1-6-26 Council Audio Transcription

[Speaker 1] (0:00 - 0:02)
Thank you for joining us. We missed y'all.

[Speaker 17] (0:06 - 0:09)
You blew it if you didn't come to Kanab. It's really, really nice.

[Speaker 1] (0:09 - 0:09)
Oh, it's beautiful.

[Speaker 17] (0:10 - 0:14)
Oh, yeah, gorgeous. Jeff's provided us steak luncheon. Yeah, it was awesome.

[Speaker 1] (0:15 - 1:33)
I know. Yeah, $500 Amazon gift card. Horseback rides.

Horseback rides. You know, actually, Jeff, and I meant to do this way ahead of time, is to see if you can get somebody to let us do a dinner out at the Haunted Ponds and find a local hotel and tell us about Montezuma's Gold and any other stuff that's out here. Okay.

Oh, and let me start it up here as well. English. Yes, confirm.

Okay. Welcome, everybody. We only have a handful.

So I'll just state who we've got. We've got Chad Dotson, excuse me, Stephen Foote online. And then in the room, we've got Karen Walker, Sam Smith, and Stuart Williams from the council.

So we don't have a quorum. So we didn't really have anything particularly that we needed to vote on. But still.

And then Marilyn Lawson, Emma. What's your last name? Johnson.

Bob Church. And Tyson Skeen from UPC.

[Speaker 18] (1:34 - 1:34)
Evershed.

[Speaker 1] (1:35 - 1:36)
Yeah, not Evershed.

[Speaker 18] (1:37 - 1:38)
Emma Evershed.

[Speaker 1] (1:38 - 1:46)
Oh, well, okay. So we won't vote on the minutes since we don't have enough people to vote. Anybody have any comments on the minutes that's here?

[Speaker 4] (1:47 - 1:48)
So we'll table until next time.

[Speaker 1] (1:48 - 2:28)
Table until next time. Okay. Budget review.

As I indicated in the notes, we're always about two months behind in finance. So salaries and Tyson's grant, Ron's grant, we're always two months behind in that, which, you know, we understand. We don't really worry too much about.

I'd say I think Troy Rawlings just joined us. Hopefully, Troy, you can hear us. I can.

Great. Thank you. One thing that we discovered yesterday that Marilyn picked up on, do you want to talk about, Marilyn?

This is as it relates to BASIC.

[Speaker 4] (2:29 - 2:45)
So the prices have gone up substantially from last year. So we ran the numbers, and this is mainly the meeting space has gone up. And so I ran the numbers, and it's basically about a $9,000 difference.

[Speaker 1] (2:45 - 2:46)
An increase.

[Speaker 4] (2:46 - 3:19)
An increase. So and one reason why it's only $9,000 is because we've raised, it helped offset with the raised registration fees. So last year's was based on the 125.

Registration fee this year is 150. So with the offset, it would have been about 52,000-ish. And then with the registration fee offset of 150, it brought it down to 21.

[Speaker 1] (3:20 - 3:21)
I didn't see the final number.

[Speaker 4] (3:21 - 4:44)
You just told me it was about eight. Anyway, between last year and this year, it's about a $9,000 difference, $8,000 difference. So I just wanted to let the council be aware of that.

Have we been considering looking other places? We've got Logan so dialed in of, you know, what we do at night and, you know, just the layout of the venue. It's just so dialed in, even though the hotel billing and some of the other things have been kind of glitchy and tricky.

It just depends on their staff and how confident they are that it shows up every year. We could live with it, and we like the area. And not to mention it leaves with it a lot of tradition.

But that's not really why we would consider staying there. So I just want to bring that to the council of the price difference and how they would feel about possibly if we talked about going somewhere else. As a staff, we've talked about it.

We could go to St. George, but that would be in the peak season.

[Speaker 1] (4:46 - 4:46)
Hot.

[Speaker 4] (4:46 - 4:51)
Hot. And it would be hot. But they do have air conditioning down there, so that would be.

[Speaker 16] (4:51 - 4:59)
What about kickball at night? Right. Yeah, and then the traditions will go away.

No, Logan is the place.

[Speaker 4] (4:59 - 5:35)
Yeah, Logan is the place, and it's cool enough. Even if we went to Cedar City, say, I could make Cedar City work for us. So it would just be going out of the norm.

I don't know if the cost difference would be any different if we went to another place in August. So we seem to get pretty good deals, and the hotel rate is $149 this year versus $129 last year. So prices have gone up.

[Speaker 1] (5:35 - 5:45)
Well, just as an example, the main room that we meet in for the Willow Room, it was how much last year, Marilyn? $741 a day.

[Speaker 4] (5:45 - 5:57)
It was $840 a day with a discount rate. And they did give us, by the way, this year's contract, they did give us a 15% discount rate.

[Speaker 1] (5:58 - 6:03)
But it jumped up. They're going to now charge us $1,400 plus a day for that room.

[Speaker 4] (6:03 - 6:27)
Just that room. Just that room. So all of the rooms went up.

Lodging went up. Everything went up. So I did push back on the pricing to see if they could give us a good rate, because we've been coming there since the day they opened their doors.

I mean, UPAA conference was their first event ever. So...

[Speaker 1] (6:27 - 6:30)
We have history with the building, but not necessarily the people there.

[Speaker 4] (6:31 - 6:35)
Well, not the immediate staff, but the general manager, they know all about us.

[Speaker 1] (6:36 - 7:15)
And Randall McCune has just joined us for the record. So as I put in the notes, you know, I was thinking, because we don't know what the legislation is going to do in terms of the big, beautiful bill, and my suggestion was if we get dinged because of the BBB, the BBB, that paying for housing for students would be the first thing to go. But now that we're looking at, you know, $8,000 or more in costs, and I'm concerned about our...

I mean, I'm not concerned about our budget, but at the same time, I am. So we're proposing that at least for this year, we don't pay for student housing. And how does the council feel about that?

[Speaker 5] (7:17 - 8:02)
I think there might be some cities that wouldn't go above $500. Like, for a lot of cities, it's everybody gets $500 per year. Right.

And so at that point, maybe it would be worth considering hosting it at the place where most of the students wouldn't need lodging. I know that you want to move around the state, and it's good to do that. But if most of them are going to be coming from Salt Lake County, Davis County, and Provo, maybe picking a location where, you know, 80% of the students won't need lodging.

And maybe you could do an offset, like, you know, we can do this much toward lodging for people. I don't know, like, I guess what would the numbers look like for someone to go from, like, southern Utah up to Logan? What would they have to ask their city manager, you know, or county attorney for?

And would they get it?

[Speaker 1] (8:04 - 8:21)
I mean, and that is the concern. I don't know why I didn't think about that now is I think that our jurisdictions have probably planned on not having to pay for lodging in their budgets. But so I guess that is a consideration that we hadn't thought of.

Well, we haven't looked around.

[Speaker 6] (8:21 - 8:45)
I mean, I know there's tradition and stuff. Right, right. Like, if you're talking about a hotel and a conference room.

I mean, I'm not saying there isn't. I wasn't even mentionitizing. We've run into this in our city where we can't afford much, right?

So we've been asking other cities. I mean, I don't know if they have enough space for this, but to use rooms like this, right? Use conference rooms in cities to hold that.

So we save $1,000 a day for how creative we need to be if that's worth looking into.

[Speaker 1] (8:45 - 9:27)
Right. And, you know, to Marilyn's point, we're dialed in at Logan. It's because we know the lay of the land.

You know, Sam mentioned kickball is we could probably play kickball at some other location. We'd just be competing with school that's back in. So it might require some more extra effort on our part.

We talked. The biggest thing that we like, well, a major factor that we like about Logan is it is off the Wasatch front. You know, and to your point, I recognize that, you know, holding it where people don't have to pay.

But then we run into the challenge of people going home or going to court or going back to work.

[Speaker 5] (9:28 - 9:33)
Not being engaged because they could kind of treat it like a regular conference instead of being fully immersed.

[Speaker 1] (9:33 - 10:05)
Right. So if we did take it somewhere else, that's why we're thinking St. George, Cedar City, because, you know, they have to travel. So then we have them captured.

They get their homework done at night. We even yesterday talked about maybe looking at Box Hill or County. You know, it's a little bit closer than Logan, but we don't know what the facilities are there.

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know.

Any other thought? So maybe we hold off on saying that we're not going to pay for lodging.

[Speaker 6] (10:05 - 10:13)
If we're not going to pay, we do that because, like, my budget's due in a month, right? So cities, if I'm not budgeting for it, it would be very hard to get it after.

[Speaker 1] (10:13 - 10:14)
Yeah. OK.

[Speaker 11] (10:15 - 10:17)
Do we think we would save on money?

[Speaker 12] (10:17 - 10:25)
Would it be worth it even to move it down south? I just wonder if the rooms are going to be similar priced.

[Speaker 4] (10:30 - 10:52)
Well, Chad, I was thinking if we did that, we could go to you could go to Cedar City, use the festival hall. I think they might or even your offices. Well, I don't know.

I don't know what your training, if you have training, a training room there. Yeah, we could reserve something.

[Speaker 11] (10:53 - 10:54)
OK. And it's a big space.

