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Watch: Travis Goff gives updates on the renovation, phase two
Watch: Travis Goff gives updates on the renovation, phase two
Watch: Travis Goff gives updates on the renovation, phase two

Published on: 09/20/2024

This news was posted by Oregon Today News

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Travis Goff met with reporters about funding, phase two, the budget with NIL changes and more.

News Source : https://kansas.rivals.com/news/watch-travis-goff-gives-updates-on-the-renovation-phase-two

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Media Release September 20, 2024 Sheriff Statement Regarding Deflection Program On September 18, 2024 I provided a public comment on Lincoln County’s Deflection Program during the Board of Commissioners meeting. Since I was limited in time, I am providing more information and facts for our community members. Here is a quick overview of Oregon’s Deflection program under HB 4002. In November 2023, I worked with a group of stakeholders from around the state to create the framework of HB 4002. This group knew that ballot measure 110 was a failure and wanted to provide a path to improve what the public voted on to meet the intent of the bill- to get people suffering from addiction the help they need to recover. The bill went through significant changes throughout the legislative process, but in the end, what passed is good legislation to address the challenges. I met with legislators and testified on several occasions regarding this bill throughout the short session. From my knowledge of the bill, I was prepared to start the process in Lincoln County and was very optimistic in our ability to stand up a successful deflection program to effectively serve and help our community. My belief was based on two key factors. First, we have excellent community providers vested in serving our community and have worked on several collaborative programs delivering community-based services to those suffering from substance use, behavioral and co-occurring disorders. We have done this collaboratively, efficiently and with a tremendous amount of trust in each other with a common goal of helping our community. The second factor was my belief our Lincoln County Board of Commissioners would be supportive of a deflection program in Lincoln County and through their leadership would demonstrate trust in those actively working on the development of a program that would best serve our community. This was a huge opportunity I had been waiting for and I was excited to get started. Based on an extremely compressed timeline to implement a deflection program by September 1, 2024 when the bill was set to go into effect, I felt it was best to present the topic of implementing a Lincoln County deflection program during our Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC) meeting on March 29, 2024. This was an open public meeting. During that meeting, the council developed a subcommittee/workgroup with some members from the main LPSCC and others, including treatment providers, detox facilities, health and human services, community corrections, defense attorney, partners from the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians, etc. A related note, the next LPSCC meeting is scheduled for September 27, 2024 at 10:30 am and is a public virtual meeting. All are welcome to attend and deflection is on the agenda. Based on the manner in which our deflection subcommittee/workgroup was established, I want to address why we did not make it a public meeting. To be very clear, it did not fall within the public meeting laws and was simply a workgroup focused on developing a program. Our decision aligned with a similar LPSCC subcommittee we had for several years that addressed mental illness in our community. It too, was created from LPSCC, but was never a public meeting. We did report our progress to the LPSCC and have with this subcommittee as well. Another example would be a weekly Animal Shelter project meeting we attend to address the purchase and building of a new animal shelter. We have been meeting every week for over two years and making recommendations, decisions and advising. This is not a public meeting. Another indicator that it wasn’t a public meeting is the fact we only had one commissioner attend, that being Commissioner Miller, in the case of our deflection program workgroup. After we received concerns from County Legal Counsel about the deflection workgroup, I reviewed the Oregon Government Ethics Commission (OGEC) website to see if we did need to make this a public meeting in the future. The OGEC indicates that: “The Public Meetings Law applies to any governing body of a public body. A “public body” is the state, any regional council, county, city or district, or any municipal or public corporation; or any agency of those entities, such as a board, department, commission, council, bureau, committee, subcommittee, or advisory group. A key indicator of whether an entity is a public body is whether it was created by or pursuant to the state constitution, a statute, administrative rule, order, intergovernmental agreement, bylaw, or other official act. However, a single official, such as the governor, is not a public body for purposes of meetings law.” Based on this description, specifically the sentence that states, “A key indicator of whether an entity is a public body is whether it was created by or pursuant to the state constitution, a statute, administrative rule, order, intergovernmental