Um and the first docket had one single veteran show up, and I think the docket was five or six people.

Um, and no one who was homeless showed up that day.

And I wasn't sure anyone was going to show up that day.

The veteran came in very late, right at the end.

So, in contrast, this morning, um, obviously, like what is the community support docket?

And and for anyone that doesn't know, it's as addresses uh individuals that are veterans and individuals homeless.

And when I say homeless, I mean cars, couch surfing, hotel rooms, literally on the streets and sheltered, not just literally on the streets and sheltered.

Um, we had 69 separate individuals on that docket this morning.

Um, they were all homeless as far as I could tell, and no veterans.

11 people were in jail, and then to give you an idea, recently we've had as many as over a hundred individuals on that docket.

Um, and so that's a big change over eight years of what is kind of occurring.

Um, obviously, this is a connection point for services, and I ask each person to address the top three things that they need right now.

Um, and that can be pre-plea, post plea probation, or at all stages of the process.

Um, obviously, individual groups and places come, divert New Horizons, uh VA, Borel, uh Love Inc.

uh turning point are just examples.

Um but like I said, the volume has increased dramatically basically lately.

And I'm very cognizant to try to be mindful because everyone is coming to this docket, and expanding it would be somewhat difficult without absorbing a lot more individuals and grouped time.

And so, what we've been doing recently on these dockets where they've been so large, um, we have just doing cleanup the next day and we're going into lunch.

And so, to give you an example today, which was a smaller docket, not that one of those big ones, we probably were 15 minutes into the lunch hour, but on some of these days, we're 30 minutes into the lunch hour and then cleaning up for an hour the next day.

And so I think that's the right way to handle it because I want to make sure we're utilizing our time appropriately.

And there's been a little bit of a ramp, but I do want you to be aware that we're pushing the capacity of that as it is envisioned.

Um, and it is much I talk pretty fast, right?

And I talk really, really fast at that docket to try to make sure we get through it.

And that's not really what you want to necessarily do.

You're trying to spend enough time to encourage people and make sure that they're being heard.

Um, and so we've got to remember it's I just want you to be aware of that.

Um I've seen some very positive outcomes on the docket, both individuals that are newly homeless and individuals that have been homeless for long periods.

I can anecdotally tell you that we had an individual that'd been homeless six to ten years on the streets and had been on the docket three times.

But on that third time, he quit drinking and got housing.

And to me, that was a very unusual event and very positive.

Um I wish it hadn't taken three times, but third time was the charm.

So something to think about.

Um, the divert expansion.

I think this has been a very valuable addition.

Um, individuals falling out spheres of services of other agencies, helping individuals with low capacity and understanding, helping individuals just navigate the difficulties of all the things that either are or are not available to them has been critically important.

Working with the prosecutor and the police officers to have better results, and so the prosecutor knows ahead of time.

One of the ways we do that too is we try to put positive results at the beginning of the docket, and so the prosecutor knows ahead of time through divert and is able to tell that to the clerk so we can pull those up front and then bring those positive experiences to kind of for people that have not been there before and are really scared or nervous, can see a good result, and that's really helped.

Um Project's project homeless connect.

I did attend the court attends, and it does lead to positive interactions.

Um, for people that are already on the community support docket to acknowledge that we're there.

Um many more people that are homeless tend to have a greater level of trust because we are there.

Um, and this is the first time we did this.

We did recall a warrant for someone.

Divert team had brought them up, they were terrified, of course.

Of course, the police officers are just a few tables down.

Uh, and you know, of course, we were able to do that, and that was one of the reasons we had the clerk there, and we have this case net.

So, in addition to do that, so now that's the good part, right?

Now, the sad part was is I made them promise they've got to show up for community support docket, and individual did not keep their promise.

And so, of course, I issued new warrants, and this time it wasn't cash surety or 10%, this time it was cash owned.

Now, that doesn't mean that individual can't come back to me and re engage.

Um, but there has to be consequences, and we have to have a structure to it, both positively and sadly sometimes negatively.

