Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Safety and Security Committee, Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Date: Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 37m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/2725
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-11-04. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] You okay? Okay. Good morning, everyone. We're going to go ahead and get started. So welcome to the first public safety committee meeting for 2023. Delighted to be here with all of you. We have two items on the agenda today.

[00:00:21] The first will be on the trust policy compliance, and we'll have a report from Carla Bruce and her team. Second, we'll have a discussion with Kevin Davis, chief of police here in Fairfax, to talk about what we're doing on traffic enforcement.

[00:00:39] And we're going to have some new opportunities to see what we're doing on a monthly basis through the course of the year. So those are our two items for today. So let's go ahead and get started with Carla Bruce and the compliance policy for the trust. Thank you.

[00:00:57] Good morning. Carla Bruce, County's Chief Equity Officer, and I'm here today with my colleague Carol Escalante, who I will introduce more formally later, to give you all an update on the county's compliance with the trust policy, which as you all know, you all adopted in January of 2021. What we'll talk through today is the process that's been put in place for adoption of the trust policy, the process that we've put in place in terms of reporting any concerns

[00:01:33] with our compliance with the trust policy, an overview of our procedures that we've put in place for the acceptance of community IDs, and then we'll follow that up with an opportunity for you to ask any questions for your clarification.

[00:01:49] I'll also remind you that back in December, we shared with you a memo that outlined the specifics related to our community ID process, so hopefully that addressed some of the specific questions. But again, today we'll provide you with a high-level overview of our complete compliance with the trust policy. But first, I want to introduce to you formally our Director of Immigrant Community Affairs, Carol Escalante, who joined our team back in January of last year. Her primary

[00:02:24] role is to ensure that the county is in compliance with the trust policy. But more broadly, I think it's important that she consider her role to be one of building relationship with our county's diverse immigrant community, better understanding their needs and interests, and working with county staff to ensure that our services and resources are really responsive to the specific and unique needs of our county's immigrant community. What we're hoping is that based on that work, that ultimately we will be able to put in place a county-wide plan that encompasses the work,

[00:03:04] not just of the trust policy, but more comprehensively, all of the things that the county does that are available to our immigrant community and measure their impact so that that can continue to inform our programs and services. But for now, I'll just hand it over to Carol and she can again give us a high level overview of the trust policy compliance. Good morning. My name is Carol Escalante. I am the Director of Immigrant Community Affairs. It's a pleasure being here today. Also, I'm going to give a quick overview of what's the trust policy. Like Carla mentioned,

[00:03:43] The trust policy was adopted by the Board of Supervisors in January 2021 with the main purpose to reaffirm current county policy, improve community health, welfare, safety, and security.

[00:03:58] And overall build trust by ensuring that immigrant community can access county programs and benefits without fear that the information they share with us is going to be disclosed to federal immigration officials. The county, I want to put this very clear, the county will comply with all federal or state law regulations mandating cooperation with immigration and customs enforcement ICE and other federal immigration officials, as well as a valid judicial warrant and subpoena,

[00:04:30] but will otherwise restrict sharing of personal identifiable information that could be used to further immigration enforcement efforts. All right, I'm going to explain the policy monitoring.

[00:04:48] This is the first time we do the compliance process of the trust policy, and we're going to be developing this process every year, and we envision to do it every January. This is the first edition of the compliance process, and it applies to all county departments that collect or access data from community members.

[00:05:12] Compliance objectives. So the first objective is guaranteeing that all the departments and agencies on the county are aligned to be in compliance with the standards and protect confidential information and overall enhance trust with the immigrant community.

[00:05:32] And also to have a uniform standards to understand which ones will be the valid documents that our community can present when they request access a program or a service within the county.

[00:05:50] Trust policy compliance process of review. So like I mentioned before, this compliance process, it's going to take place every year. And the process will be first, I will be sending a message in that calling for a meeting to talk about what is the trust policy compliance process, giving them an overview.

[00:06:10] So it will be a meeting with myself and other key staff that it's transcendental to be involved in the process, maybe some of the employees that are working, you know, really close with community members when collecting that information.

[00:06:28] And in this process, I'm going to give an introduction of what's the trust policy, the do's and don'ts, and specific details about the policy to make sure that they understand everything that is established in the trust policy. We will review all of the documentation that is evidence of compliance. We will send a form. After we do the introductory meeting, I share with them a form. In this form, they will need to fill it out. They will have approximately four weeks to review the whole form. And if they have questions in the process, I will be happy to address them, guide them in the process. If they don't have a data protection plan, we'll give them

[00:07:08] template so they can uh elaborate a data protection plan and all of this just to make sure that all the county agencies understand the process of how to be in compliance with the trust policy then after we receive the forms we will you know exit the meeting and share the results with the department management then i will also analyze those reviews and get back with them if there's anything that needs to be addressed. Then I will report the results to the chief equity officer and the county executive. Then follow-up recommendations and management actions are

[00:07:43] going to be shared. And of course, we will have an ongoing monitoring of data protection plans through the whole year. Trust policy compliance process implementation. We started this compliance process a couple of months ago, and we started with four pilot agencies. Like I mentioned before, This is the first time we do this process, so we decided to do a pilot program to make sure we understand that the process that we have is affected.

[00:08:10] So we started with Department of Family Services, Fairfax County Park Authority, Neighborhood Community Service, and Fairfax County Police Department. All this for agencies fill out their forms. They submitted to myself, and we are in the process of reviewing those forms and, you know, making sure we get back to the heads of that department and, you know, make sure that they are in compliance with the trust policy.

[00:08:37] Currently, last week, we had introductory meetings with the rest of the agencies in Fairfax County. They had the introductory meeting. I shared the form already with them, And we are in the process of receiving those forms filled out.

[00:08:53] They will have a time frame of four weeks. And in this process, I will be guiding them. I have received different kind of requests to clarification or, you know, to make sure that they are doing the process effectively and that the forms are filled out in an effective way.

[00:09:11] And then we anticipate completion of having all the trust policy, All the agencies in compliance with the trust policy by spring 2023. Trust policy compliance concerns can be reported.

[00:09:30] We have three ways that our public in general can report a trust policy compliance concern. They can do it online through a form that is published at the website of immigrants at Fairfax County. And also we have a phone line specifically so people can report these compliance concerns.

[00:09:50] And I would like to mention that this line, people can live their message in their language of preference. We have an effort with the language access coordinator to make sure that people can live their concerns in any of the nine languages. English, Spanish, Arabic, Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Amharic, Urdu, Farsi, or any other language that they feel comfortable sharing their concern.

[00:10:17] And they can also do it by email, by immigrants at fairfaxcounty.gov. Community ID procedures. And just to refresh a little bit about the community ID, the community ID is established in the trust policy.

[00:10:34] And based on that, this past year, we have been able to do different kind of research with different jurisdictions that have implemented a community ID, understanding how was the process, the impact that it has in the community, the do's and don'ts, and most importantly, how they were able to develop effectively this program to make sure that we understand what are the characteristics of the community ID, what are the security measures that we need to take in consideration, what is the kind of documentation that needs to be requested to be able to issue this community ID, and all this information to prevent fraud.

[00:11:11] And I also want to share that we have very clear that this community ID is not an official government identification it will be issued by a non-profit organization and in the memo that was shared by our chief equity officer in december 23rd 2022 you can see all the standards that were developed through our office and look at the details and the recommendations that we have so non-profits organization can put the request and said we would like our non-profit organization to go through, you know, fulfill the standards that are established by Fairfax County.

[00:11:51] And we will also like that all this request, we know that previously one of a nonprofit organization placed a request, not a formal request, but they were interested in having their nonprofit organization community ID approved by the county. So we have the standards.

[00:12:07] Once we have the standards approved by the Board of Supervisors, we'll of course share them with community leaders, with organizations that are interested in going through the process, and we will guide them in the process as well if they need specific information regarding maybe the printers, regarding, you know, any detail or any detail that they will need in the process. And once we go through the process, we will like that all the requests be sent directly to my email, to my attention, because that way we will have a centralized process

[00:12:43] and we will be able to share with them the standards and make sure that they clearly understand how to fulfill the standards. And I would also add one of the pieces, so our office will manage the acceptance in the process of it, but it will be up to departments to determine how they are accepted within their departments, realizing that different departments have different requirements locally at state level and federal level, so we're not setting a standard for when they will be accepted. That will be the responsibility of the departments.

