— the 607 infants, do you have a number in terms of families that this impacts? Is that the— or is that how you count through, where it's through the infant? Uh, that's the infant numbers, just for the formula calculation. Um, so we have around.

Around a little over 3,000 participants with the goal of having 7,565 participants in the next couple of years. And those numbers are derived from the state of Alaska looking at potential individuals that could be eligible for WIC benefits. And, and when, when can we know about this contingency plan in terms of what, what would it actually look look like? At what point would you need to come back to the assembly and have a conversation with us in terms of, of additional funds or we have to be reallocated funds to ensure that the staff members were not, um, uh, let go? Yeah, that's a great question.

So we are currently working, uh, like I mentioned, with the mayor's office and the municipal manager, um, as well as the director of OMB to figure out next steps in funding. Um, but what I can do is when it— probably near the end of this month, I can provide an email to the body with that update because it would impact not only our staffing but also the participants within our communities. Great. And I have a question from Ms.

Baldwin-Day. Thanks, Chair. Director Rapp, I'm curious, I may have missed it, can you repeat that— did you share a number for how much it's going to cost to be able to provide formula through the WIC program if the municipality should get that responsibility? What is that number on a monthly basis? Uh, $183,000, which excludes tax and storage.

That is projected cost for purchasing 6,084 cans of infant formula per month.

Okay, thank you. Oh, and just for the record, we've been joined by Mr. O'Hara. Um, I think those were all of my questions. Any questions from the board members at this point?

Okay, thank you very much, appreciate it. Okay, uh, we're going to move on, uh, now, uh, to the English place card. Welcome. Okay, um, going to apologize in advance, this is a policy brief really quick, 2 of 3, so next one's going to be the third in the series of the technology that you'll approve, uh, to 2 months ago. This policy on drones, first responder, and the idea behind this is not just to provide some information and education to you but also the public that's here, make these public, or these policies public, and then over the next couple of months, uh, receive additional feedback if there is any before we settle on these policies before we actually deploy some of the technology.

So first, just a little bit of history about our drone program. We started our drone program approximately in 2017. As you all know, there's a municipal ordinance also covers the drone operation within the municipality.

The operation of our drones at that period of time was for the purpose of SWAT callouts or high-risk callouts, so they were employed in combination with the SWAT team, crisis negotiators, when we had high-risk calls for service. Obviously, we saw a lot of benefit to the use of drones. Using drones in this environment back in 2017 was still relatively new, And so we wanted to limit the use because it was new. This summer we started a drone program after doing several test runs, not only last summer and earlier this summer, to have drones in the field in a patrol operation. So currently we generally have two officers that are deployed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with both indoor and outdoor drones that are inside their vehicles.

So these drones, when they're deployed, requires two operators: one to operate the drone, one to be a spotter. And these drones have to be within sight of the operator, so they have to maintain visual contact with the drones generally, particularly— well, pretty much all the time. There's some very rare exceptions when the drone's being used indoors, but it's not in conjunction with a search warrant. That program has proved to be very beneficial, primarily in the area of safety for the officers and safety for safety for the people, uh, that are involved in the call for service, which brings us to this policy and kind of the last stage, which is drones as first responder. These drones, which we have purchased— not yet, we'll be purchasing 3 of them that will come in based on the Axon contract that you all approved— these drones are mounted on top of roofs, so they're not mounted in police cars, and they are operated from real-time crime center locations, so off-site.

So there's no operator or no spotter on scene. And the— there's a lot of purposes that I'll get into in the benefit of the drone, uh, as a first responder, but ultimately we'll have the ability to launch a drone to respond to certain types of calls that more than likely are going to get to the scene before our officers get there. So they're going to be able to provide information to officers as they respond. So if they have a high-risk call where you've got somebody with a gun or a knife, in a parking lot with lots of people around, and it takes several minutes for officers to get there, and a drone can be overhead, identify the person, see if they run in a direction, follow the person, identify if there actually is a weapon, so that officers can be better prepared when they respond to the scene. When I talked about Real Time Crime Center last month, I said one of the big benefits of Real Time Crime Center is collecting data and investigating crime and ensuring that we have you know, good prosecution on some of these crimes.

