County Board - Regular Meeting

I'M GOING TO CALL THE COUNTY BOARD MEETING TO ORDER.

SUPERVISORS TAKE THEIR SEATS. OKAY. HE'S COMING BACK. OKAY. CLERK WILL PLEASE CALL THE ROLL.

RITT. RITT HERE. RYLANDER. RYLANDER HERE. SMITH. SMITH HERE. TRUSHES. TRUSHES HERE. BELGERN.

HERE.

BELGERN HERE. WEGLINER. Wegleiner here. Welsh? Welsh here. Yang? Yang absent. Andre? Andre here. Andre here. Baruchuk? Here. Baruchuk here. Blasewicz? Blasewicz absent. Boettcher? Here. Boettcher here. Bollig? Bollig here. Bollig here. Brandmeier? Brandmeier here. Brouwer?

Brouwer here.

Brouwer here. Chavla? Chavla here. Chavla here. Dantzler? Dantzler here. Dantzler here. Dulin? Doolin, absent. Downing.

Downing, here.

Downing, here. Eicher. Here. Eicher, here. Engelberger. Engelberger, here. Engelberger, here. Erickson. Erickson, here. Erickson, here. Freeze. Freeze. Freeze, here. Fuhrman. Fuhrman, here. Fuhrman, here.

Glazer. Glazer, here.

Glaser here. Gray.

Gray here.

Gray here. Heuselman. Heuselman here. Heuselman here. Jackson. Jackson here. Jackson here. Kemp. Kemp here. Kemp here. Cronin. Cronin here. Cronin here. Larson. Larson here. Lewis.

Lewis here.

Lewis here. Marin. Marin here. Marin here. Obese. Obese here. Obese here. Peterson. Peterson absent. Fossler. Fossler here. Fossler here. Miles.

Miles here.

Miles here. We have a quorum.

Okay, quorum being present, we shall proceed on to the inspirational message this evening being provided by Supervisor Ritt.

Thank you, Chair. I've had the honor of giving the inspirational several times during my tenure on the board. I've spoken of my family and my students, of community leaders both past and present, of character traits, of Yoda one time. I've mentioned my hummingbird friend Jimmy and his amazing journey each year to come back to the theaters I keep filled for him. Recently, my inspiration comes from a new place, a place of unspoken horror and of the will to survive. It calls itself a farm, but it's not a farm. It's a torture chamber. The Beagles of Ridgeland Farms inspire me. Beagles are chosen because they're exceptionally gentle and trusting. They're small, so they're less expensive to feed, and many can be crammed into one cage. These dogs spend their lives in captivity, never knowing fresh air or the feel of grass under their feet. They are the subjects of cruel medical experimentation. They are known by the number tattooed inside their ear. They endure surgeries, often with no anesthesia. Sometimes these are performed by the licensed veterinarian and sometimes by other staff. Their vocal cords are sometimes removed so their cries are silenced. As you may have seen in the news recently, 1,657 beagles have been released from Ridgeland Farms. It was one of my life's greatest honors to be present when these dogs were freed. As a beagle was taken from the Freedom Bus and put into my arms, I could feel its body tense. But its eyes also looked up at the sky, breathing fresh air for the first time in its life. After taking my beagle through a brief medical exam, I was able to bring it to a sunny garden to step foot in the grass for the very first time. With tentative steps, hope glimmered in its eyes. Once my beagle became more comfortable, I would go back to bring another one through the process, hour after hour, beagle after beagle. I spoke softly to each beagle in my arms, telling them that they would never again return to the hell they escaped from. I explained that they would get a name and a family. They would enjoy a couch and a soft bed, that they would be loved every day for the rest of their lives. Despite a literal lifetime of torture, these pups survived. I'm inspired by their resiliency. They lived. Their families will teach them to drink water from a bowl and to crunch kibble. They will learn how to run and how to play with toys. They will learn what it feels like to be safe. Beagles, like Gracie and Daisy May, inspire me. They survived torture and still maintained their kind, gentle spirits. They kept hope alive. They are inspiration with soft, floppy ears and wagging tails. I hope all of you are inspired to work with me until every cage is empty. Thank you.

All right, so I will lead the pledge then, thank you.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,

All right. Thank you, Supervisor Ritt. And we are on to special matters and announcements. Tonight, we have our youth governance program members tonight providing a presentation. So Elliot, do you want to introduce this? Or we're just going to have our students come up. All right. Welcome.

Going into YGP, I had very little understanding of how county government worked or how I could be a part of it. Through this experience, sitting in meetings and working on projects, I realized just how interconnected everything is. The 2025 to 2026 youth governance program was a great experience. Our cohort consisted of 14 students representing six different schools across Dane County.

The group began the year by diving into the Dane County Youth Assessment, using it as a starting point to better understand the experiences, challenges, and needs of the youth across the county. Rather than just reviewing the data, we worked to make sense of it, identifying trends and patterns, asking questions, and connecting the data to what we see and experience in our own schools and communities.

As we worked through this process, we built skills in data interpretation, collaboration, and communication. We translated our findings into visual mind maps and presentations, and we shared our perspectives with the UW Extension Committee. We also engage with the county leadership, both through our elected official mentors and through direct meetings with leaders. One highlight was meeting county executive, Melissa Agard, who shared her experience, advice, and personal journey in public service. This experience has helped us better understand public service and how young people can be involved through local government.

From there, we carried that learning into our two projects this year. Through data review, research, discussion, and our own observations, we identified substance misuse as an area of concern. Across schools, several common themes emerged. Many students are unaware of the resources available to them, there's significant stigma around asking for help, Students are often unsure where to go and many underestimate the risks associated with substance misuse. These various themes highlighted the importance of taking action now.

These findings reinforce a shared understanding students don't always recognize when they need help and may not know where to go or feel comfortable asking for it. To address this issue, the group explored several possible solutions and ultimately developed a proposal for a youth design support resource card. The purpose of the card is to make support more visible, accessible, and less intimidating for students. The proposed card would provide a clear, easy to access information to help students or a friend in need quickly understand where to go and what steps to take when seeking support.

As part of the proposal, we established the purpose of the card, the target audience, the messaging, and the type of resources and information it should include. We intentionally designed the concept around how young people actually seek help, quickly, informally, and often through peer support. The proposal emphasized creating a tool that feels safe, non-judgmental, relatable, and youth-centered. We recognized that our unique contributions was our lived experience and understanding of how youth think, communicate, and respond to support efforts. Our goal was to reduce the stigma, improve awareness of available resources, and make help easier to access, ultimately reducing the risk of substance misuse amongst students.

Our proposal reframed the challenge through a youth lens, creating a practical and relatable solution that meets students where they are and helps bridge the gap between need and support. The group connected with the Department of Public Health and shared this idea. The response was highly supportive, and staff expressed enthusiasm about collaborating and connecting us with additional resources.

After the success of last year's cohort for our second project, the group decided to continue the sustainability safari at the Henry Vilas zoo. The event gave children and community members, the opportunity to visit educational interactive stations. Along our six youth led stations department like land and water resources waste and renewables and uw extension shared information and activities related to sustainability and environmental education. The goal was to create a fun and engaging event that helped younger students learn about sustainability and see how everyday actions can make a difference.

We reviewed the activities created by last year's cohort and made improvements based on feedback and lessons learned. We helped update activities, create outreach materials, organize supplies, and prepare for the event. By planning and leading the Safari, we built skills in teamwork, adaptability, leadership, facilitation, and public engagement. It was rewarding to see community members actively participating in the activities, asking questions and thinking about ways they could be more sustainable. We were especially excited to see younger participants leave with new ideas and their green commitments to take action in their own lives, and we were proud of the impact the event had.

Youth have so much untapped potential. When we are given a platform to lead, contribute, and create things that benefit the larger community, we take it. This experience has reinforced the idea that if there is a will, there is a way. When young people are willing to step up and use their voices, there is a way to make meaningful impact and benefit the broader community. Being a part of this cohort gave me skills, experiences, and knowledge that I never knew that I would gain. Additionally, the projects that we worked on as a cohort directly contributed back to our community and created lasting resources for others. As we serve on boards and committees alongside adults, we also bring a fresh perspective while also becoming a more civically engaged next generation.

YGP is an experience that, no matter what you do in the future, will help you grow. We are grateful to the county board, mentors, UW Extension, and community partners who have supported us throughout the year.

We would also like to thank our amazing YGP coordinator, Ellie Moya. The work that she has done would not be possible, oh wait, for the work that she has done. Her, our work would not be possible without her.

We hope you appreciate the youth impact of this program and we look forward to your continued support in the future. Thank you.

All right, great.

Thank you so much. Supervisor Bruchic, you have.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I sent this to the clerk just moments ago. I move the following. Resolved, the Dane County Board of Supervisors commends each and every student of the 2025-26 Youth Governance Program. Thank you.

Is there a second? Seconded by Welsh. All right. Any discussion on the Bruchic motion? All right. All in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. And I'm very grateful for all the work YGP members put in this year. And I, in particular, enjoyed the program you held out at the zoo. It was really fun. And I learned a thing or two. So thank you. Supervisor Eicher. Oh, hold on. You're not in response to this. You have an announcement later. OK. Supervisor Engelberger, were you just going to speak to this? Okay, I didn't know if you were punching in for that or announcements. There you go.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to say that I've been involved with the youth governance program for the last three years and mentored three different students. And I would encourage all of our supervisors to take a look at mentoring at some point. Ellie does a great job with this program, and the students are fantastic. There are... future generation that are gonna make this country run great. And I'm totally impressed with the way these students handle themselves in meetings and I just think it's a great program. So I would encourage all of our supervisors to get involved. I also do a little bit of helping them interview. Last year, I was the only one that helped interview out of the supervisors. If we could get a few more to do that, that would be great. Help Ellie out a little bit. And it's just a great program and a great bunch of students. So I really appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. Supervisor Downing, were you wanting to speak in regards to the YGP members program? Or looking to do an announcement later?

An announcement later, please.

Thank you. And Supervisor Dantzler?

I'm good? All right, there we go. New supervisor, but we do something similar to this in Fitchburg and definitely looking to be a part of this program in the future and commend you all on the effort that you've done throughout this program. I can tell you're learning and inspired, and it's good to have young people energized about this country and about their political future. So I appreciate you all and look forward to joining and being a part of this program.

All right, there being no further remarks, thank you again, and I wish you all the best in your future endeavors, especially for those of you graduating, and maybe for others of you, maybe we will see you among next year's cohorts. Thanks again. All right, we're on to Announcements, Supervisor Eicher.

Hi, thank you. I just want to invite everyone out to the city of Sun Prairie for our Strawberry Fest at the Colonial Club, benefiting the Colonial Club. It is a great event that we do every year supporting the incredible work that the Colonial Club does. And again, that is in Sun Prairie at the Colonial Club on Saturday, June 20th. Thanks.

Supervisor Downing.

Thank you, Chair Miles. Well, this evening I would like to, on behalf of some residents in my district, introduce an ordinance amendment that would allow them to be buried on their farm. What I've learned from planning and development is that with their current FP 35 zoning it wouldn't be allowable, but they then suggested that well. You could rezone to another district that does allow it, but thinks that that's maybe not the best way to do it and suggested. THIS ORDINANCE AMENDMENT, WHICH WOULD ALLOW BASICALLY A HISTORIC USE IN THE RURAL AREAS TO HAPPEN AGAIN. SO I JUST WANTED TO GIVE YOU A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF WHAT THIS IS ABOUT AND WHY AND ASK FOR YOUR SUPPORT. THANK YOU.

Thank you, Chair Miles. Just wanted to let everyone know that we have a sister county still in Germany, and this weekend, a jazz trio, the Edgar Connect Trio, will be arriving from there, and they perform on Sunday at 5 p.m. on the UW campus at the Allen Centennial Gardens, and if you can walk or bike there, that's great. Otherwise, there is a parking lot, CW Lot 34, and bring chairs. And again, that's at 5 p.m. And they perform again next Thursday at the Token Creek Barn. And there are two shows, and those do require tickets. They're at 5 and 8 p.m. And again, back at Allen Gardens, that one's free. So if you could make either of those, that would be great. Thanks.

Supervisor Engelberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to announce that on June 20th, Saturday, June 20th, from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m., there's a Taste of Stoughton down in Stoughton, and it's at Mant Park this year. I would encourage everybody to come on down and taste all the food at Stoughton, and there's a lot of music and all kinds of other things going on that day, stuff for the kids and families, and I'm in charge of the beer tent, so come on down and have a beer down in Stoughton.

Supervisor Chawla.

Thanks, Chair Miles. June is always the kickoff of the festival season on the east side, so invite everyone out to come to District 6. The first festival is the Marquette Waterfront Festival, and that's Saturday, June 13th, and Sunday, June 14th. This year, we have Rap Boys playing. I think they sold out the Atwood Music Hall, and they are an up-and-coming indie rock band. We also have BING BONG WHICH IS A LOCAL NEIGHBORHOOD BAND THAT THEY REALLY ROCK IF YOU WANT TO COME SUNDAY MORNING YOU CAN PUT YOUR WHATEVER FLOATING VESSEL YOU HAVE IN THE AHARA RIVER FOR THE FOOLS FLOTILLA AND YOU COULD JUST FLOAT DOWN THE AHARA RIVER TO THE CHEERS OF EVERYONE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD SO THIS WILL BE THE FIRST OF MANY FESTIVALS AND YOU KNOW DANE COUNTY DOES SUPPORT A LOT OF THE FESTIVALS AND DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES THROUGH THE DANE ARTS COMMISSION SO Really encourage you all to come out and have some fun on the east side. I'll be bartending Saturday night. And what happens when I'm bartending stays with the bartending. So thank you. All right.

let's see anybody else nope i think that takes care of announcements uh i actually have just a couple well just one um june birthdays we have supervisors marin smith and trucios with june birthdays as well as our county board staff members uh kayleen dylan and lauren so so happy birthday to all of you And with that, that takes care of announcements. Any disclosures or abstentions? Supervisor Passler.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to be recorded as abstaining on H10 due to my other elected role as the president of the village of Dane.

Okay, one second. all right anything anyone else all right hearing no others we shall move on to um uh approval of payments so we have bills before us the bills over ten thousand dollars referred to the county board is there a motion Moved by Erickson, seconded by Postler. Discussion or questions?

Let's see. I also need to make sure I'm watching the registrations.

All right.

All right.

Well, I have, just to announce, there's two people registering in support. I also have two people listed as for information only, but one, I don't recall that we take testimony on the bills, is my recollection, and they're not showing up in the list anyhow, the names. So I'm not sure how that's, so, So just by way of explanation why I'm hesitating here is not used to seeing anybody registered to speak on this item. So we have a motion and a second on the bills. Is there any discussion, questions? Hearing none, all in favor of approval, say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. With that, the motion carries and the bills are approved for payment. We're on to denials of claims. We have three items here. Are there any requests for separation? None. Is there a motion to approve the denial of claims? Moved by Erickson, seconded by Rylander. Discussion or questions? Hearing none, all in favor of the denial of those claims, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries, and those three claims are denied. We're on to item E, approval of board minutes from May 14th. Is there a motion? Moved by Bollig, seconded by Fuhrman. Discussion, questions, corrections in the minutes? Supervisor Tresillas.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. I recall, and I went back to double-check the actual recording, one of the last resolutions we had before us was an item that came before PP&J. I should have pulled it up in front of me. It's the one regarding staff. It was one of the needs two-thirds to pass the approval for re-approval. essentially raising pay for our child service investigators, child support investigators. If I remember correctly, Supervisor Veldren registered in opposition, spoke in opposition. Those last few were done with unanimous consent, but that wasn't on the minutes when I checked it.

Okay, so your correction is the recording of Supervisor Veldren voting no? Yes. Okay. And you said you checked the recording?

I did.

OK. So that's a...

Supervisor Veldren, feel free to let me know if I'm mistaken.

OK. That is correct. Sorry, I was just providing my mic. Yup, that is correct, Chair.

OK, so that's a motion to make that correction to the minutes. Second. Second by Passler. ANY DISCUSSION ON THE CORRECTION OF THE MINUTES? HEARING NONE, ALL IN FAVOR OF THAT CORRECTION, SAY AYE. AYE. OPPOSED? OKAY. SO THEN APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES AS CORRECTED. ALL IN FAVOR? OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES. MINUTES ARE APPROVED AS CORRECTED. OKAY. moving on to the consent calendar we have 22 items under the consent calendar are there any requests for separation supervisor brandmeier i request uh resolution 38 to be separated which item is that uh it's on the urging the sheriff's department oh oh do it i write

Oh, is it 22? Wait, I'm sorry.

