The first stage in being a Steelers fan is to
admit it. I do admit it. Okay, good. And that
was hard because when I moved here, the 2005
Super Bowl was still fresh from people. I moved
here in 07. Yeah, the one where the Steelers
won fair and square in Detroit. Absolutely fair
and square, yes. Welcome to County Connection,
the official podcast of the Washington State
Association of Counties, where we dive into the
legislative issues shaping the future of our
communities. From budgets to public safety, infrastructure
to elections, we'll break down what's happening
in Olympia and how it impacts counties from across
the Evergreen State. Stay informed, stay engaged,
and join us as we amplify the voice of Washington's
39 counties. Welcome back everybody to the County
Connection Podcast. I'm Paul Jewell, the Government
Relations Director for the Washington State Association
of Counties and your host on this podcast and
every podcast. It is a kind of a gray Saturday.
It's a little nasty outside. So we decided to
come in and record another podcast for you. And
on the way back inside, I ran into a special
guest and I dragged him in here. Commissioner
Ty Mentor from Thurston County. How are you?
commissioner i'm good thanks paul welcome this
is your uh is this your first part your first
podcast ever it's your first time on this podcast
it's my first time on this podcast i've been
on other podcasts you have so you're a podcast
veteran and i actually did in college i was a
radio dj oh no kidding and i did that uh and
then i was a public defender up in the arctic
circle where i did radio up there on kotz 50
000 watts because they for emergency they give
them a humongous like they got to cover the entire
arctic of alaska well shout out to KOTZ and the
Arctic. This podcast sponsored by KOTZ. So I
like doing, I love, it's kind of a joke like
in my campaigns and in my work as a commissioner,
I hate doing video stuff, but I love doing audio
stuff. So you're a radio guy. It just feels so
much more comfortable to me, yeah. Yeah, I had
no idea. When I asked you to do this podcast,
I didn't know that you were such a veteran. You
should be sitting on this side of the table.
Well, when I heard you were doing it, that's
why I threw, yeah, I'd love to come and pitch
in. Well, you mentioned, that. So you mentioned
you did some, was it a prosecutor or public defense?
Public defense. Up north. Okay. So you have a
legal background too. I do. Yeah. I was a lawyer
for 21 years before I ran for office. I started
in corporate downtown Chicago in the top floor
of the mercantile exchange building, 10 South
Wacker. And then doing commercial litigation,
moved to Palo Alto where I did intellectual property
litigation for a tech. like law firm. That had
to be a huge change from Chicago to Palo Alto.
It was. I mean, I went to Berkeley for grad school.
So it was kind of like coming home. The Chicago
is kind of the weird part because I wasn't a
Midwesterner. So you were, are you from California
then? I'm from Southern California. Oh, okay.
So you're an import. To the Pacific Northwest.
Oh, that's a secret that I just unveiled right
here. I have moved around. I had met Luis, Alaska.
Yeah. So I've been around, but I had the legal
background. And then after a couple of years
in Palo Alto, I decided. You know, I'm not getting
in the courtroom. I'm not doing the kind of public
interest work that I really makes my heart feel
good. And I. And I got fascinated by Alaska at
the same time. So I'm like, I think I'm going
to combine all three of these things. I'm going
to go up and be a public defender. I'm going
to do courtroom. I'm going to help people at
least for a few years and see how that feels.
And I'm going to explore the Arctic and Alaska
and end up there seven years. So you're a California
kid, went to school down there at Berkeley, ended
up in Chicago. I actually went to college in
the Northeast. Oh, wow. Okay. Like New Hampshire
or? I was at Harvard and Cambridge. Okay. Cambridge.
Great. Boston? Boston, yeah. All right. Did you
catch any Red Sox games when you were there?
Many Red Sox games. I'm a big baseball fan. Fenway
Park, man. It's my favorite park. Unbelievable.
So I'm just trying to keep up because this is
a little crazy. So you went all the way east,
hanging out in Cambridge. Then you ended up in
Chicago. Then you ended up back in Palo Alto.
And then you just said. what the heck we're going
to Alaska. Yeah. I was really comfortable in
a law firm in the Bay area. And I was in my twenties,
late twenties. And I just thought, is this it?
