Redmond City Council Public Safety Committee - 9/15/20

Members Present: Jeralee Anderson, David Carson, Steve Fields, Jessica Forsythe, Vanessa Kritzer, Tanika Kumar Padhye

Absent: Varisha Khan 

There was only one agenda item - SCORE interlocal agreement for jail services.  SCORE is a correctional entity.  It is a regionally owned jail in Des Moines, WA serving several cities in WA with a maximum capacity of 802 inmates.

The Chief of police was presenting the contract for renewal, starting January 1.  The current contract is for a maximum of 15 inmates at any one time and they are suggesting to move it down to 12.

CM Forsythe said that based on the detail info provided it looked like Redmond used on average only 3 spots so did not understand why we needed more.  She wanted to understand the methodology  in the report to better understand the numbers.  She also said that crime went up and she wanted to know specifically in what areas crime was increasing.

The Chief said he would research the methodology and get back to the committee next week.  The increase in crime was primarily in property crime.

CM Fields wanted to know why we do this every year so late in the year and why this is the only agenda item.  It is not very efficient to manage this way. 

The Chief (is new this year it sounded like) so he could not speak on earlier years.  He only could say that SCORE was putting together a new fee structure and they had to wait on that before scheduling to be on the agenda.

CM Kritzer asked what the risk is if we go down to 9 and the Chief said he could potentially not have enough beds and/or go over the budget. CM Kritzer also asked for a little overview on SCORE.

It was agreed to accept answers from the Chief in an email next week and schedule it for the agenda on the October 1 meeting.

CM Forsythe then said she agreed a short one item agenda is odd, especially when the last meeting had 8 items and ran well over the planned time ( 1 hour).  She said we all need to work better to better plan meetings. She then asked about a fire code issue related to a construction project of a five story wood structure.  The Chief agreed to get detail information in an email out to them next week.

CM Anderson then thanked the Captain on the call as this was his last meeting.  He was moving on to be the Chief of Police in Marysville.  All said thank you to him.