 name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Good and gracious God, we thank you for the blessing of this day, another day to experience and live in your love. We thank you for the blessing of being part of a community that you intended to reflect the values of compassion, justice, and human dignity. We are privileged to be members of the democratic society that upholds truth and the rule of law. As responsible citizens, we ask for your guidance and the governance of our local community, our state, and our country. We pray for all those who seek and hold public office, that as leaders they will be filled with wisdom and prudence and all matters. As we gather this evening, we ask that you help and strengthen each one of them and each one of us in whatever it is that we are called to do. We ask that you heal our divisions at this time, that regardless of our party affiliation, we may be united in our efforts to come together and to be people of faith, hope, love, and peace. May we always give glory to your holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen. Father, and Son. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. You may be back. On behalf of Father Carlos Davlos, welcome to our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church and to Helotus, Texas. Hopefully you didn't have too much trouble locating our place. I'm sure you agree it was a pretty enjoyable drive getting out here, depending on the traffic. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our distinguished guests for their participation and for you, the audience, for your attendance this evening. I would also like to recognize some of our fellow institutions that are present, in particular the Bread or the World Organization that is co-hosting this event. Before we begin, I would like to start by going over a few housekeeping guidelines. For candidates, this is an accountability session and not a debate nor a free-for-all. I'm asking that we at least refrain from the use of any negative remarks and our personal attacks to fellow candidates. The process is relatively simple. You will be asked a few questions and be given the opportunity to agree or disagree in a few minutes to explain your position. The same goes for the audience. Please refrain from the use of any negative remarks and our personal attacks on our guests. If you like what you hear, you're welcome to clap. If you disagree with the question or if you disagree with the position, we ask that you simply sit quietly, okay? Are we okay? Finally tonight is your final opportunity to register to vote, so please see Hector Perez. You saw him at the entrance over there. If you haven't signed in, please sign in for us. But likewise, talk to him. If you'd like to register this evening, then we'll be delivering your registration to the registrar tomorrow morning. Per law, you are also permitted to register a family member if you have that information with you. So if your son's not with you, but you know it's such a security number, a date of birth, whatever it's required, then you're able to register him also. Cops and Metro Alliance is a broad-based organization of approximately 25 institutions in Bear County, Texas. We have been developing and organizing community leaders for over 42 years. We are a non-partisan organization. That means we do not endorse any candidate. But we are a partisan about certain issues, those that are important to our institutions and to our community. These are the issues that will be presented here tonight. Here at our Lady of Waterway, for example, we're currently undertaking a capital building campaign to address the tremendous growth that's occurred. This facility, for example, facility you're in was built in 1986 to serve 800 families. Since then, our parish has grown by approximately 10 times larger to more than 7,200 registered families. We have significant issues with respect to urban sprawl, including issues of infrastructure, crime, and traffic. Now, you might not have noticed too much traffic coming over here. We have issues with traffic, okay? So one of our goals this evening is to establish and foster a good working relationship with our elected officials in order to address such issues. At this time, I would like to introduce Mercedes Briscoe, who will be sharing a short story and opening our discussion with our candidates for state representative district 172. Where we come in place is that we were gonna ask the state representatives a couple of questions. And one of us is, like for me, when I applied for TANF, I had a car that was paid off. And so I needed, I got to apply for children so I took an early retirement. So when I got the kids, I didn't have any beds for them. So I applied for a TANF grant. There's a one-time grant grant fee for $5,000. So I applied for it. And I was denied because my car was paid off, I was over-resources. So that's one of the things that I'd like to ask these state representatives, if they would support a bill, it would actually be a bill that the income follow the child. If the child was removed from the home and he got SSI or child support, that the income would follow the child. So that was one of the things. The other, there's another story about another grandmother that actually was receiving TANF. And TANF here in Texas is $95 per child. In the state of Louisiana is 222. So Texas is very behind. So she was getting $285 for three grandchildren. And her car broke down. So she had to get dead and go get another car. So when her recertification came, she