Report 2015-129 Recommendations

To provide for a more comprehensive review of complaints and to ensure that the public is aware of the Department's willingness to receive complaints in an open manner, the Department should update its complaint policy by December 2016 to require the chief to review all supervisor decisions related to personnel complaints.

To provide for a more comprehensive review of complaints and to ensure that the public is aware of the Department's willingness to receive complaints in an open manner, the Department should modify its website by December 2016 to state explicitly its openness to accepting all complaints, and inform members of the public that complaint forms may be filed at city hall, through its website, or during its community presentations. Similarly, the Department should more prominently display complaint option information in its lobby.

To provide for a more comprehensive review of complaints and to ensure that the public is aware of the Department's willingness to receive complaints in an open manner, the Department should perform outreach by December 2016, such as through informal surveys, to identify potentially unreported complaints.

To provide for a more comprehensive review of complaints and to ensure that the public is aware of the Department's willingness to receive complaints in an open manner, the Department should reach out to community organizations by December 2016 to connect with members of the community who may have complaints.

The City should consider whether to establish a community advisory group, ombudsman position, or city council committee as an additional resource for receiving complaints.

To better manage its operations related to issuing traffic citations, the Department should implement a process by March 2017 to verify quarterly the accuracy and completeness of the data in its records management system.

To better manage its operations related to issuing traffic citations, the Department should develop a process by March 2017 to conduct a quarterly review of its traffic citation statistics and follow up with its officers as needed to ensure a consistent enforcement strategy.

To hold its officers accountable, the Department should implement a policy by September 2016 to document the patrol directives, such as citation and enforcement strategies, that it provides to officers.

To ensure that its policies are consistent with the city council's directives and that it can hold its officers accountable for them, the Department should immediately update its towing policy to reflect the March 2014 city council resolution that officers not tow for minor traffic offenses if the vehicle is legally parked, registered, and insured; that officers must receive sergeant authorization for all tows; and that the Department provide monthly tow reports to the city manager. The Department should also specify in its policy that officers must receive two trainings each year on the updated towing policy.

To address community and city management concerns about its towing of vehicles, the Department should provide additional information in its monthly towing report by December 2016 about the reason that a vehicle was stopped and the reason the Department needed to tow the vehicle.

To address community and city management concerns about its towing of vehicles, the Department should implement a process by December 2016 for the chief to review the monthly tow reports and follow up on any cases related to unlicensed drivers to determine if the reasons for the tows comply with the directives from city council.

To ensure that gasoline cards are used consistently and appropriately, the Department should develop a formal process by December 2016 for monitoring gasoline invoices and transactions. The Department should implement a policy that includes a requirement for gasoline cards to be issued to patrol vehicles as a means to track gasoline usage against vehicle mileage. The requirement should also include a description of how the Department will identify the officer responsible for each gasoline card purchase, either by assigning a unique identifier to each officer or by using a vehicle assignment log.

To ensure that gasoline cards are used consistently and appropriately, the Department should develop a formal process by December 2016 for monitoring gasoline invoices and transactions. The Department should implement a policy that includes procedures for obtaining explanations for any gasoline purchase that appears out of the ordinary.

To ensure that it is appropriately maintaining custody of evidence items and complying with POST recommendations, the Department should conduct a comprehensive inventory to develop an accurate list of evidence and property.

To ensure that it is appropriately maintaining custody of evidence items and complying with POST recommendations, the Department should update by September 2016 its evidence oversight policies to provide explicit direction, based on POST guidelines, to staff and management who perform evidence oversight activities.

To ensure that it is appropriately maintaining custody of evidence items and complying with POST recommendations, the Department should perform its monthly evidence inspections per its policy.

To ensure that it is appropriately maintaining custody of evidence items and complying with POST recommendations, the Department should develop a process by September 2016 for the chief to review compliance with the monthly inspection requirement.

To ensure that it is appropriately maintaining custody of evidence items and complying with POST recommendations, the Department should perform annual audits that are thorough and well documented.

To ensure that it uses consistent standards to evaluate whether information found in assessments of an officer candidate's moral character could lead to conflicts of interest, the city council should establish screening criteria for the types of activities and circumstances it considers to be incompatible with the official duties of an officer, such as in the areas of an officer candidate's past drug use, amount of debt, and number of traffic citations received.

To minimize the potential for conflicts of interest, the Department should develop a written policy by September 2016 that formalizes its practice of preventing officers from being involved in cases associated with their family members.

To comply with state regulations, to better assess candidates' ability to interact effectively with the community and other officers, and to ensure consistency, the Department should by September 2016 document its interview questions, including at least one question from each of the six areas in the POST interview guidelines.

To work more effectively with community members, the Department should solicit and incorporate feedback from the community and create a formal community engagement plan that is tailored to meet community needs by December 2016.

To work more effectively with community members, the Department should implement a process by September 2016 for the chief to review all promotional materials and presentations and ensure they are communicated in both English and Spanish, where appropriate, according to the direction provided by the city manager.

To provide feedback and information to the Department, the city council should consider the formation of a community advisory group.

To ensure that its policy is being implemented correctly and to prevent further inappropriate reimbursements, the City should monitor at least semiannually the implementation of its new policy on expense approvals that it adopted in February 2016.

To ensure that the Department appropriately budgets for planned expenses, the City should continue to monitor its new policy on budget development that it adopted in January 2016. Specifically, the chief should monitor the budgeted and actual expenses of the Department each month, paying close attention to any areas where those expenses vary significantly from the amount budgeted, and discuss this analysis with the city manager each quarter to identify any weaknesses in its budget process.