When we think about drones as first responders, that also applies, but I would say that the top priority or the thing that we get the most out of drones as first responders is it becomes a pretty significant safety issue. Having officers armed with information so that they can better respond to the scene reduces the likelihood of injury to members of the public and officers, and that is, um, it's really kind of an undisputed fact, and it's the most important benefit of this program to our officers. Ultimately, we improve or reduce the risk because we have improved decision-making because of the information. This is a tool that we can also put inside the category of de-escalation. You know, we talk about de-escalation and de-escalation training as if that is the magic key to some of the issues that, uh, we believe are happening in law enforcement.

It's not just training, it's a lot of other things that are involved in de-escalation, and access to information also helps officers de-escalate when they arrive on scene. It also assists with tactical positioning of our, of our employees and our staff and any other equipment we need to arrive to the scene. Now I know that we've got some concerns when we talk about new technology, what it's going to look like, particularly when I say we're going to be launching drones from a rooftop. So I definitely understand the hesitation and concern there.

A couple of things that we have already put in the policy in place is the recording of the drones as they're flying from point A to point B. So the point that they launched, when they'll be on scene, I won't be recording that information. So the ability to come back and comb through data that's just being collected as we're en route, we want to have that ability and capability. These drones are moving relatively rapidly when you're talking about flying 1,000-1,500 feet. Going, you know, 25 to 30 miles an hour.

So thinking that the drone operator is going to see a lot of detail as they're flying over, they're not going to be able to see a whole lot. We also have the ability to point the camera in another direction so that no drone operator is not staring at the front or backyards or areas where people may have a higher expectation of privacy. Did you say the, the camera is on or is not on during the two-minute run? It's on, it's not recording. It's not recording.

One of the other features that we get with these particular drones is you get a live feed while they're up. So when a drone gets on scene and starts recording— so imagine if you have an individual that fired off some rounds and it goes into a wooded area, which is risky to go into. We can push that live feed that the drone is capturing to our officer's cell phone at the time, and so officers can be moving towards the person while having one of the officers watching what's happening and exactly what that location is. It's great when you have a drone overhead and you're saying, "Go to the east, gotta go west now a little bit," and there's going to be a the red tree, that's helpful. It's a lot more helpful when the officer's using that information himself.

And so we'll have that capabilities with these particular drones.

When the drones are flying to the scene, will they generally— will you try to have them fly over public areas, or will they be like flying over our backyards?

Uh, great question, ma'am. Uh, generally what happens is it goes direct point of contact as the, as the crow flies, so to speak. And, uh, one of the reasons why we do that is depending upon the weather conditions. You're talking about battery capability that can be as low as 15 minutes, and so that means.

Flying a drone out, landing the drone, changing batteries on scene, and having the drone fly up again. Um, but again, just to reiterate, we're talking about a relatively rapid-moving drone and the ability to see kind of what's happening. And you're also in many areas of Anchorage, you're able to fly that flight at 1,500 feet, so pretty high up there where the camera's not pointing down and zooming in. We have a lot of restricted airspace within Anchorage, as we all know, so That doesn't apply to all areas of Anchorage, obviously, so there are some limitations on how and when you can use it. Is that what you're saying?

Thank you. Just one more follow-up. What is our current drone policy in Anchorage in terms of recreational private use? Are there restrictions in terms of drone use, and would personal-use drones be a concern? So the The personal drone use, when we first started using drones, were kind of an issue.

We had a lot of calls for service on drones flying in places they weren't supposed to. At the time, very, very difficult to regulate that, to find folks operating those drones, even responding. One benefit of this program is this comes with technology to be able to identify all those drones and the operators and where they're located, so potentially have the ability, if you have a drone operator that is flying a personal drone in private space— and so there's two primary areas that, uh, that's not allowed for personal drones, and that is restricted airspace, number one. Number two, uh, flying in areas of privacy, so flying in your backyard, looking in your windows— obviously they're not allowed to do that with these technologies. Um, we put some information in the policy on data retention.

We currently have a lot of video and information that comes into the police department. We have a retention policy that already exists, so think about our body our cameras are dashcam, uh, cameras that are around. Our retention policy is anywhere from 2 years to something that's kept forever in the case of a homicide. The retention, uh, for the drone footage that is captured in this policy, because it's a new technology, again, to try to address some private concern— privacy concerns— if that footage that is captured is associated with a crime, it falls into that retention policy. So if it has to do with homicide, for example, it'll be kept forever.

But if it isn't associated the crime. Currently, almost all our videos are retained for 2 years. Our drone footage, similar with the data that would be captured in the real-time crime center, is set to 14 days. So anything that's not associated with a crime in terms of video captured with the drones have a retention state for about 14 days. So after 14 days, if we need that footage for something, we realize there's a crime that we were investigating, they just can't be recovered.

