Public records exemption for probation officers

1:19:26So our last policy issue, um you're all as favorite in the legislature legislature, public records exemptions.

1:19:34We spent years last year we finally got it uh passed uh getting a public records exemption for our county attorneys, our municipal attorneys, assistant county attorneys, assistant municipality attorneys. This is a safety issue. Um These individuals in our misdemeanor probation uh deal with the public on a daily basis, uh, get threats. Um yell at And uh the public has the ability to go on and see where they live.

1:20:05Is it necessary to see where your misdemeanor probations officer uh lives um when they're just doing their job? Uh so th this is another one that It has to be a standalone bill. It cannot be an amendment. Uh I know the big discussion that was had last year when we uh took up public records exemption is is does the legislature need to look at it and just say, Why do we even have the ability for employees for the public to see where employees live? Why

1:20:35is that necessary to have that? So there was a lot of discussion.

1:20:41Let's just blanket it all because every year you all come back and someone else has, you know, been threatened in their line of work. And they they need to get a public records exemption. It's one of those bills where you cannot tack it on to an existing bill with public records exemption. They have to be by law a standalone bill. So we are seeking that this year for misdemeanor probation officers.

1:21:05So and it appears that the state has exempted juvenile probation officers and State correctional probation officers but not the county misdemeanor probation officer. We c but we cover you and your assistant county attorney.

1:21:22As of last year.

1:21:23As of last year, yeah.

1:21:25But you know, when we were dealing with you know, as we as much as again we deal with this, when when we were dealing with staff, you know what their number one question was? How many c uh attorneys got killed? When do we do we have to have that that kind of a protection of a bill, a public record exem exemption, and quantitated by how many people were killed on that kind of thing? Again, it's one of those things where I think when you all have your discussions on public records exemption, why is it necessary for the public to

1:21:55know where our um governmental employees live? And I know y you also in the discussion say, Well, why can't we get our legislators in there too? That's a that's a different discussion, but you know that. Uh uh it it it does become a problem. Uh I think County Commissioner Yeah. um or Chairman Starkey. Um she had an incident where uh she had a resident uh came into her yard and took pictures of her holding a gun. So Uh again, it's a safety issue uh and hopefully

1:22:26we can get that uh addressed uh either this session or moving forward or you all can just do away with public records, you know, not not requiring, uh, where the public needs to know and we can just say that's not available to the public.

1:22:41Commissioner Mariano and I had to have the bomb squad come out. And um and and Secretary Gwyn when that Crazy guy, that engineer. Wet and Tried to kill him at the uh uh DOT offices and he had had a bomb in his car, we had to have our residents check for bombs.