 see a message pop up on the screen? Hello everyone. I'm only audio because I'm driving my sense of practice. All right, let's see. So we are Deb, Dee, Philip, me. I was like, there's somebody else here in the group. It's me. So that's a quorum, correct? So I will call this, oh man, it's six o'clock. Look at the scope. I will call this meeting to order at six o'clock. Deb, we can hear you. You can hear us, correct? Yes, I can. Okay, here comes Ms. Pat. Ms. Pat, can you hear us? Jennifer Freke is in the attendees section. Ms. Pat, can you hear us? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, thank you. Hi everybody. Hello. I'm just making sure everybody can hear each other. Can you hear us? Yes. Perfect. And we can hear you. Philip, can you hear us? Yes. All right, we can hear you. And Freke, Dr. Freke, are you there? I'm here. And I'm in a car, so my video is off. All right, two out of six are in a car on audio only. But we are all here and the meeting has been called to order. So I have to do the thing. All right. Excuse me. I feel like it's been a while. This is a meeting of the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. See instructions below. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted. But every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. So that is that portion of things. So the agenda review that we welcomed, we will do announcements, approval of minutes, public comment, then member reports. Then we'll go on to action and discussion items to include Cress and DI update, Youth Empowerment Center listening sessions, a CSSJC email address, a post update, child and elder care stipends, ARPA distribution and town council stipends, then any upcoming agenda items and meeting schedules and other topics not reasonably anticipated within 48 hours. Does anyone have any announcements? I actually wanted to say something. I had the fortune to attend the Human Rights Committee in Towns Martin Luther King reading earlier this month. I actually wanted to read a passage from the speech that was read, if that's okay with everybody. I know that there are those that are saying to the individuals who are involved in the freedom struggle, slow up for a while. You're pushing things too fast. Or they may say, adopt a policy of moderation. Well, if moderation means moving on toward the goal of justice with wise restraint and calm reasonableness, then moderation is a great virtue which all men of goodwill must seek to achieve during this tense period of transition. But if moderation means slowing up in the move for freedom, capitulating to the undemocratic practices of the guardians of a deadening status quo, the moderation is a tragic vice which all men of goodwill must condemn. And I just wanted that passage really struck me and the work that we've been doing, I think. So I just wanted to share with you and the members of the community that are here. Thank you. My announcement. Does anybody else have any other announcements? Thank you, Allegra, for reading that. Yes. It's not. How do you raise your hand? Oh, I say it. Okay, hold on. Yes, Miss Pahai. So, you know, it's all good. I just want to thank the Human Rights Commission and our town officials that has been busy putting events together from Kwanzaa to MLK event, all that stuff. So thank you, guys. A resident sent me a YouTube meeting, committee meeting, one of our town's committee meeting personnel, committee meeting, and I watched it. I'm like, wow. As an employer myself, I found the meeting very helpful. And there are so many quality, good things happening in our town that some of us have not paid attention to. So when I listened to, this is the meeting that they had this month, January 18th. And they were talking about looking into a salary scale for our town employees. And as an employer myself, it's something that I struggle with. So I'm like, oh, so that's how municipalities do it, like everything, years or something like that. So I was very intrigued. Just wanted to share that. And that made me think like, I also heard that in our town, you know, do hold annual staff, staff, annual meeting, which is great. And that made me to think like, you know, it may not be this year, but it wouldn't be fun to have all the town committees once a year, through Zoom or whatever, each committee like present their accomplishments, their challenges, what they're working towards, like who knows what people can learn from one another and the residents as well. It's easy for people to go check out town council meetings and everything. But other good stuff happening in our town that is a way to like, yeah, I just wanted to share that. I thought, you know, I found that meeting really nice. And it was very relaxed. It wasn't like very formal or anything. So I really like who was running the chair. It was the chair who was running the meeting was more like you're in your kitchen table talking. So yeah, I love that. I just wanted to share that. Well, thank you. And thank you, Ms. Mill, Laurie Mills. She afforded it to me. That's it. Any other announcements? There is a DEI event this weekend, the Lunar New Year celebration. Is that correct? Yep. That's the Human Rights Commission Lunar New Year celebration. Very exciting. It's our first in person. There's an echo. So we will have Dr. Luliso will come and explain the history of Lunar New Year as well, you know, and the traditions and how families celebrate. And then we will have a lunch that's provided by Formosa. Fresh side ginger garden. So very excited and very happy and thankful for them contributing. And then we have a group coming from Hartford, Connecticut. Their name is East Culture Arts. And so they will do a variety of performances that are usually done during the Lunar New Year celebration. So very, very excited. It's at the Amherst Regional Middle School. This way we don't have to worry about space. And what time does that start? It's at 11. It starts at 11.30. And it ends at two. Cool. Great. Thank you for that, Jen and Allegra, for pointing out that I should have been the one to say. But we do also have a flag raising ceremony on the first for Black History Month as well. And that'll be at the town flag at 6 p.m., Jen. Is that correct? Yep. Michelle, we move on to the minutes. So do we want to put the minutes up for folks to be reminded? Hopefully they read them. And I know the two driving. They can't see them necessarily. Please drive safely. But I'll go ahead and share the minutes if you want me to, Allegra. Sure. Okay. Let me get to the top here. I'm just wondering if there are any glaring things people have to say about them or if people generally are, if they have read them, if they're generally in agreement with them or if we want to, I mean... Right. Jennifer, can I share the screen? It says I need permission or what have you. Yes. Sorry. Let me just make a suggestion. I'm wondering, should we just table it to the end of the meeting or do we know if Deborah and Freike will be back or they're driving? Yeah, I'm driving. I won't be back. Okay. So it doesn't matter. Okay. What about Freike? I will just ask then if we should do the minutes later for our agenda. Right? I don't know. I might still be driving. Actually, I'm feeling my... Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So either we could go with Allegra's suggestion. If there aren't any... Again, we're assuming folks read them. If there aren't any glaring issues, we can improve them or we could simply table them. I'm afraid to table them for the next meeting because the next meeting is out there, but I guess it's whatever the consensus. I mean, I read the minutes. There were just some few corrections. They're not major. I actually highlighted them. They have no idea how to share it, but it's okay. It's not in major. Just... Yeah. Ms. Pad, are they grammatical quite like? Yeah. Yeah. It seems more like... I mean, it seems to me more like detection from what we're saying. Like, I speak very fast. And yeah, some of the words didn't come out. Yeah. But overall, I didn't see anything that is glaring to me. And thank you to our administrators that put the minutes together. I know it's not an easy task. Yes. Thank you. D, do you have any huge content areas that you think we need to discuss? No. I actually would want to move to approve the minutes. Oh, hold on. So can we just go to Chris? I think I was quoted and I don't remember making that comment. Okay. Under November 9th? The one that has to do with... I don't know if it's scheduling or something like training or something like that. It's not a bad thing, but actually I don't want to take credit for something I didn't say. It's not a bad thing, but just to move it, it's what Ms. Amila had mentioned, but I didn't mention it. Oh my goodness. Discussed. Okay. Where it says Ms. Pat Onanabaku suggested that the CSSJC write a report? No. No. It has to do with what Ms. Amila has shared with us. But it came up like I said it when I didn't. So it's okay. Oh my goodness. Okay. So here in the one for December, Ms. Pat, the police and fire department does not shut down. What would Chris shut down? Yeah. What would... Yeah. Also concerned about the mental health that Chris is using? Yes. Is it that one? Oh, okay. No, no, no. Keep reading. Okay. So Chris put out an RSP for mental health agencies and they selected from those that responded. I did not say that. That's the only thing. Does that make sense? The last sentence. Yes. I see that. So how are you suggesting to be corrected? I think Ms. Amila has shared that with us. It's not a bad thing. It's just I don't want to take credit for what I didn't say. Does that make sense to people? Yeah. So you're saying strike that out. I just want to make a correction to make. The correction is so Ms. Amila is here. Why don't you help me out here? I can say so it's the Chris put out an RFP for mental health. All of that should be under my name. Exactly. I said that. And I'll just say it was an RFQ. I will not bore you with the specifics of state of town contracting, but RFQ is a request for quote, request RFP is a different process. So yeah. That's it. Thank you. So Jennifer, you have that so you could make that correction, please. Yeah. And then my only question or suggestion in the next portion that is quoting Earl, it's wild flower alliance, not wild fire, just so that we're attributing properly to the groups that. Absolutely. And I actually, I thought I saw Jennifer Schell's name there and I thought it was misspelled. So if I'll look at that as well. Okay. And so every time RFP appears, it should be RFQ. Yeah. Go ahead. Other stuff I can live with it. We can. Yeah. And that's all I thought. It's like, okay, these aren't, you know, gross errors there. Yeah. So I guess if we could just ask that before the minutes be finalized, like I'm looking under DEI department, there's like a six in the middle of the word that like spell check could be run or something just like. Exactly. Yes. Yes. That's what I heard, like, you know, highlighted yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow, nothing major, maybe like eight or 10 of them. So Miss Moisten, is that okay if we move to approve the minutes with the suggestions that were just amended? Yes. Okay. So I make. You can't make the motion. I can't make a motion. No, so you are, you know, serving this cheer today. So maybe I can move. I move that we accept the minutes pending those edits to be made for, well, this is for the December minutes, unless we are going to approve all minutes together. So I just want to make sure this is a correct motion to be made people. We had November and December. I think November was fine. I think November, we had discussed at the last meeting. Right. So I will go ahead and make that motion. I move that we approve November and December 2022 minutes pending those edits to be made prior to posting. I'll second it. Great. Allegra? I'll, so I'll call the vote now. Yeah. All right. D. Yes. Okay. Miss Pat. Yes. Philip. Yes. Dr. Freckett. Okay. Yes. Deb. Yes. And I'm a yes. So that is six. Yes. Zero. No. Zero. Abstentions. It passes. Awesome. So now we are moving on to our first public comment period. There are, ah, where did the button go? Sorry. There are three attendees in the audience. If there is anyone who would like to make a public comment now, please raise your hand. Otherwise, there will be another opportunity at the end of the meeting. I am seeing no hands. Oh, I'm seeing one hand. It's from, it's Jen. I just, I just wanted to know, do you want me to put two public comments like the AHA has two public comments on their agenda? I'm happy to do that for you guys. So, but I would, it would be good if we moved forward with the two public comments on the agenda. Yes. I think that's a good idea. I think it's been our informal practice, but it should probably be formal. Since we are a very formal. All right. So we're on to member reports. Yes. Any member reports? Maybe you've got it all in announcements. Right. I guess I just also wanted to say that I was able to attend the day of racial healing event at the survival center that was facilitated by Cress. And it was a very lovely evening. And I'm glad that the community is coming together in those sorts of discussions. And it was nice to meet some of the Cress responders. Any other reports? Then let's move along to the Cress and DEI updates first. I suppose we can hear from Earl first. Appreciate that. So I was actually not going to be here till for a couple of months, but you all told me if I needed help to come to you, I need help. So I wanted to come to you. So I have one thing. It's just