Episode 02 - Coordination & Collaboration: Katy Fitzgerald, Criminal Justice Coordinator, Douglas County

In the second episode of View from 100, Sheriff Jay Armbrister talks with Katy Fitzgerald, the Criminal Justice Coordinator for Douglas County, about her collaborative work with the county's Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.

Fitzgerald, who came to Douglas County in 2022, discusses how her background in clinical and community psychology shaped her work with juveniles and adults in the criminal justice system. 

She also talks about the work of coordinating efforts across law enforcement, courts and treatment providers, as well as the CJCC's recent achievements in improving competency restoration programs, probation assessments and CJCC governance. Looking ahead, Fitzgerald highlights the importance of system-wide data collection and strategic communication to drive future progress. 

Douglas County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council

Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Transcript

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Jay Armbrister: 0:00

It'll turn red. You want me to do it? Blap, what does that do? Well, it's we learned you can sync up the audio and the video with the noise. I know it was a revelation for all of us. So, Oh, that's interesting. Okay. Well, welcome back. This is our number two, big number two podcast for the view from 100 I'm your sheriff J Armbruster, and I have a special guest with me here today, Katie Fitzgerald, who is the criminal justice Coordinating Council coordinator. But this podcast is is designed to help hopefully bring in some shake shareholders and some stakeholders and people who work within the system, but also to reach out and maybe eventually get to some, some folks in the community who are who provide resources and do do all of the unsung work behind the scenes that that we rely so heavily on. So but today, we're we're blessed to have Miss Katie here with us to talk about what it, what it is that she does, who she is, and why on earth she is here. So thank you, Katie for coming.

Katy Fitzgerald: 1:15

Thank you. I appreciate the invitation Absolutely.

Jay Armbrister: 1:18

Hey, we're gonna start with the easy stuff. Who are you? Why are you here? What do you do?

Katy Fitzgerald: 1:24

So the first two of those are easy. You're then the third. So my name's Katie Fitzgerald. I grew up in Fort Worth Texas, so I'm not from around these parts, the DFW, yes. And I went to Texas Tech in West Texas,

Jay Armbrister: 1:41

Lubbock. Yeah, the Red

Katy Fitzgerald: 1:42

Raiders, yes, I love, I loved Lubbock, and went to college there, and then went to Charlotte. I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina for graduate school, so I have my master's in clinical and community psychology. So I am actually a clinician by training, and spent the first part of my adult career actually providing direct clinical services for adults and juveniles who were involved, kind of across the criminal justice really the idea I have always worked with clients who had criminal justice involvement. And so I kind of started in the community mental health center working with juveniles, primarily who were a couple steps away from being committed to a training school, and adults who were kind of pre incarceration, post relief, pre justice involved. And then I spent some time working, actually, in a juvenile justice training school, which I just really, I loved working there, with that population. It takes a special person. Was that in Charlotte as well. It was just north of Charlotte. It was in at the Stonewall Jackson youth development. Okay, I've heard of Stonewall, like the oldest facility in North Carolina's juvenile justice

Jay Armbrister: 3:02

I believe he was on the losing end of the Civil War, if I remember right. I mean, he was just making sure that we're clear,

Katy Fitzgerald: 3:10

but it was all male facility for a lot of, like, really heavily involved juveniles, on the real on the very serious end of the spectrum. I've worked in the managed care side of Clinical Services, kind of serving as a liaison between the courts and treatment providers and mostly juvenile clients. So juvenile justice is kind of my passion as a in my former life, but so I kind of that is a lot of my background before I kind of came into a space of working with programming, a lot of data policy. And before I came to Douglas County, I was working for Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, which is what city Charlotte. So it's a very big is very, I think, exactly 10 times larger population wise, right at a million, probably a little over. And I had actually started with Mecklenburg County well before it got to a million people. So like being able to kind of watch that population growth and the service adjustment, the way that we all had to go, Oh my gosh, what's happening here was was really interesting. But I spent the last several years before I moved here, doing a lot of work, primarily in pre trial reform, Bill reform on the adult side. So I have a very odd background. Maybe your word, it's just a different background. I think that a lot of people don't necessarily have or expect me Sure. So that was me before I came to Douglas County, up until what year? July, the end of July, 2022, okay, I moved out here, sure. And I was kind of just looking for a different, different work. Good. It was just, I was just looking for

Jay Armbrister: 5:01

a change. Douglas County is different and in every way shape and

Katy Fitzgerald: 5:05

find it on a map,

Jay Armbrister: 5:07

you're welcome. Yeah, we prefer that.

