Travis County Commissioners Court

July 17, 2012 - Item 22
Agenda

22 is to consider and take appropriate action on request from Doots Dufour to integrate Travis County video regarding Offender Re-Entry Employment Program with a video produced by Diocese of Austin and authorize distribution.

>> Judge Biscoe, Commissioners, thank you for taking up this item.
What we're trying to do.
I deal with criminal justice ministry.
We kind of keep kids in school to try to help people who get out of jail to stay out of jail, that sort of thing.
One of the most important things we have is jobs.
A lot of people will hire them, but a lot more won't hire them.
They don't know who these people are.
They're afraid of them.
What we want to do is the county did a video several years ago that had some usefulness to it, but we have redone one, redone a concept and want to try to bring this thing up to date and use a different tact.
What we do is people have what kind of job they're looking for.
People who are ex-offenders.
And we have people who say this is what we're looking for in the way of personnel to be hired and we match the two.
We do this a couple of times.
We try to get them to recognize if you hired me, but if you knew I was an ex-offender you probably wouldn't is hired me.
They have a caveat on the application forms that the county has taken off, which we think is very useful and that's why we want to make sure everybody else knows that and they take it from the person who is right there.
And I just saw something yesterday we want to include in this thing.
We had the lady from johns hopkins university who is a human resources person.
She was talking about the hiring of ex-offenders.
She said we get a lot better results from ex-offenders than regular people.
Their retention is better, their commitment is better and everything else.
She would be very helpful for us on doing that.
We're just trying to get this video put together.
We've run into little things like we had a fellow who was hired by wal-mart out here and and they sent the paperwork up to wal-mart headquarters and said we can't hire him.
He's an ex-felon.
We need to get the headquarters of people like wal-mart and all these organizations that don't hire people and explain to them who these people really are and the fact that they are -- make very good workers.
These guys know how hard it is to get a job, so once good threat committed to a job they stay there and they go to work on it.
You have a video shop that has done this before and I've worked with the video shop maybe 15 years ago when I was working with court appointed special advocates and they did some great psa's for us and I would like to work with them to this probably three to five minute video on -- we would send to employers.
And our intention is to get that thing out to the world, to make sure everybody gets a chance to look at this thing, not just put it on the county radio.
We want to get employers.
We'll go to them and say look, we want to talk to you about hiring these people.
Because if we get them hired and get these guys jobs, they'll stay -- they'll do all right.
And we let them know who these people are, but they say we've got a lot of good workforce people.
We need to get these people back to work.
That's what we're trying to do.

>> Mr. Jackson?

>> If the question was back when we did casa, casa had a relationship with the county.
We basically can't work for just anybody.
We work for the county employees or for an agency that has a relationship contractually with the county, with them doing work for the county.
Because we need permission from you guys to actually work for him and do a video for him.
If he's not working for the county, he's not in an agency that has a contract with the county.

>> But I thought what we were trying to do was take the two videos that exist today and integrate them.

>> One video exists that they did awhile back and then we have a story board here for another one that we're trying to put together and put some more things into it to bring it up to date and try to make sure that peopled in who they're working with before we let them know they're an ex-offender.

>> Up front there is the need to put together whatever the message is.
So you're saying that y'all will cover that?

>> Yes.

>> Y'all will do that?

>> We can do that.
We've got the story board here and we just follow that.
We've worked with the people who do -- when we get to work with people with video we kind of work with them andy find out how they do this best.
And we don't tell them do this, we say how can we do this best and then we work with them to do that.
That's how it works.
And we have worked with them before and done very well.
I appreciate the opportunity if we can do it again.
And when we come up with this thing then it's going to be something that's going to be transcribed, we'll get this thing on electronic --

>> Whatever the product is, you will assume responsibility for distribution?

>> Yes, sir.
We will market this thing for sure.
I'll guarantee you we'll get a market on this thing and it will be far and wide.

>> Commissioner?

>> I think this is a wonderful idea.
Our health and human services department has had great luck with their mobile outreach where their social workers use youtube videos to provide information to individuals for everything from early childhood development, reading to your children and whatnot.
I am wondering if it might not be a good course of action to put you in touch with miss fleming and mr. Jeffreys so that content could be developed with them for a psa that would be available for channel 17 or youtube distribution.
That way it wouldn't be a contract with an outside entity.
It would be an outside entity, you working with our health and human services and our planning since they are the ones who have most hands on our re-entry programs and may have great content and individuals to interview to expand --

>> Did you say roger jeffreys?

>> Yes, sir.

>> I am a member of the state jail advisory committee and I serve on there with roger.
I talked to him earlier.
He said what are you doing?
I said we're going to talk about this video and he said let me know what I can do to help.

>> Exactly.
I think that would be an easy -- already existing relationship.

>> Yes, ma'am.

>> [overlapping speakers]

>> We graciously have an opportunity to do so.

>> The email that I got from media indicated that there's a matter of timing.
Right?

>> Did you have a deadline?

>> Well, we've got something coming up on September the 15th.
If we get it done for that, fine, we'll use it.
If we don't get it, we'll do something else with it and ship it around to different places.
And ask people to do the contacts, like going to the wal-marts and various places and sit down with them and say we want you to look at.
This.

>> I missed that deadline.
What date did you give us?