[Speaker 4] (10:54 - 11:22)
I mean, we could contract with a hotel down there, still at peak season rates. Just be aware of that. And then the festival hall, they've been pretty good to work with.

They are. It would be a little running around, OK? It wouldn't be as, you know, convenient.

You know, we would have to travel back and forth from a hotel to your offices. And then the festival hall isn't that far either.

[Speaker 12] (11:23 - 11:25)
Shane has room in his basement, I've heard, too.

[Speaker 4] (11:26 - 11:38)
Good, does he? So, I mean, we could do some creative things. Would it be ideal like we have in Logan?

I don't know.

[Speaker 1] (11:40 - 12:10)
Because we haven't had, because this only came up yesterday, we haven't really had a time to scout out locations. Can we do this? Can we tell, you know, to Stuart's point that everybody's having to turn in their budget, do we publish that it's unlikely that we're going to be able to pay for lodging this year so that people can account for that in their budgets?

And then if we find a place that we can go where we could then pay for some or all of the lodging, then that becomes a plus to your budgets. Is that something that we could do?

[Speaker 4] (12:11 - 12:26)
Or it's not so bad. By then maybe if our budget shows that it's not going to be, if the triple B isn't going to impact us, all that, we'll just say never mind and we'll pay for the lodging.

[Speaker 5] (12:26 - 12:33)
Better to let people know now, especially offices that might be sending several people, where it could be a major line item for them.

[Speaker 12] (12:34 - 12:35)
Bob?

[Speaker 8] (12:35 - 12:43)
Yes. Just a quick question. So talking about not paying for lodging, what is that, you said $149 a night, and how many nights are they staying?

[Speaker 1] (12:44 - 12:45)
Five nights.

[Speaker 8] (12:45 - 12:46)
Five nights.

[Speaker 1] (12:46 - 12:50)
And we're running anywhere? Oh, yeah, sorry, you were going to do the math.

[Speaker 15] (12:51 - 12:56)
So we're running about $1,000, which includes taxes and things, of the hotels per student.

[Speaker 1] (12:57 - 13:05)
Correct. And we were paying for 18 to 22 students.

[Speaker 15] (13:06 - 13:08)
Right, plus faculty.

[Speaker 1] (13:08 - 13:11)
Right, right. Yeah, we'll still pay for faculty, obviously.

[Speaker 4] (13:11 - 13:17)
That's the big chunk of the invoice is the lodging. Right.

[Speaker 8] (13:21 - 13:28)
I guess looking at it maybe from my perspective, I know I'm sending someone no matter what. I've got one person that has to come.

[Speaker 1] (13:29 - 13:29)
Yeah.

[Speaker 8] (13:29 - 14:06)
But I'm sitting here thinking, you know, in this situation for me, I mean, and easily, for me, because we probably get more money per attorney than most for training. But, I mean, if you bumped up the registration, the course cost from $150 to $500, what kind of a bump up, what kind of a reduction are we looking at there to cover costs for this year?

[Speaker 4] (14:08 - 14:10)
For Just Basic, is that what you're?

[Speaker 8] (14:10 - 14:16)
For Just Basic, yeah, just that one conference. So people have a set cost they can think of in their mind.

[Speaker 1] (14:17 - 14:35)
And, you know, if we did that, because I was also thinking is do we pay for half of the lodging, but then that would require us to then send out a bill. But if we were to adopt Stephen's approach and just charge $500, that would take into account that you're paying for $350 of your room cost.

[Speaker 5] (14:36 - 14:43)
That would be more palatable to people to just have a, you know, hey, this is the all-inclusive fee to go to Basic.

[Speaker 8] (14:44 - 14:50)
And so it may even be a temporary, may not be long-term. We just don't know yet what's going on.

[Speaker 1] (14:50 - 14:51)
Right. That's a possibility.

[Speaker 2] (14:52 - 14:55)
Well, there have been years where we haven't covered lodging.

[Speaker 1] (14:55 - 14:56)
Right.

[Speaker 2] (14:56 - 15:25)
This is not unprecedented. Right. Like the $500 for we have to go to the legislature and get approval for that, right, with fees and stuff.

Like it's not just something that we can just say, oh, we're going to charge $500 for this conference. Like there's steps and things that we have to, approvals that we have to go through to be able to do that. And it seems like that's a lot of work other than just saying we might not be able to cover lodging this year.

Plan for that if you're planning to send somebody to Basic.

[Speaker 8] (15:28 - 15:32)
Can we not just add it on as a surcharge without having to get approvals?

[Speaker 1] (15:34 - 15:36)
Well, I mean, it's a tight.

[Speaker 8] (15:36 - 15:37)
It's a dual surcharge. It's a file plan.

[Speaker 1] (15:37 - 15:53)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Tyson's correct is we have the fee schedule that we have to be mindful of.

And so I'd have to ask our folks, you know, if we can do a one-time, if that would require a change. And I hadn't thought about that either. Again, this is just all since yesterday.

[Speaker 6] (15:53 - 15:56)
It's not a ton of money. I'm a small office.

[Speaker 1] (15:56 - 15:56)
Yeah.

[Speaker 6] (15:57 - 16:06)
A thousand bucks is a lot. But if I know ahead of time, it's not that big of a deal. Right.

But don't know until after then. Right. It's a little harder.

Right. Because I have to go through that same stuff.

[Speaker 7] (16:06 - 16:10)
Can you reimburse in part and not have to go through the legislature process?

[Speaker 1] (16:10 - 16:28)
And we could, like, is the – so we don't have to do the legislature. We could scholarship and call it a scholarship. And then I wouldn't have, you know, because it's then not part of the registration fee.

We could address it that way. So that would be another creative way of addressing that.

[Speaker 6] (16:28 - 16:29)
Make it a competition. All the top students get it.

[Speaker 1] (16:29 - 17:39)
Yeah. After you win your trial. Hey, Brett.

Brett Robinson just joined us. Yes. How are you?

Good. Thanks. I think some people thought this started at 10.

So I apologize for the confusion. So, Brett, what we've just been talking about is possibly not paying lodging for basic. Do you have any sense – and the reason – sorry, the reason being, let me explain, is yesterday we got the proposed contract from the hotel in Logan, and they have substantially increased their rates.

And so what we would be looking at is about an $8,000 increase over what we paid last year. And so we've been talking about perhaps we no longer pay for lodging for students that we have historically paid. However, during the COVID or post-COVID years, there were one or two years that we did not pay for lodging.

So I'm glad you're here. Do you have any sense how many students your office might send?

[Speaker 13] (17:41 - 17:43)
That's a good question. I'm not sure.

[Speaker 1] (17:43 - 17:43)
Okay.

[Speaker 13] (17:44 - 17:53)
But if we did, I think that if we needed to pay lodging, I think that wouldn't be – that wouldn't stop us from going if we needed to.

[Speaker 1] (17:53 - 18:36)
Okay. Well, then, like you said, that would be – I'm throwing this out, you know, for you guys going back, is if we say right now that we're not going to pay for lodging, we will do our homework, we will see, and then depending upon the impact, if there is any impact from the, you know, budget cuts, then we can readdress whether or not we pay for full lodging or we do scholarship, call it a scholarship, and, you know, look at possibly reducing or getting a reimbursement from the offices or something creative after the fact.

What do you all think?

[Speaker 13] (18:36 - 18:40)
Okay. I like that. Okay.

That makes sense. I think that's a good idea.

[Speaker 1] (18:40 - 18:45)
Okay. So now we have a quorum. So that – Sam, will you make that motion for me?

[Speaker 5] (18:46 - 18:51)
Motion to handle this possible increase the way that Bob just said.

[Speaker 1] (18:51 - 19:09)
Okay. So saying that we're not going to pay and then possibly coming back, depending upon how finances come out, and coming up with some way of either paying or minimizing those costs. Okay.

All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Any opposed?

[Speaker 4] (19:09 - 19:10)
Who seconded it?

[Speaker 1] (19:10 - 22:21)
I'll second. Oh, Stewart seconded. Oh, jeez.

Details. Good deal. Okay.

I sent out an email you should all know, just be aware that John R. Justice is probably not – I don't see it being funded this year. I had some email traffic from the AG's office asking some questions and that I thought thinking that maybe they were going to be able to cover those costs but I don't think that's it so for right now you know unless then things change there will not be any John R.

Justice this year which is unfortunate. Okay moving on to the training committee since we last met we held our advanced trial skills course because it was the first time that we held the course in a lot of years. It was a learning experience we had 19 students we got some really useful we got good and useful feedback on how the course went and what we could do to improve.

We some of us were a little gun shy in making people do homework. Hey Stu, Stu Young just jumped in because when we did it however many years ago people said I don't want to come and do homework so we minimized the homework but that was the comment that we got back is that students really wanted to do the homework and so that was really helpful so moving forward what we have decided is that and really the skills that they wanted to focus on were the direct and cross of experts. Of the same nurse of the DNA expert and so that's going to be the homework that they will do the night before is to prepare for those two things. The opening and closing exercises are going to be more like workshop that we'll do you know kind of on site as we're there with the students so we're going to do that hybrid blend of some pretty good homework for at least two of the exercises.