Um property services docket.

Uh, this has also been expanded and it has continued to be held once a month the first Tuesday.

Uh, we've we've backed that time up 30 minutes because there were so many property services things on that docket, and so I wanted to give the prosecutor more time to discuss those issues and try to solve those problems.

And so this is another example of a problem-solving docket, and clearly the more problem solving that can occur on these type of situations, the less reoccurrence you're gonna have, and also I think the better overall outcomes, including for future outcomes.

Can you give me an example?

Sure.

Can you give me an example of that property?

Sure.

So it could be uh junk in the yard or unlicensed vehicle or weeds that are too long, or an elderly individual that really can't take care of the gutters or anything that you can think about in property maintenance code.

So if it has to do with property, we're putting on the docket.

Now, the community support docket is a little more court driven.

This is a little more prosecutor-driven.

And so what I do is I go kind of go in and say, this is voluntary.

I go over the rights with everybody, I arranged them just like we do on the community support docket.

But then I say, if you don't want to be here, I'll put you on a Norman docket.

But you do like to work on this and work with the prosecutor and city staff, then I'm gonna step out, just like we do at second call, but it gives them a lot more time, and then all of the property services staff are there to help engage and give up-to-date facts to the prosecutor versus having to try to gather that information later.

So it's a much more streamlined process, and I think more helpful to individuals as well.

Um, it also actually is beneficial to corporations.

So corporations to participate in municipal court have to have attorneys, but this is giving them a mechanism before they really go down that path to kind of get a resolution without that extra expense.

Um, so it's also positive in that sense as well.

Okay, thanks.

Yes.

Do issues coming from um rental um complaints come to this?

So it would have to but only tangent tangentially, right?

So it has to be a rental complaint that is a property maintenance issue that then gets triggered if it's an ordinance violation because there we don't have really does that make that answer questions.

I know exactly the group will go through that route.

Um what I want to know is um how often do um that group of issues come um and don't get resolved.

How often do they stay in the courts or repeats?

So I have no way of knowing.

And here, and here's you gotta remember it's the strangest thing.

I know such limited facts because I only get to hear facts two times.

I get to hear facts if you plead guilty, I always tell everybody I'm happy to listen to anything you have to say, and I'll take it into account as to the proper punishment.

Or if you go to a trial, or one more, if there's a bond, if they're asking for a bond, I get some basic facts to take into account.

There's a with a set of things we go through to determine what the right bond amount is.

So I actually don't know only tangentially sometimes do I hear some of those facts right at the end of a guilty plea or something like that.

And so if it's a deferral or a dismissal, I'm never gonna hear those facts at all.

Yeah.

So if the same party pleads guilty on the same or similar offense more than once, is that something that you would be aware of?

And do we have a mechanism for escalating?

So the prosecutor is gonna usually make me aware of that, right?

And you gotta remember in every single case, the prosecutor is going to recommend a fine based on they're always gonna know more information than I do.

Yeah, and they're gonna give me the basic facts and the information and a recommendation on the fine.

And obviously, if there's some bad facts or priors, they're gonna mention that.

And then, of course, I'm gonna also listen to the defendant and ask them, do you think that recommendation is fair?

And if they tell me no, I'm gonna say, well, tell me why, right?

Yeah, that seems fair, get both sides, and then I'm gonna make a decision somewhere between those facts without knowing really, right, what all the truth is because it's not a trial.

Obviously, if you go to a trial, I see a lot more information, right?

Then versus a brief set of facts right there at the fleet.

And so, yes, can I take that into account and do I?

Sure.

Let me give you an example, just like on a bond.

Um obviously different bonds are more more or less they're serious, more or less are serious, more serious facts.

And so if if it's a more set of serious facts, I'm gonna have a higher bond, right?

I'm gonna have a higher bond for a DWI than I am for a parking ticket.

I mean, that makes sense, right?

But if you get enough parking tickets, 20 plus or something ridiculous, right?

You're gonna have a pretty high pod.

Clearly, you have not gotten the message, right?