Um, oh, I have another question for you, Mr. Johnson.

Yeah, thanks, Chief. Um, curious what the, the plan is for deconflicting drone traffic with, uh, VFR aircraft traffic, especially around the east side of town where, um, it sounds like these drones may be flying, you know, outside of controlled airspace but also at an altitude where they could potentially come into conflict with a small aircraft. Uh, I think if I heard you correctly, you're talking about the non-law enforcement, uh, public use drones, right?

No, no, I'm talking about the, uh, the public use drones. I mean, as I understand it, you said they may be transitioning, uh, the scene at altitudes, I believe you said 1,200 to 1,500 feet. I know that we have a lot of small aircraft that operate at those altitudes in the Anchorage Bowl. Yeah, so, so, uh, I'll answer kind of two things, just hopefully have more complete answer. Uh, so the public use drones, we have the technology that I alluded to over OYH drone what it's called, technology to be able to identify those aircraft if they are flying in zones or areas that they're not allowed to, to include restricted airspace or at restricted altitudes.

And then for our drones, our drones are— these are very sophisticated drones, so they identify any aircraft, any aircraft, any, you know, planes anywhere in the space, and they actually adjust the altitude automatically so that these particular the drones stay out of not only restricted airspace but any airspace that is remotely close to any aircraft. So it has kind of the same technology that a commercial aircraft has on it to do that detection.

Oh, oh, okay. So I, I guess I, I maybe I need to learn more about how this technology works. If I'm following you correctly, in uncontrolled airspace, the drones will be— and then I'm sorry if you say this, but high confidence they'll be able to identify any aircraft who are operating under visual flight rules and anchorage, and the drone will be responsible for avoiding that traffic. Um, so the drone itself won't identify any, uh, public use drones flying those spaces. That's, that's a separate set.

The drone doesn't have to be deployed to be able to do that. That technology exists without a drone in the air, and that, that technology will also identify the operator and where that drone operator is operating from. So that's, that's on the non-police, non-law enforcement side. Uh, from the law enforcement side, our drones have the additional capabilities to be able to detect the airspace that they're in and other aircraft in the area. So there's people running, running airspace as As for commercial or private air space, I feel like we're, we're stretching the house in the night a little bit, sir.

All right, I, I don't want to belabor this point, but I just want to make sure that I can go out and answer this question confidently when it comes up. For the small planes that transition along the, um, particularly east side of Anchorage Bowl, you know, every day there's probably dozens, maybe even hundreds in the summer, and they're often operating altitudes around 1,200 to 1,500 feet. They will not have any safety concerns about the possibility of running into a public use drone as they're navigating that space.

Um, well, when you refer to the public use drones, you're not referring to our drones, is that correct? Sorry, no, no, I mean, I'm asking questions. Somebody in a small plane is flying across Anchorage Bowl, are they going to have any concerns at all? They might look out the window, see a police drone coming at them. No, no, long before there's any risk of that, the drone automatically is adjusting its altitude, notifying the pilot that there is an aircraft that— and the technology is designed that obviously the aircraft has, has the space, and it will immediately adjust the altitude to include landing the drone if need be so that the aircraft— the rocket will avoid the aircraft.

And that happens at quite some distance away.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, another question for you, um, um, Ms. Lomone. Thank you, Chair. I'm curious if there is an actual policy document that has been distributed in the room, or if that's a document that we'll be seeing later. Yes, this is, this is Mr. President.

We do have a policy document that was distributed in the room. Can we post it up on the It is posted, so you can go to the Public Health and Safety website and it should be there.

Oh, great. Okay, that must have been done recently. I checked earlier and I didn't see it, so thank you. Sure, thanks. And Member Walden, I apologize, that's my late response to India.

Excuse me, I should have— sorry about that. No worries, Steve. Steve, sure. I'm sorry, okay, uh, data sharing. If you recall from the, uh, the policy from last month for the Real Time Crime Center, one of the things that, uh, one of the restrictions we put on data sharing is obviously the information can only be shared for law enforcement purposes.

