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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002 09-30 Special Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 The Special Meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 5:59 P.M. on September 30, 2002, by Mayor Robert Corrie. Members Present: Mayor Robert Corrie, Cherie McCandless, Bill Nary, Tammy de Weerd, and Keith Bird Others Present: Mike Worley, Stacy Kilchenmann, Pauline Skeggs, and Will Berg Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: X Tammy de Weerd X Bill Nary X Cherie McCandless X Keith Bird X Mayor Robert Corrie Corrie: (Inaudible) the City Council Special Meeting on Monday, September 30, 2002 at one minute till 6:00. At this time, I’ll have the roll call attendance from the City Clerk please. Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Corrie: Okay Council the second item is the adoption of the agenda. We have the presentations on the RFP for City Prosecutor Criminal / Legal Services by one Boise City, by Foley, Freeman, Borton & Stern, Chartered and also the services of Garden City. Is there any changes or differences that you want in the adoption of the agenda? Bird: I have none Mayor. Corrie: Hearing none, I’ll entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. Bird: So moved. McCandless: Second. Corrie: Motion been made and second to adopt the agenda as printed. All those in favor say aye. All ayes motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES Item 3. At 6:00 pm – Presentation on RFP for City Prosecutor / Criminal Legal Services by Boise City: Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 2 of 31 Corrie: It is 6:00 and we are really noted to starting right on time here in Meridian. We’ll begin. First will be the presentation by the City Prosecutor/Criminal Legal Services by Boise City. Nary: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Nary. Nary: Before we begin I was reviewing the Meridian City Code and the State Code in regards of conflict of interest since I think it’s well known by most everyone that I work for the City Attorney’s Office for the City of Boise. There is no financial interest or gain by myself there is no financial conflict of interest for to participate but under our City Code, there also goes further into personal interests that may be perceived even more than even a direct conflict. It’s my opinion that there probably may be a perceived conflict by at least the other proposers as to my participation in both deliberation and voting on this issue so I’m going to refuse myself from both deliberation and voting on this particular proposal. I would though, if the Council had questions either regarding potential conflict with my employment and my position on the Council if you had any general questions about prosecution in general, prosecution services, questions about process things in a general nature I would be here to answer that if you would like. I would refuse myself from the rest of that. Corrie: Just a point of order will you – not voting on anything of that nature? Nary: Just on the criminal side. Corrie: Just on the criminal side. Nary: Right. Corrie: Council I’m trying to think here do you have to be excused and go clear out? Nary: Not according to our City Code. Corrie: Because usually when they do that they leave the room. I just – it’s fine for you to be here as far as I’m concerned. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: Seeing how I’ve been one of those in the hot seat, I believe Bill is going to stay here he just can’t – in fact I think if you read the City Code he can actually participate in the question stuff he just can’t vote. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 3 of 31 Corrie: That’s fine. Bird: I have no problem with him sitting there. Corrie: (Inaudible). Okay that would be fine is Council agreed to his proposal. Let the record show that we had all yes’s. Thank you Bill. Susie you’re on. Mimura: Thank you Mayor and Council my name is Susan Mimura I’m the City Attorney for Boise, Idaho. I’m going to be the person presenting on behalf of the city and it’s proposal to you for contract services to provide the prosecutorial services as well as the civil legal advice to your Police Chief, Mike Worley, and his department. Each of you has received our proposal and inside of the proposal was a mini CD disk that has this. You can click onto that to go through the RFP or our letter of intent. I would advise you that the City Attorney’s Office has a mission statement to be the model public service law firm and provide high quality legal services to our clients in a manner that is ethical, timely, and responsive. I have to keep looking over at Steve to make sure he pushes the button. We plan on providing you Meridian with the highest quality of resources. The way we will do this is by telling you a little bit about ourselves. First of all, I have four cross-functional teams and we are the only cross-functional teams in the State of Idaho. Our attorney’s handle both criminal matters as well as civil work. This allows us to keep our attorney’s challenged and multi-functional and has had the added benefit that we have been able to retain highly qualified attorneys over a period of time. With this level of staffing, we are the only firm that is here in Ada County that can cover all six criminal courtrooms as well as the future for the Family Violence Court that will be on the fourth floor over at the new courthouse building. The first team that I would like to discuss is the litigation screening team. It is composed of seven staff attorney’s full time, three legal secretaries, and a sworn police officer that serves as the prosecutions investigator. That teams responsibility is to the primary customers, which is the city’s risk management. They handle in house litigation and oversee litigation matters handled by our counsel outside. We currently handle of 75 percent of all cases and claims inside our office instead of spending the money with outside contract counsel. We have this team handling the criminal court calendars for the Magistrate Judges, Tom Warden, and Tom Watkins. This team also screens all incoming citations and police reports. In the audience today we have Assistant City Attorney Roger Cockerille he is the team leader for this team. Seated to his left is Scott Muir and Kevin Borger at the end who is one of our most seasoned attorney’s is also on this team. Kevin happens to live inside of the city limits of Meridian as well, so he has a personal interest in making sure that we provide high quality services because it directly impacts his quality of life and his personal life for his family. The second team is the Parks Planning and Development Team. This team is composed of a staff of six full time attorneys, one part time contract attorney, and four legal secretaries. The responsibilities are to serve the primary customers of the cities planning and development services, which is – in Boise that is the Building Department as well as the Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 4 of 31 Planning and Zoning. They also serve the Park’s and Recreation Department and the Human Resource Department. They handle the criminal court calendars for Magistrate Judges Carolyn Minder and Kevin Swain. Steve Rutherford whose operating the power point presentation is on this team and he as well as Bill Nary, Bill is the team leader for this team, both of them live in the City of Meridian. In fact, both of them are former Meridian Prosecutors in days of old. The public safety enterprise team is composed of six attorneys, three legal secretaries. Their primary responsibilities are to our customers the Police Department, Aviation and Transportation, Public Work’s and the Boise Fire Department. Currently, they are also responsible for working for the assigned judge to handle the Family Violence Development that is being contemplated at st this time and was slated to start July 1. This would mean another courtroom for Meridian to have to staff and attend on domestic violence cases. They also handle the criminal court calendars for Magistrate Judges, Richard Schmidt, and Chris Bieter. This team would be Meridian’s primary point of contact as its members carry pager and cell phone. That makes all of our services available to your city, Police Department, Chief Mike Worley 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Elisa Massoth who is seated to Kevin’s right is the team leader, she’s here tonight, and she would be your primary contact. Our administrative support team is staffed by my administrative assistant, a programs analyst, two paralegals, a receptionist, and a file manager. Responsibility of this team is to provide administrative support, handle the file management, do legal research, and to handle the reception of all incoming calls and mail. Our support staff for the most part has all been with us for some time. They are experienced, efficient, and understand the need for confidentiality. The resources and electronic efficiency available to serve Meridian, I wanted to go over this to explain to you how we have a wide variety of resources available that allow us to work at the courthouse from our desks and off side for the use of the technology including the use of laptops. We have a fully automated office where each staff member whether they’re support staff or attorney staff has a desktop computer. We have a scheduled upgrade program every three years. We upgrade every computer in our office. We have citywide networking, which allows us to use group wise for calendaring and email. You can set an appointment and see other people’s calendars to see if they’re busy or available. We have coral Word Perfect and Microsoft Office products. We have an automated file management system which works much like the bar coding system at a grocery store where all the files are bar coded so we know the location of the files, we can run statistics on the files and we know when they are closed out. We also have the S 400 contract with Ada County as well as the Federal NCIC database. NCIC is what your police officers will use to check criminal histories. We have electronic research available to us we have a contract with (inaudible) that’s online to all of the attorneys at their desktops as well as we have access to the internet to also search for – do our legal research. We are currently researching the purchase of an automated case in document management system. As of this week, we have an onsite courthouse office with all available electronic resources. We are the only city that has that at the new courthouse. We have our own office that will Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 5 of 31 have computers, telephones, faxing capabilities so that the attorneys can best use their time in between court. They can contact witnesses and they can take phone calls. I would like to cover how we plan on providing responsive service to Meridian. What we have proposed is that we would provide your prosecution services, in doing so we attend daily the arraignments