I’ve withdrawn from the semester, so this project is on hold for the time being. (I’m having some challenging health issues and am a bit discouraged, frankly.)
I created a little music video as I reflected on the token “you have three minutes; thank you for your testimony” process. I used my phone and had to stack my own vocals and used a hammer on a piece of wood for the gavel bang sounds. It is actually kinda cool!
Thank you for your interest in this project.
Krystyn Hartman
Too many citizens feel our individual voices don’t matter to lawmakers relative to lobbyists and special interest groups. Economically speaking, that has proven true. So, how do we increase the marginal benefit of citizen voices relative to special interest groups, lobbyists and policy monopolies when it comes to lawmakers’ time and priorities on any given day? By taking a policy co-design strategic approach to criminal and juvenile justice issues that increases citizen inputs while respecting the time and attention limits of lawmakers and related influencer bureaucrats. Enter: Citizen Policy Work Groups.
The new Transforming Criminal and Juvenile Justice Commission (TCJJ) created by executive order to replace the old Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ), which was sunsetted by the Colorado legislature last year, 2023.
I offered public comment, again, this afternoon (February 5) showing a more inclusive stakeholder structure that incorporates affected citizen voices into the TCJJ goals and put together a 1 page (2 sided) policy memo presenting the benefits of co-design strategies in criminal justice related policies. They gave me an extra minute, so that was good!
Post Author: Krystyn Hartman is a graduate student in the Masters of Public Policy program at the University of Colorado School of Public Affairs. This site is a test research project.
Policy Work Groups posts are an extension of citizen PolicyWorkGroups.com.
Recent reports on the 60% rise in alcohol deaths that have surpassed drug overdose deaths in Colorado over the same time period as the permitting and expansion of alcohol takeout and delivery initiated by executive order in response to the COVID pandemic lockdown raises affected citizen questions concerning Senate Bill 24-020 to make alcohol takeout and delivery expansion permanent.
The alcohol delivery and takeout program has been a huge success and important boon for restaurants and related businesses who sell alcohol. The pandemic based bill is set to expire in 2025. The proposed bill SB24-020 will make the alcohol delivery and takeout permanent at only $11/year for a permit fees. Last year the state had around 2500 permit applications, according to the fiscal statement attached to the bill, for a total of $26,000 to the state.
However, the rise in alcohol deaths over the same time period could justify the need for a correlation study to make sure there is no connection between the rise in deaths and alcohol delivery and takeout expansion before making it permanent.
I testified suggesting an amendment to raise the annual permit fee from $11 to $111 ($8/month) so that the added $100 can go to addiction healthcare and housing to the tune of $250,000 and the state sill gets to keep the $26,000.
Everyone wins. Alcohol takeout and delivery are made permanent in the law so that industry and their customers benefit while the industry also contributes to the addiction healthcare and housing fallout for those who don’t benefit from their resulting success. The bill passed committee unanimously without amendments and moves to Senate Finance Committee tomorrow, February 6.
Here’s the 1 page (2 sided) citizen policy brief I put together and sent to the bill’s sponsors after testifying to the Senate Business, Labor & Technology Committee on Thursday, February 1, 2024.
Post Author: Krystyn Hartman is a graduate student in the Masters of Public Policy program at the University of Colorado School of Public Affairs. This site is a test research project.
Policy Work Groups posts are an extension of citizen PolicyWorkGroups.com.
Listening to the entire four-hour Working Group on Transforming Criminal and Juvenile Justice Friday, January 19, was worth the time simply to learn this one fact.
In Colorado, lawmakers have an introduction limit of five bills each. However, bills proposed by the old Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) did not count against lawmaker five bill limits. Several legislators in the new Working Group (TCJC) joked about how tired they are of having to beg fellow legislators to sponsor CCJJ bills. That’s when we learned that the CCJJ bills didn’t count against their five.
They agreed that that feature should be part of the new TCJC too, so they don’t have to beg for bill sponsors.
Not only was the old CCJJ and the new TCJC a powerful policy monopoly, but they even got and will get a legislative pass by not having to sell their bills to lawmakers the same way everyone else does.
There was an encouraging, yet ironic, overriding message in the four-hour discussion, which was the need for more affected citizen engagement when it comes to policy design and development, but all acknowledged not knowing how to solve that problem.
At the end of the nearly four hours, I as a “public comment citizen” was allowed four minutes to give my qualifications as a professional and as lived experiences along with the request to present our Citizen Policy Workgroups concept as a solution to the need for more citizen engagement, but was told, and you can hear it on the recorded meeting, they do not allow for extended presentations from individual citizens and that it is only a one-way testimony, not an opportunity for questions and engagement. They spent four hours stating the problem, then use old processes to dismiss affected citizen inputs and solutions.
