thank you for being here to join me on what I consider um an incredibly special stay in my life And it is of course met with very mixed emotions that I would announce my retirement from the city of Salinas Police Department. Mayor Craig, thank you for those extremely gracious compliments and list of accomplishments that you shared with this group. But it's very important that I point out to everyone that the list that she read to you, you know, item by item I confess or not my ideas, see the role of a police chief is together, everyone together and make sure that we are all on the same team. That was my priority. I received my directive from the former city Manager, Ray Corpus and on behalf of the late Mayor Gunter and the city council that I would focus on four key things number one, either implementing or re establishing community policing. Two take a look at the collaborative reform report And not to correct the mayor. This may be my first and only opportunity to do so. It's very confusing, but in the report, there were 61 findings, but 110 recommendations, huge. Third I was to reorganize the department And then 4th, of course reduced violent crime and gang related crime. So first in order to do that, I needed to build a team. We had to make sure we were on the same page because transformational leadership is the toughest of all. It's painful, but obviously it was necessary. So at that time, about a year into my time here as police chief, I was so fortunate to have the support and approval of city management and the City council and the mayor and I was able to hire two extremely talented assistant chiefs. They came here with an abundance of experience from multiple agencies, respectively. One who was already pretty well known actually. They were both quite well known in this area. And I'm speaking of assistant chiefs. Right? So those were the key four pieces. But first, as I mentioned previously, we had to hire officers were coming out of a pretty low point at the city of Salinas Police Department, in which we only had 100 and 40 officers. Um You know, in a department that at one time had 187 sworn officers when the population was lower and when the violence was also reduced. So it was quite a challenge both for every single officer, from new officer to supervisor to commander and up to the executive level. None of this would have been possible without the support and involvement of the community, without the dedication of the men and women of the police department. Without the two men that I just mentioned the Assistant chiefs at my side in lockstep every single step of the way. So I really do a huge grit of, I'm sorry, a huge debt of gratitude to both of them because I mean we've had our times where we're, you know, we're locked into a room or planning and we're we're tossing ideas around and it's been tough and we've we've examined them closely, We've come up with different ideas and then it's like, okay, who's gonna tell the troops? So we each take our turn, uh, we consider ourselves, uh, you know, privately as uh, like the three musketeers is how we joke. But we've turned out to be a true family. The three of us, they're my brothers and they've done very very much for this community. So I emphasize that today because I want this community to understand that my departure doesn't equate to any significant change. That's something that I really set my mind to doing is creating a succession plan for Salinas police. The succession plan. So that, as I mentioned to our sergeants and officers in different meetings. I've said if I were to run across the street, uh, to the to Correa restaurant, you know, located right across the street from 3 12 East Dallas out and didn't see the bus coming and get run over by a car, a bus whatever. And I'm gone this moment today. This department needs to keep on moving exactly the way that it has. And with the two assistant chiefs Present here today, I can tell you with 100 confidence. That's exactly what's going to happen now. The bitter sweet part, it's not so much that I'm not going to be a police chief anymore. That part really doesn't bother me at all. I'd like to share that. What concerns me most and weighs on my heart is not being a police officer again. I've done this job for 27 years. I've worn a uniform for much, much longer than that. So I will say on a personal level this will be a huge adjustment. The other bittersweet piece to this is I just have met and started working for the most wonderful city manager steve Kerrigan. I could easily work for him for the next decade. And of course, everyone knows the strong support that Mayor Craig has given to all public safety, both police and fire. So that's something that I will look back upon and be very proud of. And I'm very confident that our city manager and our mayor and council and your police department are being left in the best of hands and thank you for being here.