Public Safety - Regular Meeting

Does anybody have an extra pen? No, I don't. Right there, I see it.

Thank you. Okay, let's try again.

Okay, we're going to open up the public safety or, you know, we're going to accept the minutes of June 30th.

We've got a second from John. All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. OK, we're going to skip from district attorney to public defender, so Mike. Thank you.

Morning.

Good morning.

Nothing but good news.

That's what we want to do. Thank you for being the first this morning.

Oh, good. I hope I'm serious. Exactly. One update I received this morning was I guess the Legal Aid Society started with the conflict defender contract today. So that's a step in the right direction. I'm seeking approval of the conflict policy between our office and the assigned council office. We did distribute a draft. I think the county attorneys approved it. Assigned council approved it. We've kind of been doing this anyways, and case mode is what drives, is what our real concern about these conflicts are, is that the more conflicts, the more cost, less conflicts, presumably less cost. We, there may have been a period of time where there were too many files being completed. That's of the dynamics of all of this. And I think that this conflict policy will just help make things more clear with respect to conflicts of interest. So I am seeking approval of that.

We moved the conflict policy. Do we have a second? Any discussion on that?

Go ahead. Do you think that this policy If you get the streamlining done, you know, who gets it, who doesn't? You can actually save money and keep stuff in your office, Aesthetic Mortar Science Council.

I mean, we know we can. And I anticipated a question like that. I have our caseload for the year here. Our monthly caseload limit per ILS caseload standard is a weighted number of 86,000. The lowest number of files we've taken in a month so far is 113. That was in February. So that would be 45 points over the limit. And most months here, it looks like we're doing about 150. So the conflicts aren't happening. They weren't happening even before the policy because Mr. Chaffee and I were operating as though the policy existed. So we're already going down on the conflict side. And I think another major wrinkle of this, not to try to get into too much, but one of the bigger costs of this formerly was those misdemeanor level vehicle and traffic offenses that we were utilizing assigned council attorneys for to keep ourselves within the caseload limited. As a county, I think we've collectively decided that we're not going to try to get to this limit as much as we're going to just try to handle the files that are supposed to be handled. So that was a big without getting it. There's a lot more detail there, but that's it in a nutshell. So I think these numbers are already going down. I don't have, you know, spending numbers to give you. I do have the caseload numbers and our caseloads out of them. So the site council's caseload should be death. Thank you. The other update I have is that we did change the staffing pattern. early in the year or late last year, and we have filled all of our open positions. So we have no attorney vacancies, which should also help keep conflicts down and keep our volume where it should be.

All right. Case loads going down by letting more people with misdemeanors go. dismissed or not prosecuted?

No. I wouldn't say that is a factor in caseload being, caseload is a down. I mean, crime is doing well. And family court dysfunction is, you know, so it's not that we have less fire. If we need to take more files or the cost of that is so much more at the assigned council office. that may be so it's more we're taking more files than the ascent counselor which will keep costs lower than higher maybe over sensitive to driving things but i'm not i'm not for anybody with any kind of serious no what was happening what was happening so that We stayed within the caseload limit was a lot of the vehicle traffic misdemeanors were being handled by the assigned council. Representation was being handled. I'm not sure how they were disposed, but we weren't representing them. And that was very costly as far as the way we were doing it. So the alternative is that we take on all those files, but it will exceed our caseload limit as set by ILS. which we'll just put that aside for now because that's kind of an open issue subject to negotiation with ILS. But we're exceeding our ILS caseload, but it should cost less because we're salaried in the assigned council offices by the hour. But other than like what's happening with them, I'm not exactly sure what, I don't think any of them were really, it wasn't like a lot were dismissed. And this is all the new way we're handling this is also trying to coordinate with the new way the DA's office is handling those with the diversion program. Great.

So any other questions? I want to thank you for the hard work that you've put into this. Okay, I know that you started the conference before we have a conference about policy, kind of looking at it to see what works and what doesn't work. And I think with the part-time public defenders, that should help improve justice. Is that still the case?

That is, yeah. And that is one extra point of us being fully staffed. We're fully staffed, at least in my own opinion, because the staffing pattern change we made was to start hiring part-time attorneys again. When we made that change, we were able to hire several part-time attorneys, so now we're fully staffed, but we haven't crossed that bridge with Indigent Legal Services yet, and we do have a meeting coming up in the next few weeks.

