[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[49:13] Be careful when freedom of speech crosses over and can look like you are mocking individuals.
[49:21] I want to go on record two weeks ago, I got calls about this chairman and I said I wasn't going to say anything about it.
[49:30] But today it is on my heart. I can't speak for any of these other commissioners, but I know for me, I cannot sit in silence.
[49:40] If any of the less of these or any of the people who may be developmentally delayed or have issues that are not their fault
[49:51] of being the part of a political joke, and so I just want to go on record that's just tasteful, and I don't support it, and I don't like it.
[50:00] Thank you. Continue, Madam Clerk.
[50:04] I don't lose chair.
[50:06] Yes, sir.
[50:07] I would like to join in and say amen to what the Vice Chair indicated as well.
[50:13] We don't need that up here.
[50:15] Mr. Chair, I would also like to join in on that comment and agree with Madam Vice Chair.
[50:21] Okay.
[50:21] And thank you.
[50:24] Thank you.
[50:25] I agree as well.
[50:29] People should be able to come up here and talk about issues.
[50:32] and items on the agenda, but they should not be able to attack anyone or mock them or do anything
[50:40] like that and happy to discuss colleagues to bring in for a resolution that would prevent
[50:47] that type of behavior.
[50:51] Madam Clerk, I removed up on today's agenda on page 9, 260555, discussion update, implementation
[51:02] of Chairman Rob Pates 5.4 Plan.
[51:07] Good morning, Commissioner.
[51:08] Steve Naraki's strategy office.
[51:09] I'm joined today by Superior Court Judge Robert McBarny to go over a couple of the points of the five point plan.
[51:16] Please bring up the presentation.
[51:24] I'm going to move through the first four items you see here pretty briefly and give them more full some report at our next September 16th meeting.
[51:31] The reason why Judge McBarny has agreed to join us today at our last meeting at the last board of commission.
[51:36] there were a number of questions about the operations and details,
[51:41] both the bond review calendar, which is just recently stood up in the past month or so,
[51:46] and then trying to maintain the cadence of the consolidated trial calendar,
[51:52] which had been on a monthly cadence, so it'll be shifting to an every other month,
[51:55] but again, looking at jail, reduction initiatives, keeping that at a monthly cadence.
[52:00] So I'll work through these first four items and then turn it over judgment for our need to provide some comment on the two calendars.
[52:07] First looking at sanding up the diversion hub, we are making progress here, a draft standing order has been submitted to Judge Taylor and State Court,
[52:16] proposing real-time low-level warrant resolution.
[52:20] So State Court is currently reviewing that draft standing order and we're also coming through data to make sure that we're completely clear on the number of individuals.
[52:29] currently in jail, that would be eligible for these quick warrant resolutions around failures
[52:35] to appear, prohibition violations, and other such matters.
[52:39] And then concurrent to this, we continue to work with Department of Real Estate and Asset Management
[52:44] as well as pre-trial supervision who is currently in the trailer just outside the jail on the
[52:49] right street campus where we would have this diversion hub located in the pre-trial services
[52:55] team moving to 515 Farber and where we currently have accountability court.
[53:02] Next, the increase use of ankle monitor utilization will just need to provide a full update
[53:07] at the next September meeting. We're still working through those numbers since it's so
[53:11] early in the month. The next item, use of third party labs to reduce backlog for the DA's
[53:18] forensics evidence testing. As stated before, this is currently being evaluated as part of
[53:24] and so this process is ongoing.
[53:26] And then finally implementing automated text reminders.
[53:30] Again, this is a joint initiative
[53:31] between the clerk's office as well,
[53:33] superior court and Tyler.
[53:36] And they should be rolling this out fairly soon.
[53:39] And the next couple weeks,
[53:40] and again, I'll have a more full sum update
[53:41] at the September 16th meeting.
[53:45] Commissioner, is any questions with these items?
[53:47] Any questions?
[53:48] Okay, if we go the next slide,
[53:49] and I'll turn it over to Judge McBernie.
[53:54] Good morning.
[53:57] I'm going to have it answer questions, I know this was presented to you last time and I'll give a high level overview but it sounded like there were questions or concerns that the folks who were presenting didn't necessarily have answers for.
[54:10] The Bonnerview calendar is something we stood up about a month ago.
[54:16] It's a weekly event that occurs Monday mornings.
[54:19] It's currently presided over by
[54:32] Judge Ashley, who is one of the magistrate judges who assists us with preliminary hearings.
[54:39] The calendars have started out small for two reasons.
[54:42] One we wanted to test the concept, but two, it turns out that the universe of eligible
[54:49] the offense is smaller than we had hoped. I know Commissioner Ellis, you ran into some
[54:55] of the confusion around this when you got a list of people who are in.
[55:00] Our county jail, with very, very low bonds, and there are some people who have been in our jail for over two years, and associated with them as a bond for $2,000 or $3,000.
[55:11] But what we learn when we explore that individual is not only does he have a bond for $2,000 or $3,000 for maybe contraband in the jail, but he also has a murder case for which there's no bond.
[55:23] And so we can't simply say, who is in jail with a low bond, but we need to scrub each individual with a low bond to make sure is they're not also a probation warrant because Judge Ashley can't make a probation warrant go away.
[55:36] Is there a failed to appear so a bench warrant from another judge because someone missed court.
[55:41] So when we scrub this list it ends up being a lot smaller than we had hoped.
[55:45] The number of people who are sitting in the jail and the only thing holding them in jail is a relatively low bond
[55:52] But we get those in front of Judge Ashley and through his work public defender and district attorney
[55:58] They have resolved some of those cases on the spot sometimes the charges are dismissed
[56:02] Sometimes the bond is reduced
[56:04] It can't be reduced to zero. These are all offenses that you cannot enter what we call a UJR
[56:10] Unsecured judicial release in the old days. It was called a signature bond
[56:14] and the legislature has increasingly restricted
[56:17] judge's ability to enter UJR so it has to be a dollar amount
[56:20] and if Judge Ashley thinks it's appropriate he's lowering it
[56:24] but refining still some people can't make even that lower amount
[56:27] but at least it's shining a light on those cases
[56:29] and they are subject to review in the coming future
[56:32] if that lower amount hasn't gotten them out as well
[56:35] last thing I'll add and then if their questions happy to answer them
[56:38] we had hoped that the bail project would be a good partner in this process
[56:43] They are often, not always, but often willing to come in and post that bond if it is 5,000 or less.
[56:51] And most of the folks were dealing with their in that range.
[56:54] It turns out that the bail project also requires that that individual have programming on the outside.
[57:00] They're not just putting the tab to post the bond, but there needs to be a supportive program like pad,
[57:07] where they wrap around services, the potential for housing, et cetera.
[57:10] and the public defender's office isn't always able to line that up for their clients and so the bail project hasn't plugged in as in as many instances as we had hoped for.
[57:22] So we're going to continue this. We're actually slowing the cadence because we don't have enough to do 10 a week.
[57:28] We're going to go to every other week continue to scrub the lists and if you all think of other variables, we got to look at we're open to it.
[57:35] The current cost of the county is zero, because Judge Ashley is already in court and was willing to
[57:41] carve time out of the day when he's handling preliminary hearings, so it's already staffed.
[57:46] So everything we get is zero budget impact, but big win if people are being released.
[57:52] Any questions about the bond review calendar?
[57:57] Yeah, Mr. Ellis.
[57:58] Yeah, and just a couple of questions on them, can you educate me on the eligibility criteria?
[58:06] why just unindicted cases versus unindicted and indicted cases?
[58:11] So our next chapter would be to explore
[58:14] and die to cases in two components.
[58:16] One would be to look at indicted cases
[58:18] that are in the non-complex division.
[58:20] So other magistrates are assigned to those.
[58:22] And those are ones where our bench could say,
[58:25] we want those to be delegated to Judge Ashley.
[58:27] And he could review those bonds on his calendar.
[58:30] So we're going there to that category.
[58:32] The more complicated category would be someone
[58:35] who's in on a $3,000 bond and that case is assigned to elected judge ex.
[58:41] Our bench has an agreed that those should be sent to the bond review calendar.
[58:46] But what we intend to do is let judges know this calendar is there and if you want your
[58:51] cases, if they fit the criteria to go there, you could do that.
[58:54] And judges will decide for themselves, I'm willing to let that case go.
[58:58] Much like we have the ankle mine, I think you've all heard of the ankle monorview calendar.
[59:01] or those are often indicted cases.
[59:04] And some judges have said that Judge Manning is able to review
[59:08] the ankle monitor performance of a defendant,
[59:11] even though his or her case is in elected Judge X's document.
[59:16] Okay, current or wrong,
[59:19] it seemed like that would be a bigger universe of people.
[59:22] By definition, it would be bigger.
[59:24] We would be adding to it.
[59:26] The universe of people who are indicted with very low bonds
[59:30] and nothing else holding them
[59:31] is smaller than unindicted and nothing else holding it.
[59:35] By the time they've been indicted,
[59:36] other things can be going on.
[59:38] But that's going forward, that's what we're going to look at.
[59:40] Like I said, start with non-complex,
[59:42] where we can say those should go to judge Ashley,
[59:46] and then canvas the bench to see what the elected judges are prepared to do.
[59:51] What would be the cadence of that playing now?
[59:55] Like when would that likely start?
[59:57] So we'll turn to the non-complex universe.
[1:00:00] Or shortly, and then the cadence would depend on what the volume develops. Judge Ashley is able to do the 10 every Monday without upsetting the preliminary hearing flow that he has.
[1:00:12] We haven't tried to grow it because we haven't had the volume to grow it, but in looking at invited cases, there's a sufficient volume we could look at having more than 10 a week.
[1:00:23] Okay, so I would say not by the next session, but maybe in an October meeting Mr.
[1:00:33] Naraki might have an update as to what it's looking like if we scrub the non-complex division.
[1:00:39] Thank you.
[1:00:41] Mr. Arlington?
[1:00:44] Good morning, Joseph.
[1:00:44] Bernie, and you may or may not know the numbers, but I think it's important if we do them
[1:00:50] maybe if you don't, maybe Mr. Miracley does, the numbers will say that number is much smaller
[1:00:56] or we're talking about less than 100 or we're talking about less than 500, I think it's
[1:01:03] important at least for the public to know how many of those people have the $2,000 bond,
[1:01:09] but also have the murder charge or some other pending felony charge.
[1:01:14] great question. Mr. Naraki may know from the original estimates because I know when we were first
[1:01:21] scoping out these initiatives we took the look at who is in the jail with a bond of under
[1:01:28] $10,000. So unscrupbed list and that's when we had the key learning. Oh wait I might have a
[1:01:35] $6,000 bond on this case but I have a no bond on a much more serious case and so lowering my bond
[1:01:41] on this case, this is no point in doing that.
[1:01:43] I don't have those figures.
[1:01:45] It's noable and we certainly report back with that,
[1:01:48] but there has been surprise and disappointment
[1:01:51] that the universe of individuals who's only basis
[1:01:55] for being in jail is a low bond that perhaps could be lower.
[1:02:00] It is a smaller universe than we have forecast,
[1:02:02] because I don't think when we were first structuring it,
[1:02:05] we took into consideration the no bond murder charge
[1:02:08] and you picked up a contraband charge
[1:02:10] for what you got $1,000 bond and we were just counting how many $1,000 bonds are out there.
[1:02:17] Mr. Naraki, if you can't include those numbers in the updates, it's very important
[1:02:23] because we always get people coming down talking about the people being held with $2,000
[1:02:27] bonds and the sheriff is always disputing that narrative and so it's important, I think, for
[1:02:34] us to make sure we have those numbers and communicate those numbers clearly so that the
[1:02:39] know exactly what we're talking about and we can all get on the same page.
[1:02:45] Yes, Commissioner.
