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2 STATE OF NEW YORK COUNTY OF ONONDAGA
3 WAYS and MEANS COMMITTEE
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4
In the Matter of the
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2016 Tentative Annual Operating Budget
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8 PUBLIC HEARING in the above matter, conducted
at the Onondaga County Court House Legislative
9 Room, 4th Floor, 401 Montgomery Street, Syracuse,
New York before JOHN F. DRURY, CSR, Notary Public
10 in and for the State of New York, on October 8,
2015 at 7:00 p.m.
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ONONDAGA COUNTY LEGISLATORS PRESENT:
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1st BRIAN F. MAY
13 2nd JOHN C. DOUGHERTY
3rd JIM CORL
14 4th JUDITH A. TASSONE
5th KATHLEEN A. RAPP
15 6th MICHAEL E. PLOCHOCKI
7th DANNY J. LIEDKA
16 8th (CHRISTOPHER J. RYAN - not present)
9th PEGGY CHASE
17 10th KEVIN A. HOLMQUIST
11th PATRICK M. KILMARTIN
18 12th DAVID H. KNAPP, Chair of Ways & Means
13th DEREK T. SHEPARD, JR.
19 14th CASEY E. JORDAN
15th J. RYAN McMAHON, II, Chairman
20 16th MONICA WILLIAMS
17th LINDA R. ERVIN
21
Clerk of Legislature: Deborah T. Maturo.
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23
Reported By:
24 John F. Drury, CSR, RPR
Court Reporter 471-7397
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2 INDEX TO SPEAKERS
3 SPEAKERS PAGES
4 MICHAEL HUNGERFORD ACTS 5
5 VIRGINIA CARMODY Literacy Coalition 11
6 JASON ZEIGLER Assigned Counsel Program 18
7 RABBI JOE MURRAY The Grace Project 30
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3
1 Chairman Knapp
2 LEGISLATOR KNAPP: Good evening.
3 Like to call the meeting to order. The
4 public hearing on the -- tonight's
5 public hearing is on the proposed 2016
6 budget, included in the capital
7 improvement plan, the schedule of rates
8 to be charged for water and water
9 service; and the report of the Ways and
10 Means Committee.
11 As always, please check the exits
12 closest to you, just in case. I ask
13 everybody to check their cell phones,
14 make sure those are off. And we'll get
15 started.
16 Just briefly, as far as the budget
17 in general, I think it has been a very
18 smooth process this year. I think we
19 are able to, we had a very good and
20 sound budget that was presented to us by
21 the County Executive and her team. And
22 we made some tweaks to it, and I think
23 we're able to accomplish our goals,
24 still kept the levy a little bit, put
25 some money away in our debt stabilization
4
1 Chairman Knapp
2 fund for down the road, and still do
3 everything we wanted. So all in all, I
4 think we had a very good year, and I
5 thank all of you for your participation.
6 It's a long process and so, but we are
7 coming to the end. So with that, are
8 there any Legislators who would like to
9 speak beforehand?
10 If not, I will now open the public
11 meeting to responses. I have three
12 right now. If you have not signed in
13 and would like to speak, please come up
14 to the front and see Darcie, and she
15 will get your information. Otherwise
16 we'd like to keep the comments to about
17 three minutes to keep things moving
18 along.
19 A reminder, this is a budget public
20 hearing, so we are talking about the
21 2016 budget, and those other items that
22 I just talked about. So if you could
23 keep your comments to that we would
24 appreciate it. And with that we will
25 start out with Michael Hungerford of 305
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1 Hungerford
2 Cherry Road, Syracuse, with ACTS.
3 MICHAEL HUNGERFORD: Thank you, very
4 much. Is there a way I can get one page
5 documented entered into the record?
6 LEGISLATOR KNAPP: Absolutely, just
7 give that to me. That is just one other
8 thing, before you get started, if you
9 have written comments, just submit that.
10 Thank you very much. And we will make
11 sure those are part of the record.
12 MICHAEL HUNGERFORD: Thank you, very
13 much, appreciate the opportunity to come
14 here this evening and to speak to the
15 Legislators who are a part of our county
16 government. ACTS, if you don't already
17 know, is an alliance of communities,
18 primarily, but not exclusively faith
19 communities, that work on advancing
20 justice in this community. And we've
21 been doing that over the years.
