Public Health and Safety Committee Meeting 10-15-24

Here. Jefferson. Here. Mueller. Here. Erickson. Here. Nelson. Here. Now, is absent of notice. Julia. Present. Shoes. Here. Barbara. Thank you. Please join me in rising 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, Our first item is approving the minutes of October 1st I have a motion by Commissioner Nelson in support of Commissioner Taylor. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Our minutes are approved. Next item is approving our agenda. I have a motion from Commissioner Taylor in support from Commissioner Nelson. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Our agenda is approved. We have arrived at our first public comment. This is for the public to comment on any items on the agenda. Is there anyone wishing to comment? Seeing none, public comment is closed. We move to communications. There are five items under communications. Two grant applications, report from OCHN, Haven report, and our animal shelter report. I have a motion from Commissioner Erickson-Gault, support from Commissioner Gershenson. Is there anyone who wants to speak to any item under communications? All right. Seeing none, do you want to prompt the vote? No, I'll just give it a second. Yes, 7808. All right, that passes. Thank you. Our next item is a prosecutor's office recommendation. The use of forfeiture funds to support human trafficking training and prosecutor-specific continuing legal education. I have a motion from Commissioner Nelson in support from Commissioner Joliet. Who do we have here to talk about this item? I wonder if we might need to move on to another item in the staff meeting. Is there somebody? We just had two people joining in. Okay, there we go. Okay. She's on mute. Hi Betsy, you're on mute. You were just connecting Betsy, maybe try to unmute again. Can you hear me? Thank you. Oh, we clicked for a moment. Maybe you double clicked. Click again. I can hear you. Now we can hear you. Okay, we're good. Now it works. So welcome. Why are you unwelcome Gus? Slowly. Betsy, I would suggest could you leave the meeting and rejoin and maybe that will resolve the audio. Now you're on. I was putting it on mute. You can't hear everything going on in my house. We are ready for your item now. So if you want to go ahead and unmute and present, that would be great. I'm sorry for the confusion. Sorry. Yeah, I that's amazing. I don't think I've ever been called so early in the meeting. Thank you. So we are requesting allocation from our funds from the net forfeiture program to be used for training that we're planning to hold November 7th and 8th at the UWM facility in Tanya. It's a human trafficking focused training. We've all received a copy of the letter and if not, I can forward it to you. The bulk of our request is to go toward that training under the statute. That is what the money is intended for. We do just have to come and request you to allocate it to our budget so we can use it. And then we're also requesting additional funds so we can continue to send our to trainings put on by the National Association of District Attorneys as well as the Association of Michigan. Those more robust trainings that require travel and lodging. These are with regard to the request for funding from the net funds for training of our APA. That's a request we've made, I think, almost every year given the balance of that fund. But then also the training requested to use for training our law enforcement partners with regard to human trafficking training. Thank you. Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Given that we have the Human Trafficking Task Force, are any members, and I know Commissioner Joliet, I believe you're on. Are any of our commissioners going to this training? Is it applicable? Oh, excellent. I am. Okay. It has been offered. Oh, cool. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Grisham. Well, that was my question. Is this open to the public? So this is open to anybody that wants to know. Yeah, I received an email. I thought it was for our committee. Yeah, we did get an email. Yeah. It was two days ago. The training is focused toward training law enforcement to be able to ID and then handle human trafficking investigations. However, we have invited members of the task force as well as I believe all the commissioners have been invited for informational purposes. Thank you. I'm on the task force as well. We will definitely get you a copy of the flyer if you haven't received it. Yeah, it was emailed yesterday. Any other questions regarding this item? I also wanted to just note that the reason we're requesting these funds from the forfeiture account is because we're offering it for free to all of our law enforcement partners. So it is in fact a cost that our office is taking on to make it accessible to everyone. Thank you. Anything else? All right. Would you knock the vote, please? All right. Motion carries. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. I appreciate it. Our next items are from Health and Human Services. The first three are grant acceptances. The first one from Michigan Department of Health and Human Services for the fiscal year 2025 education and faucet replacement program. The next is the fiscal year 2025 COVID regional health equity council backbone organization grant. The third grant item is the fiscal year 2024 home investment partnership program and emergency solutions grant program. And the last item is extending the contract for the unlocking doors program with the alliance for housing. A few meetings ago, we did move money from unlocking doors, but didn't extend the contract. So now we're extending the contract for the last item. I would entertain a motion. I have a motion by Commissioner Nelson support from Commissioner Jovia. And do we have Stacy? Oh, we have