There's some legal requirements on that, but it also has to go all the way up to me for approval. So if somebody has a lot— legal law enforcement purpose for having the information, it's self-approved before it can be released. Later on in the document, you'll see that we'll be putting that information out when we release some of our drone footage to any outside entity. So the members of the public will be able to see when we do that, because that is a current concern that we have. In terms of privacy, we have some information or requirements that the drones will not be used to observe events that For example, are protecting the Constitution's freedom of speech or protest rallies, unless there's a clear and credible threat or organizers of that protest have some reason to believe that they would like law enforcement to help with the use of the drone, and then they can make that request and we'll determine whether or not we want to deploy in that scenario.

And then obviously there are 3 other requirements.

Which, in terms of the privacy interest and where the drones can go, and that's all covered under either some sort of action circumstance or warrant to be able to operate in areas where there are some level of privacy. We have placed a court order review, so we have a higher level of review over this policy and the use of drones. So between myself and the Municipal Attorney's Office, Instead of reviewing the policy, it's been agreed every 2 years. We will be updating when we use the.

Drones and how we use drones on public dashboards. So date, times, uh, general flight patterns will be uploaded to a public-facing dashboard, uh, that will be updated, uh, what we believe is about monthly. So all that information will be taking place. And on top of that, uh, quarterly review. And the idea of the quarterly review is to make sure that the balance between using the drone for safety and gathering evidence, uh, is still in that appropriate proportion with the privacy that concerns that we may have.

And the idea here is that if that privacy concern needs to be, uh, great, that every quarter we can, we can determine whether or not we want to continue the program, modify the program, or modify the policy. So even though we review the policy every 2 years, we're going to be able to do that whenever we want. With that, I think that that is pretty much the highlights. That's the question that I want to— Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Uh, thank you, Chief Case, for being here. Thank you for alignment policy. It's a great technology. Can you define what specific incredible— is there, is that, is there a statutory legal case for definition for that, or is that kind of like a term for a use case around deploying it around First Amendment activities? So currently we, we monitor, you know, traffic, electronic traffic, publicly available traffic when we have a protester around, for example.

And some of the things that we're looking at is there's a, there's an actual threat to do harm. And if there is a threat to do harm, uh, we obviously try to do some investigative work to determine, you know, is that an actual threat? Is it a targeted threat? Is it a threat that is gonna— if you were a protester and you knew about it, if you probably would not want to show up because it raises that level. We've had— not had any of our incidents that have risen to that level currently.

Uh, if that was the case, you'd see more police presence. We would see police contact the organizers. You might even know that this threat existed, so they were aware of it. Again, we had more officers in the area to make sure there's a higher level of protection. We haven't had any of those yet, but if that level rose and we had drones, when we're contacting the organizer, one of the things we would say in terms of police response is, "We will also have a drone over your event because there is that high risk of some level of violence." [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Seems like we're having—.

Seems like society is tearing itself apart right now. And, um, so if somebody were having an event and they post about it on Facebook, for example, and somebody were to comment on a picture of both and says, catch this, would that be a specific—. Would that not—. Would that be a credible threat? That—.

What would—. What's the justification of that? This is a legit threat? Yes, we'd have to verify some of that information. It's being a post alone.

If we're looking at risk of serious physical injury or death, those are the types of things we're at when we talk about, you know, a serious or significant credible threat. And so we try to contact that person, we try to get a little more research, right, you know, previous posts that person has done, where they're coming from, you know, these types of things to determine whether or not we think that person is going to be there, whether or not we think that person is going to, going to be violent, or, you know, there's a pretty good test that, that the U.S., U.S. Supreme Court has given us on the line between between freedom of speech and where freedom of speech crosses the line and becomes hate speech and potentially becomes criminal. And so that's, that's kind of our gauge that we use when they cross over the line, they start to engage in criminal behavior, and we verify that as a credible threat that we want to deploy this technology. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] A few more questions for you. Just go back again, um, for the first responder drones specifically, number of drones 3, you said?

Uh, 3 right now we have in this contract, yes. And each drone will be on top of a car? Uh, top of a roof. Building roof. Building roof.

So these are, these are, these are all on the building, okay. And then, um, it, it, it goes through a bit here, but I guess what I'm, I'm—. Maybe you need to say it again for me— is, is what triggers the drone use? So the type of situation, severity of the situation. Can you give us just a, in very plain speak, when, when we, when might we expect to see the—.

Just easy—. A drone? So when you have a call for service, first of all, the capabilities of the drones on top of the road is a 2-mile radius. So we shouldn't think that we're gonna have drones over the entire bowl. 3 Of them would not cover that.

