Travis County Commssioners Court
April 1, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 33
Good morning.
>> good morning. Judge, I知 doren bail year, here on behalf sheriff frazier, she possibly could be here at 10:30. And christian indicated he -- or maybe we could do that. Would you prefer to do that or --.
>> it's fine with me. Now, if she's not here at 10:30, I doubt we'll be able to reach it this morning, but I would be more than happy to wait 30 minutes. Is that what you all prefer?
>> given all of the good discussions that occurred she it seems to me between March, April, may through October of last year between the sheriff, her staff and Commissioners court and others, it would seem to me to have her here would have some benefit as the elected official over a complex operation. And she just signed a letter yesterday to that effect.
>> I don't know if you heard this at the very beginning, but i've asked for a one-week courtesy related to the actual vote to approve this. It's great to have the discussion, but there's still [inaudible]. I was in washington, d.c. Until yesterday afternoon.
>> i'll interpret your response to be yes. See you all at 10:30.
>> thank you.
>> now, facilities, are you headed this way? Because number 17 is up next. Is alicia on the way down and roger? Roger is here. 17 is to consider and take appropriate action regarding schematic design approval for the precinct 1 justice of the peace and constable office building.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
>> catch your breath.
>> we're here today to ask for your approval of the preliminary design for precinct 1 office building, and this project is going to be going under renovation, expansion discussion, but there's still audible]. I was in washington, d.c. Until yesterday afternoon.
>> i'll interpret your response to be yes. See you all at 10:30 yes. See you all at 10:30.
>> thank you.
>> now, facilities, are you headed this way?re's still [inaudible]. I was in
>> all right.
>> thanks for coming down.
>> we can get this fixed quick.
>> thanks for coming down.
>> we call up our 10:30 item, number 33, consider scope of work for jail operations analysis, proposed to be conducted jointly by an independent consulting jail expert and county staff and take appropriate action.
>> first let me apologize for you having to push this back. I heard this morning that they were considering a big in the legislature to kind of basically take all the state jail drug felonies and turn them into county jail drug felonies.
>> that was a good use of your time.
>> thank you. So I wanted to explain to them that when there is a huge fiscal savings for the state and it's simply shifted to the county, that was not good public policy. But we're here on the scope of work for the -- what we've been referring to as the jail audit, I guess you could call it lots of things, but the idea of having -- getting an outside consultant in. This is something we talked about during actually last year's budget hearings. To have someone come in. There was $250,000 set aside, have someone come in, look at jail operations and also tie in with the people who have been doing the court processing end of things and try and figure out if there are not efficiencies that can be gained so as to streamline this -- the system, make it work better so that we get maximum use out of our jail space. And quite frankly, hopefully save some tax dollars. So folks have been working long and hard -- I知 trying to find my glasses. Folks have been working long and hard on exactly what the scope should say and what before you today is the work of a whole bunch of folks in planning and budget, the sheriff's office, and the justice and criminal justice and public safety planning.
>> the seed for this item probably started more than a year ago when representatives of the sheriff's office and others started ringing the bell about too many inmates. And as I mentioned before the sheriff came, the sheriff arrived and had discussions with the court every couple of weeks. Jail overcrowding task force was created. An out of county inmate [inaudible] was established. Over $4 million mid-year was added to the budget t sheriff's budget is $85 million. About three-quarters of that is related to corrections. In one sense it's pretty simple operation. You just have a bunch of inmates and watch them and then they go. When you dig below thashs it's very complicated. You are taking care of their medical services, laundry, feeding them, watching them, Travis County sheriff's departmenting them back and forth to court. You are also trying to do some things that maybe they -- to help them so they don't come back. You are meeting certain state standards. There's an enormous number of officers and supervisors in a fairly complex setting that has to run well. And it does. But what we don't know is how much better and more efficiently can it run. The sheriff, I think, is -- has very appropriately stepped up to the plate in a way that we perhaps don't see as much as we would like throughout the county. As an elected official, and basically said everything is transparent. I am open to an independent consultant to come in, take a look at things. We've been doing things in a way we think makes sense, but we know there isn't one way to do things, there may be multiple ways, someone who has an independent perspective, who is an expert, who has done this before come in and do an initial review and look at what we have called in the past the low-hanging [inaudible]. This is not the independent consultant employment act. It is not to go ahead and have someone live with us for a long time, take our watch, tell us what time it is and get a check. It is to have a team made up of representatives from the sheriff's office, and there's a lot of -- another thing that I think is to be applauded is that the sheriff's willingness to dedicate resources