CAHOOTS OVERBURDENED, CITY EMERGENCY RESPONSE UNCOORDINATED,

Study Finds

Consultants offered findings and recommendations to improve Eugene’s emergency response.

BY ALAN TORRES

Eugene city councilors heard a mixed review of the city’s police alternatives, which highlighted an overburdened CAHOOTS and a lack of coordination between emergency departments, during a work session on Jan. 18.

The review came from a study commissioned by the council in May 2022 and was conducted by BerryDunn consulting group. It was led by Michele Weinzetl, a former police chief who now works in police reform.

Weinzetl summarized the study into 13 key findings, three of which she highlighted as critical: the city needs to change how it responds to emergency calls, CAHOOTS is overburdened with non-crisis calls and there is a lack of coordination between response departments.

“At the end of the day, it’s about being efficient and effective,” Weinzetl said.

Her team found a lack of clear distribution of work between response teams, which has led to redundancies such as multiple departments responding to the same call.

She said the scope of CAHOOTS’ responsibilities has expanded over decades and called on councilors to update call protocols to limit how often the department is deployed to non-crisis calls. Acting Communications Director Cambra Ward Jacobson, gave an example of CAHOOTS providing transportation to some residents.

“It’s become detrimental to the point that city departments are reluctant to even summon them because there’s an underlying thought that they won’t be available,” Weinzetl said.

Additional findings included a recommendation to improve the city’s data management so it can collect more data, better share data between departments, streamline the emergency call center and provide more job stability.

Weinzetl praised some areas. She pointed to a city change to redesign ambulances and deploy emergency medical services separately from fire fighters, which has improved operations for both departments.

She also praised the city’s resources for the unhoused.

“You are providing what I would suggest, is an unprecedented level of service to your community that we haven’t seen,” she said.

An additional recommendation that got councilors’ attention was that the city hire a community paramedic, someone who could provide “low-level” health care to those who need it, particularly unhoused people, and