So, Brian? I just wondered where Legal Aid was at. Did they start this?

They just started.

The problem with that is everything will to get into place by january 1st because you've got all these in the pipeline already it'll be hard we won't see any reality until next year on our food so we put that well on the family quarter and i think we're already seeing on the criminal side i think we're seeing it already maybe not yeah it was predominantly for filming pork

ILS is predominantly criminal.

Yeah. By their own admission, they are underfunded as it relates to family court.

So I think what we need to do is, if there's no more questions, we need to vote on this. So the template policy didn't take us back. So we have a first and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

There's even one for you, John.

Oh, would you like it? Yeah, it depends on the situation. You do have to share.

No, no.

I'm just trying to make sure I don't have to share.

For our department updates, we've brought on two new per diem communications officers, and we'll be bringing them into our training pipeline here shortly. We've had a resignation of a long time communications supervisor. That's effective tomorrow. So we will have an open supervisor spot, which will be an internal bill, and then we'll backfill the open communications officer spot The county EMS plan that DOH is requiring, their next process of data collection is with the municipalities. So we put out their paper copy of the survey and DOH will be contacting you to get the survey completed and then submitted directly to DOH online. Public Safety will be holding virtual survey workshops on Monday the 3rd at 9 a.m., Wednesday the 5th at 6 o'clock p.m. And the info on those workshops went to your emails just before this meeting. Grant recognition, our state interoperable communications grant for the state fiscal year of 25 and 26. The total amount of that grant is $1,270,600. $40,000 of that will go to 0.1, and the remaining $1,236,000 will go to the capital project.

How does that compare to last year's?

This is a double, but they doubled up with this. So it applies to what we got last year, because they're doing 25 and 26, whatever it is like.

A little bit of finance.

By saying that, do you mean that you're just getting it all at once or that it's going to be double or not?

I don't believe it'll be double for now. They're still playing catch up with state finances.

So Scott, we're going to move it to finance. Thank you. Do we have a second? And any discussion? All in favor?

Aye. So since that grant program started in 2015, we've brought in $17.9 million for the upgrading of the communication system. PSAP operations, again, the state fiscal year 25 and 26, so it's a double up. The total of that grant is $281,552. All of that will go towards personnel .1s. And since that grant started in 2015 as well, we've communication center. And then my last is just a notification of out-of-state travel for me for a communications conference in Parsippany, New Jersey, September 27th to the 30th, and that's anywhere traveling. And already.

I have a question for Glenn. DSL is looking at an AI-generated system to answer phone calls, reduce a lot of their volume from saying things they have to say, but also it would help for screening. Would it be worthwhile to look at that for public safety? Because you get a lot of calls in that are simply not 911 calls.

We are looking at it.

Thank you.

As far as communication centers, it's a new thing. So we're talking with our vendor and what's out there if possible. And I'm just making, it's a slippery slope. You want somebody to get caught in hell when they actually need emergency services, but they don't think they need them because we still get the people, well, I didn't want to call 911 because I didn't think it's an emergency that I'm having chest pain. But yes, it is coming forward with communication centers.

I appreciate that. I'm not sure it's worthwhile, but it's worth looking at. Yes.

Any other questions for Clem? Yes. Cassie first, and then Brian.

I'm just double checking to clarify. Because I think that we say we always are in the back doors and like safety so he doesn't fall under the no change, right?

Because I just want to make sure that- We confirmed with Danielle yesterday.

Just wanted to make sure you did get backed up. I was pretty sure you guys were automatic either way, but I wanted to make sure that we're gone and we ended up at the end. Thank you. Thank you. Brian?

Yeah, I'm at Pinnard County on Thursday. They talked about a questionnaire coming down from the state on PMS services. I didn't know if you had an update on that. Sorry. I just wanted to know. That was, well, were we ahead of the date with the pilot that we were doing? It's, This is completely different. This is totally separate.

So we can use a lot of the data that we got from the program or some of the information they're looking for, but this is completely different.

So you got the same 80-point questionnaire as everybody else did. Do you see that as a negative, positive? What do you see in all that?

I think ultimately it's going to be a positive. that every county will be on a level playing field as far as what they have for EMS planning. But it collects a lot of data, because data collection within EMS at the state level has been hit and miss for the last 30 years, more miss than hit. And it'll get a good picture of what is actually going on.