Number 22. Item 22. Any other requests for separation? All right. So item 22 will be separated. So on the balance, let me actually make sure. Again, I've got to be checking the registrations. Okay. No registrants on any of the items. So on the balance of items F1 through 21, what is before us are the committee actions. So all in favor of approval of items F1 through 21, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Those items are adopted. On to F22, which is 2026 Resolution 38, urging the Dane County Sheriff's Office to initiate a request for proposals for Dane County Jail resident communication services with enhanced privacy, affordability, and transparency standards. What is before us is Public Protection and Judiciary Committee recommendation for approval. Discussion, Supervisor Brandmeier.

Thank you, Chair Miles. I just had a few questions, and I would like to ask some questions to Sheriff Barrett, if I may. Is that the proper time to do it?

Yep, that's fine. Your question for the sheriff?

Yes, Sheriff Barrett is on.

Oh okay, well the first question I had is, I know this has been an ongoing process, but could you tell me about the last RFP process for the jail communications? What happened, like who interviewed, who put in proposals, that sort of thing?

Yeah, well, I can absolutely talk about that part of the process. I think in regards to, I would defer to purchasing just in regards to the specific standards of what was taking place and how it was working. But for us, we put in, we followed per the guidelines and within our approved budget, we only had two companies respond to the RFP, and that was Smart Communication and Viapath. Viapath was our current provider at that time. The board rejected the Smart Communications, so we then went with Viapath, made some significant changes to the contract to get it within the approval of the county board, and then the board ended up rejecting that as well, and that's where we're at right now, going towards an RFP process for our jail communications.

Why did the other companies not put in bids?

Well, there were, I believe, five to eight, five to nine different companies that came to do a site visit and walk through our facility. We don't know specifically why they did not, but I think there were conversations just in regards to the fact that we had multiple buildings, which really made it difficult for some of the companies to be able to provide the services that we needed. And again, at that time, it was only two buildings. It was the public safety building and the uh city county building um as of january december january of this year coming up we will now have three buildings so the tower the city county building and the public safety building so it was too complicated for some of these companies is that basically the issue i i wouldn't be able to speak specifically to them but that was just the gist of it they just wouldn't be able to meet our needs uh so i think you you probably summarized that pretty well okay

I know there was some talk that these contracts could maybe be filled by nonprofit companies and perhaps part of this proposal is to have free jail communications that could possibly be funded by grants. How would that work? Would they go through the RFP process as well?

Absolutely. We open up the RFP process for any companies to put in. We put out exactly what our needs are, what we're looking for in that RFP, and the companies make that decision. They have the specific time frame to come in and do site visits and learn as much as they can about the facilities and our needs before putting in. And unfortunately, we only had two bidders put in for the jail communication contract and this was very similar to what we had with the jail construction contract where we only had one bidder put in and that was myron construction even though numerous construction companies came to do their research and look at the pro or look at you know the site for the project only one put in for the jail construction project so very similar so do you have that same concern this time that there'll be not many uh proposals

with these newer restrictions?

Yeah, I think there's always a concern when you open it up that other companies won't put in or maybe one puts in, just leaving us kind of like with the jail contract where we're kind of stuck with one. The goal always is to have multiple companies put in so that there's a competitive process and not just have one company kind of lock in with what they have and what they can provide. I think that's always a concern for us, but we just want to make sure we have as many options as available. And again, how those services are provided, we just want to make sure our needs are met for the residents of our facility.

And the communication part with regards to because part of this proposal asking for a basically unlimited texting and talk pretty much and Can you tell me right now though some calls that jail residents have are already free or they work with their social worker to get them free? Can you give me examples of calls that are already free to jail residents?

Yeah, so we have already preset in a lot of the tablets, certain local resources for people that are here around the Dane County area, but also our social workers and re-entry coordinators have the authority to put into the same system free numbers. So whether it's different things that would be able, whether it's childcare, different things that they're able to communicate with. So we give the freedom to our social workers who are working with our our residents to put those numbers in so that they can continue their communication with the outside world. But also things like attorney visits, all of that is free and unlimited for our residents.

Can they call their work and their babysitters and all that?

Yes, if the social worker deems it's appropriate and approves it, it can be put in to make sure that they can make child care arrangements and other things. Also, too, as part of our intake and assessment process, when people come into our jail and they are booked in in our intake and assessment process, all of the calls in the first level there in the booking area is free so that people can communicate with the outside world to set up child care, pick up vehicles, take care of pets, things like that. And those are all free to them until they move to their housing unit.

Okay thanks, the one question I have too because right now there's part of this resolution is about for communications we're looking for either a partially subsidized tier, a fully subsidized tier and no prohibitions on tablet usage fees or so tablet usage would be free. Do you have estimates on usage currently and that's the paid usage? to give an estimate on how much this would cost if you actually provided this?

Absolutely, Supervisor Brandmeier. I think, I guess we don't know exactly what it would be, but we look at the current usage right now and I think that would, I don't know if that would be an accurate estimate because again, there's costs associated with that communication. I believe that the usage would go up if it was completely free, just like anything else, right? If it was free communication, free texting, free phone calls, I think the usage would go up, which I think would in return increase the cost. But again, it's very difficult to see specifically what that is. I do know that other agencies have noted an increase around 59 to 60% when they switch to free. So that's just based off of some of the research that we looked into.

Okay, thank you. And then one other question, because part of this is, and I think the concept of having phone calls available for jail residents is important. You know, there has been proven steps about reducing recidivism and those kind of things. But sometimes I have a couple of concerns, which maybe I will address now, is that I think we maybe paint an inaccurate picture about what's going on in our jail. I feel like there's some people that are there that, you know, Maybe they're staying there because they can't make bail. There are some programs in place. They're not that perfect. But there's also people in jail that are there for good reasons. And I think part of what's left out of this equation is the other side of the person in jail. There was a victim of a crime. They're all innocent until proven guilty. But there are people that have done some things in jail that they should be in jail for their time. Do you have, can you give any examples of maybe like currently who's in jail and what they might be accused of, or is that not allowed?

Yeah, I can give a range. Obviously, the lowest level, I believe, in our facility would be somebody that's on a...

It's not... I was just going to say, the question is not germane to the resolution. Okay.

Well, all right. Then I don't have any questions for Sheriff Baird. But the only thing about this, I look at this resolution and I just... I like the idea of unlimited phone calls for jail residents. if possible, but we also have to look at the way this is written, because I think the way it's written, it puts us in a position where nobody's going to bid on this, because everybody who goes into this is going to need to, you know, they're not going to be doing it for free. I mean, any outside company is always going to need an incentive to, you know, take the bid, even if it's a non-profit. They like having the data from all these things. So if you look at the way it's written, it almost assuredly makes the cost of these phone calls fall upon the county budget. And when we're in a situation of a $15 million budget, I think that now is not the time. The last contract made incremental improvements the jail call system. It's not perfect, but it was slightly better. And I think that's a step in the right direction. But until we get like the rest of our house in order budgetarily to add something on and it's an unknown cost, it could be potentially limitless because there's no amount of phone calls that would be paid for. And if it's unlimited, you know how much everybody would use. So I think the point of this is I don't... This resolution is setting us up to be on the hook for the cost of all the free phone calls at the jail. And while that's a nice idea, I don't think at this point in time is the time to be doing it.

Thank you, Supervisor Brandmeier. I'm going to pause for a moment with Supervisor's questions and discussion because having a little technical challenge with my registration list up here, it's given me mixed messages. We do have a speaker. No, it's gone. One second. There we go. We have a registrant online, Kelly Splee, wishing to speak in favor. Is our speaker promoted? Oh, sorry.

Kelly was promoted, but she is not accepted.

Oh, okay. It's just SPLI in the registration, so. Okay. All right, so I'm guessing she is here for information only then. So not registered to speak. All right, further discussion, Supervisor Furman.

Thank you, Chair. I think there's a misunderstanding on what this resolution is doing. It doesn't obligate us to do anything, to be very clear. The previous RFP process went out without community or committee input. And then after that, we saw two contracts fail. because they did not match the values of the board or the values of the community that spoke up. What this does is try to give the Sheriff's Department guidance on what we're looking for as a board. And I'm gonna make clear in here is it doesn't say that we're expecting it to be fully subsidized, and it doesn't actually even make clear what the partially subsidized tier looks like. It gives vendors the ability to say if Dane County wishes to purchase bulk minutes, And to be very clear, it looks at voice, text, and video. If the county wishes to purchase bulk voice, text, or video, this is what the cost would be. And so it will allow vendors to give the county that information and the county can elect to purchase that based on budget that would need to be made available, whether that be through grants or work that supervisors will do to find money for this. But there is no obligation for the county to purchase bulk minutes. and there is no obligation for it to be fully subsidized. Very much what this is trying to do is understand the options. It's incredibly hard to budget and pay for this type of communication without knowing how much it costs. And so, you know, this does not put us on the hook to pay for anything, but it also clearly does though make it clear that basic tablet usage, so that's not watching movies or reading books necessarily, but both contracts that we had looked at talked about basic tablet usage. should be free. So we saw in the Viapath contract that text communication, there was a charge per minute, which would have been very expensive for residents that may have struggled to get a text message. It also adds enhanced data privacy, not allowing the sale of our data to advertisers and unauthorized third parties. The county data should never be sold to advertisers. People who are contacting jail residents, their information should not be sold to advertisers or third parties for profit. People expect privacy when they're communicating with their friends and family and have that not be sold. And also make clear that that information does belong to the Sheriff's Department. I will also say that there were very, very specific technical standards in the January 2025 RFP. This says that that should continue. And if anybody wanted to go into that, they can go look at that RFP and see it. That included the ability for the Sheriff's Department to log calls, monitor calls, et cetera, for the safety and security of the jail and jail residents. So this is... This is an effort to make sure that the next contract is something that we can pass, that we don't keep going around in a circle and not have something to evaluate that matches our values. Thank you.

Anyone, any further discussion? Supervisor Brandmeier for a second time.

Yes, just I'm reading it and I don't see how one of the following subsidized communication options and then you list two of them, how that does not commit us to do something with Dane County money because if somebody comes in and they're not willing, you know, we said that's what we want, we want this and if the company who submits for the RFP does not provide that, then it says that Dane County will. Doesn't it, if you read it that way? So maybe an option is, you know, like take that part out. I think the Sheriff's Department is well aware of what is expected from this contract. And my fear is by having this resolution, I know the intent is to help us increase the, you know, make the RFP process go faster. If we work together, you know, everybody knows what they want, this whole process will go. But I'm afraid that this is so restrictive that you'll wind up back at square one again, because there'll be, you know, a company that comes in that doesn't meet all these demands. And then, you know, then the unlimited texting and talk will fall upon the county. That's my concern.

Supervisor Fuhrman, were you wishing to?

Yeah, I'll speak for a second time and invite any supervisor interested in talking about this more. We will have an RFP discussion at our next PPNJ on Tuesday. The intent of this is for an option to be available. Nowhere does it say that option, you know, that we want these vendors to provide an option for us to utilize bulk rates for, to be able to utilize bulk rates to buy voice, text, and video. And some of the vendors may decide to say, okay, if Dane County's paying for the whole thing, here's what that option looks like. But there's no, there's nothing in here, there's no intent to obligate the provider to, force us to subsidize it. That's certainly not the intent, and based on my discussions with the Sheriff Department, that's not how the RFP is going out, saying that we absolutely would be buying 10% of the minutes, or 20%, or 50%, or 100% for that matter. But I think it's important for us to understand, is there a price difference? Are these vendors gonna offer a price difference if we decided to pay for some or all of the available stuff? I think the RFE discussion on Tuesday, we'll get into more detail on that, but the intent of this is not to obligate any sort of conclusion on what that purchase would look like.

Supervisor Trujillo.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. There was a lot of conversation regarding this item at our last PPNJ meeting, not to rehash every single point of contention or concern or question that went on there. There was a lot of discussion regarding how the RFP would be set up given that, you know, depending on how you read this the dual process or two different rfps that would be requested but the sheriff's department has a very good understanding of what the intent of the resolution is which is namely to give us options um to bake in a partial uh coverage as the base and then if they are able to cover at a larger percentage what that would look like it's meant to be very flexible the sheriff's office will be the ones handling it um we are seeking an advisory role in that capacity and that's something that we continue to We did have talked about with the sheriff's department and we'll continue to talk about with them.

Supervisor Parushik.

Thank you. Question, does this resolution bind us by law?

No, but you want to speak to it?

Well, it does in a sense that it will dictate what the contract that will ultimately come before the board will have. YES, CORRECT.

ANYONE ELSE? OKAY. AGAIN, WHAT IS BEFORE US ON RESOLUTION 38 IS PUBLIC PROTECTION AND JUDICIARY COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION FOR APPROVAL. ALL IN FAVOR? Pardon? Oh, when it's recommended by standing committee, that's what's before us without a motion. So, I heard the roll call request. The clerk will please call the roll.

Ritt? Ritt, aye. Ritt, aye. Rylander? Rylander, aye. Rylander, aye. Smith? Smith, aye. Smith, aye. Truccius? Truccius, aye. Truccius, aye. Belgin?

Aye.

Eldrin, aye. Wegleiner? Aye. Wegleiner, aye. Welsh? Welsh, aye. Welsh, aye. Yang? Yang absent. Andre? Andre, aye. Baruchuk? No. Baruchuk, no. Blaisawitz? Blaisawitz absent. Boettcher? Aye. Boettcher, aye. Bollig? Bollig, aye. Bollig, aye. Brandmeier? Brandmeier, no. Brouwer? Brouwer, aye.

Aye.

Aye. Chavala? Chavala, aye. Chavala, aye. Dantzler? Aye. Dantzler, aye. Doolin? Doolin absent. Downing?

Aye.

Downing, aye. Eicher?

Aye.

Eicher, aye. Engelberger? Engelberger, aye. Engelberger, aye. Erickson? Erickson, aye. Erickson, aye. Freese? Freese, aye. Freese, aye. Furman? Furman, aye. Furman, aye. Glaser? Glazer absent. Gray.

Gray, aye.

Gray, aye. Heuselman. Aye. Heuselman, aye. Jackson. Jackson, aye. Jackson, aye. Kemp. Kemp, aye. Kroening. Kroening, aye. Kroening, aye. Larson. Larson, aye. Larson, aye. Lewis.

Aye.

Lewis, aye. Marin. Marin, aye. Marin, aye. Obesee. Avici, aye. Peterson? Peterson absent. Posler? Posler, aye. Posler, aye. Miles?

Miles, aye. Miles. Supervisor Glazer, you can mic in now if you wish. Yep, Glazer, aye.

Glazer, aye. We have 31 votes for aye.

And opposed? Opposed?

and two for no and four absent.

Thank you. The resolution is adopted. Okay, we are on to H, reports on zoning petitions. We have 16 items before us. Are there any requests for separation? No request for separation. What's before us are committee recommendations. So all in favor of the approval of those petitions say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Those zoning petitions are adopted. So we are on to ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS. WE HAVE ONE ITEM HERE, OA 4 AMENDING CHAPTER 9 OF THE DANE COUNTY CODE OF ORDINANCES REGARDING DISCLOSURES AND ABSTENTIONS. THIS IS BEFORE US WITH RECOMMENDATION FOR APPROVAL ACTED ON EARLIER THIS EVENING BY THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. SUPERVISOR WELSH.

THANK YOU, CHAIR. AS THE SPONSOR OF THIS AMENDMENT, I RISE IN SUPPORT OF THIS AMENDMENT. I HAD QUITE A FEW REMARKS ACTUALLY PREPARED TO SPEAK ON THIS, BUT I'M GOING TO KEEP IT BRIEF TONIGHT, SO A BIT OF A PIVOT. Just wanted to provide a rather brief overview. So this past April, this body passed an operating amendment, OA1, aimed at increasing transparency in our required disclosures and abstentions. And within several changes that were made, the words or personal were added to required disclosures and abstentions. Upon deeper conversation with court counsel about the practical implementation of this and possible consequences of complying with this new required disclosure, I have significant concern regarding the possible legal, safety, and privacy consequences of moving forward with this terminology. At our ethics training in April, I offered some examples, as you may recall. Moreover, the term personal interest is simply undefined, which makes implementation challenging and by default overly broad. This operating amendment is simple, straightforward, yet impactful. It merely removes the words or personal. I believe we can adequately offer transparency to the public by limiting disclosures and abstentions to those in which board members or their immediate families have a significant financial interest. I urge my fellow supervisors to support this amendment accordingly. Thank you.