[00:13:19] Yeah, and just to add a little bit to what Carla was mentioning, we created a matrix last year when we put together the project of the community ID to be able to understand And it will be feasible to present a community ID and the positive impact that we will have in our community.

[00:13:37] And this is it for my part. If you have any questions, we will be happy to answer them. Okay. Thank you very much for that very detailed and comprehensive presentation. I appreciate the work that's being done specifically to provide the implementation.

[00:13:56] Because actually, we have a trust policy, but the only array that's going to be perceived as being a trustworthy policy is if that we implement and show people specifically how we are protecting their data and how we're ensuring that the process is working in accord with our policy.

[00:14:17] So I'm really excited about what you've laid out. Let me ask just a couple quick questions. One is on the forms that you're going to be collecting from the agencies, would it be possible for those to be, at least the process for that form, to be made available to the public so that they can actually see what the template is and see what data we're collecting?

[00:14:40] Yes. Once we are done with all the compliance process from all the agencies, we will post on our website a list of all the county agencies and departments attached to the form and then just to assure, you know, the compliance. And just to clarify, we will not be posting completed compliance forms. We'll be posting a list of those agencies that are in compliance. Any that may not be in compliance, we will identify along with the plans that they have in place to, get into compliance but what we will do so that the community is aware of what

[00:15:19] the compliance process entails is we can post a blank compliance form the community can be fully aware aware of how to do it it's also we're in the midst of a compliance now so we won't be adjusting that compliance form in this year but this is an annual process we expect to learn as we go and if we find that there are things that we need to improve upon for our next round of compliance, we can look at how we might be able to modify.

[00:15:45] Okay. No, I appreciate that. And that's what we're trying to establish so that folks can actually see what the template looks like. Can you just out of curiosity explain if an agency is out of compliance, what are the steps that will be taken to bring them into compliance? What's that process look like? If an agency is out of compliance, we share with them a template for a data protection plan, and they will need to, you know, outline all the different services and programs where they collect information, and then by the time they identify with what programs they

[00:16:22] collect information, what kind of information they are collecting, they should be able to develop that data protection plan, and once they complete successfully that data protection plan, the agency should be in compliance with the trust policy. Okay. And each of those elements are time-based, right? So they'll detail specifically what they're doing to address a specific concern within a certain amount of time.

[00:16:47] Again, putting into context that this will be done annually, so we would expect that the issues will be addressed within the period of a year, so by the next time that we do compliance that those agencies would have addressed all of those issues. If not, they will have another data protection plan and we'll continue to be working with them.

[00:17:04] No, no, that's where I was going. terms of having a discrete specific time by which they have to come into compliance we will be monitoring and tracking that as well okay that's perfect and then the last question and I appreciate the discussion on the community ID we know that CASA has expressed interest in providing a community ID so this is an organization that we're certainly going to want to get in front of you to see if that might be possible can you talk about how will you do the process what's going to be the review and the steps that you will undertake for the

[00:17:40] community ID yes I think that's a great question and I have had the opportunity of being at casa and I have been able to see their community community ID that one day they issue and there are a couple of things that they will need to adjust but we will be happy to you know guide them in the process what kind of information they are requesting to the community when they issue this ID, what is the material they are utilizing to print this ID, you know, and different security features that the community ID should have just to make sure that we can prevent fraud.

[00:18:15] And I think there's two lanes. There's the lane around fraud, right? So we want to make sure that whatever they develop is something that we can be assured is not, you know, can't be utilized inappropriately by community members. We also want to make sure that the sources of identification that they're using to make sure that people have residents in the county and are who they say they are meet our list of required documents. And so in the memo that we shared back

[00:18:52] in December, that has that list of required documents. And so it'll be a consideration of that, as well as how they met our various sort of fraud protection measures. And based on that, that's how we will be able to approve whether or not an ID is one that we can accept.

[00:19:12] But like Carol said earlier, if a nonprofit presents an ID and hasn't met those measures, we will afford them the opportunity and support them in whatever way we can in being able to address whatever concerns there might be. And I think the key point here is there might be more than one nonprofit that provides the community ID.

[00:19:33] Okay. And just to add one more thing, there are three key elements is what is the information that we are requesting, the community members, when they request this community ID? Then second will be what is the information that is going to be included in the community ID?

[00:19:52] And number three will be the security measures to prevent fraud. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. So with that, let me turn it over to Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate the presentation. I will say it's good to see some timelines, you know, finally on this, because this is a county policy.

[00:20:12] It's not negotiable. And so, you know, I understand that out of the gates there may be some county departments that are not in compliance, but not in compliance with a county policy is never allowed. And so I would hope that any that aren't in compliance are worked with very quickly to get into compliance.

[00:20:31] And my hope is that after this initial first run through these agencies, that everyone will be in compliance. Because I can't think of a reason why after having this intervention, for lack of a better description, that they don't become immediately in compliance with a county policy that has been approved by this board.

[00:20:52] So I appreciate that. I guess two things that jump out at me, and I just want to make sure I'm clear on, is this annual review with different grants and changes and compliance requirements at any point in time at the state or federal level.

[00:21:10] Those aren't going to neatly fall within the time period of a year when we're going to be looking at reviewing these. And so when county agencies get grants and they are interpreting what the requirements are, what is the role that your office will play in that?

[00:21:28] And I would presume that if there is any change to an ID or collection requirement from the last time you certified them to be in compliance, any change that would come up would have to come before you before being implemented by that agency?

[00:21:46] Is that a fair description of how that would work? Yeah, and we would just expect that departments would proactively notify us since we wouldn't be aware, and as they notify us, we will ensure that whatever the change in procedure is, that we would go through the compliance process with them to ensure it's in compliance or, again, establish a data protection measure.

[00:22:08] So that trigger, no matter when it comes up, they'll be real-time working with you on that, not waiting for the next annual compliance to have a discussion with you about that. Again, we're expecting the proactive contact from the departments in order to notify us when those situations occur. Okay. And then, you know, my second question is, you know, with, I understand why departments have to have some latitude in determining, and that can't be a standard that you set for the very reason we just, we just talked about. But I do think we need to, to make it clear to the general public, at least what the underlying policy is. In other words, we will collect, as you said,

[00:22:46] only when required by local, state, and federal policies. But I am, I'm trying to think of a way, and I don't think there is, but I need to ask the question anyway. If you are a member of our public before you interface with a county agency voluntarily, there's no way then for you to know what form of ID is going to be required before that engagement happens.

[00:23:07] In other words, we're not going to be able to provide, hey, if you're looking to access this department for a service, know coming in this is what form of identification will be required. So the way that, and again, we're in the first year of trying to implement this, but the way we expect it to happen is that as departments determine when alternative IDs are acceptable, that they will include that information in their published information about what IDs are acceptable. So it shouldn't be a surprise that alternative forms of ID are acceptable.

[00:23:39] Okay. So over time, every agency will have that be posted publicly, I presume, under the page that you all manage within the county system, not their individual one, Because I don't just make this easy for people to be able to find. Yeah, so we will be maintaining a list.

[00:23:56] So we're going through a sort of a robust overhaul of the immigrant website currently. And information there will be what's useful to people who have questions such as this. So we'll have a listing of which departments accept community IDs.

[00:24:15] And again, to the degree we can define what those circumstances are, what those circumstances are. And we would expect, if, again, departments are posting on their own websites what acceptable IDs there might be, that they would also include it on their own websites.

[00:24:30] Okay. And my last question is for grants and things that are approved by the Board of Supervisors. I know you do an equity impact on things where you think there's an equity component. When we are approving a grant, is there a way to include for us, either from your office or the county executive's office, that if this grant in some way violates the underpinnings of our trust policy, that the board know that before they endorse submission for that grant application.

[00:25:01] Just as an awareness, we should know that. The public should know that. May or may not change whether or not we want to pursue that grant. But now that this policy is in place, it would seem to be something that we would want to be transparent about before applying for those grants. Yeah, I would say that's definitely something.

[00:25:18] the way things are framed broadly is that we have this applying to our contractual relationships and when people are sort of acting on behalf of the county we can look at how we can also incorporate it into our grant process as well so i'll coordinate with the deputy county executives and and sort of see what it is and notify you all how um you know how that would be possible i think that would be helpful and uh just as a follow-up thank you brian hill county executive Just as a follow-up, we do that now with a multitude of grants run through our police department and making sure that we're in compliance with DOJ and other things as such.

