Dear Neighbors,
Yesterday City Manager Spencer Cronk launched the search for Austin’s next police chief to replace Brian Manley who retires this weekend after 30 years of public service. In a press conference, City Manager Cronk also announced that he is recommending Assistant Chief Joseph Chacon to serve as Austin’s Interim Police Chief. Council will vote on this appointment at this Thursday's Council meeting. City Manager Cronk also outlined the search process and timeline in a memo available here.
I am grateful to Chief Manley for his service to Austin, and I wish him the best in this new chapter. Chief Manley led our city through some of the most challenging times in recent memory, such as the 2018 serial bombings, and our community will never forget his leadership and dedication.
Our city is in the midst of major transformation to our public safety system, and as we look across the nation for our next police chief, my top priority is ensuring this person is ready and willing to proactively identify issues and find solutions to make all Austinites safer. In order for us to achieve the vision of Austin we are working towards, we must continue to build partnerships between the city, law enforcement, and community members. I welcome your thoughts and invite you to participate in the first engagement opportunity by taking the initial community questionnaire available at www.speakupaustin.org/YourNextPoliceChief.
I also am pleased to share some of the progress that has been implemented via the Reimagining Public Safety process and through pre-existing efforts to innovate public safety and public health in Austin, including an update on mental health diversion, EMS investments, the new forensics department, and the cadet academy. I have a lot to report and appreciate your patience with this long letter! Note that many reimagining public safety initiatives are taking place concurrently and in phases, and they will continue to be evaluated, updated, and modified. If you would like a refresher on the reimagining public safety process, please see my past newsletters here and here.
Mental Health Diversion
In February, the City announced the integration of a fourth option for 911 callers. Callers will now hear, "Austin 9-1-1, do you need Police, Fire, EMS, or Mental Health Services?” Austin is one of the first cities in the nation to include mental health response as a 911 triage option. Reducing police response to mental health crises will help save lives and connect people with the services they truly need. Diverting police resources appropriately will also relieve demand for sworn officers and better allow them to spend time responding to and investigating violent crime and threats to public safety. Read more about this initiative here.
EMS Investments
Drawing from the APD budget’s “Reduce & Reinvest” bucket in the last budget cycle, my colleagues and I were able to make significant investments in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) that made a demonstrable difference in EMS’ response to Winter Storm Uri. Following my budget amendment, we purchased ambulances and funded medics to staff them, and added new paramedic positions to run the clinical consult line. Throughout the storm response, EMS medics worked around the clock in hazardous conditions to save the lives of Austinites. Additional staff and ambulances helped them respond to calls, and the clinical consult line enabled EMS to better triage patients.
Additionally, through my initiative, we created the Office of the Chief Medical Officer to expand access to medical care in Austin. Included in the OCMO model was the conversion of a temporary physician assistant to a full-time role providing medical services to residents where they are, rather than at the emergency room. During Uri, this meant patients could avoid a costly and dangerous trip to the hospital.
Independent Forensics Lab
In February, Council took action to create the Forensic Science Department. The new Forensic Science Department will operate in partnership with the Austin Police Department but will have its own leadership that reports directly to the city manager. This reorganization helps address significant problems Austin has experienced with our city’s forensics processes and response, such as the massive backlog of sexual assault kits that took years to process. Many reports have been published calling for crime labs to be made independent of law enforcement agencies to address issues with bias, to improve scientific analysis, and to secure more accurate and timely results. I invite you to read the National Academy of Science’s report “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward” and UT Law professor Jennifer Laurin’s commentary in the Statesman calling for an independent crime lab.
Police Academy Update
Our most recent focus has been on the cadet academy. As you may remember, in December of 2019, Council passed a resolution that included a call for an in-depth evaluation of the APD cadet academy. As part of that resolution, the City contracted with Kroll & Associates to assess the academy and provide recommendations to Council for how to reform the culture and curriculum before and after restarting classes. The preliminary Kroll report builds off of the findings of several related assessments, which are linked for your review:
In my last newsletter, I wrote to you about the preliminary report from Kroll outlining initial recommendations and the work session presentation where we heard APD’s responses on each recommendation. I invite you to watch the presentation and see the documents here. The recommendations from Kroll are sorted into “short term” and “long term” categories, with the “short term” reforms recommended for completion before the next cadet class. The final Kroll report is expected to come to Council by mid-April.
Following the release of the preliminary Kroll report, the city manager issued a memo detailing the Reimagined Police Cadet Academy Blueprint, which sets out a pathway to create a new, reimagined police cadet academy with a target start no later than June 7, 2021. In today’s work session, I asked several questions to help clarify the blueprint, and I anticipate Council will have a longer discussion at Thursday’s Council meeting before the vote (the blueprint is Item 37 on this week’s Council agenda). Note this is not the Council’s only vote on the cadet academy; in the coming months, we anticipate a vote on amending the budget to allocate funding for the next cadet class. I invite you to engage in the transformation of the cadet academy by taking this survey on the academy recommendations. Your feedback will help shape the Reimagining Public Safety leadership team’s final recommendations to Council.
City-Community Reimagining Public Safety Task Force
The Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, which consists of community members and city staff, meets regularly to work on reforms and provide recommendations for policy, cultural and structural changes to improve the quality of the public safety experience for all communities. You can find their documents and meeting minutes here. The task force recently confirmed that they will be bringing mid-year recommendations on Reimagining Public Safety to Council on April 20th and anticipate some public engagement forums in the near future.
Ongoing Work, Additional Progress Updates, and More Resources
This year, the Reimagining Public Safety team began publishing quarterly progress updates. The first update is available online and includes a summary of significant milestones from spring 2020 through the end of January 2021. Additionally, the City’s Reimagining Public Safety website serves a centralized location for updates and information on the Reimagining process. This website contains information on the latest City memos, Reimagining Public Safety (RPS) reports, the RPS Taskforce efforts, and more. My office also has updated a list of documents and reports related to public safety and reforms. Please feel free to share these resources.
If you made it this far in the letter, thank you! As you can tell I am proud of the significant work we have done to date, and I am committed to seeing through the transformation of public safety in Austin.
In this newsletter, you will find information on federal COVID-19 relief, vaccines, and resources, as well as reminders about Winter Storm Uri resources, a waterline project in the Highland Park area, and more.
Regards,
Alison Alter
Council Member, District 10
