Do we have all staff present that will be presenting in the study session, Kyle?

Yeah.

Okay.

So uh I'll call to order this study session and call for the roll call.

Mayor Scott Anderson.

Here.

Vice Mayor Chuck Bongiovanni.

Here.

Council Member Sorry, Council Member Buckland.

Here.

Council Councilmember Buckley.

Here.

Council Member Kaprowski.

Here.

Councilmember Lyons?

Here.

And Council Member Torreson.

Here.

Okay.

Thank you.

Our first item is presentation and discussion on at-risk grading permits.

Okay.

Sorry.

Hi, I'm Justin Eisenham from the Development Services Group.

I'm here to talk about the LDC text amendment, administrative review and approval of the at-risk grading permits.

Allow at risk creating submittals for on-site preliminary grading and drainage work.

And that's effective the first of this year.

Proposed to amend the proposed amendment authorizes preliminary on-site grading work before final permit approval, allows the town to establish fees for permit review and processing, establish the criteria related to permit applications and design plans, and allows them to be revoked for noncompliance, failure to disclose facts, lack of progress, fraud, site conditions, or safety issues, and also allow to make technical and conforming changes to the plans.

Do you have any questions for me?

Any questions, counsel one of those great state laws.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our second item is presentation and discussion on court program and service fees ordinance.

Chris.

Yes.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

So we're going to talk about some recommendations to institute some new fees for court programs and services as well as detention fees.

These fees in particular are something that a couple of them would be new, and a couple of we're just codifying, so we'll go over those, their existing fees.

So from the first, what we're looking at here is the first update would be to create a new section 22-40 in the Gilbert Town Code, it's under the court section, and we're calling the ordinance, the proposed ordinance, the court program and services fees.

So currently, the court institute a Gilbert Youth and Adult Resources fee.

And as you can see there, what's being proposed is the authority for the court to have a reasonable fee set by the Gilbert Youth and Adult Resources.

That's the town counseling services, and we'll we'll talk about that.

And they do screening assessment and counseling services.

And so currently that fee is being assessed when someone has to go to yards.

It's being assessed, and what we'd like to do is just formally codify that authority.

Number two is a forensic laboratory fee.

This is a fee that's currently been assessed, it's been assessed for a long time by the court, and it's for the DUI fees.

So if someone gets a DUI, we have to pay for the lab fees.

We have a contract with the Mesa Crime Lab, they charge us a fee.

That fee then gets tacked on to the defendant when they're convicted of DUI or they plead guilty to DUI.

So those two fees, they're existing, they've been charged by the courts, and we just like to formally codify that.

The new one, the third one there is a prosecutor diversion fee.

That would be a new fee that we're asking the council to consider and approve, and if so, we'd bring it to the council on the 17th.

And so what this fee does, and this fee is authorized by statute, you see down there in 9500.22.

A number of cities in the valley have this type of fee or similar versions of the fee.

The council communication, if the if the council gives direction to go forward with this, we talk about in there what the fees are, and it depends from city to city.

Some go from a hundred dollars up to five hundred dollars.

What we'd be recommending is two hundred dollars per case, and that will offset the cost of a full-time employee, a paralegal who can manage and oversee this fee.

And so it'd be a basically a uh revenue neutral um uh fee, and then that that fee would be revisited from time to time, come back to council if need to be if the cost of that paralegal uh that full-time employee would increase.

So, what this fee does is it's a diversion fee.

So at times, right, where you say you've got a criminal offender that's charged in our court, they want to accept a diversion program rather than rather than face the guilty plea and a criminal record, the prosecutor's office gives people the opportunity when the circumstances are right, nonviolent offenders and the criteria is met to enter a diversion program, which means they can do depending on what the charge is and depending on the circumstances, it may be classes, anger management classes, uh, substance abuse classes, whatever the charges are, some community service, and once they complete that, they have a certain amount of time to complete that diversion, then the case gets dismissed.

Prosecutors currently operate this program, but they don't charge for it.

So the the request here is that we be allowed to institute a prosecutor diversion fee to offset the cost of the prosecution when people are entering these fees.

Again, these are voluntary agreements that the defendants enter into.

Um, and that's why we think it's a reasonable fee because they're voluntarily entering into it.

If they don't like the fee, they don't have to enter into the program, they can just continue in the adjudication of their case.

And so the thought here, the recommend would be that the fees collected here will go to the general fund because that's what's paying for those services, whether it's the yard services, prosecutor diversion, or the laboratory fees, and that for subsections A and B, and that is the Gilbert Youth Adult Resources fee and the forensic lab fee, that the court would have ability, so a judge would have the ability in circumstances of a financial hardship, or maybe in the best interest of judgment of the judge of justice to waive that fee, or maybe um either waive it in full or just assess a lower fee if the circumstances are right.

But the request would be for that prosecutor diversion fee that that fee does not get waived.

The court does would not have the authority to waive the fee because again, those are voluntary agreements entered to entered into by a defendant.

So before I move on to the next one, does anyone have any questions about what we plan on bringing to council on the 17th or any direction to not bring it?

Okay.

Okay, good.

So that's the first section.

Then the second part of the ordinance that you'll see if we bring this forward is a detention and jail cost recovery fee.

These the first one there that you see detention recovery fee is a new fee or would be a new fee.

Um the second one is actually something that's authorized by statute.

It's uh it's a fee that's been assessed by the courts for many and many years.

Every court assesses a jail cost recovery fee.

Again, it's by it's in statute.

What we're what we'd be doing here, and that's part two, we'll just be codifying it in our local code, and it would comply with the terms of um state statute.

The number one there is the detention recovery fee.

Again, that would be a new fee.

So as you're all aware, the the town operates what's called GCUF, the Gilbert Chandler um detention holding facility.

I chief can say exactly what it's called, but we have a holding facility across the street where people who are arrested are held overnight, they see the judge.

At times, then depending on what goes on, they may get released or they may get transported to the county.

So they're not held there for more than one night.

But there are significant costs that the town incurs because we have to operate a detention facility.

So the request here, and for the council's consideration, if you choose to bring it forward on the 17th, would be to institute the a detention recovery fee.

I don't have those amounts, and if you have questions, we can talk to Chief.

Um this is a newer concept, a newer idea.

What we would ask the authority is to set a reasonable fee not to exceed the actual cost of detention in the detention facility.

We don't know what that number is.

The recommendation I know from the police department would be to not not hit a number that's the actual cost, because that number would be just too high, I think, for any defendant, and and probably not reasonable.

Um and then the jail cost recovery fee, again, that's a fee that's always been assessed.

We're just codifying it here.

Um and then again, we're looking at that subsection B on the on your far uh your far right there, where the judges do have an authority again, where uh there's a hardship, a financial hardship, or it's in the best interest of just justice that a court has the ability to waive a fee or to impose just a partial fee, whether it's a detention recovery fee or the jail cost recovery fee.

So that's the second request that we would have on the 17th that we'd bring to council for your consideration.

Questions or comments looks good?

Okay, sounds great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chris.

That's it for our study session.

We'll adjourn the study session at 6.21.

We'll reconvene our regular session at 6.30.