[1:02:46] And we'll have that for the next meeting or the one after.
[1:02:48] Thank you.
[1:02:50] All right.
[1:02:50] Other questions or comments?
[1:02:55] I had one more question on this before we get up to topic.
[1:02:59] You mentioned the bail project being having difficulty interceding in this because of some of their other issues.
[1:03:10] Well, not issues, but we could not be able to kind of...
[1:03:14] They require their requirements, right?
[1:03:18] If we had other partners,
[1:03:22] we needed...
[1:03:23] We needed to try to seek other partners into this...
[1:03:26] Into this... Into this... In addition to the bail project.
[1:03:29] That's what we need to explore.
[1:03:30] I think that's the right next step.
[1:03:32] We need to figure out...
[1:03:34] Bail projects, requirements or X and Y and Z...
[1:03:37] Right.
[1:03:37] what would suffice to satisfy those requirements
[1:03:39] with a pad partnership or what do they mean by supportive housing,
[1:03:45] what if the individual Georgia works?
[1:03:47] I think there are pieces out there that go in there and address it.
[1:03:52] Our learning was just that it's not so simple as get that bomb
[1:03:56] below $5,000 and then the bail project.
[1:03:59] I want to be very clear, I wasn't speaking ill of them.
[1:04:01] Yeah, they understand.
[1:04:02] They understandably have requirements because they're looking to get that money back
[1:04:05] they can reinvest it and reinvest me. So I think our next step would be to figure out what
[1:04:11] meets their requirements and so it would be more of a package and I'll tell you all through
[1:04:17] the Justice Policy Board, the expedited committee, formerly known as jail population review,
[1:04:24] that's what they're focused on is figuring out how do we build that package of support for
[1:04:29] someone with a $2,000 bond so that if someone's then funding it we can get the whole package.
[1:04:35] Got it. Thank you. Commissioner Bayer. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. I just wanted to make sure we covered the consolidated trial calendar, which is the last page of the presentation. It's seem like we were about to move on. So I wanted to make sure we.
[1:04:49] I think we're just moving to the next page. I'm not allowed to leave though we talked about it. I hope it's coming. There it is. The consolidated criminal trial.
[1:05:00] Under, consolidated, tripped on, for short, is the capstone of the work that our court has done to focus on that component of the jail population that is the hardest to reduce.
[1:05:12] You will hear from every stakeholder that there are some easy wins. If someone has a FTA, let's get them into court. If it's a real simple case, let's take a plea.
[1:05:22] Someone in jail on a murder, rape, and aggravated child molestation, you have to call that in for trial to resolve that case.
[1:05:29] That's how it gets resolved.
[1:05:32] And every judge has a different cadence in terms of doing that.
[1:05:36] What we built coming out of the pandemic was a program whereby we brought in a senior judge,
[1:05:43] and the original cadence was two weeks every month.
[1:05:46] And every judge was able to send two cases each up to four defendants each.
[1:05:51] So we got some larger cases in there as well to this calendar.
[1:05:55] It would be put together and you were prioritized by length of stay in jail, and then ultimately by the number of dispositions you had.
[1:06:03] So if 10 of my cases were resolved, and only one of Judge Pitzes had been resolved, he'd go ahead of me because he has fewer resolutions.
[1:06:10] But the focus is always who's been in jail the longest.
[1:06:14] Every judge has the same opportunity to submit the same number of cases.
[1:06:18] And we have since the creation of this calendar moved over 300 serious violent felonies.
[1:06:25] This is as if we had a 21st and a 22nd judge who was only focused on trying cases.
[1:06:31] We are very hopeful we get a 21st judge, but he or she will of course have a whole
[1:06:35] doc at civil, criminal, et cetera.
[1:06:38] And have to focus on criminal cases that aren't the serious violent felonies.
[1:06:41] But by concentrating in those cases in this program we've moved over 300.
[1:06:47] Unfortunately, that was all, well fortunately, we had the ARPA funding that has dried up.
[1:06:52] We are for the remainder of this calendar year, funding it through savings that we identified
[1:06:57] in our budget.
[1:06:59] The judge who has staffed it primarily, you will be familiar with him, Judge Emerson,
[1:07:04] I think he interacted with some of you on a case.
[1:07:07] He is the judge who we brought in for most of these calendars.
[1:07:12] every once in a while when he wasn't available we get a different senior judge.
[1:07:16] He's taking a step back and so it actually aligned with our funding limitation and he's
[1:07:20] available every other month for two weeks.
[1:07:23] So funding wise we had to go every other month two weeks but scheduling wise that's when
[1:07:28] Judge Emerson was able to man the consolidated trial calendar.
[1:07:33] We'd love to continue it, it can it allows us to move some of those older cases in conjunction
[1:07:40] and with the efforts we're all undertaken with our own criminal trial
[1:07:42] calendars, especially since we've been down a few judges, and we continue to
[1:07:47] hope for that 21st judge. It's not expensive. I estimate if we can talk about
[1:07:54] the motion's calendar in a minute if you want, but if we had a judge full
[1:07:58] time, meaning two weeks, every month, plus a litigation manager, that would be
[1:08:03] support we'd be under $250,000 to continue to move these old serious violent felonies.
[1:08:16] Does that include prosecutor or public defender?
[1:08:21] So, no, it doesn't, but they should speak up for their concerns.
[1:08:27] These are all cases that are already assigned to judges, so we're not bringing in new cases
[1:08:32] from somewhere else, and the way it primarily operates, and we have to police it, but if
[1:08:39] I were to send a case to the consolidated trial calendar, and Mr. Arlington was the prosecutor
[1:08:46] again for a minute, and Mr. Naraki was the defense attorney, I'm not supposed to be scheduling
[1:08:52] you for another case in my courtroom, because I've sent that to the calendar. And so, ideally,
[1:08:59] It's not supposed to put an extra resource drain on either office DA or public defender.
[1:09:07] It works well on the public defender side because if I've sent my case, we have the public defender
[1:09:11] and I know I can't bring one in.
[1:09:13] It's harder for the district attorneys office because they have the specialized prosecutors who are in multiple courtrooms.
[1:09:19] And so I might say I'm not going to call prosecutor Arlington in in my court room because I've sent something to the consolidated trial calendar.
[1:09:26] judge Ellis Mike because you're in that courtroom as well. And so I've here we've heard very clearly from the
[1:09:32] District Attorney's Office that they would like additional resources. The tricky part would be
[1:09:37] getting them a brand new ADA, a person wouldn't function in that space. This is where you want season.
[1:09:43] Not in the full time in it.
[1:09:46] Well, but it's also, they're trying murders and rapes. And so you don't hire a brand new ADA and have that person
[1:09:51] tackle those cases. So they would need to do some restructuring. But we've heard loud and clear
[1:09:56] that this is imposing strain.
[1:10:00] On the district attorney's office. We're pretend to speak for that group, but they've asked that there be staffing considerations for them as well.
[1:10:08] So you might want to engage with them from a court staffing. Our ability to stand a calendar up when we publish the calendar. People need to show up.
[1:10:16] It's the range that I described.
[1:10:21] Anything else?
[1:10:25] Yes.
[1:10:26] And how does Todd end with us?
[1:10:28] We have also been funding through the ARPA funding, another senior judge, who comes in.
[1:10:33] On average, a day, maybe two days a week, so not a whole week, any particular month.
[1:10:41] And to him, we have been able to send pending criminal motions that stand between the case
[1:10:47] and trial.
[1:10:48] Classic example would be in a immunity motion.
[1:10:50] So a defendant is saying, I ought not to be subject to prosecution at all because I
[1:10:54] acted in self-defense.
[1:10:55] That's basically a mini trial, the way a immunity motion works out is the state has to put up its case and the defendant says here's why it was self-defense time
[1:11:03] Consuming and often a reason why a case isn't ready for trial, and we have a senior judge who's been hearing those
[1:11:10] ruling on those thus making cases ready for trial sooner, so that has been a worthwhile investment for us as well
[1:11:17] So that that has also fit within our our
[1:11:21] spending, were we to continue that?
[1:11:24] The estimate is that that would be about 80,000 a year.
[1:11:29] The litigation manager that I described would be able
[1:11:31] to support that calendar as well, so there'd be no
[1:11:33] additional staffing.
[1:11:35] And that's one again where if I send a motion to that
[1:11:39] judge to handle, I couldn't expect those lawyers
[1:11:41] to be in my courtroom at the time,
[1:11:43] because they're arguing my motion in front of another judge.
[1:11:46] We see them as working in tandem.
[1:11:48] They're not entirely linked.
[1:11:49] It could be that the trial that is made ready because of that judge's ruling, I then tried.
[1:11:54] You don't have to then send it to the Consolidate trial count.
[1:11:57] But we have supported those judges with the same support staff.
[1:12:02] Go on back to the Consolidate trial counter.
[1:12:07] You mentioned that the judge at senior judge who had been working with this, wanted to take
[1:12:13] a step back.
[1:12:13] So, that coincide with, so you've gone to, you've cut the number and half through the end of
[1:12:21] the year, is that the way for me to read this?
[1:12:24] Second half of this year is two weeks every other month.
[1:12:31] But we did.
[1:12:32] Was that done more for funding or for, or because the judge wasn't available?
[1:12:36] I guess.
[1:12:37] Funding.
[1:12:38] It was driven by funding.
[1:12:39] That was driven by fund.
[1:12:41] But then we were also informed that that's the schedule that, that he's going to
[1:12:46] Okay, I'm going forward, which doesn't mean we couldn't identify other judges.
[1:12:51] With the budget, we'll stop it.
[1:12:54] So, that's my question how quickly could, you know, another senior judge be identified
[1:13:00] and it restored back to the same cadence and on top of that, I mean, it was sort of,
[1:13:10] when along with that, I'd be interested if Mr. Rocky's got sort of an estimate of, like,
[1:13:15] generally all an annual cost to staff, you know, for the other, for the other folks, in addition to what you just shared.
[1:13:26] But could this also be accelerated, in other words, you know, I mean, we've been pushing for and trying to get, you know, the additional judgeship.
[1:13:36] So we know we've identified the need, this doesn't exactly feel that need, because it's not a full-time judge, right?
[1:13:49] But in the absence of getting another judge or a till could, could this essentially be doubled?
[1:14:02] And you weren't necessarily anticipating that, but, you know, could we potentially double a
[1:14:07] throughput on this, or is that create others sort of logistical issues that it's probably
[1:14:12] not, you're going to be able to do that in a quick period of time?
[1:14:15] So I heard two questions in there one, immediately we could start making it two weeks every
[1:14:21] month.
[1:14:21] We could identify the senior judge.
[1:14:22] Okay.
[1:14:23] We could give back to where we were.
[1:14:24] We could do that.
[1:14:26] to Commissioner Errington's question, if we have this run every week, we have to have a serious sidebar with a district attorney and the public defender in terms of the impact that would have on their operations because their top flight prosecutors and their line public defenders would be in two places at the same time.
[1:14:45] We experiment at one point with having two judges for one of those two week periods and so it was effectively four weeks and
[1:14:54] And that proved problematic
[1:14:57] So I think that would be our constraint
[1:15:01] There should be some important dialogue with how those two offices, prosecution and public defenders
[1:15:07] office would envision being able to support it running more frequently than two weeks a month,
[1:15:14] which is already a strain, but we've managed it for three years.
[1:15:19] Okay. All right. So the priority right now is really just identifying the resources
[1:15:24] just to get back to kind of what we have,
[1:15:28] what we have currently, what we previously had.
[1:15:32] And then any future things on that,
[1:15:34] really is going to require a lot more thought to,
[1:15:38] imagine there are going to be some space issues too.
[1:15:41] Potentially.
[1:15:41] If we had two judges, it would be a problem.
