Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Devin County Commissioner's Court for Tuesday, October 28, 2008 is now in session. This morning our invocation will be given by Tommy Brewer and our pledges will be led by Stephen S. Thank you. Thanks for the information services. We will please stand. John Mayanna, Attitude of Prayer. Father God, we praise your name and thank you for sustaining us through the year. As we enjoy this beautiful fall and harvest time of the year. We are preparing our hearts to recognize your blessings in a special day of Thanksgiving. Lord, we ask your protection for our men and women in uniform serving at home and abroad. Please keep them safe and assure them that they are loved and appreciated for their service to us. Lord, be with this commissioner's court today as it deliberates over the business of the good people of Denton County. We ask these things in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen. 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. I am Texas flag. Texas one state. Item one is for public input for items not listed on the agenda to the court We'd be glad to hear from you like to remind everyone to please turn off your cell phones and pages Item two is the consent agenda members are there items on the consent agenda that you need to pull for Consideration or discussion or do we have a motion for approval? Motion by Commissioner Marchant secondly by Commissioner Mitchell on Mitchell. On favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed sitting. Motion does carry unanimously. Consent agenda today consists of 2A which is approval of the ordermaking appointments. We have a rehire in the county clerk's office, two new hires in the criminal district attorney's office, two new hires in the county jail, promotion and communications, a new hire road and bridge precinct for, new hire in the public health clinical division, and new hire and juvenile probation services. To be is approval of the intro departmental transfers, to C is approval of payroll, 2D is approval of specifications and authority to advertise for amateur radio enhancement project. This is bid number 05081904. 2E is approval award of bid for vehicle parts and trucked and equipment filters. bid number 09081940 to Napa Auto Parts. 2F is approval of budget amendment quest 100120 for remote access charges for four facilities management in the amount of $1,320. 2G is approval of Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 9.05 AM is date and time to conduct a public hearing to consider an amendment to the Lake River Roberts Land use ordinance for zoning change from agricultural to residential medium density district this VR2 for the Warton Survey abstract 1360 track 10 Chrisink-1 is recommended by the Lake River Roberts Planning and Zoning Commission and the Public Works Department. 2H is approval of Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 910 AM. It is date and time to conduct a public hearing to consider and a of the Lake Roberts Land use ordinance to deny a variance from the conditions placed on the previous zoning change from agricultural to to residential meeting density district for the Jay I's odd survey abstract 652 track for precinct one is recommended by the Lake Ray Roberts Planning and Zoning Commission. Lake Ray Roberts Planning and Zoning Commission. To I as approved Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008, at 9.05 a.m., is date and time to conduct a public hearing to consider changes and amendments to the Lake Ray Roberts Land Use Ordinance is recommended by the Lake Ray Roberts Planning and Zoning Commission in the Denton County Planning Department. 5A is approval of the Bill Rick Howard payments from CSCD, Community Corrections, T-A-I-P, Shares Training, Shares Forfeiture, VIT, Interest, D-A-Check, V-N-D-A, Forcherford Funds are presented for recording purposes only. Good morning, James Wells. Good morning, Judge. The commissioners asked the court to prove the bills as presented with the four deletions that are noted on separate page and for additions. Deletions off from the general fund, ones to actually one is just correct in error. The very first one is error correction in the mount that's noted on the third one on the bottom. Others are just processing correctly or the actual final one is to payment soon to turn turn that we have an actual hold on payments to. The additions are for state court costs, some restitution payments are in general and then service fee for the district attorney's office. It's all corrections I have. Thank you. Are the questions or do we have a motion for approval? Motion by Commissioner Marchant. Chair will second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to name. Motion does carry. 5b is approval of the Dent County Investment Report for the quarter ending 930 2008. In McCall on James Wells. President E. In McCollum, James Wells. The President and commissioners, the investment report, or the investment report is presented for you. Again, this is acquired by statute by the Public Fund's Investment Act. Authored, I think, by the Commissioner Marchance Brother, when he was in the, I believe, when he was in the I believe when he was in state legislature. This report shows in compliance with statutes the county's investments status at the year end. It shows where our where our investment funds are. It should details our, besides our totals that actually shows which funds are invested in pools, investment pools that the county participates in. It shows a short detail of our government bonds and notes, and it also shows our overnight and repurchase agreement with Wells Fargo. No surprise at all that our investment in income is down from last year. Rights were, as it's discussion on page 156 shows rates were pretty much decreased all through 2008. We've had another cut just recently. So our Fed funds rates right now that we're kind of benchmark for investments is down to 1.5 yield. That's 50 basis points down from last quarter. So our current one, your investments are only yield about 1.25%. For the year, we're going to be down. We're going to be short of budget by about 600,000 in our budgeted funds from investment earnings. Purely a factor of investments that were returning 4.5% this time last year, a return of 1.5% or 2. You can see our pools have actually the pools at 9.30% were holding a little stronger. They were averaging around 2.35% for the three primary pools we use. So that's really what we've, the treasure has moved most of our funds into these pools because they're actually shoulder-term or are yielding longer than anything yielding better than anything long term. So the interest rate, you know, we still have made money, we've not certainly haven't lost anything, we haven't made what we would have expected to in the budget, but the amount will be short, it will be a gosh, less than a half of a half of 1% of our total budget to revenue, and we're making that up in other areas too. James, I was here in this morning that the interest rates will drop again. So just before I left on Good Morning America, have you heard anything about that? I have not heard that yet. I know the Federal Reserve has to balance what I'm reading is they really have to balance between having the rates too low and where they're almost counterproductive. So again, if they do look, I would not be surprised to see them lowered. I don't know what the, like anyone else, they, I think, want to do this. They, what they were trying to do now is stimulate some lending and some credit in the banking industry while still keeping an eye on inflation. So they have to do a balancing act. Again, I think the thing for us is you know our I've added in you know that You know legally the legal information of adding in some of the terms of the Public Fund investment act, really yield is going to be our third or fourth really our fourth investment goal. By law, we're going to, we invest to protect our principal to provide for liquidity, which again means that we always want to have money at hand, not tied up in long-term investments, but having it on hand to meet our current expenses. And we also want to diversify. So that's why you see we have money in investments. We have money in different pools and different places. So really, yield has to always come forth for us. We're going to do those other by law and also just by being prudent investors of public funds. We're going to take care, you know, secure our principle and provide for liquidity and diversify before we're going to go to you and go hunting yield. So I guess the good thing, this does hurt us. I mean, it really, you know, it's probably two and a half million dollars. So, you know, the people in government has its hand tied. You know, we really, again, with tax rate limitations, we really can't make up for stuff forward the laws. What market outside our control, you know, obviously, the investment rates that are set are far beyond, You know, obviously the investment rates that are set are far beyond, you know, far beyond Scopa Denton County or the state or even the nation. We don't really have a way to make those up other than to be in good, strong financial position, which we are based on our other policies. But, you know, it'll hurt us. It just doesn't hurt us as much as it could because we're not that dependent on our investment income. Thank you. Okay, we need a motion for acceptance of the report. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, seconded by Commissioner Marchant. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion is carried. 