at Magistrate Court. We handle all of our cases in various courtrooms and each teams attends different courtrooms so you don’t have people having to run and cover two or three different courtrooms, which would be the case of any smaller firm. Further, because we’re at arraignments daily you will not have the need to call someone to look up the case on the computer to try to find out what happened on a case that may be of import to the Council and the Mayor. I know that recently there was a Meridian case that involved a person who was arrested and was actually arrested in addition to the felonies a misdemeanor resisting obstructing. The court made note that the Meridian Prosecutor was not in the courtroom at the time. Especially since the defendant plead guilty the court was looking for someone to make sentencing recommendation and advise the court as the prior history and arrest record of the individual. We plan on handling Meridian’s criminal cases as we do our own, ethically, thoroughly, and appropriately. We will not assign a particular attorney to the case rather we will put all of the Meridian cases in by which judges they are set in front of so that they are handled in the same appropriate way as we handle Boise City cases. We have handled Meridian’s conflict cases in the past we have also shared resources when they’ve needed it. In fact very recently in doing a conflict, case we had one attorney on Elisa’s team have a jury trial it was this week or this past week it was on Friday. Matt Wild, one of my Assistant City Attorneys had a successful jury trial where the jury reached a verdict of guilty on a Meridian battery on an officer involving your two officers Jeff Brown, and Kevin Robertson. One of the other assets tools available to Boise City is the access to the Ada County AS 400. Meridian has not had the ability to use this tool in the past, as the court administration will not allow contracting with private counsel. We will be – we have it in access already and the network capability so we can track your cases and run the scheduling for you. We’ve proposed to provide these primary legal services to Meridian under our proposal that we will do the prosecutorial legal services, that we will provide primary, civil, legal advice and guidance to your Meridian Police Chief as well as his Police Department. We will apprise Mayor Corrie and the Council of high profile criminal matters so that you are aware of what’s going on in court so that you will be prepared or be able to anticipate if the media’s going to call you about something. Further, we are prepared to provide basic victim witness services as well as we have put in alternatives for you to decide whether or not you want them as a matter of policy. One optional service would be on call victim witness services, which would make our victim witness unit available to your Police Department, as well as the victim accountability services and I’ll get into that a little later. Our goal is to assist your Police Chief in leading his department and establishing his goals and standards. I want to make it very clear that it is not our goal to make Meridian Police Department into Boise Police Department. It is appropriate only for legal counsel to do the legal work, Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 6 of 31 provide accurate, thorough, legal opinions, alternatives to our clients and customers. In doing so we understand that the Chief is the Chief of Police and we’re there to assist him and support him in trying to establish his goals and bring his department along in the manner that you as the policy makers see fit. Another goal is to keep you all, the Mayor and Council apprised of high profile cases and to communicate openly with you whether it be by email, memos or appearances here before the Council in session. We’re willing to do that in the manner that you suggest that you want it. Our basic victim witness services provides for our victim witness coordinators serving as liaisons between domestic violence victims and our prosecutors. Under the Idaho Constitution as well as State Law, victims have certain rights. They are provided with these rights by automatic notification off of our computer system to ensure that they know what their rights are and to make a choice as to whether or not they want to pursue those rights and be apprised of various hearings, ask for restitution, or make an impact statement to the court. This is a service that will benefit your community. I believe that it will be a service that is a little more expansive than what you’ve been provided in the past in that our victim coordinators do attend court with people. They also attend in the civil arena for protection orders and they assist the prosecution in advising them what the victim wants. They further provide assistance in educating individuals especially families with children on what to expect in the criminal justice system because when they are going through a traumatic domestic violence situation often times it’s very hard for them to focus on what to anticipate and they have a number of questions. The benefit of this is that it will free up some of your officer time for investigation and it will also provide a one on one contact with your victims in your community. Our victim coordinators are very well trained, not only do they provide training throughout the state they are required to have a four year bachelor degree in a related field. Most of them have it in social work or counseling services and they have been in a leadership role throughout the state for victim’s rights. Now the optional add on victim witness on call service is available to you if you so desire. It would provide that the victim witness coordinators would be on call 24-7 to your Police Department. Your chief can establish how he wants the call outs to be done whether he wants it to go through his sergeant or if a corporal could do it or if it has to go up to one of his command staff level managers. However, we are willing to provide this service at your option to both misdemeanor cases as well as felony cases. The types of matters that you might be interest in having this would be things such as domestic violence, sexual assault whether it be of a child or adult, rape and other violent crimes. This would allow for the unit to assist victims in crisis intervention, route them to appropriate community services, take them to the hospital for medical needs as well as assisting the officer in their initial investigation. The optional add on service for Juvenile Accountability Services is a special federal grant funded program to divert juveniles out of the criminal justice system. The Juvenile Accountability Incentive block grant allows us to divert first time offenders for minor, what we call minor, relatively minor first time offences which to us right now is the alcohol and tobacco violations and divert them out of the court system to make it more Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 7 of 31 efficient and yet still hold juveniles accountable. This program refers juveniles to community resources, requires them to commit to community service to give back to your community and to attend education programs. It allows them further to keep their criminal record clean so if you have a first time offender whose caught drinking a beer in a parking lot – drinking a beer in a parking lot is a misdemeanor offence. It may impact their ability in the future to be bonded, get a job, they’re going to have to disclose in certain types of employment and school applications. This affords them an opportunity to keep the slate clean. This program is innovative and will be nationally recognized this Spring actually in two academic forums. The Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences is going to meet in both March as well as April and this case or program will be presented. The bottom line costs for the services as you’ve received is we are proposing that we will provide the basic services not the ones that you have the options for JAA and the on call service at 152,040 dollars a year with monthly installments being 12,670 dollars. The optional add ons would be on call victim witness services for 50 dollars an hour plus mileage to and from the scene and the Juvenile Accountability Services and we’ve checked with the Association of Idaho Cities is that Meridian has a grant of 11,708 dollars. We would ask that that be signed over to Boise City to administer that program. I would like to talk a little bit about our experience in relating to you as our future client is that we’re familiar with the requirements of a governmental client that’s what we do every day. We also have the infrastructure to statistically capture information that may be of value to you. For instance, how many cases do you have, what’s the outcomes, how much revenue does it generate in fines and court costs? How many court trials do you have a year, how much domestic violence is it on the rise or is it declining that will help your Police Chief and help you as a Council in the future in developing your future budgets. Further, we do screening matters routinely. In doing these recognize that the prosecutors have independent, discretionary choices on which cases that they choose to file and they do it on the basis on what is ethical and what is supported by the evidence. In one sense, this helps you as the Mayor and the Council to be at arms length that you are not helping make choices on criminal prosecutions. Politically, I think that’s a very dangerous thing and any prosecutor would tell you that if they’re doing something ethically they don’t ask for the politics, they look at the case and they make a decision. We are also very well aware of those cases that will lead to controversy for high profile media interest. We can identify those readily and advise you through either the clerk or the mayor’s office in the format that you so desire. Lastly, that we have police trainers that have been doing this for a period of years and our staff is very well trained in things such as 1983 civil rights, litigation, claims under tort claim, contract claims. They are aware of the special needs of police and also they need to have an on call prosecutor available to them when they have a question. In the middle of the night I’m sure that you don’t want them calling you saying you know I have this situation here I’m not sure what to do so Council Member what do you think we should do here. We have people who are trained to answer the phone and give the advise to the police officers. We will also provide them with feedback on their investigations. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 8 of 31 If we need more information, we’ll ask them for that. If there’s a reason why we’re not prosecuting, we’re happy to share that as well. The way that we feel about feedback and communication is that we can improve our services and hopefully help the Police Department improve their services in working cooperatively together in giving one another feedback that will be beneficial to your community. We will provide your Police Department with block training on police issues such as search and seizure, Miranda warnings and report writing. We have recently provided an outline to the State Attorney General’s office to use that is updated as to search and seizure so that the candidates that are coming out from Post Academy going all over the state will have the latest updates from the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court of this state and they have the most recent cases available to them. We provide high quality legal services because our organizational structures allows us to provide coverage in all the courtrooms and yet adhere to all the professional, ethical standards that we have set. We ask that you choose Boise to serve you and we tell you that we’re basically the only one that can do so if you are looking for the model, public law firm and you care about providing high quality legal services in an ethical, timely and responsive manner. I appreciate your time and I believe my time is up but I’ll stand for questions. Corrie: Thank you Susie. Council do you have any questions? Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: I’ve got a couple. Susie I know, what’s your mileage rate on your deal? You say 50 dollars plus mileage. Mimura: Mayor, Council Member Bird we go by what is established by the IRS rule and I believe it is right now at 32.5 cents a mile. Bird: Thirty-three cents and your rate upon would be 50 dollars an hour if we had extra in the basic deals or is that 12,000 or 152,040 regardless of how many attorneys and how many hours you spent that’s it? There’s nothing extra? Mimura: Mayor, Council Member Bird for the basic service that’s it. There is no additional add ons the only add ons are the two programs that you can choose to take so if it took me 22 of my, all of the attorneys including myself to serve you the amount that we are proposing is 152,000. Bird: Boise taxpayers can pick up the difference. Mimura: Well we plan on being so efficient that they won’t have to do that. Bird: I don’t doubt it. That’s all I have. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 9 of 31 Corrie: Any other questions. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: On your onsite legal services one of the comments that we got from staff is do you have some flexibility in your two days each week? Can you turn that into four days at half time each week or are you flexible with that kind of a schedule? Mimura: Mayor Corrie, Council Member de Weerd, I know that Elisa Massoth has met with the Police Chief because I know that the concern is knowing how much – not knowing how much legal services are going to be required. I would commit to you that the City Attorney’s Office will train on public records to start with because I know that that is an issue with your department. We will look at the equivalent of the time. We would like to start with the two full days a week and if that’s not working we are certainly open to making any adjustments that will make Chief Worley happy. Bird: That’s his department. De Weerd: Yes, what more can I say. Corrie: Susie in reference to the juvenile accountability that each year that’s given to Meridian what I had done rather than losing it we’ve been giving it to the County. I didn’t know that Boise could use it but in this case, they can use it and then Boise will match the fund and then they can use the JA. That way – Mimura: -- Mayor Corrie, yes that’s the case. What we had done is we’d contacted AIC. You can sign it over to us. We will start using it if that’s your choice on the Meridian violations for alcohol and tobacco for your juveniles that are sited or arrested here in Meridian City. We’ll set up a like program. In Boise what we do is when they have to do community service they serve their community service within our city organizations so the idea being that these are your future community servants. You want them to feel that volunteer is a good thing and not just a punishment so we try to match the maturity level and the interest to the jobs assigned. For instance, we’ve had some kids that are interested in the farming aspect or mechanical aspect. We have placed them in doing their community service at our 20 mile south farm which is out in Kuna that is operated by our Public Works Department where they work under the supervision of an actual Public Works employee and gets some hands on experience. Likewise, my department has taken in JA kids to do office work who may be interested in either doing support staff work or someday becoming lawyers. We have them operating in our work environment. We’ve had them go out to the Park’s Department if they have an interest in being outdoors and Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 10 of 31 horticultural issues is that they can always use people that are willing to plant flowers or work in the zoo. We try to match those issues but the benefit is that when you look at people who are committing crime. The accountability aspect of this JA Program is to provide that they are not only accountable by saying, yes I did it to be in the program but also that there is some payback to the community which they’ve taken your police officers time away. They’ve taken away some of the resources in just having to enforce tobacco and alcohol. This has them repay that back to the community and we would set that up for Meridian as well and your departments. Corrie: So there’s still time. I had not received anything for this year. That’s when was reading this that Meridian has not submitted the necessary follow-up paperwork to accept a grant. I hadn’t received any paperwork from AIC yet so that’s why I was – we have time yet though. Mimura: Yes and we have confirmed with them that you and the Council can decide if you want to do that and you can make that decision at some other date and have that signed over if you wish us to pursue that. Corrie: Any other questions. Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I guess on the JA funds then you have some kind of accounting process that you can keep track of how those monies are allocated, time spent and that sort of thing. Mimura: Mayor Corrie, Council Member, yes it’s required under the grant. We separate out every item that is costed against it. We account for grant money separately from general fund monies and we actually track the time of the people participating in that. Our intent this year will be to expand the service to other types of crimes as well. To expand the amount of community service hours and to provide supervisor and trainer so that your department isn’t having to bleed of time to train some juvenile that’s only going to be there for say 40 hours or 20 hours of community service. We will train them to – we will have the supervisor of those juveniles to learn what the jobs are, train them and watch over them to make sure that they’re showing up appropriately dressed, do the work, sign off on the card so that it doesn’t take up your staff time to do that. Further, in developing it for Meridian we would do it the same way we did it for Boise and that is to include members of your constituency. We included the school board school people, and had on the original task force, professors from BSU, the local high schools, high school kids, your SRO’s, the Police Department, prosecutor’s Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 11 of 31 both from the county as well as the city. We had judges involved. We would do the same thing in setting it up because we recognize that Meridian is unique, you may have a different vision, your community may have a different vision, and we will try to customize it for you. De Weerd: So you would also administer the grant then? Mimura: Yes, we would handle all of the budgeting. We would provide that to you and we could provide that to you in a quarterly basis. We also do written reports. De Weerd: Thank you. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: Does any of our Department Heads have any questions or statements? Corrie: Well let’s take a look here they may have some – everybody except the Chief he can’t talk. Bird: He can’t talk. Worley: Yes Mayor, members of the Council, Miss Mimura. Regarding the Juvenile Accountability do you propose to have on site service in Meridian for the initial contact with Mr. Hanes in setting it up or would it be necessary for juveniles to travel to your office in Boise for that initial setup and the follow-up counsel? Mimura: Mayor, Chief Worley, we haven’t made any speculations as to how you want to set it up. We would try to set it up as best that serves Meridian. It’s not to serve Boise. Certainly, we want to make it as convenient as possible that’s always been our goal for JA because we ask that parents in our program, parents and the kids have to attend the meeting together. We have it that the kid that got caught has to sign a contract with us as well as his parents that they will not endive in alcohol or do drugs including cigarettes. Some of the parents are going well wait a minute does that mean I can’t have a beer after work and we say yes for six months both of you are going to be held accountable. It’s been wildly successful. We had some people say in reservations that parents aren’t going to be willing to sign off and give up their cigarettes and their martinis after work but that’s a sad commentary on our society if they’re not willing to make that sacrifice for the betterment of their kids and keep their record clean. We’ve found that most parents are willing to do it. We do exit surveys on every kid and their parent. We receive a majority of those back. You’re more than welcome to ask – I’d give them all to you if you’d like to read them. They are glowing about the program. They feel that the kids have been held accountable, that it resolved Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 12 of 31 fairly quickly in time, and that they’ve learned something from the process. In our report that’s going to go national is that compared to adult recidivism, which is in the high 60’s, like 66 percent is our kids are recidivating somewhere between 14 and 16 percent. That’s what we have been hoping for is to reduce recidivism and see what works. Corrie: Any other questions? Susie, good presentation. Mimura: Thank you. Thank you very much for your time. Bird: Thank you guys. Corrie: Thank you guys for being here. Is there anybody else – the other two do you have any questions down here in front Stacy or Pauline? I didn’t think so but – thank you Susie. Never assume anything. Thank you guys appreciate it. Nary: Short break? Corrie: Yes we can take a 10-minute break here. Bird: You’ll let us take a 10-minute break? (Break at 6:35 P.M.) Item 4. At 6:45 pm – Presentation on RFP for City Prosecutor / Criminal Legal Services by Foley, Freeman, Borton & Stern, Chartered: Corrie: We will continue with the presentations. At this time, we’ll have a presentation for the prosecutor criminal legal services by Foley, Freeman, Borton and Stern, Chartered. Okay so we’ve got them all