[00:25:57] I believe the last grant was in Victim Services where we had to go through a checklist to ensure that we were in compliance with all the county policies, and we do run that with the county attorney's office. Okay, and then lastly, very quickly, on the community IDs, if a nonprofit today said they were interested in doing this with us because we know that they're eager to do this, what's a reasonable time frame under which we might expect that, I mean, I know part of this is their due diligence, but in terms of accessing the information from you and being acceptable, what's a reasonable time frame by which they might begin producing these, meeting

[00:26:33] our standards? I think that depends on circumstances, but in terms of our process, I think, you know, we're looking at a four-week process from the time in which we're notified that there's interest to give us sufficient time for review and time for us to engage with the departments. What we're typically seeing is, or in our example, is that the nonprofit that has approached us thus far has a specific interest in where they would like to see it be accepted. So that would sort of trigger us to engage specific departments to understand their particular requirements.

[00:27:12] So based on that, we're envisioning sort of a four-week turnaround. But again, that would depend on the circumstances. Okay, great. Thank you. And I'm thinking it would also depend the characteristics of the community ID they currently have to see how much they need to adjust it and where they are and what are the things that they will need to additionally then from what they have right now.

[00:27:32] Yeah, I appreciate that. And I know part of this is on their schedule. I just want to make sure from our standpoint, we were ready to go and to work with them, and then they have their due diligence pieces a part of this, too, that will drive the schedule. So, thank you. Okay. So, for my colleagues, I'll start to my immediate left, Supervisor Herity.

[00:27:51] Just two quick things. How many grants have we not applied to because of the trust policy? That hasn't been anything that we've tracked, but, again, I can check in with our deputy county executives and department staff to see if that's been a consideration.

[00:28:09] Okay. Well, I'd be interested if there's some that were not because of the trust policy and what aspect of the trust policy causes not to apply for those grants. And just second a general comment. I think a non-government agency, like a nonprofit, providing IDs is a slippery slope.

[00:28:28] And, I mean, we're throughout the county, and we're accessible throughout the county. And I just think having a government agency do it provides at least a little bit of security. integrity into the process. So just my two cents. Okay. Supervisor Alcorn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:28:48] First of all, I'm very pleased to hear about moving forward with implementation of the trust policy. I think this is the right time, and I'm glad we're moving forward. As there are conflicts with other policies that departments run into, I think we would want to hear about anything substantial because I think as we get into this there may in fact be some some tough choices that ultimately have to be made so I want to see this policy be fully implemented as the chairman said that's really not an option but where

[00:29:26] there are conflicts with other policies I think be good for us to know about that the other thing I would just ask for any insight you could provide we've heard from some advocates in the community looking at deportation rates in Fairfax County versus other jurisdictions. Besides the trust policy, or maybe the lack of any trust policy, what would cause any jurisdiction to see higher deportation rates or lower deportation rates? I mean, you know, Alexandria and Culpeper seem to be higher than ours. I mean, obviously this is

[00:30:05] not something the federal government is doing or sorry that the that us as county government but this is a federal activity what could be driving some of those variations besides what's happening at the in the county government level well i think that when we're talking about interpretations we will need to see if the we have a a because there can be different offices from detention centers that are related with okay this is the people that are being detained in perfect county but what we need to analyze is how what percentage of that community that is in that center that is located

[00:30:42] in Fairfax County were arrested in Fairfax County. So I think this is something that the Fairfax County Police Department probably might have. And then to understand this, why were these people, if the people that were arrested, which in the county, why were they arrested? What was the felony? And then over there we will understand if it was a procedure that was not implemented correctly or if it was just part of the process? I think the point with that question because I've received that concern from advocates as well is that there are actions outside of the actions of

[00:31:21] local government which might influence deportation rates reflecting higher numbers in Fairfax County and as Carol said where the actual arrest takes place may not be a reflection of actions that we're taking, but I think it's a topic that we can do some further research on and report back to the board on our findings, but I definitely think it's something that we should make clear to the community that deportation rates are not a direct reflection of the actions of local

[00:31:56] government. Yeah, that would be helpful, I think, so thank you very much. Can I give Chief Davis a a second here as well thank you chairman luskin uh kevin davis police chief fairfax county we we have no exposure or visibility on federal deportation rates or processes because we don't participate in any way shape or form but there are several federal facilities and processes that exist in fairfax county that folks outside of fairfax county flow through so when you see a

[00:32:29] deportation number. It's actually the geography where the deportation occurred. And that's where we get that number from. Okay. Two different. Okay. Supervisor Stork. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:32:47] I have two questions. One is, is there a particular, or do you anticipate a particular area or aspect of our policy that our agencies are likely to be, or struggle with, or maybe aren't quite as close to being in compliance, in other words, a core focus that you have?

[00:33:04] So, I mean, based on our pilot, there isn't a sort of one in particular. I would say, though, that collecting information and understanding the why behind the collection of information is the sort of the main question that we're asking departments to consider. I think we may be accustomed to collecting information that may not be necessary for a business reason.

[00:33:36] And so that's the sort of first cutoff is sort of what information is absolutely necessary to have in order to effectively deliver a service or program. And so I think, you know, from there, we'll see sort of how that works as we make our way through this first year of compliance.

[00:33:55] But thus far, with just our four pilot agencies, there hasn't been a particular trend. Okay, thank you. Second question is, Fairfax County Public Schools have obviously a huge role and impact on all of that, what we do to support and enable our immigrants to get educated and become successful residents.

[00:34:18] What's our liaison with them? What's our coordination with them? Can you describe, even in general, what programs they have that would be complementary to what we do? I can say that the Fairfax County School Board adopted their own trust policy, and Carol has been in contact with their trust policy coordinator.

[00:34:38] Similar to our one Fairfax policy, we've both adopted it and both have different mechanisms for how we are advancing it, but they are in coordination, and Carol can speak specifically to the level of that coordination. Yes, so Forex County Public Schools has actually rolled out already their trust policy compliance process as well.

[00:35:01] And they have directives like we do, and they have a review into what kind of information they're collecting through all the schools. And I think where they are with the trust policy, it's a good place to be to protect the information of our immigrant community.

[00:35:19] Do you anticipate any kind of regular coordination? I mean, I assume there's a lot of complementariness to it. Can you describe, or maybe you haven't gotten that far yet, but is that something you're going to be moving forward with? I'll say that's something that we're going to be looking into.

[00:35:35] I think we haven't gotten to the point yet to see where there might be some important intersections in our work. But, again, establishing that connection and relationship is our first step, and that will be something that we're looking at. Great. I would try and encourage that. Thank you. Supervisor Walkinshaw.

[00:35:52] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is on the trust policy, the compliance deadline of spring. First of all, thank you for establishing a deadline. I guess my question is, what is spring of 2023? Is it, I had to look this up, spring starts March 20th, but April, is it like when the groundhog doesn't see a shadow?

[00:36:15] Or is it, because it seems a little bit broad. And I feel like if I were running one of these agencies, I'd prefer to know that, you know, the deadline is March 20th or April 20th or May 15th. Yes, the reason why we decided to leave it broad like spring 2023 is just to, right now we are running the trust policy compliance process. They have four weeks to complete the forms. So the trust policy point of contact, that is the person that has been assigned to do the overview or be in charge of the compliance process of each agency will have deadlines.

[00:36:53] we we left it until spring just in case we need to go back make revisions look at their data protection plan how we can support them into creating an effective data protection plan because it will not be just yeah i'm filling out a data protection plan but we need to make sure that it's effective and that it's actually uh respecting the standards that are established in the trust policy and i think it should be you know early spring and i would say you know as the first complete year of compliance, we left it fairly broad. I think in future years, we'll have a better sense of sort of what agencies need to go through a full compliance

[00:37:32] process and will need data protection measures in the amount of time. So I would expect that to shrink. What we are finding just through our brief pilot is that some agencies don't collect information in the way that would have significance to the trust policy. So their compliance process is going to be relatively simple. Other agencies collect a lot of information and may end up with very extensive data protection plans. And so sort of gauging or allowing departments to go through that process. And so once we have a better sense of how many

[00:38:06] agencies don't have many issues and how many agencies do, I think that will give us a better sense of how annually long it will take to do compliance. So for this first year, there's a broad timeline. For future years, we would expect that that would be narrower because agencies will have a better sense of what they need to do to be in compliance.

