November 4, 2024 El Paso County Commissioners Court Meeting

[Music] [Music] he a [Music] you [Music] you [Music] back [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] w [Music] around [Music] oh [Music] [Music] come [Music] you [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] in [Music] w [Music] go ahead good morning ladies and gentlemen today is Monday November 4th 2024. Commissioners court is meeting in regular Open Session. Today we are joined by ASL interpreters Dario Garcia and Monserat Vasana.

Commissioner Olin, would you like to introduce our Pledge of Allegiance person for today?

Yes, thank you. Good morning everyone. I'm very pleased to say that today we have with us Sarah Rodriguez, who was a former intern in my office and is also a very civically active and involved young adult member of our community. So, thank you, Sarah, for being here with us today. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Honor to the Texas flag: I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one State under God, one and indivisible.

Sarah, would you come up please? I just heard from Commissioner that you're a great advocate for young adults and voting, so she was hoping that you'd say a few words to encourage our young adults to come out and vote.

Yes, I think this is the greatest opportunity we have to make an impact on not only our country but our local institutions. We love to do a change and think we have the new ideas and I think this is the chance we get as young people to go to the voting centers tomorrow from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and cast your vote and make the path you want. It doesn't matter who you are voting for, it matters that you are putting your voice out there and using this privilege we have to mark a difference in your community. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I understand you're very active, and we appreciate that. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, sir.

And now we will receive an invocation from Deot Wakefield. Welcome, thank you.

Good morning, may we bow our heads please.

Dear Lord, thank you for this day. I ask that you would guide our paths today and more specifically our thoughts, words, and actions. Please be with us as we celebrate this special day. Grant us to see the world through eyes of compassion and understanding. Help us to navigate whatever comes our way. Guide us to reflect and live our lives in a way that honors you. Bless our nation, bless our leaders, bless our military, and God bless America.

On behalf of the passing of our favorite artist, I would like to say live life, laugh, love. Amen.

Amen. Thank you very much. Thank you for leading us into the week, and we appreciate that. Thank you, Judge. Do you have any opening remarks you'd like to make before we begin?

Yeah, well thank you all for being here. On behalf of our commissioners and myself, we welcome you to Commissioners Court.

As you know, every day is Veterans Day in El Paso, but we're going to intensify it a little bit more. At 2:00, we're going to have about four resolutions that are related to veterans. I'm going to say veterans week because we have so many activities, and so this is a great opportunity. We are the veterans capital of the United States of America, but this is where we intensify and show the rest of the world why we say that.

That is the love, the care, and the respect that we give for our veterans. It's very special, and I think we take it for granted, but this is a community that knows how to rally around veterans and that we care a lot about them.

So once again, we thank you for being here and stay tuned this afternoon. I also have my advisory appointee that will be presented this afternoon as well. So once again, let's listen to Sara and get everybody to go vote, and if you have grandkids that are young adults now, encourage them, for they're the ones that are sort of lacking a little bit behind in voting. We obviously need their vote. Just the fact that they show up, they begin to engage and feel responsible for their vote.

So once again, welcome, God bless all of you, and have a tremendously happy veterans week.

Thank you. Item number four is the consent agenda composed of items 4A through 4AQ. We do have a correction to read in for item 4AD from the grants division. It is a grant award to approve and authorize the County Judge to accept the Office of the Governor FY 24 Specialty Court Program grant award from September 1st, 2024, through August 31st, 2025, in the amount of $1,596,115.50. No County match is required, subject to review and approval from the County Attorney's Office. Contract number 20224933.

Are there any items members of the court or public would like to pull?

Yes, Commissioner. Thank you, Judge. I would like to pull X, and then AA would be to pull and delete at the request of our County Administrator for further information.

That was I, yes, and Commissioner Leon, I'm sorry. AA to delete, yes?

Okay, let me just read that in for the record:

Item 4AA: approve and authorize the reallocation and reprogramming of capital funds for FY 24 quarter 3 as described in the attached listing and project index. We'll request for this to be deleted. Any others?

Commissioner L?

Item W.

Any others?

If not, I'll move to approve. Did you want to pull AC, Judge?

Oh, which one?

No, I didn't think we were going to pull it. I thought it was just going to be part of the afternoon.

Yes, okay.

We have a motion from Commissioner Olin, second by Commissioner L. The voting is open. Motion carries.

Item five is public comment. We do have several speakers signed up for public comment. First, we have Mr. Beeda, and just as a reminder, there is a five-minute time limit for public comment.

Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning, Judge. Good morning.

Um, I haven't been in because I've been kind of sick. I don't know if you guys knew. Um, I'm a boxing coach out there in Soro, and today is a month that happened. Um, an accident happened out there with one of my kids. He, um, he ran over a wire out there in Bowman Street, and he killed himself in a quad writing it.

And, uh, that's the reason I haven't come in, you know, but um, not because I haven't come in, and that doesn't mean I'm dropping my case, you know. I'm still, um, I had a meeting with you, Mr. Judge. I had a meeting with you, and we're still pending that, um, the information.

And I also reached out to, uh, Mary Gonzalez, and uh, Mary Gonzalez tried to take credit for everything we've done here, especially your office. Ms. She tried to take credit for everything, and um, I thought David was bad; now she's even worse off than David.

So I don't know why they're in, um, why are they elected to office if they're not willing to help out the, um, the people in my district? She doesn't want to help me; she doesn't want to get involved, and um, she's, uh, um, um, she's not even trying to help out at all.

So right now, at the moment, um, I'm back. So, uh, today is a month that, um, he's like my grandson who passed away. He, he was always with me, and um, I'm just trying to get recuperated from that.

So well, um, I'll be coming in. I need some help to just figure out what's going on with my case and move forward and, uh, try to resolve the issue.

I mean, uh, um, the issue is right now they found an improper assessment. The improper assessment is that my services should be reinstated back because of that. Proper assessment; they want to give it a year, even though it was an improper assessment they want to wait a year.

So it sounds unreasonable for that. But guys, my case, um, this just became personal, personal between Emergence and me, and it's not fair that I'm trying to fight a multi-billion dollar company that is that I didn't even finish high school, you know, and they're trying to take advantage of everything.

So I need your help, guys, so please help me out. And um, I'll be walking in and out. Bless you, sir. And um, I'll be walking in and out, you know, on the offices, a quick review of what's see what's going on with you guys, and um, and I'll be coming in from now on again, you know, and hopefully, um, I made a commitment to, uh, Zuro, my boxer, that I will be competing again in February for the Masters Tournament again in boxing.

So God help me for with it, with in in February. See what happens. See if this depression I have goes away with a little bit of training. I gained 15 lbs since I stopped working the depressed, um, but I'm, I mean, and uh, somebody sent in, um, world a fair check out there for me, and they did find me, uh, that I was under a lot of stress.

So maybe it's a good thing that it happened because that should provide services instead of waiting an entire year for a new assessment. This world check that was given to me helps me out because it will make it faster, but hopefully, they said 10 days. Within 10 days, the sheriff's department was going to, um, give me a call for the crisis center. See what happens after that, and that's what's happening right now at the moment.

Okay, thank you guys. Thank you, Judge. Thank you everybody. Thank you, Pedro.

Okay, I'll see you. I do have that meeting that we promised with you, Judge.

Okay, yeah, thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Our condolences for the loss of your student's life.

Our next speaker, we have Miss Elizabeth Crawford.

Good morning, Elizabeth.

Good morning. Thank you. Good morning.

November 20th is designated as World Children's Day by the United Nations.

We're told in Matthew chapter 18 the words of the Lord Jesus: "Truly I say to you, unless you be converted and become like little children, you will never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever therefore shall humble himself like this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever shall receive one such little child in my name receives me."

The words of the Lord Jesus.

The United Nations, um, for the theme of World Children's Day, the theme is for every child, every right. There should be a giant exception clause unless you're a child in the womb.

I recently read an article of an interview with a former abortionist. Both husband and wife were abortionists, and they've changed to the pro-life side. Um, he described the heart of what he was performing as a lucrative business. He and his wife authored a book, *The Scalpel and the Soul*. They brought to light the international abortion situation.

Abortion is not just an American thing; abortion in the US accounts for probably well under 2% of global abortions. Reports say that 73 million abortions worldwide are done per year; that amounts to 200,000 per day.

No doubt that figure is very low because it doesn't take into account probably, um, most of the babies who potentially could be aborted by morning-after pills, which can potentially cause a very early abortion.

The most common Bible verse we always have thrown at us as pro-lifers is from the words of Jesus: "Judge not that you be not judged."

The problem is that's not the context. I've heard the saying that a text without a context is a pretext, a presumption, a wrong conclusion. That verse is found in the midst of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, some of the very hardest words of Jesus to read: "Matthew 5, 6, and 7: Judge not that you be not judged; for with the judgment you judge, you shall be judged; and the measure you give will be measured to you again."

Jesus was not forbidding all judgment. Were that the case, the entire justice and judicial system would be wrong, and every law enforcement officer and government leader should quit their job and go home. No, that's not what he's saying.

In the context, Jesus was forbidding judgment by a false standard, an unrighteous standard, or judgment of another person while personally doing the same thing and refusing to address it in one's own life.

A number of years back, I must admit when I saw some graphic pro-life literature sitting on our kitchen table one day when I got home that had come in the mail to my mom, literature that showed abortion for what it really is, I'm sad to admit that I felt disgusted and spoke to my mom negatively about the group.

