coming up on oakdale update we'll learn about the washingtonian veterans program later we'll get a preview of arbor day activities and all the details and will visit a new business in the city stay tuned o p l update is straight ahead program is county attorney pete or put in the system county attorney steve norton gentlemen thanks for joining us on the hill update thank you frank thanks for having us ok let's start off by how about if both you take a minute and tell us what is your daytime job what do you do well frank i'm the washington county attorney in that my office prosecutes all adult felonies all juveniles and some this demeanor surat the county we also represent the county's interest in civil matters we  also pursue child support and paternity on behalf of our citizens over a very busy office in steve i'm one of the assistant county attorneys in the adult prosecution division so i prosecute primarily felonies and that ranges from  as the cheap as the prosecutor for the county it's our job to hold people who break the law accountable that's what we do and now we're committed to doing the right thing to the right offender at the right time  and that's why this veterans program we're excited about because we think it's going to be the right tool to address the right people and let me tell you a little bit about that what we've begun to see several years ago our returning combat vets coming back from iraq and afghanistan and we realize that these folks have done multiple tours of combat and we know that every time one goes into a combat situation subject to get post traumatic stress what we used to call that kind of thing a number of them receive traumatic brain injuries from improvised explosive devices and a lot of them have major depression as a result of gone through multiple tours or combat while what happens is they come back  they get mustered out of the service they face a twenty five percent unemployment rate they can't find work and a lot of them begin to self medicate they take that depression and they try to medicate or that way with booze with marijuana with things like that inevitably they end up getting into trouble in the criminal court system well the question is what are we going to do with them are we going to throw them in jail and lock them up like we do with a lot of other miscreants or are we looking at them holistically and saying wait a minute there's a problem here this guy didn't go in the service a criminal he didn't he isn't the kind of person we typically see in criminal court maybe we should address what's really going on here that's what it ok now let me ask you this  is there a typical story for of that coming back that ends up in your program well you know we don't like to make too many generalizations but yes i think we've seen this over and over again steve has when he was prosecuting over in hennepin county and that's where i met him and i did too where if there is a typical story you get a veteran who served in combat in iraq maybe one two or they're followed by another tour in afghanistan or two or three tours in iraq and they get done with their service their mustered out they go home they sit at home they can't find work and they sit down in the basement playing violent video games trying to distract themselves pretty  pretty seriously suffering from post traumatic stress to deal with it they end up drinking or doing drugs because it's not dealing with it but it makes it go away temporarily ultimately they get in a car they go somewhere the traffic incident or they get in a bar fight or they get into an incident with their spouse or partner who say and we get a quick drink and then go out and find work and next thing you know they get a blow up and they end up in our court can you tell me what is th screening process to get something started in this program in order for someone to be involved with the program they have to be benefit eligible at the department of veterans affairs so when someone comes in on initial basis the person social security number date of birth a name are given to the v a to determine if they are in fact eligible for benefits they're eligible for benefits then they're potentially eligible for a program but the way it works frank is when they end up in jail we started  screening process with our jailers and our public defenders everyone in jail gets interviewed by the public defender to see if they're eligible for a free lawyer while the public defender who is also helping us with this program representing these individuals the first thing they say is are you a veteran and if the answer is yes are you a combat veteran and they take it further because they're screening along with the jail then they get somebody who looks like they might be a candidate for the program they give us a heads up sell indicated to steve and steve will start the ball rolling where we get them into our veterans program which will be held on fridays with a designated judge who's taken responsibility to be in charge of that calendar because one of the issues that we've seen with veterans returning veterans getting into problems is that they're unwilling to admit that they are in fact that they feel that they're shamed or for that matter that they're better benefits will be put at risk if they're in the criminal justice system so it's important to identify them at whatever stage we can and that might as pete said come when they're first brought into the jail through the public defender or later on in the process when they realize that it's advantageous for them to become involved with this program are you involved from the get go in other words you get a call that somebody has been arrested and then you would on and in put some input into the initial input that i have as starts when the jail send me an e mail every morning that lists the people who are in custody and there's actually a veteran status column on that e mail that will let me know if someone's a veteran then we can explore the possibility that they are eligible for the program benefit from the program but really what happens is we have to have a sit down with their attorney be a public defender or a private attorney and see if this person would benefit from this does this take up a lot of your time other then your normal everyday work in this part of it this is part of my everyday work and it's an addition that i welcome based on my family's history of being in the military i wasn't in the military but it's my way  of giving back as much as i possibly can what we've done