Katy Fitzgerald: 5:10

Was just, I was just looking for a change, yeah, and had an opportunity. This was an opportunity for me to move closer to home and closer to family. And had I not gone, fun fact, had I not gone to UNC Charlotte for graduate school, I would have gone to Fort Hays State. I was down to those two so Kansas was like, not, this is not the first time Kansas has kind of crossed my path. Okay, so

Jay Armbrister: 5:38

Fort Hays state's beautiful. I mean, it's a long ways out there, but, man, great town, great, great university. So that's how I came here. Sure. Okay, and I remember I sat in on an interview panel when you were and I recall that being pretty hands down who we wanted. Oh, yeah, appreciate that. I didn't say that it was hands down. I didn't say it was you.

Katy Fitzgerald: 5:58

Okay? Well, you got me

Jay Armbrister: 6:01

absolutely there was no, there was no choice about it. We wanted you to come here. So, who, so where do you fit within the Douglas County governmental structure?

Katy Fitzgerald: 6:12

So I report directly to the County Administrator. I am, I do not have staff. But we're part, but I'm part of Sarah's that kind of executive team with Bob Tran ski, so he and I are similarly situated, just different lanes. Him over behavioral health, and then me over criminal justice. And then we're on that team with Jill jolliker, who's the Assistant County Administrator, and then Sean Peterson, okay, and Carrie Britt,

Jay Armbrister: 6:49

okay, so you're so you're a county employee, but you work under the direct supervision of the County Administrator, yes, but you're kind of a little weird finger sticking off the side of the bubble. Okay, perfect. And who, who do you intersect most with? And so I guess I would say that your position is odd or rare in the fact that you, you tie in with all three equal co equal branches of government, legislative, judicial and executive I had that in my notes. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm reading one class. I'm reading ahead.

Katy Fitzgerald: 7:26

I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers that, but I've had to learn

Jay Armbrister: 7:29

that. So yeah, funny thing during the election, I learned that the district attorney, I always assumed the district attorney was in the judicial branch, now their executive branch. So, yeah, it's a old dogs, new tricks. So, so who do you? Where do you intersect the most, as far as your day to day grind? So I

Katy Fitzgerald: 7:52

so thinking, so it's not an unusual question for me to get about. Well, what do you do? Right, like, what? What does this position the criminal justice coordinator? What does that do? It is a unique position that I think a lot of local governments do not have. And I think a lot of the responsibilities kind of end up getting tacked on to department directors or sheriffs. They get really split up between a lot of the leaders of the partner agencies that my position works with, sure, and that may work fine, but what I get to do is I get to kind of, on behalf of the County, or for the county, serve, as I view my role as kind of the center of all the spokes in the wheel, and so All of the partner agencies of the criminal justice system. So you your peers in the police department, the courts, district and municipal, the district attorney, the defense attorneys, Criminal Justice Services department, so our pre trial services, alternatives to correct to incarceration programs, probation, treatment providers who are working with our with our court involved folks. So kind of all, if you all are all the spokes, then I'm able to, kind of, I'm kind of where y'all come together. I really am a neutral party. So while I work on behalf of the County and work for the county, certainly the county's interests are, is this always my first? I have to make sure I'm looking out for those first. But there's a lot of room for me to kind of move in within that space to I think I have a lot of latitude to step in and kind of think about help you all think about how to address challenges that may be within a specific discipline come up or or across the system, and kind of think about how to, how do we best leverage resources that you might have and put together like kind of cobble together. Resources across the system. And I think a lot of that is born from when we think about those, those three branches of government and the criminal justice system, all of those are often very siloed and separated by design, right, right? And so you all there's very specific, certainly responsibility lanes of travel that don't often intersect, but they have to kind of flow together. And so I kind of view myself as I think I'm best positioned to just kind of float in between there

Jay Armbrister: 10:38

where I am needed. Yeah, no, absolutely. And hopefully

Katy Fitzgerald: 10:42

I'm helpful for people. That's always the thing that I'm like, This is what I this is what I say. I do. You're

Jay Armbrister: 10:48

not creating more work. Hopefully not. So, um, what has been kind of so what you're just saying you started 2020 the it feels like a lot. So 21 or 2222 oh my gosh, the summer of 22 but it feels like a lot. We were just babies back then, really? No, that's not true at all. Absolutely not. I was old codger already by then, but so in the, in the in the three years, or whatever, what's been kind of the biggest, I mean, what's been a good success, what's been the biggest struggle? Well, we're not we're paying you, and you can't tell me one damn thing that you've done that's good. Well, I

Katy Fitzgerald: 11:33

have to pick one. I can rat a whole bunch of things I think you all have done really well. I think our competency restoration program is one thing I would always like I that was such an honor for me to be able to help you all me to kind of lead that.