Any further discussion on OA4? Hearing none, all in favor of approval, say aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Opposed? And with that, the amendment to Chapter 9084 carries, and it is adopted. All right, we're on to RESOLUTIONS, ITEM K, WE HAVE A FEW ITEMS HERE. IF THERE'S NOT OBJECTION, I'M GOING TO TAKE K-3 OUT OF ORDER, TAKE THAT MOST IMMEDIATE, AS WE HAVE SOME REGISTERINGS WISHING TO SPEAK THAT HAVE SOME TIME CONSTRAINTS. There's no objection. We'll move most immediately to K3, which is 2026, resolution 26, calling on UW Health to resume providing gender-affirming healthcare to transgender youth. What is before us this evening is executive committee action taken earlier tonight with a recommendation of sub one. All right, so on to registrants wishing to speak. for our first speaker wishing to speak in favor via zoom micah larson to be followed by uh evie gildrey voyles sorry if i'm mispronouncing names is is micah promoted all right micah welcome you have up to five minutes to address the board You need to unmute, Micah.

Hello, can you hear me?

We can. Welcome. Go ahead.

My name is Micah Larson. I am a physician in Madison here in Dane County. I provide gender-affirming care across the lifespan to both adults and children, or I should say I have in the past provided it across the lifespan when I was able to. This care from a large evidence base, we know it can be life-saving for children and adolescents and teens and is very well supported by medical evidence. Sarah Hutton, UW has chosen to pause this care based on federal actions and what I would like to emphasize is that federal actions that exist right now do not involve any actual federal laws or state laws. Sarah Hutton, But rather consist of an executive order that has been challenged in court numerous times. AHHS declaration that has been vacated in a federal court and as well proposed CMS rules that have yet to go into effect and may or may not go into effect in the future. In speaking with parents of trans teens and trans children, folks are scared that they're going to lose their children while we're waiting to be able to resume care. And I think that UW has hidden behind federal actions and federal regulations as a excuse not to provide this care. And I would argue that rather than federal actions, their risk calculation is what they're protecting. Thank you.

Thank you. And we have 10 speakers, so I'm going to follow our usual process of going through the first 10 speakers before asking if there are questions for our speakers. Our next speaker, wishing to speak in favor, Evie Gilderoy-Boyles, to be followed by Silas Kramer.

My name is Evie Gildrey-Voyles. I am a resident in Madison, Wisconsin. I am an early childhood educator. I am speaking in favor of this proposal. I would like to thank Supervisor Tulsi, I'm sorry if I don't pronounce her name right, for bringing it forward. At this time, it is important for this board and everyone who can, to wrap transgender youth and their families in love and support and urge UW Health to resume full care, gender affirming care for all who need it. As an early childhood educator, I see the great deal of time love and discernment that families put in to supporting their children and to let fear of government action when none when all the actions that have been done are theoretical and have been challenged in court, letting that stand in the way of supporting and affirming all of the care and love that families put into this decision, I think is heartless and needs to end. So I'm speaking in favor of this resolution, and thank you.

OK. Next up is Silas Kramer, wishing to speak in favor, to be followed by Garrig Abatista.

Good evening. My name is Silas Kramer. I'm a resident of Madison, and I'm a 74-year-old trans male. I'm an old guy. Thank you. Who said yay? But I began transitioning about eight years ago in my late 60s. I'm grateful to have been able to experience this transformation because it really has been a transformation. But as a very young child, I knew that I should have been a boy. But there was no path for me to receive any support or care about that. We're talking about like in the 1950s. If there would have been care and support, I would not have experienced the anguish and the despair and the mental pain that I did. If there had been care and support, my life would have been extraordinarily different. I can speak now for trans youth and their families coming after me for whom there is the care available. There is a path for them to receive the support and care, and it should be provided. We're only asking for what each one of us wants, and that's to have a healthy and fulfilling life. So I speak in support of Resolution 026, calling on UW Health to resume providing gender-affirming healthcare to transgender youth. Thank you.

Next up is Kaverg Abatista to be followed by Jamie Hawkins.

Hello, my name is Gary Abbottista, and I am a resident of Dane County in District 15. I am speaking in full support of Resolution 26, and I agree with everything included in the text. I'm just someone with a lot of trans and non-binary friends, and I believe that trans healthcare is life-saving healthcare and should be provided like any other. I do not approve of the federal government's recent efforts to demonize trans people, and to restrict their rights to exist. They're not evil villains, they're just people trying to live lives of happiness and dignity, just like the rest of us. I think this resolution is an important measure to improve the lives of trans and gender diverse youth in our community. They deserve to grow up happy and healthy, just like all of us do. I would like to thank the sponsors of this resolution, and happy Pride.

All right. Next up, Jamie Hawkins, wishing to speak in support, to be followed by Sue Neely. And I believe Jamie is online and promoted momentarily. Are we waiting for them to accept promotion? All right, Jamie, welcome. You have up to five minutes to address the board. OK, we're going to come back, see if Jamie can We can figure out the situation for Jamie momentarily. So we'll move on to Sue Neely, who's in person, wishing to speak in favor, to be followed by Corey Neely.

Hi, my name is Sue Neely, my pronouns are she, her. I live in Evansville and I work in Madison, and my family also receives their healthcare here in Madison. I work at GSAVE as the Director of Family Engagement and Advocacy, and my work supports many families of trans and non-binary youth across the state of Wisconsin, including my own family. I support the resolution to reinstate gender affirming care for youth at UW Health. When our child expressed their gender identity to us and we were calling out for resources, UW Health's PATH clinic was at the top of the list. We knew it would be some time before our child would hit puberty, but we made the appointment anyway to speak with the expert physicians. For many years, our family has trusted the well-researched advice of these expert physicians at UW Health. our child's therapist, and our child to help us determine the best practices and the best path forward for our child. This team, this network of people, Sorry. We trusted this team, this network of people, and they had my child's best interests in mind and my child's well-being in mind, and they've supported us every step of the way. Our son's now 14 years old. He's looking forward to high school next year. Yeah, he's very social. He loves school. He has great friends. He joined student council. He plays tennis. He's a black belt in martial arts. He performed in the school play. And he joined a club called Sources of Strength. And he's a straight-A student. And most importantly, he's very kind and very loving. And he's the type of kid that would stand up for other kids who might be being bullied or treated poorly. But now it just kind of sounds like I'm bragging about my kid, but... None of this would be possible for him if he didn't have the care that he got at UW Health's PATH Clinic. Because of this, he's able to live his life as a boy and gets to focus on the things kids are supposed to be focusing on at his age. But I'm not here tonight just for my child. I'm here to advocate for all the trans and non-binary kids across the state of Wisconsin and even some from outside of Wisconsin who were receiving care at UW Health's PATH Clinic. So if a kid is forced to grow into a body that doesn't feel suitable for them and doesn't fit them, that really traumatizes them and it really hurts them mentally. And they'll have a lot of issues and concerns and feel a little bit lost in this world. So it's hard enough being a young person today, but I just can't imagine going through that and also being trapped in a body that doesn't feel right Being a cisgender person, meaning I was assigned the same gender at birth that I align with, I could say that I knew that I was a girl from the time I could understand the social idea of gender. So I really encourage other cisgender people to think about that before they say they're too young to know. We hear a lot of people saying they're too young to make these decisions. So when we received the sudden news from UW Health that they had paused care, I worried for those trans kids who won't get their hormone blockers and would be forced to go through puberty as a gender they don't align with. I worried for the non-binary, gender fluid, gender expansive youth who needed that pause on puberty to decide what would feel most comfortable for them. And those teens who were already on their hormones who won't be able to get their prescriptions anymore. These kids were abandoned. their life-saving healthcare was just ripped away. So I work with many families in Wisconsin and I heard a lot of families feeling really devastated and angry and heartbroken and scared. So now we're scrambling to find care because the health care system that we grew to trust abandoned us. So we're looking into direct primary care providers, clinics, out-of-state, online providers, searching for all the options to save our children's lives, just like any parent would if their child was receiving care that was lifesaving. even if you're not trans or you don't have a trans child, I want you to just really think about that and just kind of let it sink in because If they can do that to this group of children of ours, our trans and non-binary children, I don't know whose children they might decide to abandon next when it comes to healthcare. So we really urge that UW Health do the right thing, reinstate life-saving gender-affirming care, care that's backed by science and by 290,000 members of the American Medical Association.

Our next speaker wishing to speak in favor is Corey Neely. To be followed by Ryan. Thank you.

Yeah, so that was my wife. I'm extremely proud of her and the work that they do. I work alongside her on a transparent advocacy group. And as part of that, I'm the chair of the Health Care and Medical Access Committee. We were worried that this might happen. Late last year we were worried because some other places had dropped this care. We had some friends that specifically moved out of state to a state that they thought would be safe because they had a Democratic governor that they could count on and their care was taken away. before ours was, so I feel bad for those folks. But when this care was taken away, our provider called us on the phone, let us know what was going on. They knew we were part of a transparency advocacy group. They knew that we would be able to help folks, and they stressed that they didn't know how long this was gonna take. you know, the process wasn't clear. We still don't know what the process for making this decision was like. The CEO, Dr. Alan Kaplan, I believe his name is, hasn't really spoken on this and hasn't really talked about, like, what their decision-making process looked like and who, you know, forced them to do this and how they forced them to do this, just that this care wasn't going to be happening anymore. You know, it's life-saving care. We've been talking to our elected officials. One of them, you know, is actually setting up a meeting for us with UW Health at the end of this next month that we're hoping to have a conversation with them finally about this. And they asked, you know, what would happen if they were to overturn this care and then have to turn it back because a new federal rule was made? And I said, every second, every second that this care is available to a kid is is crucial because you never know how many kids are going to get access to this care and and as my wife alluded to getting uh that care is crucial for was for crucial for our kid but is really crucial for other kids as well and i think that I think that we have to just recognize the humanity of just medical access as a personal right. This is not supposed to be a political thing. It should be a medical thing as well. So I wore this shirt because I want you to protect trans youth. I wore my banana shorts because I think it's absolutely bananas that we're having this conversation in the first place. So please, I do appreciate the fact that this has been brought up. I appreciate that everyone here in Dane County probably has a loved one or knows someone that is transgender and unbinary. And I appreciate that we're having this conversation. But I don't want to have it anymore. And I'm tired of having these conversations. I'm tired of going to the Capitol to tell Republicans who are fundraising off the bills that they're putting out there that they're harming kids, because they are. So I want to thank you for your time, and I hope that you do pass this resolution. Thank you.

Hey, next up, Brian Jukums.

Jukums, yay. So hello and thank you. My name is Brian Jukums or Brian J. Pronouns are he, him. And I want to thank you both for both considering and I'm assuming voting yes on this resolution tonight. I wear a number of hats here in Dane County, but the hat I'm wearing tonight is as a member of the G-SAFE team and as a friend to trans youth and families. As a member of the G-SAFE team, we, along with Fair Wisconsin, have been on the front lines of supporting youth and families directly impacted by UW Health's premature decision to pre-comply with questionable illegal threats and bluster from the Trump administration this spring. There are many of those parents both here tonight and online, and I'll let them share their stories. I'm here for two reasons tonight. The first is to thank you in advance for voting yes on this resolution calling on UW Health to resume gender-affirming care for trans and non-binary youth. The decision has greatly harmed young people and families here in Dane County. Your collective voice as people in leadership roles is vital and essentially needed. This is a time to lead. Your leadership is needed. The second reason I'm here is to ask you to use whatever personal and or professional connections you have to invite, encourage, or implore UW Health CEO Brad Kaplan and members of his board to meet with the impacted families. No disrespect to my friend Corey, but UW Health leadership has been stubbornly opaque about how they made their decision and who made it. With the lack of transparency, we have to assume that the buck stopped with the CEO under the direction of the board. Since the decision to pause care, impacted families have repeatedly sought to meet with those who made such an impactful decision. They have only been met with silence, form letters, and later this month, finally a small meeting with the mid-level director tasked with efforts of diversity, equity, and inclusion. While a good step, this is disrespectful, negligent, and quite frankly, cowardly leadership by Kaplan and his board. I'm sure they feel like victims of Trump's anti-trans fever. And I don't envy the position they find themselves in. But as leaders, you don't get to choose which crisis you have to face. And this is their crisis to face. And they blinked. They caved in and failed to rise to the moment. The least they could do is meet face-to-face with the folks they harmed. Yes, it will be scary. Yes, people will cry. Yes, they will feel the righteous and justified anger. It won't be fun, but they will live through it, especially if they remember to say, I'm so sorry. Avoid saying there was nothing they could do and breathe. And what they might find, if they can do that, is that a group of families who are willing to look for opportunities to partner with UW Health to organize, to collaborate, and resist the Trump regime. There will still be an incredible gap in trust on them to heal, but it's a journey that's on them to join. The families are waiting. As an organizer, I know that the minds of decision makers are most often changed when a trusted colleague, family member, faith leader, or friend urges them to do so. Public testimony doesn't move the needle much. Rallies build connections among protesters, but are frequently ignored. But those personal connections, they can move mountains, or at least a few board members. but we don't have those connections yet. And it's possible you don't either, but I believe that someone here on this board knows someone who does, and we need your help. As I said, they're not getting back to my colleague Sue or our incredible families. So we need those of you on the board or anyone listening tonight to use the lever of any relationship you might have with Kaplan, Board President Bart Carpone, Vice Chair Jamie Hess, Chief Admin Officer Kelsey Dottie, Department Chairs Ellen Hartenbach, Rebecca Minter, Scott Reeder, Erica, I'm sorry, Eric Reinheim, or public members Lynn Hobby, Alan Fish, Deborah Archer, or Pablo Sanchez, we need you to tell them it's time to do the good thing. It's time to do the moral thing. It's time to do the right thing. And it's past time to do the thing that's past time to do. So let me help you make that connection. They're not listening to us. We hope they will listen to you or someone that you know. Thank you for helping us make those connections.

All right. The next couple of speakers, I don't know if they're in the room or online. We have Brandon Theory registered, wishing to speak in support. Brandon?

For the imposing moratorium.

No, are you Brandon Theory?

Yeah.

Okay, so you, looks like you're excellent, yeah.

Then I can sit back down if it's better.

Yeah, I can make a note that, yeah, yeah, okay. How about Riley Neal? Thank you. Stop, stop, sorry.

Hello, I'm Riley Neal. I'm a 22-year-old transgender woman. I wanted to share some insight. It's mostly anecdotal, but I think it might be relevant to the conversation. I started transitioning at the age of 14 through the Path Clinic at ULB Madison and ULB Health. It was fantastic. I had a great experience there. I had a team of doctors who were very, very supportive of me. I started receiving hormone blocker implants at the age of 14 that continued through the age of 18. I had a fantastic experience. I had an experience that could be described as a surgical procedure where they implanted a hormone blocker in my arm and that also required a second procedure to remove two years later as prescribed. Those procedures would have been impossible with the blockades we're discussing right now. And also they were I credit that to my being here right now. I think I was in a very difficult position in my childhood. I received a lot of bullying. I had a lot of gender dysphoria and other symptoms of other side effects of being trans on the mental that you can experience. And it was just absolutely essential that that service was there for me through my childhood. And I wanted to stress that surgical procedures are more than just... you know, your like bottom surgery, top surgery, going into the knife to get implants, that kind of thing. Things as simple as hormone blocker implants, which are a common form of hormone treatment, are included in that. If this was implemented halfway through, would I have been able to get that implant removed? I don't know. That's something very scary that I don't have to consider fortunately, but there are perhaps people who do right now. And then also the fact that people who, what it means to not be able to experience transgender care until you're the age of 18 is that you're going to be going through puberty until 28. Puberty takes 10 years to go through. And for someone to start puberty at 18 or later, because of course there's wait times and there are waiting lists and doctors aren't available when you'd like them, to prescribe someone to have to go through puberty until the age of 30 is insane. I'm so sorry. Like that's, That's an absolutely abysmal prognosis. I mean, puberty is, I'm sure no one wants to go through it a second time. There's a moniker in the transgender community called second puberty because people are forced to wait until the age of 18 and then go through puberty for 10 more years, ending at the age of 30 because of regulations like these. And that's a completely unacceptable, I don't think we should be discussing that. I think that's a restriction on people's bodies and people's health decisions that is not the position of anyone in power to make, and so we should urge them as much as possible to allow that to go into the back of the hands of doctors and families to make that decision for themselves. Thank you.