We want to say Chad thank you so much for sending Joseph from his office Joseph Sheha and then Washington County sent Glen and Sean who came and acted as our expert witnesses and they really did a great job they were really really prepared. Also a thanks to Trent and Clint Heiner from Salt Lake DA's office who spent a lot of time putting this together. We're going to keep the same fact pattern just because it does require a lot of prep time to create that course and so we're going to keep the same fact pattern and and implement a couple of new changes that that we talked about for next year so we're looking forward to it.

Any any questions on on advanced? Stu was faculty, Tyson was there, I was there, Trent's got a meeting this morning but we had a really good faculty and I think it just went really well. You've got the 2026 training schedule the what starting tomorrow is our DV boot camp Marilyn how many people do we have?

[Speaker 4] (22:21 - 22:22)
Solid 20.

[Speaker 1] (22:22 - 22:23)
Solid 20.

[Speaker 4] (22:23 - 22:26)
We have 21 registered but I'm pretty sure 21.

[Speaker 1] (22:29 - 22:33)
Well we have we have one person in the state who signs up for every training and never comes.

[Speaker 16] (22:34 - 22:35)
Do they pay?

[Speaker 5] (22:36 - 22:40)
Do they send the check in and no show?

[Speaker 4] (22:40 - 22:47)
No we've never got a check in. Yeah. And that person didn't sign up for lodging, so I...

[Speaker 1] (22:47 - 22:49)
That's why we're saying a solid 20.

[Speaker 4] (22:52 - 23:01)
So it's packed. We set it up for 20 as they cut off, and so we've got a full class.

[Speaker 1] (23:02 - 23:22)
Yeah, it's going to be good. Trent, Tyson are training a couple people from Salt Lake. Carl Holland's going to come and do intrinsic evidence.

I'm going to go and watch, because Brianne Miller is presenting. I think it's going to be good. Tyson, have you been helping Trent out, or are you just doing your assignment?

[Speaker 2] (23:22 - 23:27)
I'm just doing my assignment, and then I'm a pretty face for the rest of the time. I'm the eye candy.

[Speaker 1] (23:28 - 23:37)
So we'll have a report at our April council meeting on how it went, but we're excited, because we had a really good turnout response rate, so we're looking forward to that.

[Speaker 4] (23:37 - 23:55)
And this is a new venue. We've never gone to the Hilton Garden in Lehigh. That property's been there since 2018, so the facility looks good to be able to use for other trainings as well.

[Speaker 1] (23:55 - 24:00)
And to Sam's point earlier, that's why we chose Lehigh, is to keep the expenses down for this.

[Speaker 18] (24:01 - 24:02)
And it's central.

[Speaker 1] (24:03 - 24:14)
And there's not a lot of homework that they have to do. Again, that's another reason that we're there. Very few people are having to pay for lodging.

[Speaker 4] (24:15 - 24:38)
It's got a lot of restaurants around, and things you can do. And they have two other sister properties that, if that place doesn't work, the general manager always talked to me about utilizing the other two for bigger events or even smaller events. So it's a nice new spot.

[Speaker 1] (24:38 - 24:44)
Yeah, we're looking forward to it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, Emma.

[Speaker 3] (24:44 - 24:44)
I appreciate that.

[Speaker 1] (24:47 - 25:13)
No, and I apologize if I sent it out at 10. So that may have been my fault. Oh, is that why?

Oh, I apologize. I'm so sorry. Okay, can we get a motion to any discussion on the minutes, the September 23rd and December 11th minutes?

Okay, can I get a motion to approve?

[Speaker 5] (25:14 - 25:16)
Motion to approve the last minutes meeting.

[Speaker 1] (25:16 - 26:55)
A second? Stuart? All in favor?

Aye. Any opposed? I'm not seeing any opposed.

Okay, and again, on the December 11th meeting, on behalf of UPC staff, thank you so much for that incentive award. It's really appreciated. And I know my staff, your staff appreciated it.

Okay, visual trial skills. I put in here the discussion items, but I wanted to discuss what your thoughts are. As indicated, Washington County really, really wants us to come down and train.

I can't remember. Zach? Zach Wayland?

Is Zach Wayland in Washington County? I'm looking, anyway, to know what in particular. And he actually reached out to Blair personally and said, will you come down and train?

To Blair's credit, he says, I won't train. I'm not going to come down on my own because this is a UPC course. Because of budget concerns, we just can't take the course down there.

I don't want to take the course down there and do it for free. We offer it for free up here, but what Zach is telling me is that they can fill the course up. Chad, I don't know if there's folks in your office that have not come up before because of costs and if we held it down south, if that would make it more attractive.

[Speaker 3] (26:59 - 27:03)
Will Washington County defer some of the costs?

[Speaker 1] (27:04 - 28:40)
The reason why I want to have this discussion is we don't charge for the course, but I'm thinking to cover the cost to send down Blair. And Tyson and I and Trent have typically been the TAs, so that would be for faculty. However, as I put in here, Blair taught something similar in Las Vegas to the Nevada folks and he found out that he could do it on his own.

However, the people in the class had a really good basic understanding of PowerPoint and if they didn't, they could help each other, but if we've had courses up here, Tyson can confirm this. Blair has prepared a really good 40-minute introductory video. Even watching that, some of the students really struggle, so Tyson, Trent, and I are needed.

So we don't know what it's going to be like down in Washington County. I frankly would prefer that Trent and Tyson cut down the number of nights that they're away. And so I can go down for this, and Blair and I could do it, or Tyson and or Trent.

But yes, that's what I'm thinking, is that we charge Washington County, whether we charge them $125 per person to cover the cost for the hotel, the rental car, all of that. And I would make it, you have to commit, you have to put X number of bodies in or pay us for that number of bodies up front if we're going to come down.

[Speaker 10] (28:41 - 28:51)
I know I've never really sat in on visual trials skills, but I'm pretty good with technology. I don't mind going down, so that's an option.

[Speaker 4] (28:51 - 29:04)
And Washington County has a really good training room. It's much like this, it's state-of-the-art. It would be good to hold it there.

That would cut down on meeting space costs.

[Speaker 1] (29:04 - 29:26)
Right, and that's the thing, is I'm not going to pay for meeting space. So I guess my question to the council is, are you okay with us if we tell Washington County, we will bring this course to you, but we will charge you the $125 even though we don't normally charge it if you come up here to the Wasatch Front?

[Speaker 4] (29:26 - 29:30)
So would that just include prosecutors or is it open to support staff?

[Speaker 1] (29:30 - 29:32)
Whoever wants to pay the $125.

[Speaker 4] (29:33 - 29:47)
So Chad, would your staff want to come to any of those from Cedar City? Any of your assistants?

[Speaker 3] (29:47 - 29:52)
I think if it's revenue neutral, I think you should do it. Why not?

[Speaker 4] (29:55 - 29:57)
Is that $125 or $150?

[Speaker 14] (29:59 - 30:07)
I don't know if anybody else online is having a hard time hearing, but I'm having a hard time picking up what people are saying.

[Speaker 1] (30:09 - 30:17)
Would his support staff want to? Would you be willing to go to the visual trial skills if we held it down in Washington County?

[Speaker 11] (30:19 - 30:22)
Would mine? Yeah, I bet they would.

[Speaker 1] (30:24 - 30:33)
Would you be willing to pay the $150 if we brought it down there just to defray the costs to bringing the faculty down there?

[Speaker 11] (30:35 - 30:39)
Yeah, absolutely. What do you envision the support staff doing?

[Speaker 1] (30:40 - 31:07)
Support staff have come to just about every course. Karen has been. If your support staff is helping your attorneys to prepare their slides for court, if they're using PowerPoint in court, help them.

Blair teaches a way that you can display your digital evidence and support. It's called non-linear.

[Speaker 11] (31:07 - 31:10)
Yeah, we would send some for sure.

[Speaker 1] (31:14 - 31:28)
Let me pause for just a second. Raise your hand if you can hear me. It's a lot better.

Can you hear me now?

[Speaker 13] (31:28 - 31:29)
Same for me.

[Speaker 1] (31:32 - 31:41)
I tried a different microphone. We'll just try and speak up and maybe speak a little more slowly.

[Speaker 10] (31:43 - 31:52)
Even if we charge the $150 per person, say if 10 people go, if you, me, and Blair go, that's probably going to be like $5,000.

[Speaker 1] (31:53 - 32:09)
Yeah, I don't think it's going to. We'd have to check and see just how much it's going to cover. I mean how much, if it's really worth it.

Stu talked about being cost neutral. We'd almost have to charge more for it to be cost neutral.

[Speaker 6] (32:09 - 32:29)
What I was going to ask is, I know that sounds good, but we don't do that for anything else. If it's a valuable program. Is Washington County having to pay for the same services just because of where they're at?

We don't do that with other ones? Does this open up an issue for future trainings?

[Speaker 1] (32:30 - 33:09)
That's a really excellent question. Grand County, Stephen Stalks, is wondering if we could bring it down there. My response is come to Washington County, but really it's probably easier for him to get to Salt Lake than it is to get to St. George from Moab. That is a valid concern, Stu. Stuart, if we just say we're not going to open this up because we're not really taking other niche conferences. We have taken training and conferences to other places, but not at the specific request of a single office.

[Speaker 6] (33:10 - 33:19)
If there's enough participants and enough value in it, is there something else we could not do and do that instead to pay for it?