was also denied because now she was over-resources. So that doesn't provide for the children, their needs like school supplies, the shoes or anything that the children need. So I think that our TANF policy needs to be looked at. And the other one is of course that the income follow the child. The other thing that we are also talking about is that foster care gets, I think about $700 around their dollars a month. And when grandparents take on the responsibility of their grandchildren, they get nothing. And so now they have to provide for these children either on their own income and they're already living on a fixed income. So let's say you get a child and you're only getting $800 a month and now you can have three children. So how are you gonna provide for these children? And with a TANF policy, it's very hard to get any assistance from there. And if you do, you can't have over $1,000 resources. So that's our story we're talking to. We asked State Senator Jose Menendez to write a bill and he's agreed to write a bill where the income follow the child. So we're hoping that the state representatives will help support those bills. We've gone to Austin and spoke there about this. We've gone to a policy with kingship. So that's what we're doing and that's what we wanna make a witness. Thank you. Maybe you can spend just a quick second explaining your share of this, you're here at the panel. We lead a support. Thank you. Okay, we lead a support group at Brockley Elementary and I have a few of my grandmothers here. And so we started a support group in the neighborhood place. And out of the neighborhood place, actually I saw the, my aunt saw the commercial of TWN Catholic channel. And so then what happened is she told me there's a support group. So I attended that support group for a couple of years. And then I decided we needed one in the northwest side. So I came here, spoke to Father Carlos and then we got started at Brockley Elementary. So now we lead a support group and we, grandparents, they're trying to make a difference in our community. So we have, we have now to support groups. And what we do is we advocate. We're going and speaking to bringing resources to the grandparents where they can access whether it's whether a station, whether it's a sauce bill or it's whatever we need, childcare, programs that are out there in the community. And so that's what we're doing. We've also spoken to Judge Sakai, Peter Sakai which we asked him to provide for us some kind of like a legal task force that we can represent grandparents because a lot of the times grandparents cannot pay for an attorney. So now we have an attorney that does pro bono or does at low cost for us. And so we do workshops. Let me just add that her organization or her ministry is grandparents raising grandchildren. And we're seeing this becoming the trend where many grandparents are raising their grandchildren and they have issues. And you may want to explain a few of the issues with respect to going to school, getting them enrolled without having the legal paperwork of the documents necessary to take care of that grant. Chuck. We have a few grandparents that one of them for in particular that comes to mind is she went to register her kids at a broccoli and she was crying because they couldn't register them because she didn't have the proper documentation. Mom was nowhere to be found in debt. It was her son. So he had just been there. And so she went to enroll them and they wouldn't enroll the kids. So she was crying and they know we have this program. So they went out and they got me because when I pick up my five grandkids here they went outside and says, can you help? So I went in there and I talked to her. We connected her with the attorney. She got her paperwork and now she's been able to enroll the kids. But a lot of the times when I came in to enroll my kids at school I only had a CPS paper and I came in but nobody told me there. They said, Ms. Bristol, if you need anything let me know. I didn't know what I needed. So what I thought after is why don't we put a resource list together for all the schools to have. So when grandparents come and enroll their children at least they'll have a resource if they need it or not. And so that was a big missing for me. So I started saying, let's talk to the schools. Let's get this resource list together. So now we have a lot of resources that we can actually get to the grandparents and kind of challenge them where they need to go. So Pops and Metro is made up of 35 churches, schools and unions and some of them are here today. St. Francis of Assisi, Presbyterian Universalist, St. Timothy, University Presbyterian, Our Lady of Guadalupe Westside, Sisters of the Holy Spirit, St. Bridget and any others. So Pops and Metro is also part of a statewide network of 10 other community organizations. And whenever the legislature is in session we come up with a legislative agenda and deliver it to our legislators up in Austin. Some of the concerns we've had this year are about mental health issues, adequate funding to address mental health treatment. So we're also looking for the expansion to Medicaid in Texas. Pops and Metro has worked for many years establishing a successful job training program called Project Quest. And a lot of our sister organizations across the state have also started job training programs. Well a few years ago we passed a state legislation that created a pot of $5 million to be distributed to successful job training programs. San Antonio has been lucky to use about a million and a