SAFE: Rohnert Park, Cotati Team Up For New Crisis Response Model

ROHNERT PARK AND COTATI, CA — The City of Rohnert Park and the City of Cotati this week officially launched the Specialized Assistance For Everyone —SAFE — team, creating a new model for responding to crises in the community, according to a joint news release from the two cities.

“The creation of the SAFE team is incredible. In recent years there has been tremendous nation-wide concern about the role of police, the first responders to not just crimes but to all kinds of crises," said Rohnert Park Mayor Gerard Giudice. "Our police do a great job, but they can’t do everything asked of them. This team gives us another option, with professional staff trained to address a variety of crises. I couldn’t be more excited about what SAFE brings to our City."

Rohnert Park and Cotati are contracting with Petaluma People Services Center — PPSC — which will operate the program as it does in Petaluma. The SAFE Team has a medic (nurse, paramedic or Emergency Medical Technician) and a crisis worker. They will be supported by a coordinator to manage referrals to PPSC and Sonoma County services.

The program is initially operating 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and will progress toward 18 to 20 hours a day. It is estimated the team will respond to about 3,500 calls each year.

Services provided by SAFE will include responding to people who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, in need of treatment for mental illness, or who need shelter by providing counseling and transportation to the appropriate location. The team will also address minor medical complaints that do not require emergency room care. Left untreated, some of these medical conditions can become severe, the cities said.

“The SAFE team gives us another tool to ensure we are sending the right people to calls for service,” Cotati Mayor John Moore said. “We’re grateful to the County Supervisors, and specifically Chris Coursey and David Rabbitt for recognizing its value and using funds from Measure O to help cover startup costs. This program puts Rohnert Park and Cotati among the cities adopting the latest innovations in police best practices.”

Annual costs are expected to be $1.1 million a year, including the contract with PPSC and the costs of a van to support the program. The cities expect to receive a state grant for $1 million that will partially cover costs for the first four years. Additionally, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors approved over $400,000 from Measure O (the countywide mental health and homelessness tax) for the initial year of operation. The remaining costs will be split between the cities of Rohnert Park (84 percent) and Cotati (16 percent) based on the volume of calls expected.

Launching the SAFE team is one of the numerous steps Rohnert Park and Cotati are taking to increase law enforcement accountability and improve community relations, the cities said in the news release.

Rohnert Park has committed to retaining an independent police auditor to review the handling of civilian complaints, creating a community roundtable to obtain feedback from underrepresented groups, restarting the Civilian Police Academy when it is safe to do so, and increasing officer training in implicit bias, de-escalation, and diversity awareness, city officials said.

Cotati was the first city in Sonoma County to mandate body-worn cameras, which promotes transparency with the community it serves. Cotati has also initiated an annual community report regarding police activities and implemented new best practices around the use of force with new software that flags arrests/incidents, creating automatic review by command staff to ensure that its police department is held to the highest standards. The policies and added training support best practices and increase awareness around procedural justice, implicit bias, crisis intervention training and de-escalation, diversity and inclusion, city officials said.