of her staff, her command staff at all levels to help out. The cost is redirection of resources, but it's not a check out of the treasury. Same way with planning and budget office. We're prepared to do what it takes to provide a consultant with the kind of data and information that they can then come in and say, okay, I see x ways that you can improve and make be the operation more efficiently run. And everybody is open to that. And that does -- and it's not just a dollar thing. Obviously there are derivative benefits to save money, but it's also setting the predicate for the future because we are -- we have been growing significantly. We're at a downturn. When you are fighting a fire, you don't have time to sit back and talk about the deployment of your firefighters and what kind of equipment you have and how you do it better; you are just fighting the fire. We now have with the drop in inmates, economic decline, we have an opportunity to sit back and say, gosh, could we do things better, because it is probably likely that this community is going to grow. With growth comes more inmates. With more inmates come more beds. One of the objectives, I know the members of the court have said more than once and the sheriff hays said let us -- before we do anything with more beds, let us at least know we are running the operation as efficiently and effectively as we possibly can. And we have learned, it seems to me, something considerable from the work of the jail overcrowding task force in the criminal justice area with the courts and the prosecutors. When there is a collaborative effort and -- it's amazing what can occur. In that area, the expertise did exist internally. And in this case, there may be expertise that exists internally, but there are incredible benefits to having an outside person come in. And I have said if someone from bexar county said please come and try to help us out and put together a budget process because our budget process maybe could be done for effectively, I could go in and in four or five days talking to 20 people and look at 12 documents probably live them low-hanging fruit. I think the same analogy exists in the jail operations. It's much more complicated, it's not going to be four or five days, but it does not have to be an extensive program. So the $250,000 that was earmarked, I know where it came from. It was pulled out of the air.
>> yes and no.
>> yeah, I think --
>> it was not. We knew the answer was not zero. And we knew that the answer was not 2 million. And so we actually did actually check with other cities and counties who have done similar types of things, and while this is not a one size fits all, that was a number that was considered reasonable in the sense of it could cost you far less, it could cost you far more, but is -- on our h.r. People, it's a mid point. It is a number you will be comfortable and be able to fit within your scope or to be able to downscale your scope to make it fit.
>> and also the idea with that 250 was not only cover the costs of the correction side thing but the law enforcement.
>> and that's one of the things you've got in here in terms of a phase 3, review of the law enforcement bureau. It may be we can go well within the 250,000 related to the correction side of the ledger, but the intent was always to look at the full tcso because there could be similar kinds of low-hanging fruit to law enforcement side and they would be just as thrilled to have that kind of good management advice in terms of somebody from the outside looking in.
>> and also recognizing that the assessment can also be be good in some cases that the consultant is going to come in, particularly in the law enforcement area, they may come in and say here's the staffing [inaudible] you need and here are how many more people you are going to need in that area. But what's important is to do the two together is the fact that if you find with the reduction in the jail population that you have now some f.t.e.s that are reassignable, that instead of going through a process, those f.t.e.s across the ledger to the law enforcement side and deal with those needs.
>> just a question. You do have a page 3 -- and this was one of my questions I wanted to kind of develop more information about. You've got review and evaluate current health care, inmate and program services delivery methods. And I know that's kind of a broad brush of what do we mean by there, but sometimes I知 concerned we don't say specifically what kinds of things we're looking at besides the health care, have you somebody going I didn't know you wanted to us look at that. Is that where you intended to us look at anything related to purchasing and how we deal with commodities and taking care of all the purchasing within the sheriff's office? Food services, in terms of the delivery of food services. Is that in that category? And education services in terms of the kinds of class, some which are mandatory, some that are discretionary; that where you intended for us to be taking a look at those kinds of programs which are also part of the sheriff's budget.
>> part of that. I don't know that it would cover -- purchasing is probably not in there other than pharmaceutical purchasing, which --
>> that's a biggie.
>> -- has a huge potential.
>> we have a huge warehouse and I want to make sure the stuff that we buy is utilized properly and that's the best way that we should be buying it. And, you know, it's just part of it in terms of how we do all this stuff. And food services, we've had some very long discussions about that, about whether that is something that ought to be privatized or not. To either validate we're doing the right thing or say, you know, there's a better way and it could save you a lot of money. That could be one of those low-hanging fruit things that a lot of other sheriff's offices have freed up their resources to stay within the division.
