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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 03022010 - C.40RECOMMENDATION(S): 1. ACKNOWLEDGE that the Board of Supervisors referred 12 issues to the Public Protection Committee (PPC) for its review and consideration during 2009. 2. FIND that the 2009 PPC convened six meetings, worked through and provided an opportunity for public input on a number of significant issues, and made report with recommendations to the Board. 3. RECOGNIZE the excellent work of the County department staff who provided the requisite information to the PPC in a timely and professional manner, and members of the Contra Costa community and other public agencies who, through their interest in improving the quality of life in Contra Costa County, provided valuable insight into our discussions, and feedback that helped us to formulate our policy recommendations. 4. APPROVE recommended disposition of PPC referrals described at the end of this report. APPROVE OTHER RECOMMENDATION OF CNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE Action of Board On: 03/02/2010 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED OTHER Clerks Notes: VOTE OF SUPERVISORS AYE:John Gioia, District I Supervisor Gayle B. Uilkema, District II Supervisor Mary N. Piepho, District III Supervisor Susan A. Bonilla, District IV Supervisor Federal D. Glover, District V Supervisor Contact: JULIE ENEA (925) 335-1077 I hereby certify that this is a true and correct copy of an action taken and entered on the minutes of the Board of Supervisors on the date shown. ATTESTED: March 2, 2010 , County Administrator and Clerk of the Board of Supervisors By: June McHuen, Deputy cc: Public Protection Cte Staff C.40 To:Board of Supervisors From:PUBLIC PROTECTION COMMITTEE Date:March 2, 2010 Contra Costa County Subject:2009 YEAR-END REPORT AND DISPOSITION OF PUBLIC PROTECTION COMMITTEE REFERRALS FISCAL IMPACT: No fiscal impact. BACKGROUND: The Public Protection Committee (PPC) was established on January 8, 2008 to study criminal justice and public protection issues and formulate recommendations for consideration by the Board of Supervisors. During 2009, the PPC examined the following 12 issues: 1. Opportunities to Improve Coordination of Response to Disasters and Other Public Emergencies. Approximately three weeks following the November 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill, the Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) presented to the Board of Supervisors its assessment of the emergency response efforts, including what worked well and didn’t work well, and what lessons were learned through those experiences. At the conclusion of the Board discussion, Supervisor Gioia introduced five recommendations that were approved by the Board. Supervisor Gioia also convened meetings within his District to discuss the implementation of the recommendations. On February 5, the Board of Supervisors referred this matter to the PPC for continuing development and oversight. Following a briefing to the PPC by the Office of the Sheriff on February 11, 2008, the PPC reported out to the Board of Supervisors on May 6, 2009 with recommendations for follow-up by the Sheriff and Human Resources departments. PPC received a status report from the Office of the Sheriff and Health Services Department in February 2009 and requested the Hazardous Materials Program Manager to report back to the PPC on the development of mutual aid agreements from local oil refineries. Due to scheduling conflicts and the cancellation of the October-December PPC meetings, the Hazardous Materials Program Manager was unable to make a follow-up report to the PPC in 2009. It is, therefore, recommended that this matter be retained on referral. Recommendation: REFER to 2010 PPC 2. Cellular Phone Alerting for Public Emergencies. On October 22, 2007 the Board of Supervisors authorized and requested the Sheriff-Coroner to enter into a $50,000 contract with SquareLoop, Inc., for a one-year countywide trial of location-selective cellular public alerting as a component of the Community Warning System (CWS). However, by the time the County was able to finalize a contract with SquareLoop in December 2008 the firm was the target of an acquisition and could no longer honor the terms it had offered the County some eighteen months prior. As an alternative, CWS staff has developed a web-based registration system that will allow members of the public to register their cellular phones for alerts via the system’s existing telephone notification capability. This alternative system will not provide the precise real-time geographic targeting that SquareLoop’s patented technology promised. Instead, alerts that affect part or all of a ZIP code within the county are routed to all cellular telephones that have registered an interest in that zip code, regardless of their current location. Additionally, this alternate system will require the Office of the Sheriff to create and maintain a database of cellphone numbers and their associated ZIP codes of interest, in addition to its existing database of wireline 9-1-1 lines. This in-house solution will not require any additional contracting or expenditure and can be deployed immediately. It can also provide service to “Voice over Internet Protocol” (VoIP) lines that may not appear in the 9-1-1 database. As the Office of the Sheriff has implemented the web-based registration system, it is recommended that this matter be removed from the PPC referral list. Recommendation: REMOVE referral 3. Improving Public Response During Emergencies Through Education. In January 2008, the Board of Supervisors referred to the PPC the matter of improving public response to emergency instructions and protocols through broader and better education, which had previously been on referral to the IOC. The Board suggested that the PPC work with the Office of the Sheriff, the