[Speaker 5] (33:19 - 34:00)
Or if everyone paid statewide, would that offset the cost so that it could travel more? I loved the course, but I do think you need two people to help, Blair. I went through all of the material.

I've watched the video several times. I was already familiar with PowerPoint, and I needed Trent and Tyson to help me out a lot. It's hard for me to learn how to do something that someone else is doing.

I just can't watch someone. I think it's like a spatial awareness thing. I can't dance, can't just learn PowerPoint.

Watching someone do things really fast on a screen. You have to have two people who can go around. I wasn't even the person in the class who needed the most help.

[Speaker 9] (34:00 - 34:08)
It was pretty fast-paced. If you get behind a step, then he's already had on the next two steps.

[Speaker 1] (34:09 - 34:21)
That's some feedback that Blair is considering. Do we need to reduce the amount of material that he includes in the course so that he can go a little bit slower? These are conversations we're having.

[Speaker 2] (34:21 - 34:44)
I think the hard part about this course is it would be so much easier if we could do a minimum proficiency test. To get into this course, you have to be able to do certain things before you can get here. There was one course where it literally was me going up and saying, this is how you turn on your computer for somebody.

[Speaker 5] (34:44 - 34:48)
I made it this far without being able to use a computer.

[Speaker 2] (34:49 - 35:32)
They couldn't figure out how to turn on this borrowed laptop. It was a constant to the point where I was like, Blair, just go on. This person is not going to get this.

We can't keep slowing the course down for the person who, no matter how slow we go, is not going to get this. I'll do some things along the way to make them feel like they're still being included. You just go.

Quite frankly, we talk about support staff. That has become a larger problem once we've started including the support staff in this course. If we're going to have that conversation.

The lack of proficiency with the technology.

[Speaker 7] (35:35 - 35:43)
Is he just primarily using what technology? PowerPoint. There are online basic courses.

I wonder if you could have them do that.

[Speaker 2] (35:43 - 35:51)
He sends out a video that if you watch the video and become proficient in what he says, you'll be able to do it. It's just a matter of getting people to actually do that.

[Speaker 5] (35:52 - 36:07)
It is challenging. I watched the video, but then the way that Blair does it with the course and brings it to life with the real life material, I couldn't remember from the video. I have to go to effects.

I just couldn't remember immediately where to go.

[Speaker 2] (36:08 - 36:18)
If it's any comfort for you, Sam, I remember you being in the course. I do not remember you being a problem child. You're probably not as bad as you thought you were.

[Speaker 9] (36:21 - 36:25)
I would say maybe if he had some handouts with step-by-step.

[Speaker 5] (36:25 - 36:29)
He does. Nobody is more prepared than Blair.

[Speaker 9] (36:29 - 36:45)
I didn't get those because I went back to my office and I was like, oh my gosh, if I had a step-by-step, then I could probably do this. Again, it's past pace. You don't really have enough time to write down on your notes, do this, this, and this.

[Speaker 1] (36:46 - 37:06)
That's good feedback, making sure that we get that material out. I guess we're coming back to the discussion. Do we just tell Washington County, you need to send your people up?

Especially this year when I just don't know the health of our budget. We're not going to know that until after March.

[Speaker 2] (37:06 - 37:20)
Bob, I think we can do this. We'd already arranged this with Blair that we were going to wait for the budget to come out. Schedule it in July if it came up and do a quick overnight trip.

I think that had already been decided with Blair, right?

[Speaker 1] (37:22 - 37:49)
It's just that Zach, I guess I shouldn't say Zach because I don't know for sure, I can't remember if that's who it is, really wants this sooner than July. We could make it happen if we charge. That's why I wanted to bring it to the council so I could say, we've discussed this with the council, July is the soonest that we can do because we'll know what our budget is, we'll know if we can cover the cost, or if we have to charge up front.

[Speaker 6] (37:49 - 37:51)
It's not in the budget they're willing to pay it in, I guess.

[Speaker 3] (37:55 - 37:56)
What do you guys want to do?

[Speaker 2] (37:59 - 38:22)
You could probably not even charge the fee, just say this is how much it's going to cost for the three people to come down to get a hotel, their mileage, or per diem, that's what you have to pay us. Rather than charging $150 per person, because that ends up being $3,000. It's not going to be $3,000 for three people to come down overnight and come back the next day.

[Speaker 1] (38:23 - 38:37)
I'm glad you asked that because that's the other thing that I didn't put in the notes that I hadn't really thought about, you have to pay all of our costs, we don't charge a registration fee, you just have to pay the cost for us to bring this to you.

[Speaker 3] (38:37 - 38:55)
I think that's better, and it's up to them. If they're like, no, that's not fair, we want the free thing, great, come on up. It's up to you.

I think that's fine.

[Speaker 1] (38:58 - 39:01)
Any dissent to that? Do we need a motion on that?

[Speaker 7] (39:01 - 39:21)
The only question that I would have, with Chad and for me, I would likely send somebody, not staff, but I'm going to have an attorney when I'm going down to this course. It would be easier if I could send them to St. George. I'm hoping maybe that was worth it out of Washington County to contribute.

Because if I'm taking advantage of it, I shouldn't just because I'm not there.

[Speaker 1] (39:23 - 39:30)
Chad, you okay with that? If we figure out what the cost is and we offset it?

[Speaker 11] (39:31 - 39:35)
Yeah, I'm good with that.

[Speaker 1] (39:37 - 40:04)
Maryland says we need a motion on that then. The motion would be that we propose to Southern Utah, Washington County that they pay the flat fee that would cover the travel, hotel, rental, basically all the travel costs. We're not going to, let's leave it at that, to cover the costs of the course.

So does somebody want to make a motion? I won't look at anybody. Stu, second?

[Speaker 3] (40:04 - 40:05)
I'll second.

[Speaker 1] (40:05 - 40:06)
Randall, all in favor?

[Speaker 3] (40:06 - 40:18)
Can I make an amendment? Oh yeah, please. The amendment is if there are other county attorneys that want to send somebody, they'll work with Washington County to free the appropriate cost.

I'll second that change.

[Speaker 1] (40:19 - 40:23)
Okay. With that second, with the change, all in favor?

[Speaker 18] (40:23 - 40:23)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (40:24 - 41:39)
Any opposed? Okay. All right, that passes.

Thank you. All right, so we've got the rest of the training scheduled there in the minutes. We'll be back at the Provo Marriott Center for Spring Conference.

We're looking at another place that we have, the biggest complaint with the Provo Marriott was the parking. The facility itself is fine. Legislative update, we just encourage you to encourage your law enforcement officers to attend and any of your prosecutors who miss out on Spring Conference.

UPAA is going to be in Cedar City. We haven't been to Cedar City for a while for a conference, so I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out. So Chad, put your best foot forward, Cedar City's best foot forward, and Randall.

Basic, we talked about basic. Fall, we'll be at Ruby's Inn. Looking forward to that.

We've got some really good speakers that are lined up that we've already got locked into place. Advanced trial skills, we'll be back at the Hilton Garden Inn and finish out the year in Moab with UPAA. Any questions about the training year?

[Speaker 4] (41:40 - 41:45)
And we're going back in 2027 to Hilton Garden Inn for Advanced.

[Speaker 1] (41:45 - 45:02)
Okay, yeah. What may end up being is that Basic is in Logan and Advanced is the opposite end of the state, so we may just end up doing that. Okay, moving on to the e-prosecutor report.

If you've read the minutes, you already know that we owe a huge thank you to Tom Ross, although I haven't been, we haven't, let me back up, is like the John R. Justice grant, the NARIP grant, I can't tell you what the acronym stands for. The grant that we have used for the last eight or nine years that has funded e-prosecutor has not been funded.

And I went to my grant manager and just said, if we don't have money for this, I've got to cancel the contract and or the local jurisdictions are going to have to pay to lease these. And so working with Tom, there is a different grant, the JAG grant, that they think will be able to step in and cover the cost of the grant. So I'm working on the application right now.

I talked with that grant manager. It's a different one than the e-prosecutor grant. And she is frankly appreciative that we are going to use their funds because she has sometimes a difficult time finding places to spend this money.

So I'm like, you know, it's under my way. Yeah, exactly. So all I'm working on finalizing right now is the exact amount of the grant that I'm going to apply for.

But CCJJ is really confident that it will be granted. So anybody that knows Tom Ross or anybody at CCJJ, please express your gratitude on behalf of the council for them being able to step up and help us cover the cost of e-prosecutor because I would hate to have had to pass either cancel the contract or pass that on to everybody. So that huge shout out to them.

Ron is out of town or he'd be here. So the only other thing he added is or excuse me, he's got two things is just reporting that he's spending about up to 60 percent of his time on e-prosecutor and that he's moving forward on e-filing and hoping that that's going to continue to roll out. I don't remember if it was at our last council meeting or two council meetings, I think it was in September, we talked about how state DTS was forcing us to move our website to a different server.

And at the time they were telling us it was going to be really, potentially could be really expensive. That has not come to fruition or in terms of the cost, we were able to move the website. It's minimal cost, you know, maybe a couple hundred dollars as opposed to several thousand dollars is what we thought.

So we are, or excuse me, he's moving it earlier this year when he gets back in February. Sorry, I should read my own notes. There should be no impact on our users.

