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Commissioner Foushee arrived at 7:13 PM. <br /> Commissioner Yuhasz asked about the Mental Health Court and how it is funded. <br /> Judge Buckner said that it is funded by the Department of Health and Human Resources. <br /> Commissioner Yuhasz asked if this funding was going to be terminated. Judge Buckner said <br /> that it is such a small problem that the State has indicated that it will continue to sustain it. <br /> Commissioner Hemminger asked Judge Buckner what he was looking for in a new jail. <br /> Judge Buckner said that most of the time they are trying to deal with dockets of <br /> hundreds of cases, so it is critical to the operation of the court to get people into queue. In the <br /> design, there should be the capacity to meet with more people that are incarcerated. <br /> Chair Pelissier asked Judge Buckner to comment on the effort of improving the <br /> homelessness population. <br /> Judge Buckner said that they have been trying to keep up with this population and <br /> coordinate services when these individuals are in court. This has been successful. <br /> Commissioner Jacobs suggested looking at who the County will be building the prison <br /> for and what other resources/programs are there. He asked Judge Buckner what he would like <br /> to see the Board of County Commissioners do. <br /> Judge Buckner said that the State mandates are on the prison population. He said that <br /> it is worth a look. He said that a lot of other people need to weigh in on this conversation. <br /> Commissioner Jacobs said that if the County was proactive, this would be a good time <br /> to bring together stakeholders to look at other alternatives to decrease the prison population. <br /> Chair Pelissier agreed with Commissioner Jacobs. <br /> Sheriff Pendergrass said that daily it is an operation of manipulation to keep the <br /> numbers between 135-140 people each day. He said that he tries to keep the jail population <br /> at a number that is safe to manage. He said that there are over 600 people on probation in <br /> Orange County and at any given time, 5-30 will violate probation and come back to jail without <br /> notice. Many unpredictable factors in running a jail and they also never know at any given time <br /> how many female inmates they will have, which creates a problem too. He said that there has <br /> to be a new jail with a capacity of about 250 inmates. The old jail can be used for <br /> misdemeanors, etc. He said that there are 30-40 people that are continuously brought into jail <br /> off the streets from Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and they are street people. He said that it is like <br /> a revolving door, and there need to be other places for these people besides the jail. <br /> Commissioner McKee said that in the long run it will be imperative to look at a new <br /> facility and he liked the idea of looking at alternative means to treat these homeless people. <br />