Jay Armbrister: 11:47

And for those of you that that may not understand that competency restoration isn't where a person has been found incompetent to stand trial and they have to go to the hospital, State Hospital, for to restore competency and for an evaluation, and that that process has been taking anywhere from 12 to 14 months, where these people just sit and languish in jail. But as a county, with Burt Nash, the courts, the DA jail, us, we've all come together to try to see if we can get that system to happen in our jail, instead of having to wait for a bed to open up, hopefully keeping these people from decompensating and just languishing for that 12 to 14 months. So, yeah, sorry, yeah, and we are all deeply proud of it. And so yes,

Katy Fitzgerald: 12:28

I mean, I think I would always say that some other things. So probation was really struggling, getting a lot of their clients assessed when the when there had been a court order, just regular mental health evaluation, and we were able to, or I will never say, I did these things. This is a challenge, because I, because I myself, did not do a lot, but you

Jay Armbrister: 12:55

facilitated, yes, create the space. Okay, so you, so you made

Katy Fitzgerald: 12:59

it happen. But we, we were able to work with Burton Nash, and we have kind of a dedicated assessor that work has just, I mean, has been phenomenal, yeah, and that it was a huge win for probation and for the courts. And then I think just within the cjcc, I would, I think that we've done, really, we've done a lot of work since 2023 Sure, between like we, you know, we had the assessment completed. How are we functioning against best practice standards, and then you were part of our bylaws work group, right? We just really revamped that, right? And just totally changed how we govern our you know, how we will be governed, how we will hold ourselves accountable, and then the strategic planning process, yeah, it was almost the death of me,

Jay Armbrister: 13:53

but it was a necessary evil. So

Katy Fitzgerald: 13:56

I think helping. So I think those I would say I think are big. Those are the things that, when I look back, I say, Well, I that really, yeah, I think those are big things

Jay Armbrister: 14:05

I would say, like, from a law enforcement perspective, and the murder of George Floyd created a vacuum and a space for us to get better and hold ourselves more accountable. The I kind of felt like, No, I came into office right at the tail, at the tail end of the pandemic, and we were kind of coming out of it. And I felt like the pandemic offered the cjcc, for those of you, the criminal justice Coordinating Council, the opportunity to really kind of rethink what it is we were doing, because it was built with the best of intentions, and it operated for, I don't know, several years pre pandemic, probably two, four, okay, and, but it had kind of lost its way, so to speak. And, and it was, it was an opportunity for us to all as partners, to kind of bring it back and be like, hey, what? What is our goal here? How do we get to that? And, and so, so you were able to negotiate a lot of that streamlining and moving. But also you had to take in the input from everybody and decide, kind of pare it down and decide what's what. And so I think you're selling yourself a bit short in that you didn't do it because you did, but it was, it's, I don't think anybody knows how difficult it is to wrangle a judge, a da a sheriff, and community members, you know, all at the same time who have not, not differing values, but we have competing values at times. Yeah? So, so I think, I think it's easier to say, Oh, yeah. You know, all these people came together and did this great job, but you really convened, you created the environment for that to happen. So

Katy Fitzgerald: 15:37

y'all are hard to track down, but I've learned by design, but I've learned, but I so I think sometimes the challenge, and then the biggest challenge, and the thing that I enjoy the most is are the is sometimes the same thing, being able to that is always the most the design of the criminal justice system, where it's sometimes adversarial, yeah, but mostly competing Right, right values and and just the structure can be is challenging to navigate, sure, especially, I think, especially coming into a space here where, you know, I was in Charlotte for so long i i Just, it's hard to kind of recreate. I was not sure what I was up against, sure, right? And I'm an outsider and

Jay Armbrister: 16:29

like, how do you know now what you're up against most of the time? Okay, keep you on your toes.

Katy Fitzgerald: 16:35

But as an outsider, sometimes this is hard. This is a hard space, yeah, for sure, not, not one of your own. You know, absolutely it's a hard space anyways, yeah? But then to come in, it's not like, well, I'm from somewhere else in Kansas, yeah, right. I'm a completely unknown commodity coming in Alien

Jay Armbrister: 16:58

and in the most respectful way

Katy Fitzgerald: 17:02

we could go down a rabbit hole about that, but the it's been challenging, I think for the most part, I was lucky. I think you all are really I walked into a really good group of executives that at the, you know, thinking, yeah, who was at that table?