lined up there. Joe are you going to be the spokesman here? Borton: Yes. Corrie: All right. Borton: Thank you Mayor, members of City Council, Will Berg, and Chief Worley. It’s with great pleasure that I present to you today our response to the cities request to proposal for prosecutor services for the City of Meridian. On behalf of Foley, Freeman, Borton and Stern I’m going to be presenting today’s proposal. Then after I complete that I’ll be able to answer any questions that you might have. With us today also is the rest of our firm all of whom you already know. I will introduce them, Mark Freemen, David Krueck, Howard Foley, and Frances Stern. Each of them will also be available to answer any questions that you or the Chief might have about our presentation. We made the decision Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 13 of 31 several months ago to look into bidding for the city of Meridian Prosecution Services and to bid on this particular request for proposal. In a manner similar to the decision, many of you probably made when you decided to run for City Council. It was a decision based upon a personal stake in your community. It was decision based upon an investment in how Meridian develops and how it grows. It was a decision that each of you made as residents of Meridian to invest a little bit more of yourself in it’s development and to take that extra effort to become a stakeholder in how it progresses. So too is it for our firm. We went through the similar analysis and it is for those similar reasons why we responded to this request for proposals. It is one, which we do take with great pride. As you well know Foley, Freeman, Borton and Stern for over 24 years has been dedicated itself to the growth and development of Meridian and being involved in Meridian community activities and it’s welfare. Twenty-four years ago that started in a house as you all know where we’re standing right now and it continues today. It is that effort and that desire to be a stakeholder in our community that we want to capitalize on and the opportunity to present criminal prosecution services for the City of Meridian that we’re excited to be before us right now. You have each had an opportunity to review our written proposal, which addresses some of the specific areas that we will cover and addresses some of the concerns that the city had and wanted to receive from us. It also highlights some of our areas and emphasis in our community prosecution strategy. In order to complete the picture that our written response provided I’m going to highlight some of the major areas that our firm feels is important, to stress in that our firm will provide to the City of Meridian, to this Council, to Chief Worley and to the residents of Meridian. In making this analysis and in deciding to undertake this opportunity we spent countless hours speaking with several law enforcement officers with Chief Worley himself. With other area prosecutors, with the present Meridian City Prosecutors, qualified defense counsel as well as some of the citizens of Meridian to try and get an idea not only what some of the strengths and weaknesses are in the current system how it’s being operated now but also to get an idea of what opportunities are available to better service the citizens of Meridian, this Council, Chief Worley and his staff. After gathering that information, we did come to the conclusion that there are certain major assets that our firm possesses. That we believe our firm possesses above and beyond any other bidder to this contract, which will directly translate into a better product and better prosecution services for the city. Services unlike it’s ever seen. First and foremost, we are accessible. We are accessible. We have been and will be accessible to Mayor Corrie, to his Council, to Chief Worley and most importantly to the citizens of Meridian. We are committed to providing responsive services to all of those members that I’ve listed. Those responsive services will be provided in many fashions. Some of these more simpler ways will dedicated email communication and dedicated cell phone and pager communications. Our primary point of accessibility is our physical location. It is well known by all that we are only minutes away from the current Meridian Police Station. We are only a (inaudible) from city hall where we sit now. Not that we throw stones at city hall. We do have – we have attorney’s available in Meridian every day all day Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 14 of 31 and that is important. From those individuals, those stakeholders that we reviewed and we discussed having somebody here at all times are critical. Furthermore, many of our attorneys live in Meridian and it’s our commitment to the city in servicing this contract. It’s our commitment to Chief Worley that we will have somebody available in Meridian to arrive in the field, off hours if necessary. It’s been addressed to us that there might be a need for that and we will provide that need. Along those lines, another feature of our accessibility, which is of primary importance for this Council, is there will not be lack – or there will not be constant attorney turnover. Some of the most difficult things that we’ve heard from people when trying to get access to an individual is knowing who in the heck that individual is. One of the things that we’re committed to provide is consistent prosecution services. As I mentioned earlier, myself I will be leading the prosecution services for the City of Meridian and I’m not going anywhere. I live off of Pine Street several blocks away, my wife teaches at Meridian Middle School and I was lucky enough to meet Howard Foley and Mark Freeman who took me into this city, who showed me what it has to offer and to become a stakeholder man. I am not changing and I’m not going anywhere. That’s the backbone of some of the consistent points of contact that we’re going to provide. All of us, including myself and the other members of our firm have the best at stake in Meridian. Many of you might already know that and have known that before I mentioned this to you today. We’ve had (inaudible) and each and every one of us as you’ll see from our written proposals is ready to respond. Each day and every day as needed and as requested by the city and by Chief Worley. I also believe our Meridian presence will only strengthen our credibility. Not only within the Meridian business community and non-business community but also th within the 4 Judicial District where we will be practicing law. I think it will increase our credibility having the Meridian firm prosecute on your behalf but with local area judges and defense counsel all of which translates into better service and more efficient service for the City of Meridian. Lastly, one of the items which we can provide and are committed to provide if the city is so inclined along the lines of accessibility. It seems somewhat simple but I believe it is one of the most important things that should be included in accessibility of your prosecutor. When someone calls the Meridian City Prosecutor’s Office the phone will be answered, good afternoon Meridian City Prosecutor’s Office. It will be answered by somebody in Meridian only 500 feet away. Along with accessibility, that’s only the front end of the spectrum. That’s the front end of the focus. There also has to be part two accountability. We are accountable, always have been to our clients and always will be and would be to the City of Meridian. This element is critical. It might be one of the most important criteria and qualifications we possess which make us qualified bidders and the most qualified individuals to fill this position for the City of Meridian. We are prepared to present regular reports to Chief Worley to this Council as requested of items such as arrest conviction ratios, fine enforcement statistics and community service statistics. By way of things, where are things like community service being done? Is the Meridian criminal convicted of a crime serving his community service at the Youth Ranch in East Boise or is he doing it here in Meridian where the crime was committed. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 15 of 31 Some of those things are important to be able to provide some objective criteria, some objective statistics to try and demonstrate to this Council, to Chief Worley and the citizens of Meridian our success at prosecuting on the citizen’s behalf. Those are statistics that we feel comfortable, we’ve provided to Chief Worley or at directly to this Council at his request. Each attorney in our firm, as you’ll notice from our proposal has litigation experience, criminal prosecution, criminal management experience and other related skill sets that translate directly into this contract in which will empower each and every one of us. Not just myself but each and every one of us to be immediately responsive to the cities needs, and to Chief Worley’s needs. Some of the ideas as far as accountability that we think it would be our responsibility to (inaudible) in which we would provide. A classic example will be come early April when the Legislature closes, to perform comprehensive legislative reviews with Chief Worley with his staff about various law changes and administrative changes. Not only to allow the police officers to implement those prior to a July enactment date but to give Chief Worley the opportunity to make any policy or procedure changes as needed – ***End Of Side One*** Borton: -- back to the accountability, approach which we think better services the citizens in Meridian. We’ll also be accountable to the officers and Chief Worley to provide advanced (inaudible) or in person public seminars to his officers on things such as on things such as case law updates, trial techniques, evidence th ruling changes. A lot of things in the 4 Judicial District can be somewhat unique and to properly hold ourselves accountable to the Police Department we will provide those services in a prompt, face to face, personal fashion as one Meridian business minutes away to the Meridian Police Station. That could be done through scheduling, block scheduling with the Police Department in their conference room. We’re willing and able to provide that. From the officers and individuals I’ve spoken to that’s definitely a true asset. There’s nothing like getting caught off guard with changes in – especially changes in legislation but also in case law evidentiary rulings. Those are more proactive means, which we feel we need to provide, and will provide to the Meridian Police Department to better enable them to perform their services. Along those lines when I’m doing some reviews of how things are going and we talk about police officers maybe getting caught off guard with changes in laws or a case law. You all might very well be aware if you’re not aware you should be aware that the Meridian Police Department does a fantastic job in its arrest conviction ratios. It does a fantastic job in its fieldwork and its evidence collection. It’s no secret I’ve done quite a bit of