>> that's before the court probably on April 15th.
>> [inaudible] and we're going to be coming back to court in about -- not next week, but the next to talk about negotiating with the two top firms.
>> okay.
>> so it is a considers on whether we have them relook at that or if we go with outsourcing it before the study is completed.
>> food services wasn't specifically included. The educational programs and marketable skills type things were intended to be captured under the program services and the way that we deliver those various types of programs to the inmates. Purchasing is probably with unone thing you've list tid other than food services which we didn't contemplate delivering.
>> it's not so much how we deliver education services, it's a question of should we be delivering education services considering some of the folks within our custody are there for a matter of weeks and days. We may have a different thought about who might be the eligible population to go into those programs. There's not really anything meaningful that can occur in a week to ten days, versus somebody that's going to be sitting there for six months or longer.
>> well, and we do have that sort of criteria, so we'll be glad to have somebody look at it and tell us whether or not it needs to be adjusted.
>> I mean, that's just my personal --
>> well, I guess what you are saying is we're going to let them see all of the different services, but if there is also the possibility that they may say we're doing it the best way that it could be done give then kind of facility that we have. But I guess the question I had was even if someone comes in, we're going to be able to provide them with the general guidelines that we're under, for instance, the jail standards. And as far as we know, those laws haven't changed, they are not being proposed to be changed over there at the legislature, are they?
>> the only thing relating to that is one of our bed issues in that there is a bill that we got passed out of the community sheriff's association supported and I think tac and everybody else which will allow if jail standards commission to grant essentially permanent variances in particular areas. So that may have an impact of some of the places where we had a cell that literally was a couple of feet short and we double bunked and had to have a variance, they may come in and say you have these beds or they may not. But some of the -- some small things. So that's really --
>> but those kinds of things are kind of custom made for each community, more or less. I mean, when we went to the jail standards commission hearing you go up and present your case and they consider the community that they are working with, what the record has been with working -- responding to them. And so I got the feeling that it was custom made for each community.
>> well, the rules are the same. The question is -- and quite frankly, depending on how much effort you have put forth to deal with them and how they feel about that, how strictly they hold you to it. And what you saw was a situation of a particular county, thankfully not us, who was -- is being perceived as not trying. And when that happens, you don't get a lot of slack from those people.
>> and so I got a feeling they really work with the communities in different ways. As far as we know, though, there's some basic things that all county jails, all counties are going to have to work with. And those basics are not going to change regardless of who the consultant is. They are going to have to come in and say, okay, this is what the state -- and the people of Travis County, a so those kinds of things will still be there. And I don't want us to think that those kinds of things may change.
>> I mean, one of the problems we know that we had at one time was that when they did the master plan before, one of the difficulties was at times they suggested things that you just couldn't do under state standards. And it was like, well, that might be nice, but that's not the state standards nor sit ever likely to be.
>> so it is possible for us to present a certain amount of work already to whoever comes in and say things are the things, these are the basics and they are not going to change.
>> and the people who do this sort of work, I mean, you come in with the knowledge of you can't imagine us hooi ago consultant that had had to plain the 1 to 48 staffing ratio and what that meant. Or the existence of state jail standards. That, quite frankly, we just shouldn't hire that person. They are not an expert at that point. [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> > are there ways in which we can make change even to the downtown campus, to have one-time expenditure that then reaps benefits year after year after year. That kind of architectural expertise is a different skill set. A third phase is law enforce. There's another world and another set of skills and a different set of requirements of someone to -- to take a look at that. Now, that -- the scope of work is -- is not mature on that third phase. It is mature and before you for these first two phases.
>> is this anticipated to go out as an r.f.s.
>> that's what I need direction from Commissioners court on how they want to do this. According to what christian is saying, if we got three phases we can put out a request for services asking if some firm would oversee those other two phases or we could have three different consultants if that makes sense. So -- so we need direction from you on what process you want to go through. We could exempt these as professional services, but I would advise that we get some kind of competition, even if we don't go through a formal solicitation process.