I'm going to be just working at this law firm
for 50 years and retire. It's like, I was, I
was not married. I was unattached, no kids. Like
I'm going to go to Alaska. I read a book called
Arctic dreams by a guy named Barry Lopez, who
wrote from Eugene, Oregon. Really changed my
life because it got me really interested in environmental
stuff and really interested in Alaska and like
a truly, you know, a landscape like that. And
it's a state, so you can keep my legal career
moving. And I was interested, like say, getting
in the courtroom more. So I'm like, what if I
went to the public defender in Alaska for a few
years? That seemed to check several boxes for
me. So I made all the, you know, it took a lot
of work to get all that lined up. Oh, sure. Take
the bar and meet some people up there. And they
sent me to Kotzebue, Alaska. Where is that? That's
in the Arctic Circle. north of Nome in the Northwest.
Wow. Nome's not far enough north for me, Paul.
I had to go above, 26 miles above the Arctic
Circle. When you said Alaska, you meant full
on Alaska. You're not talking Southwestern Alaska.
I owned a snow machine. Oh, wow. Good for you.
And then three years there. And then I went to
Fairbanks because I didn't want to leave. It
felt weird to like go to Kotzebue, which is a
native village, and then go back to the Bay Area.
So I'm like, I want to see Alaska, like white
people's Alaska, you know, the road system and
kind of what that's like. So I went to Fairbanks
and my wife and I really loved it. And we were
really close to staying. You give up a lot of
things when you go there. Baseball, taking my
kids to see, you know, not being able to, my
son was born in Fairbanks and the idea of never
being able to take him to see a ball game. What
about hockey? Did you get into hockey? I didn't
get into hockey really. But I'm sure that's.
I'm sure that's a big time sport. University
of Alaska Fairbanks had a hockey team. Yeah.
I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Is there spring long
enough to have a baseball season? I don't know.
Well, you know, it's cool. They have the, so
there's a college all -star league up there in
the summer during the long night. So once the
college season ends. Oh, sure. Cause they can
play all night long. They can play all night
long. And there's actually a midnight game. So
you get like Mark McGuire, all these famous,
like. guys who ended up in mlb it's just game
after game after game in the alaska league oh
wow that's great to get extra reps during um
like when they when they were college if they
didn't go pro yeah and you know i know some of
the pros some of the young pros that are in the
minor leagues they'll go down to like south america
and mexico and play yeah during the off season
um but i had no idea there was an alaska league
i think it's still college students could do
and there's some of the northeast too right during
the summer isn't there i think so yeah some of
those summer kind of semi -pro development leagues
Well, we should have made this about baseball
because we probably could have talked baseball
all day. So you're in Alaska. You grew up in
Kotzebue, you said? Kotzebue. Kotzebue? Kotzebue.
Okay. And then down in Fairbanks. And then how
did you end up here? So then it was my wife and
I were thinking, do we stay in Alaska? Because
I had some career opportunities opening up that
probably would have locked me down for good.
we decided, nope, I'm not going to, I'm a musician
as well. Like I wanted to play music and see
music. And I wanted to take my son to ball games
and be closer to my family. So we're like, we're
going to make one more move, only one. Cause
I knew I really wanted to be involved in local
government and community and stuff. And you got
to be really rooted in a community to, to do
that kind of work. So I knew that it was going
to be one more move. And so we were kind of looked
around and I picked Olympia based on kind of
a, I knew I was a West coast guy. I'd lived in
the Midwest. I'd lived in the Northeast. I knew
I wanted to be on the West coast. fit me culturally
and, you know, my background. And so we looked
at different communities. We loved Fairbanks.
So we were looking for that kind of medium -sized
community, not too small, not too big, where,
you know, you can really make a name for yourself
through the work that you do. Still know your
neighbors. Yeah. That sort of stuff. And so we
looked at communities like Eugene, Ben, Bellingham,
but Olympia just led. And I'll tell you the real
reason it's Olympia is because I loved Berkeley.
And when I got to Olympia, something about it.
It does have a little bit of that feel. And I
immediately connected with it. Sure. And I felt
like this is a place I could definitely settle
in and get to know and want to make home. And
we've been here since 07. And did you practice
law while you were here for a while? I did for
like 12 years in a small law firm. And now you're
a county commissioner. I'm a county commissioner.
And when did you first get elected? 2018. So
I'm in my seventh year. Wow. Wow. Seven years.
Now you are the senior member now. I am. I went
from the county. Like we were joking that like
I might've been the youngest county commissioner
ever elected in Thurston County. I mean, no one
could remember anyone younger. I was 47 when
I got elected. Oh wow. Traditionally been a lot
of older retired folks from state government
and different places. And now we've gone from
three to five commissioners and I'm the oldest
and most senior member. Well, you have a, you
have a pretty young group over there now. I do.
It's something that Commissioner Fournier was
telling me that he heard that we. have the youngest
average age county commission in the state? You
might. Kittitas County has a pretty young group,
but they're not as young as they used to be because
they're all now in their second or third term.
Actually, I think they're in their second terms.
But two out of three of them were still in their
30s for a while. And I'm not sure. Shout out
to the Kittitas County commissioners. I'm not
trying to make you guys older than you are. But
they were pretty young as well for a while there.
We've had some members of WASAC that were still
in their 20s, which is unusual. You're right.
It's usually a more mature person who kind of
gets elected to that post of being the administrative
head or at least the legislative head of a county.
And it makes sense, right, why voters tend to
gravitate to people with more wisdom when they
want someone to lead their community. Well, it's
great to have you. And this is background I didn't
even know about you. So I'm just getting to know
you a little bit now. You and I have bonded a
little bit over our shared love for a team that
will not be mentioned on this podcast because
it will not make us popular with other folks.
But I know we're both also Seattle sports fans,
which is great. And you guys, when we were talking
earlier, you didn't do an NCAA bracket. So we
can't talk about that. So far this year, I've
had everything focused exclusively on the legislative
session. And I know you want to talk about some
innovative criminal justice programs that. Thurston
County has been making some investments in, which
actually is perfect. It relates really well to
what's going on legislatively right now. One
of the priorities here in Olympia, I'm sure you've
heard, has been law and justice and public safety.
And kind of an emphasis on how do we get more
dollars into public safety? How do we make investments
there so that people feel safer in their communities
than they are now? I think that's really kind
of the message that legislators are getting is
they... a lot of their constituents are telling
them they're just not feeling as safe in their
communities as they'd like to. Are you getting
some of those messages here in Thurston County?
Yeah. I mean, we've been working, you know, I'm
really proud how we've worked on a variety of
fronts. I mean, I was going to talk about some
of the kind of innovative programs about kind
of reducing reliance on incarceration as the
primary tool. But at the same time, we passed
a public safety sales tax just last year. Oh,
wow. Is that the three -tenths? We did two tents.
You can go up to three tents. Okay, but you guys
did two. We did two tents, and it was to try
to bring our sheriff's office staffing levels
up to... at least middle of the pack in Washington,
we were down toward the bottom. Now, when you're
talking staff levels, are you talking almost
exclusively law enforcement officers or are you
talking administration and support staff as well?
We are focused on the deputies on the road. Okay.
I mean, we've got five - Boots on the ground.
Yeah, boots on the ground. Five areas. We want
any given time, two officers in every area. And
we were falling short of that. And we feel like
that's kind of a minimum amount of - response
that we need in the community for what's going
on. Well, you know, Thurston County and Olympia
being kind of almost centrally located, at least
in the western part of Washington, which is the
more, you know, highly populated region and being
the capital is oftentimes a place where the issues
that are being discussed. in the legislature
are also really, really felt in this community
almost every single time, almost every single
one of them. In some regions of Washington, they'll
be discussing an item, you know, the legislature
that has more of an impact maybe in the Northeast
or has more of an impact in Seattle or more of
an impact in the Southwest. But it seems like
Olympia, whenever the legislature is talking
about something, it's something that Olympia
is also dealing with, that Thurston County is
also dealing with. And that's certainly the case
with what you were just telling us, that you
guys are making investments in law enforcement.
from your community as well. Yeah, and our prosecuting
attorney, John Tunheim, he always says, I know,
you know, it's great. I can always tell what's
coming. for Thurston County by just looking at
what's going on in Pearson King. Yeah. Things
flow a few years later down the I -5. Right.
And trends, he's always looking at trends and
seeing, and we usually see the same trends, whether
it's a rash of vehicle thefts or eluding cases
or a certain drug influx, gang activity, all
those sorts of things. I just met your prosecutor.
I think just last week seemed like a great guy.
He is a really good guy. So what are these other
programs that you mentioned? I kind of said they're
innovative criminal justice programs. And I know
some of them are diversion programs and other
things. Why don't you describe a couple of them
to us? I'll take through a few things and then
I'll describe a couple of them in a little more
detail. Law enforcement assisted diversion. That's
something that a lot of people are familiar with.
It started in Seattle and then kind of went national.
And then now different groups all over the place
are kind of tapping into it. So you called that
law enforcement assisted diversion? Yes, LEAD.
Okay. So when I think of diversion programs,
I think of things like drug court or family court
or juvenile court, right? Where instead of sending
a juvenile who might've shoplifted a small item
to I don't know, electronic home monitor or something
like that. We might have them do some community
service for a while. Is that the type of program
that you're talking about here? It is, although
in its classic form. LEAD tries to empower the
law enforcement officers so that they can, like
what you're describing usually happens after
arrest has been made, charge has been referred
to the prosecutor, prosecutors decided to file
or in some cases law enforcement can file directly.
And then there's a court proceeding and then
the lawyers get together, they get involved and
they decide to do a diversion out of the court
system, but it's already in the court system.
This is trying to get a little ahead of that,
saving dollars on the court and lawyer side.
So you're moving that. Up in the process. Moving
it up in the process. Oh, interesting. So it's
not a judge that's actually making a decision
or lawyers coming together to make a decision.
Is it the law enforcement themselves? It's the
law enforcement and officers themselves. They
have a referral service that they can tap into
and they can basically, and again, I'll give
a little history. Thurston County tried to do
this in 2017 and it wasn't well funded. The law
enforcement officers, we didn't have good buy
-in from the law enforcement officers. So it
really didn't get utilized and it just withered.
So let me get this straight. And excuse me if
I oversimplify because I've never heard of a
program like this before. I'm imagining myself
maybe. And I don't know. I do something crazy.
I decide to try to outrun a train, right? That's,
you know. It's a really stupid idea, right? But
it's also incredibly illegal, right? And I could
easily get pulled over for that. I could maybe
even get arrested for reckless endangerment,
like if I had somebody in the car with me or
something like that. That's a horrible example,
isn't it? Let's try something simpler. Maybe,
you know, maybe I shoplift at the grocery store.
Maybe, you know, I'm hungry and I don't have
any money and I decide to, you know, take a bag
of chips and stuff them under my coat. I get
caught. It's my first offense, something like
that. Law enforcement officer could, you know,
they probably do a couple of things, right? They
could write a ticket. They could sit there and
write a ticket and give me a fine. They could
maybe refer me to court and give me that slip
and say, you must appear on such and such. to
date and that I would have to appear in front
of the judge. Instead of that, are you saying
that they could actually write them in there,
say, in order to avoid going to court, you can
do so many hours of community service and let
us know within a certain date and we'll take
this off your record? It's not exactly like that.
Okay. So what the law enforcement officer would
be looking for is somebody that has mental health,
substance abuse issues that they believe are
kind of the driver of the criminal activity.
And then they can tap you into a case manager.
And if you're willing to engage with that case
management, then they would have the decision
not to refer it to the prosecutor or the prosecutor
would have the decision not to file the charge
at all. Keep it out of the court system. There
are other programs for something simpler, like
what you just described. But the LEAD program
is really about connecting people to where the,
yeah, there's criminal behavior involved. criminal
charge could be filed, but we can see that there's
some other things that are going on. Well, not
even mitigating, but just think there's something
else driving the behavior that if addressed could
potentially, you know, stop the cycle. And so
it's a judgment call. And, you know, and I say
the classic form because that's how the program
was designed and that's, we're building toward
that. And that's how a lot of the referrals.
are growing. It's a growing number of referrals
from law enforcement, but because when Blake
happened and COVID happened right when we were
launching our program, we do get a lot of referrals
from social service organizations. So they haven't
actually necessarily been arrested just yet,
but our lead program has the capacity to take,
you know, as many referrals as, you know, they're
looking for referrals from all sources. So if
a social service agency says this individual
is on a path of, you know, at risk of, engaging
in criminal behavior, but because of a substance
abuse issue or a mental health issue, they can
send someone to lead. And again, the lead, the
team, let me just talk a little bit about the
details of it. Our program has a program manager,
a case management supervisor, two substance SUD
or substance abuse disorder outreach coordinators,
and then eight peer specialist case managers.
So that's the staffing model of the program.
When I said that this Program failed in 2017.
I really credit our prosecutor, John Tunheim,
for not giving up on the program. The state made
a grant program available to help fund, give
it a more robust funding model to where they
would fund 75 % and the local dollars would fund
25 % to get it like up and running. Wow. And
he was willing to basically. Even though he got
beat up pretty bad for the failure in his 2018
re -election campaign, he was willing to say,
let's try this again and try to do it right.
So he partnered with the Public Health and Social
Services Department at Thurston County. They
were like the contract recipient. And we built
the program with our local crisis response organization
called the Olympic Health and Recovery Service.
And we built the program again from ground zero.
And it's been much more successful. So I have
to imagine the case management piece and those
eight case managers are key to this, right? And
it sounds to me like what you just described
is. or at least what I'm inferring from what
you described is you can get referrals from multiple
locations. So the law enforcement officers themselves
may make a contact, see that there's some sort
of extenuating circumstance here, some sort of
contributing factor that maybe is, like you said,
a substance use issue or some other disability
that could use treatment like behavioral health
or something like that. And they can make the
referral or some of these social service agencies
that are seeing a pattern of behavior might make
a referral as well. That's true. Yeah. And, and,
you know, I like it when the law enforcement
make it, that's where I want to see us grow that
component because then you are doing a couple
of things. You're saving all the resources that
would go with the lawyers in the court system.
And you're potentially taking burden off law
enforcement officers themselves that don't have
the training or experience or desire to be case
managers or social workers. And a lot of times
they don't want to just haul someone to jail,
but they don't have a choice sometimes. Well,
if you can keep somebody out of that system,
right? Somebody who isn't necessarily a criminal,
especially, and you can address that underlying
issue, you can stop that kind of spiraling of
recidivism. that can really, people can get caught
up in. And on that point, I just pulled some
statistics from our dashboard. 58%, this is not
Thurston County. This is kind of program -wide,
like LEED has shown in some studies. 58 % reduction
in recidivism for participants. Well, that's
huge. 89 % more likely to find permanent housing.
46 % more likely to be employed after like 12
months in the program. Now, how long has this
program been going on? Thurston County. We started
it, I want to say in 2022. Well, we tried, that's
I think when it got really up and we started
it in 20, I think we applied for the grant in
2020. Okay. So, and right now we're able to use,
we're still getting money from the state. We're
using local treatment sales tax dollars because
we have a local treatment sales tax program.
And then. There was some new legislation about,
I don't want to get too complicated for folks,
but recovery navigator program, there was a requirement,
there was money there. And basically that legislation
said, if you already have a lead program, you
can sort of connect that up and use that to satisfy
the new requirements. What we did, we already
had a lead. So some of our money has now been
replaced by this new state funding stream. So
it's all kind of fitting. We're always worried
about the next. a couple of years down the line.
Do you think you're getting better outcomes than
you would otherwise without the program? Absolutely.
I go to the, like we have a, like a party for
the, some of the graduates every year. And I've
been to that two or three times and it's just
awesome to hear stories. Yeah. We used to do
that. We used to do that for drug court. in our
County. I'm sure they're still doing it, but
you know, it's, you watch someone start at that
process. Right. And they get an opportunity to
go through a diversion program. Like you're talking
about drug courts, another example of that. And
then they make it all the way through and graduate.
And it's remarkable what comes out on the other
end. Yeah, it really is. Do you think it's saving
Thurston County money? We do. So we have a, what
we, I create, I helped create a position called
a criminal regional criminal justice program
manager. our person left and so that it's vacant
right now and we're we're hiring for a new one
but her job you want to make a pitch on the on
the podcast yeah if anyone's interested in applying
for this kind of uh great salary benefits and
living conditions it's a really cool job because
we really want someone to look over the whole
system and what that's the kind of the and the
answer to your question is the kind of thing
i wanted that person to do which is help us analyze.
Yeah. Figure out what the metrics are. Yeah.
The metrics, how are we benefiting from this?
Are we saving money here because we're, you know,
investing money here. Right. And you know, the
early data shows, I think that we are, but yeah,
well, that's good to know. You know, I don't
want to, I don't want it to sound like it's all
about saving money because it is about better
outcomes as well. And better outcomes, even if
you're investing more upfront. are going to save
you a lot more down the road. The statistics
you quoted, 58 % less recidivism. I mean, that's
huge. 89 % greater chance of finding permanent
housing compared to others. With the housing
crisis that we have going on right now and the
number of homelessness that we're seeing in our
communities, that's huge as well. And we know
what it costs to run programs to get people into
housing on a regular basis and to sustain those
programs over time. So that's great. you had
a couple of others that you wanted to mention
as well. I'll just, I'll just hit a couple other
things. So another thing we did was we have a.
a committee called the Innovative Justice Committee.
And this actually got started before I was on
the board. I think it was pretty new, but as
soon as I joined the board in 2019 and I heard
about it and I have a background as a public
defender, so I've been attending those meetings
religiously. It's a group of stakeholders, community
members, law enforcement attends it. It's run
by one of the prosecuting attorneys, Wayne Graham.
It's a really great group where we can just talk
about anything, explore issues like this year's
project. is to work on re -entry programming.
But anyway. From that group came the idea that
we needed what we ended up calling the resource
hub. We needed like a one -stop shop where people
could go in and really connect to all the different
services they needed. And so we looked at some,
how would we fund this and where would we locate
it? And because Thurston County's courthouse
is in flux and we're moving people around buildings
and we moved administration out to a different
building, we had a corner of a building that
we could basically start this concept and we
basically launched it. And it has grown. and
grown and grown. So when you say... a resource
hub, a location where people could come and get
the services or get connected to the things that
you need. You're talking about folks who need
different types of social services. Yes. We have
right now, we have 20 different service providers
with contracts to come in. And it's kind of the,
I saw in Pierce County, they had a court resource
center, I think is what they call it. Yeah, they
do. And I, as a candidate in 2018, I took a tour
of that and I really was impressed by that. So
that's kind of where ours isn't quite as big
as that, but it's along. the same lines yeah
and i think pierce county would say that that's
been a pretty successful program as well so essentially
someone can come in and they're going to find
are they just going to find information about
different programs that they could qualify for
or they can get assessments set up are there
actually live people there are people there from
all these different service providers yeah they're
scheduled on different days like housing person
might be there tuesday and thursday okay there's
you know mental health assessments on friday
but they just come they could just come back
to the exact same location they're not going
all the time campus and we have a, there's two
staff. We started with one manager. Actually,
we started trying to run it out of our pretrial
service with like a half of an FTE. We clearly
needed a full FTE and now we needed a second
FTE. It's grown and grown and grown. We see more
and more people. We have more and more service
providers that are coordinated. It's just been,
it's really taken off. How do the service providers
coordinate the services that they're providing?
If that makes sense. You know, one of the things
that I remember from my days as a county commissioner,
one of the things we struggled with was we had
a lot of service providers, but it was hard for
the service providers to kind of track. the people
that were being served here for this thing and
served here for that thing and served here for
this thing, right? They didn't have a lot of
communication. Does this resource hub change
that? Is there some sort of central database
now that everybody kind of logs into and they
can kind of see when a person presents with a
need, what they're getting, what they're not
getting, where the gaps might be, that sort of
stuff? I think the answer to that is yes. And
you're almost segueing into the third. program
I wanted to highlight, which is what we call
the Court Alternative Program, or TCAP, Thurston
County Court Alternative Program. It's a pilot
we just started. It is based on the San Diego's
homeless court, which has been around for like
25 years. Commissioner Mejia and our pretrial
services director and some of our criminal justice
program manager went down there and actually...
met the folks and observed it in action. What's
a homeless court? Because I've not heard of that
before. I've heard of the other ones that I mentioned,
but I've not heard of that. It's kind of weirdly
named because you don't have to be homeless to
be part of it. It's kind of like what you started
with when you were giving me a hypothetical about
LEAD. It's like somebody that does some very
low level offense. And it basically, rather than
using up court time and court resources, you
have MOUs with service providers. And the reason
I say this connects to the resource hub is because
we use the resource hub network of service providers
to do this and the service provider, basically.
So the re the resource hub coordinator chooses
a service provider. Now you may have three or
four different problems, but we choose one to
be kind of like the lead and they, and they agree
in their MOUs that they're going to look at holistically
at like all the problems, like the SIPA lead
agency, if you have a project and you come up
with a, with a service plan and then And then
they basically, everybody in the court side just
says, we're going to give you six months to see
what you can do. The service provider does all
of it and then sends it. And then one month before
the court date, the team checks in and then an
advocacy letter, it's called, gets provided by
the service provider back to the team, which
then the court, it either goes back to court
or it gets dismissed. Oh, that's interesting.
So put myself in the shoes of the person who
maybe. committed the offense. So this is a program
where I can say, okay, do I go to court first?
And the court says, look, you've got this opportunity
or we can do that. Okay. So we go to court, the
prosecutor and the public defender agree that
I would be eligible for this type of program
and I get to choose. They say, look, buddy, look,
Paul, here's your deal. You can spend two weeks
in jail or you can try this other program and
get this wiped off your record. Is that kind
of the end result? Yeah, it gets dismissed, essentially.
It gets dismissed. So then I would go in and
someone is in charge. It's not a probation officer.
It's some sort of social services provider. Yeah,
you'd check in at the resource hub. So having
the resource hub, it's not a requirement to having
this court alternative program, but it really
was a good synergy. Yeah, it would work perfectly.
Works perfectly. you go there, they assign you
to one of our service providers that we have
MOUs with as your, your lead service provider.
And then, then, then what's the beauty of it
is. it's taken care of there okay and um so what
what would i what would i have to do you have
to go to your service provider kind of have an
assessment of like what all are your needs that
are driving the the you know the minor offenses
that you're engaged in okay and then they'll
come up with a plan and as long as you engage
in that plan and follow through you'll get an
advocacy letter back to the court team to say
this person's on track they've done what the
what we asked them to do and what would the plan
be like i i need to maybe attend some counseling
sessions maybe i need to um substance abuse treatment
is a big yeah get some treatment maybe find some
housing maybe uh at least you know get um a resume
in order and things like that for self -sufficiency
down the road is that the kind of thing that
those are the kind of things yeah i mean it's
not as intensive as what you'd see in the your
case manager is going to actually really help
you food, shelter. I mean, it's a lot more hands
-on intensive. These are more minor offenses
and a little more hands -off. More personal responsibility.
More personal responsibility, more like a traditional
diversion program. But what's different is, and
why it's different from drug court that you're
familiar with is, those are all super monitored
by court. And even though they're very successful,
they suck up a lot of court. resources and time
yeah the case management on those is pretty intensive
this is for sure this is creating a different
model where maybe lower level folks can this
can be done with less you know public resources
is there any punishment involved like community
service or anything like that if you follow through
uh there and there's no punishment if you fail
out you just your your case just gets processed
as normal okay um you're not punished. If you
decide to withdraw, Hey, this isn't for me. You
just go back to the court system. I see. So,
but, but no, if you follow through, then you
won't have to, I mean, they may include community
service. inappropriate cases but i'm not i don't
know how often that gets included yeah that's
interesting we've just started this i should
say uh we built it over 20 end of 2023 and 2024
i think december was our first um participant
and we're just we're just like getting the pilot
rolling and and with our criminal program manager
who kind of put this all together uh departing
uh we're we're you know, we're still just getting
people lined up to start the pilot. And then
there's supposed to be a report back to the commissioners.
So your lead program has been going for a few
years. Your resource hub has been in place for
a little while at least. And you're just getting
started with this new program. Wow. Well, you
guys are busy over there. We're busy and we've
done all kinds of other stuff too. I won't, I
won't, we won't have time to talk about today,
but, and I just want to say that we've been able
to do this. So I came in as a former public defender
with a criminal justice kind of plank to my like
to see the mission of what I wanted to do as
a commissioner. We had three board members when
I joined, one of whom was a five -time former
sheriff and one was a former Olympia police officer,
Commissioner Hutchings and Commissioner Edwards.
So I didn't know if I would get anywhere with
these ideas. And I was so pleasantly surprised
of all the different things that we've butted
heads on or tried to do together. We have really,
and again, the board has changed over completely,
but right from the get -go, there was collaboration
with the county commission and the prosecuting
attorney who isn't always on board for these
kinds of things. Well, yeah. And the sheriff's
office. I mean, we've worked - across Thurston
County stakeholders with the concept that incarceration
is not always the most cost -effective and outcome
-effective solution in every case. And we can
maybe do better if we think outside the box.