half every other year. So over the course of two years we've got about a million and a half. So we wanna see that $5 million program continue. We'll be talking to our legislators about that. Payday lending is another issue that's very important for our families in our churches in the inner city. I know Catholic Charities is all over this issue too. They hear it from families, we hear it from families. People are getting in trouble, losing homes, losing automobiles with the predatory payday lending. We wanna see a state legislation to address that. Our school finance system is not meeting the needs of our communities, especially the needs of the community disadvantaged students. We would want them to look for renew the English language learners and homeless students programs and to move towards universal all day pre-K education. Recent investigations have revealed that the Texas Education Agency's arbitrary special education cap of 8.5% has had the effect of borrowing many children from special education when they would qualify for that. We wanna see that cap removed. We support legislation to cover the cost of SAT and ACT class testing for high school students instead of putting the burden of testing on the student. We think the state should support that in order to support the ambitions of many folks wanting to go on to college. And then the last one, our elected state officials have made it clear that they oppose federal mandates that come down from Washington overriding state laws or guidelines. We would want them, if elected, to work to stop efforts by the state to preempt city and county ordinances that rate in payday and auto title lending amuses and other local ordinances that local officials have enacted to protect us, the citizens in the city and the county. So we would want them to stop efforts to limit how much revenue cities and counties can raise to pay for services that we need necessary. So as an overview of our legislative statewide agenda, we will be asking the candidates that we invited tonight and if you left your email address, we'll try to get out a little checklist of how they answered those questions when they met with us privately. Thank you. At this time, I would like to introduce Loretta Lang who will be sharing a short story and opening our discussion with our candidates for Brad County Sheriff. So Ms. Lang, you want me to turn this around so that you can be, okay. Ms. Lang has a ministry here, our lawyer, Walter Benelotus, who said is a president ministry organization. Can you sit here, just hold it there probably easier. Just the microphone. Good evening, good evening. Move everybody, could you hear me? Yeah, I'm the founder of the President Correspondents' Ministry. I founded it 19 years ago when my son first went into incarceration and the reason he had two people and he said, called, wrote me and said, Mom, these people don't have anybody to write on them. Nobody to come to visit them. Why don't you please write them? Well, I was like everybody else. I don't know if I want to write prisoners or not. But then I just happened to go to Mass at our church one evening and the priest had one line in his homily that it says this. I mean, it was just exactly what I needed to hear. He said, how long are you gonna stand on the shore? Before you take a step out into the deep and take a risk? So I said, that was my time to take a risk. And so from this time, I did, oh, I think I was up to about 25 names for myself until I couldn't tell you any more. So then I came to Father Carlos and asked him if we could make it a ministry. He said yes. And so we started with four of us. And I got two, three more ladies of myself. These are the four of us. And now we have 104 ministers and we have over 500 men on the count right now. We have 523 men, 222 are assigned. That means that have somebody that writes to them. 303 are on the waiting list. And we have 120 that I've had to return now this year, just since January, because we just don't have enough people. And so this is what we're asking for. People in your own parishes, would you like to start a group? Would you like to come over and show you how to begin, what to do with it and so forth. But it's a really, really worthwhile ministry. They then have all kinds of wonderful remarks when we send them cards at Christmas, Easter's and birthday. And thank you folks back all the time from everybody, saying how much they appreciate what they do or the only ones they like heard from this type of thing. I mean, it really makes you feel good. So I'm gonna hear, if you haven't done something like this and you're interested, all you have to do is contact the church and they'll contact me. I'll get in touch with you then, okay? I don't have that out there. At this time, I would like to listen. Edna Hinojosa, I'm sorry, it's Edna Molina. Take over the questions for our elected officials. Thank you Steve, now it's your last day. No, no, no, no, no. Thank you. Katie Gonzalez is going to mark yes or no because the questions that I'm going to ask to the sheriff's candidates are going to be mostly answered with just a yes or no. One question will be a little more explanation than that. And then at the end of the five questions, each of the candidates will have a chance to explain in more detail or clarify anything that they want to say in addition to yes or no. Okay, so we'll start and I'll start with Mr. Salazar for the first question and then Ms. Parmalon will be answering and then we'll go on to the second question. So our member institutions have