Health Services Department, and the CAER (Community Awareness & Emergency Response) Program to determine what educational efforts are being made and what additional efforts may be undertaken to improve public response and safety during an emergency. In April, the PPC met with CAER (Community Awareness Emergency Response) Executive Director Tony Semenza and staff from the Office of the Sheriff and Health Services to discuss what has been done to better inform the public and what more can be done to improve public response to emergency warnings. CAER provided a thorough report on its countywide community fairs, and programs targeted at the education system and non-English speaking populations. Our committee asked CAER to provide a written outreach strategy that describes how new homeowners are educated about emergency awareness. Due to scheduling conflicts and the cancellation of the October-December PPC meetings, CAER was unable to make a follow-up report to the PPC in 2009. Recommendation: REFER to 2010 PPC 4. Welfare Fraud Investigation and Prosecution. In May 2007, the Employment and Human Services (EHS) Director made a report to the IOC describing what policies, procedures, and practices are employed by the Department to ensure that public benefits are provided only to those who continue to meet income eligibility requirements. The IOC had been monitoring the departments’ efforts by review statistical reports provided by the departments. In January 2008, the Board of Supervisors reassigned this matter to the PPC. The PPC received a 2007/08 statistical update from the EHS and District Attorney departments, and reported out to the Board of Supervisors on November 18, 2008 with a recommendation for another annual update in one year, including the status of pending cases in which the outcome is currently unknown. Due to the urgent need to address other referrals, the PPC took no action on this matter in 2009. It is, therefore, recommended that this matter be retained on referral. Recommendation: REFER to 2010 PPC 5. Multi-Language Capability of the Emergency Telephone Ringdown System . This matter had been on referral to the Internal Operations Committee since 2000 and was reassigned to the PPC in January 2008. The PPC met with Sheriff and Health Services Department staff in March to receive an update on the County’s efforts to implement multilingual emergency telephone messaging. We learned that the Federal Communications Commission has before it two rulemaking proceedings that may directly affect practices and technology for multilingual alerting and public notification. Additionally, the federally-funded Bay Area “Super Urban Area Safety Initiative” (SUASI) has selected a contractor undertake an assessment and develop a five-year strategic plan on notification of public emergencies, with an emphasis on special needs populations. The Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services reported to the PPC in April 2009 that little has changed since the March 2008 report. It is recommended, therefore, that this matter be retained on referral for an update report in April 2010. Recommendation: REFER to 2010 PPC 6. Disproportionate Minority Contact. The Probation Department secured grant funding from the California Corrections Standards Authority to study factors leading to the over-representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice system relative to their numbers in the general population, to provide training and community outreach regarding Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC), and to build integrated data systems that enable agencies to collaborate in monitoring the paths of minority youth through the juvenile justice system. The Board requested the County Probation Officer to provide an informational report to the PPC on the DMC initiative. The PPC received an orientation from the Probation Department in April 2008 and a status report April 2009 on the accomplishments of the Enhanced DMC Technical Assistance Project for 2008 and plan of activities for 2009, which was: • To continuing its training efforts for staff with a mandatory eight-hour (8) class “Exploring other Cultures”; • To develop, along with the District Attorney and Public Defender, a Management Information System (MIS) that will aid in the collection of DMC data; • To develop a culturally competent assessment tool for the Juvenile Hall intake process; • To develop criteria and protocol for diversion programs in three target areas; • To work with stakeholders, community-based organizations, and other stakeholders to address DMC. • To explore funding sources for the diversion programs through grants, foundation/endowment funding, and local and community business. As this issue is a work in progress, we recommend that this matter be retained on referral to the PPC. Recommendation: REFER to 2010 PPC 7. Sheriff’s Department Budget Balancing Efforts. On April 22, 2008 the Board conducted hearings on the County’s Administrator’s Recommended Budget for fiscal year 2008/09, and on May 6, the Board adopted the final budget. The Sheriff Department’s approved budget relied on a significant amount of one-time revenue in order to enable the department to make the required permanent expenditure reductions and position cuts through normal attrition rather than through employee layoffs. Consequently, at the time of budget deliberations, some of the immediate and long term impacts of the reductions were only broadly defined. In order to define the specific cost reductions and impacts, the County Administrator recommended that the Sheriff-Coroner Department report periodically throughout the 2008/09 fiscal year to the Public Protection Committee on its budget status and progress in achieving the permanent net County cost reductions (either through permanent expenditure reductions or new revenue). The Office of the Sheriff finished the 2008/09 fiscal