[1:15:44] If it's just one, we use courtroom 1D,
[1:15:46] one of the most colonial courts that's not assigned.
[1:15:49] And even if we get a 21st judge, we're going to have that issue.
[1:15:53] One D will still work.
[1:15:54] Yeah, so we're good for now with criminal cases.
[1:15:58] I mean, what I'd like for us to try to figure out a way to do today is give some direction
[1:16:06] to our staff to make this come to fruition and get, you know, I don't think it's really productive
[1:16:14] for us to continue to sit up here and talk about it, but to actually just find the ability
[1:16:20] to get this back to restore to where we were in this operational.
[1:16:24] So, do we, and is it just the cause, is it just your cause, and then maybe it's the question for Mr.
[1:16:31] and Rocky, or do we estimate that this is going to be, we're going to need to do,
[1:16:37] I don't know, we need something, it's been operating, I guess, without additional costs,
[1:16:41] but has ARPA funding been applied to those other positions for other people as well?
[1:16:48] I believe the other departments, Commissioner Ellis, were funded under this ARPA grant,
[1:16:53] in the open grant one away at the end of the end of the end of August so just expired
[1:16:59] those other positions were also now without funding.
[1:17:02] What do you have an estimate of what that would be through the end of the year?
[1:17:09] Not in front of me right now but we do have a pretty good idea across each of the departments
[1:17:14] whether CDA is sheriff having an additional deputy works office staff.
[1:17:19] I think we know what that ask is and then could easily with the help of HR and finance
[1:17:23] That's put dollars to that and come up with a recommended amount.
[1:17:28] So I guess roughly, I'm just thinking through kind of like the analysis we had through
[1:17:31] of a state court and we had a judge and all that sort of stuff and just doing the math.
[1:17:36] So the magnitude of this probably all in is annualized less than probably about 750,000, something
[1:17:46] And they were certainly under a million, probably.
[1:17:49] And that between have to, yes.
[1:17:52] OK.
[1:17:53] It's less than that.
[1:17:54] I wouldn't want this to become a, you mentioned the clerk's office.
[1:17:58] Speak for any other agency.
[1:17:59] Right.
[1:18:00] I'd be hard pressed to see why outside the public defender's office, the DA's office, certainly need deputies in there.
[1:18:06] Right.
[1:18:07] And then what I put up there, we would need in terms of incremental work.
[1:18:15] Yeah, well maybe I'm trying to put anybody on the spot would just directly on numbers or who and all that sort of stuff.
[1:18:24] But I'd like our staff to go back and I know we've got a couple of other things that we've had sort of on here that we've continued to discuss.
[1:18:35] We're going to have at least, you know, I think we're going to have at least a million bucks worth of funding which we could identify to apply towards these types of initiatives.
[1:18:44] whether it's, I'm talking about throughout the rest of the rest of this year, it gets a little bit different in terms of, you know, an annualized figure, but I'd like to see you all come back to us with some clear recommendations around, you know, some things on here that can begin to start to move the needle and have some effect on reduction initiatives that are an addition to the stuff that we're already doing in elementary and that sort of stuff.
[1:19:10] with that a foot print of a million dollars and a minimum, I'd like to see some sort of
[1:19:18] direction. I mean, I'd like to give you all direction to do that and I don't need to make
[1:19:22] a motion from the floor to do that or not, or whether you all can kind of come back with
[1:19:28] those recommendations to us at the next meeting that we could act upon. We're going to sit
[1:19:34] around here and talk about again, but that we could act upon so we can get things like this
[1:19:38] store and then a couple other things that we know that are out there that we've
[1:19:42] vetted that we just haven't brought forward. Could you all be prepared to do that?
[1:19:48] Yes sir, we could be prepared to do that. And the funding source would be projecting
[1:19:51] against the end of year.
[1:19:54] Yeah, I can't imagine that we're not going to be able to identify at least a million
[1:19:58] bugs.
[1:20:09] All
[1:20:13] right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was really going to cover a lot of what Commissioner Ellis just covered in terms of getting the, sorry, this is more from Mr. Iraqi. But covering the, you know, getting the numbers from all of the related agencies that have any costs associated with keeping these things in mind.
[1:20:33] courts or getting these courts back to, at least where they were, if not more.
[1:20:38] I'm going to cover it to that, obviously, as with the earlier conversation, if there's
[1:20:42] not enough cases that would fit the category, then no, but obviously to address the need.
[1:20:48] But I would also say, rather, my personal perspective is that it would be good to just see
[1:20:53] that what those costs are and not necessarily limited to a particular amount, like just to
[1:20:59] know what those costs are to get it to, you know, back to where it was. And then annualized.
[1:21:04] So I guess we need the cost for this year, what we need you for the rest of the year, but also
[1:21:08] annualized, what would be the addition to the 2027 budget to keep it going beyond December 31.
[1:21:14] So I'd like to see all of those numbers of possible. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
[1:21:20] Good afternoon, Alice. One more thing too. In judgment burning with, if we acted upon
[1:21:25] Yes, and this, you know, it has to become smooth from being a grant funder program to, you know, a direct county general fund and program.
[1:21:33] In order to sort of assess, do we want to continue it and all this sort of stuff because I do think there's some pivot points to come in there and like, hey, we get an additional judge, that's going to mean.
[1:21:42] We got to consider, you know, more overall funding for that and all that sort of stuff and how does that work.
[1:21:48] Maybe some trade-offs where we want to roll that off or dial this back once we were going to get that in place.
[1:21:55] But would you be able with a courts be able to provide us with direct numbers on kind of the flow in the impact of this particular consolidated trial calendar?
[1:22:07] I know you got stuff going back to 2023, but would we be able to sort of see that on, let's say, a quarterly basis, you know, for 2026.
[1:22:18] I mean, that's the one to ask to keep the records.
[1:22:20] Okay, all right.
[1:22:21] Great.
[1:22:21] Yes.
[1:22:22] We keep track of dispositions.
[1:22:24] It could be 20 positions on the calendar.
[1:22:26] And we keep track of by putting them on there, which were pleased.
[1:22:30] You can get this mess, what went to trial.
[1:22:32] So that's ongoing.
[1:22:34] So if there is a cadence that you all established,
[1:22:38] the member just needs to ask, and I can pass that along.
[1:22:42] Yeah, because I'm adding this as a good thing.
[1:22:43] But the way it's, it should generally be something that's probably,
[1:22:48] at some point in time, temporary, if we have, we ought to be self-sustaining.
[1:22:55] Got it.
[1:22:55] Thank you.
[1:22:57] All right, anything else?
[1:23:00] Thank you.
[1:23:02] Continue, Madam Clerk.
[1:23:03] Back on page five, county manager's items under open and responsible government, 2060536 Finance Presentation Review and Approval of the September 2nd, 2026 budget soundings and resolution.
[1:23:19] All right, Madam CFO.
[1:23:22] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[1:23:23] The item that's before you today is a amendment to the annual hardware software maintenance list.
[1:23:30] It's to add two items for the library.
[1:23:35] Software license-related items, one with compressed technologies for $93,000
[1:23:40] the other with melt water for $88,600.
[1:23:46] No additional funding is being requested.
[1:23:48] They're absorbing the funding within their budget.
[1:23:52] All right.
[1:23:52] Comments are motion to adopt by Commissioner Thorne, seconded by Commissioner Ellis.
[1:23:58] In the voters open,
[1:24:05] in the motion passes, 5A-0Nays, 260537 information technology,
[1:24:12] request approval of a statewide contract in amount of $3 million with AT&T to provide
[1:24:17] telecommunication services and products countywide.
[1:24:21] All right, most of the approved by Commissioner Thorne, seconded by Vice Chair,
[1:24:24] I'll be right behind.
[1:24:26] And the vote is open.
[1:24:33] And the motion passes six shades, zero nays.
[1:24:36] 26, 0, 5, 3, 8, real estate and asset management.
[1:24:42] Mr. Chairman, I want to make a couple of comments about this.
[1:24:45] Joe Davis comes up just to remind everyone we had several years ago, began the Blitz program,
[1:24:52] which is substantially complete, absent the issue with the fire, which is prolonged that.
[1:24:58] We also added a
[1:25:00] A year later, five items which we have reported out on in each justice report when we bring that forward. Monthly, one of those was elevator modernization, but other ones who are the fire alarm system that you're all familiar with. By the way, Joe tells me that that one is now complete, nearing complete with one more inspection to get certification from the fire marshals, very good news, padded sales, kitchen equipment, laundry equipment, and then the elevator program.
[1:25:27] also just reminded you for purposes of keeping this in perspective that the number that we're
[1:25:33] at now, and asking for approval in this item, 4.4 million is less than 1 percent.
[1:25:40] I think I said 1 percent of note, I sent to you, but less than 1 percent of the overall
[1:25:45] renovation work anticipated at Rice Street.
[1:25:49] By definition, as Joe talks through this, and hopefully got a chance to look at his memo,
[1:25:54] which really laid out in great detail, the process followed.
[1:25:58] This is not an emergency purchase.
[1:26:01] So the character I, as that, is inaccurate.
[1:26:04] None of these were emergency related.
[1:26:07] They were anticipated infrastructure projects
[1:26:11] that needed to be done.
[1:26:12] They're done in advance, of course, the bonds being issued,
[1:26:15] which, of course, a good news now is we have a judge's approval.
[1:26:18] On those bonds, and we'll be moving forward,
[1:26:20] but these were from funding identified back a couple of years ago.
[1:26:24] One of the reasons that I've made that comment is running from pillar to post on every single
[1:26:31] thing that happens at the jail and getting outside the procurement process is not a good
[1:26:36] recipe.
[1:26:38] All we got to do is remember teletracks, maybe that one word and that would keep us from going
[1:26:43] down that path again.
[1:26:45] So what Joe has done is along with Felicia's support is run a discipline procurement and in
[1:26:53] This procurement, the first step was an assessment of the needs of these elevators and
[1:27:00] then the scope of work to bid.
[1:27:03] I think it was in Joe's outline that they were identified as average in nature and with
[1:27:10] replacement by 2028.
[1:27:12] So again, it defines the fact that it is a straightforward procurement process.
[1:27:18] What we do do, and I want to make sure that you're familiar with this, again, and maybe
[1:27:23] we can do a better job of communicating our approach to all of the issues at the jail,
[1:27:29] is that a group, a joint team of both Sheriff Office and County Manager's Office,
[1:27:36] many times, with Joe doing a lot of the talking, certainly, because of his expertise,
[1:27:41] meet every other week to look at issues that have cropped up at the jail and longer-term
[1:27:47] project that we're working on. EMSI was hired and focused on providing the data to support
[1:27:55] that meeting. So the number of jail doors that have been damaged and been out of service
[1:28:01] and the trend in that area is discussed by that group. Many other things are discussed
[1:28:07] by that group. But again, it keeps us data focused and then the decisions that are made on
[1:28:12] to prioritize and what to move forward, if there's a need for that are made by a joint team,
[1:28:18] not by any individual. And so that all, you know, I just say to ensure that there's a good
[1:28:27] understanding of how this project came to be, how it's posture in terms of emergency or non-emergency,
[1:28:35] anything can happen as you all know at the jail at the drop of a hat, particularly from a facility
[1:28:42] these perspective and many of us have visited the jail right after some event of that nature
[1:28:49] has occurred. But if we want to have a sensible way of dealing with these issues over the
[1:28:54] next five to even as long as ten years we need to have a process. We need to follow the process
[1:29:00] which I believe we're doing. We need to as many in many cases as possible use a discipline to
[1:29:07] to procurement and follow those rules and that will get us, again, the results that I think
[1:29:13] we want.
[1:29:14] And now that we have the bond issue, at least, approved by a judge, we can start to take
[1:29:21] advantage of reimbursement mechanisms against those future bond issues, and perhaps move
[1:29:26] even faster.