agreement, bylaw, or other official act”, this subcommittee was not created by any of the above. If, the LPSCC committee would have made a formal motion, vote and approval to create this subcommittee, then yes, it would have been a public meeting. But, that was not how this subcommittee was formed, just like the animal shelter meeting and several other meetings that occur every day in government. I also completed a quick query from Sheriffs around the state regarding their workgroups or subcommittees and 7 of 9 replied that their workgroups were not public meetings. Out of the other two, one had not started discussions and the other is discussing the matter in their full LPSCC committee. Regardless of the type of group that was established, there are processes in place within the county government for request and approval of workforce positions and budgetary decisions through the authority of the commissioners. For example, when the group recommended the deflection coordinator be placed in the District Attorney’s office, I prepared a memorandum addressed to the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners on August 15, 2024 asking for their approval. The Board of Commissioners have the authority to approve the number and type of positions within an elected official’s office. This memorandum contained information requested by the Board of Commissioners (cost, job description, etc.). This memorandum would allow the Board of Commissioners to discuss this topic during a meeting and make a decision. The decision would have allowed the District Attorney to open the recruiting process for the deflection coordinator which is a required element of HB 4002 to operate a deflection program. Since there was no response to this request and with the September 1, 2024 date growing near, County Administrator Tim Johnson was contacted around August 29, 2024 and he advised me the Commissioners placed the position on hold and it appeared that it would be placed in parole and probation. County Counsel set a meeting (not public) for September 3, 2024 and the District Attorney and I were advised by legal counsel Kristin Yuille that the coordinator would reside in parole in probation, with little explanation, except that the Commissioners wanted it to be successful. Ms. Yuille indicated this decision was an administrative decision. There was a scheduled deflection workgroup meeting scheduled for noon on September 3, 2024, following that meeting. At the deflection meeting, we advised the attendees the decision about the deflection coordinator was put on hold. It was indicated that Commissioner Miller would have this placed on the September 18, 2024 Board of Commissioner’s meeting for discussion and hopefully a decision in order to move the process along to start our program in Lincoln County. However, it was not on the agenda for September 18, 2024 and I provided my comments during the normal public comment section of the meeting. Commissioner Hall posted her statement following the meeting for YachatsNews. I want to address inaccuracies in her statement. Commissioner Hall indicates that “the majority of counties are placing it in their Human Services Department or with private treatment providers. A far smaller number placed it in law enforcement.” Here is the data from counties throughout Oregon: DEFLECTION PROGRAM COORDINATING AGENCIES Coordinating Agency - number and percentage Sheriff's Office - 5 (18.5%) County - 6 (22.2%) District Attorney's Office - 4 (14.8%) Community Corrections - 5 (18.5%) Behavioral Health Organization - 6 (22.2%) Local Public Safety Coord. Council - 1 (3.7%) As you can see, it is mixed around the State. If you combine the Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office and Community Corrections (2 coordinators in Community Corrections are in counties where Community Corrections is managed by the Sheriff’s Office, unlike in Lincoln County), you will see 14 out of 27 counties have placed their coordinators in a public safety agency. HB 4002 was created to provide counties with the discretion to place the coordinator where they thought it would work best. Commissioner Hall indicates she was “astonished” to learn from Counsel Yuille that no notes had been taken. The workgroup has plenty of notes and documents from all of the meetings since April in our workgroup’s shared electronic folder. When asked, we added County Administrator Tim Johnson to the electronic folder to view these documents for a staff report he was directed to present to commissioners. Administrator Johnson had access to all of the information from the workgroup. If Counsel Yuille or Commissioner Hall would have asked to be included, we would have included them also. Commissioner Miller is already in the electronic folder for this group and has access. They are also public documents and if anyone submits a public records request for these documents, they would be provided to you. In Commissioner Hall’s statement, she mentions the Board of Commissioners did not authorize the committee. She is exactly right on this point, because if they had authorized and appointed members, such as LPSCC, then it would have been subject to the public meetings law. In this case, the Board of Commissioners did not make any appointments; this was simply a workgroup established through LPSCC. Commissioner Hall, in her statement, indicated Mr. Johnson was hampered by the lack of meeting minutes, yet he is included in the electronic folder group so he could have reviewed all of the