Okay. We are making one more invitation to Jamie Hawkins, who registered wishing to speak in support on Zoom. And they are now promoted. So Jamie, welcome. You have up to five minutes to address the board.

Hi. Yeah, I'm here. I was doing bedtime for my child, so I'm glad I came out when I did. My name is Jamie Hawkins, and I am a parent of a young trans child, and I am here to ask the board to call on UW Health to resume providing gender affirming health care for transgender youth. I have a very young child. Let me turn my camera off because it's weird. see myself in double. I have a very young trans child who, you know, a few years ago when I was talking to my provider, this was probably about three years ago saying, what do, what do we do? They're so young for needing any care. What, What do we need to do? Should we switch over to the PATH clinic? And they said, no, we have people here. We're not, we don't have UW Health. We're with a different provider, but we have people here in our clinic that can provide the care that you need once you get there. And I was like, okay, great. I have the care I need. Um, and then, you know, within a year it was like, oh, well you can see the doctor here, but you'll have to go over to the path clinic because things have changed and they can treat them in the path clinic. And then it was like, oh, you can no longer see a provider from our office. You have to go to the, you would have to go to the path clinic in the future. Right. So I'm constantly like, okay, but I can still get care. I can still get care. I can still get care. And now I can't get care at all for my child. So it's been. three years of a whirlwind of trying to figure out what kind of care would my child need okay we can still get it and now here we are um three years later finding out that that care has been uh taken away as well and that we don't know what the next um three years might look like for my child uh and for trans children in general so i'm just here to say that as another parent of a trans kid it's been pretty devastating to go through this experience with having care um shut down at uw health and knowing that in other places such as in Minnesota, they've been able to reinstate care and we've really gotten no updates from UW Health, no, here's where we're at. It's been very much a black box of, of like non-information and that's been really difficult. So I feel that this, call from the Dane County Board of Supervisors could be a very powerful and meaningful thing for trans families and trans kids. Thank you.

Okay, let's take a look here. Oh, one other registrant, Juliana Bennett, had registered in support, wishing to speak, and she's still not online. All right, and she's not in the room, so we'll just recognize her as registering in support. So that exhausts the list of speakers. Are there any questions for any of our speakers? All right, hearing none, let me take care of the list. Discussion on the resolution. Supervisor Tursios.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to everybody for coming out today and speaking and registering in support of this resolution. I've tried to write this so many times that I'm just going to throw it all out the window and just speak from the heart on this one. Trying to avoid too much of the back story here. This has been the focus of the current administration for a very long time, since before entering office. Immediately upon entering office, day one, there was an executive order wishing to make this policy priority come into effect and pretty quickly was executed upon. At issue today is a series of events that led up to effectively a rule being proposed that would make any hospital that provides gender-affirming care of this nature ineligible for Medicare or Medicaid dollars. Those rules have not and still to this day don't seem to be entering into effect. In December, however, there was a decree from RFK Jr. in his office stating that he wishes and believes that the proposed rule can take effect via him saying so. That became a matter of legal. issue as to whether he had the authority to do so. Pretty quickly, there was a lawsuit brought forward. Wisconsin was a party to that lawsuit. And as of a few weeks ago, there has been a court injunction against that. But I am getting ahead of myself. Less than a month after RFK Jr.'s decree, again, nothing formally legally being introduced into law or into rule. UW Health as well as Children's Wisconsin decided to stop providing this care. Many other hospitals have taken the step of refusing new patients but providing care to the people who are already receiving care because they acknowledge the fact that if you were ceasing somebody from receiving this care, you are subjecting them to a permanent and irreversible puberty that they have spent months, if not years, often years, fighting to prevent. There is not a neutral decision to stop or withhold or withdraw this kind of care. This is something that's actively sought for many, many years, and this healthcare is still available to this day for non-transgender children. It's been approved, puberty blockers in particular, have been approved by the FDA since 1993 in children as young as one years old. What's really at issue today is the fact that UW Health decided to stop providing gender-affirming care as quickly as could be manifest. I will decline to speculate as to the reasons why. The reasons they have cited are a threat of potential legal precarity that might someday come to pass that is insufficient. The precarity they cited as a predicate for this decision has been put in place against it. And specifically, the injunction states that not only is the decree that RFK Jr. put in place in December not going to bind, but that any similar action cannot be pursued. The injunction applies. So I ask that we support this resolution, stand in support of our transgender youth, and call on UW Health to do the right thing while there is still time to reimplement this care.

Anyone else? Supervisor Erickson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for everyone being here tonight and testifying. The stories and testimony is very inspiring and very important and very significant at this time when we're in this weird political environment. I just wanted to share a couple comments on this. On the first issue of dealing with kids, I had a secret when I was a kid growing up, and I was gay. I knew that, but I couldn't tell anybody. I couldn't talk to anybody about it. And growing up in a small conservative Midwest town, But even as a kid, I knew that. And I kind of relate that to this situation now. I'm sure a lot of people will say, well, a kid, what do they know? Well, I think that they do know. And I think that it's important that we listen to them. And I think that's what a lot of parents are doing right now. So I think it's valid, somebody knows, if you know, in terms of being gay, you usually know at age whatever, two, three, or young, and I think it's a similar type of thing. So the second point I wanted to mention is the issue of privacy. And part of it, when I was thinking about that, I'm just kind of like, well, whose business is it? I don't have kids. I have two godsons. But if I did have a kid, I mean, that's my business, what my kid wants and what my kid is telling me who they are and who they want to be and what they want to be for their well-being. And in my opinion, the government has no place telling us how to live our personal lives and the government should just stay out of it and actually should be doing the opposite in terms of trying to make our lives better. So the third thing I just want to mention that in some ways this is symbolic, but the symbolism is important because over the years, We've had resolutions honoring gay pride, making statements saying that you should be able to marry who you love and supporting gay marriage. And people would say to me, well, why are you doing this? Because it's not going to do anything. And my response was, well, it is symbolic. And in this case, when we're up against the forces that we are, that symbolism is important. And that is significant that we have that. That is critical that we can look to that and point to that, and I'm gonna go back to being a kid like I was, just knowing that was out there and being able to see that was very significant. And again, going back to me as a kid, yes, I was closeted and everything, but I was very fortunate because I had a treasure trove of great friends who were supportive in multiple ways. So the symbolism is important, but I think that Brian Jay said this, that maybe some of us have contacts with UW Health leadership. I wish I did. But maybe somebody on our board does. So maybe something tangible in that regard can come from this. And then just finally, I just wanted to thank the supervisor for bringing this forward and calling this out and spending a lot of time clearly. If you look at this resolution, it's very well thought through, very thoroughly done. Lots of, you know, I would say scientific research but also personal experiences. So I think that this was really well done. I really am happy to support it and happy that we are having this discussion this evening. I just wanted to highlight one section specifically, lines 60 through 62, and what that's talking about is you know the rates of depression and anxiety and suicide attempts and that's something again I feel like I can relate to as well and you know when I look at this reading that and thinking about this issue to me it's just this is just common sense you know this is what we should be doing because we have kids in our community who are suffering and if you support If you support kids, you support families, then you would support access to this type, well, access to healthcare, but this type of healthcare specifically. If you're not, then you're just, you're frankly just beating up on kids, and that really ticks me off, to be honest. So I just wanted to highlight that section of this resolution, but I think that it was, you know, it's an excellent resolution, and I just want to thank the supervisor who put this together and also I was very happy to be a sponsor of it. So thank you again, everybody.

Anyone else wishing to speak to resolution 26? Supervisor Marin, go ahead.

Ms. Chair Miles, I apologize for not being there in person this evening. I had every intention of being there. Unfortunately, my job responsibilities kept me from getting there in time, but I wanted to be there to stand up in front of all of you in support of this resolution. This resolution is about dignity, fairness, and access to healthcare. Those of us who are cisgender are incredibly fortunate. We move through life without having our identities questioned, our existence debated, our healthcare scrutinized because of who we are. Most of us never have to worry about medically necessary care that could be taken away. Many people may not fully understand what it means to be transgender, but we don't have to understand someone's experience to recognize their humanity, respect their dignity, and support their right to receive appropriate medical care. Fairness should not depend on whether someone else's life experience makes sense to us. Families should not have to fear that medically necessary care will disappear because of political pressure or fear of government retaliation. Healthcare decisions belong between patients, families, and qualified medical professionals. I am so very proud to support this resolution and I respectfully ask all of you to support it as well. Thank you.

All right. And Supervisor Truccio for a second time.

Before I begin, as a point of information, how much time do I have left?

you have six minutes left. Six?

I will not need that much time. I just want to kind of follow up on a few different things. Thank you, everybody, for speaking and supporting. putting forward a substitution specifically to go into more detail regarding some of the experience our transgender parents had and also to call out the other healthcare institution in the state that stopped providing this care. That's why it's out there. I suggest that any fellow supervisor, yourself. Mr. Chair or anyone else, if you're interested in learning more about this issue, please read the resolution. Inside the resolution, there is a link to a study that was commissioned by the state of Utah in the same piece of legislation that banned this kind of health care in their state. Several years later, actually a year or so after it was expected to be done, it was published. in 2024, I believe, at over 1,000 pages long. It is one of the most, if not the most, robust examples of thorough meta-analysis amalgamating all of the existing research to date on the subject. And it does a fantastic job of detailing and debunking every single misclaim and lie that's been the impetus behind the rules and the other kinds of legal threats that have gotten us to the place that we are now. And just kind of one final thing. As far as the health care itself, the purpose ultimately and the core fear in the immediate term for care is mental health concerns. But I do just want to add that it's important to recognize this is physical health care as well. As a transgender and non-binary person, the reason I am able to be who I am and be here today is because I've been able to have my body changed in a way that makes me feel comfortable and actually capable of enjoying my life and loving myself. And by focusing entirely on mental health, it does a disservice to the true impact of this healthcare as well as a disservice to the acknowledgement of the impacts of ignoring or refusing to provide this care, acting out against it. Refusing to provide this care, not providing this care is not a neutral decision. And I think it's important that we remember that fact. Thank you.

Thank you, Supervisor Trucios. I will say, I think this is the first resolution I've seen. Supervisor Trucios has done a tremendous amount of work in fact gathering, and I think it's the first resolution that I've seen where we have footnotes and citations.

If I could, I would like to thank staff for helping me with that. Oh my gosh.

I wanna say Cecily, because I just talked to Cecily.

Sarahi. Sarahi, thank you. I thanked her at the last meeting. Sarahi did a fantastic job. This could not have been possible. I would have said so many horrible things that I will not be saying tonight if it weren't for Sarahi's help. So yeah, thank you to her. Thank you.

All right.

Any further discussion on Resolution 26? All right. Pardon?

I've made a donation of a book to the library within your office. It's a book that I read and saw a lot of myself in. It's a fictional book about, but it's based on the life of the author who lived through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and while they don't identify as trans, they could be seen today as someone living that same kind of experience. I highly recommend that anybody who thinks FEELS CONCERN OR CAUTION, ESPECIALLY REGARDING PEOPLE WHO DON'T CLEANLY IDENTIFY AS OTHER MALE OR FEMALE, GIVE IT A READ.

THANK YOU. IT IS OUR COUNTY BOARD'S OFFICE LIBRARY. SO THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT. SO AGAIN, WHAT IS BEFORE US IS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION OF APPROVAL OF THE SUBSTITUTE TO OA 20, RESOLUTION 26, A ROLL CALL HAS BEEN REQUESTED. SO THE CLERK WILL PLEASE CALL THE ROLL.

Ritt. Ritt, aye. Ritt, aye. Rylander. Rylander, aye. Rylander, aye. Smith. Smith, aye. Smith, aye. Truscius. Truscius, aye. Truscius, aye. Beldren.

Aye.

Beldren, aye. Wegleiner. Aye. Wegleiner, aye. Welsh. Welsh, aye. Welsh, aye. Yang. Yang absent. Andre. Andre, aye. Andre, aye. Baruchuk. Baruchuk, aye. Blasewicz. Blasewicz absent. Boettcher. Betcher, aye. Bollig, aye. Bollig, aye. Brandmeier? Brandmeier, aye. Brandmeier, aye.

Brouwer? Brouwer, aye.

Brouwer, aye. Chabla? Chabla, aye. Chabla, aye. Dantzler? Aye. Dantzler, aye. Doolin? Doolin absent. Downing?

Aye.

Downing, aye. Eicher? Aye. Eicher, aye. Engelberger? Engelberger, aye. Erickson? Erickson, aye. Erickson, aye. Freese? Freese, aye. Freese, aye. Furman? Furman, aye. Furman, aye.

Glazer? Glazer, aye.

Glazer, aye. Gray?

Gray, aye.

Gray, aye. Heuselman? Heuselman, aye. Heuselman, aye. Jackson? Jackson, aye. Jackson, aye. Kemp? Kemp, aye. Kemp, aye. Cronin? Cronin, aye. Cronin, aye. Larson? Larson, aye. Lewis?

Lewis, aye.

Lewis, aye. Marin? Marin, aye. Marin, aye. Obese? Aye. Obese, aye. Peterson? Peterson, absent. Fossler? Fossler, aye. Fossler, aye. Miles? Miles, aye. Miles, aye. We have 33 votes for aye. And zero for no, for absent.

Thank you. And with that, resolution 26 is adopted. All right, we're on to key one. 2025 resolution 425, addendum number two to the environmental monitoring contract with SCS engineers for additional services and cost increases due to inflation. What is before us is public works and transportation committee recommendation of sub one. Discussion on resolution 425. Hearing no discussion on the recommendation of approval of sub 1, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed say no. The resolution 425 sub 1 is adopted. On to item two, 2025, resolution 439, purchase and contracted maintenance of record, I'm just chuckling because there's a typo in the thing, record call logger. What is, what's that? It's the vendor name? Okay. All right. Thank you. Then it's not. uh just checking i think we may have oh i missed this apparently i missed a speaker on the last item my apologies here um on k1 again this is showing zero speakers okay so if you'll indulge me even though we No. I'm jumping to it. There's nothing in the list, folks. OK. All right. Well. If there's no objection, even though we approved K-1, we have a speaker that had wished to speak, looks like in support. So if there's no objection, we'll allow the person to address the board. Henry Thompson, is he promoted? Declined? Okay. The person wishing to speak has declined. So Henry Thompson registered in support. All right. Checking the next one. Zero speakers. Okay. Again, we're on to 2025 Resolution 439, Purchase and Contracted Maintenance of RevCord Call Logger. Okay. What is before us is Public Protection and Judiciary, Recommendation for Approval, and Supervisor Andrade.

Sure, thank you, Chair. I would like to move the sub proposed Andre with the accompanying revised contract, which was indeed available on Tuesday this week. Thank you, and I could speak to it.

Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Furman. Okay, go ahead, Supervisor Haynes.

Thank you. So what this does is remove the AI component of this system, which could be added in again later. It essentially, there was some discussion among leadership at PSC, employee groups, but further exploration of all of that led to an agreement that ideally that component of the system would not be implemented right away and could be explored further down the road. So this addresses the contract amount and removes that provision from the contract itself, which is reflected in the resolution and the contract. No other changes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other discussion on resolution 439? The Andre sub. Andre sub, sorry. All right, hearing no further discussion, all in favor of the Andre amendment, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed say no. That motion carries, and so we're back to the main motion, resolution 439, as amended by the Andres substitute. Any further discussion or comment? Hearing none, all in favor of approval, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, say no. That carries, and resolution 439, as amended, is adopted. Okay, we're on to... Item 4, 2026, resolution 39, imposing a moratorium on the receipt of applications for issuance of zoning permits for the siting or placement of data centers in Dane County. What is before us is zoning land recognition. REGULATION COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION OF SUB 1, AND I'M GOING TO ASK SUPERVISOR CHAVALA TO TAKE THE CHAIR WHILE I STEP DOWN TO SPEAK TO THIS. THIS PERSON'S LISTED TWICE FOR THIS PERSON'S LISTED TWICE FOR SOME REASON. SOME REASON. THIS PERSON REGISTERED UNDER THIS PERSON REGISTERED UNDER THE WRONG ITEM. THE WRONG ITEM. I'LL DO THEM LAST. I'LL DO THEM LAST. OKAY. OKAY. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT. I'LL TAKE CARE OF THAT LATER. I'LL TAKE CARE OF THAT LATER. OKAY. OKAY. THAT SOUNDS GOOD. THAT SOUNDS GOOD. OKAY.

