The Weekly Bulletin

October 23, 2017

 

Call to order:  Ed Musterman, President at 12:08 pm

Invocation: Dave Murphy

Pledge: Cyrilla Galbreath

 

Introduction of Guests   

None but Shirley Beckett was declared as our Honorary guest

Birthdays and Anniversaries

None

 

Mystery Person  –  Larry Fick awarded today’s gift certificate to Jim Beckett, the most optimistic member of our luncheon group who brings his wife to share our luncheons.

 

Greeter   – Mary Dewey is working on the Almeta Crayton food drive. She finishes her last of the neighbor gathering at Indian Hill Neighborhood at 5:00 today. And, Friday she will work on the Halloween Party at the North Neighborhood.

 

Announcements

• Sign In or Pay the Pig. John Sapp and Carl Scott contributed to the Childhood Cancer (Pig) fund today. John neglected to sign in. Carl paid for the Club’s recognition in the recently published Columbia Directory. An article starting on page 15 mentioned the Police Department’s undefeated basketball team in last season’s Columbia Youth Basketball Association’s league games was sponsor by the Downtown Optimists. (The Club is sponsoring two (2) teams again this year. See below.)
• Food Bank –  Larry Fick reported our Food Bank team worked on separating frozen bacon, chicken and fish for the food pantries.
• E MO 1^st Qtr Convention – Moberly, Oct 27 – 28^th – Attending, Mary Dewey, Red and Dorcas Leighton and Ed Musterman
• Board Meeting –

1. Two funding requests: Columbia Youth Basketball-$300 to sponsor two teams. Big Brothers/Big Sisters – Funded $2,000 of the $4,695 request.
2. The board had a lengthy discussion on the budget. A draft budget has been tentatively agreed on.  The board will amend the budget at the Feb board meeting to more accurately reflect income from Tree lot and Koeze nut sales.  In light of the uncertainty with Koeze sales this year, the board determined at this time it is prepared to defer or deny lower priority grant requests until income for this fiscal year is more accurately determined. Board minutes will be emailed to club members when they have board approval.

 

• Club Social and Installation of Officers. – October 24th. Updates. Social- Dave Murphy & Steve Winters, Invocation – Ed Musterman  Steve Winters reported 36 are signed up for the dinner but there is sufficient food for some to pay at the door.
• Koeze/Gift Certificates – Updates. Steve/Jake Orders for the first delivery date are due Tuesday, Oct 24.
• Tree lot workday – Saturday, Oct 28^th starting at 8:30. John Sapp.  Ed is keeping a list of volunteers to make sure there is enough help.  Ed spent three (3) hours over the weekend contacting members to help. Please let Ed know if you can help. Volunteers should bring a hammer that will be needed to tear down the old tree stands. Absent a hammer, there is still plenty of work with the lot clean-up

• Tree Lot – John Sapp. John expressed concern about the lack of help on the last work day. He fears if we can’t get help to work to prepare the lot for tree sales, we certainly won’t get member help to sell trees. John changed grower this year anticipating the trees will be slightly smaller. This may calm older member concerns about loading trees on car tops. The Mizzou Baseball time has volunteered to help unload trees on Nov 11. But, if we have to hire help to sell the trees, the net contribution to our fundraising efforts will be less.
• YOHO/Alternative general membership meeting. C.O. Scheffer reported this was a good meeting. Kelly Schiller has volunteered to help in a leadership role. The group agreed to contact potential recruits from other parents and adults in the under 45 age group from their church group and other organizations
• Holiday luncheon:  Dec 11^th at the Club House.  HyVee will do the catering and the entertainment will be provided. (No indication Ridgeway Elementary School choir has been confirmed.)

 

 

Today’s Speaker

 

Oct 23 – Capt Jenny Atwell, Boone Co Sheriffs, Detention

Jenny did her internship at the Boone County Jail while completing course work at Columbia College in Criminal Justice. She completed a minor in psychology at the time which has served her well for work at the jail. Upon graduation she accepted a position as a correctional officer at the jail but never expected to make a career there. However, in 24 years she worked her way through promotions from a line officer to sergeant to lieutenant and now captain in charge of the jail.

 

Jails are distinguished from prisons. Jails are county detention facilities housing prisoners awaiting trial who have not made bail. Only sentenced prisoners serving sentences of less than a year can be house in a county jail. Of the 205 inmates in the Boone County Jail only 4 are sentenced offenders. Prisons, on the other hand are state or federal institutions housing prisoners sentence to time longer than a year. Jails fall under state and federal laws. Separate space is required to maintain a separation between the several different classes of inmates. Women are separated from men; pretrial offenders are separated from those sentenced. Other segregation is provided to provide inmate safety. The sheriff is in the process of expanding the jail capacity from 223 inmates to 246 by adding bunk beds in the area currently housing the most dangerous offenders. These prisoners are accustomed to sleeping in individual rooms. Their beds will be converted to bunk beds to increase the jail capacity without any new construction. Jails can reach capacity before they reach the overall capacity because of the segregation requirements. Jail inmate are detainees who are unable to make bail while they await trial.

 

The jail is a high stress place to work. Inmates accustomed to unlimited movement before jail are confined to a smaller area where their movements are limited and monitored. And, they don’t always get along with other inmates or the correctional officers. A few are nasty by nature. Approximately 20% of the inmates suffer from mental illness including bi-polar disorders and schizophrenia. So if they have been self-medicating outside, access to illicit drugs is cut off. Incidents are a daily occurrence.

 

The hiring of correctional officers is a 2 month process of screening and training. Many apply for the $17.50 per hour positions, but few are chosen. While the pre-requisite requirement is a high school diploma, ex-offenders and recent drug users are barred. The ability to learn the strict policies and procedures and work in a high stress environment is key to getting and maintaining work at the jail. Officers are not peace officers but are trained in weapons (fire arms, pepper ball and tsars) as well as self-defense. Correctional officers carry no weapons inside the jail. So they must know how and have the ability to execute self-defense tactic for 30 seconds or so, long enough for help to arrive.

 

Any groups wanting a tour of the jail can contact Capt. Atwell. She is hiring new correctional officers. . There are two main areas to work: 1) control room where there is no contact with inmates. These officers are responsible to log in and log out inmates, monitor movement and monitor the audio visual camera to insure officer and prisoner safety. Floor Officers work in the cell area coming into contact with detainees. They are unarmed so the ability to de-escalate a tense situation is important.

 

UPCOMING SPEAKERS

Oct 30 – Boone Co Commission, Sales tax ballot issue

Nov 6- Jerry Kiesling, MU Adult Day Care Program

Nov 13 – Nikki Burton, Great Circle

Nov 20 – Professor Jeanne Abbot – MU School of Journalism, Professional Standards and Cold of Ethics.

Nov 27 – TBD

Dec 4 – TBD

Dec 11 – Holiday Lunch at the Club House

Dec 18 – TBD

Dec 25 – No Meeting

Jan 1  – No Meeting