information for his report. Commissioner Hall also indicated there are an estimated three cases per month that would qualify for deflection. This is a completely inaccurate statement. If there were only three, why would we need so much money from the State to adequately serve participants? Wouldn’t a mere three cases a month indicate we don’t even have a problem in Lincoln County? This estimate was based on the number of measure 110 “E” violation citations written in Lincoln County. Based on the measure 110 failure, law enforcement around the state, and specifically in Lincoln County, wrote very few citations. This was not indicative of the actual number of violations, or potential deflection eligible participants. When the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) was estimating the possible number of potential deflection eligible participants around the state, they did not use the number of measure 110 E violations. They went back prior to Covid and collected data on the number of drug violation arrests. They indicated this was a rough estimate as so much has changed. We really do not know how many people we will be able to help in Lincoln County until we can gather data over a period with HB 4002 in effect. I can, however, tell you from September 1, 2024 through September 16, 2024 we have had a total of 13 people booked into the Lincoln County Jail for a “drug enforcement misdemeanor” (this is the unclassified misdemeanor created from measure 110), that could have been deflection eligible had the program and coordinator been operational. This is important to know as the number of possible deflection participants will be much higher than three per month. The bottom line is we need to get our deflection program up and running. The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners need to address this issue immediately, communicate effectively, and trust the workgroup, trust their recommendations, and know that they are working on behalf of our community. ### This media release, including working links to the articles and websites referenced can be found here: Lincoln Co. Sheriff's Office newswww.flashalert.netNews releases, emergency alerts and school closures via the FlashAlert.net Newswire
Media Release September 20, 2024 Sheriff Statement Regarding Deflection Program On September 18, 2024 I provided a public comment on Lincoln County’s Deflection Program during the Board of Commissioners meeting. Since I was limited in time, I am providing more information and facts for our community members. Here is a quick overview of Oregon’s Deflection program under HB 4002. In November 2023, I worked with a group of stakeholders from around the state to create the framework of HB 4002. This group knew that ballot measure 110 was a failure and wanted to provide a path to improve what the public voted on to meet the intent of the bill- to get people suffering from addiction the help they need to recover. The bill went through significant changes throughout the legislative process, but in the end, what passed is good legislation to address the challenges. I met with legislators and testified on several occasions regarding this bill throughout the short session. From my knowledge of the bill, I was prepared to start the process in Lincoln County and was very optimistic in our ability to stand up a successful deflection program to effectively serve and help our community. My belief was based on two key factors. First, we have excellent community providers vested in serving our community and have worked on several collaborative programs delivering community-based services to those suffering from substance use, behavioral and co-occurring disorders. We have done this collaboratively, efficiently and with a tremendous amount of trust in each other with a common goal of helping our community. The second factor was my belief our Lincoln County Board of Commissioners would be supportive of a deflection program in Lincoln County and through their leadership would demonstrate trust in those actively working on the development of a program that would best serve our community. This was a huge opportunity I had been waiting for and I was excited to get started. Based on an extremely compressed timeline to implement a deflection program by September 1, 2024 when the bill was set to go into effect, I felt it was best to present the topic of implementing a Lincoln County deflection program during our Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC) meeting on March 29, 2024. This was an open public meeting. During that meeting, the council developed a subcommittee/workgroup with some members from the main LPSCC and others, including treatment providers, detox facilities, health and human services, community corrections, defense attorney, partners from the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians, etc. A related note, the next LPSCC meeting is scheduled for September 27, 2024 at 10:30 am and is a public virtual meeting. All are welcome to attend and deflection is on the agenda. Based on the manner in which our deflection subcommittee/workgroup was established, I want to address why we did not make it a public meeting. To be very clear, it did not fall within the public meeting laws and was simply a workgroup focused on developing a program. Our decision aligned with a similar LPSCC subcommittee we had for several years that addressed mental illness in our community. It too, was created from LPSCC, but was never a public meeting. We did report our progress