In fact, I believe our estimate is something around 23 to 26 drones would actually be what it takes to operate fluently without— within completely different municipality. So there's that limitation that I think we all should know, expect. If you have a call for service where there is— there's a risk to the public, um, because safety is the number one thing we want to use these drones for. So there's a shots fired call, there's a disturbance over the weapon, there's, uh, you know, a large group of people that are fighting outside of some sort of location. That's one of the areas that we're going to use it for.

Uh, someone that's missing or endangered, uh, that left the house, you would use the drone in that particular our atmosphere. Search and rescue is an area that we can use the drone, the application of a drone. We are reviewing our pursuit policy right now, and part of that pursuit policy is taking into consideration the use of drones and the use of the Real-Time Crime Center to reduce the risk of pursuits for the public and officers and those who are pursuing. And so, you know, we're looking at how far we can expand the use of these drones, not just responding to these high-risk calls but that can then in other areas of the department, you know, pursuits are high risk to the public and to the department, high risk to the people that are getting involved in the pursuit, to damage vehicles, to damage our vehicles. There's a cost that comes at that very frequently.

So I can't give you a really tight answer besides what I've already given you because we are really trying to think as far outside the box as we can and modify our policies with this new technology so that we can reduce the risk kind of across the board. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] One last question for me.

The data that we can receive in terms of the use of the drones, when they were deployed, when they came back, what they did, how often they were used, that was all data that we will be able to get. Yes, the public-facing dashboard by policy right off the bat, the date, time, type of crime, duration of flight, and right now we have what's EON here, which is area overlay of South Paducah, and And that's, that's going to be an interesting conversation. Before I close, I talked to some folks that are like, not sure that we want to put that out in the public-facing dashboard, some concerns with that. And some other, there's some other folks that are like, that's kind of helpful for us, for the police department. We have no concern with any of those pieces of data releasing.

The nice thing about this technology, it takes almost no work from us as an agency. It comes as part of the platform, so that dashboard is created and it just allows us putting it up on the website and getting the public access to that. So that will be, that will be the information, as well as when we allow an outside agency to have access to it. And also, if we're going to fly over some sort of, like, constitutionally protected, we'll also notify the public. Mr. O'Gara.

Great, thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Chief, for walking us through everything. I have 3 questions. Um, first one is in the definition section, page 2.

Is there a particular reason why a definition of predicted evidence is included in here? I don't see it mentioned in any other part of the policy. Uh, yes, sir, great question. Uh, the reason I put the definition in there is, uh, should be sent instead of policy, and I'll find it and point out if I can get back to you, but there should be a sentence here in the policy that talks about we're not using predictive analytics. So it's, uh, so when we mention that, I want to make sure there's some sort of definition.

Yeah, good. Uh, it's quite circular, but I like it. Um, okay, so second is, uh, same page, page 2, under procedure operational objectives number 2. Um, I'm just sort of curious about Can you sort of walk us through a scenario where this would happen? Yes, so think of having a disturbance, uh, in an area, uh, particularly late at night where we have large call volumes Saturday night, you know, Sunday, Sunday mornings, and it's— there's no immediate risk, but like there's a disturbance, we get a call in, and sometimes that takes officers, sometimes it takes Christian and Kat Class, you're comparing them in the, uh, in, in queue, and right now officers show up maybe an hour, maybe 2 hours later.

The drone responding would be able to look, go to that scene, see if there's still a disturbance there, and if they have a complaint that does not want contact, or at least doesn't want immediate contact, we could fly over, say everything's clear, everybody's gone. Even in a situation where maybe the complainant wants contact and everyone was gone, the drone could still fly over, clear it, and an officer call, or even someone from dispatch.

Call back and say, hey, we flew over with the drone, we didn't see anything, is there any additional information you have? And so it wouldn't require Austin to actually respond. Okay, thanks, that makes sense. And the last question I had is on page 3, uh, under your general operations and your safety there. Can you explain a little bit of what that means and how that's implemented in your life?

Yeah, so, uh, because the operators are going to be, uh, you know, kind of having a bird's eye view on a call for service and, uh, and maybe the call for service is a disturbance and we get some vague descriptions. In general, what that means is officers show up and they really have to start shuffling through that to determine who's what, uh, if there was a crime, who they can detain, who they can't detain. One of the most frustrating things for officers is to show up to a disturbance scene and have everybody scattered and there's no information they have at that point in time to like stop people and investigate, right? There's not that level of information. And so I think that happens a drone fly over the top that says, hey, I just observed something happen that reaches a probable cause or reasonable suspicion standard.