22 And part of what we try to do, I am
23 the co-chair of the ACTS Criminal
24 Justice Task Force. And we try to
25 identify important issues that are
6
1 Hungerford
2 affecting people in the Onondaga County
3 area.
4 Early this year one of the member
5 organizations of ACTS, from Grace
6 Episcopal Church came to the Task Force
7 and told is about a very concerning
8 situation. That situation is that
9 youth, 16 and 17 year old youth, are
10 being held in solitary confinement at
11 the Jamesville Penitentiary. Now, many
12 of you probably are aware that
13 previously they were held at the Justice
14 Center. And some time around the end of
15 April last year, because of overcrowding
16 conditions at the Justice Center, they
17 were moved out to Jamesville.
18 And we're not aware of what the
19 situation was while they were at the
20 Justice Center. We don't think it was
21 quite as extensive in terms of the
22 numbers and the length of the solitary
23 confinement that some of these youth,
24 children really, were subjected to at
25 the Justice Center. But we do know that
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1 Hungerford
2 now at Jamesville they are there for
3 very minor kinds of offenses, and
4 they're kept in solitary confinement for
5 extended periods of time.
6 We had one youth come to the people
7 involved who do the visitation from
8 Grace Church, the youth came to them and
9 told them that he had just gotten out of
10 solitary confinement after 75 days.
11 Another youth was kept in solitary
12 confinement for 29 days. So you can see
13 the length of the period of time that
14 we're talking about. And it can be
15 anything ranging from normal teenage
16 behaviors to something much more serious
17 that has to be dealt with, of course.
18 We think that one of the problems is
19 that there is not sufficient programs
20 and services being provided to those
21 youth. And that's why they get in
22 trouble. There is long periods of time,
23 they are unstructured, that they don't
24 have activities for. And we think that
25 that's one way that the amount of
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1 Hungerford
2 solitary confinement that's used could
3 be reduced.
4 We've offered to work with the
5 Department of Corrections and with
6 Commissioner Cowin, and to develop more
7 programs and develop more activities for
8 the youth. So far the Commissioner
9 Cowin, unfortunately, has not taken us
10 up on that offer. So we've been looking
11 into this situation since the beginning
12 of the year. We made a Freedom of
13 Information Act request, we got data
14 from the County. And none of that data
15 that we have and was provided to us
16 shows that there are serious acting out
17 problems with these youth.
18 You may have heard that from
19 Commissioner Cowin, we don't believe
20 it's true, and we don't think, and we
21 haven't been provided with anything that
22 documents and supports that contention
23 of his. So we think, and we want to,
24 and we demand at this time, that the
25 solitary, use of solitary confinement
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1 Hungerford
2 for youth be ended. It's a very, very
3 damaging thing for youth. They are in
4 the formative years of their lives, and
5 being placed in solitary. There is all
6 kinds of studies and investigations that
7 have been done by other people, it shows
8 that they suffer severely when they are
9 placed into solitary confinement.
10 Indeed, some commentators have called
11 that torture. And we don't think that
12 our government and our personnel in
13 Onondaga County, our youth in Onondaga
14 County, should not be subjected to that
15 kind of harmful policies.
16 So obviously, the budget may have to
17 be adjusted in order to accommodate
18 additional youth activities and programs
19 at Jamesville Correctional Facility.
20 And again, that's something that we
21 would be more than willing to work with,
22 Commissioner Cowin and others in the
23 Department of Corrections in order to
24 develop those things that would work
25 best. And we urge you to give
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1 Hungerford
2 directions to Commissioner Cowin to do
3 just exactly that. If you have any
4 questions, if you have any concerns, the
5 phone number is at the bottom of the
6 page that's been passed out. We'd be
7 glad to respond to any questions. And
8 we'll be talking, we've been following
9 up with some of you already. And we
10 would be glad to follow-up with any of
11 the rest of you who would like to meet
12 with us and talk about this situation.
13 We think it's an important issue
14 that needs to be dealt with as soon as
15 possible. There are youth out there
16 tonight who are in solitary confinement.
17 They've stopped using solitary
18 confinement at Rikers Island in New York
19 City, and I think if they can do it
20 there, we should be able to do it here
21 in Onondaga County. Thank you, very
22 much, appreciate it. And I hope to
23 speak with any of you who have any
24 questions following this meeting.