to the LPSCC and have with this subcommittee as well. Another example would be a weekly Animal Shelter project meeting we attend to address the purchase and building of a new animal shelter. We have been meeting every week for over two years and making recommendations, decisions and advising. This is not a public meeting. Another indicator that it wasn’t a public meeting is the fact we only had one commissioner attend, that being Commissioner Miller, in the case of our deflection program workgroup. After we received concerns from County Legal Counsel about the deflection workgroup, I reviewed the Oregon Government Ethics Commission (OGEC) website to see if we did need to make this a public meeting in the future. The OGEC indicates that: “The Public Meetings Law applies to any governing body of a public body. A “public body” is the state, any regional council, county, city or district, or any municipal or public corporation; or any agency of those entities, such as a board, department, commission, council, bureau, committee, subcommittee, or advisory group. A key indicator of whether an entity is a public body is whether it was created by or pursuant to the state constitution, a statute, administrative rule, order, intergovernmental agreement, bylaw, or other official act. However, a single official, such as the governor, is not a public body for purposes of meetings law.” Based on this description, specifically the sentence that states, “A key indicator of whether an entity is a public body is whether it was created by or pursuant to the state constitution, a statute, administrative rule, order, intergovernmental agreement, bylaw, or other official act”, this subcommittee was not created by any of the above. If, the LPSCC committee would have made a formal motion, vote and approval to create this subcommittee, then yes, it would have been a public meeting. But, that was not how this subcommittee was formed, just like the animal shelter meeting and several other meetings that occur every day in government. I also completed a quick query from Sheriffs around the state regarding their workgroups or subcommittees and 7 of 9 replied that their workgroups were not public meetings. Out of the other two, one had not started discussions and the other is discussing the matter in their full LPSCC committee. Regardless of the type of group that was established, there are processes in place within the county government for request and approval of workforce positions and budgetary decisions through the authority of the commissioners. For example, when the group recommended the deflection coordinator be placed in the District Attorney’s office, I prepared a memorandum addressed to the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners on August 15, 2024 asking for their approval. The Board of Commissioners have the authority to approve the number and type of positions within an elected official’s office. This memorandum contained information requested by the Board of Commissioners (cost, job description, etc.). This memorandum would allow the Board of Commissioners to discuss this topic during a meeting and make a decision. The decision would have allowed the District Attorney to open the recruiting process for the deflection coordinator which is a required element of HB 4002 to operate a deflection program. Since there was no response to this request and with the September 1, 2024 date growing near, County Administrator Tim Johnson was contacted around August 29, 2024 and he advised me the Commissioners placed the position on hold and it appeared that it would be placed in parole and probation. County Counsel set a meeting (not public) for September 3, 2024 and the District Attorney and I were advised by legal counsel Kristin Yuille that the coordinator would reside in parole in probation, with little explanation, except that the Commissioners wanted it to be successful. Ms. Yuille indicated this decision was an administrative decision. There was a scheduled deflection workgroup meeting scheduled for noon on September 3, 2024, following that meeting. At the deflection meeting, we advised the attendees the decision about the deflection coordinator was put on hold. It was indicated that Commissioner Miller would have this placed on the September 18, 2024 Board of Commissioner’s meeting for discussion and hopefully a decision in order to move the process along to start our program in Lincoln County. However, it was not on the agenda for September 18, 2024 and I provided my comments during the normal public comment section of the meeting. Commissioner Hall posted her statement following the meeting for YachatsNews. I want to address inaccuracies in her statement. Commissioner Hall indicates that “the majority of counties are placing it in their Human Services Department or with private treatment providers. A far smaller number placed it in law enforcement.” Here is the data from counties throughout Oregon: DEFLECTION PROGRAM COORDINATING AGENCIES Coordinating Agency - number and percentage Sheriff's Office - 5 (18.5%) County - 6 (22.2%) District Attorney's Office - 4 (14.8%) Community Corrections - 5 (18.5%) Behavioral Health Organization - 6 (22.2%) Local Public Safety Coord. Council - 1 (3.7%) As you can see, it is mixed around the State. If you combine the Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office and Community Corrections (2 coordinators in Community Corrections are in counties where Community Corrections is managed by the Sheriff’s Office, unlike in