And so our discussion turned on whether I guess the state was really leaning heavily on mandating everything originally, and then they backed off and went with this questionnaire to Grant Academy.

Yeah, so there'll be the, there was a questionnaire that went out to the EMS agencies, and then this is the second part for the municipalities.

No, did it go out to just, did it go out to all the, like, the volunteers? Yes. Hey, it went to everybody, no matter what.

Anybody that is a recognized EMS agency with the departmental or first response.

That was where our discussion went was if government, if it's mandated and government handles it totally, are we cutting out the actual for-profits that come in and do it?

No, this is more of a how are we going to handle things when things happen, right? More about the procedures. And that can get also those questions... Everybody's together. It's new to all of us. And it's fast moving, because everything the state gives you is, well, we need it done in six months. And it takes a lot of stuff to get what they need, so.

Until they get to the budget.

Does state put out these questions? Yes. Has enough answers. what's happening and what all of these questions would not bring out. I guess, yes, the municipality gives the EMS service. Yes, we give to another EMS service. We'll give it a fire company to help the EMS. That looks all good and fine and dandy. Now we don't have the volunteers for the EMS. And that doesn't ask that question in here at all. Well, I guess what I'm saying, it's good about answering the question for a state, but we've got to give them the full story. And this wouldn't help. We've got to find a way to do something in Whitehall because it's taken away from everybody's tax.

Volunteers and community support. I'm going to switch gears, if that's okay with everybody. The person beside you. Yes, ma'am. How many years have they been in service with Washington?

Over 20.

So they've been here?

No, I'm sorry. Just under 20. 19 and 3. Moving out of the area.

So that's a long time. 20 years in public safety is a long time. And so I just want to say publicly that we thank them for their service. We appreciate what they've done. And hope they have a happy retirement and whatever they determined to do.

Moving and already has a job with a communication center up there.

Anyways, any other questions for Lenny? No? Thank you. Thank you very much. That's a lot of money. So you're 17.97, 1.8 million personnel. That's a lot of hard work, dedication to our county. So at that point, you're next.

I have two probation officers that were accepted into the initial response to active shooter training at the New York State Preparedness Training Center in Oriskany. a live fire scenario active shooter training with some munition uh the scenarios are meant to have uh mock live fire explosions things going on to create the chaos of a scenario so instead of just classroom training that you normally get it's it's different than like our academy training which is it's classroom and tutelage from seasoned vets, but it's never under stress. It's different than a range, really. The range is even less stress. It's hard to create stress at the range. When you have a good instructor that does it, you see people actually fail, but they would normally do well. So this is a very good training for the officers that we are planning on to send out. It is free, paid for by Homeland Security money, state, federal. Risk and use Public safety works with the preparedness center a lot. So it's meant for people around the state that don't have these places to go there and train under real scenarios. So it's free to go to the training. It's free lodging. You just, they take a county car, they go out the night before so they can get into the training center for registration, 7.30, 8 a.m. start, they issue your gear, and the scenarios start. You're done at the end of the day, you go stay, Next thing in the morning, they issue your gear. You're right back at the scenario. So it's constant action and movement. And it's something we really can't replicate here. And it's great that they pay for it. So I anticipate in the future doing it more often. I've wanted to do it the last couple of years. I've waited to get our staff kind of under control where it was more stable so I can send people. But it's an unbelievable thing. I just have to have county administration sign off on it overnight. because it wasn't part of our travel plan, but it will be continuously in my travel plan every year after this.

And how are they chosen?

I chose mine internally. One was a former Air Force veteran. It was six years. He was a canine protection detail officer that I have going, and a senior probation officer that physically I know can handle it. My senior PO has been here a long time. So there are people that I knew were individuals that could go. I want all of my officers to eventually go over time. I had a lot less training in regards to this than the new officers do. My academy didn't even have an actor shooter. We had to do individual trainings ourselves. Most of them were webinars. So it's hard to replicate anything like this. The new officers do have active shooter components in their academy where 20-something years ago they didn't have that. It just wasn't even a saying. They talked about it. They didn't really cover it like a curriculum.

Jeremy?

I'm glad you're going. At this point in the internet, I'm going to be bored. They do get in shadow same condition.

I would like to go in the fall and cooler.

