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Chief Bolanos said, the performance measures are "part of the transition ITom a Department philosophy of 'order maintenance' where we responded to calls from service... to a full service community, oriented policing philosophy." Chief Bolanos said City Attorney Schricker did a very good job explaining the legal issues, and added "The media used the term 'quota' to describe our performance measures. I consider that an unfortunate and erroneous description. Because of that we received understandable reaction ITom our civic leaders and members of our community. I have known all along that quotas are illegal, we are against quotas, and our performance measures do not constitute quotas. City Attorney Schricker has reviewed our policy, and I also had District Attorney Jim Fox review the policy. He has also issued me a written letter stating that our policy is legal." Chief Bolanos addressed the issue of officers potential abuse the performance measures or make poor enforcement decisions. He said, "I don't think that will happen and let me tell you why. First and foremost because of the professionalism of the personnel who work with me in the Redwood City Police Department. I hold them to the highest standard, and I believe they hold themselves to the highest standard. I do not believe for one second that an officer would make a false arrest or write a false citation in order to meet a performance measure. We also have very professional and competent Supervisors, who oversee our officers. They are there to guide them, to measure them, to coach them and to correct them when necessary. There is not one police report that is not reviewed by a Sergeant. "Additionally we have the safeguard of the courts and the District Attorney. I meet with the District Attorney on a quarterly basis to ensure that the quality of our cases is as high as possible. He has assured me that they are, and I will work hard to ensure that they remain that way. Another safeguard is our citizens.... If any of our citizens' rights are violated they will call me.... Going on the four years I have been here, I have never once received a phone call from a citizen stating that they were falsely arrested, and the phone calls I have received regarding citations were to see if I had the juice to sign off on them. And I assure you I do not. As you can see we have quite a few safeguards in place to ensure there is no abuse of the performance measures system." Chief Bolanos used overhead slides to show statistics ITom the District Attorney's office and said the number of cases submitted since instituting the performance measures program has gone down, but the quality, determined by the percentage of filings, has gone up a ITaction. The District Attorney said that was an indicator that the quality of the City's cases has obviously not suffered due to the performance measures program. Chief Bolanos said during his nineteen years of police experience he has not discovered any police department that does not use performance indicators in some way to analyze citations or arrests in the performance of its officers. He said every police department that uses standards "looks at how the numbers relate to the performance of its personnel, and determine, along with everything else that police officers do, how that officer is doing. The difference is that in Redwood City, Palo Alto and San Carlos, we let the officers know REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 56 FEBRUARY 2, 1998 MINUTES Page No. 220 PAGE 5