WE ARE GOING TO GO AHEAD AND WE ARE GOING TO GO AHEAD AND START WITH PUBLIC COMMENT. START WITH PUBLIC COMMENT. AND WE'RE GOING TO START WITH AND WE'RE GOING TO START WITH WINONA STORMS, WHO IS IN WINONA STORMS, WHO IS IN PERSON. PERSON. AND and you will have five minutes to address the board.

Good evening. I am Winona Storms, and I live in DeForest. I am a mother, a community organizer, a full-time student, and a professional busybody. I am speaking in support of imposing a moratorium on the receipt of applications for the issuance of zoning permits for the siting or placement of data centers in Dane County. In the past, when the United States has had eras of major technological, industrial, and warfare advancements, they have declared certain lands to be sacrifice zones in the name of progress. And now we are seeing an unprecedented number of new sacrifice zones being created across the United States and even here in Wisconsin. How data centered development is happening across the country and here in Mount Pleasant, Port Washington and Beaver Dam is dangerous and reckless. Whole cities and regions are being permanently scarred often where a lack of zoning regulations have left communities vulnerable and unable to protect themselves. Behind each hyperscale data center sits a mining supply chain, a power grid, water permits, a transmission corridor, a chip fabrication plant, and a logistics network. And increasingly, a client base that includes surveillance companies and the Department of Defense. Data center development is an extraction industry going right to their origins. Each server has at least eight chips. A single server rack has 4,500 chips needing replacement every three or so years. Each AI hyperscale data center has over 5,000 AI servers and a single AI server rack in 2027 will consume roughly 50 times the power of a standard internet server rack. Forgive me if I mispronounce, I am a public policy and leadership major, not chem. But the materials required, aluminum, copper, gallium, germanium, silicon, tantalum, rare earth elements, silver, tin, palladium, platinum. The periodic table of a single server rack reads like a list of contested mining sites operating under the still governing mining act of 1872. When the federal government pushed to end mass imports and utilize American resources, we thought they meant cell phones, clothing, and toys. At least I did. What I've learned since is that the goal was to streamline access to the extraction of minerals from indigenous sovereign nations and in United States lands. These are not infinite resources, and the day when we run out is coming at an exponentially faster rate due to the unregulated use of AI and AI infrastructure. 4,280. That's how many operating data centers the United States has right now. That's eight times more than any other country. The UK has 527. China has 369. Demand is predicted to nearly triple from now until 2030 with nearly $7 trillion spent on data centers over the next five years. Yet Wisconsin has made data centers a tax-exempt industry, exempting construction materials, IT hardware, cooling systems, and electricity. Current approved projects are projected to cost the state over $2 billion in uncollected tax revenue. Why do corporations get to exist here? Tax-free, stealing the benefits from our land, water, resources, and people, while our own residents are being taxed out of their homes and facing extreme rises in the cost of living. Microchip fabrication plants use an average of 10 million gallons of ultra-pure water each day. That's one plant, 10 million. And that actually means 15 to 20 million gallons of raw, unfiltered water. Once that water is filtered and it's used, the water is rendered non-potable, no longer a part of our global watershed. Developers here have declared evaporative cooling bad while presenting closed-loop systems as sustainable. They say they use less water. That's wrong. Closed-loop systems require a ton more energy. How do you get energy and electricity? Water. But they don't have to disclose it because it's indirect. So how do they keep the closed-loop water flowing? By mixing PFAS, forever chemicals, into it. Eventually, a sludge is created. How do they get rid of it? We don't know. It's a trade secret. Another trade secret? How do they dispose of their e-waste? Don't know. And we won't know until communities like Dane County require developers to disclose in order to develop. Cornell put it simply in an interview that was published today by PBS. We cannot manage what companies do not disclose.

Winona, you have 20 seconds left.

I'm almost done, so it's good. Okay, go ahead, go ahead. A moratorium is not anti-development. It is pro-accountability, it is pro-community, and it is exactly what Dane County needs right now. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Do we have any questions for the speaker? Okay. Supervisor Baruchek, go ahead.

Well, thank you. I appreciate the public comment. Thanks so much for coming with us tonight.

Is this a question to the speaker?

It's a question I suppose might turn out to be a statement.

Well, if it's a statement, we will have discussion afterwards. We do have a speaker list, but if you have a specific question for the speaker, you can ask the speaker.

I was just going to say, I think, I am anticipating that this is going to pass. I talked to a QTS executive, he said.

Okay, but Supervisor Baruchick, is this a question for the speaker, though? Okay, thanks, thank you. Okay, up next we have Rhonda Meinholz, who is in person. And Rhonda, you will have five minutes.

My name is Rhonda Meinholz and I'm a resident of the town of Vienna in Northern Dane County and a founding member of No Data Center in DeForest, which is an unincorporated association that was formed in early January this year. I'm here to speak regarding the once proposed QTS data center on the 1,572 acre property west of I-94 and north of County Highway V, as well as any other current and future proposed hyperscale data centers. A letter from QTS's attorney back in January of this year confirmed that the company was pausing its pursuit of development approvals in the Village of DeForest, citing public opposition and ongoing concerns. While described as a pause, this decision underscored what residents had been saying for months. This proposal had generated deep and sustained concerns across our community. A development like this, which spanned more than two square miles, would dramatically alter any community. bringing increased heavy truck traffic, strain on roads and municipal services, enormous demands on electricity and water, and lasting impacts on wetlands, wildlife, and open space. This is an important reminder that annexation and zoning decisions must serve the community's long-term interests and the municipality's adopted plans, not the uncertainty or timeliness of a single developer. All municipalities have comprehensive plans for a reason. They are created through a robust public process in which residents clearly articulate their priorities for land use, growth, and community character. Comprehensive plans are meant to guide developers for a decade or more, not to be rewritten on demand. In the case of the QTS data center proposal, the proposed comprehensive plan amendment was not being driven by new information, changed conditions, or community input. It existed for one reason only, to accommodate a zoning request by a single developer, QTS, for a large-scale data center. All parties involved, including Village of DeForest staff and the developer, acknowledged that the requested zoning was incompatible with the current comprehensive plan. Wisconsin law is explicit. Zoning decisions must be consistent with the comprehensive plan. When a proposal conflicts with the plan, the lawful response is to deny the zoning, not to rewrite the plan to make the conflict disappear. Amending the comprehensive plan solely to accommodate an incompatible zoning request nullifies the intent of that statute and renders the plan meaningless. Approving zoning requests that do not fit within a municipality's comprehensive plan would discard the goals and objectives established by that municipality residents and replace them with priorities of multi-billion dollar data center operators. This is not organic planning. It's the subordination of resident-driven governance to corporate interests made to appear routine and inevitable through a coordinated process involving municipal staff and leadership. That is not what comprehensive plans were created to be and it is not how democratic local government should function. The Dane County Board has the authority to resolve this situation quickly and transparently. This proposed moratorium was unanimously approved by both the Dane County Towns Association as well as the Dane County Planning and Zoning Commission. By openly discussing the zoning resolution on data centers tonight and voting in favor of it, the board could send a clear message that it is listening to residents of Dane County and will no longer tolerate non-transparency from large developers. Should the board choose not to vote in favor of this resolution, it effectively signals that this problematic behavior will continue, undermining trust in local governance and resident input. I urge the board to act decisively and uphold its duty to the people of Dane County. Your constituents are watching and your actions will determine whether resident driven governance is respected or whether corporate interests continue to override the community's voice. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony, Rhonda. Do we have any questions for the speaker? Okay. A question from Paula of Supervisor Brandmeier.

Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you to the speaker, because I followed no data centers in DeForest. And your organizational skills were amazing. And it was nice to see democracy in action, because you motivated people at DeForest in Vienna. And look what you did. You got the, you know, there's no data center. So congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Supervisor Brandmeier. I just want to just remind folks, if we're going to ask for the question period, let's just ask questions to the speakers. We will have an opportunity for board discussion as well. Okay, our next speaker is Gehrig Abbatista in person. And Gehrig, you'll have five minutes once you get started.

Hello, my name is Gary Gabatista. I'm a resident of Dane County in District 15, and I am speaking in support of Resolution 39. I also agree with the two previous speakers. There are many cities around the US that have rushed into building massive data centers only for their constituents to have to bear the consequences after the fact. Data centers have a profound negative impact on land and water use and dramatically drive up electricity costs as demonstrated in areas like Virginia and Georgia. They harm the environment around them with pollution and noise, and they harm the wider climate with the obscene amount of energy that they consume. A single modern AI data center can use as much power as 100,000 homes. That's not a project that should just be approved overnight. This is an issue that needs rigorous public debate and democratic oversight. So I am in support of a moratorium to provide the time necessary to make informed decisions. And my personal opinion is please don't build data centers at all. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Garrett. Do we have any questions for the speaker? Okay. Um, uh, for our staff, our next speaker is Juliana Bennett, who is on zoom. Uh, can you promote them? Okay, so Juliana is now online. What about Summer Herman? And then Summer, once you, you can go ahead and unmute yourself and you'll have five minutes to address the board.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

All right, thank you. So my name is Summer Herman. I am a current resident of Madison, Wisconsin. I am in support of the moratorium and for the further delays of AI data centers in Dane County. Across the country, we're already seeing the devastating impacts these data centers are having on people and on the environment. Communities around these data centers are reporting an alarming amount of land changes and of undrinkable water. The water used to cool this hardware in these centers is rarely disclosed, and it's already in areas where underground water and local municipalities are already struggling. The amount of energy that is consumed in these AI data centers is heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and it is accelerating the rate of climate change already. Dane County is home to many beautiful natural resources and people. I strongly encourage you to reconsider and to consider the people and the environment over the profit and over corporate gains. Please protect the few pockets of natural resources that we still have left in our county. You know, please, please think of, please think about our futures, right? And the futures that we're going to be leaving for, you know, our children and our youth. I'm even thinking about the youth governance panel that was speaking earlier and how they were speaking on sustainability. We owe it to them to leave a better future and to leave some of these natural resources for them. So again, I'm just really imploring you all to please protect people over these corporate profits.

Thank you. Thanks, Summer. Do we have any questions for the speaker? Okay, our next speaker is Riley Neal. It doesn't indicate whether this person's online or in person. Do we, okay, Riley is here, okay. Riley, you'll have five minutes to address the board. Thank you.

Just one moment, I'm so sorry. This is the one I came here for. There was the one earlier that I spoke on, but that was just kind of spontaneous. First and foremost, we don't want to see data centers built in Dane County. They damage our land, harm individual residents and landowners, they destroy natural water systems and ecology, and are entirely against the popular interests of the people and communities that they seek to invade. At this point, most of us have heard the stories coming out of our local Wisconsin communities, both in Wisconsin and abroad, actually, people living near the sites of data centers or data centers under construction. Creeks completely dried up, dust from construction carrying for miles, leaving white coatings on lawns. We've seen thermal videos of illegal emissions from exhaust stacks from drone footage, reports of extreme infrasound from these facilities when powered on, which is a range of frequencies below 20 hertz that can't be heard by the human ear, but which can have severe physiological and health impacts, and so much more. They impact our property values, make lands impossible to sell, et cetera. One of the things that stands out among all these examples, almost every single time a new victim of these negative externalities comes forward, they report that they felt blindsided that a network of NDAs, bureaucracy, and business obscured any opportunity to get informed accurately about the ways that a project like this could impact their land or community, and that by the time they'd figured out what was happening right next door to them, it was already too late. The damage in construction had already begun on a facility that could, by no foreseeable means, be shut down. Large tech companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, or OpenAI, the environmental impacts of the construction and operation of these facilities is a non sequitur. It's a do first, ask forgiveness never situation. The only mechanism that we have to prevent the desecration of our natural environment is to stop it before it can start. On principle, large tech companies and their daughter companies which do the work of creating these data centers on their behalf have no obligation to this county or the people who live here or any county or any people besides their shareholders. So far, these companies have openly and from a business perspective quite understandably taken advantage of smaller communities and their land to install these facilities wherever the regulation is the least, the cost is the lowest, i.e. where there is the least resistance. We've seen that with adequate pushback, these companies can be deterred and rejected from communities, which is why it is imperative that we take action now to stop any plans for these developments in their tracks. But we've also seen that when these facilities get installed, there's effectively nothing preventing these companies from stopping their business as planned. There are rigorous studies with legal barriers that are almost impossible to overcome, to complete, and with even more barriers to publish than court battles and legal fights that we have a fraction of the training for as compared to the army of big tech lawyers who have curated the most effective battering ram through our safety nets and legal systems as they can conjure. It is essential that we pass this moratorium. Thank you.

Thank you, Riley. Do we have any questions for the speaker? Okay, not seeing any. Our next speaker is Brandon Theory.

brandon you'll have five minutes to address the board all right hello everyone thank you for listening to me speak so i'll get right into it in 2024 elon musk's xai colossus one data center roared to life in the predominantly black community of boxton in memphis Musk and his company shipped 35 gas turbine generators to power the center, intending to undercut the community's concerns about increased energy costs and circumvent the slow and complex integration into the existing power grid. The Southern Environmental Law Center found that these turbines, in addition to their carbon emissions, release volatile pollutants such as smog-forming nitrogen oxides, chemicals like formaldehyde, and fine particulate matter known as PM2.5s. These pollutants significantly increase the risk of asthma, heart attack, stroke, respiratory diseases, and other serious health conditions. According to the Mayo Clinic, there is no safe level of exposure to fine particulate matter. Unfortunately, Musk has set a new tempo in data center construction. 59 centers with a combined capacity of 90 gigawatts are planned to be built, are planned to build behind the meter power constructions that circumvent the power grid. That represents more than 25% of all planned data center capacity in the United States. What is clear is that as corporations seek to establish data centers, they will take the path of least resistance, disregarding our health, our water, our air, our environment, all in the name of their profit. We cannot allow that to happen here. And so I appreciate the board taking up this matter, but I would encourage them to push further and ban all construction in the county. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any questions for the speaker?

Okay, not seeing any. Do we have Juliana Bennett online? We do one last check there. Okay, that concludes our public speakers. And then up next is board discussion. And we will start with Chair Miles.

Thank you, Chair. Well, we've all seen the reporting from around the country, around our state, even here in Dane County about proposals to develop hyperscale data centers. We've seen that oftentimes these proposals are met with with a public outcry for more transparency and empirical information explaining exactly how such development will impact their communities and their lives. THESE PROJECTS PROMISE TO BRING INVESTMENT, REVENUE AND JOBS AND OFTENTIMES CLAIMS OF MINIMAL RISKS, BUT THE CLAIMS ARE OFTEN PROVIDED WITH LITTLE INFO TO SUPPORT THEM AND WHAT INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE IS OFTEN OPAQUE AND LACKING. But these projects also raise complex questions about energy use, water resources, and the long-term land use, among other concerns, many of which we've heard tonight from our speakers and from the many emails we have received on this regarding the resolution. And decisions made in haste without understanding the impacts, the unintended negative consequences that can themselves be permanent, can impact the quality of life and the cost of living for generations. Community leaders, therefore, have an obligation, and as do all decision makers, have an obligation to do their due diligence to make informed decisions. We like many communities have processes to evaluate changes in land use. However, no other land use would have such a demand on resources and such significant impacts as those of hyperscale data centers. Our processes don't contemplate such an intensive land use. So that is why we, the County Board, created the Advisory Committee on Data Centers to assist Dane County communities in doing their due diligence, to lift the veil of opacity in making such considerations and to make such considerations transparent for the public and to do so without the pressure of any given proposal. So ultimately, the committee will provide Dane County communities as well as the Dane County Board with findings and policy recommendations, empowering them to make informed, thoughtful, data-driven decisions regarding this type of land use. The moratorium imposed in Resolution 39 is an 18-month pause on approval of hyperscale data centers. This pause will provide the time for the Advisory Committee on Data Centers to complete its due diligence. However, our authority to impose a moratorium is limited to the 26 towns that are subject to county zoning. There are six other towns that have their own zoning. The city of Madison, by the way, has adopted their own moratorium several months ago, and it is my hope that all communities, cities, villages, and the six towns not subject to county zoning adopt a similar moratorium so they are able to incorporate the work of the Advisory Committee on Data Centers into their due diligence. So please support this short-term pause so informed decisions can be made regarding a permanent change in land use. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Miles. Up next, we have Supervisor Baruchek.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for bringing this forward and for sponsoring this resolution and the one that created the advisory committee. What does AI get us? What have you seen? Slop. It's slop. It's BS. I think what this resolution does, it creates an 18-month moratorium on these AI data centers that produce nothing but slop. It's well appreciated by people across the county, and I'm happy to rise in support of it. But I'll just say, Dane County, they know

that we're not about this.

