San Jose cites crime drops, new earthquake-safety ordinance and expanded emergency preparedness

An unidentified city speaker said San Jose recorded year-over-year declines in crime and is investing in technology and training to sustain those gains.

"Property crimes down 5% and crimes against people down 4%," the speaker said, and added the police department maintained a 100% homicide solve rate for the third consecutive year. The address said the city is deploying tools including a real-time intelligence center, license-plate readers and a public dashboard so residents can view neighborhood crime data.

The speaker also reported a new fee for first-responder vehicle-collision response by the fire department to sustain emergency operations. On preparedness, the city trained nearly 5,400 employees (about 91% of eligible staff) as disaster-service workers, and ran three major exercises including a flood simulation and a 7.0-magnitude earthquake functional exercise to test cross-agency response and readiness for events such as the Super Bowl and FIFA 2026.

The address said the city council approved an ordinance intended to strengthen earthquake safety for soft-story buildings, though the ordinance number and detailed provisions were not specified in the speech. Implementation steps and oversight were not described during the address.

The speaker framed the investments as part of broader public-safety work that pairs prevention, technology and readiness. No opponents or separate council votes were named in the remarks; details such as ordinance text, effective dates and vote tallies were not provided in the address.