been diligently working on living wages for city and county employees. Our community is concerned that the use of mandatory overtime and the low morale may adversely affect the care that the inmates are receiving. If elected, will you support higher wages for officers and budget for hiring more officers to address the needs of the inmates? Yes, yes. And Ms. Parmalon, yes. Number two, our community has concerns about the suicides that have occurred at the jail and the use of deadly force used against people with mental issues. If elected, will you support training for officers to help them recognize and diffuse a situation when dealing with an individual with mental issues? Ms. Parmalon? Yes. Mr. Salazar? Yes. This question will require more than just a yes or no, a short explanation of their answer. So what will you do to expedite the backlog of inmates waiting for their court hearing? As we understand it now, there's quite a huge backlog and a long wait for their court hearing. So what would you do to expedite that backlog and make it better? Mr. Salazar? I would be interested in exploring alternate, there's a mic right there. Okay. I would certainly be interested in exploring alternate forms of pretrial release being through ankle monitors or through the adult probation. Additionally, I would also be interested in exploring along with the DA's office, taking public input on things such as site and release on certain misdemeanor offenses that are nonviolent in nature. Thank you. Ms. Parmalon? Sure. As much as I would like to be able to direct specific actions in the case of moving cases through the court system, that role falls under the courts. The district attorney and Mike Lozito who is the director of judicial services for the county. And in fact, Mike Lozito keeps a scorecard so to speak on how each of these 60 plus judges is doing their job and moving cases through the court system. In terms of pretrial release, we stand out across the nation. In 10 years ago, the jail was busting at the seams and was close to being under a federal consent decree. And over the last 10 years, the population of Bear County has gone up by 25%. At the same time, because of those pretrial release programs, our jail population has been reduced by 20%. And we continue focusing on jail diversion programs so that individuals don't get caught up in the criminal justice system while they are waiting on trial. Okay. Our particular interest was also those particular inmates who have mental issues. Yes. And to that, we instituted an additional assessment of mental health situation about almost two years ago, excuse me, about a year and a half ago because 40% of those who were arrested in the county never came to jail because they bonded out. But those 40% of those arrested in Bear County, unless they were symptomatic of mental health issues, we never knew whether or not they had mental health, mental illness issues. And since that time, and the county has already put in a public defender for the sole purpose of representing those with mental illness, determined at point of arrest, who are indigent and who request counsel so that we can divert them to treatment in the community as opposed to coming to jail. Okay, thank you. And that already has, will identify close to 3,500 individuals who need treatment as opposed to coming to jail. Thank you. If you want to comment later on that. Mr. Salazar. On the mental health. Yes. While I applaud the current program of asking the questions at the booking process, I believe that it needs to become a little more proactive further into the process. Whereas we have deputies and officers deployed out on the street on patrol that are mental health officers, we also need to become more proactive. And it's one of the things, one of the programs that I will implement, get more proactive within the jail population, have specially trained, specially equipped detention officers who are within the jail population constantly monitoring those prisoners, those inmates for signs of mental illness that may manifest themselves further into the process, just beyond the booking process. Two weeks, two months, six months into their stay, the wheels may be coming off on somebody's life. And if we're not getting proactive enough, we're going to see suicides such as what we've seen this past summer. Okay, thank you. The next question is just a simple yes or no answer. And we'll start with Ms. Sierra-Pamela. Our community is concerned about the use of video visitations for inmates and their families. If elected, will you return to a more personalized and humane visitation policy rather than strictly by video? Yes. And Mr. Salazar. Yes. And the last question, we'll start with Mr. Salazar. As a community, we agree with Pope Francis that we should be building bridges rather than walls. The city of San Antonio has a policy that they will accept various forms of ID to avoid unnecessary arrests of immigrants who are stopped for simple traffic violations. If elected, will you adopt and support this policy in the county? SAPD procedure 506, I help write it. Yes, I would bring it in. Yes or no? Yes. Yes. Now, each of you will have two minutes to just clarify or amplify anything that you would like to say at this point. We'll start with Mr. Salazar. The topics discussed tonight, living wages, suicides within the jail, backlogs, and of course, alternate forms of identification are all programs that are all issues that we've seen rear their ugly head more times than once here and recently within the sheriff's