[00:38:27] So your expectation is some will be early spring, good to go, but some might be later spring. It'll be rolling, right? Certainly, summer of 2023, we're not still going to be saying the deadline is... Okay. All right. So end of spring is... Got it.

[00:38:43] Can I just say this? We're going to split the baby. May 17th. Just on community ID, a comment and a question, you know, to Supervisor Herity's concern, and I shared this with the chief.

[00:39:02] He had probably already read it, Mr. Arnold, but there's a police executive research forum. I'm sure you're both very familiar with it. Report written in June of 2021 titled Community-Based Identification Cards to Give Immigrants a Sense of Belonging and Trust in Local Police. And, you know, public safety and policing experts addressed the concern that Supervisor Herity laid out, and they pointed out that these community-based ID cards, as long as you have the right standards and criteria, are not more likely to be fraudulent than government-issued IDs.

[00:39:33] And, you know, not me, but a lot of 19-year-old and 20-year-olds know that government-issued IDs can be fraudulent also, right? And it also talks about how these community-based ID cards can improve the efficiency of policing, just focus on policing for a second, making witnesses and victims more likely to come forward, preventing misinformation that police officers might receive, maybe due to a language barrier or other issues, and reducing the need to jail someone due to lack of an ID.

[00:40:10] And just, I guess, question for the chief or Mr. Arnold, how far along are you all in determining to what extent the department will be able to accept, utilize, benefit from the community-based IDs?

[00:40:26] My impression is there are some legal restrictions in some circumstances based on federal or state law, but how far along are you all in analyzing that and being prepared to implement the community-based IDs into your policies?

[00:40:44] So, Supervisor Walkinshaw, first I'll say as a father to two 20-year-old men, I think I identify with your comment about IDs. I actually met with CASA a couple months ago. I have a copy of their community ID in my office, and I know Carla and Carol are working on the mechanics of it.

[00:41:07] But right now, police officers in Fairfax County, by policy, absolutely can consider a community or nonprofit identification as long as there's other corroborating information associated with it. And by corroborating information, that doesn't necessarily mean a secondary ID.

[00:41:26] It could be a verifying phone call to a family member. So we are certainly willing to take that next step. And I think some of the details that are being worked out, some of these nonprofit IDs have a one-year expiration date, which is probably arguably unfair.

[00:41:43] So I know Carla and Carol are working all those things out, but there's no fundamental resistance from the police department. We just want to make sure that there's a process in place that we can live with. Okay, thank you. Supervisor Chris.

[00:42:00] Thank you. Again, on the IDs, I presume there is a standard template that would be used so that if this non-profit issued an ID and then this non-profit also issued IDs, they wouldn't be different.

[00:42:17] They'd all be looking the same. Okay, so yes, all right, so there's a standard template. Do you know if community IDs are acceptable for our notary identifications from when somebody comes into our office to get things notarized?

[00:42:35] That is not one of the things that we have identified that they would be acceptable for. Okay. Okay. And then going to a broader on the trust policy, you've talked about agencies in the county.

[00:42:51] There hasn't been any discussion of this agency, the Board of Supervisors. And so certainly we need to be compliant in our offices with the trust policy. And so I'm wondering, is there going to be training for our board staff?

[00:43:12] There really needs to be. We need to be compliant. We're not the Congress and we're not the General Assembly. We do not exempt ourselves from these requirements. So my plea would be, or my request would be, to arrange for training of board staff and members of the board rather quickly. It is going to be, I mean, it has to come from the top on down. So if you could do that perhaps before May 17th. Also, Ms. Escalante Herrera, you have been with the county for a few

[00:43:47] months now, but I don't think most of us have had an opportunity to have individual meetings with you. I really want to get that on the schedule. So I know that you've been busy doing, you know, getting adjusted to your new position, but I think it's really imperative that we get those meetings scheduled very quickly. So that would be my request. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Faust. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You've mentioned a couple times now that you've got to be flexible

[00:44:23] in the first year of implementation, and I would simply point out that this is actually the third year. So, you know, we have to stay focused on the fact we've got to get this done. The four pilot agencies, are they done? Have they demonstrated compliance or are they in the process still? I believe they're still in the process. I think at least how many are in actual compliance and we're still working with a couple of them? Yes, we are, I'm in the process of, I have all the forms from the four pilot agencies in the process of

[00:45:01] creating a report review based on the forms that were submitted? You know, I think, as I read, we need reports on a regular basis until every agency is in compliance.

[00:45:20] We, this was not, as the chairman pointed out, this was not a discretionary ask. You know, this is a very important policy. So, I would say you anticipate being done by sometime in spring, May 17th, I think is the date.

[00:45:38] In the interim, keep, at least, I don't want to speak for the entire board, but I want to know where you're at as we move through this process. I don't want to wait until next year to find out that someone did not get in compliance. Provide you with an interim update, and then again, our expectation was that at the completion of our compliance process, you all would be notified by me or the county executive.

[00:46:04] Okay. I really appreciate that. You know, I'm hearing a terminology that may have no particular intent behind it, but for the ID cards and for the compliance, it refers to in accordance with local, state, and federal policies.

[00:46:30] Local policies, we've pretty much tried to establish with the policy we're talking about. So I don't know if there are other local policies that end up being in conflict with our trust policy.

[00:46:53] Would you inform us of that? Absolutely. Okay. And again, departments are going through that process and will tell us if they have existing policies that are in conflict with the directive of the trust policy.

[00:47:10] Yeah, that would be great. And then the, just curiosity, because I thought the community ID thing, cards, would be a relatively simple process. You know, somebody would jump, you know, we'd be having to select amongst people who wanted to do this.

[00:47:33] What's holding that up? Is it you can't get someone who wants to do the work, or you just can't agree with them on what the definition is? Why don't we have this community-based ID cards in place?

[00:47:50] Yeah, so thus far, I think we've only had one nonprofit come forward to not formally request that they be accepted, but to make aware that they do have community ID cards. It's really nonprofit-initiated, so we're not soliciting nonprofits to come up with these cards.

[00:48:09] It's if they have cards, then they can present it to us for acceptance. I think the socialization policy or socialization process that Carol is engaging in of going out and meeting with community members, meeting with advocacy groups and service providers and making them aware of the trust policy will see a boost in those requests to accept them.

[00:48:30] But right now, we haven't actively requested any to be presented to us. We are basing that on a nonprofit's existing use of community ID cards. And again, once they become more aware that that's something that could be accepted by the county, we expect that we will see an increase in those requests to accept.

[00:48:53] Okay, great. And so far, I think someone said CASA has presented a card which we have not accepted. And what they've done, they've shared it directly with the police department in the process that we've set up. We want to be able to manage that centrally. So Carol will work with CASA directly to walk through the compliance process.

[00:49:13] But thus far, they've only presented it to the police department for their awareness and not formally for acceptance. Okay. Very good. Thank you so much. Thank you for your work on these very important matters. Supervisor Palcic. Thank you.

[00:49:29] I know we're getting short on time, so I'll do my best to be brief. A lot of questions were asked, and first of all, welcome to new Deputy Chief Brooke Wright. Very nice to see you here. A couple of points. Number one, I very much appreciate the point on getting some more research on these deportation rates.

[00:49:48] I know every time we see them, every time I see them, I'm concerned. I'm also wondering where those numbers are coming from and what they represent. I think it's really important as soon as we can to be able to do our own analysis of that and better understand what that's representing. Another quick one, I love that you have the compliance concerns that can be reported.

[00:50:08] I think that's really important. I appreciate that it's in many languages, that there's email, website, and a phone number. If possible, I don't know if we currently have that, to look at a texting option I think would be really important especially for our youth and for some who may be more concerned about using the other options would love for us to look at that my question about the IDs so when we talk about government issued ID I have the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office ID for my daughter

[00:50:42] they just took a picture and took my information and that was it so I'm curious when we talk about community IDs when we talk about government issued IDs when we talk to me this I'm not sure where this falls in which category and where this is accepted or how it's accepted I don't know if we have someone here from sheriff's office but I don't know if Tom or or someone from the police department has more information because there's almost no scrutiny on these and I'm wondering where these are accepted and how that compares to our very scrutinized community ID process

[00:51:19] Tom Marl, Deputy County Executive of Safety and Security. I'm not familiar with the exact card you're referencing, so I'll take a look at it and speak to the sheriff's office and find out the background of that. I'm not aware of where they would accept that or entrance into their office, so I'll get back to you on that.