And I was going to say this during, you know, it probably wasn't the appropriate time, so I appreciate the vice chair for enforcing the rules. I'm a rules guy. So I was going to say this before, but I talked to a QTS executive when we were out in D.C. with Supervisor Fuhrman and the vice chair, Supervisor Chabla. And you know what he told me? He said, They didn't ask for us to zone after the thing failed in DeForest. They didn't ask Dane County to rezone the town land because they know. They know that it's not happening and they're not coming to ask us to zone the area for AI data centers. So I'm happy to report to the board and to the public that they're not gonna ask us because they know that we're done with this AI slop. We're not gonna give away our land and water and our electricity for AI slop. But I want everyone on this board to support the resolution because that word is, that doesn't mean anything. I think, you know, by passing this resolution, we solidify our values here in Dayton County and we make sure that that we uphold the will of our constituents. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Supervisor Baruchuk. Up next, we have Supervisor Boettcher.

Thank you, Vice Chair. I would like to thank Chair Miles, who I contacted shortly after this original resolution came out to curtail it to hyper data centers. And there's a reason. There are data centers all across Dane County right now. They've been being built for years. I built a couple of them. As some of you know, I'm an electrician. I built a data center in Minnesota. It was the size of a very small office building that didn't even have 12 parking stalls in it because it was not even the size of well, not even a tenth the size of this building. And it didn't affect the area around it. It didn't require massive transmission lines. It didn't require new substations. It didn't require any of that because it was small enough. It was distributed. There's actually a factory in Dane County that is a manufacturing center that is producing trailer-mounted data centers. They literally go on a 40-foot trailer, and they're shipped across the nation. And they're put near the businesses that are using them. They're not massive, hyperscale centers. The problem that has happened with data centers and that we need to deal with is they are the new CAFO. Those of us who recall the many arguments over concentrated animal feeding operations in Wisconsin, where they started putting too many cows and too many pigs on too few acres, and they caused massive problems for the towns and villages around them with the manure, the waste, and the smell and everything that was happening. That's the new data center. They're trying to concentrate the money, make as much as possible, putting it in the smallest area possible, and making basically a problem, just like CAFOs did. And it took Wisconsin a while to get control of it. Iowa still hasn't, says my sister. And they still have these problems. And this is the new version. and that's why we needed the substitute amendment it's why we need this resolution to go this way is because we need to deal with this just like we had to deal with CAFOs we've got to make them go back to a distributed model so that it's not all sitting in one spot affecting and contaminating one community and one part of the generation grid one part of the water supply We have a lovely manufacturing company that has IBEW electricians working at it for over 15 years producing mobile data centers. We can do it. It can be done. We just need to fight the profit margin to get it back to that type of a model and resist these hyperscale centers. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Boettcher.

Up next, we have Supervisor Trucios.

Thank you, Vice Chair. I'm glad that I'm not the only person that wrote an email to Chair Miles when I first got that email with the same concern. First thing I thought when I read that resolution is it doesn't call it hyperscale specifically. For those who I'm sure we all kind of are aware now that the general data centers of the legacy type are very, very remarkably different than the current AI data centers, the issue that is before us. I personally have a variety of concerns. I think it's important that we give ourselves some time to investigate this. And I also think it's important that we give the technology time to mature in particular away from this rampant energy consumption and inefficient calculation route that it's on now where it is imperative that it burns through as much data and compute as humanly possible. so that it can grow faster than its competitors. Every individual model can grow faster than its competitors. There's a race to the bottom, and the bottom and the impact of that race is the impact on our communities and the natural environment around us. I have a unique background with power engineering. I'm a former merchant mariner. It's part of my licensure to be a merchant mariner. I received an engineering degree from California Cal Poly Maritime Academy where I was educated on all of the different facets of power generation from like typical engines and turbines all the way through All the way through electromechanics and power generation, three-phase power transmission, something that I think is underappreciated and isn't talked about enough is that our power grid is designed to produce electricity in a way that delivers continuous power. such that all of the consumers on the grid, that's all your manufacturing facilities, all the motors that run in those centers, consume electricity in the very same manner, continuous power delivery, continuous power consumption. These AI data centers do not consume electricity in that way whatsoever. It is a lot of rapid spikes and troughs in the power consumption. It's not continuous. These data centers as a whole will batch up compute in mass arrays and throw it at GPUs or tensor core processors, tensor processing units, in rapid order. And what that means is that you have... massive swings of electrical consumption to double-digit percentages within the region that it's in. The reason this matters in the technical term is sub-synchronous resonance. And instead of teaching you guys how three-phase electricity works in imaginary numbers and the fun calculus behind how that electricity actually works, the best way I can describe it is it's like throwing a brick in a dryer. When you hook up one of these data centers into the grid, what happens is it backfeeds, because of the way it consumes electricity, as I described, it backfeeds these harmonic residents back into the grid. And while that might not immediately cause problems, it is apparent. There have been papers published and news reports done that have documented motors in people's homes, their refrigerators, their laundry machines, that vibrate in place. It causes their equipment to live for a much shorter period of time. It's also responsible for the audible noise that many people report around these data centers. And the concerns that I have in particular, and this is far understudied, is the potential instability both on specific manufacturers and as far as quality assurance and on the grid as a whole. So we have in the Dane County area, we have a very large populace, a large number of biotech companies which like any other industries have motors in them and within biotech these are typically FDA manufacturing facilities so they're regulated by the federal government to produce medical devices that are used to either to perform tests on people or are used to make machines that operate on people or that people interface with as part of receiving health care. I formerly worked at one of these companies, and let me tell you, none of them were concerned about whether the quality of electricity they're receiving is such that it might cause the motors in their facilities to vibrate in place and deliver incontinuous power in a way that might lead to quality assurance issues that, if they are caught, would be expensive or even potentially, if they're chronic and unable to be resolved, could lead to them relocating entirely or at the worst case, could lead to patients being harmed because it's not caught soon enough and potentially that impacts the product they're producing. On the grid side, on the much larger, bigger picture, these subharmonic frequencies might not be felt by every single industry, but if there's an outage, if a data center drops off the grid spontaneously, if there are any other issues, if there's an electrical strike, if a lightning strike hits a major power transmitter or a large step-down transformer site, the impact could cascade because of the natural harmonics being introduced into the grid leading to an instability that cascades in a way that our grid operators are not prepared for and have not experienced before. Again, this is a very young technology. I think we should consider the full impacts. I have heard very few people speak on this issue in particular because of how in the weeds you have to really be and how much Calculus, honestly, you have to be able to parse in order to be able to fully wrap your head around the potential impacts. But I hope that we take a pause to really let this technology mature and for other people, for us to do the research and really understand better the potential knock-on impacts. So I will be voting in support of this resolution and the sub on it.

Thank you, Supervisor Trucios. And I am not seeing anyone else on the board or in the chat. So what is in front of us is sub one to res 39. So we'll go ahead and take a vote. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Okay, opposed. Abstentions? Okay, that passes. Thank you.

All right, that takes care of section K, resolution. So we're on to L, appointments. We have before us 2026 resolution 18, county chair appointments. What is before us is the executive committee recommendation for approval made earlier this evening. Any discussion on resolution 18? Hearing none, all in favor of approval, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. The motion carries. Resolution 18 is adopted. On to item two, 2026, Resolution 33, County Executive Appointments. Again, what is before us is Executive Committee Recommendation of Approval made earlier this evening. Any discussion on Resolution 33? Supervisor Ritt?

Thank you, Chair. This is my seventh term. Line 143, if my name could be spelled correctly, please. That was not directed at you, just the world in general. I blame my father, and I did it to my son, too. Please spell my name correctly.

All right, so that was line 40. 143. 143, okay.

Actually, one second, Chair.

I SHOULD ALSO CORRECT COMMITTEE ACTION. I SAID IT WAS RECOMMENDED FOR APPROVAL. IT WAS RECOMMENDED FOR APPROVAL AS AMENDED. WE DID AMEND THE RESOLUTION BY STRIKING LINES 151 AND 152. due to the fact that Supervisor Mearing opted not to, was not, is not able to serve on the Specialized Transportation Committee. So, it is, what is before us, my correction is, what is before us is RECOMMENDATION OF APPROVAL AS AMENDED AND NOW WITH THE CORRECTION OF THE SPELLING OF SUPERVISOR RITT'S FIRST NAME. ANY OTHER DISCUSSION? OKAY. ALL IN FAVOR SAY AYE.

AYE.

OPPOSED SAY NO. That carries, and resolution 33 is adopted. On to item three, 2026, resolution 34, county executive appointments. What is before us is executive committee recommendation of approval made earlier this evening. Any discussion on resolution 34? Okay, hearing none, all in favor of approval say aye. Aye. I would say no. With that, the vote carries and resolution 34 is adopted. And I need to make sure I'm not missing anything on registrations. We're on to M, and I'm just going to make sure there's Are there requests for separation on any of the seven items under section M, items requiring more than a simple majority? I am separating five, as we do have registrants wishing to speak on M5. Supervisor Baryszyk?

Thank you, no separations. I just ask to be recorded as a no on M1 and M4, please. There's a request.

Okay, Supervisor Wegleitner, you request separation of M1? Yes.

Okay.

Any other, Supervisor Brandmeier?

Oh.

Okay, didn't mean to do that. Okay. All right, so we are separating M1 and 5. Supervisor Perusik wants to be recorded as a no on M1 and 4.

Do you have that?

All right, so on the balance of items two through four and six and seven, I'd like to record those as having passed unanimously if there's no objection. Hearing no objection will be so recorded and those items are adopted. Going back to M1, amending chapter 62 of the Dane County Code of Ordinances, increasing fees for marriage licenses and certificates of termination of domestic partnerships. What is before us is, yes, executive committee recommendation for approval as amended. However, personnel and finance committee recommendations Recommended approval of sub one supervisor Wigliner.

Almost sub one.

Okay. All right. Supervisor Wegleitner moves adoption of OA 35 as amended by sub 1. Is there a second? Seconded by Chavla. Okay. Discussion on sub 1 to OA 35. Supervisor Wegleitner.

Go ahead. First, I just want to clarify that subsection 2 should be formatted underlined in sub 1 because it's a new Section, right? So if you look at the sub, I had reached out to Clerk McDonnell, a head of executive committee action, because we're increasing the supplementary fee, which is a discretionary fee that the county can assess on marriage licenses. I've served on subcommittee in the past at PB&J where we were looking at various fees and trying to limit the, regressive impact of fees and one way to do that is that to at least have a waiver process for folks who are low income so what this would do is create this subsection that provides for a waiver and it requires a waiver if it if the clerk determines the applicants are indigent and it references the the court form which is a petition an affidavit for waiver of court fees based on indigency, and that's if people, you can check a box if you qualify for means-tested public benefits like SNAP or food share benefits, medical assistance, legal services providers for indigent folks other means tested benefits so anyway there's already a standard court form to determine indigency that would be applied to act as a waiver here so that that's really what this sub is about and I appreciate the clerk and supervisor Chavla moving this at exactly

Okay, and just to repeat for everybody's information, lines 20 through 22 in the sub should have been underscored because that is a new paragraph. That's what Supervisor Wegleitner was referring to, and that can be a technical correction. It doesn't require another motion. So any further discussion on Sub 1 to OA 35? Hearing none, all in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. that uh motion carries away 35 is is pardon oh okay trucio sustains and the vote on this all right um well okay uh all right so now we're back to the main motion 0835 now is amended by sub 1. Any further discussion? And Supervisor Truccios on the main motion, are you wishing to abstain? Yes. Okay. Supervisor Ritt.

Please record me as no.

Okay. So we have Supervisor Ritt is voting no. All right. With that, I'd like to record this as having passed with more than a simple majority vote, if there's no objection. Hearing no objection will be so recorded. And O.A. 35, as amended by Sub 1, is adopted. Moving on to Item 5. We have registrants wishing to speak on 2026, resolution 27, reinstating $80,000 in the 2026 operating budget for the Dane County Sheriff's Office for an automated license plate reader system with enhanced privacy, security, transparency, and data control safeguards. What is before us is public protection and Judiciary Committee recommendation of approval as amended. And onto our speakers. Our first speaker is on Zoom, Dan Fitch, wishing to speak in opposition, to be followed by Noah Davison. Welcome, Dan. You have up to five minutes to address the board.

Howdy, folks. Am I audible?

You are. Go ahead.

Thank you chair and hello to everybody. Thank you for your service. Special hello to the new folks on the board. Um, some of you may not know the full context here. I'm not sure exactly how, uh, in detail, uh, you've gone, but when folks came out to say no to flock, uh, there was obviously a lot of agreement that that was a terrible company. And I understand that this is an attempt to do the right thing and find a less terrible way of doing these kinds of cameras. But the ACLU of Wisconsin has recommended that we do not put these kinds of surveillance in our communities. And if we do, to make sure that we have what they call civilian control over police surveillance or CCOPs. And this resolution as written to my eyes does not provide that. I think I can't find where it says that there should be a third-party audit on the actual use of the footage from these cameras. It talks about transparency as well, but annual reporting on these is not enough. If you look at the current ALPR audit procedure that the sheriff has published on their website, uh for the flock cameras it's so weak they were checking 10 a year was what was required in their procedure and that is 10 queries a year is ridiculous when that flock system was probably we don't even know how many queries it was getting because we don't get to see the external queries Hopefully this new system won't have any of those problems, but we still need to have a real usage audit. This resolution does not provide for that. That audit needs to happen from a third party that gets enough information that they can actually detect any abuses. We would not know currently if there were any abuses of the flock system in the past few years because the audit is done by the people using the system. The previous ALPR audit fails to be actually capable of detecting much of anything, so I don't think we can really let the sheriff's office watch their own back or their own usage. If we do that, we will only know when the whole abuse of the system becomes systemic, and it'll be too late. I would just like to argue for... INVESTING IN OTHER THINGS BESIDES MASS SURVEILLANCE AND ENCOURAGE YOU FOLKS TO THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT POWERFUL TOOLS LIKE THIS NEED REALLY POWERFUL OVERSIGHT. THANK YOU.

OKAY. NEXT UP, FIRST, ANY QUESTIONS FOR MR. FITCH? NONE. OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS NOAH DAVISON TO BE FOLLOWED BY NOAA's registered, wishing to speak in favor. Oh, in person.

In opposition.

Sorry, in opposition. You're right.

Thank you. Board members, thank you for opening this up and for sticking around until almost 10 o'clock to hear multiple opinions on things. We can just be really upfront about this. Any company that walks in here and tries to tell you that they can make you a surveillance spy camera system that will respect people's privacy is lying straight to your face. They want your $80,000, but much more than that, what they want is access to the location information of every single person in Dane County. And they will say whatever is necessary to get to that point. They'll tell you that people in public can be seen, right? How is that any different? It is tremendously different. If I were to go to the grocery store and I bump into my neighbor and we remember seeing each other, that's normal. But if that same neighbor were to follow me around town and record my location throughout the day and then add that to a searchable database and share it with others, that's an entirely different thing. That would be stalking. I could take a restraining order out on that neighbor. Any ALPR system would be doing exactly the same thing to every single person in Dane County at all times in perpetuity. The fact that it's happening to everyone doesn't make it fair. It makes it thousands of times worse. And there's no way to take a restraining order out on that. The county made the right call when they decided to cancel the contract with Flock. And I'm not gonna spend too much time ragging on Flock specifically because we've already made that decision. But you don't have to go too far to find examples just down the street of how these data logging companies are operating and what their long-term plan is for their own business model, which doesn't include you. Monona canceled their contract with Flock And then they told Flock, take down the cameras. But if you go over to Monona right now, there are multiple cameras that are still up on poles to the point where Monona had to bag them in plastic because Flock would not come back and remove their own hardware. That's really odd, isn't it? Why wouldn't they come and recover their own valuable property? is because those devices are very valuable to flock exactly where they are. Those devices are not just cameras, they are Wi-Fi and Bluetooth sniffers. Every single time you travel past that device, if the solar panel is active, it is picking up the ID of every single thing that goes next to it. If your car has a media center on it, then it grabs the ID of your media center just as if it had grabbed your license plate. If your phone has Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, it grabs your phone just as if it had scanned your face. Pedestrians included. So flock wants them right where they are. Now that Monona has canceled the contract, those same cameras, those same tracking systems are now operating with zero oversight and zero accountability, completely free, generating 70% to 80% of the same amount of data that they were collecting anyway, but now for Flock to use exactly as they see fit. Also, I would mention, I don't know if it was included in the original provision, but it might have been talked about. Flock also has an additional feature they can enable on their systems called ShotSpotter, which will triangulate the location of gunshots that happen within its network.