25 LEGISLATOR KNAPP: Thank you. Next
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1 Carmody
2 we have Virginia Carmody, Literacy
3 Coalition of Onondaga County.
4 VIRGINIA CARMODY: Good evening, my
5 name is Virginia Carmody, and thank you
6 for this opportunity to speak. As the
7 Executive Director of the Literacy
8 Coalition of Onondaga County, I offer
9 our vision of a hundred percent literacy
10 to a hundred percent community
11 engagement. That is the community
12 impact strategy that seeks the
13 coordinated pipeline of programs and
14 services that support children and their
15 families.
16 The reality is that a staggering 91
17 percent of Syracuse City School District
18 3rd graders are not reading at grade
19 level. The 3rd grade milestone marks
20 the point when children shift from
21 learning to read, to reading to learn.
22 Students who have not mastered reading
23 by that time are more likely to get
24 stuck in a cycle of academic failure,
25 drop out of school, go throughout their
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1 Carmody
2 lives all at a cost their families and
3 our community cannot afford.
4 It's again, this backdrop that we
5 launched Dolly Parton's Imagination
6 Library in May of 2010. This program
7 not only provides books to children, but
8 establishes a tracking system that is
9 targeted and measurable. With
10 unparalleled frequency and duration, new
11 age-appropriate books are mailed monthly
12 to enrolled children from birth to age
13 5. Given the concentration of poverty
14 in the City of Syracuse, our pilot
15 started in the initial zip code areas
16 13203 and 13208, within the School
17 District's North Quadrant, and that was
18 with the support of the Central New York
19 Community Foundation. Then we expanded
20 to zip code 13204, the District's West
21 Quadrant, with support of the Reisman
22 Foundation, and thereby covered half of
23 the City of Syracuse.
24 Through the leadership of County
25 Executive Mahoney and support from
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1 Carmody
2 Syracuse Mayor Miner, we expanded
3 throughout the City of Syracuse this
4 year, and have now enrolled 6,984
5 children, and distributed 93,398 books.
6 We work with over 80 community referral
7 partners, such as all the area hospitals
8 now, Catholic Charities and Head Start
9 to name a few. But in particular, one
10 of our strongest partners is Onondaga
11 County Departments of Children's Family,
12 Health Department, the Healthy Families
13 and Jobs Plus. They have facilitated
14 together an enrollment of 2,319
15 children.
16 In addition, we have awarded over
17 $250,000 over the past five years in
18 Literacy Champion Grants. These Grants
19 are used to further leverage impact of
20 the books, and provide family literacy
21 programming. That is done in
22 collaboration with a number of partners,
23 including the top of the list is the
24 Rosamond Gifford Zoo, the Onondaga
25 County Public Library, InterFaith Works,
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1 Carmody
2 Child Care Solutions, and Children's
3 Consortium. With that process we have
4 engaged over 2,700 families.
5 A number of research studies have
6 made a compelling case for early
7 education as a critical public
8 investment. Early literacy specifically
9 has proven to be a reliable indicator of
10 a child's future success in school.
11 Consequently this has led to our focus
12 on the importance of regular reading to
13 children as a means to develop the
14 skills necessary to enter kindergarten
15 ready to learn. In particular, our
16 strategy has a dual generation focus
17 that seeks to fully involve parents,
18 which we know are the children's first
19 and most important teacher.
20 In addition, ongoing research
21 conducted by LeMoyne College from the
22 beginning of our program has shown
23 significant positive results for the
24 Imagination Library, including the fact
25 that it has a positive effect on family
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1 Carmody
2 reading, regardless of child's age,
3 gender, family income, parental
4 education, race, parental nation of
5 birth and primary language. We have
6 also been monitoring enrolled children
7 through the use of an automated monthly
8 dashboard.
9 This past August we were
10 particularly thrilled to announce our
11 latest results that the LeMoyne
12 researchers had done, which compared the
13 Syracuse School District children, we
14 finally had the cohort large enough to
15 start the program from birth, now
16 entering kindergarten.
17 So what we did was, not me, the
18 researchers did was, able to work with
19 the School District's data people, and
20 they were able to match our children
21 going to kindergarten. Also set up a
22 control group that matched the same
23 demographics. That information showed
24 that the children in the program
25 outperformed non-enrollees by 28.9
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1 Carmody
2 percent. The Imagination Library
3 program also outperformed the Onondaga
4 County average. These results then led
5 County Executive Mahoney to support
6 expansion of Imagination Library to all
7 children, birth through age 5,
8 throughout Onondaga County. And I put a
9 book in front of you. This is the
10 Welcome Book. Each child receives this
11 book and thereafter they receive an age
12 appropriate book. So it's 60 books they
13 receive.