He's going to come in on a weekend and do that. So, okay, UPAA.

[Speaker 9] (45:03 - 45:15)
We have, we will have two vacancies this year. We have one person retiring and then one just resigned. So if you see an announcement come out, just encourage your staff to apply.

[Speaker 4] (45:16 - 45:32)
And we're having our annual meeting in a couple weeks in St. George. We will plan for 2026, much like what we do at training committee, we do for UPAA.

[Speaker 1] (45:34 - 45:41)
Okay. Any questions for UPAA? We appreciate our support staff.

[Speaker 4] (45:41 - 45:53)
Anyone that you would want to serve on the board that you'd like to recommend? Do you know of anyone that would like to serve?

[Speaker 1] (45:57 - 46:00)
Okay. You got to speak up so people online can hear you. Talk loud.

[Speaker 15] (46:03 - 46:04)
All right.

[Speaker 1] (46:04 - 46:54)
Now we're getting some feedback. Okay. All right.

Moving on to prosecutor of the year is I will be sending out the nomination packet here in the next week or two. Last year our review committee was Ed Montgomery as council chair, Karen Walker as the UPAA chair, and then we had to swap representatives for some reason. I'm not sure why Jeff Newman, we had Jeff Newman, but Jeff was on it.

If we want to have swap, we could invite Carl Holland, you know, since he's the new director of swap beyond that. Oh, and in addition to UPC staff. I don't know how we feel about having a swap representative or having Carl.

Yes? No?

[Speaker 9] (47:01 - 47:02)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (47:03 - 48:25)
Is there any of the council members that want to be on the, on that committee? Okay. All right.

Carl it is. I'll talk to Carl about it. Okay.

So last April we talked about additional awards and you can see in the notes there and we never really finalized it. I keep going back on misdemeanor, but we are misdemeanor prosecutors are just not nominating. And so what we're going to do this year is we are going to expand the people that get the nomination notice to law enforcement and to our support staff so that they could nominate their city prosecutors that they work with because like the one person shop, you know, Sam's probably not going to nominate herself.

And so we thought if we open up the people who can make that nomination that we might see more of our city prosecutors, misdemeanor prosecutors getting nominated if there's more people to make that nomination. So I think what, what I would suggest is that we not break out of felony misdemeanor this year and see if we get an increase in nominations. And if we do, then maybe next year and continue that practice.

And the next year we maybe, you know, look at doing a felony and a misdemeanor prosecutor. Thoughts on that plan?

[Speaker 3] (48:25 - 49:37)
Is there any interest in man, again, I don't, I don't remember, but is there any interest in not just having one prosecutor of the year, right? You know, like, and I'm saying and, and at least on the, on the county level, it seems like some of the county folks know some of the other county folks. I don't know if, I don't know how the city folks know other city folks.

Like maybe they do. I just, that's not my area that's in that area. So like, but if we get, if we, if we really push it out to law enforcement and to staff and, you know, so forth, and we get 50 nominations, right?

Could we, is there some appetite for being like, oh, we should have a couple of prosecutors of the year, not just like one. You know what I mean? Like, I'm a, I'm a big like, hey, let's do as many awards as we can because those are fun.

But like, if there's not an appetite for that, that's fine. But should we kind of see if we get a lot more and maybe potentially...

[Speaker 6] (49:37 - 49:46)
But we need to change the name of it then? Like when we're trying to get people to nominate instead of outstanding prosecutor, right? Yeah, no, that's fair.

To get more, I think, the best, right?

[Speaker 3] (49:46 - 49:47)
Yeah, exactly.

[Speaker 6] (49:48 - 50:02)
The city prosecutor is ever going to win the best, right? Right. So it's...

Like, I like outstanding prosecutor or something like that. Yeah, because then you could, you could have five more. I mean, I know that traditionally we've struggled to get enough nominations.

Anyway, it'd be great to get more. Right, right, right.

[Speaker 3] (50:02 - 50:27)
Now that I understand the thing, my LinkedIn game is really strong, so I will like send it out to lots of people. That's how I'm getting all the, that's how I'm getting all the new prosecutors. Right, right.

And law enforcement agents to come and do these things. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think we can, we can definitely send it out to all the, you know, different law enforcement agencies.

And not just to the sheriff, but to the, you know, a bunch of the...

[Speaker 1] (50:27 - 51:05)
Right, right, right. And so we have actually talked about that as maybe doing, you know, multiple awards if we can. But back, you know, to Stuart's point is we really are only getting half a dozen.

And so we just need to... But I think is it's getting traction. I'm hoping that we get more nominations.

And then to your question is how do the misdemeanor prosecutors know each other? It's, you know, by coming to the conference. Sure.

You know, the forum. But, yeah, we could, we certainly need to. I wish we had a better way of getting them together than, you know, just once a year connecting them.

They get to know each other well.

[Speaker 5] (51:05 - 52:12)
And they do. We don't have the same ability, though, to see each other at work, right? Like I have my friends, very good friends in other cities.

But, you know, it's very rare to ever see one another in action. I went last year just because I happened to have a random day where I had extra child care. And I watched my best friend try a case.

And that was the first time in 10 years that I've watched someone else try a case. Because I've always worked for small cities. So, like, all my cases are me by myself.

And my, you know, city attorney has never tried a criminal case. So I always joke with him, like, you wouldn't really know, like, whether I'm good or not. Because you've never done it.

And so I just think city attorneys, like, how often, you know, do you ever see someone speaking with a victim or doing a trial or how they screen cases? Whereas, you know, like in bigger felony offices where you, you know, have a lot of people working together. You're going to see, like, I like the way that that person does things.

And I think that municipal prosecutors kind of understand this about our jobs. That you do a lot of it just solo. And no one but you will ever know how awesome you are.

I'm going to do it with the goal of staying off the radar.

[Speaker 6] (52:13 - 52:13)
Right.

[Speaker 3] (52:14 - 52:20)
Sometimes that's the best thing. That's true. But they're really good prosecutors because nobody knows anything.

[Speaker 7] (52:21 - 52:29)
Doesn't come to my level. But I think that sending it to law enforcement helps in that regard because those same officers are working now with just us.

[Speaker 18] (52:29 - 52:30)
I like that. Or even advocates.

[Speaker 5] (52:33 - 52:36)
That's true. My cops gave me an award once, and that was really nice.

[Speaker 1] (52:37 - 52:39)
Right, right. It's nice to give those out. Right.

[Speaker 2] (52:39 - 52:46)
And I think the committee can use its discretion. If we get a ton of applicants, then, yeah, maybe we consider that.

[Speaker 6] (52:46 - 52:47)
Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (52:47 - 52:48)
We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

[Speaker 6] (52:48 - 52:58)
Yeah. Yeah. But I wonder if you need to change the name because the prosecutor of the year sounds like, it sounds pretty big, right?

I'm going to be blunt.

[Speaker 3] (52:58 - 53:06)
On the Fed side, there is not this. There's, like, director's awards, and it's like, there's, like, 20 of them for the whole country, right?

[Speaker 2] (53:06 - 53:21)
You know, it's not like there's one prosecutor who's the best in the country, you know? But that is a little bit different because it's all under the same umbrella. You all work for the same person.

Yeah, but we don't work in the same jurisdictions. No, but it's still the DOJ, right?

[Speaker 3] (53:21 - 53:29)
Yeah, but it is kind of different. It's like, it is more, like, different. It would be, it's a lot more like counties, like lots of different counties.

[Speaker 5] (53:30 - 53:45)
Do we want to recognize someone who's done excellent, something really notable this year, but people who also have a large body of work that sometimes, like, isn't, you know, recognized? Like how Susan Lucci, right? She was, like, up for the Emmy or whatever it was.

[Speaker 3] (53:45 - 53:47)
Legacy award and then this year award.

[Speaker 5] (53:47 - 53:54)
Right, well, because there are different things where maybe, right, like, sometimes you have your banner year and then maybe, you know, like, those are different things.

[Speaker 6] (53:54 - 53:59)
I'd like to give that discretion if we give enough people. Let's see what we get, right?

[Speaker 5] (53:59 - 54:10)
If we get 30, that'll be great. And we have— Stu's going to get us 30. I think Stu is committed to getting the word out.

He is inspiring people and teaching lawyers on LinkedIn, right?

[Speaker 3] (54:10 - 54:12)
No, Ronnie's writing checks my user can't catch.

[Speaker 4] (54:14 - 54:22)
So, we started this really with the Steve Garcite retirement.

[Speaker 2] (54:23 - 54:24)
That's different. That's a different award.

[Speaker 4] (54:25 - 54:40)
I know. But that's kind of where this sort of all started was— Wait, what was that? He was our prosecutor of the year.

He kind of met all of those high marks. The legacy award. The legacy award or something.

Different award. That's the way I remember it.

[Speaker 1] (54:41 - 55:02)
So, Steve is the service award. And because of all the service that he gave to UPC, gave to prosecutors in the state, you know, he was at the legislature. He did the Layton Youth Court for years.

I mean, he just was serving across the board in so many things. And so that's what that award is called. It's the Steve Garcite Service Award.

[Speaker 4] (55:02 - 55:05)
But that's who we first started with. We've never really given out awards.

