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Novato police report highlights staffing gains and SAFE team’s diversion role
Summary
Chief Jim Neigold told the council the Novato Police Department is at full sworn staffing and outlined program growth; the SAFE mobile crisis team handled 1,340 calls (April–Dec) and resolved 96% without police or fire, prompting council discussion about expanding coverage to seven days with outside funding.
Novato’s police chief and the SAFE mobile crisis team told the City Council on Monday that policing staff levels have rebounded and that an alternative-response pilot is already diverting hundreds of nonemergency calls from uniformed responders.
Chief Jim Neigold said the department reached full sworn staffing in 2025, with recruits in the field-training program and the academy, and described a new three-year strategic plan intended to guide patrol, investigations and specialty units. Neigold credited partnerships — including the SAFE team — with improving service and reducing overtime burdens on officers.
The council then received a 10-month progress report on the SAFE program, a mobile crisis-response partnership operated through Petaluma People Services Center that is embedded with Novato Police dispatch. Lieutenant Alan Bates described the SAFE team as a two-person van crew (a crisis intervention specialist and an EMT) that operates Tuesday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and responds to mental-health, substance-use, homelessness and low-level public-assist calls.
Aziz Majid, the SAFE team director, said SAFE handled 1,340 calls between its April 1 launch and Dec. 31 — about 7% of the city’s dispatch volume — and that 55% of those calls were to people who are housed. Majid gave a breakdown of call types: about 32% public assists, 27% welfare checks, 11% outreach, 8% police/fire assists and 5% suicidal subjects. He told the council 96% of SAFE calls were resolved without requesting police or EMS; SAFE requested police assistance 21 times and fire or ambulance 11 times during the reporting period. Majid also said SAFE’s navigator has connected 143 Novato residents to services such as housing, counseling and case management.
Council members asked operational and policy questions. Councilmember O’Connor asked whether the DUI numbers reflected checkpoints or broader enforcement; Neigold said a California Office of Traffic Safety grant (about $100,000) funds checkpoints and saturation patrols as well as overtime for enforcement. Councilmember Eklund and others pressed SAFE on expanding coverage to seven days a week; Majid and Bates said the team could staff additional days if the council provided funding or if partners — including the county, Novato Fire or local hospitals — contributed resources. City staff said the council could consider any expansion during the upcoming budget process.
Council members and the chief praised SAFE’s bilingual staffing and navigator role as helping to keep lower-acuity incidents out of emergency rooms and off police caseloads. Neigold and Majid cited examples of hospital diversions and described the program as a “system stabilizer” that frees officers for patrol and higher-priority calls.
The council voted unanimously to accept the SAFE progress report, leaving open future budget deliberations about expanding hours or coverage.