Jay Armbrister: 17:19

Sure, sure, totally. Well, everybody was there for the right reasons, and And

Katy Fitzgerald: 17:23

y'all all work really well together. For like, particularly disciplines. You all as law enforcement, work really well together. Usually that kind of that chiefs group, the courts work really well together. Like the Yeah, the partners were all there, and it was a really good group of folks that. So I wasn't needing to get buy in for, like coming to the table, right? That one of the challenges that I think particularly with the strategic planning process and and I'm thinking about as we're starting the steps of implementation of that Sure, a potential challenge that I think may just always be a thing, is getting the buy in to go deeper. So it's not just come to the table and kind of surface level you guys did all the surface level work before I got here, right? And, and I, I use the metaphor a lot of like, we're digging into the fat, right? We're digging into the muscle now, right? That this is where it things really get, well,

Jay Armbrister: 18:19

hard, yeah, and people will feel like they're under the microscope, or that that we're looking in their closets. And I can see how that would be frustrating. But again, if you pull the pull the frame out, and you realize that you're looking at an entire system, we all want it to be better, and we want it to work correctly. It may never, that may never happen. That may be but we can certainly always be better. Yeah, so, yeah, no, I think I could see how that would be very difficult. But you know, and again, the courts have always kind of operated in their own silo, and we are very fortunate. And I hope you would agree with me that we have the courts buy in and their participation. There's a lot of places that that the chiefs and the sheriff don't get along, and that the courts and everybody else don't get along, and we're very fortunate in this community to have really good relationships with all those,

Katy Fitzgerald: 19:06

Yep, yeah. And I think, I think in engaging the buy in, or building buy in, to take the next step, which you all each I'd have no, I have no agency or authority right over you or over any partner, yeah, right. I don't get to say, okay, chiefs, when we have our chiefs meeting, I don't get to walk in there and say, here's what y'all are all going to do, because this is what the county wants, right? I mean, I guess I could do that and I get, no, I don't get the response I'm looking for right, but the trying to be sensitive how I how I hope you would agree or and that, that the other partners would view how I try to approach that is recognizing, you know, that you all have trying to really learn what your. Or like, what are the concerns for you and for your discipline? And certainly, certainly, there are lots of folks at sitting at the cjcc table in particular, who who have, at different times, felt very much under the microscope and haven't, and that has not been such a great feeling for them, and don't want to replicate that, right? And so I so I try. It's really important to me. Relationships are really important because I don't I'm not successful at my job without them, right? And which means I can't help you be even more successful without that. Like,

Jay Armbrister: 20:35

oh yeah, our success is shared, for sure. So

Katy Fitzgerald: 20:38

I so I try. I I tried to approach those with making sure be in a space of, well, learning, what is the concern for you, what is the barrier for you? How can I work with that, right? And there are times where the answer is, we're just not going to work past this. Okay, so let's we're just going to move on to the next thing, right? And I try not to force things. I mean, I hope you all experience. That's how I try to work through that and work in knowing that. You know, one of the hardest things, not just for folks who have to intersect or in be involved with the justice system, we always hear a lot about trust. Does the public trust the system? Yeah, and the same can be true. I think for the partners in the system, you all have to be in a place at some point where you know, you all trust each other across the system. And so can I help build that like I'm always kind of looking for or watching for, how can I help and where those are the barriers? And

Jay Armbrister: 21:40

I think it also exposes a place that your work gets harder is when two partners don't are not in the same lane or on the same page and or even maybe even working against each other, which may or may not have happened in the last four years, but it's it's very difficult when, when there's friction between the two, and you're the one that eventually has to kind of step in and be like, we're all trying to get to the same place. And so I think that kind of goes under the radar quite a bit, that you end up having to do that a little bit.

Katy Fitzgerald: 22:13

Yeah, yeah. I can't remember if I said this in my interview, but I remember one of the so I had had to do a slide, the one that the interview that you had said, I had had to do a PowerPoint of, I can't even remember now what the topic is, but one of the things that that I initially had talked about was how I view the role of this. So this is a similar role to what I played when I was in Mecklenburg County. And one of the things I think is necessary. And I think I am the therapist for a lot of partners. You got the training that you know you just like, there are times you just have to, unlike, like, I need, I need to be a safe space right for y'all to be able to say, here's what's happening. And I so so that is very important to me to maintain, to be that for you all that absolutely, because I need to understand what their dynamics and things that are happening that I'm not going to know about, and I don't need to know all of it, right? But if I'm watching, because I do, I think a lot of my clinical training and my background, doing that and working with people, I pick up on things, and I'm like, what is happening, right? Yeah, why? What's going on? And so I, I think I at one point wanted to say, I view that part of my role is not just understanding policy, understanding data and how to, you know, how do we implement things, but it was being a therapist and a referee, and those are sometimes really or a barrier, or, yeah, like, stay in two corners. And I think sometimes those, those are, that's a really important to me. Those are very important, right? No, I think because I don't know that, people always know how necessary they are sometimes, unless you've been in that space, and

Jay Armbrister: 24:02

I think it's safe to say that that was probably not on the on the application. You know, how good are you at keeping two executive level administrators, you know, happy when they're not. So I think that's, well, I hope you don't ever leave, because I don't know, we'll get another one. So really, the CJ the cjcc, is obviously pretty unique for not just Douglas County, but for a lot of counties around us. I mean, there's not that many. And I think we are uniquely situated, too, with a community that wants to fund resourcing, but also we have certain resources within our community, Burton ash, that other places don't have. And so how, how has it been, as far as, like, just the community, being able to step in and fill some roles that we need in this space? The. And by community I mean the Burton ashes and the heartlands and the in the HH and all the different the community resources that we have.