[00:51:35] Okay, I appreciate that. I think it's a service to the community. They're trying to, I think, have a database if anything happens to your child, but I think as we're looking at these other ID cards that won't have a county logo, won't have, you know, an official logo, I just want to make sure that we are working and collaborating with all our agencies to make sure that, yes, we want to make sure there's no fraud.

[00:51:56] And we want to make sure that they're acceptable and know what the options are for having them be used and knowing that there's this one here that does not have that. So I would appreciate that. And then finally, for me, I think it's really important that we have the compliance and have the schedule for that.

[00:52:15] I appreciate that. The big question I have is on training, and so I don't know if you already said this, but how far are we? To me, that's a big part of it. How far are we on knowing where our agencies are on their training, and if those are trainings that are being provided by your office, and is it the same kind of deadline we're looking at for those?

[00:52:38] No idea. Yeah, so all trainings, all agencies had to identify a trust policy point of contact, And so those departments have been trained. They were initially briefed on the trust policy. And going back to Supervisor Faust's comment, they were briefed on the trust policy at the point of adoption, the year of adoption.

[00:52:59] That first year was sort of assumed compliance. Now we've put in a more formal compliance process and have briefed them again. And then in terms of, and that's just sort of general understanding of the role, the purpose of the trust policy.

[00:53:16] Then we did another briefing more specific to the compliance process. So that's the level of training that's been provided to departments at this point. What we expect is in the compliance process, departments will identify what additional staff need to be briefed and trained on the trust policy.

[00:53:36] And we'll do another round of training for department staff. And additionally to that, we share with the trust policy point of contact a toolkit that will have a video explaining what's the trust policy, like briefly a 60-second video, a different kind of material that they can promote it, you know, not just a point of contact, but that they can socialize it with all the agency employees, just to make sure that everybody in the agencies and departments are aware of what are the elements that are established in the trust policy.

[00:54:09] Okay. No, I really appreciate that. And I guess to the point of having reports, and my final one is, you know, I do want to know whether it's going to be, well, number one, shared with us what the community ID standards and requirements are, what the trust policy form is, and then as we go through, will we be able to know, let's say for each agency, what specific areas they're out of compliance with and what the plan is for those specific areas?

[00:54:37] Is that what's going to be posted or shared with us? Yeah, that's what's going to be published on the website, the list of agencies that are in full compliance, the list of agencies that are not in compliance, and the areas that we're working with them on to be in compliance. And that'll be all posted on the public immigrants website.

[00:54:55] Okay, I think that's great. I know I can go on our website and the state website to see where daycares or health research has been done and where people are not in compliance. So I think that's in line with the way we do other county and state work. so I appreciate that. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, very quickly, one thing that hasn't come up, and I just want to be clear on, as we're going through this process, if we find that agencies have information that they're not required to have, you determine that they've over-collected information. I'm assuming then we're also directing them to get rid of all of that information. In

[00:55:31] other words, we shouldn't be holding on to any information about individual people that we don't necessarily that we're not required by law to hold yeah and so is that a part of this process too the direction will be to stop collecting it and to get rid of whatever information that you had previously connected again if it if it wasn't put it this way there might be if there are some legal requirements so this is what we haven't mentioned thus far are the other departments that we're working very closely with we're working very closely with the office of the county attorney We're working very closely with our coordinator, FOIA.

[00:56:10] And so where records may need to be maintained, we will not be directing people to get rid of information. But the main purpose is if there's something that doesn't have legal or FOIA significance that people are holding on to, that's one thing.

[00:56:28] But the main point is if you're collecting it and it's out of compliance with the trust policy, then you should no longer collect it. I think that's the main point I want to get across, because we, by practice, maybe have gotten in the habit of just generally collecting things before the policy was put in place, and we have a long backlog of that information then in our system, and unless we're required to have it by law or the other reasons that you mentioned, there's no reason for that to be taking up room in our databases, and also just from a general privacy standpoint for all of our residents, we wouldn't want to hold information about them that we're not required by law or some other reason to have.

[00:57:04] And I just want to make sure that's a clear look backwards that's happening as a part of this process as well. Yes, and any time that would happen, that would be done in full coordination with the Office of the County Attorney and our FOIA coordinator to be sure that we maintain in compliance. Good. Excellent. Thank you.

[00:57:20] Okay. I know we're getting close to our time, so let's go ahead and move to our next item. So, Chief Davis, I'll go ahead and call you up for the 2023 traffic enforcement plan. Thank you, Chairman Luskin, and good morning, everyone. And as we transition to traffic safety, traffic enforcement, I just want to say that I'm really proud of where the police department is when it comes to trust policy compliance and all of our work with Carla and her team.

[00:57:46] There's no doubt that the role of the police in traffic safety, pedestrian safety is a significant role. It's not the only role, but it's a significant one. And the value of education and enforcement in regards to traffic safety and pedestrian safety is a primary mission of the Fairfax County Police Department.

[00:58:08] I'm joined today at the table by Deputy Chief Bob Blakely, Deputy Chief Brooke Wright, and Captain Alan Hansen of our Traffic Division. Chief Blakely is going to run through this brief PowerPoint presentation. A couple of highlights, and you're probably going to hear them again from Deputy Chief Blakely.

[00:58:25] Our overall crashes are significantly lower now than 2018 and 2019 pre-COVID years. Our DWI fatalities are at a five-year low in Fairfax County. Our 2022 citations and warnings are up by 6,000 compared to 2021.

[00:58:45] Our year-to-date 2023 citations are up 3,000 compared to this same time in 2021. Our 2023 monthly traffic enforcement includes a different theme every month, but when you see those monthly themes that Deputy Chief Blakely will describe, it doesn't mean it's the only thing we're concentrating on that month.

[00:59:07] It's just a particular focus. And so far, and I'm knocking on what I hope is wood, At the end of January today, we have one fatal crash year-to-date in Fairfax County. Tragically, it was the double on Lee Chapel Road, the two high school girls.

[00:59:25] And so far, as we enter February, we have zero pedestrian deaths. So it kind of gets back to, are we lucky or are we good? So we really realize the role of a coordinated plan, and that's what we're going to get into. So I'll turn the reins at the PowerPoint over to Deputy Chief Blankley.

[00:59:42] Thank you, Chief. Deputy Chief Bob Blakely, I oversee our operations in the police department to include our traffic division and our patrol officers. So I'll be brief because we have some good data points to kind of give you a view of what are the issues that concern us most about traffic safety and what are we doing to address it?

[01:00:01] What's our plan in 23 and how it may have been different from previous years? So traffic safety obviously is one of the most important roles of a uniformed patrol officer on the street because they see all the things that we see. behind the wheel of our personal vehicles and are able to address it, but the number one goal of everything that we talk about today, whether it's enforcement or warnings or tickets or education, is to reduce crashes. If we reduce crashes, we reduce injuries, we reduce fatalities, and that is the goal. It's not to write more tickets or anything. It's just to reduce crashes

[01:00:35] and keep our roadways and our community safe. So prior to COVID, we were seeing a decline in our overall traffic crash numbers, which you see here. In fact, when we look at our five-year average, last year we ended 17% down from 2018's average. So that trend was trending in the right direction.

[01:00:57] The COVID timeframe in '20 and '21 created sort of a statistical outlier of no one on the roads, but it did create interstates and secondary roads where speed started climbing. I know you've seen some of the posts on social media and others where we've seen these high speeds. In fact, I'll tell you soon that high speeds and distracted driving are a significant factor in the increase in fatal crashes, which you're going to see here. So you look overall at our total fatalities. Again, when you look at our five-year average, you'll see that we were trending down prior to COVID,

[01:01:36] which was consistent with the national average. And then coming out of COVID, if you look at our 18 to 22 movement, you'll notice our fatalities trended up. This is also consistent with the national average. Unfortunately, nationally we're seeing an increase in fatal crashes across the entire United States. The sharp increase in the last year and the overall fatalities and pedestrian-related fatalities is certainly something concerning and something that we'll

[01:02:06] talk about here. Pedestrian related crashes. We talk about that probably more than anything. And I know many of you in your districts have areas that are concerning to all of us, but you can see again that 2018 timeline, we were trending down as were fatal crashes and overall crashes. And coming out of the pandemic, our overall pedestrian related crashes are down 12% from 18. Very consistent with the national trend and our overall crash trend, but we did see that spike in

[01:02:40] pedestrian-related fatalities in 2022, which is very concerning and something that we're going to address specifically. Some other categories of crashes that we talk about often, so I wanted to share the general numbers with you, are alcohol-related crashes are about the same over the last five years. We've seen alcohol-related fatalities, as the chief mentioned, at a five-time low. So last year, only nine alcohol-related fatalities, which is a very good number, all things considered. And our DWI arrests are down. So when we look at causation or anything, we try to look at the total package. So I wanted to share that number with you as well.

