The interesting thing about this year, you'll see a big jump in that blue bar and what that is is animals. Uh we have had some odd uh public health nuisance calls this year um related to a number of animals. Um cats have been our number one.

Well, the reason I asked because I think that on the federal level there that is something I'm always looking for. How can we help? What can be our part here? And if there's some regulations that need to be changed because I think we've seen first of all, postage is expensive. Who knows when it gets there? We're not seeing good response for that. And if we're finding better ways, let's save the money on the inefficient ways.

I did challenge the state on this because I was originally told it was a federal regulation. So of course um, I pulled the federal regulation and it is not a federal requirement. So it's easier for you to make an impact here because the state makes us do it.

The major reason for this uptick is because individuals are not being vaccinated for the problem. That is a major concern. What we strive to achieve for herd immunity is a 95% uh rate of vaccination for this virus. We are well below that and as such it's tend to be spreading within our country and within our state.

But as it stands right now, what we're seeing is um individuals uh who are going to school in the past had to be vaccinated for these illnesses. Now parents can decide not to vaccinate for no reason really at all.

The good news is that we're seeing that work on general probation as well. And so what we've wanted to do is adopt these best practices in our day-to-day work that um even when somebody's on general probation and has is struggling in similar ways that whether that's community, whether that's uh law enforcement, judges, probation, treatment, whatever it is that a person may need, we want to uh engage people in case plans, treatment plans in ways that set them up for success.

So, it was started I didn't bring notes on it. So, I didn't start it. I will not take credit for it. Chief Tate um uh fully uh it was his idea. he came up with it. Um I'm just trying to continue on with it and bring it to maybe a a new level. Um but essentially it's u scholarships available for substance use disorder through the police department.

I think we have seen a shift especially with community corrections angle like instead of just it being kind of a stick approach there's more of a carrot how can we help you as an individual.

With our veterans court, we're able to look at um life skills that they have and able to look at we have a set of life factors that we consider um regarding their ability to be successful outside of the program.

fundamental difference between standard treatment court and a veterans treatment court uh is the inclusion of veteran mentors into our program. That's something that you just cannot replace.

Our veterans court has been modeled from the start uh based upon the support that we had from this board, based upon the support from the county attorney's office to say, 'Hey, let's get not get lost in some of that minutia and be arguing about who we should directly serve and let's just acknowledge that if they are veterans and if there is a need and they meet the relative risk level, uh that is just appropriate to get them into this program and do the right thing.'

I have seen other treatment courts across the state kind of lose sight of these things and be really quick to just hold people in custody um because there's a dirty way and they end up spending more time in custody in treatment courts than they actually would if they were on regular probation.