14 So another quick note, the Literacy
15 Coalition made a strategic decision to
16 join the Annie E. Casey Foundation-led
17 Campaign for Grade Level Reading.
18 There are more than 150 communities
19 across the country, including Syracuse,
20 that are focused on getting students on
21 track for grade level reading by the end
22 of 3rd grade. We are now charter
23 members of a national movement of local
24 governments, non-profits, foundations
25 and others, adopting a collective impact
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1 Carmody
2 strategy that engages the full community
3 around focussing on three challenges
4 that keep children from learning, to
5 read well. They are school readiness,
6 which is our Imagination Library, the
7 center piece of, also issued the chronic
8 absence, and summer learning loss.
9 So I hope you agree that we are
10 targeted, ready, realistic about the
11 challenges before us. We know that
12 nothing is more basic, more essential,
13 more foundational and more important to
14 a child's success in life than an
15 ability to read well. Together this is
16 a problem we can solve. If we reach the
17 entire community to bear on the
18 challenges that keep children from
19 reading well. Thank you all for your
20 support.
21 LEGISLATOR KNAPP: Thank you. And
22 thank you for our little take home book.
23 Everybody's is the same?
24 VIRGINIA CARMODY: Welcome Book is
25 all the same.
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1 Zeigler
2 CHAIRMAN KNAPP: For all of us who
3 got here tonight?
4 VIRGINIA CARMODY: Yes.
5 LEGISLATOR KNAPP: Kevin Holmquist's
6 stories also have that. Next we have
7 Jason Zeigler, the Onondaga County
8 Assigned Counsel Panel and Onondaga
9 County Gideon Society.
10 JASON ZEIGLER: Hello, I just saw
11 you Mr. Casey. I'm going to try to keep
12 my comments really focused on the
13 budget. I came and watched the Assigned
14 Counsel portion of the budget hearing.
15 There was some questions and comments, I
16 wanted to start with that. One of the
17 questions, I believe was from Ms. Chase
18 was, with the proposed increase would
19 that address the complaints that have
20 been coming from the Panel attorneys?
21 And I can assure you it does not. From
22 what I understand this increase is based
23 on an increased case load, essentially
24 maintains the status quo.
25 Back in 2004 the range for assigned
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1 Zeigler
2 work were raised by the state
3 substantially. What we were paid is
4 supposed to be dictated by a state
5 statute. The rate prior to 2004 had
6 been put into effect, from what I'm
7 told, in the mid '80s. I was about
8 eight years old then. From what I'm
9 told, and I got my law license in 2006
10 in this state and 2005 in Pennsylvania
11 and New Jersey is when I graduated law
12 school. The rates went up in 2004.
13 For people in our group in the
14 Gideon Society, who were on the Assigned
15 Counsel Board at that time, you know
16 I've been told there was a cost study
17 that was done by the County. The County
18 went to look at what were the most cost
19 effective options given the options that
20 the County has in providing for indigent
21 defendants. Really four options.
22 Three options, first one being a
23 Public Defenders Office, second one
24 being Legal Aid Society, third one being
25 a plan of a Bar Association. The fourth
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1 Zeigler
2 essentially being some sort of hybrid,
3 which is what we have here. Hiscock
4 Legal Aid is another primary provider of
5 indigent representation in Family Court.
6 The Assigned Counsel Panel, ACP Panel
7 for criminal courts. We also have
8 Family Court appeals for all hearings.
9 Around that time even though the
10 costing was done, apparently the
11 increase in cost was somewhat
12 unsuccessful for the Legislature to
13 control, you know, what they were
14 spending on this. So rules were put
15 into place that essentially, the
16 practice of law didn't change, but it
17 was an attempt to say, we're not going
18 to pay for this, we're not going to pay
19 for that. These rules contradict the
20 statute. There's been litigation. A
21 lot of really the nuts and bolts of
22 whether that complies is ruled on by the
23 Appellate Courts.
24 Frankly, the Court decision that
25 have laid down, the Assigned Counsel
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1 Zeigler
2 Program has essentially ignored this.
3 And I think a lot of the issues didn't
4 get decided because of the O'Hara
5 (phonetic) case that was pending at this
6 time.
7 Fast forward 11 years later, we had
8 a real deterioration in the quality of
9 representation, probably to the point
10 where we were one of five counties in
11 that O'Hara lawsuit. There was talk
12 during the budget hearing of the state
13 taking in some money to help pay for
14 some of the compliance of that lawsuit.
15 I can tell you as an attorney practicing
16 on the Panel, as somebody in growing up
17 with the organization of Panel attorneys
18 that are very dissatisfied with
19 essentially getting ripped off. That
20 first off, that money, that million
21 dollars is going to five counties, not
22 just this. Nobody knows how it's going
23 to be spread out.
24 Not just the O'Hara lawsuit, there
25 was actually a case last year where the
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1 Zeigler
2 Fourth Department, the intervening
3 appellate court, in which we are under,
4 sent a case back for the ineffective
5 assistance of counsel. And some of the
6 points of that pointed up that the
7 attorney had not seen his client for the
8 six months he had represented him and
9 missed very important things in his
10 defense.
11 What's the cost of a case coming
12 back? You know, I think a lot of
13 decisions that have been made have been
14 really short term focus on how do we
15 make this budget? And it wasn't really,
16 it didn't really comply with the cost
17 study. And I think over time, you know,
18 as you've had attorneys sue, who
19 couldn't be paid, had bills unduly
20 delayed, seems to be some sort of
21 mandate, where instead of singling
22 people out, they're spreading the pain,
23 so to speak. And you got a lot of
24 people that were upset.
25 You know, one of the Legislators
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1 Zeigler
2 commented, and I think it was a request
3 for a pay increase for the staff.
4 Personally I have no position on this.
5 But somebody commented that the
6 attorneys, you know, the rate is set by
7 statute, and it is. Frankly the County
8 doesn't pay. If I go file a motion and
9 I get told, you know, you shouldn't have
10 filed motions, despite the fact it got
11 the case dismissed, which is a lot
12 cheaper than trial. I still have to do
13 that.
14 Making this budget, that really has
15 no bearing what the attorneys need to do
16 and expecting the lawsuit would somehow
17 end is unrealistic. When somebody puts
18 in a voucher say $500 for what they did,
19 and they turn around and see $300 of
20 that, they get ripped off. They're
21 going to do the work, they're still
22 going to do the work.
23 Not every bill gets processed. Road
24 blocks are still being put up to that.
25 I think in response to the question of,
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1 Zeigler
2 will this increase in the budget amount
3 address the attorney issues? The answer
4 that was given was, well, the voucher
5 process times have increased. For me
6 things have improved. I mean I was a
7 target. I complained a lot. But when I
8 put it on the list for the Gideon
9 Society, some of the attorneys said that
10 the statute of the law that their
11 vouchers are slower than ever.
12 What you had is, well, we'll back
13 off on these people, put it in to all
14 these other ones. So you had
15 essentially a growing group of people
16 really going to get off the Panel and
17 sue you on the way out.
18 When getting your information I
19 would ask you to consider the source.
20 Try not to throw stones, but if somebody
21 has a vested interest in making sure
22 everything is fine and keeping you
23 happy, how far are they willing to go to
24 keep that going? You know, I think when
25 I first started writing, first started
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1 Zeigler
2 getting singled out, I was one of maybe
3 two or three people who seemed to be
4 vocal about the problem. No one is
5 going to fix the system based on one or
6 two people, it's probably not the
7 system. I think those days are past.
8 There is a lot more of us, it seems to
9 be growing. People who a few years ago
10 didn't want to get involved, you know
11 were worried that those of us who aired
12 our voice, our complaints, somehow bring
13 the system down, are now joining the
14 Gideon Society.
15 I appreciate the fact that through
16 the last few years, you know, we have
17 been able to talk to some of the
18 Legislators, meet with the County
19 Executive. From my understanding from
20 the paper there was a meeting, initially
21 the services office in Albany, New York
22 State Defenders Association about maybe
23 how can we get the state to pay for
24 this? I think most of us support that.
