POST Glass Classroom
West Valley City, Utah

Wednesday, April 24, 2002
11:30am - 1:00pm

1. WELCOME, REVIEW OF MINUTES FROM LAST MEETING, & AGENDA REVIEW: (Sid Groll)

Lunch was served. Sid Groll called the meeting to order. The minutes from Meeting #6 were approved without further amendment. A prior amendment from Dan Becker, Utah State Courts, is included and approved.

Sid Groll (Commission member, Director of POST) and Ken Wallentine (Administrative Counsel to POST) gave a Corel Presentation describing POST and its Task Force implementation process. An electronic copy can be requested from Ken Wallentine or Sandra Kinoshita. Notes are extensive due to no hard copies being distributed.

Noted from the PowerPoint presentation:

• POST does no direct hiring, they train officers hired by local, county, and state agencies

• POST oversees training curriculum in satellite academies

• seven satellites

• allows 600-700 people to be trained each year

• prepares individuals who are interested in a career in law enforcement to have

• the approved training and be more marketable in the law enforcement job market

• POST does screen for background (eg. arrest and behavior), but not for psychological factors. Some larger agencies screen for psychological factors, but not all have the means to do so.

• During training, if warning flags are evident, POST can disqualify the person for certification/licensure. Physical constraints, lying, derogatory remarks, etc. are all basis for disqualification.

• POST Council = independent governing board. They give advice and consent to make changes, as well as act on disciplinary issues.

• POST has four functions
  

  • basic training

  • In-service training

  • complaint investigation

  • provide leadership & influence
    

• Complaints: POST decides which complaints to follow up on. POST is a safety net, not a superagency dictator.

• Cultural Competency Training
  

  • required hours have doubled

  • instructors must be certified by Ken

  • cultural competency has been elevated to critical skill level by POST
    

• Tribal Training Initiative is nationally recognized by the Department of Justice; Utah POST has trained Tribal Police Officers

• POST worked on the law enforcement model racial profiling legislation

• POST has a scholarship program for people of color who would like a career in law enforcement. Scholarship covers academy costs. Please give nominations to Sid Groll or Ken Wallentine, as well as community groups as potential partners.

• Commission members are invited to a cultural competency training this Saturday (04/27/02) at 9:30am at Salt Lake Community College.
  

• January 23, 2002 meeting

  *Justice Zimmerman, Clayton Sims (Minority Bar), and Yvette Diaz (Governor's Hispanic Advisory Council) discussed the importance of having people of color on the Judicial Nominating Commissions and efforts to impact the openings this summer.

  *A request for collaboration was accepted, the Advisory Council formed a subcommittee

  *A subcommittee established groundrules/membership guidelines with the approval of the larger Council. These were later accepted by official vote.

  *Mike Wims, Attorney General's Office presented on process from arrest to adjudication.
  

• April 11, 2002 meeting

*The Advisory Council requests to receive the document where each presenting agency responds to their specific Task Force recommendations.

The Commission voted to have the Advisory Council members also receive the documents of agency-responses to each Task Force recommendation, two weeks prior to a presentation

*Legislative Update detailing the Commission's support of HB101

*Subcommittee update/brainstorm of potential candidates for the opening Judicial Nominating Commissions

*Keith Hamilton, BOP, presented on the Board and led an experiential exercise.

• Subcommittee Examining the Composition of Judicial Nominating Commissions

*Encouraging applicants of color and advocates of communities of color to apply for a seat on the opening Judicial Nominating Commissions.

*Working with the Minority Bar and the Hispanic Advisory Council to coordinate efforts.

*Will submit letter to Governor Leavitt supporting 1-3 candidates in each of the opening districts.

• Commission members asked Advisory Council members how to establish mutual communication with communities of color. It was suggested that the Commission return to each Public Hearing location to report on the implementation progress and state how testimonies have been used.

  Kal Farr suggested including the Chief's curriculum that will soon be taught. He directly included testimonies from the Public Hearings

Advisory Council members requested to see the curriculum that Kal referred to, and also to have Kal talk about this at the May 30, 2002 Advisory Council meeting

• Clayton Sims, UMBA President described the pledge (included in meeting materials)

• The UofU Law School and BYU Law School have both officially supported the pledge

• UMBA will now contact SLC law firms to ask them to sign on

• The Commission voted to support the pledge, similar to the Utah law schools

• Research Issues, Ron Gordon of the Utah Sentencing Commission

• dialogue on the Utah Sentencing Commission's research study on Aggravating and Mitigating Factors and the Juvenile data limitations. The Juvenile Sentencing Guidelines went into effect in 1997 and the Juvenile Court started tracking this data with a separate field in their database. At some point, data collection ceased and there is only 18 months of data available.

• The reason data has stopped being collected: an administrative decision in the Courts eliminated the pop-up field. The reasoning was an issue of time (for staff).

• Commission members discussed the role of the Commission as one of accountability. It was decided that the Courts should be made aware of the issue and for the Commission to be a body who will follow up on their progress.

• Action Items

• In response to the available cultural competency trainings in POST, but the lack of usage/requests: Sid Groll and Kal Farr will report back to the Commission this summer with recommendations of how to effectively assist the training efforts, an outline of what has been done to address this and strategies to increase the usage. At that time, the Commission can vote to endorse the effort(s).

• In response to the lack of data collection in the Juvenile Courts, Myron March will follow up on the Courts' reasoning. He stated that the new CARE database/system will likely envelope those fields, but will report on the full details at a future meeting.

• Message from Judge Tyrone Medley, by Justice Michael Zimmerman

• Judge Medley's absences at meetings has been due to a terminal illness in his family, he continues to be fully dedicated to the efforts. He sincerely apologizes for his absences.

• Future Direction of the Commission, Justice Michael Zimmerman

• Operations Committee
  Brief overview:

1. Comprised of the Task Force's Operations Committee:
Justice Michael Zimmerman (Chair)
Judge Tyrone Medley (Co-Chair)
John T. Nielsen (Co-Chair)
Dan Becker, Susan Burke, and Judge Bill Thorne

2. Serving as the 'management body'>, leadership transition team for the larger group. Identifies direction of the Commission, centralizes communication, and maintains the continuity from the Task Force to the Commission.

3. Ask the seven community/Advisory Council representatives to appoint a liaison to attend the Operations Committee meetings (they can identify someone today, when they meet 15 minutes after every Commission meeting).

• Discuss the planning of a retreat

Right now we are in the transition phase. We are measuring involvement from the perspective of the agencies. The retreat will begin the next phase. The Commission will take ownership. At the retreat, we will discuss the progress (or lack of) of implementation and set goals for next year.

1. Purpose:          * identify goals
                           * discuss the Commission's Annual Report
                            * identify Commission leadership

2. We will select date at May Commission meeting. Looking at June or July.

• Commission Leadership

Discuss the need for Commission leadership
Request that suggestions/nominations be submitted to Sandra Kinoshita

• May Meeting Date

• Members present opted to keep our regular meeting schedule of the fourth Wednesday of each month. Some members present could not meet the following week, and the absence of members prompted us to maintain regular schedule.

• There being no further business to discuss, the meeting adjourned at 1:30p.m. Thank you very much to those who were able to stay beyond our meeting time.

• Special thank you to Sid Groll and Ken Wallentine for their hospitality and informative presentation. A thank you card will go to Clayton Sims for his presentation.

• NEXT MEETING - WEDNESDAY May 22, 2002:

at the Division of Youth Corrections facilities from 11:30am - 1:00pm. Meeting Reminder Postcards will be sent to you shortly, with all meeting details.
Youth Corrections will present their implementation efforts, the Juvenile Disproportionate Minority Confinement Committee will report on their progress, the Bar's Deportation Subcommittee will update on their progress, and Russ Van Vleet will discuss research implications of the Racial Profiling bill and other issues.