Stacy. Hi, good morning. The first item is our lead education and faucet replacement program grant. Back in April of 2024, the health division applied for this grant. And this is to accept the award. It's about $103,000 for the period between October 1st through September of 2025. This funding will support the prevention of lead exposure in drinking water and specifically in homes in Pontiac. It's focused on households with children and pregnant persons enrolled in Medicaid. With this funding, we're also requesting to create two part-time non-eligible sanitarians. These sanitarians will be trained by Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to conduct home visits, performing assessments, and to provide lead education. Any questions on that one? No questions on the first item. All right. So the next one is our regional health equity council grant. In November of 2022, the board approved the acceptance from the original grant from the Michigan Public Health Institute. And this was about $180,000, and it was to support the development of health improvement plan and a council. MPH is giving us additional continuation funding for $70,000 with expectation of an additional $40,000 sometime in March or February or March. This funding support will continue to support the part-time non-eligible, which we are requesting to create. The grant work was previously conducted by in-tech staff and due to the cost, and we're asking to create a part-time non-eligible program coordinator. These funds also go through 9-30-2025, and it brings the total funding to about $300,000. Thank you. Are there any questions on this item? All right. The last grant acceptance, what can you tell us about that? I thought Khadijah was here. Oh, there she is. Good morning, everybody. Okay. So for the last grant acceptance, we would like to request acceptance for the consolidated grant awards in the amount of $2,616,017 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for our fiscal year 2024 consolidated home. Investment partnerships program and our emergency solutions grant program. Our emergency solutions grant program is $322,000 of that cost, and this will allow us to accept those fundings to continue for our next fiscal year. ESG, our emergency solutions grant, does fund our shelters and home funds some of our developments as well as our home repair program. Thank you. Any comments or questions regarding this grant? All right. Last item for you is extending the contract for Unlocking Doors. Currently, the expiration date is going to be March of 2025, so we want to just make sure that date is in alignment. Thank you. Any questions regarding any items under this category? All right. Would you prompt the vote, please? It's unanimous. Motion carries. Thank you. We move on to Sheriff's Office. I'm sorry. Thank you. We like taking care of business and getting rid of that leg, so we're good. We have six items under our Sheriff's Office. They are all grant acceptances. The first is the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program. The next is Promoting Access to Crisis Teams Community Police Development. The third is the Oakland County Narcotics Enforcement Team Burn Grant Program. The next item is the 2024 DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction Program. The fifth item is the Emergency Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Rochester Hills Shooting. And the last item references the Oxford High School shooting. I have a motion by Commissioner Joliet, support from Commissioner Erickson-Gault. We have our undersheriff and director here to talk about these items. Good morning. So the first item is the U.S. Department of Justice Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program. This is an annual formula grant. This year it covers the Sheriff's Office, Crossing Canyon Attorney, and Children's Village. Each year we all submit proposals to fiscal services and they look through it based on the amount of funding that we're getting. This year it's $70,469,000. The Sheriff's Office is going to purchase some additional search and rescue equipment. We talked about all the drownings they have in the summer, so this is additional equipment that could have been used in those scenarios. Children's Village is getting books and audio books. And the Crossing Canyon Attorney's Office looks like they're getting some iPads and other technology that they don't need. The next one is through the U.S. Department of Justice. It's promoting access to crisis teams, so we're calling it PACT, P-A-C-T. This one we're really excited about. This is new funding. And this grant opportunity, they only awarded 10 awards throughout the country. We got one of them, so it was highly competitive. What this grant is going to do is expand our crisis response unit. It's going to add an additional co-responder through OCHN. It's going to provide a much-needed vehicle, which most grants don't buy vehicles. So we get these grant positions to go out and do crisis response, but then we don't have vehicles. So we're trying to ship things around within the Sheriff's Office. So that's huge for us. And then there's also an overtime component for that. We also have a group of folks here that are overseeing the crisis response unit and a partnership with Alliance. And if you have any questions, they would be happy to answer it. But this program is going to be amazing. I'm really excited about it. Commissioner Powell, I have a question. Is this something like, what is considered a crisis? So we have the homeless situation. So in a sense like that, would they be like just a first response in something like that? Or what is the crisis? What is a crisis example that they will be deployed to go help? Do you want them to? No, you all can answer. It doesn't matter. So like the homelessness, just so my