Um, and and sometimes it's a matter of you know, taking into all those circumstances, yeah.

And it's really as it comes.

Can I ask more questions?

One more, one more.

And then I'm gonna get back, and then we'll promise we'll have I wanna give everybody a fair shot of questions at the end, too.

Go ahead.

This will be my last.

Oh no, no, no, you don't have to have a last one.

How often do they go to trial?

Do you have a perspective on that?

Uh uh very rarely.

Many more cases get set for trial than trials that actually go.

Um, and there's vast differences between pro se trials and and attorney trials um and different kinds of cases.

Um less than five percent for sure, and probably more like one sometimes.

But you're gonna talk about a large amount of volume to them.

Thank you.

No worries.

Um, so the court still has a high turnover rate.

Um, we recently hired three new employees.

The court's four-day work week is really important and it's really helped bring people in.

Some of the employees we have would not otherwise be working there without that four-day work week.

And again, I also think that that's really important in the sense that that is what allows us to have these expanded hours, which is 7 30 to 5 30, so four days a week, plus two night courts.

Now, the exempt people don't have four-day work weeks, we get to hang out.

But um, what that allows, and and it's critically important to some people.

It's not utilized a lot for a lot of people, but for the individuals that it is important to, particularly night court, and particularly being able to come in when they're not working or not going to school, really does matter for some people.

That otherwise I think they would have to take a vacation day if they can take a vacation day, um, or maybe lose their job.

And I think it's it's important to have those.

Um, but I do want to say that I I am my staff that are doing the four-hour work weeks, they all like it and all have had a better quality of life and have told us that that's an important aspect.

Um, we are going to uh discontinue the legacy just wear system.

So hopefully in February will be your last Jesper report.

You know how you get two different reports, and it will just be the new show me courts report, and that's because we have one bond left that's lingering, and so we'll clean that up, hopefully.

Now, if another bond or something weird comes in, we'll we'll drag it out another time.

But that should be the end of that.

Um Judge Briscoe uh will be up for reappointment in May, and so just wanted to make you aware of that.

And then uh budget-wise, um, we have 8.75 FTE, including myself.

We're currently operating with seven.

One was just a retirement um with our court analyst recently, and uh obviously the caseloads are increasing.

Um it's important to note and remind you that we have no control over our caseloads.

It's truly a matter of resources that management puts towards enforcement of ordinance violations, not only from the police department, but all the other departments.

Um, and as I'm sure you're aware, CPD has been able to fill a lot of their positions.

Um, and it has there has been increases.

Um, I'm not planning on making any cuts to municipal court, but as as we see these increases in employees, I'll fill I'll hire the rest of our people, um, and then I'll move to temporaries after that um to fill any gaps as we have increases, and then obviously hopefully that will give me enough room that if we have a surge, right?

Then I can come back to you next year and say, Oh, I filled everybody, I've got my temporaries, and now let's what are we?

What's the next stop?

We're not there yet.

Yes.

I just want to be clear.

Are you leaving some?

Oh, sorry.

Are you leaving some positions open?

I used to be doing that.

I used to, I left.

I am now I I have one position that I'm still holding, like in that fashion of we're not quite to that volume yet, but a couple years ago I was holding three like that.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you sort of answered the question I had about the increase in the number of cases that you've had.

And do you have a way of of uh do you have any data sets that would give you an indication of how much the increase in the leasing in terms of uh the hiring there has had an impact on the court, or is that just too elusive a number?

So the I have very limited data sets.

My data sets I can get from the Supreme Court, so they do they do it nearly, and it's not with CPD, right?

Because it's off kilter.

And it also doesn't include what CPD sends to state, and it doesn't calculate then how many other murders or felonies are also CPDs are working on.

So but I can anecdotally tell you that based on those records, certainly we were being underutilized versus a long time ago where there was a lot more cases, and I told you that a few years ago, but then you saw a doubling last year after the but it was the pandemic.

