ms. thomas next speaker. >>> thank you, laura thomas with the drug policy alliance. thank you all for holding this hearing and thank you for continuing the jail hearing until july 16th so we can have a longer conversation about that. but on the topic of bias and the criminal justice system, one of our challenges is that we continue to use the criminal justice system to address problems that it was never designed to fix. we are asking our criminal justice system to deal with drug use, mental health issues and poverty and homelessness and the system is not designed to address any of those and unsurprisingly it makes the problems worse, it makes poverty worse and people lose their jobs while in carcerated. people are traumatized during incarceration and that trauma leads to substance use well. those are primarily in our health care system for example our education system, other things we are do, so, we need to figure out how we address these issues that doesn't rely on the criminal justice system. we have not given them any tools to manage these problems and they are no

ms. thomas. >> good afternoon, supervise. my name is nancy rubin. i'm a retired department of public health employee. i ran the jill of services. i work in the county jail for 15 years. from 1975-1990. after that i was the county health and human services director marin county deputy director los angeles countdown very familiar with the policy questions that are in front of you today noted thank you very much for taking the time to really think through and listen to this am i these issues instead of making what would be considered somewhat of a hasty decision with such a large amount of general fund dollars will have to go to match any kind of state dollars that come forward. i heard the controller correctly today, at the high end of the recommendation is for one or 20-392 people, at diane. we been hearing testimony today from individuals that can give you -- including the sheriff's office, to the problems we wouldn't need a joke. if other programs were incremented by laura thomas, and/or the other just that. etc., i think we can dramatically reduce

ms. thomas. >> good afternoon, supervise. my name is nancy rubin.i'm a retired department of public health employee. i ran the jill of services. i work in the county jail for 15 years. from 1975-1990. after that i was the county health and human services director marin county deputy director los angeles countdown very familiar with the policy questions that are in front of you today noted thank you very much for taking the time to really think through and listen to this am i these issues instead of making what would be considered somewhat of a hasty decision with such a large amount of general fund dollars will have to go to match any kind of state dollars that come forward. i heard the controller correctly today, at the high end of the recommendation is for one or 20-392 people, at diane. we been hearing testimony today from individuals that can give you -- including the sheriff's office, to the problems we wouldn't need a joke. if other programs were incremented by laura thomas, and/or the other just that. etc., i think we can dramatically reduce

ms. jackson lee: mr. speaker, i rise with great excitement to congratulate the houston city council and our chief charles mccolan for naming our beacon of law enforcement building after edward alfred thomas, the longest serving and greatest patrol officer in the history of the houston police department so noted by fellow officers. edward alfred thomas was born in shreveport, louisiana, in 1920. he played football for southern university and as well he was drafted in world war ii where he saw action with the united states army at normandy, in northern africa and during the battle of the bulge. after the war with his honorable discharge edward thomas became one of the first african-american police officers in the city of houston. when he started he could not vote with our poll tax, where he worked for 63 years until his retirement on july 23 2011. he worked for more than six decades, way before the civil rights movement and his work was not without challenges. because of his work and because of his race, officer thomas was not allowed to drive a squad car or arrest white suspects without obtaining permission from his supervisor. at one point in his career he was disciplined for speaking to