year with a budgetary deficit, however, still in a better position than had been earlier projected. At the midyear point of the 2009/10 fiscal year, a budgetary deficit of $500,000 is projected. As the current projected deficit can be managed and ameliorated through the Sheriff’s prudent management of staff vacancies, no corrective action plan is currently recommended. It is, therefore, recommended that this matter be removed from the PPC referral list. Recommendation: TERMINATE referral 8. Impacts of the Housing Foreclosure Crisis on County Communities, Programs and Services. The Board of Supervisors, on May 20, 2008, referred the matter of community impacts due to the housing foreclosure crisis to the PPC following comments received from Bay Point resident Mark Sullivan. At the May PPC meeting, Mr. Sullivan commented on community issues resulting from the high number of foreclosed homes, such as property dereliction and associated public health issues, theft, vandalism, and reduced property values. The 2008 PPC studied this issue over a five-month period, looking particularly at ways to expedite the abatement of nuisances at abandoned homes and to fund abatements. On November 4, 2008 the PPC reported out to the Board of Supervisors on its findings and introduced an amendment to the County Vacant Structures Ordinance to shorten the time period for abating vacant structures. On November 18, 2008, the PPC reported to the Board on the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, with recommendations to allocate federal Program funds to mitigate impacts in the hardest-hit areas of the county. In 2009, Supervisor Glover received a request from the Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization (CCISCO) for the County to adopt an ordinance to require certification by holders/owners of a mortgage obligation of their legal ownership of debt so that there is transparency via County records. The Committee took this matter up on April 6, 2009 under this referral. After some of the issues were fleshed out on April 6, the Committee asked staff to study the matter further and return with an evaluation of the CCISCO proposal and any recommendations it could make. Staff reported back to the Committee on June 1, 2009 with an evaluation of the CCISCO proposal and with a recommendation that the Committee should not pursue the proposal further for a variety of reasons. Staff identified two possible next steps for the Committee’s consideration: Work with State legislative partners to introduce new statewide legislation to require that all "Notice of Defaults" filed and served on borrowers would be required to include the contact information of the person and/or division in the bank that can agree on a loan modification. Consider developing a local ordinance that would require foreclosed, vacant properties to be registered with the County Department of Conservation and Development, Building Inspection Division. This ordinance would be similar to ordinances adopted by several cities and counties in Southern California, primarily in the Riverside and San Bernardino areas. In September 2009, the PPC reviewed a draft ordinance that would require registration of vacant, foreclosed property. The PPC concurred with staff’s assessment that the marginal benefit that might be derived from such a registration process would not justify the cost to administer such a process, and the ordinance would not fulfill the objective sought earlier by the Committee to assist home owners in renegotiating their loans and staying in their homes, as they would have already been required to leave their homes prior to the registration process. For those and other reasons, the PPC decided to abandon the vacant property registration ordinance proposal and continue to focus on areas in which the County can make a greater impact such as abating nuisances and safety hazards and rehabilitating vacant, foreclosed homes. It is, therefore, recommended that this matter be removed from the PPC referral list. Recommendation: TERMINATE referral 9. Diablo Fire Safe Council Community Wildfire Protection Plan. In 2008, Supervisor Gioia received a request from the Diablo Fire Safe Council to have the Board of Supervisors adopt a Community Wildfire Protection Plan, which is supposed to allow communities to influence where and how federal funds may be distributed for fuels reduction projects in Wildland Urban Interface areas. In its 2008 year-end report to the Board of Supervisors, the Public Protection Committee asked the Board to refer to it the Diablo Fire Safe Council’s request. Our committee met with a Diablo Fire Safe Council representative in February and April to discuss the plan, and the Contra Costa Fire Chiefs Association subsequently endorsed the Plan. The PPC made recommendations to the Board of Supervisors and the Board adopted the Community Wildfire Protection Plan on April 21, 2009. Recommendation: TERMINATE referral 10. Options for preserving the infrastructure for misdemeanor prosecution. Following 2008/09 and 2009/10 budget reductions approved by the Board in March, the District Attorney, on April 20, notified local law enforcement agencies via letter of forthcoming changes in District Attorney filing policies. Specifically, the District Attorney advised that, effective May 4, 2009, he would no longer accept for review many low-level felony drug cases and misdemeanor cases, with the exception of a limited list of misdemeanor cases, which would still be reviewed. On April 28, the Board of Supervisors convened a special meeting to discuss these policy changes and receive public testimony. At the conclusion of the meeting, the Board accepted a proposal from the District Attorney to utilize salary savings from three unanticipated staff vacancies to postpone the layoff of six temporary deputy district attorney positions, in order to delay the implementation of the filing policy changes until January 1, 2010. The Board requested its Public Protection Committee to meet with the District Attorney and local law enforcement representatives in the intervening period to determine what could be done to preserve the infrastructure for misdemeanor prosecution on a permanent basis. The Public Protection Committee met with the District Attorney, a representative of the Police Chiefs Association, and other interested parties on May 11 to discuss the issue. The Committee’s received a report from Mr. Kochly discussing what is required to preserve misdemeanor prosecution and what options might be available to assist in this effort. The report also included a research document prepared by Deputy District Attorney Doug MacMaster regarding legal issues involved with cities prosecuting their own misdemeanors. Among the related issues discussed were the potential use of volunteers, diversion programs and identifying their outcomes, city prosecution of misdemeanors, the breakout of misdemeanor cases by type, contract misdemeanor prosecution with cities, the fiscal paradox: flat revenues vs. increasing costs, the potential for new tax revenue, cost recovery for services provided to cities, and setting priorities between public safety and health/human services. The Committee met again with the District Attorney on June 1, at which time the District Attorney provided an analysis that identified the minimum number of attorney staff required to cover court hearings each day and identifying the minimum additional budgetary requirement ($485,000) to maintain the infrastructure for misdemeanor prosecution through June 30, 2010. This figure was derived from converting the six temporary attorneys that were slated to be eliminated to permanent basic attorney positions for six months through June 30, 2010. The June 1 meeting left the matter unresolved pending the outcome of labor negotiations. On December 1, 2009, the Board of Supervisors augmented the District Attorney’s budget by $703,524 from the General Fund Reserve to preserve misdemeanor prosecution services. A bare bones staffing plan was developed that included the addition of 4.0 FTE Deputy District Attorney-Basic positions beginning in December 2009 and 7.0 FTE Deputy District Attorney-Fixed Term positions beginning in March 2010. These positions are intended to replace the majority of the fixed term positions that would have been laid-off or completed contracts in December 2009. In addition, funding of 4.0 FTE temporary attorney positions has been recommended for the months of January and February to minimize the workload impact to the department prior to hiring the 7.0 FTE Deputy District Attorney-Fixed Term positions described above. Recommendation: TERMINATE referral 11. County support and coordination of non-profit organization resources to provide prisoner re-entry services. On August 25, 2009, the Board of Supervisors referred to the Public Protection Committee a presentation by the Urban Strategies Council on how the County might support and coordinate County and local non-profit organization resources to create a network of re-entry services for individuals who are leaving jail or prison and are re-integrating in local communities. On September 14, the PPC invited the Sheriff-Coroner, County Probation Officer, District Attorney, Public Defender, Health Services Director, and Employment and Human Services Director to hear a presentation by the Urban Strategies Council. The PPC encouraged County departments to participate convene a task force to work develop a network for prisoner re-entry services, which has been meeting independently from the PPC. In order to monitor the activities of the task force, it is recommended that this matter be retained on referral to the PPC. Recommendation: REFER to 2010 PPC 12. Residential Rental Inspection Program. The Residential Rental Inspection Program (RRIP) was established by the Board of Supervisors in 2004 with the stated purposes to identify and reduce the number of blighted and deteriorated rental housing units, maintain safe housing for renters, and improve the overall quality of life for communities throughout the County. After five years of operation, the Department of Conservation and Development (DCD) is finding it difficult to achieve the desired goals of the programs within its current operational and financial structure. The current program model is highly labor intensive and the revenues generated by the program do not cover its operational costs. On January 26, 2010, the Board of Supervisors requested the Public Protection Committee to hear a report from DCD concerning the status of the RRIP and to consider staff recommendations for making changes that will further the operational goals of the program and improve its financial sustainability. Recommendation: REFER to 2010 PPC LIST OF REFERRALS TO BE TERMINATED 09/02 Cellular Phone Alerting for Public Emergencies 09/07 Sheriff’s Department Budget Balancing Efforts 09/08 Impacts of the Housing Foreclosure Crisis on County Communities, Programs and Services 09/09 Diablo Fire Safe Council Community Wildfire Protection Plan 09/10 Options for preserving the infrastructure for misdemeanor prosecution LIST OF ITEMS TO BE REFERRED TO THE 2010 PUBLIC PROTECTION COMMITTEE 09/01 Opportunities to improve coordination of response to disasters and other public emergencies (Cosco Busan) 09/03 Improving public response to emergencies through education 09/04 Welfare fraud investigation and prosecution 09/05 Multilingual capabilities of the telephone emergency notification system 09/06 Disproportionate Minority Contact in County Juvenile Justice System 09/11 County support and coordination of non-profit organization resources to provide prisoner re-entry services. 09/12 Residential Rental Inspection Program CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION: CHILDREN'S IMPACT STATEMENT: