Okay, we got everybody.

Right, we will reconvene um the judiciary committee.

Um County Attorney Enroof, do you have um any input, especially around um well, just around all of it, thank you.

Are you asking for my opinion?

Yes, a legal opinion.

Uh thank you, uh Chairwoman Shay.

So based off of everything I have heard and the discussions that are round is we have a lot of extremely concerned citizens, and and they are uh their concerns are valid with regards to urban camping uh and how we address the issue of homelessness, mental health, and the things that we have going on in Butte Montana.

So we currently have an ordinance uh on the book that books that prohibits urban camping.

It does have penalties with it.

It's got uh fines associated with it.

Um, one section it's got up to even six months in the county jail associated with it, depending on how many times an individual has violated.

Uh please don't quote me on that because this is coming off the top of my head, and you should never practice law off the top of your head.

But there is the possibility for jail time, and there is the possibility for finance and fees.

The the the problem that I see with all of this is it's it's an enforcement issue.

But I I know if Sheriff Lester was in here, he's gonna ask me, do I enforce that law, or do I continue to have my officers uh, you know, enforcing other laws such as uh, you know, if we're we're doing search warrants for drug busts or you know, uh recently we've had in the paper a lot of uh child predators that have been being caught.

The amount of work that goes into those cases is phenomenal.

It's absolutely insane.

So what you're looking at here, in my opinion, is trying to find a balance between all of this, and it sounds like Sean Fredericson did a fantastic job.

He went in and he cleaned up the camp.

The next question becomes is if the individuals don't leave, what do we do?

Do we find them, do we charge them, do we incarcerate them?

Uh again, that's a funds issue.

We currently have a jail that is still maxed out, it is better than it was.

Uh but you know, I mean, you can look at the cost of an individual being housed in our county jail on a daily basis is anywhere between 80 to 120 dollars a day, and I'm simply basing that off of what the state pays us.

I don't know if that's the actual true value.

Uh so again, it boils down to what we want to enforce, what what we have within our budgets, which we've been talking about here tonight, uh, where we want to allocate those funds and how we want to do it.

Um we had to allocate uh another sixty thousand dollars to a mental health contract that CCCS helps us with regards to crisis response uh this week.

Um that contract is specific to individuals that are being you know screened to possibly be committed to warm springs, and uh I have to be very honest.

Um Mr.

Thatcher and CCCS give us a break on that.

They I don't think they make any money on it, and they allow us to use those services, and without that, and so my opinion is it has multiple facets attached to it, which include enforcement, which include mental health counseling, which include funding, and we have to be able to balance that, and right now uh it's it's probably being balanced the best it can with the financial resources that we have.

I mean, you would need to allocate additional funds to more reinforcement if you want to put those individuals in jail.

These are not crimes that we would incarcerate people for for more than a day or two.

Uh you know, a a DUI, which is technically not a crime in the state of Montana, it's a traffic violation.

It has a mandatory minimum of 24 hours, you know, in jail on it, and we hardly ever go over that simply because we don't have the capability of doing so in our own jail.

Uh it is a very large problem that's gonna require a a bigger solution than just creating an ordinance to prohibit um public camping.

And uh that is my opinion on it so far.

Thank you, County Attorney Enroof, Commissioner Healy.

I just want to say some of the prevention and deterrence I was thinking or researching is like physical deterrence, lighting, landscaping, visibility, increased monitoring.

Can we um have like rangers or patrols or community watch to help the police out?

Um because I'd be willing to do it.

I'm sure there's people out there who'd be willing to do it.

Uh clear public communication and signage, swift response and cleanup after reports.

So none of those included jail.

I'm just trying to find solutions.

Thank you, Commissioner Healy.

I'm not sure that those things would require legislation to implement.

It sounds like they would require money, if I'm not mistaken.

Commissioner Healy, go ahead.

So part of what part of what I'm trying to do here is there are ordinances, so if we can figure out how to enforce the ordinances, then we can get down to what we do need to.

I think Sid commented on this.

We know enforcement's the issue if we figure out what we can enforce and then see what's left on the table.

There might not be that much left that needs to be figured out.

The problem is enforcement.

Big time.

And I wanted to ask, can I ask you a question?

So I I um need education, and I think the public does too.

So um, how do I get permission to have Silverbow employees who have volunteered to speak on this matter to the judiciary to educate to educate us and the public on what is available in our community to help those in need?

Like I I I had I I had um somebody from um the health department who works with the addiction handing out needles, who has uh quite a bit of information on how what it cost, and you know what's available, those kind of things out there.

Action Inc, what does it cost, what is available.