5C is discussion and possible action related to the exempt employee time keeping. Yeah, members, we took this to our personnel policy committee on Friday. There was no consensus reached. Members of the committee asked for further information from particular parties within the committee. And we have another special call meeting tomorrow at 1.30, where we will hopefully have that information. information and at least come with the consensus for recommendation to the commissioners court or no recommendations. So I'd ask that this be put again, put on next week's agenda for further discussion. For the discussion and possible action. A possible action yes. Yeah sorry. Thank you. 6A is to approval to change making model of approved 2009 hybrid vehicles for health department and human resources. Do you want to add to the posting? What's going on? Just like to let you know that the reason for this change is forward the Ford Explorer. The Ford that we were looking at purchasing the production has been stopped for the 2009 models. We looked at possibly getting the 2010 to replace that with, but that's 14 months out. And we couldn't do that, so we had to find some options. Donna and Beth in our office work with Amy and Dr. Barton on getting replacements. We did find some viable options that it will be of additional cost to the county, but we think it's our best option at this time. Thank you. Other questions from members of the court? Did we have a motion to approve? A motion. Motion by Commissioner Marchin. Chair will second. Hearing no questions, all in favor, please say aye. Aye, opposed to the name. You voted aye. Reluctantly, I do. I'll say. Motionless carry. 6B is approval to declare a surplus, 1 to 40-58 tire changer and 1-850 balancer. If he uses trade-in toward the purchase of a hunter tire changer and a hunter balancer. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. Are there questions, comments? Do we have a motion for approval? A motion. By Commissioner Marchant, seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, sen. Motion does carry. I forget where Commissioner Ead told me he was going to be today. Is that what it is? I forget where commissioner he told me he was going to be today Anyway commissioner white email this morning and said she wasn't feeling well, so I'm glad you two showed up today but Not yet. Not yet We're gonna go to item 10 a which is the appointment and approval of subdivision rules We're going to go to item 10A, which is the appointment and approval of subdivision rules, review committee members, discussion of the role of said committee and discussion of the subdivision rules and regulations. I know I'm coming back to the other stuff, but I think we can take care of this and then it can go back to work here. I don't have Commissioner White's appointments. I don't know if she shared that with you or not. I can tell you that Commissioner Eads is recommending two people, Everett Nuland and Mr. Jerry Campbell Commissioner Mitchel. I have one of mine. I haven't confirmed the other one. It's gonna be Bill Davidson. Bill Davidson the one that's going to be Bill Davidson. Bill Davidson. OK. And do you have your two? You'll read it. Yeah, Scott Norris with Tomlund Investments and Tommy Jackson with Stonebrook Builders. I have the addresses and everything right here for you. I have one of mine. It's going to be Gary Vickery. The other one is not confirmed yet. So we're missing one appointment for me. One for me. And one for you. And two for me. Cynthia. No, he had two. Everton, Newland and Jerry Campbell. So we're getting there. Was there something else that you needed? And primarily you were looking for committee appointments today, weren't you? Okay, well, I'm working on it. You have to approve those today or so. Now let's wait until we get all of them and do it. All in one fail swoop. Okay. That works for everybody. Thank you. I would like to say that the two people that I talked to were very, very excited about the possibility of the county reviewing these rules and regs for the subdivision. They said it was a long time coming and they were very excited about being in participate. Okay, thank you. I'm also waiting for Donna, I was able to show up. We as soon as he gets here, we'll go to that agenda item. But in the meantime, let's go to item 7A, which is approval of budget amendment request 100110 for remote access charges. In a wireless network card for road and bridge precinct number four in the amount of $551. Chair will move for approval. Second. Second, a big Commissioner Marchant. Any questions? Any none on favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye opposed any? Motion does carry. Commissioner Marchant on the holiday time that we're carrying that over or not. Do we have a decision? Yeah, you sat not posted. Okay. Which one is that? Eight A. We've had a lot of time keeping in holiday issues and it gets confusing but eight A refers to the accrued holiday time that's been accrued for law enforcement Officers that have had to work on holidays We didn't bring forward that what we discussed on Friday about the change in the Pay it was too late to post the right as many it'll be on next Tuesday I think we can Friday's meeting it'll be on next Tuesday. I think we can address this pretty quickly and then we'll go to the elections item. So 8 a is approval of partial payout of a crude holiday time and members you had some good backup in your agenda book. Did you have questions? The only question I had. So we're talking the total of 375 451 40 is the total liability and then you're your immediate partial payment of 25% of that total amount. Right but it's an immediate partial payout of 25% of the current. So that is the payout that we're going to. The total liability was 1.3, I believe. I got it. And the number that you quoted, the 300 something thousand was the quarter, the 25% payout. OK. And where is that pool of money? From a trition from the 2008 fiscal year. But that's right. That's right. Got it. All right. Thank you. Are there any further questions? Do we have a motion for approval? Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, seconded by Commissioner Marchant. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to name. Motion does carry. Hey, Donna's with us. So let's go to Adam 13A. 13A is to appoint election judges for the November 4th, 2008 general election for Denton County. And I'm not going to read the Spanish version. We have a couple of guests in the courtroom today that might need to address us on this issue too on you and the time comes. We'll let Don start here. I got an email from Ms. Edmerson last Wednesday she wanted to change out Tom Washington in the present where he was a judge with Tom Creed. The list that was provided to me that I provided to y'all in commission is court on July the 22nd had Tom Creed as the election judge for that precinct and y'all appointed him in July and you reaffirmed his position in August when I came back in here. Ms. Edmerson asked me if she could change him out. You know how hectic things have been this last week. I said, send me something in writing and she asked me what I needed and I said, send me something that Tom Creed cannot work. So on Thursday morning, a last week I had a problem with the computer down in fly around by the time I got back. I had two letters laying on my desk, one to change Tom Creed for our time worship for Tom Creed and also one to point two others into different precincts. So in the process of getting ready to do this, a gender placement went back and looked at the election code. Election code allows the precinct chair to make precinct changes of the judge, the alternate judge, up until the 20th day before the election, which is October the 15th. The letter I got was dated October 23rd, so it didn't comply with the election code. So I rejected her letters. I put in there in the email that I also consider using those people in alternate polling places if I had a space for them. It should be clarified here too. Judges don't go through the Department of Justice. The judges go through Commissioners Court up until the 20th day before the election. The polling locations have already been DOJ cleared and that was done back before you ordered the election. And then we had to do that not only with the general election, but also with the bond election. What other two people do we have in course another than Tom Creed? And again, what other two people, you said there were three? There are three precincts that there's issues on. What are they? I say Tom Creed. Yeah, those precincts. Creed Tom Creed is 213 being approved in this document in precinct 208 so he has Tom Creed also I was too so he said two times yeah he's on your twice I see Tom Creed will appear in there I got it because there's both of those prec-teens are consolidated for this location. That's 208-213 that are combined. Hang on this, let me. I'm trying to find my letter from Ms. Edmerson that had the appointment. It's going to have two letters. Are you already you see already working? Yes. And I called him back after I got the letter from Ms. Edmerson and recon firm that he was still wanting to work and he said yes he did. I do not have that letter here unless it got stuck in my other stack of emails. Uh, Diane Robinson is here would like to address the court. Sure. Would you like to come up, Diane? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for letting me be here. First of all, I would like to call your attention to the packet that I've just given you. Excuse me. it is fall. On page 82 of the election code section 32.002 per Fc, no later than 48 hours after the county clerk becomes aware of a vacancy, the county clerk shall notify the county chair of the same political party with which the original judge was affiliated or aligned of the vacancy. No later than the fifth day after the date of notification of the vacancy, the county chair of the same political party with which the original judge was affiliated or aligned shall submit to commissioners court in writing the name of a person who is eligible for the appointment. I'd like to discuss that part of the law because Judge Horne, you may remember in September we had a meeting of the elections board in which we were discussing various issues and Don mentioned that there were several of the judges that we had appointed who were not able to serve. That was the first time I had been informed of any such non-availability by the judges. So I asked him four of those judges so that I could reappoint. Did not get anything for a while. So if you will look further in the package, you'll see a copy of an email that I sent to Randy and Don on September 25th, specifically requesting the names or the locations of those who were not able to serve. That was on the 25th. I did get a reply back from Randy on the 30th, showing that we needed replacement judges at five locations. The next day, we had replaced those. So that I think that shows our intent to comply with the law. I'd also like to point out that it does say that they are to communicate with the county chair, not the county party headquarters, the county chair. If you'll look again in your the back part of your packet, you'll see that when we originally submitted our list of judges, it was submitted with a carbon copy to me, that's my email address which both Randy and Don have, it was submitted from our headquarters but it was on my behalf. All they have to do in order to communicate with me from that email is to hit reply to all. And I would have gotten any notification that was sent. I have a stack about an inch thick with me of all the communications back and forth between our headquarters and the elections office. And we find that there were some clarifications that were done, but there was never any notification to me. And in most cases not even to our headquarters when there were judges that had been duly appointed, who had notified the elections office, they were not going to be able to serve. I call your attention to the last email that I'm having your packet, which was from Randy on October 7th, talking about missing some alternate judges, not all of which are our appointments. Actually, we only had nine alternate judge appointments. Then there were, pardon me, three precincts, which needed Republican judges. Again, this went only to headquarters did not go to me. What has happened, and I want to also show you the other section of the law to which dawn referred. If you go over to the next page where we have the law, it's section 32.007 emergency appointments. And first of all, I'd like you to look at paragraph E. In this chapter, emergency appointment means an appointment made under this section. It does not say there has to be any particular kind of emergency for there to be this emergency appointment. Then paragraph F, a person who is appointed as a replacement for a judge originally appointed under this section, must be aligned or affiliated with the same political party as with the original judge if possible. And the appointing authority shall make a reasonable effort to consult with the party chair of the appropriate political party before making an appointment under this section. Once I got to looking and understanding that there were people that had, we had appointed who had declined to serve and we had no knowledge of that. I began to look at the entire list that Don had furnished us. And Judge and commissioners, I found that in fact there are a total of six appointments that I'd like for you to make today. They are detailed in this letter to the court. If I might take just a moment to kind of go over those. First of all, in order to comply with this election code, Section 32-007, I'm asking the court to appoint the following individuals for election judges. Excuse me. The first one is the judge for 118. Ann Buscarino is going to be unable to serve. She has recently gotten out of the hospital and is undergoing dialysis. I do not know if she's notified by that or not, but we've been in touch with her family. So I'm asking that we appoint Robert Nelson in her place. Then in, and just say that there's one 18, yes ma'am, it's on the first, oh you're looking for it on that list. By the way, just so you'll know quickly, I have the list of what we're trying to appoint here and the rationale on the second page. What was disturbing to me as I looked at this is that in five different instances where we had a Republican judge originally appointed, a Democrat had been appointed by elections to take their place. And we have no notification from the elections office that any of those could serve Susan Romero for example we never got notifications she couldn't serve Jack Anderson we never got notification he couldn't serve and Democrats were appointed in their place to comply with the law it needs to be a Republican and we found Republicans so everybody that I'm asking you to appoint is a Republican and it is in place of a Democrat in what is supposed to be Republican precinct. I want to address the situation and let me go through these first and I'd like to speak to what Don had brought up earlier. Judge for 124 which is in Frisco or we can nominate Deb Ronnicki for that. Judge for 131. One fund that's already appointed of Democrat is it you saying? Yes. Yes ma'am every one of these with the exception of 118 we have a Democrat in place where Republicans should be according to the law and again we were not I was not as County chairman given the notice and the opportunity to appoint those in 131 139 which the way, we couldn't even find precinct 139. We need to look and see where that is. But Hick's elementary school in Frisco, we have a replacement judge there who is a Republican. 410, Kerry Chalson Denton, we have a replacement judge who is a Republican. 414, Argyle School actually have with me today, Debbie Terry, who lives in Ar guile, is an experienced judge, rather than the Democrat that was put in there. The alternate judge for 418-426, it votes at the Dittensive Center. We had two Democrats there, a judge and the alternate judge. We have an alternate Republican judge. And then for 424 at Old Settlers Elementary School in Flower Mound, that's the precinct of Elizabeth Keller, Senator Nelson's daughter who just had a baby and is going to be unable to serve and we have a Republican judge there. Let me just make one note about David Wright, who is the judge that we are asking you to appoint at Flower Mound. David Wright was on the original list that was submitted and I believe approved by Commissioner's Court to serve and I believe it was the VISTA Ridge area. He never received any notification from Don. It was totally unaware that he was not selected as an election judge until I contacted him by phone. Commissioners, I called as many of the people that I could who should have been Republican appointments, but instead were not able to serve. And I called them to see if they had notified Don's office in a timely fashion. Everyone that I got said yes, he or she had. There was only one person that I have not heard back from. David Wright was never notified that he wasn't going to serve. He assumed because we had asked him to serve and that he had been appointed. So that's kind of a glitch and I don't know exactly how it is. It rates in what precinct? He actually lives in 118. 118. As you know the law does allow if you can't find a judge residing in the precinct that you can appoint outside the precinct as long as they're in the county and that is what we have done. Additionally, and again, I just want to make you aware of the issue that I found myself faced with. I think have shown that if we're given the proper notification, we can fill these positions and comply with the law, but we have to be notified. I have to be notified. Let me not use the editorial we. The law says the county chair has to be notified. There are several judges and this is the next last paragraph on my letter that we don't even know who these people are. They have no affiliation in the database. We don't know if they're Republican or Democrat. I'm not going to address those because not knowing if they're Republican or not, I'm not going to make an issue of that. Let me just speak quickly to what Don brought up about the situation with Tom Creed and Tom Washington. As it became apparent that we're having a record turnout in Denton County. And by the way, I do want to congratulate Don and his staff. I think they're doing a very good job. There are lots of glitches that are going on, but that's going to happen. You know, you've got people that are new to the process, or are harried, or hurried, or harassed. And so, on the whole, I think we're having a fairly smooth election. There are some issues that afterwards we'd like to take up. But for a brand new judge to handle the volume that we believe is going to be happening on election day based on what we're seeing in early voting. A couple of our judges that were new people that we had appointed because we, for the first time ever, had filled every spot with the exception of one where we didn't know in precinct on 35. We had no locations so we didn't put a judge in there. We tried to alleviate the burden that falls on the elections office to try to scramble and find just anybody to do election work by filling these with people even if they were new to the judge process. As it became more apparent what the election may look like as far as the volume. We had a couple of our judges that were a little concerned that they were brand new. They'd never been through an election cycle, even as a clerk, and they were a little concerned. These were the two judges that Don mentioned that I had asked if we could, if you will, swap. Tom Creed for Tom Washington and Julie, Lesinger for Diane Harmon. However, he informed me that because of the law about the 20 days before the election that we couldn't do that. And I do understand that. Both of those people are Republicans, though they be new. So I am not asking for you to do that because I want to comply both with the letter and the spirit of the