Lincoln County), you will see 14 out of 27 counties have placed their coordinators in a public safety agency. HB 4002 was created to provide counties with the discretion to place the coordinator where they thought it would work best. Commissioner Hall indicates she was “astonished” to learn from Counsel Yuille that no notes had been taken. The workgroup has plenty of notes and documents from all of the meetings since April in our workgroup’s shared electronic folder. When asked, we added County Administrator Tim Johnson to the electronic folder to view these documents for a staff report he was directed to present to commissioners. Administrator Johnson had access to all of the information from the workgroup. If Counsel Yuille or Commissioner Hall would have asked to be included, we would have included them also. Commissioner Miller is already in the electronic folder for this group and has access. They are also public documents and if anyone submits a public records request for these documents, they would be provided to you. In Commissioner Hall’s statement, she mentions the Board of Commissioners did not authorize the committee. She is exactly right on this point, because if they had authorized and appointed members, such as LPSCC, then it would have been subject to the public meetings law. In this case, the Board of Commissioners did not make any appointments; this was simply a workgroup established through LPSCC. Commissioner Hall, in her statement, indicated Mr. Johnson was hampered by the lack of meeting minutes, yet he is included in the electronic folder group so he could have reviewed all of the information for his report. Commissioner Hall also indicated there are an estimated three cases per month that would qualify for deflection. This is a completely inaccurate statement. If there were only three, why would we need so much money from the State to adequately serve participants? Wouldn’t a mere three cases a month indicate we don’t even have a problem in Lincoln County? This estimate was based on the number of measure 110 “E” violation citations written in Lincoln County. Based on the measure 110 failure, law enforcement around the state, and specifically in Lincoln County, wrote very few citations. This was not indicative of the actual number of violations, or potential deflection eligible participants. When the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) was estimating the possible number of potential deflection eligible participants around the state, they did not use the number of measure 110 E violations. They went back prior to Covid and collected data on the number of drug violation arrests. They indicated this was a rough estimate as so much has changed. We really do not know how many people we will be able to help in Lincoln County until we can gather data over a period with HB 4002 in effect. I can, however, tell you from September 1, 2024 through September 16, 2024 we have had a total of 13 people booked into the Lincoln County Jail for a “drug enforcement misdemeanor” (this is the unclassified misdemeanor created from measure 110), that could have been deflection eligible had the program and coordinator been operational. This is important to know as the number of possible deflection participants will be much higher than three per month. The bottom line is we need to get our deflection program up and running. The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners need to address this issue immediately, communicate effectively, and trust the workgroup, trust their recommendations, and know that they are working on behalf of our community. ### This media release, including working links to the articles and websites referenced can be found here: Lincoln Co. Sheriff's Office newswww.flashalert.netNews releases, emergency alerts and school closures via the FlashAlert.net Newswire
Media Release September 20, 2024 Sheriff Statement Regarding Deflection Program On September 18, 2024 I provided a public comment on Lincoln County’s Deflection Program during the Board of Commissioners meeting. Since I was limited in time, I am providing more information and facts for our community members. Here is a quick overview of Oregon’s Deflection program under HB 4002. In November 2023, I worked with a group of stakeholders from around the state to create the framework of HB 4002. This group knew that ballot measure 110 was a failure and wanted to provide a path to improve what the public voted on to meet the intent of the bill- to get people suffering from addiction the help they need to recover. The bill went through significant changes throughout the legislative process, but in the end, what passed is good legislation to address the challenges. I met with legislators and testified on several occasions regarding this bill throughout the short session. From my knowledge of the bill, I was prepared to start the process in Lincoln County and was very optimistic in our ability to stand up a successful deflection program to effectively serve and help our community. My belief was based on two key factors. First, we have excellent community providers vested in serving our community and have worked on several collaborative programs delivering community-based services to those suffering from substance use, behavioral and co-occurring disorders. We have done this collaboratively, efficiently and with a tremendous amount of trust in each other with a common goal of helping our community. The second factor was my belief our Lincoln County Board of Commissioners