Katy Fitzgerald: 25:08

So I I have actually, that is one was one of the things that was really a very pleasant surprise to walk into going from a county of 1.2 million people, sure, to a county of 120,000 and geographically a very different setup, right? You know, Douglas County so rural outside of Lawrence, right? And Mecklenburg County, not so much and but, but similar to and Mecklenburg County was at the time that I had left, and probably still is had was kind of the richest county in the in the state of North Carolina, and the blue.in the Red Sea. I

Jay Armbrister: 25:52

mean, you know what that happens? That's, is that unfamiliar? It's like

Katy Fitzgerald: 25:56

there were some things were similar, the

Jay Armbrister: 25:59

blue Oasis

Katy Fitzgerald: 26:00

and but we, we were resource rich in some ways, yeah, but not resource accessible, like the accessibility of the resources here that you all as when I think about the like the executives that I work with that You You can just access. HH, right, like you can just call right artists helping the homeless, yeah, and they respond Yeah. And because they're amazing and they're all of those resources, how accessible they are, that has been that was really different for me, sure, which doesn't maybe make sense. No,

Jay Armbrister: 26:40

I think it absolutely does. I've always been born and raised in Lawrence. I know that Lawrence's biggest weakness is Lawrence. There are times that we can't get out of our own way, but I've also said that I feel and it's a good thing, but I feel like this community loses sight of how good we have it sometimes. And this is another example of like people in other communities are like, we have to stand up some group that will bring in, that will come and take our folks who leaving jail, and give them a place to stay and a way to work and do these things. Whereas I walked in and already had artists helping the homeless, a, H, H, you know, or we need, we need this. We need some place that we can take somebody having a mental health crisis that doesn't belong in jail, but it doesn't, can't be at home. We need to find something like that. Oh, this community funded a treatment and recovery center, you know. So I've, I feel like, at times, we lose sight of how, how good this community has been, but also, I we've also grown pretty big, you know, in that, in that space, and now we're having to navigate a how do we, how do we help other communities figure out what we've been doing, while also trying to make sure that we're helping our community first, as opposed to, you know, folks who are coming here looking for help, but trying to help everybody together. Yeah, it's

Katy Fitzgerald: 28:01

definitely for a long time, Mecklenburg County, we had talked about and wanted a crisis 24 hour 24 hour crisis center. And in the North Carolina, until a year or so ago, was also not a Medicaid expansion state. So we had similar

Jay Armbrister: 28:19

last Yeah, we're close.

Katy Fitzgerald: 28:23

So it so Medicaid was so that also it's not like we had Medicaid and Kansas. Did you know Douglas County for sure in that regard, but we the structure, the way that that behavioral health services are accessed through the managed care structure in in North Carolina really just made that challenging. We did have some different kinds of housing options set up, but it just the vast so I don't want to say that Charlotte and Mecklenburg County didn't have all those resources, but it's, it's just not I mean, they're at my finger. They're at our fingertips here, which just, and I don't think that it's just because we're smaller. I don't know. I don't think that that's it, having worked with a lot of I mean, it's the the real, genuine interest and willingness, again, not just a frontline staff, but all the way up through these, through the executive leadership sure these agencies is there's buy in, is just that that was a pleasant adjustment to make.

Jay Armbrister: 29:27

And again, I think my, one of my favorite things about Lawrence, that in Douglas County, that people don't that lose sight of it, is that we are willing to do the extra in assistance to our fellow human like, we've had a lot of over the last couple years, a lot of talk about homelessness and chronic homelessness, and how did we get to this place, you know? And a lot of people like to draw a line right back to, I don't remember what it was, 2020, the winter, but the city opened up a hotel, they bought out a hotel and then housed people in there. And of course, the hotel. Got it got destroyed, and people were very upset because the city then had to go back in. But it was, while it's frustrating and it's hard to kind of make that okay, I was still proud of the city because they they put their money where their mouth was is, and they helped the least fortunate among us. And I would rather learn the hard rules by helping them too much and not helping enough. And I think that's where I feel like, that's where Douglas County is, is that we, we will fail trying too hard to help somebody. So if you could, so let's say this, this little podcast that's going to have about nine listens to it over the next year, if this got beamed into every home in the in our community, and everybody had to listen to it, what's the one thing that you would want them to know about, about you and what you do, or just about the system itself? Okay? So I have a couple things. Oh, okay. Roman numeral one.

Katy Fitzgerald: 31:03

I've never been one for following instructions, sure, if you should probably not be surprised. So I think the overarching, I think they're all related, though, so I don't like not I think there's just different components of this, and this might get me run out of town, but this is what I would this is just what I would say to that. So I think the overarching thing that I would want people to know is the our criminal the criminal justice system, and not just the Douglas County criminal justice system, but the criminal justice system here and everywhere it is, is not a straightforward No, as it feels like or as what it may seem like, it should be sure. And underneath that, a couple of the things that I think are just important components of that for for me, I think one no one agency. We've talked about this already, no one agency. No one individual has authority or agency over another, right? So I don't get to tell you what you're going to do. You don't get to tell Baldwin City police what they're going to do. The judge may get to tell some of us, but only in certain contexts, right? Sure and so change in this space. And you all have experiences and been part of this change in this space as a result of relationships that are built across our partner agencies, in my view, that are based on mutual respect, trust and understanding Sure, and that change takes time, yeah, yeah, because we there's just, there's not some overruling authority that says y'all are going to go do this now, right? I think the second thing are we that is missed, and I think it's easy in this community. I can see how in this community it's easy to get lost. But the the criminal justice space is not quite as entrepreneurial as like our human our other human services spaces are. We don't have a lot we don't have as much room to kind of take a new idea and run with it, because the third Roman numeral, number three, um, the boundaries of the of the justice system are not necessarily set by local rules, local resources, local institutions. Sure, right? You you may want to do something. Yeah, and state law is going to say, Nope, you don't get to do it that way. Douglas County,

Jay Armbrister: 33:36

I've got an example. Failures to appear. I was trying to get I was trying to get it to where, if somebody missed a court date and got a warrant for the rest, we warrant for the rest, we would have one day a month where that person could freely appear and get a new court date. And I would talk to the judge, and the judge is like, that's a great idea, but it can't happen. I'm like, what? Why? He said, Well, once a person has been arraigned on a charge, they've been given an attorney. I cannot as a judge. I cannot speak to them. I cannot have them here. I can't have them in front of me for anything without their attorney. And you would have to coordinate it that they would have their attorney with them. And that's very difficult thing to do, I mean, because those attorneys have their own schedules. And so it was, it was with the best of intentions, and everybody was on board, like, yeah, we need to fix this. We simply couldn't do it in that way. Now we're looking at other things, but that's a perfect example of just how the system itself prevented us from doing better,

Katy Fitzgerald: 34:31

and it so all of the like that we are go. And I think it's a little different than when you think about like our housing system, right? Or some of the some of the work that we've been able to do that this community has been able to do through like establishing the TRC, right? That was really you can take an idea and you have, you don't have as many barriers, or the pasture fences aren't quite as tight as I think they are set for the those of us in the justice system. And so. So all of that to say, I think I get, I can, it's frustrating, right? For folks like when it feels like what they see is when you just didn't fix that, right? It's really simple. Why didn't you just fix right? Right? It's not that simple. Yeah, it's not that easy. And just because you're not seeing that, right? I would not want what I would not want people to do, especially in this community and with our with the with you all as my partners, I wouldn't want people to take that as we just don't care, right, right, or that we're just happy, and to accept whole cloth, the system as it exists. Because that's not necessarily true. That doesn't mean that we're not working on Okay, right? If we can't do it this way, well, what happens if we go around this other side door? That's right, people just may not always see that. Yeah. And so then I think to the kind of perpetual question, you know, I would say what, I just hope people can trust us, which is the million dollar question, that's what

Jay Armbrister: 36:03

I'm hearing, is that what you're asking for is grace, yes, and grace only comes when they trust. And so I, and I, I will always respect a healthy dose of skepticism, because the system has has been broken. It has broken other people. Those are realities. But as you said, I just wish people would be like, I'm about to get really angry at this one thing, and I'm going to give you five minutes explain to me why I shouldn't be angry. Go, I respect that, and I'm going to take that five minutes and do everything I can. And at the end of that, if they're still upset, they've earned it, I respect it, and let's figure it out. But most of the times, by the time that's over with, they're like, I had no idea, or that makes sense, or, yeah, that is a that is a big elephant to eat in one bite. So I,

Katy Fitzgerald: 36:57

I love that. There's so many there's just so many nuances, sure, to how people come into the system, and in what way, like the process through which people come into the system, their exit ramps, the way that we can or can't create exit ramps for people. And it's, it's, I know it's, it feels, it feels bad to say, but that's just how the system is. Yeah. And I don't always want us to be complacent and go, Oh, that's just the way the system is. We just that's, you have to go talk to Topeka, yeah.