law. However, the six that I am asking for, I believe that we have every right under the law to ask that these people be appointed, rather than the Democrats that were appointed by the elections office, we were able to find Republicans. Clearly within the five day period from when I found out about it, but we were not notified under the law as we should have been. So therefore, I would please ask that you appoint these six judges and when alternate judge to serve a election day, they've all agreed to serve. In some cases, Debbie Terry, for example, has already begun finding workers should she be appointed. I think this will comply with the law that Senator Estes was very instrumental in getting passed. And I would ask you to please do that. Yes, please. Yes, commission. Ms. Ebson, what's the process on vetting whether these are qualified election judges or not? I mean, is there a process? Is there a background serve? I mean, tell me what that process is. I don't. Basically, you just try to find somebody who's willing to undertake this position and go through the training that Don provides. We are providing additional training for our judges and for poll watchers, which we're putting in place this year for the first time in a long time, because again, the volume of what we're expecting in the way of voters. I have to tell you that being in election judges is a very, very tough job. And especially using the electronic equipment that has to be done exactly right. So we try to let anyone who we ask to be a judge understand the seriousness of it, the complexity of it, and frankly the responsibility that goes with it. Because it's not something that you can take on lightly. Some elections are easier than others., again mostly due to the volume. I think because of the high feelings that are running on both sides in this election and the number of people that are going to be voting, that's what kind of maybe scared some of our new judges. Mr. Creed, for example, when he talked to Mr. Alexander, was told he couldn't work the election at all if he didn't work as the judge. We had thought that possibly he could be a clerk, since this would have been his first time to be a judge, and Mr. Washington was willing to be the judge, a very experienced person, was willing to be the judge at that location. But Mr. Alexander told Tom Creed that he could not work the election at all if he didn't service the judge. So the only requirement would be if they're appointed they have to have a training course. Is that a requirement? Yes, I believe that the law requires that training course. Yes, sir. And again, to comply with the spirit of the law, we try to have Republican judges at the precincts that were carried Republican in the last general election and alternates at the Democrat precincts that were carried Republican in the last general election and alternates at the Democrat precincts. And there I believe nine Democrat precincts where we have alternate judges. That's this. Yes. This request, which is dated October 21st, the letter that we have in this packet, had these been officially, say officially, have these been handed over to Don for consideration? No sir, he just now got him just as you did. Part of these people we had, for example, I had asked that Debbie Terry be appointed in a place of Earl Collins at the Argao School. Some of these others we were not aware of until we began to compare the list that we were provided by the elections office with the list that we had turned in. And there were many appointments that Don made that we were not aware of, but at least a Republican was replaced with another Republican, even though we didn't know those people. I am not questioning those because he did, well, he did not consult with me. He did at least appoint a member of the appropriate political party. These that I'm asking you for today, with the exception of Ann Vescarino who is unable to serve because of illness, these are to comply with the law requiring that a person of the appropriate political party be appointed if a judge is unable to serve. And the timing is unfortunate, but I was not notified. Okay, I've got a couple questions here, Don, if you'll come back up to the podium. First of all, do you want to spoke here, Judge? One at a time. The communication and looking through these emails, some Diane has copied in on some most of them are just sent Denton GOP volunteers. So it looks like a lot of the communication just went to headquarters and maybe a copy to Diane or something like that. But not always was she copied in on these. I guess my question to you is, I would assume with all of these appointments to be made, there's a lot of communication that goes back and forth between the elections office and both the Democrat and Republican Party. But in particular, what I'm concerned about is the communication that I was told that went to headquarters. I don't know if Diane was copied in on it or not, but to headquarters. About the appointment and then Randy said she didn't get an answer back for like four days so you all went ahead and put a position, put a person in the position and trying to see what precinct that was. 414. Okay, wait a minute. We've got a court report here that can't hear you so you need to come up to the microphone. Pracing 414, I emailed them on headquarters because I had talked to Marceen and she told me just to email her and I emailed her about 414. He resigned on October 6. I called and then I emailed her on October 7 saying that he'd resigned because of family issues. And that did not get a response or a request for a placement until October 21st. OK, and I understand that. And I also pulled a copy of the election code just to make sure that I was fully informed here. And I do realize that it says that it must be affiliated or aligned with the same political party as the original judge. Big words here, if possible. Okay. And the appointing authority should make a reasonable effort to consult with the party chair of the appropriate political party before making an appointment under this section. So, you know, having communicated to a certain degree anyway, it looks like quite a bit with both parties to depart headquarters. I think it's a reasonable assumption that you should be able to send an email to them and say, hey, look, Sanso is not going to be able to serve when you need an appointment. The same time, the party chair here is correct that the law does say that they should be affiliated or aligned with the same political party as was the original judge. But it does say if possible. You know, it's a gray area here. It was a reasonable attempt made. I think it's reasonable to assume that a reasonable attempt was made because there's been so much prior communication between the party headquarters and the elections office. I will say that certainly in, Ann Buscarino's, 118, I have no problem making, except in the recommendation here on 118. Judge Ann Buscarino was on the list that was submitted by the Republican Party back in July, that you approved in July, and she is the one that you appointed and had on the list. I know that there's a change of a Robert Nelson on this list that Ms. Edmerson just gave you but Ann Booth, this greeno has already been approved and she was on the next list. I know she's already been approved but she's got a health issue, she is not going to be able to serve. Okay. So then that would be, since it's within the 20th day that would be a decision that you could make. Right, and that's why I'm saying I have no problem with the appointment of Robert Nelson to replace in Vescarino 118 because that clearly meets the definition of an emergency appointment. Okay, down is there anything else that you or I haven't had a chance to look through this list and see what she's got on this list as compared to what was initially submitted and and what we have aligned on these. I have both. You can see it's in March or the Democrat or the right to the right to the right. But I would need to sit down with my staff and go back through here and come back and make a recommendation to you on the changes that she's Recommended on this sheet. It's something you can like go in here and do. Go in here and take a look. I want you to go take a look at that and we'll come back to the decision just a few minutes. Did you have another question? I was just saying, I mean, can you take a look and have Miss Edmisson with you and maybe come with some agreed upon recommendation to the And being agreed upon recommendation technically by law after 20 days before the election the decision is not even a commissioner's court decision it's a county judge decision and if I'm not available it's an election administrator Well, I mean we're going if we're going to go down that road, then did you ever approach the county judge and find that she was available or unavailable? Hey, does. A point. We had a lot of email discussion about this last week, and the decision was to. Don's a point. Those appointments have been made. Yes, they have. I don't know. Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? Dynas of what? right here. What what the county clerk on page 82 of the what you've given me if a name is not submitted in compliance with the subsection the county clerk shall submit to the commissionals school a list of name of persons. It's 32.002 but that's fired to the 20th day before the election. Prior to looking at point zero zero. And we haven't made any appointments yet under the emergency appointment 32.007 haven't been any appointments yet under the emergency appointment. 