>> because the other question that goes with that, I don't see anything that we would call a matrix because even when we do things like professional services for a road project, where prices you can't really say it's based on low bid because you don't do it that way for professional services. But people know going in in terms of what is the matrix, in terms of how we are going to evaluate the credentials that somebody brings forward. That it seems like needs to be something that this Commissioner court needs to sign-off on. Being at the other end I don't want us going we didn't lay it out in terms what was our expectations were in terms of how we are going to weight previous experience in doing this, yada yada yada. All of the things that go into a matrix --
>> you are absolutely right. They have been working on how the -- how the process is going to go and working on the scope of work. So once this is approved, then we put it into a document and we have to come up with those evaluation factors, the qualifications, license, all of those things.
>> absolutely.
>> so I mean I need direction from the Commissioners court if you want to do this as a formal procurement or some sort of exemption.
>> I understand we are not going to take any action day, this is basically for discussion.
>> correct.
>> if that's the case, let me ask this question. How much money are we talking about exactly as far as getting a consultant, an independent consultant and expert on jail operations, how much money are we talking about here?
>> my sense is that the jail operations part is going to be the most expensive part.
>> how much are we talking about.
>> about $100,000.
>> now I heard maybe the consultant spoke to services -- and if that is the case then there -- there may have to get three consultants. My question is at this point, about two or three weeks ago, you had a work session with the judges, all of the folks involved in the jail overcrowding situation. At that time we looked at under gent attorneys fees, how they had escalated to more than what we anticipated. Of course I think approximate that time $1.4 million that we were looking at, 400,000 over the cost of covering the indigent attorney fees. And at that time they said, well, look, because the jail overcrowding situation had been -- working so good, we kind of got those things fine tuned, got some things in place, the jail population is down. There may be a savings from your shop, sheriff, of I guess about a million. So at that point, looking at that, well, fwhas a $600,000 difference. Of course we want to take care of indigent attorney's fees because that's mandated by the state as far as us looking at inmates within a 24 hour period. However, that's a $600,000 amount of money that we are talking about that we do not have to -- that's in your shop. I guess that you are going to do what you want to do with it.
>> I think it's a big assumption to assume that it's there, but --
>> well, I don't know, I知 just telling you what they brought before us. I don't know what -- I don't know how they came up the figure, stuff like that. This is what they brought before us as far as the work session, about a million that they have actually reduced costs, as far as jail overcrowding. If that's the case, if jail overcrowding is working, we don't have to spend as much money in this process, the savings that question do something else with, of course especially approximate with these unfunded mandates, a whole lot of stuff coming down from the say the that we don't have any control over at this time. So my concern is that I知 going to be very cautious. I know we are not taking action today, but I want to look at this for what it is on all of these, consultants, everything else. If we don't have to do that, then we are actually solving the problem because of the internal work that we have done collectively, including you, sheriff, which is -- I知 applauding all of y'all work the d.a., Docket, socket, the judges, everybody else, also the video conferencing, which has been a good part of this. All of these things mixed together has had some kind of impact as far as reducing the jail population. So my whole point is that I would like to look at the numbers to suggest to me if it's working then of course why is it working, certain reasons and is it -- is the trend going to continue to go that way and what does it cost. I don't know, I just don't know where I知 going to land at this one right now without all of the right data in hand. I知 looking forward to -- to coming one a decision, especially if you all don't have to spend any more money than we have to spend.
>> Commissioner, let me just point out one thing. This consultant is not predicated on any number of inmates going up or down.
>> but money though, christian.
>> I understand that it's money. You only want to spend money if you think that you are going to save much more. If you don't think, if you don't have confidence that the investment in independent expert coming into the review is going to result in savings beyond the cost, then you shouldn't do it. And so that's -- that's just a judgment call.
>> yes, well --
>> but it is related to whether you have 2,000 inmates or 3,000 inmates. 1500 or 5,000. The basic building blocks of your management operation and the detailed interrelationships of programs and services and inmates and employees and down time and overtime, sick time, holiday time, and all of that stuff which is the meat and potatoes of that corrections operations, if you believe today that that is -- best managed place in the west, that we can't do any better, then we shouldn't do this. Because we are wasting money.
>> I知 looking at the bottom line, christian, I知 looking at dollars. I知 looking at everything across the table. As much as possible. On all of these operations. And again I知 very -- been very, very cautious, very, very nervous because of the unfunded mandates that the state of Texas is going to force down the local government's throat. There's no doubt in my mind that's going to happen. All indications are there, still looking at it, that's capacity going to happen. How do we best deal with what we have got to deal with at today's budget. That's what I am looking at, at today's cost.
