Mayor T.L. Gramling said he's had conversation with Mr. Hines at the DOC regarding the contract for housing males here in Altus.
One audience member, Steven Coleman, an attorney from Lawton, asked to speak to the subject of replacing the females with males. The mayor gave him two minutes to speak because it appeared to the council that Coleman's comments were not applicable to that item. After Coleman started to speak on behalf of Randy Marple, rather than the item, he was excused. Coleman remained in the chambers for the rest of the meeting.
Council member Scot Simco said that a Town Hall meeting was needed on whether the residents wanted male inmates. Most, he said, did not want the male inmates back. "What do other cities do?" Simco asked.
Mayor Gramling said that a committee could check the background of the inmates.
Simco said "We need guidelines."
The mayor said that the contract is "negotiable."
Simco asked "negotiable to what point?"
City Attorney Catherine Coke explained that the DOC is taking the females and said the females were located here when Hollis wanted to move them.
Council member David Brown asked that if we are losing the females, is the City prepared to step into the gap? "We serve the citizens of Altus." He asked if we are prepared to do that.
Council member Rick Henry agreed. "How will we serve the citizens? Is there a plan? We need to find the problems and get solutions. If we take the women out, we'll need to hire 35 to 41 people."
Mayor Gramling reiterated it would need to be 35 to 41 people.
Council member Perry Shelton said that DOC workers were not supposed to take jobs away from City employees or the citizens of Altus.
Coke said that the contracts have changed over the years since that was written into the first contracts.
City Administrator Mike Nettles said that the City has experienced losses in the last six months. They've enacted a $3 fee to try to recoup, and and the City is not in a position to hire workers to replace the inmates. The City's largest expense is personnel. The City currently has 260 employees. If they had to add 41 more, that would add to the expense.
Council member Peggy Risinger said that training for every single employee, City or DOC is needed. Each person will know what is expected of them.
Simco said the last time inmates were voted on, it was a 4-4 split, with Mayor breaking the tie. "I really think we need a public hearing on this."
Henry said we need to do "due diligence" on this. Tell me about the males.
Gramling said, "I can't tell you there won't be problems. We had some problems before with the men."
Council member Jack Smiley said the problems with the males were not while they were working with City workers, but while they were out in the community. He said the police said there were fights among the males. Justin Jones, Director of the DOC, said that with males the families tend to follow them. Not so much with the females. The kids start school and get settled here. The families tend to stay in the community. The vast majority of calls Smiley said he has received are not in favor of bringing the males to Altus.
Gramling said he wants to look at the contract for the males.
Smiley asked if they will be violent or non-violent offenders.
Coke replied that she hasn't seen a current list of these inmates, but most are in the system for drug or alcohol addiction or embezzlement.
Nettles said they'd need to be screened first.
Simco said the Alga Hitchcock story was on the Biography channel. He said that goes through his head when he thinks of male inmates. (Hitchchock's attacker was a former DOC inmate who married and stayed in Altus. He later savagely attacked Hitchcock and left her for dead in her car trunk. She survived and he died in prison.)
Smiley said that was only one case.
Parks and Recreation employee Tom Hobbs came to the podium to speak to the employee concerns regarding DOC regulations. He said DOC regulations are impossible to live up to for him. His trainers told the group the inmates must be shackled when transported and proceeded to spend an hour on shackling procedures.
Smiley also took the training and agrees some of it is rather harsh, but that not all applies to work centers. Some procedures are for prisons.
Candy Richardson, former Altus City Clerk and former City Manager of Mangum came to speak regarding the DOC regulations and male inmates in Mangum. She said Mangum is increasing their males from 53 to 93 in their facility. They get non-violent inmates. "Because you've had problems, you're being looked at with a microscope," Richardson said. They don't have problems with their inmates. They get sassy, she said and they are put on littler patrol. They can also have drinks from City employees.
Council member Sid Willis said he wonders about the qualifications of the trainers that came to Altus. Coke said that the trainers made it perfectly clear what applied to work centers and what didn't in the meetings she attended in training.
City Electrical Superintendent Dan Scott said they went over shackling for one hour in his training. The trainers also had trouble reading English, he said.
Henry said it's not that way in Mangum where his friend works. They contradicted what we heard here.
Brown asked if the City employees feel comfortable working with male inmates. A "hub-bub" rose from the crowd.
Nettles said we need a public hearing.
Coke said we need to approve, disapprove this motion or table it and have a public hearing. Those are the options.
Council member Don Johnson said he'd amend his motion to include looking at the contract before approving male inmates. He also said the DOC "training was the worst training I've ever had in my life."
The vote was taken on replacing the females for males contingent upon approval of the contract being negotiated. The vote was two "no" votes to six "yes" votes.
After the vote, City Human Resources Director and Public Relations person Matt Coppock asked "If we can't negotiate a contract, then what?"
Johnson replied "It has to be one we can live with."
Rodney Brown said that the employees can get through this. "They can be trained and understand. It can be done."
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