25 Obviously the budget has been a big
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1 Zeigler
2 point of contention. But when it comes
3 to the budget, this isn't an example of
4 say the County PD's office where the
5 work isn't getting done. This is where
6 some of the work is getting done, and
7 not all that is getting paid for. That
8 is going to cause the people to do less,
9 that in turn gets you sued by the NY
10 CLU, it's just a downhill spiral.
11 The statute itself, under County Law
12 7, Article 18B Section 722. The County
13 when it comes to the defense, the state
14 essentially has dumped this on the
15 counties. That was part of the O'Hara
16 lawsuit. Under the current statute the
17 County gets to pick its poison. I
18 believe the County went with what they
19 felt was the lowest, most cost effective
20 option. But it seems to have been taken
21 a step further.
22 I think that a lot of the things
23 going on, its a long story, there is a
24 lot going on, nobody seems to be treated
25 the same. I appreciate the openness, I
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1 Zeigler
2 appreciate the growing amount of
3 questions. I would ask when deciding
4 what is going to be appropriate, have
5 some thought to the long term. There is
6 a lawsuit pending right now, there is
7 probably more coming down. It comes
8 down to somebody gets in a car accident,
9 they're owed a hundred grand. Shut the
10 practice down, Assigned Counsel refuses
11 to pay them. You cannot expect a
12 disabled person not to sue you for money
13 they're owed when you've done the work.
14 I myself was sued in January. Assigned
15 Counsel stopped processing my bills.
16 How is that going to look in front of a
17 jury? I'm not alone in that kind of
18 treatment.
19 So I want to say thank you for
20 taking, you know, a little more of the
21 open-mindedness, hearing us out on this.
22 I would ask that you would talk to some
23 of us that actually do the work, and
24 some of the practical problems we have.
25 I don't think anybody has a real problem
28
1 Zeigler
2 with oversight. You know there's always
3 going to be somebody trying to cheat the
4 system. But we face, you know, the
5 oversight being abused. We're being
6 told you went to court too much. When
7 we have a program that will lie about
8 how that process is being applied.
9 They told Legal Services Office,
10 that's only being applied for double
11 billing and fraud. We told them that's
12 not true. Showed them documentary
13 evidence where they're telling us you
14 went to court too much. Spent too much
15 time talking to your client, to the DA,
16 the Court, you filed motions in the
17 case. These are things that we are
18 supposed to do.
19 LEGISLATOR KNAPP: If you can wrap
20 it up, appreciate it.
21 JASON ZEIGLER: I'll close with
22 this. You were told that statutorily
23 the Assigned Counsel Program has a duty
24 to review every single bill that we
25 submit. That's not true. The only duty
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1 Zeigler
2 they have under statute is to make sure
3 the attorneys are rotating. In other
4 words, you go down the list, there isn't
5 favoritism, nepotism or not. That's the
6 one thing they won't do. Instead you
7 have an apparatus that's designed to
8 harass us, cut our bills. I don't know
9 why they do. Statutorily here the Judge
10 is supposed to review the vouchers.
11 And, you know, the County is so in a
12 mess, it seems to be I think if you go
13 ahead and settle it, we're going to have
14 to comply with it, with the decision of
15 the Fourth Department, going to have to
16 do our jobs that Assigned Counsel says.
17 I think you're going to see an increase
18 in the attorneys bills because they're
19 no longer going to be able to just do
20 just the minimum. Not even the minimum.
21 Just plead people out instead of doing
22 their job. Kind of not bring attention
23 on themselves and their County. So I
24 ask you to take a look at the long term,
25 true cost of the long run. The current
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1 Rabbi Murray
2 budget, it would actually take that to
3 the fund, especially pay people for the
4 work they've already performed. Thank
5 you.
6 LEGISLATOR KNAPP: Thank you. Next
7 we have Rabbi Joe Murray of the Grace
8 Project.
9 RABBI JOE MURRAY: Thank you. My
10 name is Rabbi Joe Murray. The Grace
11 Project is a ministry out of my wife's
12 church. She's the Rector at Grace
13 Episcopal church, a rather historic
14 church in town. And once a week she
15 goes to Jamesville. And she visits with
16 unsentenced minor males, aged 16 and 17.
17 They used to be at the Justice Center,
18 now they're at Jamesville.
19 And there was a time when we went in
20 there where we actually went into what's
21 called Unit 2. Now, as many of you know
22 Jamesville is and has historically been
23 where you send people who are sentenced.
