07/29/2025 Commissioners Meeting [15:46-20:53]

Okay. Next on the agenda. Sure Greg. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Just a couple of things I'll start off. I don't know how much of an update update. So Joe Population is going to fucking over here. There's 83 total inmates. Had 69 males. 14 females. We're holding five for DLC with no local charges. We have three parole holds. We have one level six found that was sentenced locally to Lawrence counties. And then the other thing on the agenda is the MOU contractor payment. The school resource officers that you guys should have a copy of. Originally I thought this was probably the least controversial and easiest thing that I ever came and bought to ask for approval. Since it's getting the county money. But I guess that's not the case. Been some misinformation and half treats. You're on a round for some people trying to get people fired up about it. So I'm going to take a little more time than I could plan on taking today to explain this. And I guess I'll start off with the reason for SRO. I'm still there's actually been coming. That, you know, why do we need an SRO? We've never had a school shooting in Lawrence County. I've ever heard the same announced prevention is worth a pound of cure. And I'm sure if we talk to the folks at Columbine or Evalde or Sandy Hook or all these places where we've had school shootings. It was the first time the day they ever had them. So I don't know that waiting until something happens is the right time. There's also day-to-day altercations, disturbances, things that SROs deal with. They keep things from escalating, being worse. You know, I'm a foreign believer that I remember one asset in this county as our kids. In the safety of our kids, I, three years ago, four years ago, I came paying down school safety. Being one of my priorities, and I think I have, I've done that now for the entire time I've been there with the things that I've done and worked with the different school systems. I have a good working relationship with all of them. But really, you don't have to go any farther than earlier this year by the next year on Jackson County. When a deranged individual was held down doing a shooting, they have an SRO over there that alternates between schools. This individual went to the Seymour School to do a shooting. And the SRO vehicle was there, and he got back in his vehicle, and he left because he knew what was going to happen if he went to a place where the SRO was at. So he went to the public library and did a shooting there, and was taken down by some citizens. I mean, that's where our next school, Jackson County is no different than Lawrence County. So I don't think we can bury our head in the sand and say, you know, this is 1970 anymore. We need to be protecting our kids. I'll give you the history. The school resource officer positions and the relationships in the schools. I don't know when they started, they made it possibly started under the sheriff Craig. I can be wrong on that, but you know, originally the county, the county supplied two SROs to NLCS. NLCS paid for half a little, half the salary and benefits, and the county paid for half. I don't bet for police, head SROs in the schools. Mitchell and Mitchell had SRO in the school, and I get it that originally that was, you know, the Mitchell paid for one third of that position, the county paid for a third of that position. And then the city of Mitchell paid for a third of that position. That was a Mitchell, that was a Mitchell police officer that operated on that, which makes sense because that's the primary jurisdiction. Over the last several years, and I don't know how this came to be at some point in time, the sheriff's department quit. They went down to one SRO that they were providing, and bet for police, and the city of Betford stepped up, and they actually had been providing the SRO at B&L for several years. But he retired last year, and they're no longer going to have an SRO out there, which makes sense to me. It's in the county. It's not in the city. I think it should be noted that that entire time that Betford was supplying the SRO out there, the county was not paying any money toward that.