Jay Armbrister: 37:32

And they don't want it. I don't. I don't want people to just accept that answer either. You know, it's like our hands are tied. We've done all we can do again, that's okay. Well, then, then, now, where do we go with this and that, whether it be Topeka, or if it goes over my head, or goes back to the voters, I mean, any number of things, but I, I think that's, I think that's a great thing to ask.

Katy Fitzgerald: 37:54

Didn't not just run out of No, no,

Jay Armbrister: 37:59

I hope you say something. Those are. I just think

Katy Fitzgerald: 38:02

that that's really and I don't think people know that unless they're like us, and have spent so much time, sure, enmeshed in this and going, what? Because there's a lot of times too that, I think we think, but this is so simple. Why can't we just do this? And then we go, oh, that's why it's not going to work, right?

Jay Armbrister: 38:19

Right? Yeah. Well, and when it, when it is your 24/7, waking moment, what you're doing all the time, we lose sight of a lot of things because we're just so deeply involved in them. So, yeah, I totally get that. What's, what's kind of, what's the thing right now for cjcc, and what's, kind of on the horizon. So

Katy Fitzgerald: 38:42

we just so this is kind of we've spent the last 18 months, 1820 months, kind of in a period of evaluating our evaluating what changes. Where are we at? Where do we want to go? How do we get there and through a lot of different things. So kind of starting with that assessment that the Justice Management Institute did with all of you, against the national standards, and then we revised, spent last year revising the bylaws and kind of our governance structure, and all of that kind of has culminated with that the strategic plan. So in February, you all just adopted a three year strategic plan at your February meeting. And so that will go through 20 that is set to go through December of 2027, we are taking that to the Board of County Commissioners the first part of April for just to present it to them, we have a new leadership structure, so a lot so we're kind of bringing the bylaws to life through we have a new executive committee, I won't say new, like we have an executive committee, right? Because that whole structure is new, who will be overseeing, kind of the implementation of. Of the strategic plan. So this the two priorities that you all are getting started on right now are the first one focusing on system wide data, which is gonna be

Jay Armbrister: 40:16

a lot. It is with data rich, interpretation poor, once

Katy Fitzgerald: 40:20

we start kind of getting into that space, and particularly as we think about, you know, having new district attorneys getting used to a lot of the the information that's available to him, so kind of catching his office up to what, what information they have, and so data across the system, we're starting on that, and then the communication strategy. So the other part of the standards that we didn't, we just didn't really have a lot, and I don't know that we've ever really talked or thought about this, is a strategic communications plan that really outlines probably all of you as agencies have kind of this is how you communicate. This is what you do. These are the core messaging principles. Real and we as a cjcc, even though we're not an authority, a body of authority, it's still really important that as a body, you all kind of agree about how art, because we're all community. If we're talking about the cjcc, we're communicating on lots of people's behalf, yeah, right, that's for sure. So so we're kind of, we're starting to pull together, and I think we're meeting in a couple of weeks, that work group is going to come together of PIOs to start working on developing a strategic communications plan for you all the full so I'm going to do a shameless plug. Oh, okay, great. So I worked with it with the county. It last for a lot last week and the first part of this week to kind of revamp the cjcc website, to to incorporate and kind of show off a little bit more of the changes that you all made. So the website is new, or there's new content and new layout of things. So I'm going to probably get it where I should have written this down in my notes, but DG, CO, ks.gov, and then the forward slash, cjcc, so we have the new bylaws up there members. And then we did a section on the strategic plan. And so the four priority areas that are laid out there, there's a document that or a link that outlines the process that you all went through to get to those four priority areas. And then we also have the entire strategic plan, which is 97 pages. A lot is also linked there. So there's a lot of information, I think, over time, as we start to have, as we start to figure out kind of what is it that we're reporting out to to you all as members of the cjcc, to the public, to back to the county commission as we start to have outcomes and figure out what is the reporting. The way that we're going to do that, we'll be adapting that section of the website, but there's a lot of new information there, and we're just getting really started, yeah, in in the that's going to be very meaty. Both of those two, I think both of those two priorities are, are pretty hefty, because communications is probably a lot, just like there's more to the criminal justice system, there's probably a lot more to communication. That's for

Jay Armbrister: 43:36

sure, what I for sure than what I know? Yeah, well, there's one thing. There's one thing to put the information out. That's the other thing to get them to get them to hear it and hear it the way you want it to hurt. So, so I think that pretty well rounded out. For that part of it. I'm gonna go with, I'm gonna go with the fun questions. Now these are the ones that you sent me. I'm a little disappointed if I sent those to you, because now you've had time to think about it, but, but George is too good to me keep you in the loop. So it's a simple question, what was your first concert? What was your most recent, and what was your favorite? And those can all be the same thing. But