So that means they also have microphones listening at all times.

If this kind of idea gives you, you know, like chills down the back of your spine and makes your skin crawl, it would be the correct response. Not just to the disgusting invasion of your privacy, but to the fact that this company is determined to persist even after the city and authorities that had initially contracted them told them to stop. This is not unique to Flock. This attitude is systemic to an industry that makes their living by violating the privacy of people as thoroughly as possible. These are for-profit companies. It is not a possibility. It is an inevitability that these data will get sold to anyone who can pay. Insurance companies, data brokers, debt collectors, marketing companies would love it, right?

You only have about 20 seconds left.

All right. The question before the board is not whether the sheriff's office would find this kind of tracking useful. I'm sure that they would. The question is whether the people of this county consent to their movements being tracked and their privacy being violated by default every time they go out in public. We don't want it. We don't want it from the feds. We don't want it from the county. We don't want it from a private company. We don't want it at all. And if there are ALPRs up there, then every single time you go past one, it will be a reminder of how your decisions have damaged our Fourth Amendment rights. Thank you.

Any questions for Noah?

Hearing none, on to Garrig Abatista, wishing to speak in opposition, to be followed by Calvin with a last initial F. All right.

Hello, my name is Gary Gabatista. I'm still a resident of Dane County District 15. You guys have had a lot of fun stuff tonight. I'm here to speak in opposition to resolution 27. I'm glad that last time we had a near unanimous agreement to get rid of flock, but I would like to reiterate that while flock is an especially egregious example, I feel that much of the dangers posed by ALPRs are inherent to this technology and should not be allowed in Dane County. I think it's good to require exclusive control and ownership of the data. However, this data can and will be hacked or leaked because there is no such thing as perfect data security. Collecting it at all still presents a risk. I am also fearful of the federal government or ICE coming to town with the intent to do harm to our neighbors and demanding access to this data. This is a danger to our community safety. I also do not trust any private surveillance company as there's incentives for profit are against the wellbeing and privacy of the citizens. Flock is not unique in wanting to collect as much data as possible to sell to anyone who wants it. I find it hard to believe that any tech company will not try and gather as much of our private data as possible as it is in their best interest to do so. I also feel that there is a social cost to surveillance, because when folks start to feel watched, even unconsciously, it changes how they behave. They might avoid certain places, speak up less, and feel less connected. And the people who feel it the most are usually those who already feel scrutinized. Cameras do not prevent crime and do nothing to stop crime as it's happening, nor does auditing prevent abuse from occurring. I think this money could be far better spent investing in our communities and addressing the root issues of what causes crime in the first place, rather than spying on our community. Please vote no on this resolution. We do not want surveillance at all in Dane County. Thank you.

next we have i'm sorry any questions for the last speaker okay uh next speaker is calvin f uh wishing to speak in opposition and he is on zoom so colin you have up to five minutes to address the board hello can you all hear me you can go ahead okay

Hello. I am Calvin Fisnick. I live in Fort Atkinson. While I am not a Dane County resident, I do frequently work in Madison, and I do believe it is important to speak on this national issue that requires local attention. I am here to talk about the future of our country. What I am not here to do is debate the effectiveness of such tech. I do believe that it can be used for good, and I am all for police having the tools they need to serve and protect the public when those tools don't infringe on the freedom of the public. I appreciate the decision to cancel the contract with Flock because despite what Flock says, their system does essentially record patterns of a person's life. Individual cameras may not, but the aggregated data from many cameras does. The system has been used to track a woman who had an abortion, stalk people, and surveil protesters, among other things. The sharing of data has been unclear and often the opposite of what we've been told. These issues are not exclusive to Flock. For example, Axon has a similar system offering similar AI vehicle detection without license plates and data points from across the city aggregated into one place. Switching vendors will not address the core issues. Those being every citizen's pattern of life is being recorded, can be accessed without a warrant. And once this infrastructure is in place, it'll be much harder to prevent the vendor from adding things like facial recognition with an update or a future government from using it against constitutionally protected speech or action. Rewording contracts and switching vendors does not change the tech that is being used or the data being collected. It is all still there, ready to be abused. Canceling the contract with Flock is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough by itself. I believe we should not have a system at all that tracks the movements of everyone. It would make sense to me to avoid allocating budget for this until it's known what the new system would look like if there is to be one, and wait until after the public has been able to speak for or against it. But regardless of whether when or whether the budget is approved, I urge the sheriff, county board, and anyone else involved in this matter to make a decision based on the core technology, not the vendor. We need to find a solution that helps law enforcement without recording the movements of everyone, regardless of who is suspected of a crime, potentially enabling stalking or oppression by an unknown future government if we are to have such a system at all. Thank you.

Any questions for the speaker? Okay, hearing none, our last registrant registered to speak in opposition is Adam Rohinen, who's here in person.

Hi, thank you. I'm not going to read you 30 articles today. I just have four. I'm sure you heard about the case in Milwaukee that made national news. A Milwaukee officer searched 124 times for their ex, specifically on Flock. Well, I think about, let's see, May 19th, a second officer under investigation in Milwaukee for using Flock inappropriately I also want to bring up a couple. Let's see, January 9th, a Menasha police officer used flock to find a charge with stalking to look for his victim's car. And then a fourth case, from the Washington Examiner with open records requests. Flock abuse in Kenosha. This is also from a couple months ago. A sheriff's deputy used flock to track another sheriff deputy's car who he was dating. So I think these security issues are not unique to Flock. I think they would exist in any ALPR network. If the sheriff's office is going to have an ALPR network, they need to practice Basic IT security, everyone needs the minimum access required and nothing more. How many sheriff's deputies are going to have access to the ALPR network? There's roughly 450 sheriff's deputies in Dane County. Milwaukee reduced the number who have access to 100 sheriff's deputies to their FLOC network. I still think that's too many. So that needs to be discussed, I think. Will it be accessible outside of a sheriff deputy's work hours? Will there be two-factor authentication? FLOC, specifically FLOC, passwords were obtained by federal officers and then shared around federal departments, passwords from local police officers. I read about that last time I talked about Flock. So I guess $80,000 probably doesn't sound like a lot, but comparing that to maybe, A LAWSUIT OR A CRIMINAL TRIAL AGAINST A SHERIFF'S DEPUTY THAT IS VERY COSTLY. SO I JUST WANT TO BRING UP SOME OF THOSE SECURITY ISSUES THAT JUST IN WISCONSIN, JUST THE LAST COUPLE OF MONTHS, ALPR NETWORKS HAVE HAD ISSUES WITH. THANK YOU.

NEW SPEAKER ANY QUESTIONS FOR OUR LAST SPEAKER? HEARING NONE. There are no more speakers, so we're on to discussion and debate. The recommendation for Res 27 is recommended for approval by PP&J. Supervisor Chavla.

Thanks, Chair Miles. I'd like to add an amendment at line 50. I did share this with board staff and they can project it on the screen if they're able to do so. The amendment is now be it further resolved that the chair of the county board shall notify the controller in writing that any proposed agreement for the purchase or implementation of an automatic license plate reader system shall be considered a major contract pursuant to Dane County Ordinances 25.04.10. And if I get a second, I could speak to that.

We have a motion by Chavala, seconded by Andre to insert the lines displayed on the screen. And you will also bring a copy of that to the clerk when you're done speaking. Thank you. Go ahead.

Okay, I won't speak to the main motion right now, but I'll speak to the amendment here. So I believe our county ordinances, if we have contracts under 100,000, those don't need to come to the board, but due to the attention that this particular contract and technology are receiving, I think if there was an RFP, as this is calling for, any vendor selected in the RFP should be approved by the entire board. Thanks.

Okay, any further discussion on the Chavala Amendment? Supervisor Tricius?

No.

On the main motion, okay. Anyone else on the Chavala Amendment? Okay, hearing none, all in favor? Oh. Supervisor Engelberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a question for our council. Does this set a precedence at all? IT'S AN ORDINANCE THAT THINGS OVER 100,000 WOULD COME TO THE BOARD. IS THIS PRECEDENT SETTING, THIS MOTION? THIS AMENDMENT?

IT'S DIFFICULT TO SAY, BUT I WILL SAY THAT THE OPTION TO DESIGNATE ANY CONTRACT, A MAJOR CONTRACT, IS ALREADY CODIFIED IN OUR ORDINANCE. SO THAT AUTHORITY STILL EXISTS, AND IT CAN BE EXERCISED AT ANY TIME.

THANK YOU. Just to clarify a point of information, because it's under $100,000, if a contract came in that way, it would not be considered a major contract. This is just saying the process of a major contract shall apply in this situation. And we've done similar things before. There's even been some not so long ago in coming out of public works and transportation that required board action that we would otherwise not have. Supervisor Andri.

Sure, thank you. There's just been so much discussion about this issue over the last few months, much warranted. It was just an oversight on my part that this was not designated as a major contract. So I appreciate Supervisor Chavala for bringing that to our collective attention. And just to reiterate, under Chapter 25, either the board chair or the finance chair can designate any of these items as a major contract. So this is just putting it in writing in the resolution here so that we all have a common understanding of that process. Thank you.

All right. Any further discussion on the child law amendment? All right. On the child law amendment, all in favor of approval say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. With that, the resolution, resolution 27 is amended by the travel law amendment. So back to the main motion, Supervisor Trujillo.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was the dissenting vote in PPNJ. So I figured I would rise to speak against this item and kind of explain the reasoning behind my decision. But before I really get there, I wanted to start by asking the sheriff a question. Sheriff Barrett, do you know what has been done with the flock cameras? Have they been taken down yet?

Yeah, we were able to check on that earlier this afternoon. The 31st was the day that they were supposed to be taken down. Flock has been notified to take those down. As of this moment, they haven't been taken down, but the order has been given that if they are not taken down by 3 o'clock tomorrow, that we will put bags over all of the cameras that are out and not taken down.

Fantastic. Thank you. And just so that I know, is that the Sheriff's Department that will be doing that or are you asking Public Works to do that?

We would reach out to Public Works. Obviously, there might be some additional equipment to get to the heights of those things that I do not think our deputies will be. But I want the community and I want the board to know that we take the fact that they haven't been taken down very seriously. And we want to make sure that we maintain the trust that we've built over the past many years here at the Sheriff's Office.

Awesome. Thank you so much. And I do want to specifically praise this response. I'm really glad to hear it, especially after the work and efforts that have been put through by several of our municipalities who have passed resolutions like the flock ban that has gone through here. It's been very hard to get those taken down. So I appreciate your quick responsiveness on that matter. I personally have a lot of reservations and concerns with this technology as a whole, but I'm going to try to break it down essentially subject to subject. I think that the problem of what has been demonstrated by Flock and how it's handled its massive market share in this subject, in this industry, is one that is baked into the nature of the product itself. As one of our public speakers has said, we are charging a company with providing a AI driven, and even if we were stripped that component of it, an automated network system of cameras that identifies people and tracks them, especially ones that reaches a certain scale. The profit motive necessarily will push companies to seek as much profit out of that as possible. And the best way to seek that profit is by finding ways to aggregate that data, even if you anonymize it, share it with other partners, sell it off to other partners. And even if they were to not actively take that role, even if they were disciplined internally to not do so, it would be feasible that a federal agency were to step in and say, actually, this is a matter of national security that we have a dragnet ability to track anybody within the US at any time. I have a lot of concerns regarding putting $80,000 forward before an RFP has been actually put forward in a contract as before us for consideration. But really focus my my the focus of my concern is especially on the technology itself um i don't believe that we should be privatizing our way around the fourth amendment i don't think our citizens and residents should be paying to create this again dragnet uh automated tracking system even if every single uh EVEN IF EVERY SINGLE PART OF THIS RESOLUTION WERE TO COME TRUE AND WE WERE TAKING IT ON ITS FACE, I STILL HAVE CONCERNS WITH THE LEGALITY, HONESTLY, OF THIS TECHNOLOGY, WHICH HAS NOT BEEN TESTED YET. BUT THE QUESTION IS HOW MUCH WOULD WE WANT TO BE THE INSTITUTION THAT'S ON THE HOOK IF IT DOES HERE IN DANE COUNTY. I do want to cite just the specific cases. United States versus Jones was a SCOTUS decision in 2012, which found that GPS tracking of a vehicle requires a warrant. Much more applicable to this case, Carpenter versus United States was a SCOTUS case of 2018 that found that geofencing, so essentially police used a specific GPS range and requested a large internet provider, a large... large service provider provide data on everybody who was within that geofence area within a set period of time so they could try to locate who was in that area. That was found to be unconstitutional without a warrant. That is very similar to what we are talking about here today, setting up these sentry systems that automatically collect data on people that cross by. And the particular concern that I have is even raised much more strikingly when you go beyond just tracking license plates and tracking towards the more generic features of a vehicle, the person inside of the vehicle, which is very much the focus of what Phlox cameras have done. I'm not familiar with all the other contracts out there. I'm sure it'll come before us. And I do have concerns regarding whether we should be requesting another RFP for a technology that our citizens and residents have demonstrated that they do not have a desire for. If we put another RFP out, And this is once again struck down because of public outrage. Even if it doesn't go to flock, that public outrage sends a very negative message to anybody who wants to put a contract before the county board. And specifically within the state of Wisconsin, we have a law banning a technology that's not quite similar, but I think speaks to the spirit of this issue. State statute 3049.02 bans red light cameras within the state. And the idea very much is that you, in general as a whole, is that you have a right to be able to face your accuser. an automated system that may or may not be able to actually determine whether you are the subject that's being assessed. It's more of making a guess as to whether your license plate really does match up with the one being searched, assuming all good faith on every single step of that process. IT DOES NOT REACH A BAR THAT I THINK OUR DEPARTMENT SHOULD BE RELYING ON. TO THE RESOLUTION ITSELF, AGAIN, PUTTING THE MONEY UP FRONT IS A CONCERN THAT I HAVE, THOUGH I WILL RESPECT THE FACT THAT THE SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT I'M SURE WILL BE ABLE TO FIND A USE FOR THE MONEY. THE AUDIT COMPONENT I WANT TO EMPHASIZE AND I BELIEVE AND FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME SUPERVISOR ANDRE WAS RECOGNIZED IN COMMITTEE AS NOT BEING A RECURRING ONGOING PERSISTENT AUDIT OF ACTIVE PRACTICES BUT MORE AN AUDIT OF HOW THE CONFIGURATION OF THIS TECHNOLOGY IS SET UP. And based on that fact, I find it suspect whether all of the other elements of, or all of the elements as a whole of this resolution, all the safeguards within it, will be guaranteed. And I want to finish up by offering up the idea that a no vote on this resolution is not a permanent decision. banning license plate reader technology within Dane County. If the proponents of this technology are correct, that it can be implemented in a way that safeguards rights without leading to the imprisonment of innocent people or the abuse of the system by end users or corporate powers, or offering up swaths of our citizens' data to abusive authorities across our country and in D.C., then those facts and strategies that ensure compliance will come to light in the coming years if we reject this resolution before us. A vote against this resolution is a vote against beta testing this technology on our county's residents, especially our most vulnerable and the most likely to be placed under extreme scrutiny. I ask that we reconsider this technology, this resolution and resolutions like it once the technology and its implementation matures, not for the betterment of national dragnet strategy, but for the betterment of privacy and legitimate police work. Our Sheriff's Department deserves better than the public's justifiable distrust that a race to reimplement ALPR technology will guarantee. In the future, with stronger data supporting its use in demonstrated safeguards, a future reconsideration of this technology can be made in a way that fosters public buy-in, one where the technology is seen as a legitimate tool that is born out of matured technology and strategy, not one where corporate sales pitches and nervous tendencies beats out our residents' privacy and civil rights. I ask that you vote no in the interest of maintaining public trust and allow time for other municipalities to learn the hard lessons that we do not want. OUR RESIDENTS, URBAN, SUBURBAN, AND RURAL DESERVE NOTHING LESS. SUPERVISOR CHOPPER.