[Speaker 1] (55:06 - 56:14)
And then with the first year, second year, we got nominations for people. And the nomination talked about a career of service. And we said, no, it's we—because we label it prosecutor of the year is we're focusing on the year.

And I know we've had this discussion. I apologize we're doing it again, but I want some clarification. I'm not opposed to a legacy award.

I don't know if I want to call it lifetime. You know, giving an award for somebody who has done something really extraordinary. And it's not just the big cases in the last year.

But also looking at a, you know, things that they have done over the course of their career. And I raise this only because the nomination packet clearly says we're only looking at what the prosecutor's done in 2025. So that also narrows who's going to be nominated.

If we create a separate award where it looks at a body of work, whatever we call that, then that might increase the nominations as well.

[Speaker 3] (56:17 - 56:48)
I think sometimes it's hard when you're putting together a nomination. Let's focus on 2025. I mean, I like the idea of saying either breaking out the categories or saying, you know, we are interested in nominations for a body of work in this—you know, during this period.

Or we're also interested in nominations for kind of a, you know, a lengthy body of work. And we will consider all these nominations.

[Speaker 1] (56:48 - 57:19)
And that would go to what Tyson's saying is then giving the review committee that discretion, which I'm all about as well. It's just that I need that guidance so when we're drafting the nomination packet to expand the language to not just simply the previous year. I mean, that would be the focus, but we will also take into consideration, you know, what else they have done during their career.

If we want to go that route or if we want to create a two, two separate awards.

[Speaker 3] (57:19 - 57:49)
If I want to nominate Tyson, but I can't remember everything he did in 2025, but I know he's been a great prosecutor for a long time. I still wouldn't mind nominating him. You know what I mean?

So I think if we're curtailing ourselves just to a year body of work, I think that's—it's harder for somebody to put together a nomination unless it's like, oh, they prosecuted the Charlie Kirk shooter this year.

[Speaker 1] (57:49 - 57:54)
You know, that's easier, right? You know, or something like that. So I like that.

[Speaker 2] (57:54 - 58:04)
That's really what it ends up being is—and you look at the last couple of award winners—it was this person worked on this case that everybody in the state knew about and did a great job on this, yada, yada, yada.

[Speaker 3] (58:04 - 58:17)
And that's good. I mean, I think we should be recognizing that, but I don't want to curtail the other, you know, the other great prosecutors who have been, you know, phenomenal for years but don't have like a Charlie Kirk shooter.

[Speaker 1] (58:18 - 58:18)
Right.

[Speaker 3] (58:18 - 58:22)
You know, and it feels—I don't know.

[Speaker 1] (58:22 - 58:57)
Okay. So what I'm hearing is—I'm going to—let me encapsulate this down—is change the name to Outstanding Prosecutor and rewrite the nomination packet to include, you know, what they've done in the last year as well as, you know, what they have done over the course of their career. And then that allows the review committee to select one or possibly more than one recipient each year.

Does that sound— Can I add to that?

[Speaker 6] (58:58 - 59:18)
Yeah. If we really want to give out more awards, we could create categories. I've seen this in the DV world.

We could create categories. You could put one for DV, you could put one for traffic, because no one's ever going to get an award for doing a traffic case. And that's unfair.

We can make a bunch of different categories if the goal is to give out more, which— Right. I'm in participation control, because everyone talks about that. Right.

[Speaker 3] (59:19 - 59:27)
But it's not—I mean, it's like, what, three to five a year? Yeah, that's what I'm saying, we don't have— That's not participation control. No.

[Speaker 6] (59:28 - 59:40)
That's— But we can come up with categories. That way you're getting more people to come in. You can show up at fall conferences and just give everybody flags.

Yeah, you can do a felony, you can do a misdemeanor, you can do a felony. For something that crimes the law, right?

[Speaker 5] (59:40 - 59:49)
Because, like, you just mentioned traffic stuff, but something that people don't think about is all the restitution awards sometimes that municipal prosecutors get on no-insurance cases.

[Speaker 16] (59:50 - 59:50)
Right?

[Speaker 5] (59:50 - 1:00:03)
That's pretty actually meaningful to people in the community when they've been hit by someone who was uninsured, and you get them, you know, like a $3,500 restitution award. Like, you know, so you— Anyone except, like, right, the Charlie Kirk prosecutors.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:03 - 1:00:25)
So let me throw this out, though, is because we do have a small community, let's, you know, traffic, DV, restitution, that's a small community. Is the same person getting nominated every year? And then if we make it a yearly award, does it now become, okay, I just have to wait my turn and I'm going to get this award because everybody else, you know, has received?

[Speaker 7] (1:00:26 - 1:00:37)
I don't know. You either create them as fixed categories or you just give them examples. Right.

And then when the committee is reviewing them, they can say, we've got a couple of them on traffic-related ones, and I think we should pick a traffic one this year.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:37 - 1:00:37)
Right.

[Speaker 7] (1:00:38 - 1:00:39)
And then you can label it that way.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:39 - 1:00:39)
Yeah.

[Speaker 7] (1:00:40 - 1:00:44)
You don't necessarily have to have it as guaranteed. We have these five categories, and every year we're going to award these five.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:45 - 1:00:53)
Right. And that's kind of the way that I would lean. Okay, did you get all that, Marilyn?

Oh, we're going to have to go.

[Speaker 14] (1:00:53 - 1:00:53)
Yeah, we do.

[Speaker 1] (1:00:54 - 1:00:54)
Okay.

[Speaker 6] (1:00:55 - 1:00:59)
We're not getting the applicants. Yeah. So unless your LinkedIn is going to work, it's just broadening it.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:00 - 1:01:13)
Okay. And I think if you call it outstanding prosecutor, you don't even have to call it the outstanding domestic violence prosecutor or the outstanding traffic prosecutor. Right.

Because then you're pigeonholing somebody anyways, and it's like, oh, that's cute, that traffic guy got an award.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:13 - 1:01:13)
Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:14 - 1:01:27)
Yeah. Where instead you can say they're outstanding prosecutor and they're being recognized for their work in this, this, this. This is why they did it.

I don't know. I think we're complicating this. Yeah, and I don't want to.

It doesn't need to be complicated.

[Speaker 7] (1:01:28 - 1:01:30)
Okay. But it can be helpful, I think, in the descriptions, right?

[Speaker 1] (1:01:30 - 1:01:30)
Sure.

[Speaker 7] (1:01:30 - 1:01:34)
If you have it where it's prosecutor of the year, we all immediately thought, okay, who's number one?

[Speaker 1] (1:01:34 - 1:01:34)
Yeah.

[Speaker 7] (1:01:34 - 1:01:36)
Only one guy on the news this year.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:36 - 1:01:36)
Yeah.

[Speaker 7] (1:01:37 - 1:01:43)
So the title alone, but I think sometimes your description, you can spell out. We are literally looking for people who do these kind of work that's working well.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:44 - 1:01:44)
Right. Right.

[Speaker 7] (1:01:44 - 1:01:46)
You hopefully don't exclude.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:46 - 1:02:44)
Right. Right. There can be multiple winners.

Right. Okay. Okay, now I, thank you, that helps me a lot.

UPAA started a, an assistant of the year award that they awarded in, at their conference in June. So what I am suggesting, and Marilyn likes this idea, is that we also solicit nominations now for the UPAA, for the assistant of the year. We won't award it at spring conference.

We'll let them award that at their conference. But we'll send it out to the same people because prosecutors may not, excuse me, realize that they can nominate their support staff, you know, or law enforcement that are working. So if the council is okay with that, we will include the UPAA, the UPAA, it's Utah Prosecutorial Assistant of the Year, the UPA Assistant of the Year.

Okay.

[Speaker 4] (1:02:44 - 1:02:46)
We just call it Assistant of the Year.

[Speaker 1] (1:02:46 - 1:02:48)
Yeah, Assistant of the Year. Okay.

[Speaker 4] (1:02:48 - 1:02:53)
To clarify, would that be the committee that we just talked about?

[Speaker 1] (1:02:54 - 1:02:56)
No, we'll let you.

[Speaker 4] (1:02:56 - 1:03:02)
The board select their own? Yes. Yes.

We'll stay with the board.

[Speaker 1] (1:03:02 - 1:03:49)
Okay. But we'll just, we'll just collect nominations so that I'm only having to order awards one time. One time.

Yeah. Okay. So now, going back to when I was thinking, you know, we would have our investigators, even our advocates, nominate a Prosecutor of the Year.

Do we want to recognize an Investigator of the Year, a Victim Advocate of the Year? And I'm leaning towards that because I think that builds bridges. You know, we've talked about you got nominated by your investigators and, you know, what that, that message that that sent, that they value you.

Whereas if we were to recognize investigators that are working for us, advocates that are working with us, is that going to build bridges?

[Speaker 3] (1:03:50 - 1:04:08)
You cops love to give each other awards. Nobody does it better. Nobody does it better.

Dude, like the Sheriff's Donors of the Year from the county or town, I mean, it's like nonstop, right? It's so like, so yeah, I mean, I think they'd love it. Wait, am I wrong to say?

[Speaker 2] (1:04:09 - 1:04:21)
It's just so honest. I can say what I want, but I'm going to be the Grinch. Yeah.

Or the Utah Prosecution Council. True. True.