Katy Fitzgerald: 44:15

Okay, so my first concert was Brian White, who probably nobody outside of

Jay Armbrister: 44:22

Texas. Yeah, no, that doesn't sound familiar. I went to school a kid named Brian White,

Katy Fitzgerald: 44:26

no. And, you know, I can't even now remember, like songs be really disappointed, like when I go back and I had cassette tapes, yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 44:34

and all seven listeners are now spotifying him. Yes,

Katy Fitzgerald: 44:38

I'm gonna, well, I'm gonna be doing the same thing when I leave here, but it was at Billy Bob's Texas. Where is that in Texas? It is in, is in Fort Worth, okay, it's in the stockyards I've heard, which is the North, the north side of Fort Worth. Okay, if you're ever in Fort Worth, you have to go to Billy Bob's. It's just a, it's just a Fort Worth, institution after Bucha. I mean, buckies. Came later. Billy Bob's was first, yeah, but Billy Bob's Texas. It's just this little Yeah, it's your traditional Texas Honky Tonk. So I saw Brian White there.

Jay Armbrister: 45:11

Did it have an acre of dance floor? Yes? Like Gillies? Yes, it's

Katy Fitzgerald: 45:15

a yes, yeah, so, but you have to go check it out. And you should just check out the stockyards too, sure? That is off topic of the question. Well, my

Jay Armbrister: 45:25

funny Gillies story is I went through one afternoon when I was in training in Dallas, and I got on the bull, and this dude ran the bull, and I wrote it for eight seconds, and then I heard myself yell the dumbest thing I've ever said in my life. I yelled, Is that all you've got, you know, and I'm looking at him, he's got a cowboy hat. This guy has. He actually, he does that with his I mean, 1.2 seconds later, I had a dislocated elbow, and I was piled up in the corner on a bunch of mats. So, yeah, he was, Oh, fantastic. Okay, well, I'm too old. I got compromised hips. Now I can't be doing that.

Katy Fitzgerald: 45:59

Um, most recent. What were the other ones? Most recent

Jay Armbrister: 46:02

and favorite and favorite? Okay,

Katy Fitzgerald: 46:10

so my most recent was before it so the little town that I lived in North Carolina, Kannapolis, their parks and recs where Dale Earnhardt's from, yes,

Jay Armbrister: 46:21

it's that, because I'm because it's in here. If I remember one more thing, I'm gonna forget my anniversary date.

Katy Fitzgerald: 46:27

Kannapolis is known for Dale Earnhardt and cannon mills. Cannon tells Sure, but the Parks and Rec did every summer they had this, like, concert series, and so people like the Commodores, oh my gosh. Like it wasn't like recent people dropped their palm on me. Recent people who were, you know, big touring on the big stage, but they're affordable. Uncle

Jay Armbrister: 46:55

cracker. Oh yeah for sure. Okay,

Katy Fitzgerald: 46:58

alright, that was my most recent one. Yeah, all

Jay Armbrister: 47:01

right, favorite, favorite.

Katy Fitzgerald: 47:05

Garth Brooks puts on a good show.

Jay Armbrister: 47:07

I've heard that my wife seen him a couple times, yeah? Show, yeah. He is such a good entertainer. Yeah, I think I would have to. Dude can fill up stadiums like three nights in a row. So I pretty impressive. Okay, that's fair. How long ago, does he am and where?

Katy Fitzgerald: 47:24

Probably, I think it was the Fort Worth Convention Center, yeah, in the last the last, it was like, in some of me feel old.

Jay Armbrister: 47:35

You want to know why you feel old? Because I am, yeah,

Katy Fitzgerald: 47:40

that's like 1996 oh, my gosh, that wasn't fantastic. Yeah, I

Jay Armbrister: 47:45

was, I was cool back in 1996 that's how long ago was I? Okay? I was here, yeah, exactly. But he's a

Katy Fitzgerald: 47:58

good one. You should go, Okay, well, well, 20

Jay Armbrister: 48:01

Yeah, yeah, the 20 years ago, yes, it was, oh God, yep, I just had my 30 years ago, my 30th high school reunion. So yeah, we're officially old. Okay, I think that's all I have for us today, unless you have anything questions for me. No so thank you again for joining us. Thanks, like I said, the nine people who listen to this are just going to be impressed out of their pants because of the work that you do. But thank you so much for everything that you do. Thank you. Everything that you do for me and my agency is specifically but other than that, thanks a lot, and we look forward to many future years of trying to navigate this, this bumpy road full of potholes, trap doors and asterisks, so Yep. All right. Thank you. Katie, thank you. All right. Bye.