Stevens asks union about meeting cadence with ACS commissioner

Thank you all for coming and testifying today and staying.

Just one question, because I know the commissioner has been doing these town halls.

Have you guys met with her?

What does those regular cadence look like?

I know even the incident that you're talking about happened.

That was like her fifth day on the job and has been.

You know, running ever since.

What is your cadence in meeting with the new commissioner?

What has that been like?

So, first of all, we welcome the town halls.

We don't get involved.

That's her meeting with her staff.

We want the staff to be able to talk to her freely.

She has been willing to meet with us.

We've met several times.

But like you observed earlier,

It's time for action.

They have this plan that they didn't share with us, by the way, when they first announced it.

Didn't tell us anything about it.

And when they talk about stakeholders, you hear one of them say,

Anything about the union being a stakeholder.

We believe that there's not a real commitment on the part of the local management to, one, correct these issues immediately that recognize there's a crisis that you said earlier.

They're acting like this is like, okay, we got plans, we got programs.

We should be disputing something that they're talking about.

Kids are sleeping on desks.

You got pictures.

Kids are sleeping on the floor.

This is not made up.

And we have been advocating that the 18 to 21-year-olds be moved to a separate facility that will cut down on some of the overcrowded immediately.

Okay?

We're not saying they're going to go under the DOC.

They can stay under.

D-Y-F-J.

D-Y-F-J.

So they could stay there.

But they need to be in a different facility.

But there's no commitment to that.

It's a commitment to programs.

We're in favor of programs.