kind of a statement of fact that I want you all to be aware of. And then two kind of requests for some support. So starting with just the kind of statement of fact, we're busy. We're working with a lot of really kind of complicated families in town. We have reached individuals, anybody who crosses our path. I just want to acknowledge we haven't had to say no to anyone yet. And we are that is likely in our future that just with the capacity of people we have, we are not going to be able to take on the kind of very, very large needs of everyone in town. And we are going to try to do that as artfully as we can. We're going to really do our best to use harm reduction principles to prioritize folks who are not historically well served by other institutions, but just we haven't yet kind of in Cress's kind of live period have to meter out services. And I expect that hopefully it won't be for a lengthy period. But at some point this week, we are going to hit the kind of actual capacity of people we can provide ongoing supports to with the 10 people we have working for us. So, you know, I'm not here to say how that gets addressed. And we will do our best to resolve it within our capacity to try to move some things as fast as we can along. But I just I don't feel good about it. And I do want to be open that that we are going to have to say, not necessarily no, but we will have to hold off on supporting some things just by the nature of our bandwidth. So I just want to be honest with folks about that. If anybody in the community has a particular person where they think they're not getting served, but there's a reason to prioritize them, we are always glad to hear that. We're glad to hear it from anyone who might have information we don't have. Because every bit of information helps us to really discern who needs us right now, and who can wait a little bit. So that is just a statement of fact, given our current paradigm, that's where we are. The two asks are, actually, I really need help with educating some folks, I think, in the larger community around why we exist. Particularly, we've had this issue with homeless folks, houseless folks, I was homeless. For me, that experience was very much not having a home, so apologize if I use that language, but I use it from a place of having been there. I think for folks who live in homes who have that support, it seems like everyone who is outdoors must be forced there. But for a number of folks in our town and everywhere you look, they have not been treated well by systems, including shelter systems, even well-meaning shelter systems. They have trauma in their past, and they are resistant to shelters and support. We have had some calls from folks where they pointed someone out, and it's been someone who has frankly declined our support. We will continue to make approaches, but I recognize that part of what we were brought here to do was to not be coercive, and I am guarding the doors against that. But it does mean that someone can decide that they don't want our support. They can decide that the streets feel the safest for them. We will provide any harm reduction opportunities we can for those folks. We've given hand warmers, foot warmers. I know responders have found clothing for folks, clean socks, boots. But sometimes when folks are calling us, they're saying we need to get someone off of the street, and unless that person wants to get off the street, it is very far from our mission to force someone into a place they don't want to be. And I just think any help I can get kind of educating folks on that, that non-coercion was the point. It's not a decision I made. I read the reports that were prepared by the town before I took came to this job. Non-coercion is written into every single one of them. The idea that I'm here to support people, not force them. And I don't think it's any ill-intentioned folks, but I think you've asked us to be different than what exists, and that is part of what being different from what exists is. So even this, just having this platform to say that I think is helpful, but it's one of the things that we're seeing more and more. There is nobody outside right now who we haven't attempted to make contact with, who we haven't approached. But I absolutely get why some people don't trust us. They don't trust the systems in place. And what I know is a lot of what we do looks like old school street social work, and that means that we're here for when someone has the moment. And that moment hopefully is today, but if it's in 10 years, we intend to be here for them then. And part of that means that we cannot use force or coercion. There is no coming back from that. So that's my first ask. Certainly interested in hearing thoughts. The second one is, I don't know if you all had considered any sort of event thing, but we're coming up on my year in town. And I'd love to think about how we might do some sort of conversation with folks around what Crest does. I'd love to have some aspirational conversations about what folks, you know, what the vision is five years down the road, 10 years down the road for folks. And we haven't had much opportunity to that. We've been really go, go, going. And like Allegra said, that that event we were able to do at DEI was really helpful for my folks in realizing that, you know, Crest isn't something we dreamed up. This is us kind of keeping a promise that there was a vision for this before we came here. And a, wanting to say, hey, we're here. We're doing our best with it. But also to have feedback and to do that in a way that, you know, I know there are folks who you have access to who aren't going to come into my office and talk about what's working or what's not. So that is more of a whenever you all want to think about it. But I would love to have an event together to think about bringing folks in to even if it was just a kind of community conversation, us presenting on what we are doing and then allowing people to kind of vision with us. I'd really, I'd like to do something with you guys. We haven't had much of a chance to do that. I know we've all been pushing for a lot, but it feels like it's a good chance for us to collaborate. And to my last point, maybe help educate folks as to kind of, you know, we are in the large scale of the country, a pretty radical department. We were intended to be pretty radically different from what already exists. And how do we get folks to remember why? So those are that, sorry. You guys told me to come if I had it asked. I've been mulling this thing over in the last month or two. And I thought you were the right folks to come have this conversation with. Yes, Steve. So I want to say just personally and as a resident, I appreciate you, Earl. I appreciate the work that the folks in the community that you have trained to do this service on behalf of everyone. You know, I get emotional because I know how taxing and how difficult this work is and can be. And you're right. It's coming up on a year and you're still asking for feedback. You still want input from the community to make it better. So I applaud you. I applaud you for that. I have, I guess, from your request, I would like to work with you on that. I think that would be a very fruitful conversation. We get to hear hopefully from the residents what they see, how they perceive what the press is doing, what maybe are some challenges, how to do better. But I think that would be a very important conversation. And I think the whole town should support that and make it, you know, not some half-done event, but a really good quality event where people will feel safe and good and courageous to speak up about what they see going on that's positive. And like I said, what maybe they see as challenging or what they don't understand. Because I think maybe some of it is just simply what they don't understand. Like you say, people don't understand what type of service is fully that you all are here to provide. So I think that would be a great time to do that. So I'd love to help work on that project. I have two concerns and it's involves Crest, but I'm not sure you can answer it. So one is that I heard in town council that there is to be some type of study or audit of Crest. And I'd like to know more about what that entails because my concern as a resident and as someone who is, you know, deeply wants Crest to succeed, does that audit mean, you know, somehow the bit of money that you all have been given, you know, to do all of the things, these broad reach of things that you're doing that somehow it's not going where it should be. And I'm like, well, no, they just need more money. But again, I understand that. I can answer this one. Yeah. So those are my concerns. Yes. So I can have another question after that. But go ahead. So this is this is not an audit. This is in the in both reports, we recognize that we and that we needed a doubt data evaluation tool that could be meaningful. This is really our goal is to have as close to live data available for the community as possible. So these are the folks who are helping us to develop a system in which we can share data. Like ideally, you'll click on the Crest website, you'll see how many folks we've we've interacted with. If you all get a chance to Durham, North Carolina website is one that we think about a lot. They their IT team is bigger than our department. So manage expectations a little bit. But but yeah, so they're helping us to build the dashboard. Also, how we can get data to really support our goals. What is Crest kind of and what does the data say, as well as to help us with getting grants to be able to put that data into a metric. I, you know, I certainly hope that we're not going away. I am I am laying my roots down. We won't let that happen. Okay, good, good. I don't think it is. I don't think it is. So no, this is ultimately, I think a really positive thing. And we're we want to build in those transparency measures that I know are absolutely necessary for us to build the trust in the community that we need to. Great. That is good to hear. I'd love to see the dashboard. That's good research. That's good data collection. And you're right, all of that can be used for grants, etc. Lastly, I saw that the chamber has invited you and the DI director to speak. I think that's positive, except, you know, my concern I could see where the DI director becomes a part of, you know, looking at equity and inclusivity within the business community. But I'm not sure how Chris, you know, becomes a part of that other than just part of a community conversation. And so this brings up a concern. I respect your time. I respect that you are a busy person trying to make this program, which is supposed to address alternatives to police doing mental health work and community work. Okay. So this is my point. Why, you know, and I'm not to dictate whatever you to do with your time, right? That's not my job. But as a as a resident, I'm like, why is this gentleman, you know, who has this professional life doing that work that's really important, going to speak to a business community, unless it's about just community stuff. But when it's about inclusivity within the business, within business and entrepreneurship, that I don't understand. So there's, you know, a disconnect that's something not congruent. So, you know, when you're telling me that there's a time you don't have time for such and such, it's like, well, again, I'm not here to dictate how you spend your hours. And those indeed may be off hours. It's just that I don't understand how that fits into the chamber and the bid when we have a black business association that seemed to me, you know, and I know it's not your program, that that would have been the more likely representation to have in such a forum. I understand DI is there because that's part of her job and that's part of the description. That to me is not part of your job description. So, you know, again, it may not be you to explain it, but I did want to, you know, publicly address this. Yeah, I'll tell you my policy on kind of being invited to talk at things, you know, we're very new in the community. I will not turn down an opportunity to speak to any group anywhere. And I've met with the sunrise youth, they lovely groups across the political divide. I'm not, I'm not established enough to be discerning and who I go talk to. So I often find myself at things going, I don't know if they meant to invite me to this, but if I'm invited, I'll show up. I got you, Earl. Well, thank you for the that's for any group. Yeah. That actually might be a really good place, though, to go back to your point around, you know, not like people might not want to move off the streets. I think of a business community and I think especially some of the bid models in larger cities, like the underlying purpose is like to quote unquote clean up the streets and not have homelessness on display. And I'm not saying that any members of our community in the business side of things are necessarily particularly saying like let's clean up the streets, but that could be a logical place to start that conversation. Because, you know, there might be times when police are called because somebody is sitting outside of the store asking for money. So again, it might present business owners with an opportunity to utilize the service differently, but also to understand that that service is not going to be coercive. So yeah, that's that's my answer. This question is I in this role, I will not serve any coercive. I will not be displacing homeless folks. I will not be participating in folks ending up in the carceral system through a back