32.007. Haven't been any appointments made under that. Ms. Amason, do you have an extra copy of this whole packet that you could give to? You did. Okay, good. Okay, Don, if you will go take a look at that and we'll go on with other items on the agenda and we'll come back to this. All right. Okay, let's go to item 8B which is to approve a recommendation, recommended revisions to personal policy 3.7 holidays and we'll call on Amy Phillips. Thank you, Judge. We are recommending some minor revisions to the holiday policy that we think will eliminate the need for law enforcement officers in the 24-7 facilities, employees who work in 24-7 facilities to accrue holiday time. We know that they already have some holiday time accrued and so we're also recommending changes that will allow them to be paid, those balances to be paid in full when they transfer or promote and we feel like this will gradually reduce the county's liability in this area. This is a good plan. I appreciate you all working on this and coming up with this to ELEVIATE and eliminate a prior problem. Do we have members of the court that have questions or do we have a motion for approval? Motion by Commissioner Marchant. Chair will second. Here no questions on favor please say aye. Aye. Aye opposed and aye motion is carried Okay, I kind of bounced around here a little bit. I'm trying to make sure I'm not forgetting anything. Go on the head. Take sure. Yes. Let's go to 12A, which is approval of an agreement between Canyon Falls, Land Partners, LP and Denton County for the use of property for law enforcement training purposes. We have some questions here. Hard to see them. Good morning, Hardy. Commissioner Marchin has a question for you. Yeah, did you find anything out about our discussion about waiving of any kind of liability on this? Members, I would try to tap into my memory bank, which is very shallow. And try to remember the discussion on this, and I gotta be careful careful here because I don't know where we discussed it, whether in executive session or out here, of this contract. This is the second time we've seen this, isn't it, Hardy? It is, and we had a summer one, I think, in 2006 in Sanger, which is... So that's a different one than... Different persons involved in it, but it was a sign purpose. It's not actually a contract. There's no consideration as far as exchanging hands. It's just kind of a gift from this developer to let us use a house out there as a training facility where you use... I call it artificial artificial ammunition, it's kind of like paintballs. There's not supposed to be any live ammunition used and the Sheriff's Office will be the only agency out there with people using that facility. They've had some problems with vandalism out there and this will kind of get some activity going out there and we've had several calls out there and this will kind of get some activity going out there and and we've had several calls out there to go look into people coming under the property. I think the property is actually in flieromound and there's some zoning changes requests. I noticed out there I went and looked at it. So I think the main concern at the time we heard it, which was on the Tuesday night meeting, involved the length of the agreement and how it could be terminated. And we addressed those issues in this memorandum. So basically, as a consequence in paragraph 1, 2, 3, it says as a consequence of said training, I understand that the property may sustain minimal damage. So, damage will be limited to minor cosmetic damages. I suppose if you fire this bullet and it doesn't hit one of the participants, it's going to hit the wall. I understand. I'm just like someone. I want to make sure that if any other damage greater than a minor who would be responsible for it but if it's what you recommend to the court that we recovered under any kind of liability damage to a property or damage to a person. Well everybody out there will be law enforcement ulcers. They are part of a training at the receive every year. You got to put these officers in these situations so they know how to react when they're faced with those circumstances and evaluate how they do. And we have training officers out there to be sure there's no live ammunition on the site. And we go through all the procedures we can. I'll know you never know what might happen. But if any damage the damage would be to the structure and if we do what we would grade today there shouldn't be anything other minimal damage. So you could have some kind of liability issue but I don't foresee anything unless there's some out of the ordinary event. Well, I've addressed it with you. If you don't think, yeah. This does say it's orgol. It doesn't say problem. Is that, does that need to be changed? That's the mailing address is orgol. Ellen address. It says property located. So, it is at 65, it's orgol Texas. Yeah, that's an address, but it's actually my own City limits. He lead addresses our girl, but it's actually a fireman, but this is wrong Party is this the exact same location as when this came three before yes My recollection is Commissioner Eads wanted Yes. My recollection is Commissioner Eads wanted to... Did you talk with him at all since then? I talked to him at the time. I think he had some concerns about that neighborhood and he wanted to be sure. Do you remember that discussion? This is actually not a neighborhood. This house is on about 500 acres, almost the middle of it. I think he was concerned about the noise, but I think the damage he's going to remember using it will be the most part. I don't anticipate that being a problem. Talk to him since the last time it was... I'll recall if I talked to him since then, but I did talk to about the location. I think we need to get that address train, so. That is a million address. Yeah, but it says the problem is location. Yeah, but it says the problem is location. And then it says, it's located at 6550. Yeah, it's located at 6550, Stonecrest. That's the mailing address. I don't know how we could identify other and buy abstract number and survey number or something like that. Problem out there, Commissioner Mitchell, around the Bartonville area. There's a lot of people that have, they live in Bartonville, but they got an argon mailing address. Right. That's a post office type. It's a post office issue. I can't clean that up for you. But the bill and it's not actually located at that address. It is actually located at 6550 stone crest. It's about a quarter three quarts from mile drive into the property once you turn into where it's located. There's some off well, it's out there now. And the best roads in are the ones that the off field companies have placed in the property. I couldn't hear you, the best roads in the world. Best roads are the ones that the people drilling the all wells have built. The actual original road into this property is impassable. I'm not having any problem. I just want to be sure we have the correct property location address in the country. It is hardy at 6550 stone crest. That's one Stephen McGinnis gave us and I believe that's the correct address. Okay well as long as you have a committee with Commissioner Eads and satisfied his questions about this location I'm okay with it. Commissioner Marchant you okay? Do we have a motion for approval? Motion by Commissioner Marchant. Chair will will second our good for the questions You're none on favor please say aye aye opposed any Carrie's thank you Okay, we'll go to 14 a which is approval of the engineering services contract between Denk County Texas, Texas, and Bridge Farmer and Associates, and cooperated her phase one of the Memorial Drive, BNSF Rail Grade separation project, in the amount of $186,685 with funding to come from funds transferred from triple four colony causeway into triple four Memorial Drive, auditor number 767379-90-10, this is in commission of precinct 2. Motion to approve. Motion by Commissioner Marchin. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell, other questions? Hearing none all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye opposed to the name. Motion does carry. 14b is approval of the 2008-2009 Interlocal Cooperation Agreements for Library Services between Denton County, Texas and one,, Justin Community Library, City of Justin, two, Luceville Public Library, City of Luceville, three, Plano Public Library, City of Plano, and four, Sanger Public Library, City of Sanger. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, Seconded by Commissioner Marchant, on favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye, Post and A Commissioner Marchandt. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Post and a. Motion does carry. 14c is approval of an order setting a date and time to conduct a public hearing to consider the placement of a stop sign. At the intersection of Barnett Road and Doyle Road to be held in November 18th, 2008 at 915 AM before the Denton County Commission's Court. This is increasing for. Motion approved. Motion by in precinct four. Should it prove? Motion by Commissioner Margin. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. Just checking here. Looks like we're gonna have a lot of public hearings on the 18th, 905, 19, 10. Well actually we've got other different days. Okay, in different times. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye, opposed the name. In different times. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Any? Motion does carry. Okay. With the exception of the item that let's go to Kevin's presentation 13b, which is a presentation on the status of Techshare Odyssey project, contract and juvenile case management system. This project, and we need approval of any action. Good morning. My name is Judge and commissioners. This morning we'd like to give you a presentation on the status of the Seges Odyssey project and also the juvenile case management system project. Charles Gray is here from the Conference of Urban Counties and I think he's gonna be doing most of the talking as soon as his laptop boots up here. Okay that's fine. Thank you Judge and commissioners. I'll copy the presentations left in front of you for your convenience. I'll try to be efficient here in the use of your time. I just wanted to provide you with an update. I've been before you a couple of times and wanted to give you an update on three things. I'm going to talk about three things today. The first is just where we are on the project as a whole, including Denton County's participation. Second, we're in the midst of negotiating some amendments to our contract with Tyler, and we're going to discuss our motivation for that. And some of the potential amendments that will be coming before you probably after the first of the year, before your court for ratification at the first of the year. And third, we'll talk a little bit about the juvenile project, which is on your bond election, I'm coming bond election funding it, an issue too. As Kevin mentioned on Charles Gray from the Conference of Urban Counties, you know me, I don't have to do a commercial for the CUC, so I'm going to skip over that. And we're going to talk about two things. The C just, we call it C just you call it Odyssey, and the JCMS, the juvenile project. So on page four, just in way of review, our procurement involved 14 counties back in 2005, 2006, and the Texas Association of Counties. Denton County was a participant. We did requirements together, we did a procurement together, and we awarded a contract to Tyler Technologies for the Odyssey product. You probably recall that from our previous presentations, and you've elected to participate in that option to buy a contract. Just in way of review on page five, the contract covers all courts, prosecution, it's OCA compliant, which is Office Court Administration, and it also supports the Texas Online electronic civil case filing and Department Public Safety required C just reporting. In addition, you're participating in some of the optional modules for law enforcement, jail management, check processing and adult probation. You're not participating in the computer at a dispatch module through the contract. The diagrams on page 7 and 8 kind of give you a picture of what's in the scope of the project and you'll see that it's pretty comprehensive. It covers every department and county government that's involved in criminal justice and in civil justice. And you're one of our counties that's really implementing the full solution from one vendor. So you're buying a complete system that covers all your justice departments. You'll see at the bottom on page seven the JCMS juvenile case management. It's going to be fully integrated with this system and we'll talk about that a little bit later in the presentation. On page nine, you'll see the counties that have been implemented who are members of our association. There are other counties in Texas that are using the system that aren't members of the CEC, but these are the members of the Association who've been implemented and are using the system. So you can see who they are, and you can see that some of your neighbors already have some pieces up and running if you want to find out more about how it works once you really put in production. Williamson County is in a similar situation with you. They're implementing a full solution from end to end and so is Greg County So you have you have participants with you who are doing the same thing as you On slide 10 you'll see that we have a number of counties over half our membership now are signed up in the program So we've been pretty successful in getting counties enrolled and moving forward with trying to establish a common justice system for Texas. Specifically for Denton County on page 11, you'll see that you're in the middle of your civil court implementation. You've been through your business reviews and your fit analysis. That's where Tyler comes in and compares the system with the way you do business and identifies any changes that have to be made to the system or any ways that you might change during business so that you can implement it most efficiently and effectively for your operation. You're in the midst of configuring that system for your civil courts so it's actually getting organized and structured exactly to your needs. You'll be converting your data. And then on page 12, you'll see that your first go live is anticipated for May of 2009. And that's when your civil courts will come online. So that's the first big event in the project where you actually have the system up and running live. In addition to the civil courts, I want to point out that you'll be able to handle the service of papers, so your constables and such will be involved in the project. So whenever civil papers are issued, that service can be handled through the system as well. So there will be implications in your local offices as well as just the courts in the county clerk's office. Now on page 13 is kind of a review of our contract and this is really to set the stage for some discussion on amendments that we're going to be proposing later after the first of the year. But we signed a five year contract back in March 2006. And as I mentioned earlier, it was an option to buy contract. We had 37 named counties who could participate and we have 17 of those counties participating. Those combined counties, if they all purchased it individually, would pay $32 million for the software. We negotiated a price of 12.4 million for all the counties at that time. The counties in addition collaborate on changes to the system. Those are called enterprise modifications. So we get a discounted rate for those changes and we share the cost. So we have about 50 plus changes underway and we're saving the counties over a million dollars collectively by sharing the cost at that discounted rate. And your maintenance costs will be fixed for at least three years once your system is implemented. On slide 14, you'll see the counties that are signed up and the license fees that are in the contract for those counties. So just so you can kind of get the feel for the fairness of the distribution of money and what people are actually paying. We'd like to disclose all that information, so people are aware what people are actually paying. We like to disclose all that information so people are aware of what other counties are paying. On page 15 we'll talk a little bit about the status of the contract. Our level of participation we view it as very successful. In less than three years we have a five year contract. In less than three years we have 17 counties signed up. We've have license fees committed of 10.6 million, which is less than the $12.4 million goal. We have 50 enterprise modifications that we're monitoring and we're saving the counties, as I mentioned earlier, more than a million dollars. And we're continuing to enroll new counties. Right now we're in discussions with Web County and Smith County and some others. So we're continuing to enroll new counties right now. We're in discussions with Web County and Smith County and some others. So we're continuing to get interest in expanding the program. Now some of the issues that haven't been quite as rosy has been some delivery delays. Tyler didn't anticipate the growth of the program. We've really grown the program. And so the projects have gone a little slower than everyone anticipated. We're reaching the contract maximum for enterprise modifications and the counties want to continue and expand that program. The counties want additional services. The ones that have gone live, they'd like to have additional services that aren't available right now under our contract. And they'd like to be able to purchase some new modules that Tyler has available. So those are all issues that have come up over the past three years in administration of the contract that have caused us to talk about an amendment to it. Our deadline for achieving the $12.4 million goal was January 2009. And it looks like right now we're not going to meet that deadline. Our payment terms at the CUC are not tied to delivery. We have fixed payment milestones in the contract, but because Tyler has been late with delivery, our payments have been slower than we expected. And the rebates that we anticipated when we achieved $12.4 million are probably not as optimistic as we were at the initial stages of the contract. So it's unlikely that we would get the $3 million we need to be able to issue at least a 10% rebate. So what are the changes that we're going to make to address these issues? Well first we're going to change the payment terms so the counties pay when they get software that's the way they like to do business. And so we're going to accommodate that and Tyler's willing to accommodate that. And we're going to get a guaranteed rebate. So when we achieve the $12.4 million, we're going to get a guaranteed rebate. Right now there's no guarantee that we'd have to reach $14 million to get a 10% rebate. So we're going to get a guaranteed 10%. We're going to eliminate and exchange for that the $12.4 million flat license fee. So if we achieve the $12.4 million, which we're likely to do, county that purchased after that would still get a discount, but we wouldn't get any additional rebates. We're going to expand on slide 19, the enterprise modification program, so that the counties can continue to share the improvements to the product that they want to make to do business. For example, I pointed out to Commissioner Marchint that we're building an interface to the North Texas Tollway Association so that all the the tickets that are issued on the Tollways can be automatically loaded into the system of a JPs to process or the local courts to process. Things like that are called modifications and those are things that we're paying for collectively. Colin County, Dallas County and Terrent County will all benefit from that. Although Terrent County, I know they're going to make it to always yet, but they will. So, they'll all benefit from those kind of changes. We're going to add some new optional products that the counties want, and we're gonna extend the