>> how important is it that the consultant know the regulations of the Texas jail standards committee, commission?
>> well, I i that quite frankly any consult -- I think quite frankly any consultant, they don't necessarily have to know every jail standard, but me need to be familiar with the concept and the fact that -- its effect on the jail system. I guess that you could have an expert that knew the concept of florida jail standard. You just have to have someone who understands --
>> okay.
>> but if I could, Commissioners, and kind of following what christian says, quite fngly I think we run an extremely efficient operation.
>> I didn't say that you weren't.
>> I didn't hear you say that.
>> I think it's extremely efficient, but I think there is also value to the fact of when you have such a large operation particularly an operation that has had to grow so much over time, what I made the offer to the court during last year's budget session, was the fact that I知 perfectly willing to let someone come in and grade our papers and make sure that we are doing it the right way. Yes, they may come right back up, you know, what, we charged you $100,000, we can't find you $100,000 worth of savings. I don't know that's wasted money, that tells us that we are making the right decisions, I just wants to say that.
>> okay. I think we need for next week some sort of draft of what we are going to consider to be selection criteria for the courts to look at. And I have looked at the specific language here, I guess it would help me to have two or three senses that say or that describe -- sentences that say or describe in our view what we think the consultant will do, what we will do in house. I see where we need for somebody to give us an objective independent review. But we need more than that, though, right? The other thing that I guess is I know when we started out, what we had in mind, but is that -- is there like a statement of objectives, what it is that we hope to get from this? In the end we need to answer that question to decide whether the investment is in fact a good one, right?
>> right.
>> and I would have other specific questions. Should I just send those to you and -- and ms. Powell?
>> that will work.
>> e-mail, I will -- I will copy the court, also, if the on other court members have questions, I suggest that that be done, also. And my final question is, has the jail overcrowding task force looked at this.
>> yes, sir. They worked extensively on it.
>> that's fine, that's fine.
>> the other thing would be, a of my final question is -- we need a list of people that we suggest be part of the selection committee.
>> okay.
>> we may as well have that when we start. It would help to get this information Thursday or Friday. So if the court has recommendations, we will have all of the -- over the weekend and Monday to think about them. So I知 hoping that next Tuesday we will be able to discuss this matter further, and then take a vote on it.
>> okay. Although I -- I need to advise you that the lady longhorns are in the final four, you won't be seeing me on Tuesday, I will be in atlanta. [laughter]
>> I will be here.
>> they will be here.
>> okay. I think that the important discussion that I need to be a part of, we have taken care of today.
>> I think what we are trying to get to is this thing being in a form if I were somebody that would receive this packet from Travis County that we would have a clear understanding --
>> it's supposed to be.
>> what our goals, how we are going to have their evaluation graded, and what will be the actual deliverables. We are almost there. We just need to kind of pull it together.
>> two weeks might be more --
>> two weeks.
>> might be more realistic to have that actual document before you.
>> two weeks?
>> what action document.
>> the request for services document. The solicitation document with all of the --
>> I think we need to decide whether we want that or request for qualifications or something a bit more informal. I知 thinking we need to decide that. After that it may be we need another week, two weeks, maybe more than two weeks. I will defer to you on that. I知 trying to put is in a position at the conclusion of next week's discussion, we know what the [multiple voices]
>> there's no -- no reason for her folks to spend a lot of folks doing rf whatever you call it if the court has decided we want don't with a to do -- want to do this.
>> in terms of, if it's informal, am I correct in thinking that we will have an opportunity to delve further into qualifications, subjective, objective criteria than if we do a formal written document that the -- that we invite responses to?
>> well, either way you go, judge, you need a good scope of service, you need to know what the qualifications are of your consultant, you need to have the selection criteria and you need to have a group of folks looking at it.
>> okay. Either way you go.
>> along those lines, let me pit the sheriff on the spot for a minute and ask her, do you believe given what you know about this business whether we would be smarter to have one outfit with three arms or three outfits which have different sets of expertise or leave our options to have one, two or three consultants given the three focuses of attention, do you have a sense of --
>> yes. I think that you can have one group that has the expertise because the really good management consulting groups out there, what they do is if they need a building efficiency person, they pull that in. If they need a, you know, jail overcrowding person, they pull that person in. So you really are better off, I think, dealing with one firm that -- that can handle all three. And if they can't, then I would worry about their level of expertise.