So when officers show up, they can articulate what exactly they saw and they can identify, hey, the person, red shirt, blue pants, blue shoes, so that the officers can start honing in on, I have reasonable suspicion or probable cause to stop and detain that person and conduct a further investigation. Thanks. I guess just a quick follow-up on that. So I am not familiar who these operations room staff are. Are they going to be sworn officers?

Um, if—. Are they non-sworn? And what kind of training are they going to have to make that determination of reasonable or articulable suspicion or probable cause? Um, so I'm going to give you a little bit of a lengthy answer just, just you kind of understand. So the Real Time Crime Center, going back one policy, currently we have one sworn police officer that is functioning real-time crime center.

So we're very emphasized, uh, we are in the process right now of creating 3 professional staff positions in the dispatcher, uh, their capabilities, their knowledge, their ability to use computer systems. Creating 3 of those positions right now because I can do that within my current budget. Um, choose— I'm going to come back to you all later for a little bit of money so I can complete this. Eventually what the real-time crime center is going to look like is 4 sworn— a minimum of 4 sworn and 4 professional staff so that we have one swarm and one professional staff member working at the same time. And easiest way for me to describe it is the police officer is going to be responsible for the law enforcement knowledge out in the street.

Operating drones is one of those things. The professional staff member is going to be the one that can probably function with his or her fingers a lot faster navigating those different databases, talking on the radio, giving direction, which is typically done in the dispatch center. So we want to keep law enforcement cop work for the cop up there. It's a little different than other operations center. We believe that having both professional staff and sworn members at the same time gives us the best tactical coverage.

Thank you. Next to Ms. Baldwin.

Thanks, Chair, and thank you, Chief. I had a question along similar lines. So at least in this infancy stage of implementation of drone as first responder, there will be one sworn officer, and then I hear three professional staff or four?

There will be three right now. We're creating three positions. Eventually we'll want to have four, uh, in— but the operator of the drones that we're talking about will be that one sworn operator. So it's going to be limited capacity until we add 3 additional officers in the Real Time Crime Center, and that will expand our capabilities to operate the drone more hours of the day, more days of the week. So it's limited at start.

Got that. Okay, um, we're taking a phased approach. Great. Yes, ma'am. Uh, follow-up question then, um, where are these drones being cited?

Uh, has that determination been made, and how were those locations selected for their little Great, pop pop. So the, the, uh, the company that we're using has done an analysis on calls for service, uh, where kind of the optimal locations to put these drones on top of, uh, municipal buildings so that we can get the most use out of them based on the calls for service. So when I mentioned that 26 drones would adequately respond, and I believe if my number is correctly, like 87.4% of the calls for service in Anchorage, and And our decision on where we put the drones isn't how many calls for service they can respond to, it's what types and volume of calls for service. So we're interested in areas of town where there's a high risk of violence, there are higher risk of felony person crimes, and so we want to place these first drones in areas that they can respond to those types of incidents first. I think those are the type of crimes we're all the most interested in.

And as you mentioned, the phased approach, that is probably what's going to be comfortable for us all to understand the benefit that we're actually getting out of these drones in the more serious crimes before we really take the step and expand this program to whatever that next step is going to be.

Great. And so, so just following up, we do, we do have some of those locations identified. Uh, no, ma'am, we have not identified those locations yet. Um, we will be doing that in the next couple of months. That, that's not going to be a secret on the sites that we are looking at placing the drones in.

Um, it's not going to be something I would tell you, you know, an hour before we start doing the construction and placing these, these drone pods, as they're referred to, on top of the building. We'll be able to— you'll be able to know what we're doing ahead of time and have a little conversation on why we picked those locations. We'll share with you the data that we used on types of calls and call volumes that we have, uh, as to what led to some of those decisions. And as always, you know, some people are going to be very excited to have a drone in their neighborhood responding to calls, and some folks are not. And so that's all part of the process to try to kind of answer those questions and fully explain why we're using this technology in particulars.

That's great. And do you intend to have any sort of public engagement, um, or opportunities for neighbors who are going to have a drone pod somewhere, you know, in the vicinity, um, to come and ask questions, to express concerns, to just learn more about how the technology will function and what they can expect? Yeah, one of the, probably the best ways of found over the years is to use the community councils. Typically they have the highest level of engagement involvement, so right now it's using community councils to try to communicate some of that information. I'm certainly open to other options or other suggestions, but that generally seems to get us the biggest bang for our buck just in terms of interested community members that, that, uh, that want to engage in these types of topics.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. So just a quick final thought for me. Um, so you, uh, Chief, alluded to possibly requesting additional funding at some point in the future for this program.