For sure, at that time, I never did agree with abortion; I was pro-life, yet I thought that it was extreme. Over the years, God had to bring me to repentance for my apathy and my errant attitudes toward the abortion Holocaust in our nation.

November 3rd, yesterday, was the day that Christians have designated to honor and remember the persecuted Church worldwide. The day of prayer for the persecuted church has recently sent an email of a horrific attack in eastern Uganda of Eser and his wife and two daughters, seven and four, burned to death by Islamist villagers in Uganda. Their crime? Leading three Muslims to faith in Jesus Christ.

The little children were slaughtered by the radicals. As we live in a world that's increasingly hostile to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we're reminded of the words of the Lord Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount: "Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

In John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me."

The words of the Lord Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount. And just before his crucifixion, thank you so much. Hope you have a good day.

Thank you, Elizabeth. Have a good day.

Thank you, sir.

Next, we have Commissioner Serio Coronado.

Commissioner, Judge, Commissioners, thank you.

Um, I just publicly want to genuinely thank our County staff that, uh, spent their summer reaching out to our community regarding the capital planning bond. You know, they, they offered our community an opportunity to ask questions, gather information, and learn how and why of the proposed plan.

I know that it took a lot of time away from their family, and I want to thank them for solidifying our connection to our community. We continue to offer and explore new ways to incorporate public input, like the live virtual meetings that we had, so it's my hope that we continue to invite our community to participate in their County government.

The partnership of community support and active County government with the political will to act can propel us to an El Paso County that offers a quality of life we all deserve and enjoy.

Tomorrow is the last chance to make your voice heard by voting, so if you haven't done so already, I encourage everybody in the community: please come out and make your voice heard and vote. Thank you, Judge.

Thank you, Commissioner. I appreciate that. Our final speaker, we have Ms. Lorena Rodriguez.

Welcome, Lorena.

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. Lorena Rodriguez, County Administration Department.

As the veterans capital of the USA, El Paso County proudly supports veteran organizations with expenses for commemorating Veterans Day through events and parades across our communities.

Today, we would like to spotlight some upcoming events that honor our veterans and invite our community to attend and show their support:

Our Fabens Veterans Ceremony hosted by the Fabens Veterans Park Committee will be held on Friday, November 8th, at the Fabens Veterans Park located at 602 4th Street Northeast beginning at 8:00 a.m.

The 28th Annual San Elizario Veterans Day Parade and Ceremony, hosted by the San Elizario Veterans Committee, will be held on Saturday, November 9th, at 1501 Main Street, San Elizario historic district at 9:00 a.m.

El Paso Downtown Veterans Day Parade, hosted by the United American Veterans Organization, will be held on Saturday, November 9th, at 10:00 a.m. The starting point is on Myrtle and North Campbell Street.

Last but not least, the Northeast Veterans Day Parade and Ceremony, hosted by Flags Across America, will take place on Monday, November 11th, at 10:00 a.m., with the starting point on Honda Pass.

We just wanted to make the public aware of those events.

Thank you very much. I know there's so many; it's hard to sort of choose. There are so many great parades going on and activities, but somehow, someway I'll do the 2080. You know, I'll miss 20% of them, but hopefully, I'll get those 80%. Thank you.

That completes public comment.

Item six: Presentation 6A. Receive a presentation from County Administration regarding factors that are impacting the jail population.

Good morning, County Judge.

Morning.

Good morning, Joel Bishop with County Administration. We have a presentation this morning for you to update you on what's happening with the jail population. We know that we've been watching it closely over the last few years, and it certainly is impacting County revenue, and so the purpose of this is to bring some updated understanding to the complexities, um, that surround the jail population and to help us understand where we can have an impact and what we might be able to control as a local community and as a local government versus some things that are out of our control.

I would not say that this covers everything, but I do think this is probably the most comprehensive analysis that I've seen done on Texas jail populations. I can tell you that this is a major challenge across the state, um, for many jails, and I'll get into that a little bit here as well.

But first, I do want to thank our partners who are here with us, uh, primarily the Council of Judges. Um, they've worked with us carefully on this. Michael Cucaro and Crystal Lozano are here this morning, uh, and they we meet every week with them. We go over these things, and they've been very responsive and helpful, and they also helped us put this together, so I wanted to thank them.

And of course, as always, Jose, Deborah, and Jacob Miles who are here. Jacob will be helping me with this here in a minute. Thank you.

We'll try to make this as quick as we can, but we want to leave some time for discussion or questions.

I also want to recognize Judge Morales, Ruben Morales for his site-and-release program, and he's running that. He's not here this morning, but um, these are the kind of things that really help, even if the numbers aren't high. It's helpful to have that collaboration coordination to make these things happen.

In June of 2010, only 31% of County jails—which is actually more than I thought—housed inmates outside of their local jurisdiction. That has increased. Recently, over 40% of Texas jails have to outsource their beds to other jurisdictions, many are out of state.

Many at East Texas; it's very common to send them to Louisiana because they don't have room in their local jails.

Since 2018, over 2,000 more inmates have been outsourced to outside local jails because of lack of room. Harris County will spend almost $60 million this year outsourcing beds; Bexar County is spending millions of dollars.

Um, we met with them last week. We talked with them about it; there's many, many other counties that are spending many millions of dollars outsourcing beds.

El Paso has done a really good job over time in addressing this issue and coming up with strategies to avoid that. We know that the reform that was done back in 2015 reduced the pre-trial population by 10% or by 8%, which was, uh, over 100,000 jail beds.

Since that's our primary population, that's a lot of jail beds in a year, so it saved over 100,000 jailed nights in a year by that reform. But that's quickly being eaten up as other counties are seeing by an increase in the state population and local jails.

So we came up with some of the primary factors that can impact a jail population here, and we'll go over the ones we can quantify. Some of these things we can put numbers to; some of them can't. It's more complex, and it's hard to like give you an estimate, um, percentage-wise how much this is having an impact.

These can have positive impacts or negative impacts depending on the practices in the jail. It's kind of like a bathtub where you have water coming in and water going out and that, and the volume is affected by both.

So when you think of the jail, the intakes in the jail um impact the population, but also the outflow impacts the population. And if your outflow slows down more than your intake, it can go up and vice versa. So it makes it very complex—a lot of different things.

We'll get into most of these through this presentation. The one of our most recent population counts is a total capacity of 2,592, with an authorized capacity of 2,472, and we'll talk about what that really means—the difference there. But sometimes we have to have areas of the jail shut down due to remodels or, uh, like the sewer project right now, which is having a big impact there.

You see we have the downtown jail capacity and the annex capacity combining for that total capacity of 2,592, with that authorized capacity of 2,472. Just as a, for example, that when we're doing upgrades, we have to shut down a floor, say in the downtown, that can affect upwards of 200 beds at a time, and that's a 25% decrease just in that alone, which could cost us up about $20,000 a day in federal revenue.

So it's not just how much it costs us to do a sewer upgrade, you know, which is a lot, but it can also, um, it also costs us, uh, revenue. But there's really nothing we can do about that. I think, um, we, these are upgrades that have to be done, but those are just some things that impact the jail population.

You can see over time since around the beginning of 2020, the jail population report you can see doesn't appear to have changed that much, but you can see the population type is changing.

If we exclude the federal population, you could see that beginning in the spring of 2022, we begin to see a real increase in the state population, and it's steadily just kept going. We've talked about this over the last year, year and a half with the Justice Coordinating Council because we were seeing this trend in the data and, uh, certainly highlighting it pretty regularly because this is a troubling trend because this pushes out that federal population as the state population increases.

We also saw at this time SB6 kicked into gear which restricted, put some restrictions on PR bonds, but we don't think that has had as big of an impact as, um, the operation Lone Star which kicked in around this time that seems to have had a bigger impact on the population.

I think we can break that down into percentages which we'll show you here shortly, but you can see proportionate to that increase in the state population here is the decrease in the federal population, um, and the federal revenue that's impacted and and how it's decreased over time.

So roughly $15 million or so in lost revenue over the last couple of years due to that decrease in the federal population. And those, you know it, and we also know it's not just about money; it's about justice, and it's about what's best for that federal population.

I think our analysis previously done some years ago, um, showed that they're better off in El Paso not only for revenue but for their legal defense and being closer to family and everything else. It's better off to have those people housed here whenever we can.

This is a dashboard that we've linked to the court so you can keep an eye on the impacts of smuggling of persons and the rioting that happened this year. The rioting arrests, um, and those that were booked in our jail for those charges, um, have had an impact of over $13 million in lost federal revenue since, uh, 2022, as you see that increasing over time and significantly going up in 2024.

That can be broken down, you can, uh, on that dashboard, I think you all have access to that. You can explore the data in more detail as you get into that dashboard, but you can see just those two aspects of OS—that's not doesn't include all of the operation Lone Star operations—but those two aspects have had a big impact on the jail population.

With that, I'm going to turn this over to Jacob Miles to go over some of the other factors and talk about all the different factors that have decreased that federal population over time.

Jacob.

Jacobs going to explain what we know about that.

Welcome, Jacob.

Morning, Judge.

Morning, Commissioners.

Job Miles, County Administration. So here is a graph of the distribution of federal beds versus non-state beds versus OS beds. This is taken from a snapshot on September 1st of 2020. Now you may notice there's one OS, and how can you have an OS before OS was even a thing?

