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Adopt and present a resolution recognizing April 2013 as National County Government Month in Solano County (Supervisor Spering)
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Published Notice Required? Yes _____ No __X__
Public Hearing Required? Yes _____ No __X__
DEPARTMENTAL RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the Board of Supervisors adopt and present a resolution recognizing April 2013 as National County Government Month in Solano County.
SUMMARY:
Solano County is one of 3,069 counties across the United States providing essential services to improve and sustain the health, safety and well-being of county residents and their communities. More than 2,500 County staff in 19 departments work diligently on a day-to-day basis to meet the challenges of providing high quality services to highly diverse populations while maintaining a high level of accountability, fiscal stability and integrity.
April 2013 marks the 22nd anniversary of National County Government Month, sponsored by the National Association of Counties and established to increase public awareness and understanding of the value of the responsibilities vested in county government. Counties play a critical role in the lives of their residents by protecting and enhancing the health, safety and well-being of their residents in practical, cost-effective ways.
The theme of 2013 National County Government Month is "Smart Justice: Creating Safer Communities," which provides an opportunity to educate the community on the County's holistic role in administering justice.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
There is no cost to the county with regard to the adoption of this resolution other than the staff time to prepare this report.
DISCUSSION:
National County Government Month provides an opportunity to educate community residents about the role counties play in their daily lives. This year's theme, "Smart Justice: Creating Safer Communities," showcases one of the many aspects of county government that positively impacts the lives of all our residents on a daily and long-term basis.
Most people would readily recognize the vital role counties play in the criminal justice system - deterring crime with sheriff patrols, housing offenders in local jails, defending and prosecuting the accused, and supervising offenders as they transition back into the community. However, there are many other County functions that result in a more holistic view of ensuring justice, including providing access to physical and mental health care, delivering protective services for children and adults, and maintaining marketplace equity by ensuring proper weight and measuring systems.
It is fortuitous that NACo selected Smart Justice as its theme during a year in which counties in California are rethinking how they approach the incarceration of offenders and modifying their behaviors. As a result of public safety realignment, the County has taken on new roles in the housing of offenders in the local jail as well as the offenders who are being supervised by County probation officers. The County has a 362-bed expansion of the Claybank Adult Detention Facility under way that will provide more capacity for a growing inmate population. At the same time the County, in conjunction with efforts of the Community Corrections Partnership, are developing expanded programs that will help give offenders more constructive tools to break the cycle of criminal behavior.
The following highlights some of Solano County's efforts to provide smart justice:
• Child Support Education and Services for Offender Population: Child Support Services works with inmates incarcerated at California State Prison-Solano, conducting monthly outreach sessions to provide inmates with general information about the child support process, an opportunity to request specific information about their child support case, and an opportunity to assist in requesting a modification of their child support order due to a change in circumstances.
To expand the capacity of this labor-intensive effort statewide, the Child Support Directors Association and the California Department Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) developed a short DVD to educate inmates on their rights and responsibilities related to the child support program. This DVD is currently being played in all men's prisons and some county jails, including in Solano County. A similar DVD geared toward female offenders is currently in production.
The department appreciates how assisting recently released offenders to understand and manage their child support case contributes to their successful reentry and is working with the Probation Department to expand the collaboration on services that meet the needs of their mutual clients.
• Helping Juveniles Express Themselves: The mission of The Beat Within is to provide incarcerated youth with a consistent opportunity to share their ideas and life experiences in a safe space that encourages literacy, self-expression, some critical thinking skills, and healthy, supportive relationships with adults and their community. The Beat Within was founded in San Francisco in 1996 when David Inocencio, former assistant director of Detention Diversion Advocacy Program, teamed up with Pacific News Service, a non-profit media/communications organization, to offer writing workshops to youth detained in San Francisco's Youth Guidance Center. The original six pages of writing have evolved into a bi-weekly 80-page magazine.
The Beat Within staff and volunteers meet at Solano County Juvenile Detention Facility (JDF) twice a month in the Redwood and Sycamore pods as well as with youth in the New Foundations program. Each visit consists of about eight volunteers spread out through the JDF spending two hours working with the minors, potentially resulting in an article published in The Beat Within magazine. Over the past few years, Solano County JDF has had several dozen minors published and some featured artwork on the cover of the magazine.