>> Commissioner Daugherty, margo, who is your officer sitting in front of emily?
>> that's captain peggy hill.
>> peggy. Let me ask a few questions. Peggy, how many years of law enforcement experience do you have?
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> 27, 29.
>> david?
>> sir?
>> how many years of law enforcement do you have.
>> with the sheriff's office, 23 years.
>> 23.
>> emily.
>> 19.
>> 19. Doyne? All of your years of law enforcement in.
>> 31, but they weren't all good. [laughter]
>> sheriff?
>> sheriff.
>> he wants to know how old you are.
>> [laughter] [multiple voices]
>> plead the fifth on this one. 29.
>> 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, got five law enforcement people sitting in this room today that has over 100 years of experience in law enforcement. I mean the problem that I have with this whole process that I think I stated earlier is that my gosh, if we don't -- if we don't have the experience within this community to take on a task like this, then either we have got some wrong people that are employed or we just have a situation where someone is not willing to sit down and say, let's divide this thing up. And I -- you know, I知 both encouraged and discouraged with this. I知 encouraged because I have seen what we have done with the jail overcrowding task force that's all within -- I知 discouraged because we have 100 to the 50th power of law enforcement expertise in this community. To only have somebody, to pay somebody perhaps $250,000 to come in and tell us what we need to do with our jail system. I mean, I just -- I知 blown away by that. I -- plus, I see that -- I understand that we have a -- we have a public and/or justice in public safety department that was I guess put together the last couple of years that we have a $10 million line item budget, where we have about 17 people, and that -- therein lies what we can do. I mean, if we sit down and say, "this is really what we automatic -- this is where we ought to be going here." Nobody knows, I think it's a great question to say if you are going to go out and find a nationally acclaimed expert, are they going to know the jail standards because we do know, as the sheriff just said, somebody tells us to do this, but they don't know we can't do those sort of things. I -- I am really hard pressed to understand why we should spend $250,000. I know that we have made great stride in the jail overcrowding task force. There are going to be things come to us in August that we are going to have to spend dollars on. Again, this is just money, it's more than money to me. I think the people of this community look at law enforcement I can sit around with people riding on Friday night officers, it's amazing the schooling that I can get about -- granted it's coffee talk about here's four things that you need to do, if you'll do this, I mean, I知 going, god, why are we doing those things? Well, that's another story, another night of riding and a few more cups of coffee probably. I will do that as well. I really am perplexed by -- it's not so much the money as much as it is I don't think I would trust an expert more than I would trust the sheriff and more than -- I mean, my gosh, doyne bailey has done everything from sheriff, boy scouts, tabc, the state, whatever. I mean, I can't imagine that we don't have the expertise, I mean, even if you have to say, you know what? Whatever you are doing we will find somebody else that does your job right now, at least loosened some of the workload given the fact that we have decreased the incars rages by over, you know, three or 400 people per day. So we have to have somebody out there with a little loose time or -- I would think. Let's do some restructuring or let's find the real minds that we have in this community. To say, no, we can do this. Plus, then we have the -- this just, you know, avalanche of numbers people. You know, with p.b.o. That says, you know, we could sit and we understand numbers. Let's -- I mean, because sometimes you have to put several kind of groups together. But I think that as an elected official I don't want to answer the question about why the world would you spend $250,000, why would you spend $25 to go out when you are sitting over here with probably more knowledge than any one person or any group is going to be able to give you. Now, I guess that you can take me off or come the to the office on the side and say let me tell you, daryl, why we really can't do that. Maybe I will change my mind. But I just for the life of me cannot think of why we would need to do this as a community. I mean, given what I now know where dollars exist, where departments are, the kind of things that we have accomplished to date. So -- but I know that you all have had a lot more history of it, lots of frustration. I know that the jail overcrowding task force, for example, was put together really to capture larger numbers. I知 delighted I love the sing the praises of here's what we have done with people. You know, we are talking 2, 3, 400 folks. I mean, I don't know who was -- I think it was you, christian, that made the meant about you all also to do some things to these people that we incarcerate and help them, so when we push them out the door, maybe we help them, maybe we don't see them. From a philosophical bent, I have used the worded to del before. -- the word toddle before. [inaudible] [audio problems, please stand by] that's probably another subject. Anyway --
>> you are out of time.
>> yes. Thank you.
>> if you -- thank you very much.
Last Modified: Tuesday, April 8, 2003 1:25 PM