criminal defense work myself and I could submit to you if you don’t know it already there’s a lot of reason why the Meridian Prosecutor’s aren’t in trial every week. They’re not fighting cases every week. Most everything is resolved to plea bargains prior to trial. I credit a lot of that efficiency due to proper police work. I think that can be maintained and improved over the next year and through the next legislative session. Most importantly, in that accountability process is we will be accountable to the most important people involved and that Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 16 of 31 is the citizens of Meridian. We will be here when they need us. One of the – for example, a victim of a domestic violence dispute should not have to get in the car, hauled to Boise, pay for parking to talk to somebody about their case or about their abusive spouse. Heaven forbid they do it at 4:00 or 4:30. That should not happen. We will be here and accountable to the citizens of Boise, or excuse me the citizens of Meridian. We need our services. The individuals that we, like everyone up on this Council are here to serve. That’s the accountability that is critical to this contract that we believe we can provide better than any other. I can talk to you at great length. I won’t but I could talk to you at great length about the qualifications of our firm. About their experience and trying matters from murder to trespassing, from managing teams of prosecutors in cities larger than Meridian. That experience all exists and I could talk to you for a long time about our desire and our ability to be accessible to every stakeholder involved in this community. I can talk for a long time about our accountability to every stakeholder in this community, to this Council, to Chief Worley and the citizens. One of the qualifications which we possess beyond all others (inaudible) clearly qualifies us. It makes us above and be all the best choice to fulfill this contract is we are Meridian. For us, the grass here is green. It has been for 24 years and it will be for the next 24 years. I’m going to read to you a brief list and then I’m going to tell you a little bit why I’m reading this to you. We are the current and past president of the Meridian Chamber of Commerce, on the Meridian Boys and Girls Club Project Advisory Board, President of the Meridian Rotary Club, past president of the Meridian Exchange Club, Meridian Little League, Meridian High School football parents, members of Meridian Kiwanis Meridian Siroptimist, and Meridian Optimist. We are local High School, Meridian High School mock trial attorney coaches. We coach Meridian Youth football, soccer and baseball. We are Meridian troop five Boy Scout leaders and we mentor Meridian Youth at Meridian Elementary and the academy through the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program. That’s a long list out of all the things we could put in writing and everything I could stand up here today and tell you. That is a list that I am which most proud. That’s a list that embodies this firm in what we believe in. So what does that matter? That was a question that was posed to me when I was talking this over with a family member when I was trying to describe our involvement in the community and what it is we do. They said to me so what. Really what is it about your community involvement that is really relevant to this contract? That makes you qualified to service this contract. It was a question that I thought about quite often and for a long time and I could submit to you an answer, it’s not one I can put in writing, its not one I could put in the written proposal its not in a resume its not found on any document. It’s a qualification that cannot be served by dozens of prosecutors being able to handle dozens of files. It’s a qualification that we posses that sets our firm apart from all others and it’s the qualification most importantly that’s going to make this Council, this City, Chief Worley and its residents most proud to have us fulfill its prosecution services. The service that we provide to Meridian matters because it’s performed as a result of the passion that we have for the growth and the development of Meridian. It is not a means to an end. It is an end unto itself. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 17 of 31 The means by which our community involvement flourishes is the fundamental for the City of Meridian to grow and for it to develop and for us to be involved in that growth and development. It’s a passion similar to the one you possessed when you first decided to become Mayor or members of the City Council or a Police Chief its one that made you say I am a Meridian resident but I want to do more. I want to help the City of Meridian develop and flourish and be part of it. I wanted to make sure that Meridian develops the right way in a responsible fashion and for the benefit of all the citizens it deserves. Its clearly a case where I can truly presume that the members of City Council aren’t, you didn’t decide to run and become involved in Meridian for the paycheck. You didn’t do it because you want to up past midnight arguing over 55 foot buckets of chicken but you do those things and you have invested yourself in the City of Meridian for that similar passion. For that desire to be involved in the city to become a stake holder and insure its proper growth so to as for our firm. It is that belief that forms a backbone of a philosophy that will provide you prosecution services unlike you have never seen that is dedicated, consistent and loyal in Meridian. We are ready and able to provide those services to the City of Meridian to this Council, Mayor Corrie and Chief Worley. We are ready and able to do that right now. It is with great pride and pleasure that I present to you today. We are all truly excited about the opportunity. It is one, which we see as the culmination of a lot of our efforts to help Meridian in each and every other fashion that we could. We are able to do so, we are excited to do so and I do thank you for your time and attention. If there are any particular questions that any of you have. Chief Worley, Mayor Corrie of myself or any members of our firm we would be glad to answer those. Corrie: First off Joe. Let me congratulate you. You did a wonderful job. Would you like to write my State of the City address? (Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members) Corrie: Council do you have any questions for Joe? Bird: I have none Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Yes. Mr. Bird. Bird: I believe we should qualify the statement that we stated starting out with our first deal with Mr. Nary sitting here. I just had thought about it, I meant to bring it up at first but Mr. Nary has worked for the Boise City who was also an applicant on this proposal and he is not taking part of the voting or any of the questions on this stuff. The Council felt as a whole that was okay for him to sit and stuff because it don’t benefit him anyway. He isn’t against the City Code or the State Code or anything else, which you guys know better then I do but I thought we better clarify it. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 18 of 31 Corrie: Thank you. Nary: That’s right. Mr. Berg had brought that up and I was going to bring it up too so thank you. Corrie: Just one question, is this. Although representation of the clients in the criminal matters is jurisdiction under the City of Meridian (inaudible) expressed prohibited by the conduct that we are committed to decline all future criminal defense representations that. Borton: That’s correct. Corrie: That’s a lot of work, I mean you guys have done a lot of criminal work there and I appreciate that very much because that would be a big thing for your firm to state that. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: I do have one and it’s in here pretty clear but to bring it out on tape. You are going to be the lead attorney with the City of Meridian if you are awarded the contract, is that not right Joe. Borton: Yes Mr. Bird. Bird: And you will either use the rest of the partners or will hire another attorney, as you need. Borton: I imagine we do both. We’ve had several inquires, its no secret what has been taking place in Meridian over the past month or several months, we’ve had several individuals contact us. We made no secret about our desire and interest to service this contract and in order to properly service it we would do both. Bird: Okay thank you. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Go ahead Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I know you do a great deal of defensive work. Will your office have a conflict if you have dual clients if you are the prosecutor and the defensive attorney? Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 19 of 31 Borton: Council President De Weerd. Absolutely. As indicated in our proposal and earlier we have determined that we would see solve criminal defense work in any jurisdiction immediately and that would go for any member of our firm. De Weerd: I saw that but. Borton: That’s a commitment that were not only able to make but we are proud to make. We really see this and this might be another matter of business. I don’t mean to make it light for the city, (inaudible), for our firm this is an amazing opportunity that we wish to fulfill to provide these services. We have made many commitments and gone to great lengths to make sure that each and everything we can do for the city we could provide and we can be accountable for. That is one of those commitments you can call it a sacrifice but it’s a commitment that we are proud to make and are willing to make. De Weerd: Do you see that you would still have conflicts that would have to be then contracted to another firm. Borton: Some of the matters could arise as a conflict not unlike a conflict that might arise regardless of who is prosecuting. By way of example when Meridian Police or Firefighters need criminal services Meridian city or whoever that is doesn’t prosecute, often times they’ll conflict that and Boise City will cover it. As you all know there’s joint agreements between Boise City and Meridian City to assist each other in prosecution duties. Those situations are bound to occur. They are rare experiences from our review and our discussion with other area prosecutors and it is very rare. When those events do occur, there might clearly be a conflict. Really it’s a case by case analysis but should that conflict arise we would not need to come anywhere near compromising the work for the City of Meridian and those situations would probably conflict it out to the City of Boise. Similar to how a Boise City matter might be conflicted out in Ada County or Meridian City might cover, should a Boise City firefighter be charged with a crime or similar fashion. From what we’ve reviewed it’s a really rare situation when that arises and we don’t anticipate that coming up a great deal. De Weerd: If there is a conflict how would that work with your contract. Would you then chip it out or would