I will update on the specific interagency problems and challenges they discussed in the next post. That the CCJJ and TCJC bills don’t count against the lawmaker bill limits is worth a post all on its own.
The TCJC was created in October of 2023. They are expected to have a purpose, a mission, a reason for existing, by March 1 so that Governor Polis can push it to the legislature with the intent of having them vote to make the TCJC a permanent policy monopoly with legislative powers.
We will update our questions with answers as we learn those answers. If you know the answer to these questions, please let us know.
Colorado Commission Working Group On Transforming Criminal and Juvenile Justice website
Post Author: Krystyn Hartman is a graduate student in the Masters of Public Policy program at the University of Colorado School of Public Affairs. This site is a test research project.
Policy Work Groups posts are an extension of citizen PolicyWorkGroups.com.
Updated/edited 1-26-24
I spent most of my first semester in graduate school in the Master of Public Policy program at the University of Colorado Denver researching and writing about the old and new Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) that culminated in a major term paper Policy Memo assignment (that I got an A on).
The Colorado state legislature chose not to continue the old CCJJ last year, which meant the end, the “sunsetting,” of the old CCJJ. Governor Polis was not happy that the lawmakers ended the CCJJ, so he issued Executive Order 2023-002 to create the new Working Group On Transforming Criminal & Juvenile Justice, which as he explained in a public statement, is to replace the old CCJJ, which he expects the legislature to pass this year. The legislature already chose to end it, so it will be interesting to see if they stand by their original position or give in to the governor, law enforcement and district attorney pressures to pass it.
In the Policy Memo not only was I able to identify the CCJJ as a part of a bigger iron triangle policy monopoly that excluded affected citizens in the decision process, but one of my conclusions is a suggestion that they create affected citizen working subgroups at the table, including a way to do that. In fact, it was that paper that led to the idea for the other class (economics) term paper titled Equitizing Citizen Inputs In Policy Decisions that led to this Citizen Policy Work Group and website idea as a test project.
Because this site and the whole Citizen Policy Work Groups idea is barely a few weeks old, I’m still thinking through the logistics but since the new CCJJ working group has already met and is preparing their strategy for legislative approval in March, I thought I’d at least get my policy memo uploaded here as a starting point from which to add update posts related to the new CCJJ as the legislative session progresses.
Post Author: Krystyn Hartman is a graduate student in the Masters of Public Policy program at the University of Colorado School of Public Affairs. This site is a test research project.
Policy Work Groups posts are an extension of citizen PolicyWorkGroups.com.
The idea for citizen Policy Work Groups is the result of a term paper assignment in my Economics and Public Finance class. My name is Krystyn Hartman and I’m a first year graduate student (at the time of this post) at the University of Colorado School of Public Affairs with a concentration in policy entrepreneurship and advocacy.
The assignment, a policy brief, was to state a policy problem, use economic analysis to investigate the problem, then come up with two “off the wall, but plausible” solution proposals for the problem as a way to demonstrate our understanding of the economic concepts learned over the course.
One of my biggest frustrations as a citizen is the lack of relevance our individual voices, concerns and insights have when it comes to policies that impact us — sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. So, for my policy brief, I decided to take on the problem of “lawmakers care too little about messages from affected citizens in proportion to special interest groups when it comes to public policy.”
Interestingly, as a result of applying the economic tools learned, I discovered that there is an underlying socially maximizing efficiency basis when it comes to special interest groups over individual citizens. Okay, so rather than attempt to suppress or lesson the special interest groups marginal benefits, for my two “off the wall” solutions, I flipped it around and asked, “how can we increase the marginal benefit and value of individual citizen voices relative to the value and efficiency of special interest groups?”
And that’s when the idea of citizen Policy Work Groups or POLIWOGS as I refer to it in the final Policy Brief hit me as one of the solutions. Regional policy work groups of affected citizens addressing the grassroots impacts in specific policy areas can provide additional insights, data, and considerations, including alerts of potential intended and unintended consequences, for lawmakers. By concentrating the inputs and resources of groups of affected citizens of specific policy areas, the value of the individual affected citizen increases substantially as shown, using economic analysis, in my policy brief.
When I got an A on the brief after turning it in (December 16, 2023), along with encouraging feedback, it was enough encouragement to motivate me to want to test this one. When the idea was met with an openness to consider its inputs by a local government commission, I decided it was worth at least a small test, so yesterday (December 22), I spent most of the day creating this website as a starting point.
If you enjoy reading economic analysis and want to read the policy brief that launched this citizen Policy Work Groups idea, you can read it by clicking the link or download the PDF.
Thank you for your interest!
Post Author: Krystyn Hartman is a graduate student in the Masters of Public Policy program at the University of Colorado School of Public Affairs. This site is a test research project.
Policy Work Groups Reports are an extension of citizen PolicyWorkGroups.com.
Citizen Policy Work Groups 