Committee Minutes

Minutes of the Grand Forks City Council/Finance/
Development Standby Comm. -October 6, 2005 - 5:00 p.m.

The city council of the city of Grand Forks sitting as the Finance/Development Standby Committee met in the council chambers in City Hall on Thursday, October 6, 2005 - 5:00 p.m. . Present at roll call were Council Members Christensen, chair; Glassheim, Hamerlik., Gershman.

Also present were representatives from CVIC, Greg Hoover, Rick Duquette,

1. Request for funding by Community Violence Intervention Center (CVIC).
Duane Czapiewski, co-chair of CVIC Board of Directors, reported they had previously brought forth a proposal to the council, and the city council had referred that matter back for further review and their intent at this meeting was to bring forth their request for funding for further discussion. He stated it was his understanding that they would like to withdraw their request at this time and bring it back at a later date for future study so that they are more prepared to answer some of the questions and are prepared to address some of the issues they have brought forward. He stated that on behalf of the Board he withdrew their request at this time and have the opportunity to come back at a later date.

Christensen stated that it has come to their attention that they may not have sufficient funds available this year but may have money next year for 2006 based upon a report that Mr. Hoover just presented to them, that they anticipated $760,000. Mr. Hoover stated that they are continuing to work to close some sales to bring that money in, but don't know if it will happen at this time, so it would be imprudent for them to commit any additional funds. Christensen stated that they will have the budgeting process for 2006 and will know if they have additional monies coming in from sales, apparently a couple homes didn't sell, and that there will be more time to develop their request along with some of the materials that were given to committee, esp. some of the services that they are apparently picking up that they feel they are helping the city with, that the police department isn't handling, and some other issues that Mr. Glassheim raised that he also feels should be reviewed and asked Mr. Glassheim to present those issues.

Glassheim stated that as this is not going forward now, that he would hope the CVIC would have meetings with the police department and get from them justifiable cost based structure of services they now provide to the city of Grand Forks, to the police department and have been providing at no charge for 20 years, services that enhance public safety of our citizens and have to do, not with the non-profit function, but with essentially a police function and that he would like to see a bid process where city funds, not CDBG money, are added to the police department to pay for public safety activities because of outside grants. To the extent that CVIC is providing safety services to the public that should be or would be taken over by the police department, that he would like to know the magnitude of that, not sure how much to vote them $100,000 or $40,000, and depends on the kind of services they are in fact providing or have been providing.

Hamerlik asked Mr. Czapiewski how will the needed services be carried on, subcontracted, and does have something from the County, and if somebody has something that will assure us that there will be some care that's needed that will still be given for the types of programs.

Chief Czapiewski stated that the County has directed that the States Attorney's Office will take over the Victim Witness process and that presently the Social Service area of the Grand Forks County does take care of part of the Child Visitation, however, there is 50+% of those visitations that do not occur in social services because they are outside of that program, those are taken care of by CVIC so doesn't know of any particular entity in government or within the community any other services that could take over that program at this time. Hamerlik said that they were saying that there is a possibility that 50% of that activity would be lost.

Christensen stated it is his understanding that if there are a thousand visitations and approx. 500 take place at the County Office building and approx. 500 take place at CVIC facility, can't speak for the County, but led to believe by the County that if CVIC were to discontinue its share of the visitations, the County would take them over, and that Mr. Nierode of the County is nodding affirmatively. and we have the opportunity to make sure that we don't lose that service in this community.

Mr. Nierode, director of Adm for County, stated in the event the CVIC would not continue with the Wishing Well Program the statutory requirements for visitation which the County is obligated to do, the County would absorb and would create the program. Glassheim stated that the statutory requirement is only for those children that the County are custodians of, not for 50% who are not custodians, divorce cases and other cases, and only for the 50% where the County is the custodian; they are doing 500 County custodial cases, and the other 500 that CVIC does have nothing to do with the County. Mr. Nierode stated that a major part of the 500 could be County related cases, there are certain types of visitations which the CVIC does that the County would not be obligated to do under statute, but the ones that are under statute that CVIC has been doing for us at the weekends, with those cases the County would absorb; the County has to do it, they are 4required to do it and have offered CVIC $50,000, an increase of $22,000 over the budget we gave them last year and with that $50,000 would then be pulled back to allow the County to fund that.

Gershman stated that the other 50% that are not mandated would those be covered by the County, would you take those in too or only where obligated. Mr. Nierode stated the intent of the County would be to absorb the number of visitations that CVIC does that would be required by the County to maintain so there would be some loss in there.

Christensen stated that when a Court orders something, then someone in government has to perform the function the Court has ordered, an ancillary service of the court system of which the County funds, and to the extent that the Court orders it and what the County has been doing is contracting for these services and if a service provider who is under contract can't do it for that, then the County has to step up and do it, so it doesn't fall through the cracks, the service is provided, but getting a better deal because they are not paying, and that is the issue.

Hamerlik stated he asked will the services be available, have covered a couple programs here, and asked if there are any others that you had in your request that could be falling through the cracks or if there are any other areas that need to be covered and will be covered so that we don't have people that need assistance not getting it. Chief Czapiewski stated the third program that they have identified in the proposal was the offender treatment program, those are court ordered programs, not anger management but educational program, presently a 26-week course, that is provided by the CVIC for these people to help them understand what they are doing to basically correct their ways, and without that funding that program would be cut and not sure if Mr. Nierode has addressed that issue or not. Mr. Nierode stated that is not an obligation of the County to fund that, that would go into a different level of treatment is what he has been told., and from information he has been given is that it is a several week counseling program rather than a 26 week program - that if the 26 week program disappears they are still ordered into another program.

Czapiewski stated he doesn't know of any other program that the Courts are ordering into.

Christensen stated he understands that the Northeast Human Service Center used to perform something called Anger Management and before being called went from Anger Management to Domestic Violence Offender Treatment Program and if someone caused the violence to erupt in the home so the Court says that not put you in jail for doing this but sentence you to work on adjusting your behavior, and if sentenced to detox maybe Blue Cross/Blue Shield would cover that but people that don't have insurance to buy the counseling that is required for a 26-week course but there are other programs available, not as intensive, and understanding from Peter Welte, states attorney, that this 26-week course is referred to as a cognitive restructuring course intensively. He stated that if a Court is going to sentence somebody to do something and that the Court is going to have to make sure there is a service provider available or the sentence is meaningless, and if Court is going to do something like that the Court would have to make sure that there is money available to provide the service or go back to the Legislature. He stated that is his understanding and if Mr. Glassheim's issues are valid, then something that they discuss as a council and as a community to see if this is something that a community should undertake.

Gershman stated he is interested in the process that this is going to take, and if the will of the council is to allocate some money to a service that CVIC provides and would strongly favor that pool of money would go into the social service fund that we have that is administered by United Way so that other social service organizations in town would have the same ability to apply for that money and that we keep the process in place because while nobody disagrees with the mission they have, all of the social service agencies have a very important mission and he would not want to see any of them come out of the process and start lining up before the council in making cases for separate funding, and if the case is made that what they need is valid and the council were to say that we have additional funds, he would support that money going into the pool so would go before that committee that does a good job to allocate that money and make the case there, and keep the integrity of the system which is important, did the same thing with the University by having everything going through a process through the Economic Development Corporation under the Growth Fund to the JDA, and that is working very well, not against anything here and need to find out more information because there are some things here that are new but process is very important and important to the other agencies in town.

Hamerlik questioned Mr. Gershman's remarks that if the council felt that way, and the process now is the council doesn't get involved, we give the money and application would go directly to the United Way, because we are not involved other than allocation of dollars.

Christensen stated what he is hearing coming out of this group, is that we have a process that various council persons favor yet also have a new issue raised by Mr. Glassheim as to whether or not the services being provided by the CVIC that actually we could contract for as a city, that would alleviate some of the issues our police department is doing so have a separate issue, and further clarification and should do that, but as move forward with that until we get further clarification from the police department staff we have this process and if more money going into
- is by virtue of your having brought this issue to our attention and the shortage of funding, and you have to make your case to the United Way until such time as get more clarification as to what the CVIC is doing that we could probably contract for, and that is a budgeting issue for our police department. He stated we don't have the money today and appreciates and respects their decision to withdraw to give us more time on this matter.

Glassheim stated in answer to Mr. Hamerlik's questions, some people will have a different understanding than he does about the programs and whether they would be continued as is or not, and his understanding is that on the counseling program talking about a potential of either center or NE doing a 4-week anger management class as opposed to a 26 week full-scale attempt to change minds and behavior, they are not the same thing and doesn't know that anybody has an agreement to actually provide the service. He stated as it stands now with the Wishing Well Program is 500 people or half who won't be given services that they have been getting unless the Court mandates for every divorce and every petition that supervised child visitation occur, in which case it will then fall to the County and they will be unable to do it for $50,000, and not sure if the Courts will do that or not, and it may be correct that those people will be essentially taken care of but it would be a new thing for the courts to specifically mandate as part of every divorce that there be supervised probation and then it would be a County responsibility and otherwise have between 250 and 500 people who do not have the supervised visitation and whose children may well be at risk.

Hamerlik stated that Mr. Nierobe doesn't know how many of the other 500 might fall under the responsibility of the County. Glassheim stated that unless the judges change what they do why wouldn't they in the future. Gershman stated his question would be of the 500 that the Court didn't mandate, why didn't they do that, what is the level of visitation problem that did not meet the standard of the Court. The director of Program Operations at CVIC stated that at this point 52% of their families are families that do not have where the State has taken custody of the children, that 52% of those families coming to the Wishing Well for child visitation services - that they do provide a larger number of visitation services for foster families and they probably are getting 60% of the visitations services, and have the other 40% of the actual visitation services that are going to be left without.

Christensen stated of the 40% has the Court taken away or stopped visitation that requires State intervention - that in divorce cases could have where the parties agree there is going to be mediated visitation but the Court doesn't say the only way you can see your kids is to go through the County because it is just too hostile - foster kids, taking your kids away and living in someone else' home and if want to see your kids, see your kids over at the County. Kristi stated that 60% of the services that they foster - the other 40% are where it has been Court ordered, not to the County, but court ordered through an order that they must get visitation services, and sometimes Wishing Well. Christensen stated Glassheim's question was why is that a community problem, Kristi stated most of the cases coming to their agency are valid safety concerns. Christensen stated that the Court is going to do this and mandate it, the County has to step up and fund it and is a County responsibility because the County funds the Courts, but to the extent that we should help pick up the slack that is Glassheim's question and is a police department issue.

Gershman asked how those people find CVIC, referred by the police, those that will fall through the cracks. Kristi stated many times referred by the Court, nobody voluntarily comes to that program and Gershman asked why isn't the County going to pick those up - that the x number that were going to fall through the cracks, now hearing they are mandated to come to you so the County would have to pick them up anyway, and that everybody is going to be taken care of. It was stated that the 500 that CVIC handles, approx. 52% are Court-ordered but children not under custody of the State and 52% would come to the County and would be absorbed there, but the 48% would be responsibility and they don't intend to pick those up. Glassheim stated those are County responsibility because County has custody of them, 48% of the number of children are County custody of the CVIC program, and other 52% that those are Court ordered to go to supervised visitation at Wishing Well and that is almost 100% which the County will be responsible for to the extent that the County is responsible for court-ordered things as well as foster case. Gershman stated that if under County custody they will take care of them anyway, and if court mandated will take care of - so all taken care of.

Mr. Nierobe stated that they didn't say that the County was begging to do this, they said that if don't get contracts signed by CVIC there is no choice, they will do it. Christensen stated that if the City says no, the County will pick that up, they have to, nobody is falling through the cracks and the program will continue and the only issue we have now is the type of services that will be provided for the Domestic Violence Offender Treatment Program.

Mr. Nierobe stated he was under the impression in coming to this meeting tonight that there would be people falling through the cracks and that they were not going to assume that, and doesn't have that information available to him what those numbers are - what the County's position is that if they are statutorily obligated to pick it, they will do so. Kristi stated that the other 52% of the families that are still in question because they can't say for sure that they would take them.

Christensen stated what this meeting underscores is the need for further meetings outside this committee, to get the facts clarified and find out more.

Hamerlik asked if there is a need for the record to pass any motions, or for the record to show that the request has been withdrawn and that takes care of it. Christensen stated that when they have withdrawn their request there is no further reason but the dialogue isn't done.

The meeting adjourned at 5:50 p.m.

Alice Fontaine
City Clerk