door or front door or any of those things. That's the commitment. And it would not be the first time that folks didn't quite understand what Crest was and invited us to talk about things that were outside of the bailiwick. And those have sometimes been the most fruitful conversations, particularly for me. I think we all owe it to ourselves to have a conversation about what it means to be a community that supports homeless folks to to hold the kind of human suffering and indignity of having your pain in the midst of a downtown area. So yeah, I will say that as publicly as possible. I think that the folks who are out there have suffered incredible unimaginable trauma. And the last thing that is helpful to them is to treat them discourteously or disrespectful. I also would add because this conversation is also packed in with the mental health one that people with mental health conditions are far more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators. All of the data tells us that everywhere you look. And so to treat mental illness as some sort of precursor to crime isn't just a disservice. It is stigmatizing discriminatory and offensive to any sense of human rights or human decency. So if anybody would try to trick me, they're going to get that same thing. Thank you, Earl. I see Jen has her hand up first, then Phillip, then Miss Pat. And then also, I'd like to talk to you. Oh, and then Deb. Deb, do you want to go ahead? Since you're driving and you're unmuted. Okay, well, since I have internet right now, might as well take the opportunity, right? There's a couple of things, Earl. Again, I think we want to think about how do we increase the funding, of course, because obviously that's what CSWG had tried to do back then, was to increase the funding. We wanted to have more staff, people wanted to have more funding, but the town was not ready for that. And that's why you all don't have as many people because we wanted you all to have more. So you need to kind of figure that out so that you can bring it back to us so we can support you in getting it because we don't want people turned away. We don't want people turned away because of lack of capacity because you all don't have the funding to hire more people or you don't have funding to have like an assistant director. You're going to need help. You can't do it all and everything. So those are some of the things we'd like you to kind of really kind of think through and then let us know how we can be supportive of that. And then in terms of homeless, houseless folks, I mean, one of the things that you said, which I agree with everything you said, but one of the things that you said though too, is that obviously, and I don't even think it's just homeless, houseless folks, anyone that there's a new group in town, like the respondents, people don't know you all, you know, all that wealth yet, right? Because you're new. It's about building relationships and building support. So I'm assuming that you all are going to continue to build support with a lot of the folks that are saying, Hey, I don't want support. I don't want resources right now. But just to kind of continue building that relationship, because like you said, it might not be today, but it might be in a year, might be in two years that they might want more support, whatever that support is. I'm not saying it is to get off the street, but it might be to have some other type of support like healthcare or something like that, that might be beneficial to someone who's homeless or houseless, right? So just kind of make that point. And then the last point in terms of your ass, I think we have it on the agenda in terms of listening sessions. So for me, I'd be very much in support of and I'm thinking our group, we have it on the agenda. I think it is time for us to put together some listening sessions to really kind of think through how is Crest doing, but also conversation, sharing information, education, but also getting some feedback, right? To see how, you know, how, how we can improve too in terms of the support and services that we're providing. Deb, is there, is there, if I address those three points? All right. So I would say the budget one, the piece that I can control is, thank you. Sorry, drive safe. The pieces that I can control are like grant funding. We are aggressively pursuing grant funding. We're, you know, we, strangely enough, we are very new, but we're already having other communities reach out about potential partnerships and support. So we are doing the piece that I control is applying, I can control is applying for grants and pursuing that money. I can't make any comments about the rest of it, but we are aggressively pursuing funding opportunities. And frankly, I'm hopeful that we will, we will get at least some of them, but we are, we are doing our best. Second one is absolutely. We recognize that houseless folks require, you know, that different folks require different sorts of support. I will say we've gotten dozens of people off of the streets. We have moved dozens of people in the shelter. We have actually physically moved people off the streets or moved their things from storage into their home. We have, it's something that we are skillful at. I'll say, sometimes in the midst of it, I think it's hard to appreciate that there are less folks on the street than there were in the summer, right? It's more stark in winter, but there are less folks on the street right now than there were this summer. And for the folks who are there, it's absolutely going to take as long as it takes. And our commitment is to be supportive. We've started leaving notes for folks, reminders that they can reach back out to us, that we're here whenever they're ready, and trying to leverage other resources to support folks. And that last one, I love listening sessions. The only thing I would encourage, I would have, like, that I think about is President Obama actually had this community conversation model that was largely abandoned for political reasons, but I love it. It involves a presentation and a discussion at the front, and then kind of using that information to lead some things. I would encourage folks to at least look at that kind of mechanism of doing it. I find the conversation is much more richer when people are having those conversations with each other, and then kind of we're all pushing each other to be better. But I agree, I think it's, I don't ever think there's a bad time to listen to our community. Thank you so much, Dad, but I love how much you clearly care. One quick thing, yeah, and I think, D already said that, I think we could build that in collaboration with you because you want to have it. So I think whatever model would work, I think we could just work on it together, our group, with you all. So I think that would be great. And in terms of what I'm saying, in terms of the budget, is how we can support to make sure that the town gives you all more money. That's basically the bottom line, is what you all need, you know, sharing with us, you know, and I think all the data, right, having the dashboard, all of that, showcase that you all need more funding to be able to do to full capacity. But thank you, and I'll be quiet. I appreciate you. Thank you, Deb. Oh, I just wanted to make comment about the event and having Earl at the chamber event. So that is really so that businesses can have a good understanding of what he does. I mean, part of it is for inclusivity, but also so that the business community, some people don't know that Cress is available and whether or not when they should call Cress versus when they should call the police as well. So there is a reason that he's there. It's not so much that he doesn't belong there, but he's been asked to come so that they, so that he can highlight what he does and let the business community know when are good times to call him versus the police, because often the business owners call the police on folks quite often. And so to try to intervene in that space. Okay, thanks for clarifying that because it's not clear on the flyer. Thank you. Philip? Sorry, everybody, thank you. A couple points that I have is in terms of busyness and not being able to respond to calls are inevitable of that happening. I think keeping track of that in some type of capacity. So that way when you are going under after grants or funding, that can be said. And I think I guess I don't know if I have to be so keep my mouth shut on this. I think I can see between the lines is that what we should do as a group or need to do as town residents is possibly put some pressure on our town council to get funding into Cress. So that way Earl's request can actually be heard and dealt with in a way that it needs to be dealt with. I mean CSWG saw it way before anybody this conversation happened and it didn't get funded fully. And I think we're seeing the repercussions of that. So I think we need to go to town council and say that, hey, look, this is the inevitable that's going to happen when you underfund something. And to fund it fully means to look at it at X, Y, and Z. And then the next point that I have is I think that you hit on something, Earl, that speaks to me and I'll put on my human rights commission hat just for a little bit, not too long, is that the human right or the human factor of the noncourceness of unhoused populations and dealing with them at the survival center on a day to day basis. I do, I think that that speaks volumes to the work that you are doing and I appreciate that. And I think that, yes, the town and town residents, whoever uses Cress to deal with the unhoused populations, needs to realize that some folks don't want to be in a home for whatever reason. And that's none of your business. So whatever that is. And, you know, if you're just there to simply just talk to someone or whatever it is that you're doing, but you're not going to physically put them in a car and then physically put them in a home that they don't want to be in to begin with, that's, again, no one's business. So yes, I think that we can definitely do that ask us to make sure that people understand Cress is rolling that when possibly if the human rights commission could help out with that, that would be something that we'd be open to as well. And then last is your second request as to a kind of conversation or community conversation, I think, but that's a great idea and would love to be a part of it. And again, last time, putting on my human rights commission out here, think of the human rights commission as well, because we probably will also love to sponsor that as well. Thank you so much, Philip. And to the first piece, we have been at the beginning much more cobbling together data, but we've been tracking from day one. And, you know, I, I think it's interesting because I've said this to you guys, I think before responders ever went into training, we are the slow approach. And I think there's some value in that. We spent time with a family today that had some real intergenerational need that took a fair amount of manpower to do. But I think there's value in us not rushing through these things. I think, you know, we are trying to prevent crises, we are trying to prevent folks ending up in bad situations. And our average call is, I would say, probably two hours, the amount of time it takes us to do something. But we are doing things like transporting refugee kids to school, taking vets in our community to the VA, making sure people get the medical and dental appointments that are frankly life saving. And if that requires a full day shift for us to address a permanent issue with a person, I would stand behind that time. And so I think when folks see the data, you may say there's some days where we have four teams and they're working with four families, and that is taking their whole day. And that is because we are trying to address the root issue. And sometimes, you know, I, I think with the family, like we had a call today from a refugee family and he's helped getting their kid to preschool, that is going to require hours of support for a long time. But the fact that that kid is going to get to school is worth more than anything we could do. It's worth more than than. So I'm sorry, I'm on my soapbox. It's hard for me not to. I love this thing. And I think that the more folks meet responders, we, they do such a good job of the art of it. They do such a good job of sitting with someone in pain until they feel ready to move forward. And while that is not quick, that is how real change happens. And we have seen in just the six, seven months we've been going, real change happen in people's lives. And I get, I get emotional about it all the time. Thank you, Earl. It seems like Chris is really doing some great work and we're lucky to have one. One last thing. Actually, there's, we've gotten some requests from some communities who are interested in speaking with community members in Amherst. I do not pretend to represent those profound conversations that happened before I got here. So if folks have any interest in that, we may have folks from Florida and communities kind of all across the country joining us this summer. And we will make every effort to with you all with the Human Rights Commission publicize these opportunities. Because I think it's one of the trickier parts of Crest. I think Amherst is one of the few spaces that didn't hire someone who was involved in the conversation to lead the group. And I guess we'll figure out if that was the right way to do it. But those communities actually are, they want something like Crest, but they need to figure out how to endure