would be supportive of a deflection program in Lincoln County and through their leadership would demonstrate trust in those actively working on the development of a program that would best serve our community. This was a huge opportunity I had been waiting for and I was excited to get started. Based on an extremely compressed timeline to implement a deflection program by September 1, 2024 when the bill was set to go into effect, I felt it was best to present the topic of implementing a Lincoln County deflection program during our Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC) meeting on March 29, 2024. This was an open public meeting. During that meeting, the council developed a subcommittee/workgroup with some members from the main LPSCC and others, including treatment providers, detox facilities, health and human services, community corrections, defense attorney, partners from the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians, etc. A related note, the next LPSCC meeting is scheduled for September 27, 2024 at 10:30 am and is a public virtual meeting. All are welcome to attend and deflection is on the agenda. Based on the manner in which our deflection subcommittee/workgroup was established, I want to address why we did not make it a public meeting. To be very clear, it did not fall within the public meeting laws and was simply a workgroup focused on developing a program. Our decision aligned with a similar LPSCC subcommittee we had for several years that addressed mental illness in our community. It too, was created from LPSCC, but was never a public meeting. We did report our progress to the LPSCC and have with this subcommittee as well. Another example would be a weekly Animal Shelter project meeting we attend to address the purchase and building of a new animal shelter. We have been meeting every week for over two years and making recommendations, decisions and advising. This is not a public meeting. Another indicator that it wasn’t a public meeting is the fact we only had one commissioner attend, that being Commissioner Miller, in the case of our deflection program workgroup. After we received concerns from County Legal Counsel about the deflection workgroup, I reviewed the Oregon Government Ethics Commission (OGEC) website to see if we did need to make this a public meeting in the future. The OGEC indicates that: “The Public Meetings Law applies to any governing body of a public body. A “public body” is the state, any regional council, county, city or district, or any municipal or public corporation; or any agency of those entities, such as a board, department, commission, council, bureau, committee, subcommittee, or advisory group. A key indicator of whether an entity is a public body is whether it was created by or pursuant to the state constitution, a statute, administrative rule, order, intergovernmental agreement, bylaw, or other official act. However, a single official, such as the governor, is not a public body for purposes of meetings law.” Based on this description, specifically the sentence that states, “A key indicator of whether an entity is a public body is whether it was created by or pursuant to the state constitution, a statute, administrative rule, order, intergovernmental agreement, bylaw, or other official act”, this subcommittee was not created by any of the above. If, the LPSCC committee would have made a formal motion, vote and approval to create this subcommittee, then yes, it would have been a public meeting. But, that was not how this subcommittee was formed, just like the animal shelter meeting and several other meetings that occur every day in government. I also completed a quick query from Sheriffs around the state regarding their workgroups or subcommittees and 7 of 9 replied that their workgroups were not public meetings. Out of the other two, one had not started discussions and the other is discussing the matter in their full LPSCC committee. Regardless of the type of group that was established, there are processes in place within the county government for request and approval of workforce positions and budgetary decisions through the authority of the commissioners. For example, when the group recommended the deflection coordinator be placed in the District Attorney’s office, I prepared a memorandum addressed to the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners on August 15, 2024 asking for their approval. The Board of Commissioners have the authority to approve the number and type of positions within an elected official’s office. This memorandum contained information requested by the Board of Commissioners (cost, job description, etc.). This memorandum would allow the Board of Commissioners to discuss this topic during a meeting and make a decision. The decision would have allowed the District Attorney to open the recruiting process for the deflection coordinator which is a required element of HB 4002 to operate a deflection program. Since there was no response to this request and with the September 1, 2024 date growing near, County Administrator Tim Johnson was contacted around August 29, 2024 and he advised me the Commissioners placed the position on hold and it appeared that it would be placed in parole and probation. County Counsel set a meeting (not public) for September 3, 2024 and the District Attorney and I were advised by legal counsel Kristin Yuille that the coordinator would reside in parole in probation, with little explanation, except that the Commissioners wanted it to be