So you you have this drop, then you have it got lower, then you had a double, and now we had another 700 cases, and you gotta remember if if she was able to put a real traffic unit and a DWI units back out there, they could probably do double the double, or if they doubled that, it could be 10x.

I mean, it's truly a matter of if you just have somebody doing traffic tickets all day, you can do a lot of tickets.

If you focus on downtown, so when that with downtown enforcement was occurring, those were surges in cases because they're seeing more jaywalking, they're seeing more MIPs, they're seeing more other things that are occurring because they're right there, and so that's causing it.

Truly is if you have uh more focus on housing and more individuals in in that area, you're gonna have more cases.

If the fire department decides to write tickets for overcrowding or fire violations, and that becomes a new thing, you're gonna get more tickets.

I mean, it truly is a matter of resource to resource.

Okay, I don't know an answer for you.

Um let's see.

Oh, yeah, so about 675 new cases over last year.

Um, I do want to go over briefly the citizen survey, um, because it's one of the few markers that we have.

So I'm right.

I don't like how they did it in this section, because it actually doubles some of the things that aren't really true.

And let me explain why I think that.

If you go back to the this little text that shows you the Can you just say what your point do that?

Yes.

So the this is the citizen survey one's from page 16, and it tells us about the treatment and fairness in municipal court.

But the one I want to focus on was actually from page 84, and this is also the same same question with the data broken out.

But here's why it matters.

The first one does not include don't know, whereas the other one does.

And it's it's and it and it gives a warped perception of what this is because for me, don't know really matters.

I would like a hundred percent of people to not know about municipal court, right?

That would be much better.

But to give you an example, this is why I think the breakdown matters for us is in addition to 46% of the people not knowing, which is fine, 7% were very satisfied, which I was a little surprised at.

15% were satisfied, 24, almost 25% were neutral, 3.7% were dissatisfied, and 2.7% were very dissatisfied.

This is municipal court.

You know, I'm a little happily surprised by that.

But that's a lot different than it appears on that front page where it looks like it's 1328, 47, and 12.

I don't like the feel of it.

I think this is a more honest answer back here on the other page for yourselves.

Uh so cow not for the for the person who did the surveys, uh, not me, but the person I will say the one quest the one question he had is like, well, if do you want them rating you if they don't know who you are?

And so that was we kind of had that back and forth.

I'm just waiting on that.

And in all fairness, maybe this only matters to me because not everyone has an interaction with municipal court, whereas a lot of other departments, everybody has an interaction, but maybe they just don't know one way or the other, right?

Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but I thought I would mention it to you because it you're special.

Thanks, thanks.

Yeah, thanks.

It just bugged me a little.

So I thought I'd mention it's still pretty good.

No, no, it's it's still good.

It's still good.

Um so that was my short update.

Do you have other questions that I can answer before you guys want to go into closed session?

Questions for Cavanaugh.

Yeah, Nick.

Um I'm interested in you gave some of the numbers where you started and where we've been most recently.

So I'm curious about the time in between.

Uh can you speak to what you think the reason is that we're seeing more people in the community uh docket.

For instance, I know that in the unsheltered community, there's a lot of word of mouth, and I wonder if uh if you have a good reputation there, for instance, but you may not be able to answer that exactly, but I wonder if you have an idea.

So I can answer that a little bit and only anecdotally.

And so there's two parts to this.

One part is is I have had people come up to me both on the street and at other places and talk to me about thank you and telling me that I'm a nice person and appreciating that taking the time to listen to them.

Um the one that got me the most was just recently.

Um when we were at the uh Project Homeless Connect.

I I had an individual who was not in my court, but she had helped a friend who was also homeless, turn herself in.

And she had had she came up to me at Project Home Looks and I could say, look, I've been involved in the justice system many, many, many times, and I had absolutely no faith in it, but I did have hope and some faith that the justice system could work for someone like me when I brought my friend in the other day.

And so to me, that kind of answers part of your question of I think that it took a long time, zero eight years ago, right?

And then it took a long time to kind of earn that trust to know that if you walked in the courtroom with a warrant, I was gonna wasn't gonna throw you right in jail, and that this was real, that we're gonna try this new kind of process.