those conversations. And remember, this died way more often than it succeeded in those conversations. So folks have any interest in helping to help some of those groups orient to how do you make these sorts of changes in a way that's possible, particularly in small towns where it's not billions of dollars in budget? I'll have some opportunities for folks over the summer, but you all in particular, I think it would be great if those folks got to meet you all and ask questions. So to, for clarification, when you say over the summer, is there a some type of workshop conference that's occurring or just folks will be coming by? Yeah, no, there's nothing like that. Most of the communities our size actually that are coming out are actually also college towns. So summer is actually when folks can get out there. I don't even know that they will all come up at the same time. We're kind of working through that with some of our sister agencies and sister communities. But I mean, they're really, you know, we have, I would say they're likely will be some regional overlap. You may see some folks from Florida from different communities come up at the same time. But we have some folks from Canada who may come down. So those folks will kind of get here when they can. But I will make sure to let you all know well in advance as soon as we get dates locked down. So it's not a surprise. Great, good to know. Okay, the idea is spreading. Miss Pat. Okay, so first off, I want to start off by saying, Miss Amela, I really have admire your leadership with Cress program and how much, you know, you and yourself have done in the community. I know not everybody knows Cress, but you know, Cress is a new program and it's been to take a while. So please don't take it personal because I know that your group has been very visible and you guys have been doing some work. Thank you. And it's not just only a homeless population, even a group that in recent meeting, my group, BBA, they didn't know, you know, what Cress is. You know, some of my some of our members did not know. So you're pretty new and I thank you for your courage for coming to us and said, you know, this is where you need our help. And I'm volunteering myself, you know, whatever help you need is one-on-one conversation or anything. So in terms of personnel, Cress, I'm not actually surprised. I was just waiting when it will, you know, when you'll come, you know, for that because I don't think like 10, you know, personnel is enough for a huge department like yours. Like I can see the assistant director doing more outreach as you're doing, but you're doing like two, three people's job, you know. Definitely we need to support you in advocating for more funding for Cress. CSWG that I was part of knew this is going, it's not sustainable. It's a good program. You know, what can you say about it? It's a good program, funded. And we're going to support you on that. In terms of doing an event, I wouldn't even necessarily call it evaluation or audit, but listening session just, you know, for people to express how they view Cress, you know, what they would like to learn to be more interactive. I'm all for that. So thank you. We're here to support you to be your partner. And we're here to collaborate as well with you. Regardless of what, you know, you've heard, I don't think any of us that joined this group, we're here to cause any type of trouble or division, but you know, we're here to improve our community. That's what we're here for. And thank you for reaching out to us. Yeah. Thank you, Ms. Pat. I appreciate you. If there are any groups where it would make sense, like the BBA, I think it would absolutely make sense to sit down and walk them through what we can do, what we don't do and kind of how they can reach out to us would love to meet with those folks. If there's a way we can, you can connect with those folks. I would love that. Obviously, it cannot speak to the budget. It is not something that I am able to do. So I don't want folks to take my silence. It's just not my thing to do. I believe in Cress. In my dream world, there's a reason it's not my dream world, because it would wreck the town. It would necessarily be the way to go. But I do think that Cress is something that is worth doing. I think it is something that we are hearing. I spoke at the Mass Municipal Association conference this weekend. I was on a panel. We had communities all around the Commonwealth who are watching what we're doing and interested. I believe that this is an idea that makes sense. My hope is that in 10 years, we're talking about the tough old days when how did we make it do this because we're somewhere better. Whatever this, I don't want folks to feel. I know sometimes these can feel like, well, if we don't get more resources, if we get no more resources, we will continue to be as thoughtful and supportive and positive. We are proud to represent the town. We are proud to be town employees. If we get more resources, we'll do more. But I don't want anybody to feel like I'm saying if we don't get more, we will work as hard as we can every day, no matter what the circumstances are, because we 100% believe in the work. I appreciate that you all have any conversations as residents that make sense, but I certainly don't want to make it seem like I'm saying we're doing our absolute best. Even in limited circumstances, we don't ever want to shortchange anybody. I don't want those two conversations to get mixed up. I obviously believe in you all. I would not have brought these issues here if I didn't think you all were with me in trying to make sure that we do this in a way that isn't just... We talk a lot about we're building an institution, which means we don't take shortcuts. We don't make enemies of our friends. If you all have been supportive, and particularly as we're trying to figure out how do we say things to folks in Amherst that make sense and that register historically and that folks can feel, I will always come to you all, particularly with these issues you've asked me to and I trust you all. I appreciate today. I leave here with lots of, I think, helpful ideas and a shared commitment on all of our parts to have some big conversations with our community and I welcome the critical ones. Those are the ones we really want. I want to be better and we are going to be better. I appreciate all of your support and all of these things. I hope you'll continue to think critically about how we could do better at things and how we could improve because we will. I have a quick comment to make. Thank you. So I want to clarify when I said my group BBA didn't know much about Cress. It's not just Cress alone. They didn't know much about CSWG. Some of them didn't know CSSJC. Some didn't even know we have new DEI departments. So it would take a while for people to catch on. It's what I'm trying to say. It's not that my group needed Cress for help. It's just that they didn't know all this wonderful things happening in our town. So it's larger than Cress program like our town. What are we doing to highlight all the good stuff that is happening in our town besides controversy? We need to balance what I meant to say so that people will be aware of other good stuff happening that they're not aware of. People are too busy running their business or their life or studying school, whatever. I was just going to say I had a refugee mother who said to us the other week, she's like, I don't know about Cress and we were like, oh, how could we have taught you? And she's like, who cares? I didn't know until I needed it. But when I needed it, you were here and now I know about it. And that's the reality of public safety. People are going to meet us when they need us and our responsibility is to be there and to be prepared and as helpful as we can when they need us. I hope a lot of folks don't get to know us because life is good and they don't need to call on us. Thank you for that context. I appreciate you. I just wanted to check in if Freke wanted to make any comments. I know he's driving so probably can't raise a virtual hand. Right now. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. I guess I had one more follow-up and I just wanted to verify that you are now at full extended hours, split shift type scheduling. So our shifts right now are, I will get a visual representation of this out, are Monday 8am to 4pm. That's, we only have, so 8am to 4pm, Tuesday through Friday 8am to 8pm. We have two shifts working across and we're finding that evening work looks really different than the day work, which has been nice. It's been nice for us to have some overlap because we have had some days where we've had to shift some of those day resources tonight. Things like if you go to a basketball game at the high school, you will see responders there supporting everyone, meeting folks in the community. And Saturday we are in town from 10am to 6pm. And we haven't had much call in those hours because we've really, we've used that to catch up on some of the cases we've been working on. So we haven't publicized it much. We've been really using that. But this weekend for folks who are in town and go to Winterfest, you will see our Saturday team there and you will see those folks starting to show up to events and respond to things as called upon. But really, we're recognizing we need to do a whole another like we just started on Saturday. So we are going to start doing engagement very heavy on those Saturdays. Rome Cabrera, one of our responders, I just want to put a plug in is working with some Amherst College students who are Spanish speaking for us to get some kind of culturally competent translation services for folks. So that's likely to be something that we start to do on Saturdays. We're also working with the school on their restorative justice process. We want to use that as a day when there's some downtime to do community service projects and sort of partner with the schools on that as they also have a community service program. So really seeing, you know, Saturday is a new opportunity. Sundays, we haven't seen the call volume to really reflect that we should be in town on Saturdays. And it would mean pulling back some service on those weekdays where we are Tuesday through Friday seeing really heavy use of our service through the whole shift. So kind of given where we are with folks, this is as extended as we can be for a little bit while making sure that folks are still able to access training, supervision and support. It's hard work. And I don't, I don't want to put anybody out on a limb without meaningful contact with other folks. I have one question and it has to do with kind of that intersection with students on other campuses. And then the town, has there been any discussion or shared information with services on college campuses in the area having a kind of parallel group? So we're in touch with all of the, there are some Hampshire College, I would say is the furthest along, their public safety is unarmed is largely folks who are not formally working in police roles. We've been, they actually were in some of our trainings with us back in the summer. Amherst College, actually some of their public safety folks provided some training and we are, you know, kind of collaborating back and forth on now that we're stood up. What training can we offer? And partly because they're so close to office, we have Amherst College students walk in all the time. UMass, we work closely, we're part of the town gown things now. So really kind of in our context as much as possible working, you know, the students who live in town. And that has looked very differently. I would say we're not getting a lot of, our biggest call from UMass students has been for a quiet safe place to study. So if you were to check in on our conference room some evenings, you'll find some students in there just kind of studying and feeling like that's a place where they know they're going to be okay. And if they need anything, we're going to do our best for them. So we haven't gotten quite to the point where we're doing much over there, but UMass PD has allowed us to go to some of their disaster preparedness events, which has been really helpful as we start to think about, you know, God forbid something bad happens in town, what role Cress has to serve in disaster relief. And not a request to like maybe look at what you all do and form a kind of parallel service on the campus. I think folks are mostly watching us right now. I think we're still early enough that they're waiting to see if we survive the first year. If I was them, I would be we have had some student groups who've been interested in learning about Cress. In fact, at the conference I presented at Boston, there were three UMass student UMass Amherst students who came to hear there. I try to tell them they could get that same information much closer to home. But yeah, we're seeing frankly, I would say similar to how Cress started at the beginning, there's student groups on each campus who've reached out wanting to know what we're doing. And it's one of the reasons why we have taken in some interns is we want to make sure that as we're starting out, that particularly for students who are BIPOC or who have committed to social justice kind of in their framework that they get an opportunity to come see us as we're building this thing, whether it works or not, I recognize. So any students who want to intern, I mean, we'll take you. I don't know how much we're going to be able to teach you as much as we can learn together. But yeah, we have a clinical intern from BU who's from the town. We have a social justice intern from UMass. Her name is Hannah Justice. I didn't make that up. She's got a good last name. And we're now working potentially with UMass around getting some more placements, particularly for BIPOC clinical students to make sure that they get the chance to see some high needs cases before they end up in the field where they're likely to see a lot of high needs cases. Thank you. Yeah. I know Amherst. I know I got to figure out how to be a part of that teaching community. It's important. Great. I'm sorry for taking up so much of you all's time. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Really informative. So we appreciated a lot to catch up on, you know, since the new year. I'm just wondering, Allegra, look at time. Should we move on? Jennifer, you're going to give the report for DEI? Yes. Okay. Thank you, Earl. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. So the DEI department has been really busy as well. So the events that we've, or the things that we've been doing, so we also, with the HRC, had the Kwanzaa event, which was very successful. We had fabulous dancers that attended and it was well attended. We then had the MLK celebration that we worked in collaboration with the Human Rights Commission. We have completed the preliminary conversations with three civilian law enforcement board consultants and have provided the finance department with the draft RFP. We've provided facilitation trainings to the Cres and the core equity team members who facilitated the staff and community national day of racial healing events. So there was a staff one in the morning and then there was one in the evening for the community members. We are planning to have events bimonthly and hopefully to have a consultant come in during those off months that we're not having a racial healing event that the consultant can have one so that people don't lose momentum. We know that people continue with the work. We are now serving as a staff liaison to the Disability Access Advisory Committee. We provided a presentation to the Applewood Retirement Community for MLK holiday. We participated in support group for LGBTQIA members at an intergenerational event called Rainbow Cafe. We have, so we did hold the two events for National Day of Racial Healing. We are working with the Human Resources Director who is new in planning and delivering professional development workshops for staff and review of the personnel manual. We have also, and then Pamela was a panelist at the Northeast Government Executive Council meeting on strategic capital planning for municipalities as well as we have and are starting to receive back from department heads, the DEI self-assessment and survey that was sent out to the department heads. We also both participated in the Mass Municipal Association's annual conference and trade show which is a weekend conference where we attend different sessions and seminars. That's it. I'm not as eloquent about it as Earl, but that's that's what we've been doing. And so we have the upcoming events coming as well. Thank you. You guys have been very busy. Thank you. Thank you. So I have question. Yeah, I do. I have question. So you mentioned that three civilians, something about RFP has gone out. No, the RFP has not gone out. Okay. But there has been, Pamela's had conversations with three civilian law enforcement board consultants. So just to kind of understand what the different things would be needed for the resident oversight board and just trying to move forward with that. Okay. So do we have timeline when they will get back to her? Well, she's spoken with them and we she's creating and working with the accounting department to create the RFP. So the RFP is completed. Okay. Okay. Thank you. This is Deborah. Can you hear me? Yes. Can we hear you? Okay. So yeah, Jennifer, thank you so much. Yeah, you all have been definitely very, very busy. Thank you for all you all are doing. But along the same lines of what Ms. Pat was talking about, I'm just really interested again on the oversight board, the resident oversight board, really thinking about that timeline in terms of putting it in place. I know that one of those contentious town council meetings, they had discussed the possibility of hiring a consultant so that that timeline could be moved up so that the oversight board could be put in place sooner rather than later. So do we have any movement on that in terms of where things stand, you know, any other conversations, that sort of thing. And then also, I don't know if you all have had any more conversations. So I want to answer to that around the oversight board, but any other conversations with the police around the protocol in terms of them responding to young people or whether that's going to change. And our responders are going to respond to young people, which obviously I'd prefer. So what's been some of the changes around that given everything that happened, you know, between the police and the Amherst nine. Okay, so starting with the first question, which was about the timeline. So as soon as the RFP is completed, which I believe that Pamela would like to have that done within before the end of the week, before the end of next week, because she too knows that it needs to be done. And the sooner we can get the RFP out the sooner we can begin the work. And regards to the police and their we panel and I are working on the only thing I can really say is that panel and I are working on workshops for all the departments, including the police, because that would include the police. So somewhere in there will be how we're how they respond to someone but I don't have much more than that to say regarding the incident or and or. Yeah, I guess I'd be more more interested in finding out like what is this workshop, what you're all going to be focusing on is this going to be a continual type of conversation because the one and done is not going to do much, you know, it's going to have to be. And then also we had discussed about having the whole kind of town conversation right with when we had talked about Dr. Robert Love and having a, you know, kind of a whole, you know, kind of conversation with the town and healing and so on so forth. So, so for me, it has to be continual conversation. So I'd be interested in finding out more about what you all are planning to do, especially when it pertains to the police. Great. So you got a mute. Yeah. Okay. I don't know what the why there's feedback when she's unmuted, but so the workshops, we haven't finished compiling them yet. We're creating them yet. So those will be happening. And then the racial healing. So I know that that Pamela has reached out to Dr. Barbara Love a few times. And so if you guys might have the better chance of getting a response from her, then that would be great. If you did that, made that call on behalf of the DEI department, but the racial healing, the national day of racial healing event that occurred on the 17th was the very beginning of having community conversations. And so as I said before, this is going to have we, the DEI department will do it every other month. And we are hoping to hire consultants to do the off months that we are not holding the session ourselves, so that the work is continuing. And we're no training or workshop will be one and done. I think that we are all aware that one and done does not work. It's just a checkbox. And the only way you're going to really get work done and get down to the where the problems lies if you're continuously working with people. And so we continue to do that throughout the town departments. Okay, so, so you're saying that then the whole racial healing, the national one that just happened with MLK was, so I didn't I wasn't clear on that. So, so you're saying that that was like the first kind of kickoff. And now you all are going to be having these kind of bimonthly and a consultant and so on so forth. So that's so that and that's going to be for the town. I mean, how is that being advertised? Are you all getting good? Because I didn't I didn't have that understanding. So are you all getting a lot of participants there? I mean, you know, what's the kind of the strategy around it? Because obviously, it has to have people from all backgrounds, languages, there needs to be interpreters, there needs to be a lot of you know, propaganda, not probably but advertisement around that it's happening, you know, what, because like I said, I didn't even know that that was what this was all about. So if I didn't have that understanding, I'm I know the town folks are not going to have that understanding. So I guess, you know, what's the strategy in terms of getting the word out and what's the the the short term goal, the long term goal. Okay. So we did do some some advertisement. The event was well attended. There were just I'm we had nine tables that had at least six plus people at them. So that makes over 50. We had basically over 50 people at the first event. And so one of the things that happens with stuff here, and as much as we did advertise, we advertised it through the schools, we advertised, I sent everybody emails, we advertised it in the news, it was on our website, I know people don't like to hear the website, because not everybody goes to the website, not everybody is linked to town, but it's also why we went through the schools, we advertised it through the survival center. I mean, we were pretty active in getting it out. And I sent all of you guys an email with the information on it as well. This is another way that I've been trying to do it. But one of the things that sometimes happen, no different than community engagement is, you know, you're going to get a certain crowd of amount of people the first time. But as the word gets out that this was something meaningful, that this was good, and that this was well attended, then more and more people will come and start attending. So we are moving forward with that. I'm sorry if you didn't understand what the event was, or had confusion in regards to the event, but we are moving forward with that. And part of it is going to be that some of it is going to have to build in addition to the different ways that we advertise. Did that answer everything? Yeah, and you all had interpret, like did you all have people that? So we had childcare provided? No, I don't know. We had childcare there. We did not have an interpreter there, but we did advertise that if things were needed that we, you know, not things, but if interpretation was needed, it could be provided. So we did have somebody who reached out about it, but then it was more of a sales pitch, I think, so I'm not sure how that turned out. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Dee Van Patten. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. So, you know, I'm glad that this is happening. I believe in doing dialogue, you know, and it's good that there's a plan, even, you know, if it's not fully articulated or formalized, at least in the psyche of the residences yet, maybe you all could do, you know, some work on that, but that's a good start, right? I wanted to know, is this connected to the anti-racist work that was discussed in Town Council, or is this another kind of campaign that the DEI is rolling out? And I just want some clarification on that. I'm not 100% in regard to the anti-racist statement that you were making, but I know that this is something that the DEI Department is trying to do for multiple reasons, right, to get people talking about race and the differences and people learning how to accept and to listen and to move on, not move on, but to, you know, I'm sorry, that was poorly worded. I didn't mean like move on like that, like one of those things where I'm like, well, it's recorded, but it's really to bring amorous so that we can be a better place and more accepting of others and their differences, right? That's the goal. So that's what, so you're answering me here. So it's not part of the anti-racist motion passed and put forth by the Town Council. This is part of a DEI campaign, you're saying? This is the recommendation that came from the CSWG that we do some racial healing work. So we are taking the recommendations from the CSWG and moving forward. Okay, I just wanted to know what it was attached to. So thank you for clarifying that. I think it could, and I'm glad it was well attended. I wasn't, I wasn't able to go, I think, doing things sometimes around, you know, the holiday break, you get different audiences. So, you know, looking forward to the next time this occurs. But for people to kind of understand and maybe be motivated to engage, having that history, right, linked to the CSWG work as a continuation, there's another part of the community that might be more inclined to participate because they're understanding, yes, this is a good thing, but it's also connected to that work that the CSWG began, just like Cress is connected to that work with the CSWG. So I think that would be a positive thing, a good thing to attach it historically and contextualize it as part of an overall campaign instead of a one-off type of thing. It's good to know, you know, if people are listening to this meeting, you know, or see it later in the minutes or what have you, hey, this is what the DEI departments do, and it is connected to such and such. But other than that, then, yeah, it sometimes looks like this is going to be a one-off thing. And I'm glad to hear from you, Jennifer, that it's not that there's a whole plan to continue this work. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Allegra, do you call on yourself? Allegra? I will defer to Ms. Pat and Phillip first. Okay, I'll be very quick. I didn't, I didn't plan to say this, but Jennifer, thank you for clarifying this because the racial healing thing, I, you know, it was well advertised. I knew it was happening, but I wasn't sure how we, you know, you know, how it came about. So thank you for clarifying that. So in terms of Dr. Love, I'm happy to reach out to her. Does she need to reach out to Ms. Pamela through email or, you know, work phone number? What is easier to reach her? Whichever is easiest for Dr. Love. So the phone number for the DEI department is 413-259-0360. And then you can, either one of us can be emailed to get that conversation started. Okay, I'm going to have us. Okay, we'll do. Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to speak. Having attended the event, the racial healing event, I thought that it was very well done. The conversation at the tables, the individual conversation was very insightful, very like getting to know one another. I sat with two individuals that I had not met. And so that was very good for me, just to kind of have that conversation. And around race and kind of in like a safe space environment, like we all knew that we were coming to talk about it. And there was a collective understanding that, you know, racism exists because in some circles that has to be defined and all that. So it wasn't groundwork to be like, oh, this is one on one stuff. It's kind of like how do we move about in town with this? I really appreciated that. And one feedback that I have. And I think I did share with you on that email, Jen, was that maybe having some BIPOC groups just to individually talk about that, because that conversation is different than having white people in the conversation as well. But in terms of childcare, I thought that was a great idea. I think that I thought that was like amazing. And we even had people that utilize it. And one individual told me that she wouldn't have came to be a man unless it was there. So I think very well done on that part. And then I do want to say that to the event, like conducted and all that, I thought it was amazingly done by Pamela. She held it very well. And at the event, of course, you have to be at the event to hear this, but that she did say that it would be a bimonthly event with hopefully the help of the consultants filling in when you all are not able to do so. So that was just my overall feedback from attending the event. So we were very purposeful in the location and the timing. We made sure that the bus schedule matched up at the survival center with a timeframe, so people could take the bus and then get home in a reasonable time, because we all know what it's like when something happens and you want to do it. And then the bus doesn't come back. That's not good. We were very purposeful with the childcare. We were very purposeful to make sure that people who came in together didn't sit at the same table. And we did that with the staff one as well, because we know it just happens. You sit with who you come in with, you sit with your friends, you sit with the people in your department. But we really wanted people to get out of their comfort zone a little bit. And so we did that by handing out everybody a number that was assigned to a different table. So we were very conscious about the ways that we approached the overall structure of the events, both for the community and for the staff. And then I did just want to add in there too that I thought that audience-wise it obviously we always have room for more diverse audience. But in terms of people that came and attended, it did seem like a diverse population at that first event. And then I do want to give some shout out to some town councilors that did come. There was about four in attendance, so I will give them that, that they are doing the work there. Yeah. And then Devine had a great time doing childcare, right? Like he loved it. I would echo all of Philip's comments. And I do, I also had submitted feedback, but I think the idea of kind of the affinity groups might be helpful as well. And it's nice to, like if my comment originally was, it might be nice to try and hold them at different times, like during, like throughout the day or like on a weekend, like during the daytime rather than at night just to, because you can always kind of capture a different group at a different time of day, but hearing the thoughtfulness and the work that went into looking at bus schedules and stuff, you know, that makes sense. And that is, I think, a really important thing to take into consideration. And so, you know, I'm always thinking like how can we be even more supportive? So is there a way that transportation could be provided at some point, you know, in the future to these sessions or if the location would change, you know, so that there's a more, you know, maybe the bank center or something like that. And, you know, just different ways to make it accessible to all the community populations. Oh, absolutely. So infinity groups are on our radar, right? We're very aware and we're hoping to incorporate infinity groups, perhaps the one in March. And we will not probably use the, it was great to have it at the ASC. I think it was very neutrally, like people felt that that was a very neutral location. It just wasn't big enough. And so, you know, with COVID and we want as many people to feel comfortable. So transportation is something that we will have to work on. I mean, one of the things, so I didn't have a car for a long time when I had the three boys. And so I'm so glad that the park is at Kendrick Park now. But I also remember not being able to go to a lot of school events, because I didn't have the transportation. And then once we moved into the Crocker Farm area where they provide transportation for events, I mean, I think I had a car by then, but it just made me, I said something to the principal, because I was so happy that they were thinking about the folks that don't have a car and that they can still, you know, go to these events and special occasions that they provide at the school. So we do, we will be looking into that because as much as people would like to say, the middle school and high school are accessible, they're not really accessible. So, and I think that the crowds are the participation or the community members that are attenders is that large where we're going to need like the cafeteria of one of the schools to really be able to have, you know, have everybody feel comfortable. So we will have to work on transportation for that with the school department. So those things are on our radar as well. Oh, I know they're on mine from personal experience at least. So thank you. I mean, transportation could be as easy as encourage, you know, neighbors, if somebody want to give a family a ride, we'll give you, you know, X amount of gas money to just, you know, help your neighbor come and, and, you know, attend the event might be a good way. Thank you. I agree. I agree, Ms. Pat, but I think that, you know, as Jen said, finding transportation, that that should be something we as a town provide for these conversations if people are going to, you know, attend them and be engaged, we need to figure out a way to bring those communities, you know, so we could have, you know, folks who either choose not to have a vehicle, a personal vehicle, or, or without a personal vehicle, we want them in those conversations, I would imagine. So, you know, I think it's, it's on us as a town to try to figure it out. I agree. It's always good to help your neighbor, but I think it's- Pay, we pay, I mean, we pay, town was so different. So perhaps, but I think it, that's what I meant. Yeah, definitely need to be a more organized effort is all I'm, yeah. Yeah. So great. Thank you, Jen. Tommy, this is Deborah, just to chime in real quickly. Ms. Pat, the only thing is, I'll put my attorney head on just for a little bit. It's just that if, if, if the town is going to ask for someone to like, they're going to pay someone and then, you know, to drive someone, but then if an accident happens, I know it, I know it. So it, so it has to be, it should be a little bit more organized, you know what I'm saying? I know it. I should know it. Oh, come on now. Attorney, Attorney Deb keeps, keeps us on our toes. That's right. That's right. That's right. All right. Any other questions for Jennifer and DEI? How can we support you and Ms. Hamler? Well, I think one of the ways would be able to help spread the word about the different events that we're, we're hosting. And then, you know, all of your ideas are valued and appreciated. So we try very hard to, to make them happen. For instance, I know people felt like nothing, you know, we had kind of dropped the, the ball with CSWG's recommendations, but I know that Pamela and myself keep those live. And so even at the MMA, I, you know, I don't, I just went to see, I went to a regionalization session and not so much, because I feel like there's a lot that could happen in Amherst that could be more regionalized with the surrounding towns. And so, but in my mind, I was also, I was thinking about, you know, them helping the diff, the different towns helping to support the homeless shelter that is going to, to be here off of Main Street, but also even the, the youth center, right, because in those two immediate surrounding towns to the north and south of us, south being Hadley, north being Sunderland, the children of color there, you know, could probably really utilize a youth center. And none of those towns could necessarily afford to do it on their own. And so if we regionalize it, and it's somewhere where, worst case scenario, if we couldn't provide that, we would have to put it somewhere where all of those buses could, could align, right? And so, that the hours align and hopefully we'll be able to have, you know, better transportation than that, but just as minimally as if needed. So we're, we're really, we are thinking about the other recommendations from the CSWG. We have not forgotten them. I have not forgotten them. I sat there with you guys for all those meetings. So it's drilled into my, my, I had a little back. So we appreciate you. Thank you. And also multicultural center. Don't forget that. Didn't forget that one either. Okay. We appreciate you. Great. Thank you. I'm just looking at the time. It's about 735. I'm looking at the agenda and I feel like C and D would go really, really quickly. So I'm wondering if we can use the like move those up first and then wait, no, D and E. I mean, is that what I said? D and E are really very short sentences, I think. Hope. Say that again. Which one? D. So the email address and then the post update would be pretty quick. And I imagine the youth empowerment center is a hot ticket item listening sessions. I think it sounds like we're ready to try and move forward on, on getting some more concrete details about which areas we might want to try and focus on. So I'm wondering if we can move D and E up and then resume with B, C, F. I have a suggestion. Yeah. I'm fine if we move D and E up. I think we should do B, C because they're going to take some time. D, F, G, H is what my agenda item and it'll be very quick is what I'm thinking. Which one? F, G, H will be very quick. Quick. Okay. So should we do D through H first? Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. Okay. So we're going to start with CSS JC email address. Okay. I was wondering and this is partially because we had a missing comment go through the Amherst Engage page, which finally was forwarded to us recently. I was wondering if it would be possible to get an email address for CSS JC that's on our website that people can send in public comments to. And then I think if I remember correctly the way that the CSWG did it was that one of the co-chairs would respond and not reply all. Is it CSWG or is it our staff? Is that what Jennifer managed? So the town's usual practice is that committees and boards don't have their own emails. There have been a few. The CSWG was a working group. So they were allowed to do that because it wasn't going to be up first. The email wouldn't be in existence for so long, but only be in existence for a certain amount of time. And I'm looking at the email right now because I did reach out once I saw it on the agenda and I was like, let me just make sure that I have an answer for you guys. So if you could just give me one second. I'm sorry. I didn't have it up already. Why are you looking at that? We have a councilor Dorothea Pam around. Do we bring her in or does you want to make any comments or whatever? In regard to the email? No, no, no, just in general. Oh, no. So when the staff liaison or staff liaison, I'm sorry, when the council liaisons are here, they're not supposed to be in the actual meeting itself like in the, they should be panelists. If you have specific questions from her, she can answer those and then we would bring her in that way, but otherwise they're supposed to remain as panelists. So I'm looking and it seems like he did not. So you want to come back with that, Ms. Pack? Do you want to go to the next line item there? Yeah, let's do that. The post, I just wanted to let everyone know I did file the complaint with the post commission on January 5th. So that has been filed. It will be in process. It is a joint filing with the Human Rights Commission. That's about it. Excellent. So for people who might be listening to our meeting in the future, I know what you mean. So you're talking regarding the July 5th, correct? Yes, sorry. So I filed on behalf of CSSJC and in conjunction with the Human Rights