[1:29:27] But Joe, that's probably a long set up, but I want to make sure that I express publicly
[1:29:33] the huge amount of confidence that I have in Joe Davis. No one knows this jail better and no one
[1:29:38] works harder at it and in tandem with the sheriff's office and certainly no one knows the procurement
[1:29:44] process better than Felicia Strong Whitaker. So I'm going to depend on both of them to present this
[1:29:50] and answer any questions. So Joe, let me turn it over to you. All right, now we have a motion on the
[1:29:59] second and second.
[1:30:04] All right, before you begin, Commissioner Barrett has requested to speak now.
[1:30:10] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[1:30:15] With all due respect, Mr. County manager, you characterise this as
[1:30:23] not an emergency, and yet when it was presented to us on August 7th of 2024, it was presented
[1:30:32] as, quote, Dream is requesting 3.2 million to address immediate and emergency jail needs.
[1:30:39] Here's the item.
[1:30:40] And then when the work was contracted, the first part of the work was contracted with
[1:30:47] it was contracted under an emergency authorization agreement.
[1:30:53] So it was characterized as an emergency when it was presented to us.
[1:30:56] And at some point if it downgraded from an immediate and emergency jail need,
[1:31:02] we should have been informed of that.
[1:31:04] And if it wasn't an emergency, we shouldn't have used emergency authorization
[1:31:09] to procure a large space for this contract.
[1:31:14] If it was an emergency and an immediate need, then the timeline is deeply concerning because
[1:31:22] this was presented to us in August of 2024 and then it's only now in September of
[1:31:29] 2026 that we're ready to approve it and to be clear I have no issue with the fact that
[1:31:34] the cost is what it is now and I'm going to vote to support it because we need to get this
[1:31:38] But I think we have real issues here with how long this is taking.
[1:31:45] It was presented as a need in August of 2024.
[1:31:48] Yes, the report said it was average.
[1:31:50] But it was average four and elevator system of its vintage,
[1:31:54] which doesn't necessarily mean it's average.
[1:31:57] It's average for an old set of elevators.
[1:32:04] Not only if it is an emergency and immediate need,
[1:32:08] are we not even approving the spend until two years plus later?
[1:32:15] The project isn't, the work isn't even set to begin until March of 2027.
[1:32:20] And not set to complete until January of 2029.
[1:32:25] So this is a significant amount of time for something that was characterized to us in 2024
[1:32:31] as immediate an emergency.
[1:32:33] And I think that is deeply concerning.
[1:32:35] So if for some reason, something goes from emergency to non-emergency, we need to know that.
[1:32:45] And if it wasn't an emergency as it was presented and which held true for the Lerch-Bates agreement,
[1:32:52] why was that emergency authorization not used to procure the elevator services company?
[1:32:58] Either it's an emergency or it's not.
[1:33:01] And so there's a lot of mixed messaging here,
[1:33:03] which I find really troubling.
[1:33:05] I mean, I think we need to be much clearer
[1:33:07] about how we characterize an emergency
[1:33:09] when we use those words, when we use it for procurement.
[1:33:13] What does that mean?
[1:33:15] What does the public supposed to take from that?
[1:33:16] What are we supposed to take from that?
[1:33:20] I am deeply troubled by the way this has been characterized.
[1:33:26] And the gaps in the timeline,
[1:33:29] I mean, I think everybody acknowledges that
[1:33:32] Unfortunately, government moved slowly, and our RFP process is a long process for good reason,
[1:33:38] but if something is immediate and emergency, we need to be able to move faster than almost
[1:33:46] four and a half years to completion of a project, two plus years to approval of a contract.
[1:33:53] And I think, again, my concern right now is that we clarify what emergency means that
[1:34:00] We are more transparent in communicative if something is or is not an emergency and how that
[1:34:04] word is to be used and acted on by the various departments and that if it is an emergency
[1:34:11] that is communicated to everybody involved in the process of things do move along and most
[1:34:15] importantly, because again we did get two letters within a couple of days of each other
[1:34:21] from the sheriff that indicated some close calls because of elevators going down.
[1:34:28] life safety issues, so given that feels pretty immediate of a need to me, it does seem to me
[1:34:35] that we need to expedite this, and I hope that we will get this approved today, but how can
[1:34:42] we move the start date of, how can we move the timeline up so that this is not starting six
[1:34:48] months from now and finishing two years from now, two and a half years from now, or so.
[1:34:55] Those are my questions and I, you know, I would really like to know your thoughts.
[1:34:59] So...
[1:35:00] Mr. Manager, Mr. Mr. Strong Whitaker, would you care before you even get to, because this is, I'll save my comments for a little later. Mr. Manager.
[1:35:11] I'll defer to Mr. Whitaker in terms of the definition and when we use it. And again, I think in this case, when you kept saying immediate and emergency, maybe therein is the part of the problem, because some of these five items, we've reported on again, in every monthly board meeting.
[1:35:30] And even in the case of the laundry equipment, I think we said, these had not failed as of yet.
[1:35:36] In fact, we were delaying it. So fundamentally, all through this process, we were giving every indication of moving with haste, but not without the procurement process.
[1:35:48] So let me ask Felicia to comment on that. And large baits in specific.
[1:35:52] Good afternoon, Commissioners, Felicia Strongwit,
[1:35:55] Kirchie, purchasing agent.
[1:35:57] First of all, let me clarify the emergency
[1:35:59] authorization was requested for large baits
[1:36:04] to provide elevated consulting services.
[1:36:07] There was never a emergency request for the solicitation
[1:36:12] for the procurement and the installation of the elevators.
[1:36:17] So the request that was submitted and approved
[1:36:21] was for the elevator consulting services.
[1:36:27] Once the elevator consultant provided the specifications
[1:36:30] to purchasing, so that we could put out a solicitation
[1:36:34] because that was always the intent.
[1:36:37] That is what happened.
[1:36:39] I do have the details and the timelines
[1:36:41] on when purchasing received and advertised the solicitation.
[1:36:47] It did move very quickly.
[1:36:49] We received three proposals.
[1:36:50] The evaluation committee did there a evaluation process.
[1:36:59] There is always a timeline for our in evaluation because this is a very detailed process,
[1:37:07] very detailed solicitation.
[1:37:09] The proposals were very detailed.
[1:37:14] We did have to go back and ask for additional technical proposals.
[1:37:17] But, again, I do have the entire timeline for the board if I need to go through that, but at
[1:37:25] note point, was there any intent to issue the installation and the work as an emergency
[1:37:33] procurement?
[1:37:35] I hear you that that was not what was requested of you and by no means am I suggesting that
[1:37:39] you should have done something without it being requested that way.
[1:37:43] nor am I saying that you should not have done the initial request as it was requested, and that's your job.
[1:37:54] But, again, and by the way, I did have, I was not able to find the emergency agreement on the list of, we usually get, at that time we were getting a monthly list of emergency purchases and I did not find it on there, so I'm not sure if that slipped through somehow.
[1:38:11] No, it was provided, it is a ratification, I will provide them.
[1:38:15] Yeah, I just couldn't find it, I'm not saying that wasn't there, I could not find it, but my, my question still is this was presented on paper to us with the words emergency and immediate and over the two year period to your point, Mr. Anderson, I have asked numerous times about the speed of these things getting done.
[1:38:35] I have mostly been poo pooed about that, but the word emergency eventually trailed off from what was presented and then it was called immediate needs on the monthly slides that you presented us to it was called immediate for almost the full two years and only in the last several presentations did the word immediate come off.
[1:39:02] So these were being presented as urgent needs, and in the beginning, emergency needs, so much
[1:39:09] so that emergency procurement was used for part one of this.
[1:39:13] It really is odd that the consulting services to analyze something would be considered
[1:39:19] an emergency, but the rest of the project not an emergency.
[1:39:23] I don't understand that, and the logic just escapes me on that.
[1:39:28] And I don't understand how we could have gone from an emergency to not an emergency.
[1:39:32] Did something in the report just tell us, no, never mind.
[1:39:37] And if that's the case, then that should have been communicated back to the board.
[1:39:41] Because we had authorized emergency spending.
[1:39:44] And in addition, the Lerch-based report indicates very clearly that the price was at least
[1:39:48] 3 million by that time.
[1:39:50] That was their estimate.
[1:39:51] And we were told 1.65 to on paper every month from then until today.
[1:39:57] So, you know, I think the-
[1:40:00] There's a real communication problem. If nothing else, there's a transparency and communication problem here from you all back to the board and to the public.
[1:40:09] But I have some deeper concerns about what is presented to us as an emergency and how we move from that.
[1:40:17] And as I mentioned, the fact that we potentially do have real issues right now with our elevators, and we're still not going to start work until March, feels really troubling.
[1:40:28] This discussion here is a lot deeper than just these elevators in our way and later crystal
[1:40:34] Ellis.
[1:40:35] Yeah, just so I understand the emergency procurement was for the duty assessment and so
[1:40:42] forthright.
[1:40:42] Now, we learned in the assessment that maybe things weren't quite as bad as what, because
[1:40:47] we're not elevator experts, right?
[1:40:49] That's why we had to hire and gauge these people.
[1:40:50] Elevators are pretty complex.
[1:40:52] If you look at elevator repair projects or placement, whatever, and significant buildings,
[1:40:56] because they tend to take a while, right?
[1:40:58] Very few people that do it, we weren't experts.
[1:41:01] So we hired the expert, they give us the assessment.
[1:41:03] The assessment actually turned out
[1:41:04] to be better than what we thought.
[1:41:06] At that point in time.
[1:41:08] Is that a fair statement?
[1:41:09] Yes, sir.
[1:41:10] Okay.
[1:41:10] So we had a lot of other things that we prioritized
[1:41:13] that were bigger deals, right?
[1:41:15] The blitz plan so forth in that got done.
[1:41:17] That's kind of what I'm here in terms of prioritization, right?
[1:41:23] All right, maybe we're counting attorneys in here.
[1:41:25] I don't remember reading anything in the consent degree report about this being a major concern
[1:41:32] and need to be addressed, prioritize, et cetera, related to elevators, right?
[1:41:36] It was not listed as an immediate emergency concern in the report, all right, all right.
[1:41:42] So we'll just, all right, so it was here before us to approve and then to get past through,
[1:41:48] you know, just like any other project would, all right.
[1:41:53] Yes, sir.
[1:41:53] Okay. All right. Thank you.
[1:41:57] Commissioner Thorne.
[1:42:00] Thank you for that.
[1:42:02] I was going to mention that I don't believe in the consent decree that it was an urgent need that needed to be addressed correct.
[1:42:11] That's correct.
[1:42:12] And that we had lots of urgent needs that we were having to prioritize at the time and now we can go back and get to the elevator project again.
[1:42:22] That is correct.
[1:42:24] Okay, and I just want to, I mean, it was interesting that there was an article published
[1:42:28] in the A.J.C.
[1:42:30] The day our agenda came out about the elevators.
[1:42:33] So I'm hoping Mr. Reed Williams will go back and maybe edit the articles to say that
[1:42:39] the amount we approved back in August was for consulting services, not for the actual procurement
[1:42:45] and installation.
[1:42:46] And it's interesting how an article can come out
[1:42:50] the day our agenda comes out from the A.J.C.
[1:42:55] So I'm hoping we can get some accuracy
[1:42:58] and we're reporting on what we're doing
[1:43:00] and what we're not doing.
[1:43:01] But I would love to hear your presentation first
[1:43:04] before we, I did reach out to your office to ask about it
[1:43:08] because I was notified of this concern
[1:43:10] from the share of meeting that I attended yesterday
[1:43:13] that I should be outraged about the elevators, and you were gracious enough to inform me.
[1:43:21] So I encourage all commissioners up here to kind of reach out to the departments instead of casting blame right away
[1:43:30] to get a better understanding of the entire story.
