At its Oct. 10 Study Session, the Beverly Hills City Council heard recommendations from the Community Security Ad Hoc committee about reducing Beverly Hills Ambassador services.
The Beverly Hills Ambassador Program is a safety and hospitality program deployed in the city’s downtown to serve residents, business owners, and tourists on a 24/7 basis. Formed in 2015 and run by the independent service company Block by Block, the Ambassador Program was created to work in partnership with the city’s departments including the Human Services Division and the Beverly Hills Police Department (BHPD) to address aggressive panhandling, particularly in the Business Triangle. The team consists of 16 members and is spearheaded by Ambassador Manager Jonthon Hunter. Ambassadors carry iTouch devices to log incidents and report shift statistics and Apricot software data.
Over time, the scope of these services has grown, leading to an overlap with other departments and an increased footprint throughout the city. Ambassadors are now additionally tasked with homeless outreach, overnight parking garage checks, tobacco education and outreach, electric scooter pickup, safety escorts, and school field permit management.
The Ad Hoc committee has identified several services that overlap with the BHPD, including overnight security functions and parking garage controls. The committee believes that these functions are best left to community security firms contracted through the BHPD.
The Ambassadors also provide hospitality services throughout the city, especially in high-traffic areas. They address tourists’ questions and concerns and help educate individuals arriving into the community. When needed, ambassadors can connect individuals to the police. Especially in the Business Triangle, Ambassadors serve as the eyes and ears for merchants to protect against people selling goods in front of their businesses.
The Ad Hoc Committee recommended that ambassadors continue these functions in high-traffic and tourist-dense areas, including the Business Triangle (from Camden Drive to Crescent Drive, between Wilshire Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard) and South Beverly Drive (from Wilshire Boulevard to Gregory Way). Ambassador services outside these geographic boundaries would be consolidated with overlapping patrols contracted by the police’s security service provider.
Under these recommendations, the Ambassadors’ overnight shifts would also be eliminated and thus consolidated with the police’s security service provider and the remaining daytime services would be tailored to local retailers’ and restaurants’ hours. The new proposed shifts would be from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Mondays through Wednesdays and 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. on Thursdays through Sundays.
The final recommendation by the Ad Hoc committee seeks to enhance the professionality of Ambassadors by enforcing certain areas of conduct during the training process, such as a ban on personal cell phone use while working, enhanced training standards, and uniform appearance.
Currently, the Ambassador Program is under a $1.6 million agreement for a full year of services as part of a nine-month extension to the original agreement. As part of the next RFP process, city staff estimates costs and pricing for hourly and individual service rates to rise but may be offset by decreases in services provided under a newly negotiated contract. The budgeted amount for ambassador services in the 2024-2025 fiscal year is anticipated to be expended through the nine-month extension, which ends in March 2025. Thus, any additional services past March 2025, whether under another extension or through a new agreement, would require a budget adjustment to fund services through the rest of the fiscal year (April 2025 to June 2025), which city staff estimates to be an additional $400,000.
Vice Mayor Sharona Nazarian recognized the importance and value the Ambassadors bring to the city but agreed that the scope of their services must be clearly identified. Additionally, the Ad Hoc Committee assured that homeless outreach would remain a service area for ambassadors even under new recommendations, addressing Mayor Lester Friedman and Councilmember Craig Corman’s concerns about homelessness remaining a large issue in the city.