Commission a complaint to the peace officer standard commission regarding the July 5th instant and the town's subsequent handling of it. There was concern that the incident itself violated professionalism standards in dishonest conduct and then in the town's follow up around the instant they did not report the complaint from HRC to the post commission, nor did they report the complaint that was described in the letter received by one of the parents. So that is the body of the complaint. So thank you. Is there any indication how long it takes to get a response? There was just a generic. We will see what you are. So we'll know. Thank you. Thank you both. The next item next would be the child care and elder stipend. Okay. So that would be me. So we're talking about resident getting involved with committees, running for election, and sometimes issue of dependent care might be challenge for people to fully participate. We have a lot of talent in our community and our town is well resourced and I think we need to really push for this upcoming budget season to include child care and elder care or anyone that has some household or family member with disability or just child care and elderly care. It's good investment for our town to tap into people who are willing to serve our town. So that's it. I'm rushing because I promise you guys it won't take too long. So we need to have an action. Do we want to formally write as our budget request to the finance committee? We need, because I'm an action woman, so we can't just talk about it. We need to take it to people who make decisions who are working on the budget to include that. And the child care, elder care, should not only be limited to elected officials, anyone that serves on our town committee who need that should be given it to. So, Ms. Pat and Jennifer, is your hand raised about this issue or is it about the other issue that you were researching? Well, both. But I can answer just one if you would like. I can answer what we're on right now. Yeah, go ahead. So one of the things as community participation officer, I'm one of three, that we've been working on is we realize you can physically see just about who's not at the table, but we've been trying to figure out why. So our next movement is why aren't the people engaged? And you know, and we'll be honest, some people just don't, like I just remember before I worked for the town, if somebody had asked me why don't I join a committee, I'd probably be like, because I'm too busy trying to feed my family, right? Like I don't have the money for that, I don't have the time for that. And so we're really trying to make sure that and one of the things that we do this year is that we're going to really get to the nitty gritty of it, I guess you could say and find out why and then how we can break down those barriers and and to have people interact. So child care is one of them. And I know that it was a in the CPO it was in our budget for child care. Or at least we requested it, right? Like so there's the actual budget and then there's what like what we put in. So we did put in funds for child care, just because even for events that like we did for the racial healing day, right? Like we so that we can pay somebody for taking the time. I mean, divine that's his he did it because that's the consequence of coming to town after school asking for money, right? Like here you go, here's something for you to do. So but we would like to have other people involved in and providing the child care as well. If yeah, if I may respond, I think that's great. It's not it's actually not what I'm thinking about. I'm actually thinking our time to pay stipend to to residents who need that help and it can vary vary from individuals. We have people who might have more than one dependent care we might have. So it's not up to the town to actually provide onsite child care for ongoing somebody who's on committee. What you're suggesting I think is wonderful. Keep doing that. But that's not what I meant. I meant for people to get money to pay for preferred child care they need arrangement, whether it's household or extended family member, whatever it is, just give it to them. You know, they get to say how much is going to cost them to do it. I have grandchildren. I'm even embarrassed to say how much they pay for child care in order for them to do whatever they need to do run their life like so many people with young children. I don't think I'll be able to afford child care if I was raising kids in this day and age. So I have respect for, you know, young parents, I have respect for folks, you know, taking care of, you know, elderly, disabled, you know, I have a family member that just, you know, but I'm not speaking for myself, but I think it's necessary. We need it. So I know that stipends in general are on the radar for the town manager, because it's been brought up several times. They don't, wasn't necessarily specified to specifically for child care, but I know that stipends in general for boards and committees is something that is on his radar. If I could I wanted to, because I, Ms. Pat, I know we've been in conversation about this. I wanted to share with the group. There are models within the Northeast here in Mount Pilier, Vermont. This is, they had a whole task force that, you know, really figured this out. Here is their actual program policy that has is instituted this year. And so you could see stipends per meeting can be provided to volunteers to compensate them for their time, childcare assistance, food, transportation, or other needs in order to attend meetings. So I mean, it can be done. And I like, like Ms. Pat was saying, Jen, I appreciate, you know, that's needed too, oftentimes, making sure childcare is available for, you know, events, volunteers, that type of thing. But particularly when it's as specific as, you know, let's say committee members for an official committee like this, you know, we think of how many hours are put in or lost if you have to go take care of a child or an elder. So there are examples right here in the Northeast for these types of stipends to to be used by, you know, official committee members, board members, that type of thing. And then they have stipulations on how it can't be used. So I'd be glad to share that with you, Jen, and whomever else. Do you think you could forward that to Jen? And maybe that could be put in our packet post-meeting? Absolutely. Because I think that's a great model. And it's nice to not have to reinvent the wheel. I'm looking at it now. So I will, I will take this to the town manager. Great. And just put in the packet so for the future, folks can can see it. Yeah, it's something that we have, you know, as a as a group, particularly Ms. Pat Nye, you know, we see Allegra, we see other, you know, parents struggling on these committees, these boards, they do a great job. But, you know, Allegra is almost a brain surgeon here. She could be run in the hospital. I'm just saying, your productivity akin to that. So I mean, it's, it's something that I sell it. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And that's just it. It's like, so, you know, someone else is taking care of the kids right now. So I'm just saying, these are things where we could be more productive if you want to look at it in terms of the economy. Equity. Well, equity, definitely. But, you know, to look at it in terms of productivity and what we could do in this community. And we, Ms. Pat, you know, pointing out about elder care, you know, is really important. As we begin to age, we're taking care of our, you know, parents, you know, sometimes grandparents. So these things are important for us to be able to have all voices at the table. That's right. Thank you. Yeah. So, Ms. Pat, would you propose drafting some sort of statement on our, or would you, well, including a statement in a greater budget document that might also address DEI, et cetera, et cetera? I mean, before I answer that question, Jennifer is planning to share it with, you know, the town manager. Do you think I should still do a draft I can send to everyone? Jen? Sorry, I was reached the policies because I was trying to figure out if they were giving the money before or after, because I'm just already thinking about the responses that I might get by sharing this. So I think that you should. Do a draft something? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yes, I will. Just so that it stays fresh and Sure. Sure. Is that all you want me to draft? When do you want me to do it by Allegra? So let's see. I know I had started a document about some of our other asks from our last meeting. And I think it probably got lost in the shuffle of some of the things that happened in the past month and a half, holidays and whatnot. So I will reshare or perhaps share for the first time the document with Jen to distribute to everybody. Okay. And I will try and do that by the end of this week. If you want to take some time after that comes out to see if you would want it to be like included within that draft or a separate document. We just do one draft. Okay. That's the one. Yeah. Okay. If I send or do everybody if I send to everybody and then do you want to send to me? Then you can add it on. Do you want to send to me to add on to what I send? Yeah. Yeah. Let me do that. Okay. We're allowed. Are you sending it on behalf of everyone? No. Should I send it to your Jennifer and then you send it to Allegra? Or should we both send to you and you merge them into one and then you send that one to everyone? Well, but my first question is, is this on behalf of everybody from the CSSJC? Yes. Or is it just personally from Ms. Pat? Because I feel like if it's from everyone on the CSSJC that people need to all have seen it. Everyone needs to have seen it and agreed on it and I wouldn't want you guys to do that via email. So I was waiting for all that to go back and forth before interjecting. So if we are in agreement as a committee that we want to eventually draft something, it sounds like if we appoint Allegra and Ms. Pat to kind of work on this together, it goes through Jen, goes through Jen to send, but we then have to see it together in our next committee to kind of vote on this is what we want. It's not like all of us could attach comments to it. I would rather not because then I would probably have to put all those comments in it. What I would say is that it's possible and I will check tomorrow and send an email out that I could send it out and see if people had changes. And if there are so many changes, then we would have to bring it back to the group, but if there aren't so many changes, then it's possible then I can just go ahead and you can send it. I do have a question because I think that from the recent GOL town manager goals meeting and document, I feel like they were like they had to track changes on their document and I'm not sure if that was shared with everybody or not. I don't want to speak on that because I know that they do do track changes, but I don't know how they do them and where they're doing them. So I don't want to respond on that, but just for now I will clarify it. I'm happy to clarify it tomorrow and then we can figure out how to proceed from there. From what I remember with board of registrars, and maybe it's different, I don't know, but as long as there's not a quorum of people all trying to weigh in, so it's like if we agree that Allegra and Ms. Pat are working on this on our behalf, they can do that and then send the whatever finalized draft to you, Jen, and then you send it to the whole group and see if we all agree and have comments and those comments go to you. It's not you know blind CC or CC to everybody. Right and so I just my confusion that all of that I'm I is fine and I know that it's there's no difference between what the what was the board I'm sorry the registrars board versus those rules are still the same because they're but I just I'm a little bit confused with once everybody sends with the final product and how that's being like you guys send in the cut if everybody has comments and then wants to make changes and that's the part that I am unsure of no no no no no no no no what I was thinking about it did you finish talking I'm sorry okay I'm done okay go ahead what I was thinking is what we did as SWG we send information to you and then you send it out in this case I'm hoping my thinking is send it to you you send it to Allegra or Allegra send whatever she has you put it together I know it's more work for you but and then send it to everybody then we discuss it at February meeting does that work that's the part that is yes then you discuss it at February meeting my your concern was not me sending it to Allegra and you sending it to me it was more about that overall editing the overall picture well not the overall picture but the overall result of everybody's input that if that makes sense okay so are you concerned about doing the track changes because once like we can put it up you know during that meeting oh no no once it's just I just wanted to make sure that it gets to the meeting right that the decision of approving it isn't done outside of a meeting right no it would be so yeah so February meeting we will revisit the document that miss pat and I work together on whether that is her sending me her changes or her ads to whatever I write and or us both sending it to Jen based on clarification she will get correct no I don't need clarification on that like miss pat can send it to me or you can send it to me and then I can send it to the other person and I'm okay with that I just my concern was the final