[01:03:23] So education and awareness, how we share information with our community. And, you know, just I think yesterday, we saw our traffic division and school resource officers at McLean high school uh doing a seat belt initiative and you know all of these efforts again trying to reduce crashes but we also rely on enforcement enforcement as a means of seeking voluntary compliance it's our visible mechanism in the community to show that we're we're addressing these concerning driving behaviors so we look at our enforcement numbers to to kind of figure out

[01:04:00] where we're at so prior to covid of course you could see uh there where we're at that was a pretty average number, it had slowly trended down over a few years. But then when COVID hit, of course, enforcement dropped significantly. And what you're seeing now, I believe, is a renormalization. So the chief mentioned some numbers when you looked at 2022 as compared to 20 and 21 in terms of the increase in meaningful enforcement initiatives, which is what we ask our officers to do, not just go out and create widgets, but look at meaningful enforcement opportunities to keep our

[01:04:37] roadways safe. So we started to see that. What we decided in 2023 to kind of re-energize this effort at traffic safety to address those pedestrian crashes and the overall increase and fatalities, our traffic division is leading our department in a few ways to concentrate our efforts. First, as the chief mentioned, was our overall traffic safety focus. So each month our Traffic Division pushes out an initiative, and we've outlined some of them here. And part of that is a concentrated effort by our Public Affairs Bureau to inform and make our community aware of what the issue is, why it's dangerous, how they can help prevent it, what they can talk to their

[01:05:17] teens about. And there's that public-facing component. Internally, we share information, refresh training, remind officers of the legal standards, what has changed in the last few years, because they've seen a lot of that, and we put it back on them to go out and observe and look for these types of violations. So, in January, we focused on distracted drivers, hands-free enforcement, and we also focused on some of the issues kind of coming out of the car meets that

[01:05:52] we've all talked about a lot to include the loud exhaust, the reckless driving. We've concentrated some efforts there with great success. So as you look, the only other thing I wanted to point out on this list of many meaningful enforcement initiatives is in March, we'll bring back FCPD's Roadshark program. And for those that have been around for a long time, I'm confident you remember in 1998, Captain Tommy Burnell created the Roadshark program, and it became a flagship in northern Virginia. Virginia State Police participated with us, and I'm certainly inviting

[01:06:28] them to participate again and it spun off into the smooth operator which was more of a cog program and i think that kind of phased road shark out decades ago so we're dusting that program off and bringing it back and intend to use it so be looking for that and that that'll be something certainly we're excited about so through the fall you can just again a few more initiatives so the question that I have as we're kind of wrapping up January, is our 2023 strategy working? We've certainly had some very engaging conversations in the community. I think on January 18th, we had a

[01:07:08] senior executive meeting with the Fairfax County Public Schools, and we talked about how we can get our cops back into schools to do many things that help talk about safe driving and make our children safe. And again, in terms of enforcement, we take a look at year to date. So this was, I think, on the 23rd of January when we kind of pulled this number of the last five years. And you can see that meaningful enforcement in the area of citations issued has climbed significantly, I think 69% up from last year. So that tells us that, you know, we're informing our cops,

[01:07:46] we're teaching them, or we're reminding them of the things that we should be focused on, distracted driving and we're out there doing it. So I'm very proud of the efforts of our police department and our officers out there making our roadways safer and I believe we'll have a very successful 2023. That's all the slides we have so I wanted to leave plenty of time for questions.

[01:08:08] Well I'm going to commend you for tightening the presentation and really getting us back on time so very well done. Very quickly can I ask a question on the citations and warning slide? Yes sir. So just help me understand, when does the officer have the discretion to write the warning versus the actual citation? Mr. Chairman, thank you for that question. And, you know, discretion is a topic that comes up often when we decide what the officer's decision points are. And I know when I look at numbers, especially if you look at 20 and 21, there are certainly more warnings than last

[01:08:47] year um you know all factors considered so for instance in my own my i still write tickets and warnings to this day uh go to court and try to try to stay uh grounded in that aspect but courts were pretty much closed in 20 and 21 right so so we were encouraging our officers to you know only take the most serious of offenses the crashes and things like that to court so that would have shifted their standard a little bit. I, my, my training officer 25 years ago told me to come up with a standard and stick to it. And, and that'll help you reduce complaints of applying standards

[01:09:25] differently. And, and so for me, you know, a driver has a good driving record, a minor traffic offense or an equipment violation that's seems to be like lights out rather than a intentional loud exhaust. So I think all of those factors are something that officers consider, but there's nothing written. It's definitely something that... And I do want to add that we never really have talked about warnings a lot in terms of this is part of what we've done. It's always kind of been ticket numbers. And we put a lot of focus on looking at warnings and citations together

[01:10:04] because we want the officers focus to be to address the issue and their their decision after that we don't want to micromanage that decision to the extent that it may prevent them from stopping someone just to say hey just let you know your tags are expired you know get those fixed and have a good meaningful dialogue so we've tried to start looking at both we're now tracking warnings via our e-summon system which we were not doing in years past we just started that this year so we're allowing officers to have the ability to to do that yeah you've answered my second question. I was going to ask about the data, so I'll look forward to seeing that. Thank you for

[01:10:41] that very detailed response. Let me go quickly to the second question. I really appreciate your traffic safety initiatives. I think this is pretty phenomenal, and I look through and see all the things that you've listed. I guess the question I have is, if we look at the really significant issue we have with pedestrian safety, would it be possible to add some more events that are really kind of focused on the pedestrian throughout the year so i think i note that you have october as pedestrian safety month which is awesome i'm not saying take that away but can we maybe think about

[01:11:19] some additional things that we can do through the course of the year that can help drive and put some attention on this issue around pedestrian safety absolutely and and um you know the those that work in the mason district and in many other areas where this conversation has been a regular conversation uh know that uh pedestrian safety is something that um it's going to be a year-long effort uh especially given the increase we had last year so we're looking for a lot of new ways to get out and and do this because some of the old ways that we used to do it just aren't aren't available to us anymore so right i mean the thought is if there's something we can do with

[01:11:58] some of the community-based organizations and doing some things really out in the community i think could be of value as well yes sir so thank you very much so i'll now turn over to chairman mckay um thank you for excellent presentation and thank you also for the context you know sometimes you can look at these numbers i've heard mischaracterizations out there in the public about what's happening and there's a lot of influences that go beyond uh police obviously covet is clear in here uh driving habits are clear people have been on the sidelines for a long time are back in their cars. I guess one of the questions that I have is a lot of latitude is

[01:12:36] given to the station commanders at the individual stations for good reason. Every station is a little bit different. The geography is a little different. The road system is a little bit different. But are we looking at and doing comparisons to individual station data for the same periods of time just to make sure that there aren't inequities within the stations in terms of how we're doing traffic enforcement and making sure that we're doing it, we're doing it most effectively. And I ask that question because one of the other changes we don't often talk about here is obviously the increase in mental health calls. And, you know, you're an officer, you get

[01:13:12] a mental health call, that's somebody off the street pretty much for that shift and takes a lot of time. We know those happen in some parts of the county and higher frequencies. That's another thing that has changed in terms of visibility as our officers are spending a lot more time on mental health calls, which means a lot less time out there in the field doing traffic enforcement. So a lot of different factors here. But my real question is, is we're looking at this at the station level and providing support to the individual commanders of those stations if their numbers are seemingly off track? Chairman, every Thursday we have a meeting we call CORE. CORE

[01:13:50] doesn't stand for anything, but the core of what we do in terms of public safety and the crime fight, Each district commander reports out weekly on their traffic enforcement, and they speak specifically to citations and warnings and DUI arrests. So we're able to gauge, and it's about proportionality.