THANKS, CHAIR MILES. WHAT WE'VE SEEN IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS TO A YEAR IS

Flock has abused the trust that they've put, that our community had put in them. And it's not just Flock, it's all of big tech has done that. And they have done that because they think their technology sets policy. And what this resolution does is it changes that paradigm. This resolution is about setting policy. It's about setting guidelines on an RFP. And although it puts money in a budget item, a budget line, it does not allow that money to be spent. So when we look at what this actual resolution does, it asks the sheriff's department to issue an RFP. And in issuing that RFP, what it does is it sets policy with that. This is similar to what we did with the jail communications RFP earlier tonight. And what it's doing is it's really solving a problem that we're really running into in Dane County here. We get contracts after they're finished and then we get pressure as a board to say, you need to vote this up because if you don't vote it up, we won't have this service, it's time sensitive, it comes to us finished. And so what both of these resolutions do tonight is they set what the policies of these contracts should be. And I think that's a very important thing for us to do as a county and I want to point to a lot of the changes that are in here and I'm going to read them from the resolution. Independent third party auditing of the system's privacy and security protections and disclosure of audit findings. having a third party come in and do that audit saves us from having us do that audit, having the sheriff's department do that audit that is coming from a third party. Another big issue that we have is the ownership and control of any data that's generated and what data is actually generated. When you have these systems, you can collect a certain amount of data and that data can have a life cycle to it. Flock has said that life cycle is infinite and belongs to anybody who is part of Flock's network. Through policy, we can say we are looking at something in a finite snapshot in time, and after we've looked at it, it no longer exists. And having those retention limits in our policy is vitally important. The next thing is restricted user access controls and having that comprehensive audit logging. When we have systems like this, particularly in public safety and criminal justice, it's not so much as we need to audit who's logging in. We also have to know what somebody is searching for, when they conducted that search and if that search resulted in any search results. Having that audit logging, we can see if systems are being abused, if folks are if law enforcement is searching for things that are not for criminal justice purposes, if they are for personal purposes, if they are for vendetta purposes, if they are doing searches that they that they are not allowed to do and just as important here if we own the data that data by contract and policy cannot be sold so having all these measures in place and setting forth these guidelines as policy prior to an rfp going out the door and having any vendor who's responding to that rfp knowing clearly what our expectations are and furthermore if a vendor was to be selected who could provide the services with all of the guard rails that we have and all the guidelines that we have that contract would come back to this board for approval so there is a further uh um area of protection there as well. And then also looking at the final clause, this gives our Public Protection and Judiciary Committee the oversight, which I would say they might not have had in the past, or that might have been overlooked or brushed aside. With the amendment that I made that I offered earlier that passed, I will be voting for this resolution, but I think it's critically important to entrust the Public Protection and Judiciary Committee to work on that RFP and to give input to the draft of that RFP and to ultimately approve that RFP before it goes out the door. Thank you.

Supervisor Brandmeier.

Thank you, Chair Miles. I represent District 20, which is a rural district. And I know a lot of people are against the flock cameras. And the company was a major problem. Initially, ALPR technology was not this much in disagreement. But I know it's not 100% in Dane County. that are against these cameras. I've heard time and time again from people in my districts that they've been very useful in reducing crimes. And right now, this original 80,000 was in the budget for the use of some sort of camera system. And so if the sheriff can come up with a company that meets all these criteria and it has the, we will once again vote on it, it's kind of a no harm, no foul. If he can find someone that can do this job with these restrictions, it gives the sheriff's department another tool to use until the end of the year. Because right now the sheriff's department is short staffed. Maybe in the next budgetary cycle that would change. and this use of cameras won't be needed, because this is only until the end of the budget cycle, if I'm correct on that, right? And so there's some, I don't know if you all read the article that Sheriff Barrett sent everyone with regards to crime reduction and stuff like that, but some of the highlights were since the use of this technology, these cameras, Fraud has been down 12.12%, retail thefts down almost 77%, sex offenders down 54.5%, stolen autos down almost 45%, and regular thefts down, I don't know what that in counts is, but 41.4%. So there is some good that comes from these cameras. I mean, I don't, you know, nobody wants cameras looking at them. I mean, and in a lot of ways, CAT has already been let out of the bag in our world, which is unfortunate. But if the sheriff can provide a company that has all these provisions from line 60 to 75, then at least we should take a look at it and then we can vote accordingly. And would it be okay if I ask the sheriff a question about that, if he has any companies in mind or what kind of protections? No?

Yeah. Okay.

So I guess my question is, if you think you'd be able to find a company that can provide all these services with all these protections in place on data usage,

Yes, I believe there, I think I mentioned earlier, there's around 16 companies that provide this type of technology. I believe all of the companies that use this technology are seeing the dramatic downfall of flock and learning from all of the issues that they've experienced and that the communities aren't standing for it and they're making those adjustments. There is a company that mentioned that they would be able to provide us with what we need, similar to what we have right now, less than the $80,000. So it's very possible.

And then another big concern was who has access to it? Like for specifically ICE, is there any way that any loophole that somebody could get this information or is that TBD depending on the company?

No, with what we've discussed before, kind of some of the changes that are being made by the tech, the technology companies, we would own the data where before FLOP company owned the data and we had access to it. It would be our data, our data to share. We would be able to specifically identify who can and cannot get access to the information that we have.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, Supervisor Betcher. Thank you, Chair. First, I'd like a point of clarification. I see in the legislative history that there was an amendment made that eliminated lines 73 to 75, but that's not marked up in the one you bring up on the agenda. So was item number eight eliminated in what we're voting on? And then if so, why?

Yes, so it is in the bold line from the action on the item. So that item was eliminated because essentially it was duplicative of a component already included in the final resolve clause in the legislation. It wasn't something that we want actually included in the contract itself. It was just a process about the reporting and engagement with PPNJ.

Okay, thanks. You're welcome. And then I'd like to speak to it itself. I think we've talked here a lot about the problems with this type of a system and how it could be abused and what it can cause. But we haven't talked about why we would ever want such a system. If you have a lost person or an elderly person who is driven off and they're trying to find them, this is a very fast way to find that person. If you have someone who's stolen a car, this is a very fast way to find that car. That's why these systems came out in the first place. It was to try to get crime solved quickly, whether it's a kidnapping, whether it's a stolen vehicle, whether it's a robbery or an assault, and you know the vehicle license plate number. Rather than trying to have hundreds of sheriff deputies driving all over the county trying to find that vehicle, that's what these were for. That's what they're supposed to do. The problem was a certain company decided to take that and go way beyond what it was supposed to do. And then humans became human, which was some police officers sometimes do things they're not supposed to. We provide guns to our police officers because they need them to protect themselves and protect the public. Unfortunately, some shootings are wrong and are done improperly because they're people and they do it wrong. We've seen officers do that. Does that mean we're gonna take all the guns away? Some police officer may take his vehicle and chase the wrong person and go the wrong way, or speed off on his own because he wants to chase his girlfriend. Are we gonna take all the vehicles away from them? No. What we're gonna do is enforce the rules, but we need to put the rules in place, and that's what this resolution does. It isn't the technology that's wrong when a police officer uses it to go after his girlfriend or his ex or whatever the case may be, or she does that. What it is is we need to enforce the rules on them and have those rules in place. I'll be voting for this resolution right now because it's about putting those rules in place. And then it's up to us to monitor our deputies and officers that they do it properly. And when they don't do it properly, we enforce the policies that we put in on it.

Supervisor Wagner.

Thank you, Chair Miles. I'm in a rise in strong opposition to this proposal. I'm not at all sad. I mean, I will say that I don't like automatic license plate reader cameras. I think the amount of surveillance that we have all around us over the last 40 years also coincides with mass incarceration in this country and real harm inflicted on black and brown communities. And the combination between surveillance and big data makes this even scarier. Instead of law enforcement reacting to criminal behavior based on individualized suspicion, we have massive data networks and predictive data tracking and technology being funneled to law enforcement to try to intervene, to more closely monitor, to further over police and surveil communities that have always consistently been harmed. by law enforcement activities that have disproportionate contact with the criminal legal system, that are disproportionately sitting in our jail right now, in our prisons. This automatic license plate reader system just takes us further down that path. And $80,000 might not seem like a lot of money. This is a really tough budget year. We're going to be scrambling for $80,000 in a few months. We have an overflow shelter that was funded and cut by a couple hundred thousand dollars that's only going to be able to be open for a few months in the coldest part of winter to save lives and limbs of 200 people. and we're potentially spending $80,000 on an automatic license plate reader system. We heard today at Community Justice Council that we could really use an assistant community coordinator to help with making sure that JL Curry can go on vacation and get breaks. There are so many needs that will actually enhance public safety. that will save lives, not create risk, not make us all under a more surveilled state where our privacy, where our liberties continue to be infringed upon. The requirements for this RFP put a lot of trust in the police, in the provider to police themselves. This board and the oversight committee does not in any way, shape or form have the capacity to monitor compliance and ensure that these values that folks are talking about are gonna be upheld. Not at all. So if you trust this sort of data, this sort of monitoring, given the historical record of how surveillance goes and over policing goes, if you trust that whole system and you trust the police to police themselves and their use of it, then you probably have no problem voting for this resolution and spending another $80,000 on it. But I think a lot of you know that's not the way it works. And we haven't gotten good outcomes that way. And we need more civilian oversight. We don't have the capacity, we don't have the enforcement, we don't have the well, just capacity of this board and in our committees to ensure this won't be used for harm. And I honestly, I don't see how a system like this could not be used for harm. So I will be voting no, and I encourage others to do the same.

Supervisor Andre.

Thank you, Chair. Really want to appreciate there are very valid questions and concerns about trade-offs between privacy and security and public safety. Those are the conversations we should constantly be having and they're really worth getting into the weeds on. I do want to flag that there are, you know, as noted earlier, at least one vendor that has come forward to indicate they are very aware of these tradeoffs and the need for greater transparency, compliance, privacy, security, auditing tools, et cetera. And as specifically said, other vendors are not doing good enough at this work and that, you know, they and others have alternative solutions in place they'd like to put forward. So there might be entities out there that can meet these requirements. I would suggest that if you're on the fence with this resolution, let's advance it at this point and then see if we're satisfied collectively with the terms of that contract. We won't know until it comes before this board. I would also suggest that advancing this for any reason without the funding is a fruitless effort because of all of the uncertainty around these systems. So putting the funding back in that was originally allocated in this year's budget is is a reasonable step and especially in light of the staffing issues that um continue with the sheriff's office despite you know great attempts there this is one of those tools that as shared can be used for ill can be used for good but is a tool in the toolkit that with the proper policies and controls and constraints is worth considering. And finally, certainly we will face these continued budget conversations, but when we are looking at the value of a technology tool that we can put constraints on like not having anything to do with GPS whatsoever or just storing the data ourselves and having full controls That to me is a trade-off I'm willing to consider, and especially knowing that the majority of policing from the sheriff's office happens in rural communities, that there will never be officers in every square mile of at every moment. This to me feels like a step forward in that process to evaluate and explore whether there's an option that can meet the majority of our community needs and addresses the reasonable concerns that have been raised along the way. Thank you.

Hey, Supervisor Weigleitner for a second time.

Thank you. I have heard the rural argument. I will say that there's nothing in this RFP language that says anything about location or siting. And there's... highways all over the place. And when you looked at the list of where the flock cameras were, they were not just in very rural areas. They were throughout the county. And there was one that was called Flex Camera, which I have no idea where that one was. And there's nothing in here that talks about that ensures that they're not gonna be only targeting low income or communities of color. There's no restrictions whatsoever. There's no restrictions that they even be in a fixed location or that they couldn't just move it. So I just, it's not here. And I just wanna point that out.

excuse me okay uh the supervisor go ahead did you did you call on me i didn't hear it i was the one that voted against um i think i was the only one that voted against the last uh vote on this not because I didn't want to get rid of the cameras, but because I wanted to keep the money in the sheriff's budget. We're not spending an extra $80,000 here. We're spending money that was in the budget that was taken out of the budget and that I argued at the time we may not be able to get that money back into the sheriff's budget. This is a safety issue. Public safety is one of the most important things that we do in this county. It's one of the most important. In fact, for me, it's the most important thing that we do, protecting the public. So question for you, Mr. Chairman, does this take a two-thirds vote?

Yes, it's under.

I mean, this is going to need a lot of support to pass this. I THINK IT'S VERY IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT'S A SAFETY ISSUE. WE'VE SEEN WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE'VE PASSED THINGS IN THE PAST. AT OUR LAST MEETING WE PASSED SOMETHING THAT DIDN'T GET THE TWO-THIRDS BUT IT PASSED THE MAJORITY. IT'S GOING TO AFFECT HOW WE OPERATE IN THE FUTURE. I just think we need to get this thing passed. We can look at what comes from the RFP. We can see what comes to see if we want to approve that at the time. Let's get this thing rolling and protect the public in this county. Thank you.

Supervisor Kemp.

Thank you, Chair Miles. I rise tonight in support of this resolution. As some of you may know, I was one of the original authors and sponsors of the last piece of legislation that we passed. I started shepherding that because I had serious concerns about the company flock itself and What we all found out, quite frankly, was that they were essentially running things like the Wild West. They were doing whatever they wanted to do without any real restraints or constraints on the data that they were collecting. I think that what we've done here is we've put ourselves in a position to control, particularly where we're talking about having an independent third party auditing system. that allows privacy and security for the information that's being collected. My concern is we had nothing like that at all. Secondly, I'd like to point out that this is just an opportunity for us to investigate. I think one of the questions that I asked the sheriff when he was giving his testimony, and it was one simple question. It was, are there other entities that provide the same type of service that Flock does that we could perhaps go out and see if we could secure someone to do the same work that maybe actually has some ethics and morals? And his answer was very simple. He said, yes. All this is doing is affording us the opportunity to try and investigate to see if we can find someone or some entity that could do that work. So at this point, given the fact that, I mean, I don't think anybody can refute some of the evidence that the sheriff has presented, that this has actually helped in certain situations, life-threatening situations, where people were in danger, people perhaps maybe were kidnapped. I know that they mentioned there was issues where people were suicidal. That has helped in those instances. So I don't think we can necessarily eschew from this technology. We need to find an entity that can do the job and do it correctly. So I would ask my colleagues to support this resolution. Thank you.

OK.

Supervisor Abizi.

Thank you all so much. So I will rise as well to support this resolution. One is because I do see, I mean, with the shortage of staffing and hard recruiting deputies, I see this as is actually cost saving having an alternative to having an alternative out there. And for individuals that are concerned about why 80,000 is being spent because it should have been spent somewhere else, I know in one of the last meetings we approved $6.4 million for a purchase of a land. So if we can spend $6.4 million, which, by the way, I was the only one that voted no on that, why can't we spend $80,000 for a safety issue? Thank you.

All right, there being no further speakers on this, no one else on the board, this requires more than a simple majority vote. In fact, it requires two-thirds vote of the body, the membership, which means 25 votes to pass. So I'm going to ask for a roll call vote. Clerk, please call the roll.

Ritt? Ritt, no. Ritt, no. Rylander? Rylander, no. Rylander, no. Smith? Smith, aye. Smith, aye. Truscius?

Truscius, no.

Truscius, no. Beldren? Beldren?

Aye, sorry.

Beldren, aye. Wegleiner? No. Wegleiner, no. Welsh? Welsh aye. Yang? Yang absent. Andre? Andre aye. Andre aye. Baruchuk? Aye. Baruchuk aye. Blaisawitz? Blaisawitz absent. Boettcher? Aye. Boettcher aye. Bollig? Bollig aye. Bollig aye. Brandmeier? Brandmeier aye. Brandmeier aye. Brouwer?

Brower, aye.

Brower, aye. Chavla? Chavla, aye. Chavla, aye. Dantzler? Aye. Dantzler, aye. Doolin? Doolin, absent. Downing?

Aye.

Downing, aye. Eicher?

Aye.

Eicher, aye. Engelberger? Engelberger, aye. Engelberger, aye. Erickson? Erickson, aye. Erickson, aye. Freese? Aye. Freese, aye. Fuhrman? Glazer?

Glazer, aye.

Glazer, aye. Gray.

Gray, no.

Gray, no. Hueselman.

Hueselman, no.

Hueselman, no. Jackson. Jackson, no. Kemp. Kemp, aye. Kemp, aye. Croning. Croning, aye. Croning, aye. Larson. Larson, aye. Larson, aye. Lewis. Louis I Louis I Marin. Turn I Marin I busy busy I Peterson Peterson absent Fossler Fossler I Miles. Miles I Miles I. After Furman going back to Supervisor Furman. Supervised, Furman aye.

And then I just need to remove this one here.

Okay, so we have 26 votes for aye, six no, and four absent.

That's seven no. So we have 26 aye, seven no, four absent. The resolution is adopted. All right, that takes care of items requiring more than a simple majority vote. We're on to any other such business. Any other such business is allowed by law? Anyone, anyone? No, nothing. Is there a motion to adjourn? All right, enthusiasm. Move by Erickson, seconded by Fuhrman to adjourn. All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Those are adjourned. Thank you all night.