office. You know, I'm proud to say that I'm a Bear County native. I'm a 23 year veteran of law enforcement here with the largest law enforcement agency in the county, the San Antonio Police Department. For 16 years now, I've been married to this beautiful young lady in the front row and we're raising two beautiful young ladies of our own. What I'm getting at is Bear County is my home. I was born here, we're raising our family here. One of these days, a long time from now I'm going to retire here. I deeply care about what happens here in Bear County. I want to keep protecting and serving for the next 23 years, just as I have for the past 23 years of my life. On January 1st, I will get out of bed and I'll put on a uniform and a badge as I've done every day for the past 23 years. You, the voters of Bear County are going to tell me which badge that is, whether it be an SAPD badge or the Bear County Sheriff's badge. You'll be asked on election day to make decisions at all levels of our government. As to the Bear County Sheriff's office, you're going to be asked to make a decision as to who among the four candidates is the most likely to fight crime effectively. To build relationships with the community that are lifesaving relationships and to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars. I can tell you that among the four candidates running for this office, I'm the most qualified. My name's Javier Salazar. I want to be your sheriff and I'm respectfully asking for your vote. Thank you, Mr. Salazar. Sheriff Honolow. To the question about higher pay for deputies as well as higher wages and additional personnel, we are very close to concluding contract negotiations with the Deputy Sheriff's Association and I'm hopeful that they will accept what is on the table and being worked because in the first year, it is an 8% raise for every single deputy. I don't think you can pay deputies enough for the work that they do because they put their lives on the line every single day. To the point of adding additional spaces, since I've been sheriff, we have gotten the commissioner's court to approve more than 100 additional positions and we continue to work with the commissioner's court on addressing staffing gaps and additional needs that we have. When it comes to suicides and mental health issues, let me just use a quote that was in the REVARD report today about a conference that we've been involved with, the National Organization of Hispanics and Criminal Justice and the Texas Criminal Justice Association. Pete Early, who is a nationally known advocate for mental health and a former Washington Post investigative reporter said this, I've been to 48 states, five foreign countries and I've testified five times before Congress and Bear County is known as the gold standard, said mental health advocate and journalist Pete Early. Bear County is the leading county in America when it comes to jail diversion and stopping the inappropriate incarceration of people who have serious illness like schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. And he knows what he's talking about because his son was one of those who he dealt with. Thank you, that's kind of the time that we have set aside for this. Thank you very much, both of you. Thank you. Just to make a quick remark regarding what we just discussed. Part of the work that we've done at COPS and Metro is to work for living wages because it is our position and we feel that people that depend on taxpayer money or use taxpayer money whether the city or the kind of government should not be promoting wages that are below, obviously, it's the breakdown is about $14 here in San Antonio. That would be the living wage. If you're making under $14 an hour then you're gonna be entitled to certain federal programs whether food stamps or whatnot. So our goal has been to work with the city accountant to get that to a living wage so that they don't have to turn around and dip twice versus their salary and then to the government for additional assistance. Besides the right with the county, I think this year, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Pompeo, but they have agreed to a starting salary of approximately $13.75, $13.72 an hour. But when you look at that and compare it to with their paying some of the entry levels of those detention officers, that's a very small gap. I mean, the detention officers come in almost with this salary that we're promoting for our sanitation workers, our lowest pay for the county. So that's a serious concern. I'm not about to put on a uniform and go work in the county jail for wages that are very low. Just a little side remark on the work that we're going with living wages. So at this time I'd like to introduce Reverend Daniel Desada with the Bread for the World Organization and he'll be opening our discussion with the congressional candidates here, Mr. Pompeo. The Bread for the World, which is a Christian voice urging our decision makers to work to end hunger in the United States and overseas. So I'm very grateful for the opportunity to collaborate and to work with our partners in COPS Metro Alliance because we have shared values and we believe that in this country of plenty there should be no reason, driver reason for people to go without food, to go without their basic needs. And so this is the context of which we will be asking these questions to Mr. Gallego and I should note that Congressman Hurd was invited to attend this event and decline the invitation. We thank you Mr. Gallego for being here this evening. In spite of