We're using riot participation and smuggling of persons as proxies for what we're going to consider OS cases. So I can get completely in the mechanics of that, but I don't want to draw attention away from what we're trying to show with these two pie graphs.

So here's that distribution in 2024. You notice in 2020, we had 27% of the jail population allocated to federal jail bed days. That shrank to 3% in 2024.

This is the same day, September 1st of 2024 for OC cases. Again, we're returning to riot participation in smuggling experiences now at 133%, and non-state, so every other state charge is now at 84%.

If you overlay these two graphs on top of each other, you'll see proportionally the reduction of federal jail bed days is split roughly almost 50/50: 46% for non-state and 54% for OS. So of that chunk that got removed from federal, a little over half is from OS and a little under half is from non-state.

I want to make clear that it is not an entirely OS driven increase in the non-federal population. It is there for sure, but it is not the entire reason why the population has increased and why the federal population has subsequently decreased.

Again, it's increased; the OS has increased by 133% while non-state has increased by 11%. So it's those two, and remember OS is still a state. There are still state offenses.

So all of this is state, it's just this is a subset of those state offenses. You may be asking what's going on—are bookings increasing? Because that would be a logical assumption.

This graph shows that bookings have actually decreased since 2012, and they haven't increased to their pre-pandemic levels yet.

So then, if bookings are down, what is happening?

This is showing the average length of stay in jail pre-trial since 2012. You can see the average from 2012 to 2019 was 24.1 days; the average from 2020 to 2023 was 33.5 days. 2024 is too recent, and you're going to have a lot of people that were just booked, but they haven't had a chance to be released.

Just for clarity and for transparency, if someone has not been released, and I cut the date off at September 1st is when this report was run. So they're in there, and that would be the best-case scenario if they were released on September 1st, then this is how long they would have stayed.

But since that's the last day of the actual data, that's where I cut off for non-releases, and these years are by booking date.

Let's talk about the long-term custody breakdown. On February 22nd of this year, there were 228 individuals in custody who have been in custody between one and two years; 91 individuals have been there between two and three years; 54 between three and four; 24 between four and five; 15 between five and six; six between six and seven; and no one between seven and eight, and one individual over eight years.

And these are pre-trial, correct?

So these are people who have not been convicted of an offense yet, that is correct.

So we brought this up to the judges, and they did a really good job of addressing these long-term inmates. Now between one and two years actually increased by 24%, but between two and three years reduction of 56%, between three and four years reduction of 74%, four and five years a reduction of 29%, five and six a reduction of 80%, six and seven a reduction of 50%.

You can't have any changes with zero, and then the over eight years stayed the same. So the very long-term inmates in custody, I want to commend the judges for doing a great job of focusing on those individuals.

Now, unfortunately, the time spent on the longer-term individuals then the people who were short-term now start to over, to long term to one to two years, and that's why I believe that has increased by 24%. So now that we've addressed the severe long term, I believe now that kind of short-long term will also go down.

Now let's talk about the actual custody status charges.

So there's again a snapshot from 2019 compared to a snapshot from 2024. In 2019, we had 829 federal inmates with the custody status of federal inmate; that's 65 in 2024, so that's a 92% reduction.

Found incompetent, this includes pending transfer to a state hospital. We had 24 in 2019; that's jumped by 204% to 73 in 2024.

Those on parole waiting disposition ready to transfer: felony not indicted; we had 66 individuals in 2019, that's increased by 142% to 160 in 2024; felony not indicted—removing parole because I want to double count— including state jail felonies.

121 of those individuals in 2019 increased of 122% to 269 in 2024. Banned sentenced to TDC not ready to transfer: there were 88 in 2019, that increased 105% to 180 in 2024.

Felony indicted including state jail felony but excluding parole again: 533 of those individuals in 2019, 920 in 2024, which is an increased 73%.

Probation violations: 219 in 2019, up 27% in 2024 to 278, and then misdemeanor awaiting trial: 67 to 2019, up 24% in 2024 to 83.

Commissioner, could you clarify what not ready to transfer means?

So on felony sentenced to TDC not ready to transfer, so there's been a sentence. So there’s an entire process—I've been learning a lot about this because we just created a subcommittee for Enterprise Justice Control Board— we're addressing this and trying to make this as automated as possible.

There are a number of documents that must be collated into a paper-ready packet before it's submitted to the Texas Department of Corrections.

So that includes the original uh written complaint for the case; that includes the um the behavior of the individual in jail; it includes your demographic information from a rapture sheet; it includes the actual U the disposition of the case, so the actual conviction.

Um, and so it incorporates documents from the district attorney, the district clerks, the Sheriff's Office, and so all those documents happen at different points in the chronology of the case.

So the district attorneys, the initial complaint happens at the beginning of the case, but all the way until the case is disposed that those documents don't have a home yet because they don't know what the case's number is, and they don't know if that case will be disposed of with a conviction.

So then you have to retroactively collate all those documents into what we're calling a soap folder.

And I'm learning all about this; it's very fascinating, and so that can take a long time depending on how many indictments or how many, um, guilty pleas that you have, how many people are actually sentenced to TDC.

If the courts are having a higher output and more people are being sentenced, now you have more packets to put together to then submit to TDC, so that's what this was about.

So we're trying to find—there's a lot—we found a—we just had a meeting, Rick Roacha and I and a lot of stakeholders had a meeting; we determined that a lot of those documents are within Enterprise Justice.

And so we're going to work to try and automate as much as we can to expedite that process because that's a very good concern, Commissioner.

If we can get that down, now we start the clock for TDC; they have 45 days once we're paper ready to then take control or take responsibility of that individual.

So the only one of the only things we can't really automate is a rap sheet because that's very classified.

And so without that, everything else we’re trying to automate to make that time go down and so we can keep you up to date on that as we progress today. But that's one of my exciting things about what we're trying to do to make this process as streamlined as possible to eliminate all the other work of manually creating folders on a share drive, manually looking to try and cross-reference an arresting agency to the case number.

It's a lot of moving parts, and so we're trying to automate that as much as possible.

Okay, thank you, Jacob.

Is there any—I think at one time, the state was not able to take them; is there any bottleneck on their end?

There have been. There have been um, rumblings throughout the state about TDC not taking people as quickly as they should, and the sheriff's office has mentioned that the state jail, the actual state hospital jail beds are kind of—they're full.

And so those are taking kind of longer than the general population. That's the ones on the second line—the found incompetent—the ones waiting for the state jail bed, right, hospital bed.

So those I've heard of being backed up, and they're having a hard time trying to clear space up for that.

And so we have two programs that we're working on in that area: one is the federal, I mean sorry, the state funding to expand psych beds, um, across the state, but also here locally including some for jail-based competency restoration to try at the local level.

Commissioner Gon, thank you, Judge.

Um, besides the automation of the paper ready for, uh, those that are felony sentenced but not ready, is there any particular area right now that is creating a holdup or is it between all those agencies you mentioned?

It’s traditionally been a very manual process, and so it’s a lot of different entities who have to contribute in order to make this one TDC ready packet.

So it involves the DA, but they're at the front end of the actual chronology of the case, so they have to file those complaints; if that complaint affidavit into an arresting agency folder because there generally isn't a cause number at that point yet.

Okay then, so there's an entire folder of these complaint affidavits. Now once they’re found if they’re sentenced, now the district clerks form and create manually a soap folder in the common drive, and they throw in all their documents.

Then Theo has to go in, and look through all; they have to match and try and find who is the arresting agency, what day were they arrested on, and now go back to the DA folder to try and find that particular Comm affidavit to then manually drag over into the soap folder.

Then they have to do all their behavioral stuff and how they were behaving in jail, and then the rap sheet, and then that manually has to be elements redacted.

It’s only for demographic information; however, TDC will only accept demographic affirmation from the rap sheet. So, rap sheets are supposed to be destroyed as soon as they're reviewed and then destroyed.

So they have to redact everything and manually destroy all the criminal history and just keep the demographic information because that’s what TDC requires. So that process is probably the most cumbersome, and that has to be done individually for every single person that's going to TDC, and it can't be done at any other point; it has to be done at that time.

Probation will do their own for their clients; however, they were doing it for all of them, but I think wisely they only started doing it for their own clients because you're accessing criminal history for individuals who are not your clients.

And so I think that was a smart move to offload that to the sheriff because they're responsible for everyone.

So, do they have enough personnel because of this cumbersome activity for the demographic information?

Um, I spoke to the Sheriff's Office about that just recently because there was a backlog because—it's a good backlog to have; everyone was moving and getting caught up, moving, moving this reduction between February and October; everyone was finally getting their pieces caught up.

And the Sheriff's Office did have a larger than usual case load to get paper ready, but they have surged resources to that area so that they can move more packets per day, get more packets completed per day; but they told me we have enough. We're okay, and this is abnormal to have this many at one time, but we're okay and we have the resources internally.

So, we were offering to—we were checking to see if they needed additional resources to get this caught up and they said, no, we're okay. This is just from the surge from everyone else.

Now, I have a question regarding the parole. I don't see a subset here from your report of parole awaiting disposition ready to transfer felony not indicted. What about when there's parole but no new case; they’re just in violation and something else?

Do we have information that—that wouldn’t be our responsibility at all; it would be the state’s.

So, these are…so when I have parole, I have every single status that has parole in it. These are just the top ones that I listed as subsets, but we do have the actual list of every single custody status from these two dates, and we can provide that to you after this meeting individually.

But I just have them categorized, so it's kind of, there's a ton of custody statuses, and so we're trying to condense this into something that’s easily digestible, but we can get you those individuals.

I'd like to see the ones where they're parole awaiting just disposition of the parole board and no new pending case.

No pending cases.

We can get you the individual—the number—of that as well.

I'd like to see that too.

Absolutely.

Um, the other one is the one where I see a huge amount of, well, it’s not just the parole but the found incompetent. Do we know the number of days for the ones that are found incompetent and can’t transfer to the state hospital because of whatever issues?

So these are just snapshots of how many individuals are on a specific date. So we would have to then, if we want to know how often they were or how long they were staying, we have to run snapshots every single day and then manually categorize how often they were doing that.

Um, as far as I know, Tyler doesn’t have that functionality at this point now.

On the “found incompetent,” what is the timeline that the state’s required to pick them up from us?

I believe that’s longer than the 45 days, right? But I’m not sure of the exact timeline that they have. I would have to consult with them.

So on that one and the ones that are, okay, I’d like to see a report on that; number one. Number two, on those that are, uh, paper ready on felonies that are already paper ready, nothing pending, waiting to transfer, and they’re already paper ready, how long are they staying beyond the 45 days? Do we have any of that?

I don't think we have a lot or if any, staying beyond the 45. But Crystal told me she spoke with the jail commissioner or whatever, and they said the average is about 27 days.

So, and I don’t think we've seen any staying beyond the 45, but to your point on the incompetent—that is a big problem. They're often the ones staying more than a year on that competency issue. It's a big problem not just for us but…

But we had a big conversation with it with the state and other counties last week about this issue, and um, including whatever legislative solutions that might be come up this year, we need to watch those closely and try to support good ideas on this.

I know the state planners are proposing some ideas, but that is a big issue that we need to continue to monitor closely.

There have been Jacob will show you, there have been some recent positive trends in that area, but it's obviously increased as a problem over time.

Right, and the other statistic I’d like to see is where, you know, because I see that we have a huge number of people between the one and two years; they're staying in there. So I wonder how many of those are staying in there because they are SB6 cases and how many of those are OS cases because I imagine that’s going to be a big group.

You can absolutely look into that.

Uh, SP6 and OS, I think that's a really intelligent subgroup to kind of analyze to see what proportion of that one to two short-long term is due to the increase in OS charges. That seems to be a big problem right now in getting out, getting them processed through the court system.

Now, I know we've had, there’s been, um, a judge appointed to handle the SB6 backlog, is that correct?

I believe so; I'm not sure.

Welcome, Michael.

Thank you, Judge.

Okay.

Michael Kero, Executive Director for Council of Judges.

We actually have two dockets really for, uh, what we consider OS cases: there were the misdemeanor riot cases, which are directed to CC7, and that's for the misdemeanors. For felonies, which are constituted by the human trafficking cases, those are in the process of being transferred to what we consider a referral or special docket with a visiting judge who's been appointed; that’s Alat Trejo.

I think it’s roughly two to three hundred of those have already been transferred to that docket. She’s actively working them already, having hearings.

I think she's even taken some pleas in some cases, so that's moving, and it’s, uh, yeah, I really think that that's a good idea to do that.

And if we need more help there, because we have like 200-plus of those individuals, that's kind of a huge docket that are sitting in the dockets of other courts; and other courts are taking priority with incarcerated that are serious felony cases.

That's a backlog from the pandemic still, and so these OS cases are getting delayed because the judges are just too busy with trying to reduce the backlog of the more serious cases that are incarcerated, is that right?

Yes, and the judges are directed to prioritize certain cases. You know you have serious cases—yeah, murders, that things that have to go to trial.

We think our local administrative judge and the other judges I think see the benefit of consolidating them so they can be processed together.

If there is the opportunity for state reimbursement, we would have the accounting out of one node, making it easier.

And again, if that is the purpose, those are the cases that are going to get moved, um, and I think we're pretty happy. We’ve been able to, with a visiting judge, uh, we're currently staffing it with existing resources, but that's acting.

In a normal docket, District Court, criminal SL civil type case load, you're going to see about 40 of these felony trafficking cases, and if you move those to the referral docket, it's going to help those judges get to those more serious and older cases faster, while improving our efficiency in dealing with the human trafficking cases.

That's the goal, and we think we've uh, are off to a good start.

Michael, maybe I missed it, but what is it that created that spike with the incompetents?

I mean you would think things should be the same as far as that category.

Is that the?

Found incompetent?

Yeah, so that's, but what—what about that?

50 to 204%, right? So that's about 50 individuals, and I would think that that's one of the things you're seeing across the board—a lot more activity across the system.

So we’re seeing more felonies indicted or in cases in general that are filed into the courts, uh, more dispositions.

So the courts are seeing more people moving through, so just the number, the raw numbers are going to force that up.

Um, I don't know of any special reason. Crystal, any idea why?

No, except for the sheer weight of the volume we're that—that's increased.

I thought the numbers showed the bookings had gone down over the last number of years, so I don’t—I’m confused when you’re saying the sheer numbers of people coming in, but if bookings have gone.

Yeah, bookings may have gone down, but we are seeing one of the things we—bookings is one measure, but the measures that we look at, uh, are going to be cases that actually come into the courts.

So, a booking, somebody may be booked, but the case may be later declined by the District Attorney's Office. What a truer measure for the courts is what has been filed into a court, what has been given a case number by the county clerks or the district clerks.

This is a—it’s a case of what happened to us during the pandemic, and there's a whole story that you can tell, but we saw some of this slow for a while, and then the number of filings has accelerated, and we’re dealing with that.

So the courts are disposing of more cases. In 2023, we had a hard time; we were doing more dispositions, but we were not keeping up with the surge.

2024, we are much more effectively dealing with it. The number of cases that courts and the judges are disposing of is really staggering for this year.

Is that the increase in the found incompetent? Um, could that be due to changes in legislation that have forced higher levels of screening, like the 1622—those types of assessments that are done?

I mean more mental health, I guess, related assessments?

I haven’t looked at the data in the last few months, but my understanding is that the number of 16 22s that we're doing are down. There were some small changes in legislation, but that kind of eased the requirements for whether you had to do one or not.

So I think 1622 is down overall, and it’s logical if your cases are, you know, more violent or they're, they're harder than the chances of delays are greater, right?

So that percentage, even though your bookings increase, the type of cases is what really has become, and I think you may be correct.

During our, and again we work on this every week with Joel and Jacob and Jose, but I think one of the things we did see over the last 18 months is a, if you're looking at a ratio of misdemeanor to felony that the more serious crimes or that we’re seeing more serious crimes as opposed to the lesser crimes.

So that is a possibility, but really it’s—you know every—it’s case-by-case basis, and um, we can look into that.

But I think even given other things, I think that just the weight of the caseload at this time tells us that that’s putting pressure to increase, or that’s a natural pressure for the rise in the number of people found incompetent.

The other—oh, sorry, Judge, go ahead.

Sorry, I don't know if you're just going to say if you look at the felony which would create more complexity you're having like 73% increase, which the more complicated the case, then the more complicated the process. Right?

I mean it just stands to reason.

I'm sorry, go ahead, Commissioner.

Yeah, the other area I’d like to see is what has been the—for example, on the misdemeanors on the Bs to separate those out and which are there? Have there been any spending over or close to the 180 days and on the B close to the 365 days on the misdemeanors?

Yeah, because I'm thinking that none of those should be even getting close to that. If they’re in jail with the time credit they get, right?

They should be not even getting close to the 180 or the one year if they’re incarcerated and awaiting trial. I'd like to see what that is.

One, they should be let out on bond if their time period with good time credit is maxed.

That way, we—and I don't know how many of that is, but it doesn't appear to be a lot of them, but 83 is still quite a bit for sure.

And again, it's, uh, I don't have the statistics on misdemeanors trials, but I, I, uh, Crystal and I were looking at felonies this year. We’ve um, we've already—we went through August 27th, is that for a number of trials.

FY trials?

Yeah, and by August 27th, we’d already done one more than we had in 2020 in all of 2023.

So again, um, things are moving, but I always think of it like a highway where you have slow, slowdowns in the system and it takes a while to catch up to full speed.

And we are, I mean, even through these numbers, through what we see, we are, uh, in by some indicators approaching full speed—by some indicators, I think exceeding, uh, what we’ve done in the past even pre-pandemic.

So, um, systems, and my, uh, question on the misdemeanors, and I understand that some of those are probably have felonies pending—I don't want to look at those because those obviously they're there because of the felony, not the misdemeanors.

Just plain old misdemeanors by themselves pending.

Yeah, just for clarification for me.

I'm sorry, um, felony not indicted and felony indicted.

So felony not indicted means they're still being— they’re still waiting to be adjudicated or they’ve been charged and they haven’t been adjudicated or they haven't been charged, and they're just sitting there without having been charged?

I didn't create the category but I think that this would be an unfiled case which means it has no case number, it is not moved from the magistrate court to a trial court.

At that if it's in that stage, so there's something going on if whether it's investigation or something that the DA's office is preparing so that they can take it to a grand jury for that indictment.

Once the indictment is handed down, it gets a case number and goes to a trial court, and that's when the courts can start to wrestle with this.

I'm just trying to visualize what stage in the process each of these categories is in, right?