Actually there's several throughout the year.

departments or people's family schedules, you know, people don't want to go in April because their kids spring breaks in April and things like that. So to get these, these dates were open because a lot of parents that work in departments might not want to go the day their kids go back to school or right when they're right. These guys went home and talked to their families about it and talked to their spouses and said, is this going to be a hardship? We'll try another day. The last three days we've, we had conflicts with. So that's why this is the date. And we were looking at it eight, nine months ago to try to get them into one that worked with their families and stuff. So we're going to continue to do this and try to get as many people after they come back into it again. And it's an unbelievable thing that we don't usually get to do for no cost. Yeah, it'd be great. Oh, you can.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Have a good day. Okay.

Just in time. Sue, did you approve those?

Did we approve on the training unit?

Yeah. Does the admin have to sign off on it, or somebody has to sign off on it?

She has to sign off on the overnight travel form.

I have that bill that was submitted.

It's just I had to bring it to committee because it wasn't on my travel form.

I'll move it.

Very good. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you.

So I don't have the actual agenda for us. I don't know the numbers, but we need the board to ultimately approve acceptance of our crime victim advocate grant. This is sort of a repeat of what we did two years ago. It got approved and statewide, a bunch of announcements were made and then it got pulled for a variety of reasons unrelated to us. So it got extended for a year, And then we had to apply again. And so that's the result is the last two years. You'll see that number. So it's supposed to be, I think it needs to be moved to the full board because when it comes time for the chairman to sign the contract, he just needs to be able to say that he has board approval. Okay.

We have a second. Next time. Any, any questions?

Let's go. There's my number. Yeah, but they understand that there's a process. It probably won't be until the end of August, so I think we're actually ahead of the- We're going to make it, all right? Yeah. Normally, we get the announcement just before the board meeting, and we're scrambling to get it. They say, just get it to us as soon as you can.

Well, I remember we got it either last year or the year before we got it. I think we even got it for a month. I think I signed it. Yes.

That's for other than, so I didn't want to- Yeah, that was the one-year extension that they did to cover the gap because of that pulling the awards. That's been a good one. It's on it. Okay.

Any other questions? Hey, all in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you. And do we have any other business?

If I want to speak, do I need to say so now? Yes. Okay. I didn't send you guys emails, but I don't know if this is.

Okay, so five minutes. So please introduce yourself because people don't know who you are.

Yeah, my name is Mark Hartwood. I'm a builder. I live in Hartford, Alabama. I know you, Scott. I met you last year, I guess. Yep, yeah, I really do. Dave O'Brien. You're Dave O'Brien?

Hey, Baker.

Did I meet you? Are you Graham or Schnell?

No, I'm Graham.