contract for two more years through 2013, so that our member counties have plenty of time to enroll in the program. On page 20, we're also gonna allow non-member counties to purchase a system through our contract. They won't have the same pricing as our members. They'll be paying whatever the list price is for that particular time, but they'll be able to purchase it through our program and participate in our collaborative process, which will help counties that are not members of the association, but want to benefit from the collaboration. And we're going to offer additional services that the counties have requested. So all those things are going to allow us to provide better service to the counties through the contract and do some of the things that they've asked us to do as the contract administrator. What's our plan on page 21? This briefing is kind of a step in that process, but we will be completing the contract discussions with Tyler in the next couple of weeks. And then we're going to conduct a conference call for all the counties to call in and we'll conduct individual briefings for those counties that request it. Then our oversight board will consider the contract change and Commissioner Marchante is your representative on that oversight board. Once that board has approved the the contract change and our CUC board has adopted it then has to be ratified by each of the member counties. You know you have full rights as a party to that contract. So it must be ratified by you for the contract amendment to go forward. And I expect that it'll be in January probably. We'll come back before your court to seek that ratification. That's the briefing on the Sieges or the Odyssey portion. If there are any questions, I'd be happy to entertain those. And I mean. If there are any questions, I'd be happy to entertain those. I mean. Of the member or non-number counties that haven't signed up for this yet, what's their objection? Or do they have an objection? Maybe it's a financial issue. In some cases, it's a financial issue, as you said. You know, it's not the least expensive solution and times are hard right now. There are some counties who have a build at yourself approach. And if you're aware of the attack has an issue to going right now where they're thinking about building a system for the smaller counties, and some of our member counties are looking at that to see if that makes sense for them. So there's a variety of reasons, but of course, anytime you give people a choice, you know, that they're going to make their own choice. So. Other questions? reasons, but of course, anytime you give people a choice, you know, that they're going to make their own choice. So. Other questions? Go ahead. I'm going to talk a little bit about the juvenile case management system. You'll see why this is important to you as I go through the presentation. We've talked about that before, but you'll learn more about it as we go here. On slide 23, the goals for this system is to build a new juvenile justice system for all counties in Texas. And so we have this project underway and I'm going to brief you on it now and it will be available to you as one of our participating counties in the near future. The system will be owned and operated, maintained and supported by the counties. So we're not this won't be proprietary software. This'll be software that the counties own. And we are collaborating with the state, the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission, is participating in the project. On page 24, this is kind of a status of the current systems. You're one of the four counties in Texas that use a local system. You use a module right now from Tyler Technologies for your juvenile justice program along with Terrent, Bear, and Harris County. The state TJPC provides a product called Case Worker and it's a limited use product that collects data for state reporting but it's used in 164 counties in Texas. Dallas County uses both. They use their own JIS local system and they use case worker. And the only data sharing among all these systems is what we're doing right here in this region that you're participating in, where the six counties in this region are sharing juvenile data through our regional data center. Other than that, you can't look at cases from another county or even other city or let alone across the state. On the next page, you'll see a map and all the red flags are counties that use the case worker system from the state of Texas, and the green flags are the counties that use the local system. These are all the counties that will use the new system. So the system, at least the caseworker module, will be available to all these counties. So the data from all these counties will be consolidated and available for use in accordance with the limitations that are written out in the family code. In slide 26, I want to show you that Baradalis and Tarant counties initiated this project and they're funding it. We completed the specifications last fall and we awarded a contract in summer to build the system. TJPC joined officially in May and the system is now being developed in Austin. On slide 27, you'll see kind of the concept where we have core system functionality, but we also have law enforcement, institution management for your detention facility, special programs for JJAAP and such, interfacist external systems and statewide data sharing. Now I want to point out something about the court capability. We're going to talk about this a little bit more, but it will be completely integrated with your Odyssey system. So your juvenile court can use Odyssey and still get data from JCMS into the system. In addition, you can put your municipal courts on the system. In Dallas County, the municipal courts are on GIS. And this allows the court, as we discussed yesterday, Commissioner, a municipal court to see any class see offense for that juvenile that may have occurred in another jurisdiction. Now, they really can't look above their level. They can't look at cases that are assigned to district court. But they can at least see if the juvenile has a record or referrals in other jurisdictions. So the case that we talked about yesterday where a young offender had six traffic violations and should have lost a license, but because that data wasn't available, the judge wasn't aware of that. Now that wouldn't get away if your courts are all on the system. So you'll have the option in Denton County to put a judge-witten's court on the system as well as your JP courts, and they'll be able to see all the delinquency or class C in violations. Now, that doesn't include true in C unless it gets referred to the to the to the court for action, but it does include any other class C misdemeanor violation. It includes multiple trends of violations where it becomes a court of offense. Now, the security on the system is complicated and it's governed by statute. So the family code really lays out who can see what and so the system has to be built in accordance with those security limitations. But it does allow the courts to see across jurisdictions for their level. So if they're a misdemeanor court they can see misdemeanor offenses. On slide 28 it's kind of our schedule. We're developing the software in six releases. Our first release will be finished November 23rd, I mean 13th, and we're going to come to Denton County and show it to some of your folks because they're interested in it. So I think we have a presentation that we're talking about first part of December. Our final release will be January and 2010. So between the first release and the sixth release, the funding counties we call them, Bear, Tarrant, and Dallas can implement during that time period. And once they're implemented, then we'll make this available to the other counties, either through case worker. If they only use case worker, they'll get to use the software through the state. Or in your case, if you're funded, you can become a full participant and partial owner in the product, as we've talked about before. So because you use the local system today, you've been following this project pretty closely, at least in your juvenile department and your sheriff's office to see if this could be a great benefit to you as it moves forward On slide 29 we just show again a picture of kind of what's in scope and you'll note that the court module there is A replaceable module so it can be Odyssey or it can be another court system if the county uses a different court system. Petitions and motions, the DA function will be built in or you can use Odyssey if that's your choice and you'll see that you can share data across counties from county to county even though each county can have their own database. Finally on slide 30 we talk about the benefits. And the biggest benefit is better services for kids and families, because the people who are involved in juvenile justice will have better information about the kids that they're seeing either in the court or if they're a law enforcement officer and they're investigating an incident, if they're a probation officer, if they're really supervising the case, or if they're a program manager, they'll be able to say information about assessments that have occurred for that child in other jurisdictions or other programs. So the idea is to make data available across jurisdictions and across the state to better serve kids and their families. In addition, we hope the system will increase productivity. It's been proven in Dallas County that the law enforcement use of JIS has improved their productivity by almost 70% in terms of filing the referral. And again, better information for legislators and policymakers. I'm happy to take any questions about the juvenile system or any other topic. Thank you answer my questions. And so what you're members we met yesterday and had a briefing of this as well. And I was asking about the juvenile management system and