[1:43:35] Can you manage to bear it?
[1:43:37] I just need to correct the record commissioner Thorn.
[1:43:40] And the original request was for 1.652 million 52,000 for the survey, the consulting and 1.6 million for the actual work.
[1:43:51] So that was actually what we approved in August of 24.
[1:43:55] And Mr. Davis will explain why that was inadequate funding after the consultation.
[1:44:00] Right, but what I'm saying is you just said that the reporting was wrong and that the only thing we approved was for the survey.
[1:44:09] and that's not accurate. We approved both.
[1:44:12] Beneath we approved both.
[1:44:14] We shake it.
[1:44:14] This is my, I do ask a question.
[1:44:16] I'm just making a statement.
[1:44:22] Your finish.
[1:44:23] Chairman, I want to reserve the right to be able to speak after.
[1:44:27] Mr. Davis speaks.
[1:44:29] Thank you.
[1:44:30] Vice here.
[1:44:31] Mr. Davis, you have the floor.
[1:44:34] As has been stated, elevated modernizations are extremely complex projects.
[1:44:39] One of the most highly speak up a little bit, Mr. Davis.
[1:44:42] Good morning, Commissioners.
[1:44:43] Joseph Davis.
[1:44:44] Real estate and asset management director.
[1:44:46] Elevator monetization as has been stated by Commissioner Ellis.
[1:44:51] Our extremely complex projects to develop and manage.
[1:44:58] In this particular case, two answers.
[1:45:00] Some of the questions that have been raised, particularly around the emergency agreement with
[1:45:05] large states. Large states is the pre-eminent third-party elevator consultant in the business and
[1:45:11] our region in the fact nationwide.
[1:45:15] We use the emergency route with large states because we had no other
[1:45:19] mechanism to hire them at the dollar value of their proposal. The elevators were experiencing
[1:45:28] down time, as they have gotten older.
[1:45:32] So we hired large bates because the best practice is to
[1:45:36] hire a third party to assess your elevators and then to
[1:45:41] develop a set of construction documents that will be set
[1:45:46] inside of the solicitation for an actual vendor to execute.
[1:45:51] One of the things that I think is overlooked is that when you
[1:45:55] are in, the issues of damaged elevators versus mechanical failures. The damages are things like
[1:46:05] bent doors. Crushed control panels where buttons can't be pressed. Those items have significantly
[1:46:12] longer lead times than say a simple component that needs to be ordered and replaced. Are we having a more difficult
[1:46:19] time finding them due to the age of the elevators? Absolutely. But when we have to fabricate,
[1:46:24] We, that's when we see elevators out of service for lengthy periods of time, and does it impact the share's office and the jail operation negatively, absolutely it does.
[1:46:36] But we also must remember that during the time following the approval of the allocation of funding, that occurred in August of 24.
[1:46:45] We began the jail blitz in September of 23.
[1:46:51] Unfortunately, the jail blitz is a very intensive process
[1:46:55] that involves multiple contractors.
[1:46:59] Had we been able to, for example,
[1:47:02] start the elevator modernization in 2025,
[1:47:06] we would have brought the blitz to a screeching halt
[1:47:09] because we were the endown elevators to an order that we would have limited the number of elevators available to both the sheriff's office and to the contractors that have to move back and forth throughout the jail.
[1:47:22] And we're not talking about one or two, we're talking five to six at any given time on any given day.
[1:47:28] The second part of that is we also subsequently started the fire alarm project, which arguably is the single most critical project that we're doing right now.
[1:47:38] And that requires the contractor to move all over the jail, particularly when considering the number of damage field devices, particularly in housing, that had to be replaced.
[1:47:49] So at one time, we had a fire alarm upgrade project going on along with the jail blitz, which we reported over the last three years.
[1:47:58] There would then no way whatsoever to facilitate the elevator modernization and light of those projects occurring.
[1:48:06] did we intentionally slow walk the process?
[1:48:10] No, we didn't.
[1:48:12] Did we not make it more urgent than it could have been?
[1:48:15] I mean, should have could have been more urgent?
[1:48:18] Could we have expedited certainly?
[1:48:20] However, the decision was made by me
[1:48:23] to go through the process at its normal pace, simply because
[1:48:28] the logistics of working in that facility
[1:48:31] with a limited number of elevators available considering the damage that's done on an ongoing basis would have been presented us with a logistical nightmare and
[1:48:42] ultimately none of the projects would have moved forward in the time frame that they should.
[1:48:48] I think the last comment that I will make on the list of other questions would be to answer the question regarding the schedule that's presented in the dead package by the vendor.
[1:48:59] Yes, they originally proposed essentially a three-year schedule, but it was always contemplated
[1:49:05] because it would be a no additional cost to the county for them to have two crews operating
[1:49:11] at a time so that we could take two elevators offline at any one time because we have two
[1:49:16] different elevator types, hydraulic, and traction that required different levels of expertise.
[1:49:22] So, ultimately, the decision to not expedite the georelevator's situation, modernization,
[1:49:33] was due to the fact we would have had major logistical challenges, and that's probably
[1:49:39] the nicest way to put it, had we gone forward that project in light of the other higher
[1:49:44] priority projects.
[1:49:49] All right, Vice Chair, I'm Drew Rancman.
[1:49:54] First of all, let me start here with the executive team.
[1:49:58] For me, you all are very...
[1:50:00] And I appreciate the information that you not only give to all of us, I appreciate you all openness to speak about any and everything that we may ask before the camera start rolling on each first and third Wednesday.
[1:50:17] That's me speaking. Secondly,
[1:50:22] county attorney, I'm going to ask you a question, I just need you to answer the question.
[1:50:26] How many people have perished in the jail?
[1:50:33] Since this has been going on, when I say,
[1:50:36] since this has been going on,
[1:50:38] since this share of has been in position,
[1:50:42] how many deaths have been in the jail?
[1:50:46] Vice Chair, I don't have that number off that half of my head,
[1:50:48] but there are certainly have been several that have occurred.
[1:50:52] And also, I would like to add to provide some legal context.
[1:50:56] this issue began in August, so in fall of 2024, and at that point we were awaiting the
[1:51:06] investigative report of the DOJ investigation of the jail. In January of 2025, Fulton County
[1:51:13] entered into a federal consent decree regarding the jail, which necessarily caused us to
[1:51:20] have to reshuffle our priorities and take a look at some of the most urgent priorities
[1:51:25] at the jail in light of the consent decree and some of the things that we had been planning
[1:51:33] in the normal course of business did have to be reprioritized at that time.
[1:51:37] And we as a body reprioritized them in order in a line with the DLJ, the monitor, and their
[1:51:48] the work of relationship that we had with them. Yes, by sure. We have been working very closely with
[1:51:54] sheriff's permit with the DOJ, and with the Court of Winded Monitor, since we've entered
[1:51:58] into this consent decree to ensure that all of our efforts and all of the resources that
[1:52:05] Fulton County puts into the compliance effort has the most possible impact towards getting
[1:52:10] us to compliance and preserving safety at the jail.
[1:52:14] Let me ask you this, that DOJ report is how many pages long?
[1:52:20] It's in the hundreds of pages.
[1:52:21] Would you say maybe about 200 pages little shy of maybe I think it may be longer than that for okay?
[1:52:27] Okay, 400 something this 400. Thank you commissioner Ellis and of those 400 pages how many references are made
[1:52:36] About the elevators
[1:52:38] So in the monitors reports since we've been in the consent decree elevators are peripherally
[1:52:44] It's excuse me, peripherally mentioned as items that we have reported on maintenance efforts.
[1:52:53] But none of the reports have highlighted them as a top priority emergency matter.
[1:52:58] Obviously, they are important.
[1:53:00] They must be functional, but they have not been highlighted as an immediate top priority emergency.
[1:53:06] Okay, thank you for that.
[1:53:07] I want to bring some focus back to this.
[1:53:09] Chairman, please forgive me if I go a different direction.
[1:53:15] Miss me with the fake outrage, okay?
[1:53:19] I received so many calls from constituents.
[1:53:23] When this was reported on the news
[1:53:26] and it was reported on agency, you know, my God,
[1:53:29] the house is on fire because some elevators.
[1:53:33] Now, I try to stay in my lane.
[1:53:36] I don't want to be in the lane of Joe Davis.
[1:53:38] I don't want to be in the lane of Felicia Whitaker and I don't want to be in the lane
[1:53:43] of our county manager unless I'm going to get their checks.
[1:53:46] Now if I'm going to get their checks, I don't mind being in the lane, but if we pay competent
[1:53:51] people to do their job and they are making decisions because I promise you, if you listen to
[1:54:00] what Joe Davis said, if all of those elevators were put out of commission at one time,
[1:54:07] It would have been a logistical nightmare.
[1:54:11] We've been on the news for that county manager.
[1:54:14] So what I'm saying is you can't win when the situation,
[1:54:18] when the person in leadership wants a new jail,
[1:54:22] new flash, new break, you're not going to get a new jail.
[1:54:27] You're not.
[1:54:29] And I don't know, I could be wrong,
[1:54:32] but I received calls from staff members.
[1:54:34] I received calls from people in the community
[1:54:36] that there is a general ideal of let them tear it up.
[1:54:43] Let the inmates tear it up and damn it we're going to get a new jail.
[1:54:48] Now that's not vice chair could do to talk.
[1:54:51] That's community people who are calling me that is employees and
[1:54:55] Farmer employees who are calling me, so me.
[1:55:00] Let me with the fake outrage about elevators.
[1:55:07] Teller tricks county attorney, how many of the emergency watches or whatever, that contract yield
[1:55:18] at how many, how many devices, depending on the reports, it's somewhere between 15 and 100.
[1:55:26] Okay, and this body approve how much money for that country.
[1:55:30] I believe that was 2.5 million.
[1:55:32] Oh, wow, I am so upset you all.
[1:55:38] Miss me with the fake outrage.
[1:55:41] You had no outrage for that 2.5 million that was spent on devices that were supposed to make a difference.
[1:55:49] And now, oh, well, they may have all day, we would just
[1:55:54] date a testing, and we would just, they, excuse me,
[1:55:59] miss me with the fake outrage.
[1:56:02] Now, I know my colleagues are not going to say what I say,
[1:56:05] because they did just not feel like that, and that's okay.
[1:56:08] But when I look at the AJC, and I will look at the news,
[1:56:12] and then the share of has a certain feeling about certain stuff,
[1:56:15] I get it.
[1:56:16] But I will never sit at this position and allow our county staff, whether it is at the front or it's the executive staff to be thrown under the bus for publicity stunts.
[1:56:34] If you're going to bring publicity stunts down here, baby, I will stunt all day with you.
[1:56:42] because our people work hard down here, our people are transparent, our people come in and they
[1:56:51] do their job regardless of whether they're going to be thrown under the bus or not. And so chairman,
[1:57:00] I will say this, if you're going to be outraged by something, this finds something other than elevators
[1:57:06] to be outraged about.
[1:57:09] I would appreciate
[1:57:11] our counted executive team being respected
[1:57:14] to work in their lane.
[1:57:18] Here again, I'm a legislator.
[1:57:20] They don't mean I can't question them.
[1:57:22] They don't mean we might not have a difference of opinion
[1:57:26] on something.
[1:57:28] I don't do your job.
[1:57:29] I don't do your job.
[1:57:30] And so I've got a trust that the decisions
[1:57:33] is that you all make our decisions made in the best interest of Fulton County and its tax
[1:57:39] paying citizens and I believe that I will stand on it until I see something other than
[1:57:46] publicity stunts I stand remaining humbled by the fact that you all are continually under attack
[1:57:54] because somebody wants a new jail. It ain't happening. Thank you, Chairman.
[1:57:58] Thank you, Vice Chair.