colleagues know, we have a minor tent city action happening in the city in a couple locations. And instead of just moving them out, the goal is to bring all the social services, all the needs, let's try to figure out how we can help them. And it was a little, we had some organizations try to do it. But the way the city has coordinated in the past, it threw all of us off who had helped with the first one, right? So turn it over to you all. Yeah. We respond to all co-occurring mental health and substance use incident that you're speaking of. Oh, should I come up? Even though that isn't actually in our purview. It is something that we respond to because a lot of those individuals that were unhoused are facing issues related to mental health and substance use. So those individuals we have been serving, we gathered the troops together and we accessed those. We built that bridge of communication between all those stakeholders through this team. And that's kind of the other thing that the crisis unit takes care of. So I hope that answers your question. Yes, it does. Because I'm excited. Thank you all so much for jumping in and helping with that situation. Because I know it wasn't organized the way we've done in the past, but you all did a phenomenal job. And I didn't get any calls yesterday, so I know you all did a great job. Commissioner Gershenson. So this is a $400,000 grant. That's just amazing that we got it. And this is for crisis throughout the county. And so the co-responder also. You said the funding for the co-responder. Is that the one that we've been trying to get funded? Or is this something totally separate? This is separate. So this is an additional one. This is going to be a traveling one. Because the other ones, we're paying OCHN. This one, we're getting grant money, and then we're doing a subrecipient agreement, and we're paying them. So we have some back and forth. On that co-responder. So the co-responder is centered in the Sheriff's Department. It's not in a local community. But you're traveling to the local community when needed? Right. So it's still an OCHN position. And we're doing the same thing. Got it. Okay. Great. Thank you, Chair. I absolutely love co-responder programs, wherever they are. I think they are addressing some of the fundamental needs that we have in our community for better mental health care, better substance abuse treatment, and making sure that somebody who's in a crisis doesn't end up in a criminal justice system. They get the help they need. Let's hope that happens as often as possible. I had a constituent who, in response, I was talking about co-responders when I was out in the community. So I would like you to speak to what is the advantage of having the co-responder that is working with the police together to deal with these crisis situations. That's such a good question and actual. The things that we've seen in the response from public with the partnership between public safety and co-responders is a building of trust between community and law enforcement. Just as much stigma that exists with people with substance use disorder and mental health, the same amount of stigma exists with law enforcement. And the true nature of public safety in this movement to help individuals get connected to the services they deserve to have a great life. So what we've seen over the last year is a dramatic reduction in the resistance to call for help because that initial call isn't coming from a place of measure. It's coming from a place of public safety, public health. And what we've seen is this really beautiful relationship that's being redeveloped between what law enforcement role is in the community when it comes to dealing with these things so that they can now connect to us. And there's that reduction and hesitation to call who they really should be calling in the first place. There's somebody who is having a crisis, but there is concerns about that person harming themselves or others. How exactly would police officers and and this mental health professionals work together to protect that person and protect anybody else who may be. So what's really wonderful about this program, and I'm sure you all have this understanding, is that provides tremendous training around crisis intervention. So a crisis trained officer would respond in that scenario as well as a crisis team, and that would mitigate some of that. So these officers and these co-responders are trained in mitigation and de-escalation and getting this person to the ultimate place that they want to get, and that's to help. So in the midst of that crisis, there's a call for help. There's a plea for help that that individual is calling for, and these officers and those teams are trained in how to get to what it is that they really want, which is that goal of getting help. Thank you. I did emergency psychiatric assessments for 17 years, and a few of those years we were assigned to go out in the community without police or EMS services. But I'm saying 90% of the time, my partner would say, not going to risk back. We need, we need, we need EMS. Mr. Powell, you are still like, no, let me like, right along, right along. Sorry, not the tour. We got a lot out with the co-responder team and trying to see how that they go for them. Just so then you can see it with your own eyes, and I've been on a ride along a long time ago. Just so you know, there's a newer commissioner, so I just wanted to make sure they were aware that you are allowed to ride along to see what they do. So really quickly, because I may never have this opportunity to speak again, I'm going to go ahead and take my shot. I want you all to know how effective these things are. From my perspective, I'm a person with lived experience who actually runs with this unit as a leader in this unit. My life was saved because of this 10 years