the city then take it out of a different budget account. I was just curious as to how that works. I don’t know if Joe is the one to answer that. Borton: It is my understanding that it has not been billed out or contracted out separately and perhaps that’s because it’s a rare situation and you might know better than I but it’s a situation where Boise had merely covered the matter. I don’t think and I’m not aware of specific statistics on conflicts in that situation and I’m making reference to a couple situations where I know a Meridian firefighter had a particular charge against him. I don’t know if those statistics are kept. I’m Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 20 of 31 just aware that it is rare and I don’t believe that a separate accounting is made for that. Nary: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Nary. Nary: I can also assist in answering that question. There is no cost to the City of Meridian or the City of Boise the agreements between all of the prosecuting agencies. Because when it does happen, it is infrequent enough and secondarily it tends to work itself out. Meridian will send some cases to Boise on a conflict and Boise will return that as well they will send some to Garden City or the County. So there isn’t any cost assessed to any of these. Bird: Just a joint power agreement. Nary: Correct. Bird: It’s like that yes, just like our pleas for fire. Corrie: Well I know everybody is sitting out here in front. You are qualified to be a prosecutor and I know they are a defender. Council any other questions? Bird: No, does the staff have any? Corrie: Staff. Okay. You all know that Stacy is our finance director and Pauline is the Human Resource and Chief Worley. Those are the ones that would be using that service. Okay. Tammy did you have something. (Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members) Corrie: Any of you want to say anything you are certainly welcome to. Joe did an elegant job. Borton: One of the matters and let me highlight one other issue that I might have covered but I want to make sure I address it because its one of the distinctions between two of the (inaudible) and that is the size and the capacity of the staff available to service the contract. It’s no question that Boise City one of the prosecutors has a vast majority of prosecutors and resources. There is no question about that. The critical analysis that we made and what we think this Council should make is what are the specific resources necessary to service this contract. From all of our evaluation and review of materials and specific review of the case load and case volume from the current pasture of the Meridian City prosecutor that can be done with two three prosecutors, it can be. The situation has not arisen where you need six prosecutors for Meridian City cases at one time. It just hasn’t arisen, that volume is not there. The current prosecutors have Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 21 of 31 operated with two. Right now they are operating with one and its difficult but from all of our assessment on case load volume and this might speak highly of the Meridian Police Department and its ability to bring cases to swift resolutions and do matters properly on the front end. Jury trials are very rare. Full days where a prosecutor is stuck with one particular defendant in a case is very rare. That’s a critical distinction to make because initial reaction might be that you need a large number of prosecutors, you need 22, 25 people. They can probably provide more services than five or six. I strongly disagree. I would argue that point till the sun goes down because sheer numbers, sheer volume is not what services this contract of having numerous, numerous prosecutors with numerous changes is not what services this contract. You will have two no matter who works on this contract for the City of Meridian you will have two people maybe really one. Hopefully one point of contact, that’s it. That’s the critical distinction which really levels the playing field and which this Council needs to be aware of. Our firm has analyzed in great depth that concern and has concluded that we can absolutely provide those services and most particular that single point of consistent Meridian local contact which no other bidder can provide and which can service this contract the better end of the same capacity as all other bidders. That is a point I don’t think we spelled out in great detail in our written proposal but it is critical for this Council to be aware of when trying to determine what type of coverage issues might be needed done on Fort Street. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: Joe were you aware of what our budgeted amount for next year is coming into the bidding process? Borton: We were aware somewhat. I saw it through its development stages as I sit here today I don’t know the exact number. Really Council President de Weerd what we had to do aside from budget figures when we started our assessment of this opportunity is try and determine what it is we need to do to provide complete and adequate services for the City of Meridian. To do that it cost 100,00 a month that’s what we would’ve been. Really we had to make an assessment not only on and I understand you are working budget constraints and have some difficult decisions to make but the proposal that we presented is all encompassing and its one in which is honest and accurately depicts the services we can provide. When we stand here today presenting to you in writing and all of us before you today we do so with integrity, honesty, and honor. We do so to make sure you know exactly what we will and what we wont provide and I think our oral presentation, our written presentation covers that. To answer your question on the back end the answer is no. The specific amount we are not particularly aware of. We are aware of what we need to do and what we can provide the City of Meridian. Some of the items in our request for proposal, I’d highlighted on an alternate billing method some of the issues and we’ve discussed this at length Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 22 of 31 amongst each other is if the city should feel inclined to discuss different ways to finance the contract to bill it the services be the hourly piece mail flat rate. Those are all considerations we are open to but we felt it important for this Council to have a clear picture big picture idea of what expenses we are entitled and obligated to present to the City of Meridian to provide complete services. We are open to discussions for different methods to fit the budget. De Weerd: One more question, its you have a fixed rate of 24,000 dollars per month which totals up to your proposal and then you have process service fees exhibit costs other costs that would be itemized and billed to the city on a monthly basis. Is that included in the 24,000 or addition to the 24,000? Borton: Council President De Weerd that’s the matter that after discussing with the present prosecutors would be billed separately above and beyond. Some of the things maybe it would help in the budgeting process that we would be willing to do is go over a historical analysis and some of those costs and expenses and try and extrapolate from prior budget figures and come up with a set figure whether they be included in a flat fee amount or not those are costs that have been presently billed separately to the City and our proposal as it exists now would not change that. De Weerd: I have no further questions. Corrie: Any other questions? I guess they don’t. You did a good job again and I appreciate you coming to night and giving us presentation and Council will consider everything that you said and go from there. Borton: Thank you Mayor Corrie, I appreciate you for your time and consideration. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor, I would like to say that the one strength that you really have and that is knowledge of our community and knowing what the face of Meridian is and yes its hard to put a price to that but your firm has integrity and a great reputation and we appreciate your proposal. Borton: Thank you for that sentence, I appreciate it. Corrie: I’m going to give you about a nine-minute break. (Break at 7:21 p.m.) (Return from break 7:30) Item 5. At 7:30 pm – Presentation on RFP for City Prosecutor / Criminal Legal Services by Garden City: Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 23 of 31 Corrie: Okay its 7:30 and we are back from our recess. We have the presentation on the RFP for City Prosecutor Criminal Legal Services by Garden City at this time. Before we start Mr. Nary would like to make a comment. Nary: Mr. Mayor just for the record and so that these proposers know as well. Due to some of the language in the City Code I have excused myself from voting or deliberating on these so I wasn’t going to participate or ask any questions or anything but the Council did decide prior to the first presentation that I could sit up here with the rest of the Council. I wasn’t going to be asking any question, deliberating, or voting on this particular contract. Just so you knew. Corrie: With that you are up. Thank you. Neikel: Good Evening. I’m Sandra Neikel, the City Attorney for Garden City. Mayor Corrie, Council members, Chief. I just want to thank you in advance for taking the time to read our proposal. I want to introduce you to our Legal Department and just take a few moments to emphasize why I think this is a partnership that would be a great idea for both of our cities. First of all I’d like to take the time to introduce Glaida and Pam Thompson with our office. Glaida and Pam have both been with Garden City for over 15 years, very dedicated. It’s funny when I joined Garden City Pam asked me how I thought it would be work very independent women as she put it. What she was euphemistically saying to me in a nice way is we know we are stuff and we don’t need very much supervision. Wonderfully that is how it is. Glaida and Pam are dedicated professionals who take pride in what they do, it shows, and I can always count on them to do great work. Our newest addition to the office is Paul Brindle. Corrie: Paul welcome. Meikel: Paul has been practicing law for over four years and he recently came on this is well we are going into our third month with Garden City. Paul and I had a three hour interview and I’m not sure again who was interviewing who but Paul is a brilliant attorney who has great judgment and does great work and I don’t think he’s trying to score too many points when he tells me that he really likes his job cause it shows in his work. Basically that’s why I feel very lucky cause I work with people who are dedicated, smart, experienced people who care about what they do and they care about the people around them. I’m really lucky. That’s the first reason I think that Garden City would be a good choice for you. I think Meridian needs a firm that is dedicated to law enforcement and what I mean by that is I think you need a firm with people who believe in Police Officers because