here frank is to get this program up and going everybody volunteered and collaborated on our friends and community services which has the vets service office community corrections is program start it be well i learned about it that the first veterans court began in buffalo new york in erie county district court where they were seen and a number of returning combat vets coming to court and it was remarkable they said these people aren't who we typically see in court what's going on and they realize that what's going on is you've got people who are untreated with significant post traumatic stress based on their combat experience ended up in court invariably related to drugs or alcohol and they thought well if we make available treatment for these people i wonder how that will be well since early two thousand and eight when they began they've had three people decide to drop out and sad rather just go to jail but those who completed it frank they've never seen them in the criminal justice is wonderful again isn't that something wonderful once you give them the treatment they're back you know raising their family raising their kids being a productive citizens they were when they volunteered to go in the service  is wonderful you know one of the one of the criteria is it's got to be a nonviolent crime so what what how nonviolent is nonviolent not necessarily not you know a crime of violence as defined in three places and statutes but what it is  can't be a serious violent crime frankly if it's if one commits an offense that would typically involve them going to prison which is a serious case we can't disregard that we're not willing to disregard and so what we're talking about is the typical cases are domestic abuse traffic incidents bar fights so you could have a felony assault where you break a guy's nose that wouldn't land you in prison in any respect  the whole thing is it's an incentive if you want to go to jail or you want to go to treatment and if you want to go to treatment it's going to be a long term process and if you want to make that commitment to change your life then we're open to it as well but you always have the right to go to jail and do your jail time like everybody else and so what are some of the goals of the whole program primary goal are to make sure that we're addressing the underlying community service needs safety of the community but also the needs of the veteran himself or herself specifically their treatment needs whether they have p t s d traumatic brain injury major depression alcoholism or something like that the goal is to stop the underlying cause of the problems because if someone's addicted to chemicals or they're having depression issues and those go on treated their criminal activities are more likely than not going to continue and that's that's the primary goal of the program but they still are held accountable for their crime recently here's the thing this is not some kind of program if you will it's not in fact what we're offering these combat veterans is a lengthy lengthy treatment process that we're concerned that some of them might say well i'd rather go do ten days in jail then go do a full on chemical dependency treatment program followed by long term p t s d programming it's a lot but the whole philosophy is these guys didn't go in the service as criminals here and we're a little reluctant to label him criminals now especially when the only reason why we're seeing him is because of the service we put him ok now let's see who fact we've got a better vailable in st cloud we've got a treatment spot available here in minneapolis right there so before we let him out of that courtroom we have a plan and the v a picks that up now for those who may have screwed up their discharge as they were mustering out we've seen a couple of these where they get to their time in a service and they get to somewhere like fort dix unnerve out to muster out and they can't even hold it together because they get in a fight in the enlisted men's club and that changes their discharge status we're willing to look at them and we have other programs available that steve can talk a little bit about but it's leave no veteran behind programs what we're talking about i'm sorry go ahead  that the primary hope is that the people are v a benefit eligible so that we can use the resources that are there for them in any circumstance but we've identified them as a veteran who's having some issues and so we're going to connect  services that they're entitled to and like pete said if there if someone is not entitled to those services there's still the hope that we can help person through the criminal justice system and ensure that they get the help that they need through the traditional frank gets evaluated for psychological services chemical dependency services and the county technically case for that he or the v a is going to pick those that tab up also there's other veterans organizations or some independent living folks that make sure homeless vets get sir regardless of their discharge status the vet center in st paul offers counseling we want to bring those resources together and make them available the cost to the vet i read some statistics w a research on this it's better off if they are treated in this program than if they just come to the vets to be treated as a correct well we think we can get them their services x but i didn't get the right services because back to the model someone lands in our jail turns out they are they are in fact a veteran turns out in fact our combat veteran this is what we're looking for well at the arraignment where they come before a judge will say well judge we have a little more work to do this that he be released certain conditions that he behaves himself and he head out to the veterans administration to get diagnosed so that when we come back we've got that that we know what we're treating we're not reaching in the dark to see well let's try this let's try that we know what what this person suffering from we can target the treatment to that and they advantages that we also know how the system works and we have inroads into the system through the department of veterans affairs through the county v individual and so we know the right buttons to push in order to get things moving along but at the same time frank i would encourage any of your veteran viewers make use of the v a expanded there's one that not appropriate jail system putting somebody in jail is an expensive proposition frank and cost seventy eighty dollars a day now we did