So I really just want to, you know, I came in
thinking that I'd have to educate everyone about
all this stuff and I didn't. I've been able to
give a really big push and prioritize it financially
when the budget questions come up and are we
going to fund this? And I'm like, yes, yes, yes.
But I want to give a lot of kudos to my stakeholder
collaborators across Thurston County in the justice
world, because everybody has, including law enforcement
agencies and cities, have really been on the
same page. That's great. Yeah. So it's really,
I've been really proud of it. You know, there's
been a real shift societally, I think, when we
think about the law and justice system in general,
right? And we try to figure out, okay, how are
we going to make sure that the outcomes after
the fact, right, are better than they were before?
Because that's really what we're trying to achieve.
I mean, there are heinous crimes that are committed,
right? There is still evil in the world. And
there is a place for that type of person. I think
we all agree on that. And that's a really unfortunate
part of humanity, but it's something that we
as a society, as a civil community have to deal
with. But there's a lot of other things out there
that if you can just get people into the right
system, if you can kind of just show them a better
way of doing things and they're responsive to
that, then we're all better off in the long run,
right? And rather than getting people... Because
I think that... History has shown that the real
problem can be when we just lock people away
and we don't try to rehabilitate them. They just
end up reoffending and reoffending and reoffending.
They get caught in that spiral, right? And none
of us are better off. And in fact, it ends up
costing us all a lot more in the long run as
well. So these types of programs are great. It's
really great to hear that when you joined the
board and it was essentially the old sheriff,
the old police chief and the public defender,
that they were as open -minded to these programs
as they were. Pretty much, yeah. I was really
pleasantly surprised, and we've got a lot done
because of that. I'm sure it was their experience.
seeing the human condition on a day in and day
out basis, right? Seeing those people on the
street every day and then seeing kind of the
outcomes long -term as they saw the same people
over and over and over again and weren't able
to get them, you know, the services that really
could have helped change their lives. So that's
great news. That's really great to hear. Yeah.
I mean, you know, we have a history in our country
of over -incarceration. I mean, the statistics,
if you read the history of like the drug, you
know, the war on drugs in the 70s and 80s and
we, you know, obviously there's different ways
to go about these problems because, you know,
we incarcerate, you know, at that point, you
know, as of like the early 90s, we just had like
historic human rates of incarceration. Yeah,
especially in the United States, right? Yeah.
So it was, you know, it was time for a different
approach. And it's, yeah, it's really become
a depoliticized issue, like oddly. Yeah, no,
I think it has. You know, it really has. It's
been mainstreamed a little bit in many ways societally.
And I think that's a good thing. I think that's
a good change. You know, on a pretty gray day,
this has actually been a pretty uplifting conversation.
I didn't think it was going to be. You know,
I sit here sometimes and we talk about cops or
we talk about corrections. And it's, you know,
a lot of doom and gloom and not necessarily kind
of, you know, light at the end. of the tunnels
kind of stuff. But it sounds like things are
really going well, at least, you know, in some
ways in the justice system here in Thurston County.
And I'm sure a lot of that is because of the
work that you and your colleagues are doing.
And I'm glad that you came and shared it with
us. Thanks so much for stopping by. Yeah, thanks,
Paul. Well, before we end, I know you're a big
baseball fan. You said that earlier. How do you
think the Mariners are going to do this year?
Are we playing in October or not? I want to say
yes. You want to say yes. Well, you know, there
was this last series with the Astros was kind
of impressive. I don't want to, I don't want
to, you know, get us in trouble for licensing
for licensing violations or anything for talking
about the Mariners. But, uh, I thought their
last, uh, series with, um, the Astros was actually,
uh, a little bit of hope maybe that the bats
might come alive. Yep. It's always eternal hope
in April. Yeah. If we can get Kirby back. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, um, let's hope, uh, let's hope that,
uh, maybe we can come back in October and talk
about the great playoff run, uh, that Seattle's
involved in. That'd be awesome. That'd be awesome.
Well, thanks for coming by, Commissioner. It's
great seeing you. And thanks for doing your first
podcast here on the County Connection Podcast.
Yeah, I enjoyed it. Thank you so much. All right.
Take care. Ciao. Thanks for tuning in to County
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