when they do they will give them the respect and the representation that they deserve. I think you need seasoned prosecutors who are mature and are easy to work with because -- and that’s what you will find. Because bottom line this is a partnership and I believe that how successful, how well we work together is going to determine how successful we are together. Just to look at Garden City and see how are success in terms of where we’ve been and one of the ways we do Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 24 of 31 that is looking at conviction rates and granted I don’t think this gives a complete picture but I do think it gives a good indicator. Currently in the year 2000 our office has a 91 percent conviction rate. I think that is very good overall for infractions and misdemeanors. More specifically on DUI’s we have a 99 percent conviction rate now that includes reductions to lesser-included offenses. Ninety- two percent of the time that conviction is to the original DUI charge. Now I believe that most of that is due to the high caliber of Police Officers that we have out there making those arrests writing thorough reports but I also think importantly what you are considering is your prosecutors and frankly we are prosecutors who are willing to go to trial. Can win at trial and we aren’t going to compromise cases to manage your docket and I think that is a real important consideration for you because frankly bigger isn’t necessarily better in choosing your firm. The reason is because when you have, the more prosecutors you have the harder it is to control the quality of the representation and maintain consistency in your results in your cases. I think the size that we would generate together would be effective but not too large. Let’s look at domestic violence related cases. In terms of what we’ve been doing, simple battery rates conviction rate 75 percent, that’s a good conviction rate. Fifty-six percent of which are to the original charge. Terms of looking at domestic violence specifically, our conviction rate is at 84 percent, 21 percent of the time that’s to the original charge. My understanding is that is consistent with national averages, but frankly our Police Department and our prosecution team is dedicated to reducing violence related offenses and when I first came on board Pam was wonderful with working with me and changing our subpoena policy to contact the victims earlier on. Subpoena them earlier on instead of waiting until you get to that first hearing. Consequently we have seen improvements on the results in our cases. Another thing Chief Jim Bensley, he’s been wonderful, he is working with me too in that aspect. What he is doing is he is increasing his training on Police Officers on specifically domestic violence. Another thing we are doing is going to implement a pilot program to videotape victim’s statements at the scene, which is an exciting prospect. In terms of officer training while we mention that I think another benefit to a union between Meridian and Garden City is the fact that our officers, my understanding is that they have who are all on on Fridays are officers are the same. That would allow for joint legal training of our police forces, which I think would be much more cost effective then, for both of us. Like I mentioned in the proposal I think this is a great opportunity to expand what we’ve already started with fine collections because if we combine our resources we’ll more effectively cover the court, cover the cases in terms of looking at how to do this in the first place. I did a little research with the Court Clerk’s Office and what I came up with is this. In terms of the last two years in 2001 Meridians case docket was 17 percent higher then Garden City but as of August this year Garden City is 11 percent higher then Meridian’s. We do have some fluctuation but essentially they are consistent and that they are going to essentially double our caseload if we go together. I think it’s a perfect way if we double our attorneys to combat both of our increasing caseloads. What I mean in terms of that specifically courtroom coverage, as you know there are about six courtrooms Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 25 of 31 with the domestic violence court that is coming in on Thursdays towards the end of this year or the first part of next year. That’s going to give you seven courtrooms. Essentially, we are covering a lot of basis with not a lot of people and we when you take a look at what we currently do. Garden City and Meridian are very similar. We both have one to two prosecutors out there covering that many courtrooms. I think its important for you to realize is that currently when we have only one prosecutor out there at a time each one of us, were all ready working together. Garden City and Meridian exchange cases on a daily basis, so that we can more effectively cover the courtroom. We aren’t running back and forth unnecessarily and I think you’ll find out if you talk to the prosecutors that you currently work with that when Meridian is in need, its Garden City who backs you up and vice versa. I’ve actually been helping Meridian and Garden City since I was a Prosecutor at Boise City and frankly that is part of the reason I got this job, because my (inaudible) knew that I worked hard and I was willing to work with a different community. I think that we have maintained that, we have that communication and that cooperation and frankly when other jurisdictions have told us both no, its Meridian and Garden City that have stuck together as a partner. Ironically, although to you I may be the new face or relatively new or unknown. It is very common for the judges to see Paul and I appear on a Meridian case cause it’s already happened. I think that is why I see this union as simply more of a formalization and an enhancement of a partnership that has been going on for several years. We’ve already developed a good repore with several of the officers that you have out at court. In fact we have a great repore with our own officers and I think that is a very important consideration for you as you go forward. Basically, our motto is we are out to create justice and I think we do that. If its bold I know but I want to tell you that I haven’t had officers come back to me and say with concern, why have you done this with my case and that’s because we believe in what they do and we work hard and try not to compromise their cases and we talk to them. I don’t think all the prosecutors can tell you that but I feel confident that we can. One thing that I like to do that you’ll see if we get this contract is we take the time to talk with our officers and we take the time to write closing sheets and explain why we do certain things. If we do different things then a judge will (inaudible) explain that too so you can see what we are doing on your behalf. Just in terms of combining the resources, what I think we would accomplish increasing the number of attorneys from two to basically what we have to four. Obviously, you are going to be able to cover more courtrooms simultaneously. Where we have overlapping duties like for example every morning we have probable cause hearings. Instead of us having two people out there like we currently do we would only have one. We are more efficiently covering those courtrooms. Also one thing that we both don’t do because we don’t have enough people is step in on arraignments in the afternoon sessions. We increase the number of people who will be able to step in on those more important cases and the judges are asking us to do that. We will be able to accomplish it. Basically the more attorneys that we have is going to allow them the out of court time to better prepare their cases and they are going to be able to respond to officers request for information and advice. Also Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 26 of 31 it’s going to increase the efficiency of the vacations scheduled for court leave and what I really am happy about is because we are going into this partnership on the fine enforcement officer. That’s going to allow the legal staff to concentrate more on the criminal cases preparation and victim witness coordination. I just wanted to touch on victim witness coordination because I think that a large organization may say to you hey we have a victim witness unit we can offer you. I can appreciate that and wow that’s great. I want you to understand that as a Boise Prosecutor, we didn’t have a victim witness unit so I have always considered it a luxury and basically I feel that it’s the prosecutor’s duty and its incumbent upon them to one make that communication and connect with the victim. Two help them understand that they have alternate resources available to them and three prepare them for trial and help them understand the process. Because its essentially the attorney who has to evaluate that individuals credibility and weigh the states case. They have to do it anyway and they better be doing it so essentially it’s a great thing but we have to do that work anyway. Now having said that. If you went with Garden City and it turned out to be a long-term relationship, which it definitely could be. I envision going after some grant funds to come up with a victim witness (inaudible) that would work not only with our prosecutors but that would be on call with our officers. They need that there too having said that in terms of a long-term relationship. I want you to understand that I realize that this maybe a transition for Meridian. That you may be looking at this for only a year. Your growing you may want to go in it with in house counsel yourself. We can help you do that and one of the biggest things I think that Meridian needs to consider is the fact that as you make this decision, is the fact that you do not have currently access to the criminal justice system, the ES 400 criminal system. When you have a private firm they don’t have access to that and it is a severe disadvantage for you currently because that is the information that you need to get the criminal background on every case so that your attorneys can make appropriate sentencing recommendations and get the appropriate sentences and you don’t have that. Unless your attorneys are spending hours at court in front of those terminals, you are missing out on most of your cases. Now Garden City has that capability we do have it on our system on every terminal in house. I think what makes us different from other entities is that we have an office policy that we use it and we diligently on every case look up the defendants criminal history because it makes a big difference in the results you get. Its not just that we are talking about how much jail an individual should receive or whether he should, but its also talking about how much in fines this city is going to get on that case. It’s a big issue and its something I think you need to consider but as an office policy, we do run those backgrounds and we do pay attention before we ever make a decision. Just a side note just in terms of our collections. In the last