recent modest downward trends, hunger in Texas, including District 23, remains high due to high poverty rates and low wages. Many Americans, including one in four military families, receive SNAP, which is formerly called Food Stamps. And as well as other assistance benefits in order to meet their basic household needs. Bread for the World has outlined policy strategies that would effectively eliminate hunger, including creating jobs and raising the federal minimum wage, ensuring access to nutrition, healthcare, and other needs, as well as strengthening the safety network, among others. If elected, would you commit to support legislation that would address the root causes of hunger and work to eliminate hunger across the board by 2030? Absolutely I would. Childhood hunger in Texas is particularly high with one in four children classified as hungry. Current legislation for funding of child nutrition reauthorization, which includes programs such as the school lunch program, the breakfast program, the summer feeding program, is currently being considered by Congress and includes the possibility of doing this through block grants to states, which would likely lessen the effective impact on these feeding programs. Do you support full funding of child nutrition reauthorization and oppose the block grant system as a means of doing this? Block grants would be a charitable system I absolutely would support full funding. Prison reform has recently gained momentum and our own Senator John Pornin is leading some of the efforts to effectively reduce the prison population by reducing sentences for nonviolent offenders, as well as removing some of the punitive measures and stigma for returning citizens. This also strengthens families by allowing for a household provider to be productive in earning wages to support meeting basic needs. Do you support sentencing reform legislation at the federal level? Yes I do. We are all aware of the on boy need for immigration reform for what may many consider to be a broken system. Of course, in this presidential race, building a wall on the US-Mexico border is being proposed as part of this. Do you support immigration reform? And if elected, would you work to introduce just and effective reform of current immigration policy? I have a huge job in good immigration reform as I absolutely would. Finally, Project Quest is a long-term job training program started in 1990 by COPS Metro Alliance that has trained thousands of low-wage workers for high-wage jobs through the collaboration with the local community college system. In the past 10 years, Quest has won $9 million in US Department of Labor grants for a long-term job training. Our question is, will you send along a letter of support for Project Quest with the next Department of Labor grant application if you are elected? Yes it would be my honor to help Project Quest valuable, valuable program. Thank you Mr. Mayor. We now have time for you to elaborate to clarify any of your statements. Can you all hear me if I don't use that? Yes. Okay, well it is my pleasure to be here. I think the goals that we've outlined tonight that we've talked about are also worthwhile. There's nothing more important than making sure that our families are okay. Whether it's a living wage, whether it's taking care of our grandkids or our kids, all of these things are supremely important. We have a lot of work to do because Texas can be so much better. Much of what is patterned in Texas, whether sometimes the state law is patterned on the federal law, sometimes the federal law is patterned on the state law, but the truth is that we've gotta get to a point where we can talk to each other and we can work through issues. And one of the things that I admire so much about this organization and its sister organizations is that you can have those conversations in a nonpartisan setting and move us forward. So I look forward to working with all of you. I, if God gives me the opportunity to be the member of Congress from this area, but I will tell you that the work is incredibly important. And I so respect and so admire all of you who are here tonight to help make our state and our country a much better place for all of us. The candidates, and in summary, I think looking at our scoreboard, right? Can you turn the scoreboard? I think all of them have agreed to work with the agenda presented here this evening. So thank you. I have to ask each of our candidates one final question. If elected, will you agree to meet with COPS Metro leaders on an as-eat-a-basis to continue our discussions? Done it many times, yes. Thank you. And I have also done it a number of times and welcome the input. And I just wanna thank COPS Metro for the objective way that you have always looked at issues across our community and provided this kind of forum. Thank you, sir. I love coming here. So absolutely. Now, COPS Metro leaders, it's our turn. Let us return to our institutions and share the information you've heard this evening with your fellow leaders. Let us continue to get that vote out. Early voting begins Monday, October 24th and continues until Friday, November the 4th. Election day is Tuesday, November the 8th, 2016. This concludes our COPS Metro accountability session this evening. I know some of you would like to meet and greet our guests. So I would like to request that everyone exit the building and mingle outside the church grounds because I'm gonna clean up this place and get a bank remover. Thank you for your cooperation this meeting is adjourned. They're kicking us out.