ago and direct response from law enforcement to my own mental health crisis. They saved my life. And so the reason why these things are so important to all of us individually on the team comes from that place of real understanding of what individuals are struggling with. And the barriers that they face in this very complex system that they have to navigate. We don't want them to navigate that by themselves. And that's what we're doing out there. That's the other reason why we believe that fostering this relationship between public health and safety and community is so vitally important. So that people know that there's someone to call that actually cares and wants to help. Thank you. And I want to thank Alliance also for being a community partner above and beyond this aspect of it. I know in my communities, Alliance shows up with the ambulance. It could be touch and truck day, it could be giving out treats, but you are a community partner for us. Thank you. Commissioner Gerstle. Thank you for sharing your stories with us. I was just going to ask you to just explain the relationship between Alliance and the Sheriff's Department. Yes, Arch, do you want me to share that? Steve, you're already up there. You go right ahead. Okay. So a year and a half ago, the Sheriff's Department was awarded the original COSOP grant, which started this group. But that was independent of the role with a community health partner like ourselves. They were smart enough to come and we partnered up really quickly because we also have other initiatives, whether it be the Save a Life stations that you see outside or the prescription drug boxes out in the community that we've been providing for over a decade. We partnered up at that time. And what we quickly realized is that synergy between people with lived experience and law enforcement together, you know, exponentially move the ball forward quickly because of our vast relationships with community stakeholders, whether it be the health department or open community health network. Because of all the programs that were already embedded in, we automatically fit well together. So my role in that was to connect myself and Sergeant Miller, run the crisis unit team, as well as go out and respond to incidents in real time. The original grant was set up for both co-occurring and substance use disorder. But we also respond to every single overdose in Oakland County. So post-overdose response. So anybody who does experience accidental overdose or poisoning, we are going to be out there to say, hey, we're glad you're okay. What can we do to help you so that this doesn't become a recurring event and eventually end up in our overdose fatality review board that we all sit on? And they've literally followed up on one and saved somebody's life during that time. It was actually written up in the Department of Justice. It was featured on one of their newsletters and that incident that the folks responded to and saved their life. So whose budget are you under? So we're currently unfunded, however, because of all of our other programmings and OCHN providing this in the recovery support grant. That's how we're funded. This grant would enable the sheriff to add assets to what we already have as a stressed community health partner. However, we have independently applied for other funding just to support some of our local staff and move this agenda forward. I know Sergeant Miller, you had something to share. You're covered about it. We have a close-off grant currently that will run out in 2025. That is on the sheriff's side of things. That's how we're funded solely. So that's why we're looking for other funding sources. Can we get a card from you? Absolutely. I'll leave one for each one. Thank you. So if you don't mind, I'd like to share just one stat that I think speaks to the efforts that all of these partners have played. We've had a 26.1% reduction in fatal overdoses in Oakland County, which is humongous. It's the highest national standard. So all these efforts, whether it's naloxone distribution or co-responder models, which we know work, are actually showing dividends now for the first time historically in over five years. Thank you. So as you can see, this was a huge team effort, and to get this competitive grant was a huge win for us, like I said. And all of these folks, they worked together with two people from my team that they tried to gain all the knowledge they could about. They did a ride-along. They went to the medical examiner overdose review board, and they were able to take all of that information and then formulate it into a grant application, which I don't know if any of you have ever written one, but it's not easy. And then when they're that competitive, I mean, we're just really, really excited about this. It's a great cause, but it was a huge win for my team, too. So we're very excited to have this partnership internally and externally. It was an outstanding commitment from your team. It honestly was. Amazing. Very excited about it. Okay. So it's a good segue into the next item, which is the Narcotics Enforcement Team burn grant that is actually a federal pass-through from the state of Michigan. And this whole team was actually at our last NET advisory board meeting that we have with all of the other communities that participate in NET, all the other law enforcement agencies. And so they gave a presentation at that, too, because obviously, you know, they're trying to get – this team is trying to get narcotics off the street, and then this team is trying to help everybody in whatever way they can. So this partnership extends beyond that. And so this grant funding continues our program, our NET program, with the prosecutor's office. So this funding continues principal attorney and the prosecuting attorney's office, partial funding for two surgeons