• Enhancing Opportunities Through Literacy: Solano County Library's Adult Literacy Program makes the County a more literate community by providing free tutoring to adults who want to improve their reading, writing, and English-speaking skills. The ability to read and write, on paper and online, are necessary job skills and vital for the self-respect of an individual. The effects of illiteracy also impact the next generation; parents with low literacy cannot share books and reading with their children, which leads to lagging language skills and slower literacy development. The consequences of a slow start in reading become monumental as they accumulate over time.
In the Library's literacy program, 153 volunteer tutors and 81 support volunteers help motivated adults develop the skills needed for employment and to break the cycle of illiteracy at home. A quarter of the support volunteers are former students who are giving back to the program that helped them. The goals of literacy students are more tangible than learning to read and write. They relate to specific life activities that are important to the individual student, such as writing a job application, reading a prescription bottle or reading a book to their child. The success their children achieve in school is equally tangible, resulting in a safer, healthier and more just community.
• Sheriff's Enforcement Team: Stemming from Public Safety Realignment, the Sheriff's Enforcement Team (SET) was established in January 2012 to provide field compliance checks of individuals on Post Release Community Supervision (PRCS) and the expanded Alternative to Custody (ATC) program. PRCS subjects are supervised by the Solano County Probation Department, subsequent to California AB109 that is better known in criminal justice circles as Public Safety Realignment. The law, which transfers the responsibility of monitoring, rehabilitating and incarcerating non-violent, non-sexual and non-serious (non-non-non) offenders from the State to the Counties, has affected every facet of law enforcement throughout California. When a state prisoner is granted parole for a crime that is a non-non-non, they are placed on community supervision in the county in which they are convicted.
During 2012, SET aided in more than 650 compliance checks, actively pursued individuals who absconded from their release terms and arrested 252 offenders that violated the terms of their probation or parole. Forty-five percent or 113 of the arrests were directly related to Public Safety Realignment. SET worked closely with the Probation Department, the District Attorney's Office, State Parole, U.S. Marshal's, FBI and all local police departments to monitor and track these subjects. It was through teamwork and working together collectively toward a common goal that cultivated SET's success.
• Family Justice Center Collaboration: Domestic violence relationships are often very unpredictable and extremely volatile. In 2007, 14% of homicides in the United States were committed by an intimate partner (U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2009). Additional studies found that in 2008, twelve times as many females were murdered by a male they knew than were killed by male strangers. In Solano County between 2010 and 2012, fifteen domestic violence victims and innocent by-standers (friends and roommates) lost their lives at the hands of an abusive partner or ex-partner. Victims of domestic violence are frequently isolated and unable to reach out to multiple agencies to access support or financial services. Many are often not aware of resources available to them and their children and believe there is no way out.
The Solano Family Justice Center (SFJC) is a program that brings together County, cities, faith-based and nonprofit community-based domestic violence and child abuse service providers under one roof. The relationship the SFJC fosters between government and community-based agencies is a unique partnership that strives to reduce the number of places victims must navigate in order to get their needs met. The SFJC provides a safe and welcoming environment where victims and their children can benefit from comprehensive services offered at one location. The SFJC coordinates violence intervention and prevention services that work to keep victims safe. The SFJC offers information and referrals to confidential and non-confidential advocacy services, domestic violence crisis and transitional shelter services, counseling, restraining orders and court accompaniment, victim empowerment, and resources and emergency services. The primary goal of the SFJC is to intervene and provide services to families experiencing domestic violence and ultimately, to reduce domestic violence.
• Consumer Confidence: Consumers make choices everyday based on confidence in the vendor and the oversight of local agencies. Businesses and residents look to regulators to ensure an equitable market place and consistent use of land-use policies. The Department of Resource Management houses a variety of those regulatory disciplines. They inspect food facilities to ensure they are operating within safe standards to ensure consumer health for all. They evaluate requests for the use of properties to ensure the fit within the neighborhood and community. They work with users of hazardous materials to ensure these products are used in manner that is safe for the employees at the business as well as the community as a whole. They inspect small and large construction projects to ensure compliance with established building codes to protect the current occupants as well as future property owners.
ALTERNATIVES:
The Board could choose not to adopt the resolution recognizing April 2013 as National County Government Month in Solano County. This is not recommended as this resolution offers Solano County residents an opportunity to learn about both the vital county services provided by county government and the dedicated county employees who daily serve the public.
OTHER AGENCY INVOLVEMENT:
All County departments were consulted to compile this report
CAO RECOMMENDATION:
APPROVE DEPARTMENTAL RECOMMENDATION