successful. Ms. Yuille indicated this decision was an administrative decision. There was a scheduled deflection workgroup meeting scheduled for noon on September 3, 2024, following that meeting. At the deflection meeting, we advised the attendees the decision about the deflection coordinator was put on hold. It was indicated that Commissioner Miller would have this placed on the September 18, 2024 Board of Commissioner’s meeting for discussion and hopefully a decision in order to move the process along to start our program in Lincoln County. However, it was not on the agenda for September 18, 2024 and I provided my comments during the normal public comment section of the meeting. Commissioner Hall posted her statement following the meeting for YachatsNews. I want to address inaccuracies in her statement. Commissioner Hall indicates that “the majority of counties are placing it in their Human Services Department or with private treatment providers. A far smaller number placed it in law enforcement.” Here is the data from counties throughout Oregon: DEFLECTION PROGRAM COORDINATING AGENCIES Coordinating Agency - number and percentage Sheriff's Office - 5 (18.5%) County - 6 (22.2%) District Attorney's Office - 4 (14.8%) Community Corrections - 5 (18.5%) Behavioral Health Organization - 6 (22.2%) Local Public Safety Coord. Council - 1 (3.7%) As you can see, it is mixed around the State. If you combine the Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office and Community Corrections (2 coordinators in Community Corrections are in counties where Community Corrections is managed by the Sheriff’s Office, unlike in Lincoln County), you will see 14 out of 27 counties have placed their coordinators in a public safety agency. HB 4002 was created to provide counties with the discretion to place the coordinator where they thought it would work best. Commissioner Hall indicates she was “astonished” to learn from Counsel Yuille that no notes had been taken. The workgroup has plenty of notes and documents from all of the meetings since April in our workgroup’s shared electronic folder. When asked, we added County Administrator Tim Johnson to the electronic folder to view these documents for a staff report he was directed to present to commissioners. Administrator Johnson had access to all of the information from the workgroup. If Counsel Yuille or Commissioner Hall would have asked to be included, we would have included them also. Commissioner Miller is already in the electronic folder for this group and has access. They are also public documents and if anyone submits a public records request for these documents, they would be provided to you. In Commissioner Hall’s statement, she mentions the Board of Commissioners did not authorize the committee. She is exactly right on this point, because if they had authorized and appointed members, such as LPSCC, then it would have been subject to the public meetings law. In this case, the Board of Commissioners did not make any appointments; this was simply a workgroup established through LPSCC. Commissioner Hall, in her statement, indicated Mr. Johnson was hampered by the lack of meeting minutes, yet he is included in the electronic folder group so he could have reviewed all of the information for his report. Commissioner Hall also indicated there are an estimated three cases per month that would qualify for deflection. This is a completely inaccurate statement. If there were only three, why would we need so much money from the State to adequately serve participants? Wouldn’t a mere three cases a month indicate we don’t even have a problem in Lincoln County? This estimate was based on the number of measure 110 “E” violation citations written in Lincoln County. Based on the measure 110 failure, law enforcement around the state, and specifically in Lincoln County, wrote very few citations. This was not indicative of the actual number of violations, or potential deflection eligible participants. When the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) was estimating the possible number of potential deflection eligible participants around the state, they did not use the number of measure 110 E violations. They went back prior to Covid and collected data on the number of drug violation arrests. They indicated this was a rough estimate as so much has changed. We really do not know how many people we will be able to help in Lincoln County until we can gather data over a period with HB 4002 in effect. I can, however, tell you from September 1, 2024 through September 16, 2024 we have had a total of 13 people booked into the Lincoln County Jail for a “drug enforcement misdemeanor” (this is the unclassified misdemeanor created from measure 110), that could have been deflection eligible had the program and coordinator been operational. This is important to know as the number of possible deflection participants will be much higher than three per month. The bottom line is we need to get our deflection program up and running. The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners need to address this issue immediately, communicate effectively, and trust the workgroup, trust their recommendations, and know that they are working on behalf of our community. ### This media release, including working links to the articles and websites referenced can be found here: Lincoln Co. Sheriff's Office newswww.flashalert.netNews releases, emergency alerts and school closures via the FlashAlert.net Newswire

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