Now, I think some of the volume issues is not just that, though, it's it's CPD putting individuals for a specific purpose of engagement with homelessness, both in the parks and other places.

That's what's causing the volume surge.

So obviously it's just a matter if you have more connections and more interactions, and there's more warrants that causes more cases to go to a specific, in this case, that docket.

Now the good news is people are appearing.

They're showing up, right?

We've had like on the the ice storm day, uh, when we had that really horrible ice storm a long time ago, I had more individuals on my homeless docket show up that day than I did on my Raymond dockets.

But it also they care, and it's you know, it was it was hard for me to walk to work.

I mean, so it's just one of those things.

I hope that helps.

Yeah.

Kev, can I ask?

Um excuse me, and and we've kind of we've talked about this a little bit, you know, two years ago, the state of the court, you were like, my caseloads are really low because we don't have any enforcement.

And I think I asked at the time, does that mean these things aren't happening?

I wish that was true, but I don't think that's true.

And so I think that's my question now.

When you're like we have more officers in these spaces enforcing these things, like it this is that sort of like, is it so falls in the is it not happening?

Like, no, let me give you a great example.

So I think Jill has attempted to make some changes where she had officers doing individual contacts, at least two contacts.

They didn't have to give tickets, but they had to have contacts or something like that.

Well, that saw a huge boost in speeding tickets, and we're not talking about low speeds, we're talking, you know, 25, 30 over on Scott Boulevard, Rock Corey, business loop, school zone violations, like no one's business.

I can just tell you when I drive my very short commute to work, I see violations in that amount of time.

Yeah, so the answer is not that there are not violations, and we're not talking about over policing, we're talking about putting those resources to getting things calmed back down.

I think the pandemic was really terrible for the idea that you know, I'm gonna go as fast as the next person.

Well, then that person goes faster, and that person goes faster, and all of a sudden you look around and everybody's lost their mind.

Yeah, and what's a stop sign anymore?

Does that yeah, yeah?

I was just remembering because the back of the notes too.

Absolutely, and same thing with DWIs.

We don't have a DWI unit, we haven't had a DWI unit.

I wish there was less DWIs, I really doubt it.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

All right, any other questions for Cavanaugh?

Yeah, you're in you mentioned that uh the docket is pretty much at capacity or close to capacity.

We'll call close, we'll call it close to capacity as it was envisioned.

Yes.

Do you have ideas for how to re-envision it if it continues growing like we've seen?

So I would have to ask all those people that come and attend and say, Well, how much more time can you give me?

Because obviously it doesn't really work as well if everybody doesn't attend, or we would have to really really lean on divert and divert would have to be like the clearing house instead of just help connect, get to the right.

Are you eligible for this?

Are you eligible for that?

And then take over for the people that aren't eligible for anything.

Um so I'm hopeful, right?

That we don't need more capacity, because that's a pretty so if we have over a hundred people on the docket and the last point in time count was 300 something.

Was that correct?

Do you know what the last year's was?

Okay, what we were just talking about.

It's no, no, no.

I'm talking about last year's.

I don't think there was last year's.

I don't think it got that high.

Somewhere around two.

So let's say it was two something.

Yeah, two maybe five.

That means I have a third of the people that are homeless on my docket.

Yeah.

Right.

So I'm hoping I don't have a hundred percent of the people on my docket.

Yeah.

Any other questions for Cam?

All right, we're gonna move in or make a motion to closed session.

So uh I moved that the city council of the city of Columbia, Missouri uh to immediately go into a closed meeting here in conference room one day would be a city hall to discuss legal actions, causes of action, or litigation called the public governmental body.

I think you've got to competition privileged implications between a public governmental body and the representatives.

And it's a attorneys pursued to section point zero two one one of the revised statutes of Missouri.

Otherwise, that's a Missouri, the hiring firing disciplinity or promoting the particular employees by a public governmental body with personal information.

How about the employees discuss or record for pursuant to section 610.