[1:58:00] Mr. Ellis?
[1:58:02] Yeah, Mr. Davis.
[1:58:03] I really appreciate you kind of walking us through things.
[1:58:05] One thing that sort of struck me in some of the remarks you made,
[1:58:10] with the comments about continual damage to the elevators,
[1:58:14] bent doors and that sort of stuff.
[1:58:18] I guess some of that could be natural,
[1:58:19] some of that could also be bandalism,
[1:58:23] you know, people doing something inside the elevators, that correct?
[1:58:26] Yeah, and I think we had to receive the note that all the elevators are now, I mean,
[1:58:35] or functioning at the jail.
[1:58:37] I remember that there's been down time, but they're all, so many times, mostly elevators
[1:58:41] have been functional, but we have experienced down time from time to time.
[1:58:45] That's great.
[1:58:47] Yeah, and I just struck me given that comment you made that, you know, we get,
[1:58:53] And I'll echo with Vice Chair's comments.
[1:58:57] I mean, some of the, when we received some of these core correspondence and some of the stuff, it just appears to be a little bit more contrived.
[1:59:06] But this paragraph and a letter we received from the sheriff.
[1:59:12] Last night, one of the only two functional elevators at the jail became stuck between two floors.
[1:59:18] All transporting one officer in four inmate residents.
[1:59:24] Nothing happened, but is up in his lead in, is during that time, the officer was confined
[1:59:30] in an upper aisle, but were four individuals in our custody, with no ability to exit, and
[1:59:35] critically no ill-billy officers would meet a reach for a system.
[1:59:38] I guess when I'm not into going in and trying to throw all the stuff around in the press,
[1:59:44] and all this were stuff. But when I read this, I didn't respond to it. But when I read
[1:59:49] this, the most thing that struck me the most was, what was one officer doing in the elevator
[1:59:54] with four inmates? I mean, I'm not a law enforcement professional, but I...
[2:00:00] Pretty good sense, so that's probably not the standard ratio. You probably want to, on there, if that's the case, right?
[2:00:09] Because that could happen irrespective of whether or not whatever is going on with our elevator system.
[2:00:16] So that was a piece that struck me. And then when I go and I read, you know, kind of I'm getting on track here Mr. Chairman, but this, this was invited, all of this was invited by others on here.
[2:00:29] But when I, you know, we've made this sort of the important thing that hiring detention officers is the most important thing we could do in all the sort of stuff circles back to staff in many ways.
[2:00:42] And, you know, there's a, and then the monitors report, you know, back to us, there's a, there's a quota says the ability to fill those posts are meant to detention officers.
[2:00:53] remain significantly strengthened, constrained by staffing shortages and a lack of urgency for the
[2:01:00] Fulton County Sheriff Office leadership to utilize all available resources to mitigate the profound
[2:01:05] staffing crisis.
[2:01:09] The stuff is not all unrelated. It's my point. I hope we go ahead and approve this,
[2:01:14] move forward with it, continue to get these things up to speed and I appreciate you all walking us
[2:01:20] through all of the history of this in a professional way,
[2:01:26] not in an anecdotal, whatever you want to say kind of way.
[2:01:33] All right, Vice Chair, I'll have to rock mine.
[2:01:34] Thank you, Chairman, my last comment on this
[2:01:37] is really more or less educating the public.
[2:01:43] Mr. Davis, the maintenance of the jail
[2:01:47] is who was responsible for the responsibility.
[2:01:51] I'm talking about the relationship management.
[2:01:54] And you all are required to maintain that regardless if it's something that you have
[2:02:00] to go back and redo one, two, three times a week.
[2:02:05] I'm just throwing numbers out there because I want the people to listen to understand your
[2:02:11] job and part of what you all do is to make sure you maintain something.
[2:02:16] It doesn't matter if you put something in brand new and you've come back here and parked
[2:02:23] and it's broken and not functioning by the time you get here.
[2:02:26] You got to go back and still see it by the correct.
[2:02:29] Yes ma'am, that is correct.
[2:02:30] So your job is to make sure that you maintain and a lot of things come up, a lot of things
[2:02:37] happen and your goal and your department is to prioritize and to work with the share of what
[2:02:45] the priorities are, and to make sure those that our priorities are done as well as any new
[2:02:52] service needs that come up simultaneously with that be a correct, the same bed is correct.
[2:02:58] Okay, thank you.
[2:02:59] I just want to listen to the public to know.
[2:03:01] Thank you.
[2:03:01] All right.
[2:03:01] Any other comments?
[2:03:03] Thank you.
[2:03:06] Mr. Davis.
[2:03:07] The motion on the floor is to approve motion to approve our commissioner, Arlington, seconded by Vice
[2:03:13] Chair, Optu Rock von.
[2:03:15] please vote, appreciate your favorable vote.
[2:03:17] And the vote is open.
[2:03:24] And the motion passes, six J, zero name.
[2:03:26] Next item.
[2:03:27] 26, 0, 5, excuse me, 0, 5, 3, 9,
[2:03:31] who has the rules to renew existing contracts
[2:03:33] for roof maintenance repair and replacement services
[2:03:36] in the total amount not to exceed 1,500,000 dollars.
[2:03:41] All right, motion to approve by Vice Chair
[2:03:42] after rock mines, seconded by Commissioner Ariane.
[2:03:47] And the vote is open.
[2:03:51] And the motion passes, six shades, zero nays, on pay six.
[2:03:58] 26, zero five, four, zero, request approval to renew and exist in contract.
[2:04:03] In the mountain out to exceed $1,045,000 to provide bus and shuttle services for
[2:04:08] Fulton County employees and jurors.
[2:04:11] Motion to approve our vice chair, I'll do rock line seconded by Commissioner
[2:04:14] Thorne.
[2:04:15] and the vote is open,
[2:04:23] and the motion passes, 6J-0 Nays, 26, 0.541,
[2:04:29] requests approved to increase spending authority in the total amount,
[2:04:31] not to exceed 329, 485, 80 cent, to provide an additional landscape
[2:04:39] ground maintenance lawn care services.
[2:04:41] Motion to approve of Vice Chair, up to Rockmont, seconded by Commissioner Thorne.
[2:04:46] and the vote is open.
[2:04:52] And the vote should pass this, six shades, zero nays.
[2:04:55] 26, zero, five, four, two.
[2:04:57] We request the rules to amend an existing contract.
[2:05:00] All right, for janitorial services in the amount that's exceed 1309,000, $353,000, $353.
[2:05:07] Motion to approve by Commissioner Thorne, seconded by Vice Chair, I'll do a rock line.
[2:05:13] And the vote is open.
[2:05:19] And the motion passes, six shades, zero nays. Under health and human services,
[2:05:23] This is 26.0543 public works.
[2:05:27] Request approval to renew an existing contract in an amount not to exceed $950,000 for
[2:05:33] by standby utility pavement patching and paving services.
[2:05:37] Motion to approve by Commissioner Thorne, seconded by Vice Chair, up to your right
[2:05:41] mind.
[2:05:42] On the vote is open
[2:05:46] and the motion passes, six j's, zero nays, 26.0544.
[2:05:52] Request the approval to renew an existing contract in an amount in that 60,
[2:05:57] $245,000 for bank chemicals for drinking water and treated waste water analysis.
[2:06:04] All right, motion to approve my Commissioner Thorne, seconded by Vice Chair.
[2:06:07] I'll do a rock line.
[2:06:09] And the vote is open.
[2:06:16] And the motion passes five-eight zero-nays on pay seven.
[2:06:24] 260545, request approval to increase spending authority and amount not to exceed 441,
[2:06:30] 34 dollars to provide water meter reading services.
[2:06:34] Motion to approve Vice Chair after rock line seconded by Commissioner Thorn.
[2:06:39] And the vote is open.
[2:06:46] In the motion passes, six shades, zero nays.
[2:06:51] 260546, request approval of an in-governmental agreement between Fulton County and the city
[2:06:56] of Rothswell for water main, betterments, and relocations in an estimated amount of $1,454,580.
[2:07:06] Motion to approve our Commissioner Thorn seconded by Vice Chair, up to your rock line.
[2:07:12] In the vote is open.
[2:07:18] In the motion passes, six shades, zero nays, 26,0547,
[2:07:24] Request approval over the IGA between Fulton County and the City of Milton for water-made relocations in an estimated amount of $284,800.
[2:07:34] Motion to approve by Commissioner Thorne's second advice chair, I'll do rock mine.
[2:07:39] And the vote is open.
[2:07:46] and motion passes six J zero nays on the justice and safety 260548 police
[2:07:54] request approval to increase spending authority for automobile repair services
[2:07:59] in the amount of $68,000.
[2:08:03] All right.
[2:08:03] And the motion to approve Christian Thor in the seconded by Commissioner Ellis.
[2:08:08] And the vote is open.
[2:08:16] And the motion passes six J zero nays.
[2:08:19] Now, these next three are all the same.
[2:08:21] You will sound them together.
[2:08:24] Okay, commissioners, action items.
[2:08:25] All of them.
[2:08:26] Vice Chair of the Javan.
[2:08:27] Comment.
[2:08:28] Mm-hmm.
[2:08:29] No, sir.
[2:08:32] 260549, request approval resolution to support a portable home ownership in the vine city neighborhood
[2:08:38] by approving a grant from funds previously set aside to aid in the construction of 12 new affordable single family homes
[2:08:46] and for other purposes, 260550 request approval resolution to support affordable housing in the
[2:08:53] vine city neighborhood by proving a grant to aid in the construction of an 18 unit affordable
[2:08:59] multi-family development and for other purposes, 260551 request approval resolution to support
[2:09:07] affordable housing in the English Avenue neighborhood by proving a grant to aid in the construction
[2:09:14] of a 25-unit affordable multi-family development and for other purposes.
[2:09:19] All right, favorable motion on all three back.
[2:09:21] Mr. Thorne, seconded by Commissioner Arrington.
[2:09:26] And the vote is open.
[2:09:34] And the motion passes, five-eight, zero-nase.
[2:09:38] On page eight, next three items are all administrative committee
[2:09:43] of the Fulton County Define Contribution Plan.
[2:09:46] 26, 0, 5, 5, 2, by share at dual rock mine has nominated Yannas Simultitis for a full-board
[2:09:58] report net to turn in the DC.
[2:10:00] December 31, 2028. Can all three of these be? Yes, take those. 26, 0553. If I share, I do a rock mine has nominated Kim Turner for
[2:10:11] full board re-appointment to the term ending December 31, 2029. 26, 0554. If I share, I do a rock mine has nominated
[2:10:22] done May for a full-board re-apportment to a term in the December 31st, 2026.
[2:10:29] All right, favor motion on all three, motion to do so to prove our Commissioner Ellis
[2:10:34] seconded by Commissioner Thorne.
[2:10:37] And the vote is open.
[2:10:43] And the motion passes six shades zero-nays on page nine, Commissioner's presentation and
[2:10:50] discussion items, 26, 0556, detention officer, staffing progress, sponsored by Commissioner
[2:11:00] Ellis.
[2:11:09] Update in terms of what our net new hiring position is for detention officers today.
[2:11:15] Mr. Herman, is that you?
[2:11:17] I'm so sorry.
[2:11:36] On your screen, I'm sorry.
[2:11:37] Good morning.
[2:11:38] I'm Kenneth L. Herman, junior chief HR officer.
[2:11:40] On your screen commissioners is our standard update on staff and related to the jail activity within the share office.
[2:11:51] You're familiar with this document and I'll just walk you through the charts in three different sections.
[2:11:57] The top chart is a snapshot on the hiring activity of sworn officers dedicated to work specifically and only within the jail units within the Fulton County.
[2:12:10] Sheriff's Office and illustrates our historical activities in the January to where we are now in September, September 2.
