Rep Novak on Use of Video Conferencing

thank you Mr Speaker I think that um even my colleagues in their kind of opposition to this agree this is a good bill it would help rural um counties especially um by allowing video uh video conferencing of expert Witnesses when you're in Southwest Wisconsin and the 51st or 49th district and you need an expert from winnabago to testify in a mental commitment case or something like that it's very traumatic um to wait and it's expensive and so this will uh deal with five chapters um of the state statutes um that um are causing problems in rural counties getting expert Witnesses so video conferencing will we and it worked great during Co there was not any concerns um for about that so this is how this kind of went down I put this bill out worked with Wisconsin Count's Association and others I had it drafted it in June we sent it out to all the stakeholders including the public defenders and all those groups we heard nothing here's the bill we know how this works do you have any concerns nothing had two hearings within the last month the Senate and assembly all uh Pro people or all people for it testified nobody testified against it did not hear from the public defenders did not hear from um ACLU nothing less than 24 hours before this bill was exact and going to be exact in mental health uh I hear from the public defenders they have a problem with the bill and demand it Senator James and I amend it immediately um I could not do that because it was within the 24-hour time limit and it was the first I'd heard from them after probably six months so this is what happened and it was exact through the uh mental health committee I believe it would have been unanimous except the public defender representative came and whispered um to the ranking member right before the exact and uh so that's where the opposition came from I've met with the County's Association this morning I've got to meet with Senator James again he's a little busy over there you are correct this is going to go to the Senate Senator James and I will meet again with the County's Association possibly the public defenders office and talk some more on this um what they're asking for is two of the chapters that are referenced in this bill be removed I do have a memo from uh alleged Council um that addresses their concerns that I will send out to the members uh my friends on the other side of the aisle to uh kind of dispel some of their concerns so um I would have been willing to change this maybe two months ago or a month ago but not less than 24 hours uh before the bill's coming so uh thank you very much Mr Speaker