[01:14:08] If you have the most traffic crashes, fatal or otherwise, in your district and your enforcement and education is low, you need to pick up your enforcement and education. And then the reverse is also true. We don't want the patrol district station with the least amount of traffic issues to necessarily lead the county on enforcement its proportionality um and you mentioned that the the amount of time police officers spend on emotionally disturbed person calls for service and this is probably another public safety committee meeting but uh it's doubled since 18 and 19 so 12 000 edp calls for service a year and just um you know 2018 2019 it was five six

[01:14:48] 6,000 tops. And that's a big chunk of time that patrol officers spend. And then another, you know, unintended consequence of what I believe to be good legislation that we're leading the way on is the emergency substantial risk orders, the red flag laws. We're doing really, really well with that, but it takes patrol officers off the street to accomplish that at a higher rate than the past. So each district commander has the authority under Deputy Chief Blakely to stand up.

[01:15:17] the neighborhood patrol units, the bike teams, and as our staffing improves, more and more of the district stations are bringing those bike teams back. And I know I've had many individual conversations with supervisors about the importance, and I wholeheartedly agree, of those discretionary units. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I'll start on the far end. So, Dolly, you're up first this time. Thank you. Just one question. I really appreciate the increased engagement.

[01:15:46] Do we know, I appreciate you're collecting the data now, do we know of the pedestrian involved crashes and the fatal pedestrian crashes, how many of those involved young drivers recently issued licenses, and do you have recommendations for ways we and with the school system can really, I guess, more good practice informed, help increase the education and the training piece there?

[01:16:12] Thank you, Supervisor Palcik. So I don't have that information in front of me, and anecdotally, I don't recall it being a number that's high, meaning the majority of our pedestrian fatalities are often at nighttime in areas of low visibility.

[01:16:32] You know, we do have some challenges in the code with being able to kind of get that crossing the road when you can't be seen, and that's in between intersections and dark areas. So that's been a bit of a challenge, I think, to address the issues at school.

[01:16:49] And unfortunately, our young pedestrian fatalities that we saw, especially last year, towards the end of the year, were not a road condition issue. It was just absolute reckless driving on the part of the driver. So the conversation about crossing at intersections and staying on the sidewalk, you know, those are the number one focus of pedestrian safety.

[01:17:14] I think where we see the majority of our issues are crossing out of crosswalks, and it always seems to be in areas of low visibility, and there's a few exceptions to that, but that's where our focus would certainly be in our communities and schools is during those times of darkness when you're in unfamiliar areas, crossing at well-lit intersections, wearing clothing that supports being seen in those areas.

[01:17:46] I mean, the two I can think of now, they were in the middle of the day in the afternoon, right? And I think we've had others that were in the middle of the day. So I want to be really cautious there that we're basing that on actual data. i understand it it does take all of us but i do want to be cautious i mean i think just yesterday driving on 29 most people are driving safely but i there were three very very very high speeds and to the point where i was like oh i wish i could just call the captain right now and get someone out here how bad it is so i appreciate that we're increasing the enforcement on that and i guess i'm

[01:18:21] wondering how we start to track are we seeing change in behavior there um is there more we can be doing. I know we're doing more. But I think that's when, especially when we see people pretty much within the driving range, especially these roads that have been built to be easily high speed, how do we address the people going 80, 90, sometimes 100 in a 25, 35, 45 speed zone? I guess that's the area where I have so much concern and still seeing it happen. Yeah, and we're looking forward to the automated enforcement in our school zones certainly you should be seeing more police

[01:19:00] officers in our school zones in particular right now while we're trying to address those high speeds but our units you know have been out on some of these bigger roads where we're seeing these high speeds doing a lot of targeted enforcement and that's why we've been trying to share those speeds on social media when we get those higher speeds to just increase the awareness that number one it's very serious and that there's a very serious penalty associated with with reckless driving so i'm supervisor palachick sharing the speeds and i'm thinking particularly about about blake lane oakton high school and lee chapel road those speeds in both of those instances were well

[01:19:38] over 100 miles an hour so it's um you know it's sitting down with the family there's a lot of sensitivities and anguish and grief but but sharing those speeds with the communities is important and when we sat down for a senior executive team meeting just a couple weeks ago with FCPS we offered any and all of our services inside classrooms within our school system and we hope to be taken up on that and we hope to better partner and educate young people I appreciate that yeah I would love to see more of that I know many of us have stories when we were young drivers and what it took for us to slow down and I just want to make sure I

[01:20:16] appreciate the increase in the high-speed areas. I'd love to see where those intersect with our high-pedestrian areas. You know, I mean, Active Fairfax has a list of where we see the most pedestrians, and I've seen that in some places, and I hope that is kind of a goal as you meet with the departments to make sure they're targeting those areas. So thank you. Okay, Supervisor Gris.

[01:20:42] Thank you, and kudos to our, I don't know which officer it was, but yesterday morning I was at a signalized intersection waiting to turn left. A police vehicle was turning left. A pedestrian was in the crosswalk and the police vehicle waited for the pedestrian to go by.

[01:21:01] And I thought, this is an example of what you're supposed to do. I was sorry there weren't more cars around at that particular intersection because it was a perfect example of let the pedestrian cross and it was one of our, I'm sure it was somebody from the Mason Station. I didn't recognize the driver.

[01:21:18] But, you know, one of the things here that concerns me is 115,000 citations issued in 2018 and in 2019, and then it drops off a lot. The community expects citations to be written. Many, many times in my district I hear, there's never a police officer around.

[01:21:41] I don't see any enforcement now. I know there's enforcement. The motor squad was in downtown Annandale recently, and they had at least three people pulled over just as I was driving down for about a half a mile. So I know the enforcement is there, but quite often the community isn't seeing it.

[01:21:59] So I think we need to make sure that these numbers and the community sees us, they're going to say, you know, what's going on here? There's just not enough enforcement. So I would encourage that. The other piece is that as we've had these pedestrian fatalities, and we've had several in my district, people don't, there's a lot of information out there when it happens.

[01:22:26] But then once it gets to court and gets adjudicated, there isn't as much publicity about what that particular driver was charged with and what the adjudication was. And so people think it's a black hole, that nothing happens.

[01:22:42] I know that it happens. We get out there and we try and get the information out, but there may be some other way of highlighting what that final step is. Because too often people think that folks are getting away with horrible behavior and getting a slap on the wrist, and that's really not the case.

[01:23:01] So I don't know quite how. I know that the chief sends things out, but I'm not quite sure how we illuminate this a little bit more so that folks have a trust and a confidence that the system is working.

[01:23:18] So, Supervisor Grace, I share those frustrations. It seems like when something goes boom, there's a whole lot of attention paid to it, but at the final end of the disposition, the adjudication, there's not as much interest. So we're going to continue to use social media to elevate those dispositions.

[01:23:37] Another example, you remember the six fatal overdoses back in September of 2021? That was and should be a big deal. Well, they were recently convicted, and the person responsible for distributing that fentanyl was sentenced to 30 years, and there's zero coverage on that.

[01:23:56] So, you know, we'll continue to try to find different ways to highlight the final resolution of those cases, but it drops, it certainly drops. Supervisor Walkinshaw.

[01:24:12] Thank you. Yeah, just kind of a comment. I mean, in thinking about the recent tragedy with the two young people, it occurs to me, you know, I think 50 years from now, we're all going to look back and think how absolutely insane it is that you can purchase an automobile, any automobile in the United States of America, that's capable of operating at speeds of 100-plus miles per hour.

[01:24:45] It's absolutely insane. It's almost as insane as decades of automobiles being built without seatbelts when seatbelt technology existed, right? Hundreds of thousands of people died needlessly because the government didn't say you've got to have a seatbelt.

[01:25:02] And now tens of thousands of people annually each year are dying, including some in our community, because cars are sold that can go 100, 120, 140 miles per hour, any car. And there is technology. The NTSB is looking at intelligent speed assistance technology.