[2:12:19] To date, we have hired 103 sworn officers in detention officer and deputy roles
[2:12:27] and unfortunately during that same time period, we've separated about 45.
[2:12:32] which brings the net new hires to 58.
[2:12:37] The second portion of the chart tracks our activity
[2:12:42] with our outside vendor, the walls group
[2:12:45] who has been secured as a vendor
[2:12:48] to assist the sheriff with fill in the 392 positions
[2:12:52] that were identified as needed within the report
[2:12:57] that we received by our third party vendor.
[2:13:00] And it tracks the number of completed applications that we receive from applicants interested in those positions.
[2:13:10] After walls does their review and packages of those candidates that have passed the initial review process that is a combined review of walls and some of the questions that is shift acts.
[2:13:22] That information is sent to the sheriff's office, and then finally the last row speaks to the number of actual hires.
[2:13:29] So taking those things in order since January, we receive 1,300 plus completed packets from interest in applicants from throughout the country.
[2:13:39] Of that population, 332 have been sent to the sheriff's office for consideration, and to date 57 have been hired.
[2:13:49] One caveat that is not captured here on the table is to our knowledge.
[2:13:55] The sheriff has eliminated 181 of the 332 out of the population.
[2:14:02] So he roughly has roughly around about 100 or so candidates still in the consideration process
[2:14:10] at some way along the path within his internal operations.
[2:14:14] the last part of the chart, then again provide you with a forecast, not that we have
[2:14:22] six to seven months of good data and we can now see trends with the hiring based on
[2:14:30] the industry standard that the HR office was able to find. Our current applicant to
[2:14:37] is roughly 2.77, which equates to, for each 37 applications received from walls, we're going to make one higher.
[2:14:48] The industry benchmark that we found was anywhere between 3.5 to 5 applicants
[2:14:54] is where you need to be, which would equate to, for every 28 applications you make one.
[2:15:01] And then the yellow box, again, just as an opportunity to set the stage for your commissioners, is, you know, taking the current trend and time frame that we're seeing in higher, within the sheriff's office, what is phone officers that are working within the detention units, based on the numbers, and based on the calculations on the applicant to higher rate, the high, the first 200 of the 392, and so on.
[2:15:29] positions needed within the jail. It'll take an estimated 3.4 years to do that at the current pace.
[2:15:37] Now in recent months, we've seen an uptick in hiring. As you can see, there's a big spike in August,
[2:15:43] where I think that's the biggest amount or the highest number of hires in the month of August of 29.
[2:15:50] And I get an email on Friday that will also project how many new hires were in the pipeline for September.
[2:15:59] And I'll stop here and answer any questions that you may have.
[2:16:05] All right.
[2:16:05] Mr. Ellis?
[2:16:06] Just real quick.
[2:16:07] Sure.
[2:16:07] I mean, just not really in questions, but just put the goal up there.
[2:16:11] The goal is 200.
[2:16:12] Not a month ago.
[2:16:13] It's our yearly goal.
[2:16:14] Put it up there.
[2:16:15] 200 track up progress.
[2:16:17] We're at 29%.
[2:16:18] But that up there.
[2:16:19] That's our target.
[2:16:20] That's what we should be measuring ourselves up against.
[2:16:25] The time to fill is interesting.
[2:16:26] but it's also somewhat of a misnomer since we didn't do really jack squat up until the last couple of months, right?
[2:16:34] I mean, it was just called spade a spade.
[2:16:37] And then like we did, this it looks like this process actually could work if you did what you did in August.
[2:16:45] It can work.
[2:16:46] Yes, all right.
[2:16:47] So that's the validating piece that it can work if we follow it through and we do the work.
[2:16:52] But right now, we didn't do anything these months, so we're at 29% at a target of 200, right?
[2:16:59] Correct.
[2:17:00] All right.
[2:17:00] Put it up there.
[2:17:01] 200 is a target.
[2:17:02] 200 is a miss it.
[2:17:03] We miss the gold.
[2:17:05] Yes.
[2:17:06] All right.
[2:17:08] All right.
[2:17:09] Vice Chair, I do rock mine.
[2:17:11] Mr. Hermann.
[2:17:14] Did the elevators in and of the elevators being down,
[2:17:16] have anything to do with these people not being higher?
[2:17:22] No commissioner.
[2:17:23] Oh, wow, somebody called AJC, somebody called two five and eleven right now, I
[2:17:30] Know that sound a little Christian, but let's listen to me when I say this
[2:17:35] And count it attorney if I am wrong in my statement
[2:17:39] Please correct me
[2:17:41] These staff at issue at the jail is critical. It was identified
[2:17:49] in the report from the D.L. J
[2:17:52] And as a body, this body has done everything in its power to help
[2:18:01] attack that shortage of style. Is that correct?
[2:18:09] Yes, Vice Chair, the staffing shortage at the jail has consistently been
[2:18:13] identified as the number one top priority to improve safety.
[2:18:19] I just don't know what's going on. I'm just outraged right now.
[2:18:22] Do you see we're talking about people lives?
[2:18:27] The Mr. Herman, are you able to even speak to why?
[2:18:31] How many people did you say at the same time?
[2:18:34] We're separated from the job.
[2:18:40] The same time is if the hiring was going on,
[2:18:42] it was people leaving, do you have any information,
[2:18:46] exit interviews or anything that can speak to why that happened?
[2:18:50] Commissioners, we are in the final stages of collecting data on from that population of
[2:18:58] the 103, of course, is not volunteer environment that hopefully they provided some feedback.
[2:19:05] From what was, I will wait until the next board mean before I make an assumption because
[2:19:09] I've only seen two of what we received thus far, but we've gotten some good information and
[2:19:14] the next board meeting I'll be able to provide you a lot more detail as to what those employees
[2:19:20] that will form accounting employees working full-time in the jail, what they are saying
[2:19:25] or the reasons they left and chose another employer, other than full-than accounting organization.
[2:19:32] Because the concern of mine is if that trend keeps up, we're bleeding. It's nothing, you can't put
[2:19:43] I mean, I mean, it's nothing that we can do here even with walls, it's nothing they can do if we have that type of turnover.
[2:19:55] And so what I want to go and record here in Fullerton County.
[2:20:00] This Board has done everything that this Board can possibly do. We need help. We need a way to make sure that these people not only that are working their stay there, and the ones that have come in that are being, I guess,
[2:20:24] But then the final decision as to whether they are hired or not is at the hands of the sheriff, correct?
[2:20:34] Absolutely correct.
[2:20:35] Okay, so we need to make sure that whatever decisions are being made,
[2:20:42] that they are being made with the timeliness of the fact that the staffing shortage is very critical
[2:20:50] and it was part of what the D.O.J.
[2:20:54] This is not Vice Chair of D.O.R. Mon.
[2:20:57] This is not Commissioner Thorne.
[2:20:58] This is not Chairman Roth.
[2:21:00] It's saying it's a staffing shortage.
[2:21:03] The Department of Justice, the Monitor,
[2:21:07] from day one, identified that as being critical.
[2:21:12] So it needs to be taken critical by our department.
[2:21:17] Thank you, Mr. Herman.
[2:21:19] Thank you, Commissioner.
[2:21:21] Anything else?
[2:21:23] Commissioner Thorne?
[2:21:26] Without going into specifics.
[2:21:32] In the sheriff's office, does he have an abundance in positions while still having
[2:21:38] a shortage in the detention facility officers?
[2:21:47] And I'll couch my answer like this commissioner.
[2:21:51] In the CDLs, in the study, it did articulate the number of positions that they felt were needed
[2:21:59] for the respective ranks.
[2:22:02] When you look at that number in comparison to the current number of positions in the respective
[2:22:10] ranks, within the sheriff's department, and specifically at the jail.
[2:22:14] and says yes, there is an opportunity to better align those ranks to where we have a little bit of excess, you know, switch those around, of course, where we're short and we know we're short and 200 detention officers, that's where you're trying to add in as well.
[2:22:32] So there is an opportunity for the shares department to move closer into alignment with the numbers that were recommended in the CGL study.
[2:22:41] Okay, thank you for that clarification.
[2:22:44] All right, other questions, Vice Chair, I'll do one.
[2:22:47] Well, Mr. Herman, I'm not going to let you off like that.
[2:22:52] In the study, we not find that there was top heaviness.
[2:22:58] And what I mean by that, there were people as supervisory positions that did not have any direct reports.
[2:23:09] Yes, I'm no sir.
[2:23:11] I'm trying to think back to the study.
[2:23:14] I can't remember reading that specifically what I can say that, yes, the CEL study did say that
[2:23:20] we have higher number of ranks that is needed for the facility at that level of rank.
[2:23:26] Well, I can say it, yes, it did.
[2:23:28] It said there was a concern that their war in some cases individuals in supervised position
[2:23:36] with no direct reports, and they saw that as a problem.
[2:23:40] And so I hope that's being addressed as well.
[2:23:44] I would ask that by the next meeting,
[2:23:48] when you come back to us in two weeks,
[2:23:51] if you can just look at that
[2:23:53] and see if there has been alleviated,
[2:23:56] or if that's still a problem.
[2:23:57] Thank you.
[2:23:59] Thank you, Vice Chair, Mr. Herman anything else?
[2:24:02] No commissioner.
[2:24:03] Thank you.
[2:24:04] Next item.
[2:24:05] 26, 0557 discussion update on submission of the 2026 tax taxes sponsored by Commissioner Ellis.
[2:24:15] Commissioner.
[2:24:17] Yeah, I'm just really my question here is, or we, I've made a request for a response from the taxes,
[2:24:25] whether or not we were going to receive a digest by September 4.
[2:24:30] So, how does that information been provided to the tax commissioner or not?
[2:24:38] It's really just my question for that.
[2:24:43] Mr. Conneye, can you address that?
[2:24:45] Yes, as I've just been submitted to the tax assessor.
[2:24:51] Good afternoon, Chair.
[2:24:51] Good afternoon, commissioners.
[2:24:53] To answer your question, we have completed the outstanding land packages,
[2:24:58] and we're starting the process.
[2:25:03] Okay,
[2:25:07] that sort of answers my question, it didn't really answer my question. Is it been handed over to the tax commissioner or not, and sort of when we have a lot of side in terms of when, and I realize there's two parties in this, but when, when we could receive a digest.
[2:25:26] Well, again, our part was to complete the valuation of the information that's been provided
[2:25:32] to him as of when.
[2:25:34] So they started the process.
[2:25:36] Speak up, Mr. Conley.
[2:25:38] They started the process as of today.
[2:25:40] Okay.
[2:25:42] I guess if you want to call it, it's officially have been completed and they're in the process
[2:25:47] of finalizing the digest, meaning team members from the Board of Associates in the Tax
[2:25:52] Commissioner.
[2:25:53] Okay.
[2:25:53] So to get to a balance, they have to work together.
[2:25:57] But that information was provided to them yesterday.
[2:25:59] Yes, we complete our work.
[2:26:00] Okay.
[2:26:01] Okay.
[2:26:02] All right.
[2:26:02] Thank you for that.
[2:26:04] And in terms of, in this of maybe from Mr. Rubikki,
[2:26:09] like if we have this and if this faces itself through and we receive,
[2:26:17] what, I guess you've got some sort of like potential schedule we could be looking at,
[2:26:22] Just give us the assumption in terms of what this is based on.
[2:26:29] So, Mike, are we key strategy and performance management?
[2:26:32] So, this again is based off of our dates and what we have seen so far working with the
[2:26:38] tax assessor in the task commissioner, actually give us a couple of days.
[2:26:44] Can we go to slide number three
[2:26:51] presentation?