24 The ones I'm talking about are 16 and 17
25 year olds mostly unsentenced minors. So
31
1 Rabbi Murray
2 if somebody says, you can only ask one
3 question, Joe, and it has to be a budget
4 question, my question would be this:
5 How much would it take to stop
6 putting 16 and 17 year old unsentenced
7 minor males, mostly black and Latino,
8 into solitary confinement.
9 Now, the moment you say solitary
10 confinement to the jail administration
11 at Jamesville, they're going to say, oh,
12 we don't do that, we don't do solitary
13 confinement. Here's the euphemism. The
14 euphemism is punitive segregation. They
15 can call it whatever they want, they
16 spend days or weeks or months in the
17 cell by themselves. That assumes they
18 don't go to "the box," which is Unit 1.
19 And then somebody said, okay, Joe,
20 you've asked your budget question. If
21 you can only ask one question of every
22 single members of the Legislature, the
23 question would be this: Have you been
24 to Unit 2?
25 Because if you talk to the head of
32
1 Rabbi Murray
2 corrections he'll say, we're really open
3 about what we do here. Everybody is
4 invited to come here. So I urge you, if
5 you decide to come up with the number to
6 stop the solitary confinement of
7 unsentenced minor males, if you decide
8 to ask that question and come up with an
9 answer, before you decide what to do
10 with it, take Mr. Cowin up on his offer
11 and knock on his door and say: I want
12 to go to Unit 2. I want to see the 16
13 and 17 year olds. I want to see what
14 you're doing with their time. I want to
15 see how many guards you have assigned to
16 that one unit.
17 And I can tell you, because I just
18 double checked it with one of four kids
19 I was with earlier this evening, who
20 have been in solitary confinement, who
21 have been in Jamesville, and it's one.
22 One.
23 So, if you haven't been there, I
24 assure you, it will be an exciting time.
25 And one of the reasons it will be
33
1 Rabbi Murray
2 exciting is, because if you walk up to
3 one of the 16 and 17 year olds and talk
4 to them, they'll actually be honest with
5 you. One of the fascinating things
6 about these young men, unlike those of
7 us our age, is they actually take
8 responsibility for themselves, and they
9 will actually tell you what's really
10 happening. But you'll have to pay
11 attention to detail.
12 You have to say, okay, now that I'm
13 in Unit 2, how come I see faces behind
14 some of those doors and not the others?
15 The reason you see faces on the other
16 side of the door, like you're at a zoo,
17 is because they are the ones who are
18 locked in.
19 So I leave you with the budgetary
20 question, because sooner or later
21 solitary confinement of unsentenced
22 minor males in Onondaga County, the only
23 place it's happening, sooner or later it
24 will end. Until then, the budgetary
25 question is, how much will it take in
34
1 Chairman Knapp
2 dollars and cents to stop it? Thank
3 you.
4 LEGISLATOR KNAPP: Thank you. Are
5 there any other speakers who would like
6 to come forward and speak tonight?
7 Seeing none, I will declare the comment
8 period, the public comment period
9 closed.
10 And are there any Legislators who
11 would like to make any final comments on
12 the record? Being none, like I said at
13 the beginning, this has been a very good
14 process so far. We will have the final
15 vote on the budget next Tuesday. There
16 is a lot of work goes into this, you
17 know, over $1.26 billion budget. So
18 again, like to thank the County
19 Executive, Pete Morgan, the finance
20 department. And of course our
21 Legislative staff led by our Clerk
22 Debbie Maturo and Susan Stanczyk, our
23 Director of Legislative Budget Review
24 and Katherine French, Darcie Lesniak.
25 Kim Memory, Bill Kinne, and Mary Ellen
35
1
2 Britt, who all have spent lots of
3 evenings and weekends making sure this
4 all went smoothly for us. So thank you
5 very much to them, and declare the
6 public hearing ended. Thank you.
7 [Conclusion of Public Hearing.]
8 * * * *
9 C E R T I F I C A T E
10 This is to certify that I am a
11 Certified Shorthand Reporter and Notary
12 Public in and for the State of New York,
13 that I attended and reported the above
14 entitled proceedings, that I have
15 compared the foregoing with my original
16 minutes taken therein and that it is a
17 true and correct transcript thereof and
18 all of the proceedings had therein.
19
20
_______________________
21 John F. Drury, CSR
22
23 Dated: October 16, 2015
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25