And so felony not indicted is what you just described, and then felony indicted means that they have been formally charged—there’s a case.

And that’s why that number is so high because most of the folks in the—I guess in the jail right now have at least been indicted.

Okay, and for the felony not indicted, isn't there a statutory deadline for which an indictment has to be filed or no? Yes?

Is it 180 days?

I think no; automatic release has to be released.

And we actually went through this as a county, was it two years ago or one year ago, where we were having hearings here about that?

Yeah, don't quote me on that, but there is, they do have a time limit on how long they can be in jail before they're indicted, and then out, out of jail.

I think it is 180, but right in jail. So we are monitoring that to make sure, Jose, you still create the list?

Yep, of so we watch how long people are, I’d say we—I'm talking this systematically, we do, we watch how long somebody is incarcerated, not without an indictment.

Yeah.

Commissioner, there is a 190-day limit if they're being held in the jail and they haven't been indicted on a felony case; that’s what they’re being held. After 100 days, they’re entitled to file a petition to one dismiss it.

I think the better process would be, though—and that's up to the defense lawyers, but—to just get them out on PR bond because they get out; they follow petition; it basically—the case doesn't get dismissed.

There’s why there was misinformation out in the public about these cases that were being done last year. Those cases aren’t dismissed; what's dismissed is the warrant holding them.

They still can get indicted, charged again within the statute limitations and if they do what happens? Another arrest warrant goes out and they get put back in jail.

I think the better process would be to release these that are 180 days or on the misdemeanor side the less period, right, is release them on PR bonds for the sake of efficiency.

But that's up to the defense lawyers; I think it should be encouraged because that way we don't have to put them back in jail again waiting again.

And I imagine some of these are there; and then we can't reduce their bond until—and it was tricky because they've already paid one bond, but then you—cancel it, then what happens if you have another warrant? You have to get another—you’ve paid for two bonds, right, at that point?

Right, so—or what we should do is if they are—I know, I know another warrant has to go out, but as soon as that happens we should identify those that were 180 releases and give them a PR bond when they get back in jail through our CJC process.

Well, the judges too have taken this into consideration because this has happened, right?

And they know that, and they want to—they’ve asked—they want to know if it's one of these cases so that we can evaluate it for what it is.

Yeah, instead of treating it like a regular first bond.

So right, okay.

Yeah, any other questions? If not, I'll keep it.

Yeah, we're still—we still got a little—don't go too far. I was going to say I was going to say if you both could stay there because we're— we're going to be asking questions so stay close.

Thanks Mike. Going back to what Joel was saying about the incompetency incarceration.

So on June 11th of 2019, there were 24, and so we've already established in the previous table, this has gone up significantly since 2024.

However, within the past few months, this has gone down, and so we are seeing a trend; if you graph this out of very recently, it's now going back down.

So there is, um, C from optimism in that regard, but from five years prior, it is still significantly higher than that.

So that's just what we're trying to address with this slide here.

Here are—we talked about probation violations; we also want to talk about pre-trial conditions and pre-trial violations.

So if you notice, there are three lines; the topmost in the baby blue are the appearance compliance, and we will note that we are still seeing 91% of perfect attendance for court dates for those on PR.

Um, the orange line are the average of no rearrests, so that's staying high; that's at 84%.

And then the dark blue are the average of compliance of conditions for compliance for PR, so that is right now at 76%. It’s increased significantly recently.

Um, it took a little bit of a dive, so we're monitoring it, but now it's back up and they're still at levels that are comparable to earlier in 2022.

So there're this is also one of the contributing factors to the jail population, so we're just want to be as transparent as possible.

So, um, it is up to the judge, so CJC will report this violation, and it will be up to the judge; the judge has discretion to either issue a warrant or just bring the defendant in and admonish them.

They have complete discretion on what they want to do in the next phase, so if there is a warrant, then that would be a FTC—a fail to comply in that case.

Um, I would like to say that a lot of these conditions are not in themselves criminal actions. They're just conditions of your release, so there would be a difference between I'm out on bond and I create a new criminal offense, and that would be in the orange, right?

But just violating either a curfew or, um, any other of their conditions of release, a drug test or alcohol test or something like that, exactly.

Very good question, Commissioner.

Um, the last ones I do want to so this is the time to disposition for felony courts, and so these are the percentage of cases that are disposed within one year, and this is overtime.

Now I do want to mention I want to make it abundantly clear that not all people in here—in fact, very few—only a very few percentage of these people are actually in jail at the time of disposition.

So many people are being released, and this includes everyone, every case, whether they were in jail at the time of disposition or they were out on bond at the time of disposition.

So there are just Court metrics; court tools do not distinguish between an incarceration, release, and a not incarceration disposition.

So, these are just of all the cases, and so you see that during the years right after the pandemic, I mean again, courts were closed, lots of things were happening.

We have jumped up on the felony side; we're still not quite where we were pre-pandemic, but we are at least trending with the past four years in an upward trajectory.

And because we can’t talk about the misdemeanor question without the misor courts—

Um, here is the time disposition for the misor courts. This is within 180 days, which is the NCSC standard.

And so you see there again, there was a dip right after COVID, again, completely understandable, courts are closed; there’s a lot of, um, social distancing during that time.

They have increased, and so these two graphs will tell you what's happening on the horizon.

So, here, the age of active pending cases for the felony courts, and anything to the left of that red dash line would be less than that year threshold that we had in that first graph.

And so here, 72% of active felony pending cases are less than a year.

So again, we were at 77 for those actually disposed, so these are the ones that are on the horizon.

And everything to the right of that dash line, this is more of those long-term ones that we were talking about.

So again, very recently, those— the felony courts have been addressing those long-term ones, and so the long-term bar graphs have gone down.

But in doing that, now you tend to let not focus as much on the recent pending cases, and so those will start to crease, but as long as we've addressed the very long-term, then we can kind of push and keep pushing into more and more recent ones.

I think that's the most pragmatic way of addressing this.

And then here’s a misor courts, 63% of their active pending cases are within that 180-day range, and so that is much higher than the current 44% that they have.

So we think there’ll be an increase by the end of the year for misor cases.

And now here are other factors that we're watching, and Mr. Bishop will address these.

Yeah, okay. We'll wrap this up, but I just wanted—we wanted to highlight a few other things that are having impacts.

One of the things we're concerned about is the mental health flags at the beginning, as Commissioner Stout mentioned, those 1622, um, and what's going on with those.

We do find that they spend four times longer in jail if they get a mental health flag, and that's really—the idea of that legislation was that they would spend less time, not more, but we’re seeing that.

Here, it's not just here, but we’re talking with the rest of the state. They feel like that's an issue.

I do think that there's probably even legislative work that needs to be done to, you know, is this really having the effect that it was intended to have?

So this needs to be researched further, and we’re definitely, every chance I get, I’m bringing attention to this.

Is that something that's on like our legislative agenda or any association? I mean, should I bring it up to the CC to put that on our legislative agenda?

I don't know. I mean, it makes sense just even to research it for the state to research those impacts would be good, and that's some of the research we're finishing.

Correct.

And we’ll be bringing, and I think having that data the state looking at it more as well, yes.

And then then the booking trends are as Jacob pointed out; they've been down; they haven't reached pre-pandemic levels but they’re trending back up.

Um, the backlog of unfiled cases is an issue; the use of dims is—I mean, that's very important that that's you, that that's maximized.

We want to make sure that that’s utilized to, you know, where it was designed to be.

Booking due to unpaid fines at fees—we're keeping an eye on that; we're going to be researching that more—we'll try to create a dashboard on that.

And, um, the first chance use of that programming, that’s important by the EPBD, and I have met with them on that. We're hoping we can get them to use that program again; they haven’t used that since they started the site release going.

Um, Joel, going back to the bookings due to unpaid fines and fees, do we have data on the percentage of folks that that are considered to be indigent that are that are in jail?

Yeah, the indigent data, and Jose, correct me if I'm wrong, 85% roughly that are deemed indigent in the jail at booking.

At booking, about 85% roughly, give or take.

And um, so it's, it's a high percentage that are indigent. These are not people that are going to be able to pay forfeiture fees or fines and fees very easily, and it can create a vicious cycle, something we need to continue to look at, and um, I mean I've talked to you and Betsy about it in the past, but um, I know that we don't have any courts at the county that, um, that use omnibase, and, and, but I think, I think we really need to get away from jailing people because they can't pay fines.

Commissioner, I attended a—I and Marty Nunes attended a conference specifically, and that the National Organization for Cities and Counties for Fine and Fee Justice, and we are looking and we've asked Joel to get us some documentation of that.

Um, it is disheartening that the state of New Mexico, the city of Dallas, many other places have done this, and we have a higher indigent population and we haven't.

So I am working with Joel’s office, and we will be bringing a presentation to the court about those issues and how we can deal with them.

I think it's high time we do that.

Joel, can you just want to real quick?

And then I’ll go, Commissioner.

Um, not today, but but we—the DIMS program was established to, you know, to be able to have a sort of pre-assessment, make sure that we don't move forward on certain situations, and as I said earlier, once someone that has been flagged with mental health—that’s in the system—now we're almost, you know, putting a situation where we know what's going to happen because of that.

And so if we could make it a point to sort of revisit, uh, DIMS, and I think, uh, we really need to look at that. That front-end work pays off on the back end, and Williamson County has a population of about 715,000; their jail population is 600.

It's incredible to see how low their jail population is when they have a high population. I've talked to them about this; I was talking to them last week, but they do believe that the focus—the real experience is that they're focusing on that front-end, yes, um, screening is one of the primary reasons their jail population is so low.

And so, exact; that is definitely something we need to continue to encourage, and DIMS is right on track with that revisit, Commissioner.

That was going to be my question about DIMS because I know we had seen a reduction in the use of the program, but has that been coming back up to pre-pandemic levels, or where we are?

Where are we?

I wish I had data to say for sure where we're at. I mean if I—the police would say it's being used as it's intended, but the magistrates would say it's still not being used at 50, even at 50%, so we’re still keeping an eye on it.

We're bringing awareness to it; I think we probably need to organize a meeting to make sure it's being used properly, but, um—and maximize, because that is a huge benefit that we have a program like that, and to see it used to its maximum level is very important.

So those stakeholders don't currently meet on a regular basis?

No, no, well they may—this again, this DIMS is an agreement between the DA's office and the police department. I think they do meet regularly; I can’t, but I don't know that they have just regular DIMS meetings.

So I can't speak for them, but I do—I do think there's not clarity on whether or not it's being—the use is being maximized between because really, I think one stakeholder that needs to be in on those conversations is the magistrates with the DA and the PD because they see—they're seeing the impacts of whether or not it's fully used.

So, Commissioner Leon, I think, uh, you've answered most of my questions. I was just going to tie back to what the Judge said, and I think that the El Paso Police Department, which is by far the biggest supplier of our inmates, needs to be really brought into the fold insofar as DIMS.

That's why it was put in place, and it addresses issues of mental directions that they may want to take with this individual or the lack of evidence.

I mean there’s a lot of people there that may have committed the crime, but there’s not enough evidence; it’s not going to go anywhere, so why keep them in jail?

Yes, exactly. Very good point, and that's it for today.

And again, we'll keep you posted as we see changes. Wait, Jacob and Michael and Crystal, amazing.

And I think we've, you know, we're talking earlier that we really got to get ahead of this, you know, that, you know, a lot of questions are coming up, and people are looking at the numbers, and if you don't understand the dynamics and the moving parts, then you could make certain insinuations instead of what's right.

So I think the public will appreciate this report. Thank you, Judge.

And to reiterate at the—we're not in the 40% of counties that are having to outsource beds yet. We don't want to get there, exactly.

So, um, we want to continue. I think there's a reason as we've been thoughtful about the use of our jail, but we continue need to keep it in a primary focus.

Let's avoid the tipping point too.

Yes. Thank you, thank you.

Jacob, oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner.

You know, I think you've done a lot of good, especially with pre-trial; Katherine has done a great job, and so is Joel.

I think that my, my big concern is those that are pre-trial cases that look like they're being held longer because that's not only a cost. I'd like to see what that's costing us above the guidelines that they shouldn't be held in their long and what, you know, and what kind of—

Because it's not just the human cost, it's the associated cost to the entire constituency of the county, and so I think it behooves us to really take a look at those numbers.

You know, those that are pre-trial and held for this long period of time, I think we really need—I know we've been working on those, but I think we really need to push that, and I'm very appreciative of your experience, so I know it'll help us tremendously.

Uh, Commissioner Coronado has gone through the process and knows all the new. So we appreciate any insights that you might bring to the court.

So thank you, Judge.

Thank you. Judge, would you like to take the items that were pulled from consent?

Sure.

Okay, thank you, Michael.

Item 4W from the consent agenda, pulled by Commissioner Leon. Approve and authorize the award recommendation of bid 24-27 Desert Acceptance Square Dance Linear Park with Shared Use Path for the AL Paso County, Texas, awarded to EGL Construction Inc of El Paso, Texas, to award the base bid one for a total amount of $2,132,259 upon funding availability. Alternative items 1 through 6 may be added; purchasing approved on October 29, 2024; funding is available in CP TN22 Desert Acceptance Construction and CP C23A Square Linear Parks Improvement.

Okay, thank you, Judge.

Commissioners, the reason I brought this out is I just wanted to talk a little bit about this park that my office has been working with Square Dance for years, and finally, they're going to have a park out there.

There are about 260 families out there, and back in 2013, there was no street lighting, no street. Well, there were street signs on some of the streets.

Most of the people did have water; some of them did not.

The vast majority did not have sewer service, so all this came about not because of me, but really because of this court and courts before this court that always would vote in favor of assisting these people out there.

And like you've said, Judge, many times before, that for the simple reason that you don't live inside the city limits should not be a reason that you're deprived of many of these services that they should have.

And this park is finally coming into fruition, and it's—I think the builder has been approved, and I'm excited about this.

And like I said, I just wanted to give a lot of credit to this court, the courts before, uh, Norma and her team—thank you for working so, so well with me and Lya Manzor—who's everywhere, making things work, making things happen.

But I've got to tell you that the people out there really are going to appreciate this park where they had nothing but dirt.

They didn't even have a bus going into that area before; now they do.

So I just wanted to say thank you.

The groundbreaking will more than likely not take place until I leave office, which is fine as long as these people get their park after so many years.

So thank you.

Thank you, court, and we'll honor your passion.

It's sort of a bittersweet, and to think that, you know, barely getting water and sewage and the bittersweet is that there's so much more to do. But it's quite an accomplishment, so I thank you for highlighting that, Commissioner Leon.

Before you vote, Norma, did you want to add something on the timeline about the groundbreaking?

Yes, we hope to have the groundbreaking early December.

So this is awarded today; we have talked to Legal about getting a contract right away, and they have templates, so we hope to have this groundbreaking early December.

Okay, that's really good.

We might not be able to have a ribbon cutting before you leave office, but as soon as it's ready, we'll invite you out to use the exercise equipment along the way.

Should only take like two or three weeks to get it done?

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you. We have a motion by Judge Sago to approve, second by Commissioner Coronado. The voting is open. Motion carries.

Thank you.

Item 4X, pulled by Commissioner Olin. Approve and authorize the award of RFP 24-22 boosting tourism through strategic initiatives and collaborations for El Paso County for the Economic Development Department to the highest scoring firms: Destination El Paso of El Paso, Texas; EFO Media LLC, doing business as EFO Media of El Paso, Texas; and LJA Engineering Inc of El Paso, Texas.

Purchasing approved on October 22nd, 2024. Funds are available in ARP 11162 SG AR plan 21 operating expenses.

Commissioner?

Thank you, Judge.

Um, hi Karen, I see you on the screen, but I also see Dr. R and Christian here, and I think my questions are more for them.

I'm just wondering if we could get more information on the different—because there are three firms that were selected that are going to be awarded, and maybe the responsibilities of the three different firms.

Um, if we already have specific amounts of funding available, um, I just wanted a little bit more information on what exactly the three firms are going to be doing.

Sure.

Um, good morning, Commissioners, Judge.

Christian Martinez with the Economic Development Department.

So this is a pretty large RFP. There are various elements to the scope of work, and so as a result of that, the way it was structured, um, was providing an opportunity for vendors to be able to bid on different individual elements of that RFP.

And so as we received those proposals, the evaluation team, in conjunction with and facilitated by purchasing, um, made a decision for different elements of the scope of work, fitting different vendors based off their proposals better.

And so the way in which that was done—and I do have, like, the tabulation here, Karen, which is what I'm using for the breakdown—is they did receive different amounts depending on which element of the scope of work they got.

So, for example, Destination El Paso, um, was allocated, is being awarded or, for your approval, right, an amount of $285,500, and those elements would be for the implementation of a tourist ambassador program, the Old El Paso County Jail tourism program, overall branding, and identity for all tourism and marketing efforts, and then tours and activities as a result of that to $285,500.

That was, uh—

Okay, that's for Destination El Paso; I have that for LJA, but I might have my—I might have an old file; I apologize.

That's okay.

So, Destination El Paso is going to be getting $285,500; EFO Media will be getting $186,600, and LJA Engineering will get $22,900.

It does break down, as Christian described, for Destination El Paso, but the total amount is $285,500.

Continue, Christian.

I'm sorry, Judge.

I just, uh, and Dr. D just got me an updated file, so I appreciate you that clarification.

And so you're—that's correct for Destination El Paso for EFO; their amount is the $186,000, and that breakdown is for enhancing tourism collaborations that's really—

I want to inspire everyone today. Volunteerism and service to each other make our lives richer and create stronger communities. Thank you for this honor, and I look forward to continuing my service in El Paso and beyond.

[Applause]

Thank you, D.B. Wakefield, for your service and everything you do for our community.

**Item 12E:** Approve and adopt a resolution recognizing November 4th through November 11th, 2024, as Operation Green Light in El Paso County, Texas.

[Mayor Kennedy steps forward]

Thank you, Mayor Kennedy, for your commitment to veterans and your presence here today.

In conclusion, let us remember that every day is Veterans Day, and it is our duty to support our veterans and honor their sacrifices. Thank you, everyone, for your participation today. This meeting is adjourned.

[Meeting adjourns]

When I say that it's the little things that we can do to make the difference in our community, just take one day and take 20 minutes out of your schedule. Tell somebody their slip is hanging too long; they have a pretty dress on, but let's fix this because you want them to look good. Tell somebody they got something in their teeth, that green stuff; let them know that they’re pretty with that smile, but get that green stuff out of there.

Give a person one second when you see them smile. It doesn't cost you anything. And I think you all have alluded to it— we're veterans, and you can't see our scars. Some of us have mental issues, PTSD from being in war. You wouldn't know that unless you took the time to just smile. You don’t know you saved that person’s life for today; that gives them another day to say somebody cared about me, they smiled, they spoke to me. It makes a difference, and I know because I do it every day. I get told every day, "I was going to commit suicide. You took time to stop and ask me was my day okay?" How did you know? I said, "I didn't, but I have those days myself, so I know what it's like."

Excuse me to not have somebody see those hidden scars when you can't get out of your bed, when you need somebody just to give you that hug. I love all of my friends that have come to support me; would y'all please stand? Because they give me the time to move forward every day. They give me the strength, they give me the confidence, they give me my hug. My sister beats me up regularly, but I'm telling you, the little bit of time that you take to just say hello, shake somebody's hand, give them that little hug or embrace, or just say that you care—you smell good.

I didn't even know to judge. Here, he hugged me, and I said, "Oh golly, he smells good." You know I'm a real woman, so I said that was lalicious. [Laughter] And he liked it; he smiled back. But you have to own who you are. As a veteran of the year, my dedication and promise to you is I will not stop my service. I would continue; I would drag a bunch of my friends and family with me, and we will continue to make and embrace El Paso and make it an even better veterans capital. Thank you, thank you. [Applause]

David, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourselves? Because we have some incredible Veterans of the Year. Veterans of the Year, all Veterans of the Year, come on up here. She forgot to tell you that she is a chaplain for O Glory Memorial, and that one of the reasons I root her on is because she stands for unity; she stands for love, she stands for spiritual connection. And if you haven't ever met somebody that will pray for you in an hour of need, Debo will.

Thank you. By the way, I'm the current—and no longer—I'm the 2023-2024 veteran of the year. I'm going to go last; I was first, now you can go last in the order. Somebody's got to be in charge here.

First thing I want to do is thank God for giving us the opportunity to be here today—to celebrate and to honor you as the veteran of the Year and welcome you to the Wall of Honor. Thank you. And I was the veteran of the Year 2021-2022, and 2023 as an interim for Mr. Pete Flotes, and also the first ambassador of the veteran capital, and I want to welcome you to that too. Thank you, thank you, David. [Applause]

How's my—I'm Bob Way. I was the first veteran of H Pass, and I still get goosebumps when I think about it. But I think of all the new veterans coming on and so forth, and what they contributed to the community and to the veterans as a whole. I'm proud to make a new friend, likewise, likewise.

And without leaving out my dear friend in heaven, Carl Robinson, he lived in the Northeast. I moved here, and I didn't know North, Southeast from West; I just bought a house that fit my needs—my two motorcycles and my trailer—and my realtor is here, she'll tell you she looked hard for me. And we ended up in the Northeast, which I love.

But Carl Robinson was that representative that no matter what day it was, whatever your need was, that man—I didn't know him when I got to know him. You could not do anything but love him for the amount of energy and love he gave back to El Paso—not just the Northeast El Paso. And God rest his soul, but he was a good example and martyr for me as a veteran. I'm standing on his shoulders for El Paso because he did so much. Thank you very much.

Thank you, thank you. Well, as you could see, we had the incredible foundation with these incredible Veterans of the Year, and we thank you. And I know the collaboration is going—people ask me, "What do we need at this time?" And it's said, Donna, you explained it very well; we still need unity. We still need collaboration between all the veterans groups so that we can show the strength. We can't just say that we're Veterans of the Year, or we can't just say that we're the veterans capital. We have to produce in so many ways to make sure that that happens.

So, once again, we're very blessed. Thank you for the inspirational talk that you gave us; I think it's going to mean a lot to a lot of people. For them to hear from what's happened to you and what you've gone through, and that's what they've all done—they've immersed themselves, and this is what happened to me, and I don't want that to happen to others. And that's been very, very blessed to have all of them.

Tony, good afternoon. Judge Annette Hunt, Veteran County Service Officer. I just want to say, first of all, thank you to you, Judge, for realizing that we have veterans in this community who are doing amazing things every day. When we get the nomination packets for veteran of the year, I wish we could name a veteran of the year every month because there are so many veterans doing amazing things, and our community is surviving and thriving because of it. The veteran community here is strong because of it.

So first, thanks to you, Judge. I do have a backpack full of Veteran Capital swag for our new veteran of the year, and I think the Judge has something for you as well. I was just going to say, before we proceed, we have an amazing advocate, Paul Albright, back there. Thank you, Paul. Paul has extended the relationship with the city and the support from the city and initiated it with the county. But as he says, it’s not just county; it's not just city. It's any veteran at any situation, any place in El Paso that we feel very strong about. So, Paul, thank you. I mean, I don't know how you do it, but he's like in three meetings in the same hour. So he's got clones, Judge; there's no other way—he's got clones.

But something that I wanted to say was that I don’t think if you read her bio, it does her justice. This woman is amazing. When I tell you that, first of all, she joined the Women's Army Corps—so if you don't know, that was before women were allowed to be part of the army. To me, those are pioneers. I know that these ladies dealt with things that they fixed so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it and that the next generation didn’t have to deal with it. And when you think about it, she's got such a wealth of knowledge; I just want to sit her down.

But also, she's got this infectious positive attitude. I’ve got to tell you, the day I called her to tell her that she was our veteran of the year, I was not having a good morning. I brought her to the office, and she gave me the biggest hug you can give—like seven seconds. The oxytocin, did I say that correctly, kicked in, and I had a good day the rest of the day. She was able to immediately change my day because of her infectious positive attitude.

I just want to thank—I know she's going to do amazing things, but I just want to thank you for that. I look so forward to this next year, going into it with all of our advocates for our veteran community because we have our past Veterans of the Year. Our veteran of the year—can I get the members of our VAB to stand up, please? I know you all are trying to be incognito, but I've got one and two. I think there's—did he step out? May are back there, and they're a very important part of this process. Our VAB is who selects our veteran of the year, so they take this job very seriously. I want to thank them for everything that they do for this county as well.

Tony, we thank you and your team tremendously.

Yes, Deo. I just want to say one more thing: there is no age for being able to support your community or your family. I'm 71 years young; 1972 I can do it, you can do it.

So, Deo, let me read this:

It's 24225 El Paso County Veteran of the Year, Deo A Wakefield, SFC, retired U.S. Army, for going above and beyond your call to action and continuing to serve and give back to the El Paso community. We are forever grateful for your service.

El Paso County Commissioner’s Court, November 4th, 2024.

Go down there, you e—smile up here, please. Thank you; congratulations. [Applause] [Music]

I get her attention. Oh yes, right. Which cologne is that? Ordinary! But I'm going to ask to do an unordinary thing because veterans are not ordinary; veterans are special, veterans are extraordinary. And as I sat there as you were getting your accolades, as you were getting and speaking, the spirit of God spoke to my heart and said, "Come up here and bless my daughter and pray for my daughter in the congregation, in the midst of these people."

And I am one to be obedient to the Spirit of God, so I stand here before Christ and his audience to come pray for you and bestow blessings that God has set aside strictly for you.

I will pray for you now:

Most gracious and eternal Father, Heavenly Father, we just humbly come before you first of all to give you thanks, to give you honor, to give you glory. And as you spoke to my heart about your daughter, God is saying, "Daughter, as what you have given to this community—your life, your sacrifice—He said I have placed a blessing a hundredfold greater than what you have given."

He says that you are embraced in my arms; that I love you. The Father says that He will keep you, He will strengthen you, He will uphold you from this day forward. And as you walk in this path as a veteran of the year for 2024 and 2025, His glory shall shine upon you even greater than could ever be imagined.

You'll be noticed, but what they will see, they will see the glory of God shining from you as Moses stood on the mountaintop and the people could not look at him because of his radiance. That’s what God is going to do and has done for you—that He should give you greater wisdom to know how to serve His people.

Father says thank you for serving and caring for His people. He said He loves you, and the blessings that are bestowed upon your life are greater than you can ever imagine. May the wisdom of God continue to flow mightily, powerfully in your life, and most of all in your walk.

I ask all these things and speak these things in Jesus. God bless. [Applause]

Thank you, everyone. Thank you, thank you all that came out to support me. I'm blessed. [Applause]

Item 12F: Approve and adopt a resolution celebrating the inaugural El Paso Lawyers for Veterans program event that will be held on November 16, 2024, at the El Paso Natural Gas Conference Center in El Paso County, Texas.

Well, thank you. We continue with excitement and respect, where our veterans—having selflessly devoted their lives to the service of our nation—are deserving of our respect, duty, and honor.

And where November 11th, 2024 to November 15th, 2024 is designated as Texas Veterans Legal Aid Week by the State Bar of Texas via the Texas Access to Justice Foundation.

Where El Paso County, Texas has been named the Veterans Capital of the USA by the El Paso County Commissioner’s Court, which is dedicated to prioritizing veterans' needs and delivering tangible results to our veterans and community.

Whereas the El Paso Bar Association has a rich history of community engagement and is committed to furthering support for the El Paso veteran community. With the support and sponsorship from the University of Texas at El Paso Law School, Preparation Program, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid Veterans Advocacy Project, and Kim Smith Law, will launch a new initiative—El Paso Lawyers for Veterans—to assist the veteran community in El Paso County.

Where the El Paso Lawyers for Veterans program is the first program of its kind in the state of Texas.

Whereas the El Paso Lawyers for Veterans program will provide legal education classes and pro bono services for qualifying veterans to empower and support the veteran community of El Paso County.

Where the inaugural El Paso Lawyers for Veterans program will be held on Saturday, November 16th, 2024, at the University of Texas El Paso El Paso Natural Gas Conference Center from 9:00 a.m. through 1:00 p.m.

Where the El Paso Lawyers for Veterans program will include complimentary community education classes taught by local legal experts and pro bono services for qualifying veterans in areas of legal need for the El Paso veterans community, including family law, discharge upgrades, military benefits explanations, non-disclosures, and probate essentials.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the El Paso County Judge and Commissioner’s Court make this resolution in support of our esteemed veteran community and the El Paso Bar Association's commitment to providing legal education and services to the El Paso County veteran community.

We have a motion by Judge Sano, second by Commissioner Leon. The voting is open; the motion carries.

I can begin to tell you, because these are like new things that we're doing to support our veterans' capital of the USA, but those are so needed. Patricia, thank you so much. I know I got that first call from you, and I said, "Oh my God, we got to get this in," because it is so important, and what you're trying to accomplish. So, I'll pass this back on to you.

Thank you, Judge and Commissioners. My name is Btoa; I'm the director, along with Paty Lopez, with the El Paso Bar Association. Thank you so much for supporting this resolution for the El Paso Lawyers for Veterans event. As you know—and I'm so honored to be here with all these veterans—El Paso County is home to numerous veterans that have devoted their lives to the service of others, and our community has welcomed them.

The El Paso Bar Association seeks to join all the other nonprofit organizations in supporting the veteran community in our community through this new initiative, El Paso Lawyers for Veterans, which seeks to help them with legal issues that resonate with them. The event will provide legal education presentations by attorneys who are experts that impact the El Paso County veterans community.

We also call upon attorneys from the private bar to actually take pro bono cases of low-income veterans that have legal issues. Because we know legal education and representation by attorneys can make a significant difference in the lives of veterans if they have a legal issue or they need to be empowered by how to actually resolve an issue by their own if they can’t afford an attorney.

This event, again, which is a new initiative, will be held at UTEP at the El Paso Natural Gas Conference Center on November 16th from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Attorneys will speak on topics that I think will resonate with the veterans community, which will include how to follow VA claims and how to appeal when they get denied; how to get a military discharge upgrade, which is really important to a lot of veterans who, because of their issues with traumatic brain injury or PTSD, somehow got involved in the criminal justice system and were discharged from the military at a time when the military did not recognize that those were issues impacting their mental health.

So that's really important because by upgrading their discharge, they can access more VA benefits. The other topic will be a presentation on probate essentials, how to do a relatively new legal instrument called transfer on death deeds, which could transfer property without having to probate a will or even have a will.

The El Paso Bar Association planned this event with the general support of the El Paso city law firm, the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid Veterans Advocacy Project, and the city law firm. Again, we encourage the military community, the veterans community, and just the public in general to attend this event because you'll see presentations about the legal issues that many times the general community—even the general legal community—is not aware of that impact the veterans community.

This initiative is an ongoing event; this is not going to be something that we do one time only. This is an ongoing effort by the El Paso Bar Association to engage with the veterans community in our community.

Any other thoughts, Paty? Patricia, thank you very much, Judge, Commissioners. Judge, thank you so much for helping the Bar Association and supporting this resolution and helping us to provide the services for the veterans in our community. It's very important; this is a brand new initiative.

So we are very appreciative of the support of the Commissioner’s Court in this and also of our current president, Federal Magistrate Mike Torres, who is also very supportive of all of the work that we are doing in our community and the county family who supports all of our veterans as well. So we appreciate you all very much. Thank you.

You know, we have a symposium coming up in March; we have them regularly. Paul and Linda, I didn’t see Linda here today, but so Linda may—they do a symposium, and they bring all the benefits that support them— all the agencies. That's one of the components that is very difficult, right? Because what you spoke about—those legal things that they have to do are very hard for them. But then they sacrifice benefits, and if they don't do the right paperwork...

Um, do you know Tony the date of the Symposium by any chance?

On March 13th through 15th; we’d love for you to participate and be a part of the Symposium if you could have individuals there from the legal community to be there. That was really an important part of that. So, once again, thank you both. This is great, and we want more things to happen like that—new initiatives and more support because we have to show the rest of the world that why we believe in them.

I think we’ll raise the bar on other communities because some communities really believe that they, you know, do a lot of things for veterans. But that’s what we thought at first, and then we realized we had so much more to do. Hopefully, we’ll raise the bar on other communities, especially which is one of the biggest challenges veteran issues—a community on the border.

We know what they are; we’ve spoken about it. But then being in the border community, that’s a little bit more to it. So, thank you both very much.

Thank you, thank you. [Applause]

Item 12G: Approve and adopt a resolution recognizing retired Sergeant Major James Purdue for his remarkable dedication and service to El Paso County and our country. Welcome! One more resolution! Every one of them is just amazing, so I also have the honor to introduce this to the record.

Retired Sergeant Major James Purdue is an esteemed Assistant Professor at the Sergeant Major Academy, having dedicated his life to military service since enlisting in the U.S. Army on July 20th, 1977. After completing basic and advanced individual training at Fort Gordon, Georgia, he advanced his skills at Airborne School and the Special Forces Qualification Course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

For over 27 years, he served in various elite special forces and special operation units, beginning with the fifth special forces group and culminating at the Joint Task Force North at Fort Bliss, Texas. His extensive experience includes key roles at the United States Army Special Warfare Center, Combat Application Group, and the Joint Special Operations Command.

Whereas notably, he was awarded the Silver Star during Operation Unisom 2 in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October of 1993. Sergeant First Class Purdue exemplified extraordinary gallantry despite intense enemy resistance and significant friendly casualties. He led his team to rescue a downed helicopter crew and trapped pilot, demonstrating remarkable courage and selflessness.

Whereas his actions not only ensured the success of the mission but also honored the finest traditions of military service, reflecting great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

Whereas Sergeant Major Purdue also serves the community of El Paso as a reserve police officer for the city of Soro and has been doing so for 16 years.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the El Paso County Judge and Commissioner’s Court honor retired Sergeant Major James Purdue—a true embodiment of bravery and dedication. His selfless service has made a profound impact on our lives and our nation. Through courage in the face of adversity, he has defended our freedom and exemplified the spirit of sacrifice.

We are deeply grateful for his commitment and the many sacrifices he has made. Let us celebrate his legacy and express our heartfelt appreciation for his unwavering service, signed this fourth day of November 2024.

We have a motion by Judge Sano, second by Commissioner Al. The voting is open; motion carries. [Applause]

County Judge, Commissioners, thank you very much. I don’t get nervous often, but this one—I don’t want to mess it up because of this individual next to me. Judge, I understand that you are a Gold Star family, and many of us who joined the military, we know that may be the sacrifice that we have to give. It's family members like yourself that have to carry that burden for the rest of your life, so thank you as well as commissioners who are more than supportive of the veterans.

I met Sergeant Major Purdue when I came on at the police department in Soro. Me being a Marine, I had no clue the gem that we had there—an individual who served with Special Forces Green Beret. I had no clue it was the same thing. Little did I know of the things that he did. I’m highly impressed with him; the fact that he continues to serve his community in the role that he does as a reserve police officer—he doesn't get paid; he comes out there day in, day out whenever we needed him during crises.

He was always there, willing to help, and he continues to serve to this day, just in a different uniform. So I want to thank Sergeant Major; you are a great citizen as well as a great American, Sir. Thank you. [Applause]

Thank you, thank you for a beautiful introduction. I just want to thank the commissioner’s court for this recognition. I’m very humbled and honored to be here today. I want to thank my wife; she’s been through all my years in the military and law enforcement, and she’s been my backbone.

I also want to recognize and thank the deputy chief for coming out here today. He’s given me awesome leadership and support. I want to thank you very much. And Cay, when he was my lieutenant and interim chief—he gave me good advice; he led me through the process, and that's why I was successful today.

I want to thank him for all you’ve done for me.

I want to thank you because, you know, we always keep saying the reason we're the veterans capital of the USA is because of these amazing veterans that did not only serve, but have been bringing that energy, that spirit, that leadership that you received in the military and bring it into the community. It’s extremely special. There are so many right now that don’t understand that they’ve been exemplary in the military, but for some reason, they think, "Okay, I’m done; I did my part."

But we need you because, like I said, the type of leadership and training that you’ve gotten really helps us to be very successful as a community. So, thank you for that role model, and hopefully we'll get more military veterans to step up as well because, like I said, every time they do, it’s amazing. We have here in our county just amazing veterans that work for us, just like yourself. So we thank you very much, and we respect and honor everything that you’ve done for our country and also now our community. Thank you. [Applause]

Okay, get CL—go first and get a little close. All right. One, hello, thank you miles. One, two, three. [Applause] There you go.

Okay, I think we’re done. Judge, we’ve completed all the items on the agenda.

Judge: Okay, well, thank you all. This is a great start to our veterans day and week. So, everybody, thank you.

Our translators back there, everybody, our production team, commissioners, I know we're going to be pretty active this week, so wish you all the best.

Thank you. Go vote! This concludes today's meeting at 3:39 p.m.