[2:26:53] just want to kind of give you guys based off of this. So again, starting today as Mr. Conley
[2:27:00] had stated, the tax commissioner has been told and it has been confirmed by the tax
[2:27:05] assessor that the information was submitted and has been completed for valuations
[2:27:09] and land packages. They are beginning that balancing process with the tax assessor's
[2:27:15] confirmation. Currently again, as Mr. Conley mentioned, there is review data cleanup that
[2:27:21] That team is going to be working on along with our vendor, just to make sure everything gets done.
[2:27:26] Then there is a target for completion of the balancing in mid-September.
[2:27:31] And then the estimate packages would be sent to the jurisdictions again,
[2:27:34] or along with that same mid-September timeframe.
[2:27:37] Next slide.
[2:27:38] Just to give you guys a little bit more as to what we're looking at.
[2:27:43] What we're looking at as a proposed schedule at this point in time is that in order to set the millage rate,
[2:27:50] The Board would actually approve and propose
[2:27:54] military at the September 16th, B.O.C. meeting.
[2:27:59] The ad would then be sent over to our
[2:28:01] publishers, newspapers that day, for publishing
[2:28:04] on the 23rd of September.
[2:28:07] We would also recommend a special call meeting
[2:28:09] of the Board of County Commissioners for September 30th
[2:28:12] in order to stay on a quick and timeline to get
[2:28:14] this submitted to the state, where you
[2:28:16] would have the first and second public hearings.
[2:28:18] 1 at 10 a.m. and 1 at 6 p.m. respectively, if that is the will of the board, that would then require the tax commissioner to actually submit another extension to the Department of Revenue for the submission of the digest and we would then hold the third public hearing on October 7 with the BOC to actually set the military to.
[2:28:42] the next slide.
[2:28:49] So again, one of the things we want to make sure that we
[2:28:52] everybody understands is that once the millage rates are adopted by in the
[2:28:59] tax commissioner finalizes the calculations that will be submitted to the
[2:29:03] department of revenue, we will need to get all of the confirmations from all
[2:29:09] of the jurisdictions that they've had their hearings, they've published their
[2:29:13] that's for the military, then we would actually estimate that submission to DLR around mid-October.
[2:29:22] What's we collect all that information, and then we would project the approval from the
[2:29:27] Department of Revenue would be around the end of October.
[2:29:31] And then milling of tax bills would be estimated around mid-November at that point.
[2:29:43] Two or three quick questions.
[2:29:46] Well, in this sort of points of emphasis.
[2:29:49] All right, so if you go back to page three,
[2:29:52] all of this, schedule this outline really is predicated on
[2:29:57] this balancing thing to happen.
[2:30:00] All right, correct. All right. And so for us to be able to be sitting here on September 16th, you know, approving and proposed misled rate, when does our staff need that information by to make that part work?
[2:30:17] I'm going to actually make that over to you.
[2:30:19] that was CFO.
[2:30:23] Thanks Mike. We would need it by the previous Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest
[2:30:34] in order to put an item on the board's agenda for the following week. Okay, so that means we've got
[2:30:43] a week. So what that means?
[2:30:50] Yeah, we need it basically. Sometimes the middle of towards the end of next week
[2:30:56] in order for it to be on the following, to following week's agenda.
[2:31:00] All right,
[2:31:03] so I'll ask Mr. Conley,
[2:31:07] our view prioritize a resource thing of your people
[2:31:09] to ensure that we get that not only our government,
[2:31:13] but other governments would have this by within a week's time
[2:31:18] frame.
[2:31:19] Yes, sir, you're correct, we have.
[2:31:21] OK, all right.
[2:31:24] Thank you for that.
[2:31:25] And then,
[2:31:28] in terms of for our staff and everything, just look, we've got, obviously, dates
[2:31:33] on here that we're going to have to meet, so we're just all queued up for that.
[2:31:38] We've got all the folks that need to be queued up in terms of the advertisement.
[2:31:43] And at the clerk notes here that we're going to have to stay on the schedule, we're going
[2:31:50] to have a special call of meeting in September, correct?
[2:31:55] for the public hearings, yes, sir.
[2:32:01] And, okay.
[2:32:03] And that there's no way to accelerate this schedule the way it's laid out.
[2:32:19] I think it would be difficult.
[2:32:20] I mean, the step that we have to work through is getting the authorization from the board to
[2:32:29] for our purposes as far as, as far as approving the military, we have to get the approval
[2:32:36] from the board to advertise a proposed military and have the information to submit for the
[2:32:43] five-year levy ad. So we would need the boards authorization to do that. Based on our understanding,
[2:32:50] the earliest, we would have the information and be able to present that to you was September 16th.
[2:32:58] So unless the board wanted to authorize the advertising of a proposed
[2:33:03] military without having seen any of the information, or unless we get
[2:33:09] the information earlier and the board is open to having a special
[2:33:13] call me prior to the 16th to take that step to authorize the
[2:33:18] proposed military. After that, we're tied to the advertising
[2:33:22] and requirements, the statutory advertising requirements, as well as the lead time required
[2:33:29] by the county's legal organ, which is also the now the paper of general distribution,
[2:33:38] which is where we would have to place the ad for the five-year Libyan.
[2:33:45] So the key date I heard from you on that is in less the September 16th piece move the rest of it is fixed.
[2:33:56] Is that the rest of it follows?
[2:33:59] Yes, that September 16th date spaced out based on the statutory requirements for advertising and the lead time with the newspaper.
[2:34:08] Okay. All right. Well, I would just say this just to close this out, you know,
[2:34:15] obviously the critical nature of this cannot be understated.
[2:34:20] We got a timeline now, this on record. We had one, one before. We missed it.
[2:34:25] We cannot afford to miss this again.
[2:34:29] And just whatever for all parties involved in it, we got to prioritize, you know, getting all of that stuff done
[2:34:38] over to our staff by the 15th and all these other local governments all the other local governments as well because we're going to need them to do all the same work that we have to do.
[2:34:48] Right. So, you know, hopefully when we come back on the 15th or 16th whenever day that is that this is what we're starting that process and can.
[2:35:00] We continue in that timeline through. So thank you for the update.
[2:35:05] All right. Any other questions, comments?
[2:35:07] Thank you. Mr. Connolly, before you leave, I do have a question.
[2:35:11] Regarding the commercial property, a praisel audit that we discussed back in, I guess it was probably
[2:35:17] January or February of this year, and that all came about because of the concern of the public,
[2:35:24] other local jurisdictions and this board about the high-profile trophy properties, and we
[2:35:35] request it that an third party ought it be done. What happened to that? It's a reason
[2:35:41] for that was to assure the public that I was undone understood from talking with you and
[2:35:46] your staff that we were doing everything, humanly possible, that we were doing things
[2:35:52] properly and we were recognized pretty much on an annual basis by I believe it was a state
[2:35:59] Department of Revenue, a community of us with the job that we're doing but yet still there's
[2:36:04] this belief that we're not that we're leaving millions of dollars on the table and so in order
[2:36:11] to get to the truth we and I had to ask the board and the board agreed for us to hire a third
[2:36:20] part of independent firm to look at certain properties and whatever happened to that.
[2:36:28] Well, thank you, Mr. Chair for the question, and as it relates to the state's sales ratio
[2:36:34] study, should have received more recently, the 2025 iteration, also suggesting that we have met
[2:36:40] compliance. But to answer your question, we did go through the process initially for the bidding
[2:36:46] process for their praises services. However, I think there were only two initial bidders that went
[2:36:54] through the process. One was disqualified going off my memory and the other one was not accepted
[2:37:02] by the staffing or the panel. So the decision was made to try to reengage, get some feedback from
[2:37:11] those who may have bid it, re-engaged the process at a later date.
[2:37:15] Of course, we wanted to prioritize the digest process,
[2:37:18] prior to re-engaging with that.
[2:37:21] So what's this, what is the time line now for that?
[2:37:24] I will bring the item back to my board at our next meeting,
[2:37:27] and I'll be able to update you from there.
[2:37:29] Okay, when is your board's next meeting?
[2:37:33] Next Thursday.
[2:37:34] Okay, because in the meantime, I was my understanding that
[2:37:40] Your appraisers had looked at several of these high-profile trophies, trophies, and four or five
[2:37:50] of them, if I understand it correctly, that were previously valued at a combined value
[2:37:56] of right at a hundred million, and on reappraisal, by your folk, it came out in the billions.
[2:38:04] Is that accurate?
[2:38:05] I do not believe that is accurate.
[2:38:08] There may be conversations sitting around the data centers, not the high profile you correct.
[2:38:13] It's the data centers.
[2:38:15] The data centers.
[2:38:16] But my math correct.
[2:38:18] Yeah, that would be a more accurate statement for the data centers.
[2:38:22] Okay.
[2:38:22] But you will have a firm timeline for us at our next meeting.
[2:38:28] Regarding the appraisal yesterday.
[2:38:29] I mean, all that.
[2:38:32] Okay.
[2:38:32] Yes, sir.
[2:38:32] Thank you.
[2:38:34] Anything else at this time not I entertain the motion to correct it out. We will entertain the motion to recess for lunch first of all
[2:38:43] Second of all we made discuss items that deal with real estate
[2:38:48] litigation and
[2:38:50] personnel
[2:38:51] Motion to do so my nice chair. I'll do rock one second it by Commissioner Thorne
[2:38:58] In the boat is open
[2:39:02] in the motion passes six shades zero name
[2:39:05] All
[2:39:30] right, without objection, we will resume the regular order of business, Madam Clerk,
[2:39:35] continue.
[2:39:37] Item from Executive session.
[2:39:39] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[2:39:41] The first item is to correct and amend the minutes from the May 2020-26 meeting.
[2:39:51] Board of Commissioners meeting.
[2:39:52] Item number 26-0300 to correct the reading error on that date.
[2:40:00] Coming out of executive session, I asked you to approve requests for representation, and I read out that there were items one and two.
[2:40:09] What I should have said is that there were items number four and five.
[2:40:13] So, to correct that error in the minutes and in the record, is there a motion to approve an amendment to agenda item number 26-0300 to correct the reading error in section B regarding the approval of representation.
[2:40:29] by revising the reference from items number one and two and
[2:40:34] correct them to reflect items number four and five.
[2:40:38] Right, I have a motion to do so by Vice Chair of the Rockman,
[2:40:41] seconded by Commissioner Thorne.
[2:40:43] Yes.
[2:40:44] Vice Chair?
[2:40:45] Clark.
[2:40:46] Madam Clark.
[2:40:47] Does this clear up that the way she just,
[2:40:51] our county attorney just phrased it?
[2:40:53] I'm just doing a double check.
[2:40:55] I am, are you saying that we are to go back and amend those
[2:40:59] minutes, or will this motion take care of that?
[2:41:02] It's an authorization to go back and amend the minutes themselves through a board action as
[2:41:07] is required so that it will correctly reflect the board action taken and correct my misstatement
[2:41:15] of the numbers.
[2:41:17] Okay, so noted.
[2:41:19] Thank you.
[2:41:21] All right, please vote.
[2:41:25] And the motion passes six J zero nays.
[2:41:30] Is there a motion to approve the requests for representation in items number five and number six of the executive session agenda?
[2:41:40] All right, motion to do so by Vice Chair of the Rockman seconded by Commissioner Thorne.
[2:41:47] And the vote is open
[2:41:52] and motion passes six J zero nays.
[2:41:57] No further action items from executive session.
[2:42:00] All right, any other matters that come before it's Madam Clerk?
[2:42:02] No further items.
[2:42:04] All right.
[2:42:04] The absence of any other matters we are adjourned.
[2:42:07] Thank you, Commissioner.
[2:42:08] Could I have your bottle, oops?
[2:42:15] Or a written transcript of this meeting, or if you need reasonable accommodations, including
[2:42:21] this communication in an alternative format due to disability, please contact the Clerk
[2:42:26] to the Commission's office.
[2:42:28] at 404-612-8232.