in the sheriff's office, and one part-time non-eligible office support clerk. Our next item is the annual grant CBER or DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction for our lab. This year it's $436,925, and it continues three full-time eligible forensic lab analyst positions. So the next one is from the Michigan State Police. It's Emergency Federal Law Enforcement Assistance for the Rochester Hills splash pad shooting. So what we did with this, we submit all the overtime costs that were eligible, and so we're getting back $70,466 for the response to that incident. And the last one is the Anti-Terrorism Emergency Assistance Program, otherwise known as AEAP. I think with the last meeting we had the application for this, and I was telling you that this has been in the works since the Oxford school shooting. This is a new kind of a newish federal funding source where they recognize first responders as victims as well in these kind of situations. So it's been in the works for a few years, and it's finally coming to fruition. It's $344,602. It's going to provide two deputies that will be committed to peer support. The only thing is it's limited only to people that responded to the Oxford incident. So it's not anything else in the sheriff's office. It's limited to that. So people inside the sheriff's office and then external folks that responded to it, but any first responder that was there that day. So it's two full-time deputies that will respond to that? Does that mean above and beyond deputies? Does that include, like, staff from Alliance or other agencies? Well, this is just – so these deputies, they'll just be purely focused on anybody. The requirements are very specific on, you know, the people that responded. So they know everybody that responded that day to lend any services they need or anything like that. Thank you. Commissioner Powell? I just wanted to just thank the office, I mean, all the sheriffs who worked this week. I know it's kind of off topic, but I just thought to thank you all with the two deaths, at least, in Pontiac. And then you also caught the guy for the Rochester shooting. You guys are really quick and swift, and I just think – I always tout on our sheriff's department. I know it's a lot of work. It's a dangerous world with that, and I just wanted to thank you all for that, especially for the one in Pontiac, because that was a mess. And then, Sheriff, what's your name? Josephine Sagan. Thank you. I remember you from the Pontiac Substation, and you're still here, so thank you. She's been taking care of the city of Pontiac, and now you're over here, but I just remember you from when I was in high school and stuff. But thank you so, so much, because you've given a lot of yourself, so thank you. Thank you. Anything else? All right. So one grant application, five grant acceptances. We have seven needs and zero needs. Thank you. Thank you for your support. All right. Next item is our circuit court recommendations. There are six items. They are also all grant acceptances. The first is a Justice Institute Technical Assistance grant. The next is a grant for the Veterans Treatment Court, grant for Adult Treatment Court, grant for Juvenile Mental Health Court Program, grant for Juvenile Drug Court Program, and the last is the Adult Treatment Court Burden Program. I have a motion by Commissioner Gershenson to support Commissioner Taylor. And I have a team here to talk about these items. So welcome. Good morning, Commissioner. I'm Richard Lynch. I'm the circuit court administrator, and Christina Bruchak, our financial guru, and Mel Penick, our grant guru, who will accompany me because, honestly, they're smarter than I am. However, we are here to acknowledge and ask the board to grant authorization to accept five different grants for drug treatment courts, as well as the state justice initiative that we're looking for for the purpose of doing strategic planning within the court. As opposed to prattling on for a long period of time, I would invite commissioners, if you have any questions, to be happy to field those or one of my subject matter experts to field them. And that way just value your time a little bit better. I know, Bob. I do enjoy accepting grants. I do. I was looking at the dollar amounts, like how much we got? Okay. Are there any questions? Well, Commissioner Gershenson, I mean, I do enjoy the brief description. Sure. We have two different grants that are going to support our adult treatment grant, BWI hybrid grant. And that is our largest grant. It supports up to 100 individuals. Currently the population of the grant is 88 participants. We recently graduated 14 individuals from the program. And they will be lining up and getting more people in the program just to address those needs. As a hybrid grant, it presents a little bit of a challenge because the challenges that someone who is addicted to alcohol are typically different in the perceptions of how they approach their addiction are different from those who are addicted to other controlled substances. So one of the things that the program has to do is to educate the participants in a DWI component of the fact that they're actually engaged in criminal conduct by drinking and driving. And oftentimes they try to minimize that conduct. So there is a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy that goes into addressing those individuals and making sure that they're aware of what their needs are and the impact that they have through their criminality upon the community. Ideally we intervene with these individuals and prevent them from going further with that or they harm someone either by physically injuring them or perhaps killing them. But the fact that we're trying to intervene and assist those people, it does require a lot more work for the alcohol as opposed to the