some questions. questions, some of the problems that judges have, even at a JP court, is knowing what previous trouble that these juveniles have gotten into outside of our jurisdiction, outside of our county. And as I explained yesterday, I had a couple of snitches in police departments that I would call and not give names to run down information about juveniles that were coming to my court to find out if they had previous cases filed against them what they were where they under probation, those types of things. That would impact what I did. As well as with the truancy case, the original court of jurisdiction is the juvenile court within your county. Every year, our juvenile judge, Judge Witten, waves her jurisdiction in those cases to a court, a lower court, either a JP court and as well as municipal court. Within Ditton County there are municipal courts like in Denton here, the handle truancy cases, Louisville handles some truancy cases. But majority of those truancy cases fall upon the JP and the only way they have jurisdiction is because it's waived at the original court. When you have a juvenile that commits or has been prosecuted and adjudicated in certain crimes or misdemeanors felony or whatever, after a certain amount of those, you lose jurisdiction. So there is a possibility of you going into court, finding a child or putting a child under probation, and you have lost your jurisdiction altogether, and it sets up a bad scenario. And so this system is wonderful because it allows you to go into other municipalities, other jurisdictions, and pull up information about those kids not jumping from different jurisdictions. Like you said, it's not just limited to kids that are referred to your juvenile department. If you make it available to those municipal courts and you'll make that decision. Right. That's where I'll be able to see for the offenses that they're responsible for, whether the child already has a record and needs to really be referred to juvenile probation. Yeah, and tritzy kids fall through the cracks and they, a parent who doesn't want to be prosecuted under the law, may just choose to decide they're very, very mobile, mobile, and they may move out of this school district and to another school district. It can still be under probation under this court and it gives the opportunity to look and see that. I'm very encouraged about it. And I thank you, sir, for all the work you do. And I thank Kevin Carr, and especially Steve, because he is the guy that's in charge of all that, and the facilitation of that, getting all the information, and then ultimately implementation of anything that we have approved in the past. So I thank you very much. Thank you, Judge and commissioners. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and look for you. I'm going to go ahead and look for you. I'm going to go ahead and look for you. I'm going to go ahead and look for you. I'm going to go ahead and look for you. I'm going to go ahead and look for you. I'm going to go ahead and look for you. I I must kill today on this cabinet, just simply the report. Thank you. Okay. Look at the angle. Now he's at the home. Yeah. Both here, come on up here. Where are we? Ha, ha, ha. Here. Here's somebody's glasses. They may need a more than I do. Judge, my recommendation to the court after Randy and I went over this list and we compare this with the notes that we had is I'm going to recommend that you as the judge approve the recommendations that Ms. Edmondsson has pointing out that the judge for precinct 410 that Tammy Jenkins is an alternate judge, not a not a judge because that's a democratic judge precinct. I recommend that you not approve her request for the judge in 414 because we notified her on October the 7th and we never got a response back and according to the law until October 21st and then on the last one for judge for 24 to not approve David Wright because we had made numerous attempts to contact him and he never ever responded back positively He would work as a judge But you're recommending her other I would recommend that you as the judge under the 32.007 approved those prove the judge for one 18124 131 139 not a redesignate the judge for 410 is an alternate judge Tammy Jenkins not approve the judge for 414 but approve the alternate judge for 414 426 and not approved the judge for 2424 I should say David Wright. That's my recommendation. Please do address this issue further. Thank you Don for looking that over. Judge I'd just like to point out that if you'll look at the memo that was sent out by Randy on October 7th, I was not copied on it. I was not notified. The only time that you will find that I was notified on any of the emails that went back and forth was when they originated from my headquarters and she always copied me. the responses did not. So technically I was not notified of that vacancy. And I understand that. And Judge, if I might point out, that means that in that precinct, I believe it's a husband wife, two Democrats, who will be the judge and the alternate judge. That certainly does not comply with the spirit of the law. We have a judge, an experienced judge here. She's even served on the early ballot board who is willing and able to serve as the Republican judge in that precinct. And I really strongly ask you to go ahead and appoint her because under the law, I was not notified. Nor were you, if you look at the other section of the law that requires you to be notified when it's within a certain time period. As to the David Wright issue, David Wright works as an insurance adjuster. He has been down at the coast, as you might imagine. I've been able to reach him without any problem by email. I have not actually spoken with him by phone, but once, which was a couple of days ago, but I do understand that it might have been difficult for him to respond by phone. He is an experienced judge. He has already made arrangements to be back here for training and for the election. And I really strongly believe that he should be appointed because we had appointed him to a different precinct. Again, we were never notified that there was any difficulty in reaching him or I think that I could have made that happen. So, Judge, I believe that every one of our positions is valid and every one of those positions should be approved by you as the appointing authority. If there is going to be any further discussion on it, I'd be happy to participate, but it just doesn't seem like to be consistent, all of these need to be appointed to comply with the law and I thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Commissioner Mitchell. Book 14, you said there are two Democrats there. Bam. And they are entitled to the alternate, but not to both the judge and the alternate. Well, the point is though that the law clearly says that until 20 days before the election, you know, you have to turn it. Alet the point is though that the law clearly says and until 20 days before the election, you know, you have to do it. So, then don't still notify and there's an issue as to whether or not communication to the headquarters is sufficient. Just for your, and now I'll do respect I understand clearly what the law says with all the communication that's going back and forth not only to the Republican headquarters, but to the Democratic headquarters. Clearly, it would be better for both the Democratic chair and the Republican chair to be copied in on all email communication and let's make sure that we do that from this point forward this and every other election. But I think that it is sufficient to be in compliance with the law with the communication that did take place. What is I understand your point of view completely. But at the same time, I have to be supportive of whether it's done or anybody else in that position. They have certain deadlines to get certain things done. And if they're not getting communication, they have an obligation to put a warm body, somebody's warm body in that position and get these things turned in they're on deadlines too just like they probably are anxious to get out of here today to take care of other things so it's incumbent upon me at this point in time to make a decision and I'm going to go with Donna was Andrew's recommendation as was read off here previously. May I ask you to reconsider one thing? Because David Wright is coming up. I realize you're not wishing to appoint him to the Flower Mound precinct. He is a resident of precinct 118. He is coming expecting to work election as a judge. Since you are, do I understand you correctly judge that you will not be appointing David Wright in that last precinct. Would you consider appointing him in place of ambuscarino in the precinct in which he lives? Since he is planning to come, he has done elections before. He is an experience. He just asked for Robert Nelson. I understand that, Judge. Robert Nelson has not worked in election as a judge before. And it seems to me it would be incumbent upon us to try to have the most experienced judge possible in there. If you are not required to have Robert, I'm sorry, David Wright in replacement of Robert Nelson in one evening. Yes ma'am, if you are not going to prove him for that other one. I'm a good one for that. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you for everybody's time. I appreciate it. All right. If she's moving, David, right? Okay. We're staying with 424. So whoever was the judge and 424 is going to stay there. That's correct. Okay. Another clarification? Okay. All right. I believe we've concluded everything on the agenda. No. You don't have to vote on it. You don't have to vote on it. We don't vote on it. We don't have to vote on it. We don't vote on it. We don't get a vote. Months, I can't. No, no, nothing. But that we're adjourned, everybody have a great day. And go vote if you haven't. I'm a little bit more I'm a little bit more I'm a little bit more I'm a little bit more