six months we have modified some of our policies and we have had some of the highest fine collections Garden City has ever had in our history in the last six months. Just an example where its appropriate and granted sentences need to be done on an individual case-by-case basis and not everybody can pay a fine, it doesn’t make sense. Where it’s appropriate we have asked for higher fines for example on drug related offenses and I tease the Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 27 of 31 defense attorneys in the last six months I’ve been trying to get them used to this because I say to them look they’ve been asking for 75 dollars in costs since 1994 what happens with inflation. My thoughts are personally if you have money to use elicit drugs then you have money to pay back the jurisdictions led to arrest you for them. Those are the kinds of things that we are doing and considering. In terms of technical abilities the other things we are looking at is the Ada County’s new world system we are going to take that online. Boise’s Fine Enforcement Program and Boise has been generous enough to give us the victim witness database that they currently use. One thing I also want to do is this in this next year and the council has secured funding for it. That is a new legal scheduling database and the reason is this, we currently calendar manually. We write down on sheet what all the cases were. Meridian does the same thing. The problem with that is, that doesn’t tell the attorney where they are at, what courtroom they are in. It just doesn’t have enough data and it can’t be altered obviously. At Garden City, we take an extra step and we do a daily calendar that’s computerized that tells them what courtroom they are going to be in. It lays it out so we can be a little more efficient as we go through the day. That takes another step. What I want to do is either acquire or develop a legal scheduling program that will obviously shorten up the steps that our people are doing and put it into one, secure the information, make it more accessible so we’ve got a better system. The Council has been willing to do that so hopefully we’ll have that online fast as fast as we can get our hands on it. One of the most important things and I’m sure your chief of police is concerned about and you are too. Response time and capabilities especially for emergencies. Paul and I both carry cell phones 24-7, during the day Garden City’s location were about 10.1 miles away, check that out. In an off-hour emergency, actually I live on the Boise Meridian border. Paul lives in Eagle so we can be on site quickly and we are available by phone. I think that one of the biggest thing is when you are choosing attorneys is you want attorneys that like Police Officers and enjoy working with them and Paul and I do. You know if you have to get up in the middle of the night I guess that’s the way, it is and we are happy to do it. I think that is one of the considerations you probably have as you are making your choice. Obviously if we double what we are doing in terms of attorneys we’ll be able to respond quickly. Terms of the budget, I think that the proposals pretty well laid out on how the money will be spent but I can answer questions on that. In terms of budgets, I broke about even with the first year’s budget that I didn’t set, this year’s budget I’m running a little under budget, running under it. In terms of the proposed budget I think it is efficient I think its lean I think its effective. Also, I hear that you are taking on several new officers and I want to congratulate you on that but I also recognize that that means an increase in your caseload. I think that this amount of prosecutors would be sufficient for that but you always have to have a back up plan and we do and City Council took that into consideration, we did discuss that. If it comes to a situation where both of our dockets increase substantially to the point in the next year that we need to either contract out or hire another attorney our council has committed to that. We will satisfy your contract and rest assure whatever we have to do. If awarded the Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 28 of 31 contract we would immediately begin hiring additional staff. I do have people online that are very interested very experienced. I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. I think that covers what I think is some of the most significant reasons why this would be a good partnership so on behalf of the legal department the Mayor of Garden City, the City Council. Oh and thank you for giving me this opportunity to meet with you. I just want you to know that I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think that this is a win win opportunity for both of our cities. Thank you and if you have any questions I would be happy to answer them. Corrie: Thank you Sandra. Nice presentation. Council any questions? Bird: I have none right now. Very nice presentation. Corrie: Sandra I had one on the Fine Collection Officer. On the one you have now is that full time or is that part time? Meikel: It is, the majority of her time is spent for fine collections, but she is also wonderful in helping out myself as a legal assistant and she also helps Pam do criminal cases. That’s why we think that this is an exciting opportunity with both of us going into it full time because essentially that would allow us to both have a full time fine enforcement person dedicated to that. With the ability to also do subpoena, call offs for our officers. It’s a full time but Glaida has been willing to do all kinds of things. Corrie: Any other questions? De Weerd: I have none. Corrie: Well like I – staff any questions? Chief? Worley: Thank you Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. Sandy a couple questions as I understand your proposal you do not propose having any routine on site presence in the City of Meridian, is that correct? Meikel: As for having an office I didn’t know if that was available to do. If it is that’s wonderful. What I did budget for is this. I assumed that basically we would need to at least be out here two to three times a week. That’s how I budgeted the mileage portion of the budget. You know that was just an estimate but frankly it could be more but if you needed someone a certain hours a week. It’s just that I didn’t assume make any assumptions about what the capabilities were or what your expectations were. I just knew that obviously we are going to be need to be in person and so I budgeted mileage for her a little over two to three times a week. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 29 of 31 Worley: Thank you and secondly you proposed hiring two attorneys. What role if any seeing do you see the City of Meridian and specifically the Police Department having in the selection of those attorneys. Meikel: Well you know we could do this the same way I was intending to deal with the Fine Collection Officer -- ***End Of Side Two*** Meikel: -- going into a partnership there. That could be considered. In terms of the attorneys I haven’t thought about it that way. I assumed that Garden City would have the final say because they are Garden City Employees. If you wanted to be on or around of interviews. That would be wonderful. Worley: Thank you Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Thank you. Any other staff questions or comments? Okay Sandra thank you very much, thanks to your staff for being here tonight. We appreciate that. (Inaudible). Item 6. At 8:15 pm – Possible Discussion and Deliberation of Presentation and Proposal for City Prosecutor / Criminal Legal Services: Corrie: Council that does take care of Number 5 possible discussion of deliberation of presentation and proposal for city prosecutor / criminal legal services. Bird: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mr. Bird. Bird: First of all I would like to thank the Department Heads that are here and also the ones that are not here and replied to us on these proposals. Certainly appreciate it. Very good always for us to look at. I for one know that I was the one who said we could make a decision but I don’t want to discuss or make a decision until we get the proposals from the civil. The other three the other proposals and see what some of this is going to impact our budget and stuff. That would be my preference. If I speak for myself. De Weerd: Mr. Mayor. Corrie: Mrs. de Weerd. De Weerd: I would agree that I would like to see it discussed after we conclude all the presentations and be able to go from there. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 30 of 31 Corrie: Mrs. McCandless. McCandless: I would agree with that (inaudible) Corrie: So we definitely are going to get a tie vote on this type (inaudible). I do agree. Hearing that we will I think its Wednesday night we have again at 6:00. McCandless: We only have two Wednesday right? Corrie: Just two. (Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members) Corrie: With that I will see that Mr. Berg has his. Berg: I’m sorry to interrupt you Mayor but I was just curious if the Council and the Mayor needed any more information from any of the departments or we’ll try to get you some information on the budgetary limits that we have budgeted for. Because one might be high and one might be low. You know what the monies are that we have allocated on those line items. Also, how we have operated as far as the itemized bill. You can see that we have been getting that and that is a way that Bill Nichols has been able to determine how much prosecution and how much Civil. Is there any other additional information also, I relayed to the Mayor that I was going to contact White Peterson to be here earlier so that meeting could take place sooner and I was going to re-notice it as such. Do you want to maybe try to deliberate that evening or are you just going to have a special meeting another time. Bird: Mr. Mayor, by eliminating one I think we will have time to deliberate. We don’t have to make a decision but we could certainly need to deliberate. We would have all the proposals before us at that time. That would be my preference if it were yours Mayor. Corrie: Fine with me I have no objection to it. Bird: I realize that you don’t vote on this but as a Council we would like your opinion too. You have to work with t okay. Corrie: Certainly, I’m not going to be shy about that. Bird: Well you have to work with them more then we do. Corrie: All right very good. With that being said, thank you Mr. Nary. I will entertain a motion then to close this hearing and proceed tomorrow. De Weerd: So moved. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 30, 2002 Page 31 of 31 Nary: Second. Corrie: Okay motion made and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. 8:00 the meeting is adjourned. We’ll see you here tomorrow at 6:00. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:00 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: / / ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE ATTESTED: WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK