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OK, this is the um Smith County Elections Commission meeting for Wednesday, December

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8th, 2021. The time is now 3:01 p.m. The agenda was uh sent out and proper notice

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was given to all members of the, uh, the committee for a meeting to begin at 3 p.m.

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today. Here present with us is Miss uh Karen Phillips, our county clerk, Mr. David

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Stein, the Republican Party chair, Mr. Gary Barber, who is our, uh, tax assessor

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collector. Absent at present is Mr. Michael Tolbert, the Democratic Party chair.

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Um, Michelle Alcon is, is here as well as our elections administrator to give us

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an update. So we'll call this meeting to order. Item number one is received presentation

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and report from the elections administrator regarding operations of the Smith County

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Elections Office. Ms. Alcon. Hi, good afternoon. Uh, so the county judge just asked

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me to give y'all a quick update of the things that have happened in our office the

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past, uh, past few months since we, since we last met. Um, so the first thing, uh,

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that y'all need to be aware of is that the remodeling of the Elections Administration

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building is complete. Uh, the work was finished in September. The hub now has a permanent

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wall, as you can see in the pictures here. Um, the, uh, there are secure doors for

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the storage area. The AV system has been completely updated. Um, the office side

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of the building, we have a secure place for storing the voted ballots, um, a new

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office for the EA. Uh, and we have windows in the mail ballot room and the tabulation

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room, so that it will, uh, facilitate transparency for people who are, who are watching

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what we're doing during an election. They can see that we're not hiding anything.

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Um, the second thing that I wanted to update y'all on was, uh, staffing. The hiring

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of staff in the elections administration is complete. We have 4 full-time staff and

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1 part-time staff member. Uh, we do bring in 2 part-time elections, uh,

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workers, staff members, I'm not sure exactly what you would consider them, uh, for

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elections prep, both before an election and after an election. They're almost always

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the same two people that I have listed here. Uh, and then we have one person that

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we bring in, uh, as a part-time voter registration clerk to help us make sure that

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the voter registration applications don't get backlogged during, uh, either right

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before or right after a large election. So, there's myself and Edna, who's been here

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for 13 years. Um, Grace Biggs and Erica are both new hires. Uh, Trey Fields is our

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permanent part-time assistant, and he has been here for several years as well. And

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then all three of the part-time people also work early voting as early voting workers.

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And then as a quick summary of the November 2021 election, we had a total number

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of voters check in 10,839. The total number of votes cast was

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10,836. Uh, occasionally we do have what's called a walkaway, and we know exactly

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where this happened. We had, uh, one walkaway at the first Christian Church on election

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day and two at noonday. So essentially a voter will come in and they'll check in.

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Um, and they get that ballot card and they make their selections, and then instead

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of putting it in the ballot box on their way out the door, they think it's a receipt,

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and they end up putting it in their purse or their pocket, and sometimes we just

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miss that. Uh, so that's something that we're definitely gonna, gonna work on, um,

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but 3 out of the amount of people that we had at those locations, it's not too bad.

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It's, there's room for improvement. Um, and I'm not sure if y'all are aware of some

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of the categories I have listed here. Uh, so I just wanted to give y'all a quick

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review of those. A limited ballot. A limited voter is a voter who is currently living

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in Smith County. This is their county of residence, but they have moved from a new

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county and have not changed their registration yet. So, say they are registered in

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Tarrant County or Dallas County, but they moved to Smith County two months ago. They

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are allowed to vote a limited ballot during early voting at the main early voting

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location. That allows them to vote over anything that overlaps between their previous

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county of residence where they're registered and their new county of residence. So

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we did have 11 of those. We had a confidentiality voter. There are multiple confidentiality

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programs that people can be part of, uh, so we did have one confidentiality voter

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for this election. Uh, a provisional ballot is a ballot that basically means we need

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to look into that voter before their ballot is cast. Either they are not registered,

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but they claim that they did register. So them voting a provisional ballot, it gives

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us a chance to research that and either confirm that they are correct and they did

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register, there was a computer error, and their vote will then be, would actually

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be counted, or that no, they didn't do it correctly, so their vote is not counted.

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A provisional ballot also allows us to register that person if their ballot cannot

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be counted. So then they do become Smith County residents or registered voters. Did

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that make sense? You're a little confused. OK.

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A confidentiality program, I mean, the most, the, the easiest thing would be a, um,

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would be a A voter who has Um, who's in some

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type of protection program, um, abuse program, uh, there are multiple different varieties

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of those, so they could be part of the AG's confidentiality program. You have lesser

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extents of that when you see, um, privacy addresses for judges or police officers.

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That is a type of confidentiality program, but it's not on the same level.

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OK. Any other questions on the, the different categories? No? OK.

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Um, we also had, uh, 15 different training classes, just so y'all are aware for workers.

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Um, I did, uh, train 84 election workers for the November election. Some things

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that we want to take away from that election, we had, uh, Two locations that were

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huge on election day. So we've taken away that we need to, uh, prepare more, uh,

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personnel and equipment for both noonday locations and Lyndale locations. Uh, even

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if it's considered a small election. We're going to go ahead and have extra equipment

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because extra is always better than not enough. We also need to put more, uh, emphasis

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on the walkaways and make sure that we do always have a worker stationed near the

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door so we can try to catch those. A lot of the times, we put the ballot box closer

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to the door so someone can put their ballot in as they're walking out the door. So

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we can have some, a worker stationed in that general area telling people, hey, remember,

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put your ballot here. So we're just going to have to emphasize that again to make

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sure that people realize the importance of that. Uh, completing the paperwork accurately.

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We did have, uh, some paperwork that was not done completely or not done at all.

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So I'm going to make sure that we cover that in training in more depth than we did

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this last time. And then we have the election workers who agreed to work and came

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to training, and then didn't show up. So we just have to emphasize that when we have

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somebody who agrees to work during an election, that they actually come to the election

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to work, that sometimes that is a little bit difficult. Sometimes it's impossible

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because there's an emergency. We did have one of those individuals who ended up in

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the hospital. We didn't know that until about, I don't know, I think it was like

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2 o'clock on election day, but they, they had a reason for not being there. Uh, and

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they were a little preoccupied and couldn't call us and tell us, hey, I can't make

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it. So, there are times that, that is understandable, but there are also times when

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it's just not, when they just refuse to show up and we can't contact them at all.

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Um, and those are the people that we need to make note of and potentially not use

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again.

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And then, oh, I hit the wrong button. Sorry.

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And we have upcoming dates for 2022. So we do have, uh, these are the important dates,

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the major dates for the 2022 year. We do have mass mailout starting, uh, January

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1st. So that first week in January, we'll start mailing out about 148,000 voter registration

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certificates. The primary election. The May general election. The primary runoff

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in the gubernatorial election are all happening this year. Uh, just as an aside,

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for those of you who may not know, the May general election will have two constitutional

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amendments on the ballot. One of the special sessions passed 2 special or 2 constitutional

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amendments, but it was passed the cutoff date to put them on the November election.

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So they decided that the May election would have those 2 constitutional amendments.

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So, it will be a countywide election, not just a city and school election. Has there

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ever

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Party has no runoff.

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And is that typical? I don't think it's typical. It, it varies by, uh, by county.

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I have had in my previous county, I had a runoff where one party did have a runoff

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and the other didn't, but be, but that was because the state didn't have anything

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and then the, the locals didn't have anything either. So it has to be. You know,

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it has to end up being perfectly aligned.

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But yes, it has happened.

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The same.

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Well, we, what we did was we, we kept the staff the same. We were on a much smaller

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scale, so we had a lot fewer choices to work with, um, and we didn't have an issue

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with, with using the same workers, uh, but it's, if I'm, if I'm understanding correctly,

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the. If it is just a Republican runoff, the staff there can be all Republican. However,

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if we do decide to do a joint primary, that would mean a joint runoff too. So we

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would need to look into the legalities and make sure that we can do that if that's

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the case. Yeah.

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All right. Questions. Go ahead.

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So you have, uh, this information about future elections. Is it already on our Smith

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County website under your department? This, this one here, it, uh, the primary is

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on the website at the moment, and I can update the rest of it just so that the dates

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are all listed there. Yes, I can do that.

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May want to just To decide because they're so different.

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Oh, that's true. Yes, precinct chairs for the will be, will be on the, uh, runoff

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election. So there's, it's very unlikely that we will just have a single party during

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the runoff, but yeah. Yeah, it's a good addition and we ought to push that out by

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email to both sides of the party too, that, that calendar. Yeah, so everybody's aware

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of that because I'm sure that some of them still missed it.

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Any other questions for Ms. Alcon?

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All right. Uh, we promised you guys that, uh, we would, uh, come back after every

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election and have an update from the elections administrator and then, uh, give you

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an opportunity which is item number 2 to go into executive session and talk about,

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uh, how she's doing and how she's performing, so we're gonna do that at this point

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unless there's any more questions. Uh, something just popped in. Uh, so the incorrect

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paperwork that you mentioned, what, what type of paperwork are you talking about?

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It's just a lot of the simple things like um there's something called a spoiled ballot.

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So when a voter makes an error on a ballot, oh, I chose, uh, proposition A for instead

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of against, I made a mistake there. How do I correct this? As long as they haven't

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put that ballot in a ballot box, we can take that ballot and spoil it, so they won't

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use that one, and we can reissue that card to them. Um, and then that card itself

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we're supposed to log and sign, and a lot of them, they. They handled the card correctly,

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but they didn't fill out the form, so simple things like that that we really need

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to make sure that our paperwork is all accurate. Nothing that affects the legitimacy

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of the election. It's it's the small details that help us go back and

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Assist in an audit to make it simpler if there was one. Good question. All right,

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thanks, Ms. Alcon. We appreciate it. All in all, it was a fantastic election. We

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appreciate that. Uh, that's gonna take us into item number 2. We're gonna, uh, recess

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executives, uh, recess open session, go into executive session and discuss, receive

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consultation, seek legal advice regarding the commission's duties regarding the appointment,

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employment, and duties of the Smith County Elections Administrator. So, we're gonna

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do that under Texas Government Code sections 551.071 and 0.074. The time is now.

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3:15, we stand in recess. We'll come back and adjourn on the backside of this. Let's

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clear the courtroom.

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OK.

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The time presently is 3:18, 3:23 p.m. We adjourned executive session at like

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3:20 p.m. We are adjourned. No further business before this, uh, body, so we will

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see you in about six months.

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As you want to do