SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — The San Rafael Police Accountability Committee on Jan. 11 narrowed a proposed list of topics and settled on seven priorities to guide its work plan for 2025: prostitution and human trafficking, youth and policing, police culture, homelessness, transparency, immigration enforcement (ICE-related issues), and reporting under the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA).

Staff presented a process for choosing seven topics — tied to the committees seven regular meetings next year — and members proposed and prioritized items after a public-comment period. "The recommendation at the end of our meeting or discussion today is 1, provide the feedback for the 2025 work plan so to decide 7 topics that we can address and then to prioritize the targeted subject areas to concentrate on," staff liaison Lieutenant Abele said during the staff report.

Why it matters: The PACs priorities will shape agenda items, public presentations and the committees annual report to the City Council. Members and many public commenters urged the committee to focus on items they said affect daily life, including traffic and pretext stops, police culture and youth engagement.

How the list was set: Staff asked members to propose topics, then collect each members top seven choices. Ties were resolved by a second round of choices. Several members and commenters urged that the committee be able to take formal votes and to strengthen its bylaws; staff and other presenters reminded the committee that the bylaws were adopted by the City Council and that proposals to change them must go to council.

Committee discussion included calls for:
- A closer look at police-culture issues and training, including the academy curriculum and field training.
- Presentations or reporting on RIPA data (race/identity profiling statistics) to examine disparities in stops.
- Consideration of human-trafficking and prostitution as public-safety and social-service issues.
- Greater transparency about the departments policies, administrative timelines and complaint processes.

Public comments shaped priorities: Speakers urged the committee to add transparency and police culture to its top priorities. Reporter Nikki Silverstein urged the PAC to include a review of the citys pattern of public notifications; several commenters urged study of binding arbitration and of ways the committee might influence collective-bargaining outcomes.

No formal votes on binding policy were taken. At the end of the session staff announced the seven priority topics that would be scheduled for 2025 presentations and reports.

Whats next: Staff said it will memorialize the list in the meeting minutes and work with the committee to schedule presentations. Members and commenters were urged to send suggested presenters and materials to staff to help with scheduling.