Like, why are we giving out Investigator and Advocate Awards? They have, they have groups that can do that.

[Speaker 5] (1:04:21 - 1:04:36)
Because of generosity of spirit, because we are, but does it dilute the impact of someone who wins Outstanding Prosecutor if they're in a long line of everybody who gets one? I see both sides. I like your Grinch vibes.

[Speaker 3] (1:04:37 - 1:04:57)
Cops do Prosecutor of the Year all the time. I mean, I've got, you know, like they do that all the time, like from different agencies and stuff like that. I think it's kind of cool that the Utah Prosecution Council would, you know, would recognize some great cop up in Logan who's doing, you know, excellent victim's work or, you know, some.

[Speaker 4] (1:04:57 - 1:05:01)
It's building, it's building bridges. We're all on the same team.

[Speaker 5] (1:05:02 - 1:05:05)
And maybe it leads them to nominate. What bridges do you build?

[Speaker 4] (1:05:05 - 1:05:07)
Well, I'm just, I'm just.

[Speaker 9] (1:05:08 - 1:05:10)
More attendance to your trainings?

[Speaker 5] (1:05:11 - 1:05:18)
Well, maybe they'll nominate prosecutors, right? It's our goal is to seek out statewide.

[Speaker 3] (1:05:19 - 1:05:24)
You are a Grinch. I don't know, let's try it this year and see how it goes.

[Speaker 2] (1:05:24 - 1:05:34)
But, I mean. There's no harm, but it's just like, I'm just wondering what, why, like why are we trying to do. It's a good point.

What's the motivation here?

[Speaker 1] (1:05:34 - 1:05:37)
Well, and to support Tyson, I was thinking. 6-7.

[Speaker 2] (1:05:38 - 1:05:39)
Yes, 6-7.

[Speaker 1] (1:05:39 - 1:05:41)
We're doing 6-7 right now.

[Speaker 3] (1:05:41 - 1:05:42)
Nobody understands why.

[Speaker 2] (1:05:42 - 1:05:43)
I may agree with you. We don't know what it means.

[Speaker 3] (1:05:43 - 1:06:27)
I may agree with you on investigators, but not victim services. Like, victim services do not get recognized at all. Like, we, like, I've never seen a victim services coordinator get an award.

Other than. Yeah. You know, like, other than maybe if, like, the entire trial team gets an award or something, you know, something like that.

So, I actually, I like the idea of, like, a victim services coordinator. You know, county, state, whatever, you know, like, that kind of thing. At least that makes sense to me.

I like the cop thing too, but I understand what you're saying. But, like, victim services coordinators, they're never, I can't think of a time I've ever seen an award for them other than as part of a team.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:28 - 1:06:59)
So, to support Tyson, I was thinking, is, you know, the prosecution council, our mission is to train. And so, really should we be giving awards, but we're kind of the leader of the game, so to speak, in terms of the prosecution world. And I was thinking, is this something that we should encourage SWAT to do?

Is the prosecutor of the year better coming from, or the outstanding prosecutor better coming from SWAT? Is the, you know, investigator better coming from SWAT?

[Speaker 3] (1:07:00 - 1:07:07)
That actually, you're right. That makes more sense. Do we, but SWAT doesn't have, like, a conference to do that, right?

[Speaker 1] (1:07:07 - 1:07:11)
No, it would have to do it as part of ours. It's just that we have the name recognition.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:11 - 1:07:16)
And I don't have any problem with us giving prosecutor awards. Yeah. But I feel like that's our lane.

[Speaker 3] (1:07:17 - 1:07:29)
No, that's fair. How about, because we'll have, I've got six hours of meetings today, this one, and then SWAT, and then SWAT back. So, like, how about during SWAT we can talk about it?

[Speaker 1] (1:07:29 - 1:07:29)
Talk about it.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:29 - 1:08:00)
Because even the logistics, like, you know, we give an investigator and an advocate award. And, again, there's no harm here. Like, there's not any, there's no negative for us other than just inconvenience.

But do we just turn that entire Friday into an award assembly at Spring Conference now? And we're just parading up 15 minutes on each person and doing these? Like, what's the goal?

Well, the reason that the advocate won the Crime Victims Conference and awarded there.

[Speaker 6] (1:08:02 - 1:08:03)
But it would be from ours.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:03 - 1:08:07)
Yeah. And so then it's like, I don't know.

[Speaker 7] (1:08:07 - 1:09:07)
I just wonder, Vaughn, you talk about the training side, right? And I, you go to some of those police award kind of banquets. They're oftentimes not, they're awarding or rewarding things that we don't even necessarily appreciate.

Sometimes we as prosecutors are like, actually, I'd rather you don't do that. That makes my case harder because you're John Wayne. I wonder if we could use that as a way to do exactly that where we're picking investigators, victim advocates, based on what actually helps our cases.

Not what gets on TV, but what helps our cases. And I'm thinking the majority of training we do for cops is actually, at least what I see, if you can correct me if I'm wrong, is the legislative update. Can you include a blurb in there about that investigator of the year in that update?

And maybe even briefly mention him if you drink. That way, if what we're awarding is something that we as prosecutors like more than maybe cops do, and then they hear it every year at these trainings, we think this guy did great and here's why. It gets back to training to help us.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:08 - 1:09:50)
And that's the intent is, you know, if the prosecutors are nominating their officer, it would be because they are, you know, facilitating helping the case out as opposed to being the maverick. And the same with the victim advocate is they are doing things that we as prosecutors can't. And so, you know, I think in the grand scheme of things, it's a better coming from SWOP.

It's just we've got the name recognition and do we do this this year and then we transition it over to SWOP. And let SWOP make the award at spring conference. Or it's the UPC SWOP outstanding prosecutor.

UPC SWOP, you know, and combine it. You know, it's coming from both groups.

[Speaker 2] (1:09:50 - 1:10:08)
If it's going to happen, it's going to be like it should be from UPC. Like you can put SWOP's name on it, but you're the one that's going to be getting the award. You're the one that's going to be paying the money.

You're the one that's going to be doing these things. And so we can put another person's name on it, but it's going to be coming from UPC. So we might as well take credit for it.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:11 - 1:10:12)
So what's the guidance?

[Speaker 7] (1:10:15 - 1:10:24)
I'm in favor of adding those two on as long as we're focusing on what assists in prosecution. Because I think that does go down our lane of training.

[Speaker 12] (1:10:26 - 1:10:33)
I feel like they have all their banquets and give each other enough awards, and we should focus on prosecutors. But that's just me. Okay, thanks, Chad.

[Speaker 3] (1:10:34 - 1:10:59)
What about, I view victim advocates, victim services, I view them as part of the prosecution team. So I think at least including the victim services, the victim coordinator. Oh yeah, I agree with that as well.

I'm in favor of at least that. We can talk to SWOP about the investigator review or something.

[Speaker 6] (1:11:02 - 1:11:23)
Since I'm sent by the Grinch, can I ask a procedural question? I'm coming! My Grinch-ness is coming out by osmosis here.

So if someone's being nominated, do we let their department know or their boss know, in case they can maybe kibosh it if they don't want it to be? If there's a problem there.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:23 - 1:11:26)
Oh, I hadn't thought about it from the...

[Speaker 3] (1:11:26 - 1:11:27)
We usually do a Giglio check.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:29 - 1:11:30)
I'm talking to a person.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:30 - 1:11:35)
Hey, where can we get this person an award? Do they have an HR issue?

[Speaker 6] (1:11:35 - 1:11:36)
That's exactly what I'm talking about, yeah.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:36 - 1:11:39)
Have they sexually assaulted somebody lately that we don't know about yet?

[Speaker 6] (1:11:39 - 1:11:44)
We get one annually. He gets nominated every year and he gets killed every year by his department head.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:45 - 1:12:04)
Okay, I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. I thought about it on the flip side. Those that get nominated but didn't receive the award, letting their department know, their bosses know, that they've been thought of or respected.

But I like that from the point of view that before we decide, we should probably check with bosses.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:05 - 1:12:11)
Get a head nod. Check with post. I'm on post.

I can check to see if there's a pending investigation.

[Speaker 1] (1:12:11 - 1:12:48)
Right, right, right. Okay, I agree with that. Procedurally, we will adopt that.

I got a question from somebody in the appellate division in the AG's office. Do we consider appellate attorneys for Outstanding Attorney of the Year? Or Outstanding Prosecutor of the Year?

DOJ, for the John R. Justice grant, considers appellate attorneys prosecutors. But do we want to include the appellate division?

Or does the AG have their own award for the appellate attorneys? Do you know?

[Speaker 3] (1:12:49 - 1:12:49)
I don't.

[Speaker 1] (1:12:49 - 1:12:51)
It's just attorney of the quarter, attorney of the year?

[Speaker 3] (1:12:51 - 1:13:00)
I don't think we have a… Again, I'm very much like we should have more awards. But we don't.

We're very stingy on awards in the AG's office.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:00 - 1:13:03)
We're not including criminal appeals as prosecutors.

[Speaker 3] (1:13:04 - 1:13:05)
I don't see why not.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:05 - 1:13:08)
They're an integral part of the prosecution system.

[Speaker 1] (1:13:09 - 1:13:16)
I just wanted to make sure before I open that up and say yes, if you're doing criminal appeals, that you can be considered as well.