[01:25:22] Speed limiting legislation has been introduced in a number of states. New York state is looking at it. And I think, you know, that's something maybe the legislative committee we should start looking advocating for in Virginia. There is no reason, and, you know, I'm not going to be very popular amongst the hobbyist crowd. I get that, but kids are dying. There's no reason that cars need to be traveling at 100 plus miles per hour, and it's going to become a bigger problem with electric vehicles because the performance is just a lot better. A $50,000 electric vehicle can outperform a $150,000 supercar, and those are going to be on our roads more and more, so this is an issue that

[01:26:02] Commonwealth of Virginia, the federal government needs to address. The speeds are just out of control. I think for us, I really, I think it was really important what you said, Chief, about, you know, our officers are devoting time, especially to the substantial risk order enforcement. And quite frankly, that's what I want them to be doing. I mean, that's what our highly skilled highly trained police officers should be doing and spending their time

[01:26:34] because a lot of this traffic enforcement can be done in an automated way and for us i think it's really important to be aggressive in our implementation of the speed zone enforcement and i'm i'm really appreciative of the work captain hansen and others are doing there for school zones and using that and the data we get from that to make the case to the general assembly that we should be able to expand automated enforcement because if we can enforce the speed limits on Little River Turnpike and downtown Annandale in an automated way and free our officers

[01:27:13] up to deal with substantial risk order and violence prevention and the real policing work that they're trained to do and we want them to do, I think we'll all be better for it. So that's the speed issue with cars we've got to address. And for us, obviously some of that's out of our control but working aggressively on automated enforcement is is the best thing we can do thank you thanks supervisor i'd say just very briefly automate i grew up in automated traffic enforcement environments and it does change driving behaviors and i also recently attended a futuristic police

[01:27:49] conference and they talked about they addressed the room they said if you're under 40 you're going to live long enough where there's going to be nothing but driverless cars whether or not that comes true I don't know but the impact on on trafficking pedestrian safety from that I imagine it'll be just a different world we're living in in two or three decades from now okay Supervisor Stewart and I I support um I don't I mean I support camera enforcement because I think it is allows you to put your time where it belongs or you want your the people to belong it gets rid of the the bias and the and the issues and concerns that people have about that so I know we have a

[01:28:29] bigger issue in Virginia, but I support that. I don't like them. You know, of course, I have to watch my speed, right? But they do the job. They work, right? They just, they work. The other part is, Chief, you've done a great job of focus on a particular item of the week with your messaging that you send out, the videos, et cetera. I think, and I don't know how, what the comfort level is for this, but I would urge us, urge you all to put together something that does just that. When somebody is convicted and sentenced to 30 years for distributing, you know, drugs that have killed

[01:29:05] other people or harmed other people in some significant way, I want to know about that. I don't always know about it. I want to share that with my community because part of the frustration of the community is the perception that people are getting away with stuff, whether they're driving down the highway and somebody's leaving out of cars and somehow or other they get away with that. I think we all get frustrated with people who are acting in very, you know, unsafe manners and we don't perceive that there's consequences for that i think we need to reinforce that there are consequences and that we are at least in fairbikes county we're going to enforce those and make a difference and i want to trumpet that to my community i will trumpet that to other

[01:29:39] people so thank you we will supervisor alcon uh thank you and um on the automated traffic enforcement i i am looking forward to the pilot uh that we're getting going this is uh this is going to i think really affect behavior in those localized areas i know one of the other things that another tool that we're looking to use is the non-enforcement speed cameras in those boards and they go up there i think we're going to see in the community once we start the pilot program most people aren't going to know where there's enforcement going on and where there's not and i think that's going to

[01:30:15] be a little bit of a game changer for how effective some of those some of those boards are going to be. So I look forward to that. And the only thing I would also note is that it may not just be the folks under 40 that actually will see the day when we're going to do that. So anyway, I guess it all depends on how healthy we are and that kind of thing. Yeah, we're planning on a long life.

[01:30:40] Supervisor Smith. Thank you. The issue of the pedestrian fatalities and where it's too dark, I've appreciated being able to work with the Sully Station, and we're looking at an area on 29, and we have some other areas where it's an issue, and I think that coordination with the board offices is very helpful.

[01:30:57] We have a little bit of funding that we've had in our budgets that I've held onto for these issues, and we're working through that. And I don't remember Road Shark, so what did that – can you give me a little background about that? Yeah, so Road Shark is very similar to Smooth Operator, but what it is is it's, you know, a blitz of communication.

[01:31:15] know, the news channels would often carry it. It's a moment where we get a chance to talk about our current, you know, fatal crash rates and total crash numbers, and it's just a moment where the community really gets to pay attention to what's the problem. And what we ask our officers to do is engage in meaningful enforcement. There's usually a data collection tool just for that particular wave, and it looks at the most important causative offensives, like red light running unsafe lane changes distracted driving speeding and we collect data during that wave and

[01:31:50] and often there's some pre and post data collection efforts but the I think the biggest goal of the program is number one to remind the community you'll see a big wave of enforcement so it's kind of that moment where we we get used to driving the speed limit again and then it's a reset for a few months and then every few months we kind of repeat that so smooth operator usually was running about six campaigns across the DMV a year, so almost every month. I think we're planning on three or four waves of Road Shark to kind of get things started again, and we're hoping to have the same effect. As the only board member who was here for Road Shark, it was a big

[01:32:30] deal. Supervisor Herity. Yeah, and I'm looking forward to the return of that, too. If I could start by thanking Captain Hanson and his crew for support at Delegate Trans Town Hall last night. that was a tough one a lot of a lot of time spent on education as well so kind of first question and I'm trying to reach into the court system but been unsuccessful so far we used to have the program where you'd have to show up in court with your parents to get the license they stopped that for COVID and haven't restarted it so I'd be very interested in hearing why that's not back on and

[01:33:05] what the thoughts are and whether it makes sense does anybody know and I noticed it's on every county so i don't every county that i've i've talked to so i don't know if that was a state um policy decision that affected the general district courts or if if it's under local control but i'll keep i'll keep pulling the thread i'll let everybody know when i find out what the answer is um let's see that you know in terms of the magisterial stations or the stations have inflexibility i think that's absolutely key that they do because you know i've got issues on rural roads of Clifton, you know, Penny's got issues of, you know, tight roads. You've got Route 1.

[01:33:42] We're all different. So there's the enforcement's got to be different at the different stations. So and the results will all look different. So looking for equity there, I don't know that that makes a whole lot of sense. I think we need to focus on the problems in there. And that brings me to slide. Let me talk set teams first. I talk specialty units. Are set teams back? Are they coming back because i know those were great tools for us where we had an issue we could uh call in supervisor herity up so our stations um we try to keep them balanced in terms of our overall

[01:34:22] staffing uh each academy that graduates we kind of try to even them up so that our station commanders have the ability to use extra officers very strategically as the chief mentioned with deployment of our neighborhood patrol units uh when i was the sully station commander at a four person traffic unit at full staffing. And Sully Station has one officer doing it now, but not every station can dedicate a traffic officer because many have brought back a smaller neighborhood patrol unit at this point, three or four members, instead of maybe there are six or seven that they used to be allotted. So it is a challenge. Those neighborhood patrol units are kind of

[01:35:00] doing double duty, doing both. So I know that when we've had, so for instance, the car meets that have come up the need for extra attention on this matter arises uh station commanders are doing everything they can to put officers into those positions so that we can address it successfully so we're we're going to keep encouraging uh that it is a we make it a weekly topic in our core meeting to make sure that they're focused on it and the goal is to eventually get them back i assume we get full staffing and a lot of work supervisor harry this month with the car meet so the absence of bad news is sometimes we don't pay attention to why Fairfax County in the last couple months

[01:35:39] hasn't had the issues associated with the car meetups. It's because an enormous amount of resources under the Deputy Chief and Captain Hanson have been directed. So other jurisdictions have made it. Sent them up to Silver Spring, did you? They went somewhere. I don't know where they went. They went somewhere, but it's a... Yeah. So last question. I don't know if you all can get this or not, but slide five on the alcohol-related crashes and arrests, is any chance we can get convictions added to that? I'd be curious to see the trend on convictions. So we do not receive

[01:36:13] conviction data. We've talked about that before, and it would rely on officers retrieving it from court, and the data collection effort would be significant. The courts don't have a mechanism for us to we send them a lot of data but we can't bring any data back so that I don't know if that's a possibility but not one that I'm aware of so they don't track them right well I believe the courts do the court system obviously that if you look it up it's in the it's in the court system

[01:36:48] the general district court system but all right I don't know if we can interface that okay I'll go see if I can find okay um thank everyone today for a very insightful conversation the chief and his and we will look forward to our next meeting in March so with that this meeting is adjourned at 11:10 and let's start at 11:15 and we'll do a 75 minute meeting of a 90 minute

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