that with our vietnam vets you know this well frank having served yourself you know we took a lot of these guys and we just we ignored anything about post traumatic stress major depression we've thrown in jail that was our treatment that is very very expensive absolutely and we're still seeing those individuals coming back when pete and i worked in county with their veterans court a lot of the individuals that we saw where vietnam era veterans and so you're talking about thirty forty years later people are still having problems they're still acting out in criminal ways and that's why it's so important to have of the past and just for curiosity i used a treatment in your we get them we get but see they weren't ever treated frank and now you know what we're seeing is guys forty years later going out to the v a to get that post traumatic stress treatment which is being widely made available because of the iraq and afghanistan with but there's guys that sees that we didn't have a big program we didn't get a lot of notice but is now and i think the first people citizens to say hey look this program is available we hope it will be as successful as the hundred forty other veterans courts now currently set up around country when i've called and visited other veterans courts like rock county wisconsin down and boy janesville they don't have any sort of this these people get the treatment they need you see they didn't go in a criminal they didn't have a criminal nature they just they weren't dealing with what was really going on and they were acting it out so when you get them the treatment they go back to being good hardworking and citizens so we expect to have one hundred percent success we really do here ok i will do that thirty seconds left i just want to give me a quick rundown in this program the mentor program you have another tell us a little bit about that and an integral part of this whole program frank is that we while these people are going through that treatment and one they get out they're not alone we have veteran combat veteran mentors who have volunteered it's a big part of the program to be sort of if you will the model be like a sponsor in a somebody who can keep track of them keep them on the straight and narrow it's not their mom it's somebody who's going to be there to make sure they get to those appointments get to their meetings aren't going back to drinking again and if they do that mentor will give us a heads up so we can do an intervention in court earlier instead of letting it spiral out it's a big part of it very five one four three zero six one one five they can ask for steve they can ask for george cooper and as a prosecutor who's handling these or they're going to ask for me i love to talk more to a very in a veteran if he was interested he could call program a veterans please call if they need help we've got some services we can link them up with through our vet service office and community services we'd be happy to send them down to robbie robinson does an outstanding job they're there they're available don't suffer in silence very good gentleman i want to thank you again thank you for having you so much for having as you said it's now time for a defining development segment each month we profile a different business in our community here's this month's business losing weight by eating a dessert like treats every day sounds good to you then you might want to check out the sun club one in oakdale karen valentine and her daughter shauna remarks meyer both lost significant amounts of weight by drinking this a so a base it cuts out the animal fat i mean protein burn fat this cuts out the animal fat in the need to eat that kind of protein or maybe beings all the time you know it can be kind of boring this is dessert all the time so i had to turn my nemesis in my favor which is eating dessert i love dessert and we have over sixty flavors now that we actually club one is located in bergen plaza on tenth street in oakdale time for short break but first here's this month's trivia question an april twenty the city will be celebrating the thirty seventh a great what do you do when the boy should you not then just doing some bird watching yeah yeah you know this doesn't seem like such a great place for bird watching all right i was just trying to get a look inside my city hall i don't know any other way to get information greg you're such a silly man you don't have to be a creepy spy why don't you just watch g t n t t s yeah g t n the government television network it's on cable channel sixteen they've got a ton of information on everything that's going on in the twelve different communities in the northeast suburbs of ramsey and washington county no kidding the media can get all this information by watching channel sixteen at my own home you better believe it and they've got all their shows on their website too and it's g t n died for our g s wow i should go check out channel sixteen right away we are doing over there update before the break we mentioned arbor day in a trivia question here's some more information about arbor day activities in oakdale from our city forester chris larsen our real v this year will be on  saturday april twenty eighth and will be given away a hundred fifty beautiful trees will have the white pine the red may fall and the purple prince crab so some good selections is here every year there's a good turn out well even we'll get some years where we have better turnouts of a lot of that has to do with whether we have storms because a lot of people need to replace their trees that's why this program's so beneficial to the city of oh we're just about out of time but first let's answer a trivia question we asked you where was the first arbor day tree giveaway held in old deal the correct answer is tammas lake park the first arbor day was held at tanner's lake in one nine hundred seventy five every arbor day since then the city has planted a commemorative tree in a park and provided free trees to city residents the event was renamed peat gr arbor day in two thousand and two to honor all history planning activities this year's event will be held at richard walton park on saturday april twenty eighth at ten am three tree species will be given away to residents at the event master gardeners will be available to provide plenty instructions and tree care information if you would like more information on the event cost six five one seven three zero two seven four  that's all we have time for for everyone at the city of oakdale thanks for watching