>> If we can get it by September 15th, that's fine.
If we can't we'll continue to March with the thing as is.
We have have a statewide conference on September the 15th.
We'll get a lot of guidance around here talking about re-entry.
Re-entry has been one of our focus for the last two years and we still try -- we have a lot of resources in our parishes.
And churches in general have a lot of resources.
We've got to get these guys to go to the churches, number one.
Byron johnson, a researcher from the baylor university who found out that when these guys come out they're reluctant to go anywhere.
Their problem is when they get out they're so rebellious against authority they just don't come to people.
We have to reach out and get them and make the areas we are -- have the services in user friendly and make them recognize that the problems, they need to ask people to come in there.
Otherwise they're reluctant to do so because they don't want to be turned away and they rebel against authority.
This is a big business.

>> If we do the video I assume that our name would be somewhere on it?

>> Sir?

>> If Travis County does the video, I assume that Travis County will be on it.

>> Oh, yes.

>> As the sponsor.

>> Absolutely.
As a matter of fact, we would just as soon have you on there talking about why we do this.
We have to be general.
The government has a problem.
They have a problem with thighs people coming out and not staying out and going back in.
And it costs us a lot of money.
What we're going to ask you to do is get in there and talk about that.

>> We'll see the message before it's produced.

>> Yeah.
Whatever you want to do.
It will be fine.

>> Okay.
The concern the media mentioned in an email is that they will be moving to another location the same as the Commissioners' court.
So timing really is important.
Does that September 15th date sound problematic?

>> Yeah, that's a big unknown.
We've never done what we're doing, moving from one major facility to another and taking part of it with us.
It's hard to predict how ready we'll be.
But we'll be really busy.
Productions like this require quite a bit of commitment and time and I don't know how much time any producer will have available between now and September 15th because at some point late July and early August we're not going to be able to do anything.
Our editors will be disassembled.
We'll be training down there.
And plus we still have to come back here doing some budget meetings here.
So that's -- I don't know how much time we could commit to doing this for them.
So I didn't want to make any promises about the 15th.

>> But the sooner we get the message done, the better.

>> Yeah.
It would be -- it would need to be something that's committed to right now and probably get out before we even start moving.
Because unknowns are going to be once we get down there and make sure everything is ready for the 14th of August and then beyond that we have meetings down there having to do with budget and so on.
So I just wanted to make sure two things happened that we could actually get this done by the 15th and move and do budget meetings.
And whether or not he has a relationship with the county, whether we can even work for them because we can only work for county people.
We can't work for the public.

>> If we vote to approve this that establishes a real good relationship.

>> Yes, it does.

>> And we've done work with the -- doots dufour and his organization and the criminal justice area.

>> Casa ha a relationship with the county.

>> Rather than all that formal stuff I would just get the video done.
We would use it ourselves and if they can get it distributed to potential employers, and I guess for that matter employees too, that would be great public service.

>> Sure.

>> And wouldn'ted limited to Travis County, but I guess this would be like the starting place, but anywhere else in the state of Texas that this can benefit ex-offenders, I think we would want to bless that.

>> Sounds fine.

>> So I guess there's plenty of public purpose here.
There's our message, there's their message and then there's the right people getting together trying to refine that before we start the video production.
So the video production really could be short and to the point if everything is planned well is what I'm thinking.

>> Should be.

>> But I hear you too that this move contains unknowns and we can commit to try to get it done by September 15th, but whether or not that actually works out remains to be seen.

>> Correct.

>> That's -- it's not an absolute essential.
We'll get people in on September 15th and say this is what we're going to do and make contact with people and we district things to them and have them work with it.
But the object is to get this thing out as fair far and wide as we can.
Two moves equal a fire.
I understand moving.
I just got through moving twice.

>> [laughter].
So I understand their position.

>> It's even more complex when you're moving a tv station.

>> Yeah.
You have to move all that stuff.

>> Any other questions or comments?
Legally if we authorize this do we need anything other than the court authorizing it and having the minutes reflect that?

>> Judge, I would expect there might be some contract issues, some intellectual property issues with the distribution of the film, but let me get back to you on that.

>> Think simple, easy, straightforward between now and when we get back together.

>> I'll do that.

>> Move that we authorize staff to proceed.
That we try to put together the video piece to help with the re-entry.
That we involve appropriate county staff to assist.
And that basically we less it for media with the understanding that media will do what it can to get this done.

>> Judge, would it be friendly to have planning and safety and health and human services sign off on content?

>> Doots dufour has no problem with that.
That's certainly friendly to me.
If they don't have a good idea you know how to turn them down, don't you?

>> This thing is made up of ideas.
You bring people together and find out what are the best ideas.
That's how you work this thing.
No person has them.
You have to collect them.

>> Thank you for that outlook.

>> Make that happen.
It's one of those areas where you get people to chip in, it's going to benefit you long-term.
Was there a second?

>> Yes.

>> Any more discussion on the motion?
All in favor?
That passes by unanimous vote.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your patience, mr. Dufour.

>> Thank you very much.
I think we can do something with this.
We have to get these guys back to work.

>> Thank you so much for your efforts.

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.

July 3, 2012: Travis County Launches New Video Playback System

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On July 3rd, 2012, Travis County began leveraging free resources by posting Commissioners Court meetings on Youtube. Previously every video clip was edited separately and hosted on the county's video server. The old system also required RealPlayer to view the video clips.

The new systems save time and resources -- and that saves taxpayer dollars!