other individuals. And there's also a corresponding challenge that some of the alcohol addicts have a patronizing look and somehow sometimes think that they're superior to the other types of substance users. And we go through the program and help to address those types of issues as well because it is an illness. They all suffer from some form of the illness in working through that program. So that gives you an idea. There are five steps in the program. It usually takes over a year to complete the program and move forward in that capacity. I am rather excited about the Adult Treatment Court because I began working on that program back in 2000 when I first began in court administration here in the Sixth Circuit. So we're coming up on our 25th anniversary for the program and helping the community in that capacity. The Juvenile Drug Court Program is receiving a grant from the State Court Administrative Office and it's some more federal pass-through money. That program has capacity for up to 20 people. We typically keep the number of individuals participating in the program beneath that number. Currently, we have six participants in the program and we have two other people on deck that are going to be joining the program rather soon. One of the reasons we keep it lower is because the individuals who are coming into the program typically have severe emotional issues and they have addiction issues. So we have to address those individual challenges and work forward in that capacity. We have one case worker that works with them and we find that, as Boojack reminded me on the way down, that smaller class sizes are beneficial to the treatment and recovery of these individuals. We did have four people graduate from this program earlier this year, so we are making progress and we're rather excited about that number. The Juvenile Mental Health Court has a capacity for 40 individuals. It also is funded by the State Court Administrative Office grant. It has 10 participants currently with one person waiting on deck. We've graduated six people this year and we have another individual who will be graduating tomorrow. So we're rather excited about that. Again, we're making a lot of progress here. There are two case workers. We have higher volume capacity in this program and we're looking forward to increasing those numbers. Finally, we have a Veterans Treatment Court. The capacity in that program is capped at 10. And this is the most stringent program to get into because participation in this program is restricted to combat veterans. So you actually honestly had to be in the worst of all possible situations in order to qualify this. The reason that the program is restricting that capacity is because the needs of these individuals are the highest and we want to make sure they get the specialized attention that they deserve after the sacrifices and the services they provide to the country. So that is capped lower. Judge Nancy Grant has been presiding over that since the initiation of the program and it's a very directed program. So that deals with the various treatment court programs. Are there any questions on this or I can move on to the State Justice Initiative grant, which is entirely different. For the veterans program, you're talking about referencing combat veterans, so veterans of foreign wars, not on the U.S. soil? Yes. They would actually have to have been involved in a combat situation. And I do have a question I'm not prepared to answer on this one. However, for example, drone operators. I don't know how the Department of Defense qualifies those individuals, but there have been some information about the collateral effects of the duty that they serve and being involved in that capacity. But I cannot say whether or not they are actually participating, but the traditional version of combat, certainly those individuals and the recent conflicts we've been involved with have certainly provided a good number of people opportunities for assistance. Thank you. If there aren't any other questions on the treatment court grants, I can move on to the State Justice Initiative grant. And that one we're looking for assistance in doing strategic planning. We're actually going to be coming before the board tomorrow looking for an exception to the contracting requirements because there is an individual that we have our eye on. She has provided assistance in, I believe, 11 to 13 courts within the state of Michigan, in addition to other courts throughout the state. She is a highly regarded expert in this subject matter. I actually worked with her when I was in third circuit court. And she has a methodology that doesn't produce a notebook that goes on the shelf, which is one of the greatest concerns that people have with doing strategic planning. I know that in the time that I worked with her, we did three different annual projects, and each year we made progress on implementing things in that strategic planning progress, which I thought was a tremendous success. We did look out and looked at six individuals who are facilitators. Many of those individuals are unavailable, although they're highly regarded in the field, just because right now their plates are full. Based upon my previous relationship, I finagled a little bit to see if there was a possibility with Dr. Ivey's schedule, just because she has been in court administration in the state of Michigan. She has worked throughout the country in doing strategic planning that she would be a great asset if we could get that authorization. Now, as to our program, as you're well aware, our juvenile justice reform has impacted and will continue to impact Oakland County and the state. We're looking for ways to make sure that we go forward both internally within the court and with our internal and external stakeholders to make certain that we provide