I guess one of the things that will be helpful for me is understanding the impact that this program is having on public safety, and in particular, what kind of evidence do these drones produce that help lead to arrests, that help lead to sort of the kind of outcomes that I think sort of we're looking to, to help make our community safer. And I don't know if that is the kind of information that you are able to sort of pool. Without this drone, it would be much more difficult to make this arrest. I can forward you two documents and write an overview of the technology. I put them on the slides, but there's been two journal articles by a university that's been conducted One of the cities was Miami and the second one, I'm forgetting off the top of my head.

And so they looked at communities that have had drones for a period of time, what the benefit of these drones are. And just off the top of my head, there's a high percentage, and I don't remember what that actual percentage was, for the ability to, or cases are being prosecuted when drones are on scene because of the evidence that they're collecting. It's very similar to when an officer has body-worn camera and they say, "I saw A, B, and C," and now they have a camera to show A, B, and C, it significantly increases to the rate that prosecutors are going to want to take that case because now they can present evidence that's unbiased. And the drones provide the same thing. And the number that sticks in my head was over 90%.

It was extremely high rate of successful at being able to bring charges and prosecute, uh, these cases when a drone is involved.

Thank you. Thanks, Chief. Anything else you want to share before we're done? Thanks for being here. Okay, that concludes most of our agenda.

We do have some time for public testimony.

Jamie, it looks like you want to come up. I said we could move one of those chairs over. We set up this little table for you right here. Okay.

Okay, come on, come on up. Okay, um, I'm gonna get the clock out for you. And, uh, you know, Bill, share your name for the record. We all have 3 minutes. Okay, uh, Jamie Lopez, East Anchorage, formerly homeless.

So, uh, new chairs, new paint, uh, you know, So, uh, unprepared remarks. Um, yeah, different things I can talk about. So it was, uh, watching that presentation regarding Tai Phuong Hoa, it was a bit like an episode of The Twilight Zone. And I'm seeing, uh, you know, standards and levels of care that are very, very high, and they deserve it. And, uh, you know, it's like the shelter just for pets, a complete tent.

And, uh, you know, if only people outside here could get that, uh, because they're not even getting that. And so it's, uh, it's tough watch. I don't know if they can be labeled yakimis and then take a trip to the hotel rooms, but you know, I'm using a little bit of written sarcasm here. But yes, maybe more can be done for the people outside because right now they're being run into the ground.

Maybe I'll get back to that topic. So collision detection avoidance drones. So Anchorage is Class C airspace, you know, up to 20 nautical miles out. So everything pretty much below 4,200 feet, you know, you have to have a transponder. And so if which you should— if the operator is, you know, running a transponder at the same time, it will be able to avoid it just by possible detection of that.

Yeah, the one concern that I haven't seen anybody touch on is the license plate readers. And so obviously in the package that they talked about specifically was only escalating things to the patrol officer if they reach a certain level of crime. But when vehicles are going around, they're constantly collecting information and like license plates as they're going. And so then the question becomes, what happens to that data? What happens to that data over time?

Is it being stored? Where is it being stored? How long is it being stored? Is it being used for data analysis, analytics, again for predictive analysis? Because there are any number of things where you can start to profile everybody in town based on that, and then it becomes, uh, uh, who is watching the watchers?

And, uh, who's in charge of that data? Are any good people using it for any nefarious purposes? Things like this happen and stuff like this was available, you know, sort of in the intelligence industry for a while, whether it's even the drone technologies and stuff like that. And it sort of slowly whittled its way down to the local level. And so yeah, it does get a bit worrying and troublesome, or— but I think he has a draw like that.

So, uh, back to the other points. So I have 20 seconds left. Um, people outside, they're suffering right now. They need help. And people are being run into the ground and not getting care and services they need.

And do need to start considering how to keep people alive because they're squarting on the outside, they need help, and they don't respond to law enforcement because they've been traumatized by law enforcement. If you tie services to law enforcement, people won't accept it. I apologize. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Would anybody else like to testify at this time? I'm not seeing anyone. Okay, thank you all for being here. Uh, this meeting is adjourned.