[Speaker 3] (1:13:16 - 1:13:30)
I don't see why not. And let's say we get a bunch of different categories. And we're like, oh, this is a great appellate attorney.

Let's make sure they get an award this year. And this tribal attorney and this senior prosecutor, whatever.

[Speaker 1] (1:13:31 - 1:13:47)
Okay. Okay. Thank you.

That gives me some really good direction. Resource prosecutors. As I said, Trent's got another meeting.

He couldn't be here. So, Tyson, is there anything other than your report?

[Speaker 2] (1:13:47 - 1:14:43)
No, my report came in. Bob kind of alluded to this earlier, and so I'll state it out loud for everybody to hear. My goal this year is to spend less nights out of my own bed than I did last year.

I think if I did my math correctly, year-end I was at 48 nights in hotels for work purposes last year. And that was just too much for me. And so I think I'm going to be ‑‑ there's already a couple trips that I'm not doing that I usually do every year for my own training purposes that I've already decided I'm not going to do.

It's hard to tell a police department in Vernal, no, I'm not going to come train you, so I'll still probably go do that when they reach out and do those things. But we'll be looking to try and spend less nights out of my own bed next year than I did in 2025, because I don't know that I will want to be here in 2027 if I don't.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:43 - 1:14:58)
Is there any appetite in having a couple people who you guys can call to do some of that stuff when you guys don't want to do some of that kind of stuff?

[Speaker 2] (1:14:58 - 1:15:23)
You know what I mean? It's hard. I get asked that a lot of times their training days are set, right?

It's the second Tuesday of the month is our training day. And it's like, well, I'm already training somewhere that day. Well, do you have somebody else that you can actually have?

And it's like, call your own prosecutor if you want, but I created all these trainings. I did all these. They're mine.

And so I can't. For me, I do it.

[Speaker 3] (1:15:23 - 1:15:48)
I'm not fishing, but I'm just saying, is there an interest in kind of having what I'll call like junior varsity UPC, you know, like guys and women who can kind of, you know, like take that win? So you guys are not always just away from your house all the time. I mean.

[Speaker 5] (1:15:48 - 1:15:51)
He's kind of taking away part of his job.

[Speaker 2] (1:15:52 - 1:16:52)
But even that, like, you know, if Bluffdale calls me and they can't do it and they say, who would I reach out to? I would say call Sam, right? And I'll hand you all my PowerPoints, but it doesn't mean you'll be able to go do my training, right?

I can give Randall my PowerPoints, and it doesn't mean that he'll be able to put on my training, right? Just because they're creative. It's my brain.

It's my way of doing it. And it's not that I, in fact, I would love if police departments were reaching out to their own prosecutors for guidance and training, right? Because a lot of times I get asked questions where I'm like, well, you really need to, I know the answer to this, but you really need to go talk to your prosecutor and how they want to handle this, right?

Type stuff. So I think, yes, there is possibilities for that, but it also becomes difficult because it's like, well, no, all the backup would be I just refer you back to your own attorneys that are in your area and ask them to do it.

[Speaker 6] (1:16:52 - 1:16:53)
Is there an aversion to doing it virtually?

[Speaker 2] (1:16:55 - 1:17:03)
Depends on which agency. Yeah, it depends on the agency and which class as well. Some are more.

[Speaker 1] (1:17:04 - 1:17:08)
But we can talk about that still.

[Speaker 4] (1:17:08 - 1:17:39)
Yeah, we can talk about it. I just wanted to say historically, before we had a traffic safety resource, and it was just to read people at UPC, that's kind of exactly what we did with Mark Nash, Bob's predecessor, would call someone that he thought knew that area, the prosecutor, and say, well, I've got this PowerPoint, here's some resources, will you put together this training to satisfy that? But that's why we have a resource prosecutor is to do that.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:39 - 1:18:03)
And the individual trainings generally have not been the things that cause us the most problems. It's usually the longer courses that have started to build up. We keep adding in more of these and more of these and more of these, and those days add up quickly when you start taking five nights away instead of an overnight to Vernal, and then you're back the next day.

Those generally aren't. I keep using Vernal, but St. George, Cedar, whatever, right?

[Speaker 1] (1:18:03 - 1:18:31)
But the other policy, and I know I talked to Trent on camera before I spoke to you, is typically Trent and Tyson have gone to fall conference and UMPA, even if they haven't been presenting, and I don't see a need for them to continue to do that unless they choose to. But I think that's maybe we, like I think Stu did to train the trainer, maybe we look at can we train up some of the city attorneys to do some of those trainings. So maybe that's something we can think about.

[Speaker 3] (1:18:32 - 1:18:52)
Just if you had a stable of people where you were, hey, these people have done train-the-trainer. They're familiar enough with Trent or Tyson stuff. They're not going to be as excellent as Trent or Tyson, but they can do a B-plus job.

[Speaker 2] (1:18:53 - 1:19:10)
I mean, to your point, Stu, like we just got back from a conference in North Carolina, and North Carolina has seven of them. And they're a bigger state, but they're not seven times the size of Utah, right? But there's seven traffic safety resource prosecutors in North Carolina.

And so it's like, yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:11 - 1:19:14)
We just have to find a balance. We've got to strike a better balance.

[Speaker 2] (1:19:14 - 1:19:56)
No, I agree. And some of that's my fault. A lot of it's my fault.

I've done this at various times in my career at UPC where I bite off more than I can chew, and then I recalibrate, and I do good for a couple years, and then I bite off more than I can chew, and I recalibrate, and I do good for a couple years. And this was just a year that I probably bit off a little bit more than I could chew, and 2026 is going to be a recalibration year. So I don't anticipate it's going to change, like, my reports all that much in the numbers, but I am going to make a concerted effort to do less, like, my own personal training, going to conferences, things like that that are out of state that I normally have gone to just because I just don't want to be on the road that much.

[Speaker 3] (1:19:56 - 1:20:20)
Part of this is my self-interest because you guys are part of my team, right, and I don't want you guys burned out. So, like, I think if there is a way to kind of set up a little bit of a stakeholder, like, here's our junior varsity people who can step in and help and stuff like that, I would hope that you guys would be able to come up with something like that to take more off your plate.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:21 - 1:21:16)
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that concern. Okay, the last item that's on the hard copy packet, I don't know that it got sent out to our online folks, is Carl Holland brought to my attention yesterday that HB72 is, there's a discussion of adding a requirement that UPC create training and a certification process on the use of cryptocurrency.

I was, you know, concerned that Representative Wilcox is adding something without talking to us, and I let Dan Burton and Stu know, and Dan emailed me back and said that Stu is the man. And so after I created this note, I went and talked to Stu, and Stu, he thinks he's probably the only person in the state that has actually tried cryptocurrency cases, and he has volunteered to help us if, in fact, this passes.

[Speaker 3] (1:21:16 - 1:21:23)
I don't know if it's going to, I don't know, A, if this is going to pass, B, if it's going to sit and have that in there.

[Speaker 1] (1:21:23 - 1:21:23)
Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (1:21:23 - 1:21:38)
Because we've already talked to Wilcox about it. We're like, look, what he really wanted was like a week-long course and stuff, you know, and we're like, that's never going to happen, right? And so I think we're, we don't want to put the cart before the horse.

[Speaker 1] (1:21:38 - 1:21:39)
Right, right.

[Speaker 3] (1:21:39 - 1:21:43)
But if it is still there, then I can put something together, no problem.

[Speaker 1] (1:21:43 - 1:22:07)
Yeah. Yeah, so I was getting the cart ahead of the horse just because this has happened to us multiple times in the past where some legislature, you know, has UPC doing something without ever talking with us. So Stu has allayed my fears.

If this comes to pass, he's the guy, and the cost is going to be some UPC swag. So he's, yeah. So we appreciate Stu.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:08 - 1:22:16)
We don't need to throw a giant fiscal note on it just for fun anymore. I mean, we can. We can totally do that.

Right, right. We'll contract with you on the side.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:17 - 1:22:41)
Yeah. So anyway, I just want to let you know that already there's a bill out there that has UPC language in it, but we've, Stu's assured me that we've got it under control one way or the other. Yeah.

Okay. So our next meeting then will be the day before spring conference, April 15th, here at College Drive. I've got 930 on here.

Would you rather do it at 10? Is 10 a better time?

[Speaker 3] (1:22:42 - 1:22:44)
930 is fine. I just didn't have it.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:44 - 1:22:45)
Right. And I know you do.

[Speaker 3] (1:22:46 - 1:22:46)
10 is easier for me.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:46 - 1:22:52)
Okay. Then that's what it will be, Randall, is 10 a.m. I'm writing it in my notes.

[Speaker 3] (1:22:52 - 1:22:53)
I'm sorry. Is that a Wednesday?

[Speaker 1] (1:22:53 - 1:23:10)
It's, yeah, yes, Wednesday. It's the Wednesday before spring conference. Okay.

Is there anything else then that we need to discuss? Okay. Do we have a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn. Stu? Second?

[Speaker 5] (1:23:11 - 1:23:11)
I second.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:12 - 1:23:19)
Sam? All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Thank you. Okay.

We are adjourned. Coming out of Michigan? I haven't been there all day.