the best services to juveniles who come into contact with the system so we can cut off the pipeline that leads to an adult felony. So we want to work together, make sure we have a solid basis there. I know that Barb Hankey has been working more diligently on this process as well. We'll be collaborating with her and you'll certainly be hearing from Ms. Bluejack as we come forward on various things, including perhaps another contract because we have an RFP out there where we have some respondents who are looking to do quality assurance for strategic, for the juvenile justice program. So that's out there. The other thing, and you may recall that there were some conversations about this previously, is that the court is looking to work with the Supreme Court's case management system. We are working and executing a memorandum of understanding with the Supreme Court on this issue. And it's going to be signed off, as I understand, by the County Executive David Coulter, the Chair of the Board of Commissioners David Woodward, as well as Chief Judge Mattis as we look to go forward on this. And we're looking to collaborate and work on the system because it has a lot of advantages, but we need to do a deep dive into this and it would require a significant change in how some things happen here. If you have specific questions on the case management system, Ms. Bluejack is a technical expert. She can answer all sorts of things. I was just going to add about the strategic planning really coming at a great time as we migrate to this case management system. We really need to examine all of our processes and make sure that we have the uniformity and the efficiency that we're going to need moving forward because we don't want to just take the square peg and put it in a round ball. We want to actually make the whole program work. So we're trying to approach it thoughtfully and appropriately. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right. We'll take the vote, please. I was just going to ask about your expertise. So thank you for that. Thank you. If I could just remind our guests that the committee approval does not constitute the grant or do sign off. And as the motion language says in front of you, they still need to get a review and appropriation council and risk management. That is only for the treatment court grants. The SGI grant that has been through grant review, but our state court administrative office has not yet given us the contracts to sign or review. So as soon as we receive those, they're just running a little late this year. As soon as we received those, they will go through the workday grant review process. And upon that time, then we would ask for. Well, we have great confidence in you and these grants. So. It was unanimous. Seven. Motion carries. Thank you so much. And thank you for working us into the schedule today. I really appreciate that. Thank you. All right. Next two items are district. District court recommendations. Again, The first. Programs and the second. Motion by commissioner. And we have Patricia. I'm here to speak to each of the items. Welcome. Good morning. Morning morning. What do you, what would you like to tell us about the drug court program? Carol, do you want to start? Sure. So our, our grant is for the amount of $12,000 for the 52 to district court program. And we're looking for. To continue to. Provide some assistance in the operation of our VWI court. Which is specific for. Our offenders. Primarily with alcohol addiction, although it does not have to be an alcohol offense. That they're convicted of. It was a driving related offense. When they were under the influence. So we're looking for. Acceptance for the grant monies, and that will help to fund. Some of the testing for our low income participants. Some training for the team members. Some incentives. So when people are doing well, that we can incentivize them with some monetary issues. And. We're also providing some. Assistance with Uber and Lyft cards for those that. Are without any transportation up here in this area. It's difficult to. To find transportation, so. So we do help some of our participants in that way. Thank you. Any questions regarding this item. All right, next item is sobriety court program. Hi, my camera is not working. Sorry. So, the tri district court is a hybrid. I mean, which means that we can take any charge. Drunk driving retail fraud. The only requirement is that they have a substance use problem. Our monies are used for we have a full time employee. A case manager for testing. To help alleviate some of the costs to the participant and we can put in different. Screening that they are not aware of. Counseling and some training. And incentives, so. We received 135,000 dollars this year, 5,000 dollars more than last year. Thank you. Well, these money helps for the programs to continue and the programs are successful. Any comments or questions. All right. I'll just remind the presenters again. Same as the last 2 items for the last items that this does not constitute the work day. Grant approval sign off and corporation counseling. Thank you. We are now at our last public comment of the day. Is there anyone from the public wishing to comment? Seeing non public. I do want in fact, a lot of us have already been introduced to Misha, but for those of us that are joining us from. Misha is our new marketing communications officer. She started on the 14th. So, yesterday. And she comes to us from. Which is a renowned. Public affairs and public communications. Private sector working with the GM account. And she's also a graduate of. University. Let's welcome aboard Misha and. Welcome again. Thank you. All right. Public comment is closed. Is there any other business to come before this committee? Seeing none at 1122, I will adjourn the public health and safety committee.