Oh, Graham. Okay. All right. On June 1st, I struggled with John Graham's management style. So on June 1st at 8.30 in the morning, 8.31 in the morning, we started reaching out to code enforcement looking for an ice and water shield. This is ridiculous, the street here, but... We called eight times, emailed twice. There was no out of office. We didn't get any notifications. I finally got a return call from Don, and Don said that Chris, goodness, who Chris is a great guy, was having to leave the office. And I reluctantly said, hey, I do have pictures. You know, I'm reluctant to bring that to John because I know he doesn't like pictures. But I said, we do have them. I recognize that you guys, but they were light on people. And I said, you want to check and see if John loads up pictures? great she had a great attitude and she comes back to you john says send pictures so she was so chipper i it's a it was a really small vision so i understood that to be okay send pictures so a half an hour later i get uh maybe 25 minutes an hour later i get a email from john i sent down the pictures and then i wasn't on the job site i've been pretty sick and uh but i but i contacted the guy to find me because I didn't wait for him to respond in writing. I don't think the resolution for the fees was set up for that resolution. I am a builder. We always call and try to comply. I called John out to pre-build site inspections to make sure things are going okay. We ran into him. That's one situation. So he fines me $75. But now he's up without anybody. How can that happen? If a police officer fines me, it goes in front of a judge, and the judge gets to decide if the police officer is out alive. That's not happening here. They refuse to come out and inspect anymore. So John has all this authority. It might have been a misunderstanding between me and Don at the most. But I'm not trying to skip inspections. That's not what I'm doing. But yet I was treated as though I committed an offense. I didn't commit an offense. I had a misunderstanding at dawn. Eight phone calls. I can prove it. Eight phone calls and two emails to that office. So the resolution says failure to request for inspection. I requested the inspection. So that's what the resolution says. John keeps wanting to refer to failure to a resolution says failure to failure to request. I requested the inspection. So I have an email that says there. A year ago, granted to a situation with John, I had Kevin Ostrander come out. I had Kevin come out. The homeowner had a question. I don't take anything to these guys anymore because they love to say no. The guy was an engineer, super nice guy, Jim Hatcher. I asked you to go to the job, Scott. You said you wouldn't, and you backed up. The guy wanted a one-inch leeway. The code changed. So he needed, he had a finished basement. We were doing an addition with another finished basement. And he either had, we, code enforcement had to either allow us the one inch leeway or he had to have a five inch step in the basement. So I told the homeowner who was an engineer, I said, why don't we have them come out? You can ask. And we asked him, Kevin Ostrander said, it makes more sense to live with that one inch difference. I think the difference is seven foot versus seven foot one. So, and Kevin told, I was there. I watched Kevin say, that would be fine. Well, then what happens is then John later on sticks his nose over it and starts, and then he's like, I'm not going to accept that. So he shut the job down. And we requested, I have all kinds of emails I can show you guys to prove that we did everything. The homeowner didn't do everything. Tried to get him out, but the job got shut down. It ended up in three weeks. John insisted that I have the engineer redo the plans. But usually with the other inspectors, I'm allowed to agree that we will have the inspector or the architect or engineer redo the plans before we get a CO. In this case, and I have the emails to prove it, John would not allow us to go forward without. So this guy had three little kids and had a huge hole in their backyard. Also, the hole went down to a finished basement. And he had to fight rain and pumping that water up for three weeks. John didn't shut us down for three weeks, but by the time we got the concrete guys back on board, it takes, and right now it takes, or last summer, it was taking 10 days to get Clementi to bring concrete. So it shut us down for three weeks. So, okay. And I had, I had to keep my guys busy for three weeks and that's where we plan to be. So I have to find busy work. It costs me $4,900 a week to be three guys busy, plus materials, plus I lose income. Okay. That's over $25,000 of costs. We asked John to come to the site, he backed out, he backed out, and then he finally, he set up a meeting with the homeowner without me, but we wanted him to come to the site so I could show him that if we're talking one inch difference, we'll have the engineer make the plans, can we move forward? He refused to come to the site. There's lots more, that's a start.

Thank you very much.

And I do at some point need some kind of resolution. I've got $2 million worth of work lined up in this county. You guys need houses to be built in this county. We need to have our tax base done. People aren't building in this town because of that department.

Thank you.

Can I get with you in person? I did reach out to you in the back.

Thank you.

Sure.

Your water. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Okay. Is there any other business that come before the board?

I'm sorry. Brian's back. What's that? I'm sorry. That's it. That meeting, did you tell me you went to a meeting on that psychiatric evaluation expense for balance last week or the week before?

Yeah, how'd that go?

Any good, any luck?

No, Bob can tell you where we actually ended up. We're having a letter that's probably going to go from the head of audit, signed by him, as to why we need the 90 Monies bill, because we don't pay bills that just show up asking for money. Yeah, you're writing the letter. I'm writing the letter? Okay, thank you.

That's kind of where we came out. We have more on it at Health and Human Services? I assume. Of course. Yeah, we can... Thank you very much.

In the inner county, I discussed with Dave Lucas, he said to bring Aquarium on board and see if that was even a route to take.

Probably they're the ones who talked about it in that podcast in May.

Yes. In their own podcast. So I will talk to him because this is where we're headed. I didn't know how far I lost people. All right. Thank you.

Did you go ahead? I did not go ahead.

No, I wasn't. You didn't miss a lot. Yeah, I wasn't. It was really good. All right. Thank you. Sorry.

There was a suggestion that we would go into executives. It's got executives. session to discuss a Facebook post. Is that still something that is? You can do it.

Maybe ask Tony to sign up. I'm sorry, it's not.

Anna just asked if we could ask you to stay. Oh, sure.

All right. So I guess it would be for information relating to current or future investigation and prosecution of a criminal offense, which would in peril affect the law enforcement of this.

So is that all of that is what you think? Second. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. So we're going to do executive supplement.