approval of it that's where and I didn't hear that it was going to be done at the February meeting before so that's why I was concerned and miss pat is yes your thinking on town council stipends under the same kind of if we increase town council stipends then perhaps more people would be my people basically yeah yeah we will increase diversity so will you roll that part into your statement as well yeah that's what I plan to do yeah not not necessarily budget but just you know uh trying to explain why we need it oh and that's why you know the rest of committee members will have to review it and put in input well are we can cut are we can cut to the chase and make a motion to you know send that recommendation to the the town manager but that would just kind of you know I guess we do need a letter maybe yeah yeah we need something that's what we're talking about maybe the motion could be in February I think that makes sense if we do the motion in February so that there's actually written language that we're moving on and I would just say whatever the final product between a leg where I miss pat is should be submitted in time for me to put it in the packet I mean I try to send the packet out on the Friday before the meeting so people have time to get through it okay so I mean it's eight o'clock do we want to take like a two to three minute break okay before that happens I just want to make sure um Freke and uh Debra don't have any questions about the child care stipend or the elder care stipend that we want to recommend not for me thank you okay not for me either okay all ready thank you so can we take like a three minute break yep all right so I don't want to lose you guys Debra and Freke yeah that would be that would be good too for me because I do need to run to the restroom okay oh you're home that's good that's all right I'm not home I'm at my son's practice okay so back at eight oh three all right what what time do we come back eight oh three got you okay is everybody back I don't see Dee yet um and Debra are you there Freke no okay where are we well we're talking about motion before we had our break yeah and I think we would make that in February okay once we have the document right so what is the next item okay so I mean after distribution and um business community I mean a lot of people are now aware of it the only thing I want to bring up tonight is that our town needs to start rethinking what economic development is it's not just landlords renting out you know their front stores that's that's not the only definition of economic development that are other businesses that contribute to the development of economy in our town and they should also be considered when decisions are being made so to let people know that for the 25k um upper funds that were supposed to go to the existing businesses um only 30 percent of BIPOC received funding 70 went to white on businesses and it's not that there's anything wrong with that it's just the amount is too small and the way the the the data has been presented um a kind of did not break it down to race the initial document that we got stated mostly minority which include white women and basically my position is we're not against anyone that got the funding but the money is not enough and black and BPA did not get anything group so we are asking our town manager our town council to um provide funding for black owned businesses of BPA members um but we're not against people who already received the the funding and that you know break and murder businesses should not be the the criteria only to uh make decision regarding uh who contributes to economy in our town because even if you don't have it you know people live in our mess they pay their taxes they they pay rent so they are contributing to uh economy in our town that's all i want to say i'm kind of rushing because i promise you guys it will be very quick thank you miss pat i just want to make sure everyone is seeing what's on the screen this is uh a re kind of conceptualization of the data uh that was sent and um you can see for that 25k um some uh that there's women that uh who are white who identify as white who or who were identified as white um and as you say nothing against that because that is a um national my minoritized group when it comes to uh businesses and um how they're considered uh with under that ranking or categorization um the the issue becomes was uh there a look at black and brown businesses and asian businesses equally and did that information uh get out there um and then the 40k if you could talk a little bit about that because that's also on the screen sure so the 40k basically um it's unclear because the bay uh reopened the grant again uh that is running right now through february so so far three businesses they are all bi-port businesses and i appreciate that um but up till today we don't know how much was assigned to any of these recipients so 100 percent of what we have for um new businesses went to bi-port but we don't know how much you know each got so the major glaring issue here is we don't even know who got what how much and we've we've been requesting this for a long time i don't understand why our town cannot make bed to produce it said thanks the last money to produce you know who got what we don't know how much each business is got we don't and so to me i feel that sometimes cssjc is been marginalized we request for information it doesn't we don't get everything that we want i know back in august september when i requested for this information i was very clear to have the data broken down by race i was ignored it did not happen it's not what we got and i had to break this down i'm the one who did this i had to break it down to show that for the existing businesses only three bi-port 30 percent there were 10 recipients seven of them went to white businesses including one business in belcher town okay so and i we're not against any business that got the funding it's just a bba members need funding i'm sure with other racial groups the asian american groups the hispanic groups the um native american groups they all did funding and we have two million dollar left i feel that most of that money should go to businesses who are still hurting because people rented spaces doesn't mean that you know they're doing well this is a seasonal town transitional town and you know you run business for nine months students are gone it's a ghost town during summer and businesses still have to pay their the expenses and most of them did not benefit from apafon that's not right thank you thank you miss pat um not all communities utilize their chamber of commerce uh to disperse arpa funds for businesses there was a more equitable way in which they approached it and i say equitable simply because the chamber is made up of members that pay for membership um and so you know that's not that does not include all business owners within a community and therefore other towns uh north hampton for instance there was a different um way in which they dispersed arpa funds so it's something that um needs to be looked at um not only in terms of if we're about equity right so to examine that and how to do better you know go forward and do better but how does the black business association which has been around since 2016 uh whether the chamber was aware of it or not they they've been around i'm a member um how we should have been approached and black businesses in general should have been approached black and brown businesses should have been approached and this is something when you know we can say oh there there was this kind of blind neglect because they didn't know i was in a listening session about a year and a half ago with chamber members that met with a prominent historically uh uh rooted business black business uh in this town and said that they did not know you know about this history they did not know how entrenched this person is and their business in the community until we hadn't it was done through zoom because it was during covid um so you know it's not just kind of innocent uh you know a situation here it is not it's it's it's they're not doing the outreach they're not doing the work of the outreach to have equity so again this is an instance where we can do better and if we're talking about healing if we're talking about having uh equality here in this community work has to happen because we're doing that work we're trying to stay afloat here and we're trying to say here look at this let's do better there has to be that outreach from these predominantly white institutions in this community to not only make them more inclusive again kudos to the chamber for doing this event sounds like a beginning but i don't know if anyone outreach to the the black business association and invited them you know reached across and invited them to this event invited them to this forum i mean that's when you're talking about hey we did something that caused harm let's repair it by bringing you into this forum so we can hear from you and do better people have to be courageous people have to do better particularly if they want this community to flourish for everyone thank you miss pat for for doing this thank thank you d um just to add i'm also a member of bba folklore that disclosure and i know that has been a campaign to diminish my group bba um people are saying that it doesn't exist it was a made up it was a one two member organization and if anybody wants to know um they can contact me i will send you the list the list is out there the town councilors have it the town manager has it uh the cssjc group have it so we do exist it's 2016 and in the same year actually we created um business card which i personally distributed to any black person that i saw at the taste of armist the chambers they know about bba in 2016 people you know decide you know choose what they want to remember or what they want to forget so for people said they don't know about it that's not my problem because i did i was out there you know trying to recruit folks bba 2016 so if people don't know i can't help it but we do exist so that false hood that is going on in the community you know needs to stop it's another way to marginalize black owned businesses okay i'm done all right so arpa it sounds like uh besides this really informative uh conceptualization of the 25 k and then the 40 k um there there's going to be a meeting or what's next so i mean well um bba group have made it known to our town manager so we're just waiting um we don't know what the next step is but um if cssjc group you know want to help with the advocacy but we do not want to go through the bed because they're not the only economic development entity bbas and the town we need to be more creative we do not want to go through white led organizations we want to make the decision by ourselves give us the money we will utilize it according to what the upper fund it said to be and what other communities are also doing we do not want white led organization to to um be the one making decisions for us we don't want to go through them period thank you miss pat it's about equity and self-efficacy from my standpoint so an empowerment an empowerment definitely yeah we have to be on the table in this town when decisions regarding businesses any decision that impact businesses bba should be involved we are part of the economic development in our town period we're here to stay we're not going anywhere okay so it sounds like at least there's some movement and trying to get a conversation with the town manager thank you miss pat uh someone had their hand up or no okay what's next on the agenda i could bring it up am i done i think i'm done are you done uh how many more items i had three what is it we've done all three oh good okay um so youth center and listening sessions are the last remaining items listening session yeah do should we go listening sessions next okay um so i believe it was lauren mills who had come to public comment a few months ago um with concerns about her school age child having some difficulty at the middle school and suggesting that we hold um some listening sessions i think pertaining to the school system perhaps or just safety in general um and then there was the further email that was sent to the committee regarding you know youth input on youth empowerment center and youth needing a space a safe space especially by pock youth um i think last time we talked a little bit about also reaching out to some of the other committees to see if they would want to hold joint sessions um and then of course tonight we heard from url saying it would be really helpful to have some sort of community conversation hosted together so i think that there are a few different a few different areas in which it would be helpful to have listening sessions so i think probably as a group we should figure out which areas those would be when how all of those um all of those details um miss pat if i may i was the one who volunteered last month that i will reach out to different committees and um it appeared that um lauren mills has started organizing something because you know she will email groups of people and i tend to be on it so she's already started organizing something she has clear idea of what she will like the listening session to be so i'm wondering like you stated alegra how can we combine both where you know the crest thing you know just to save everybody's time and make it more meaningful too i see some some some uh similarities too so um maybe to reach out back to lauren to say it should be open to um collaborating with crest program with what you know i think it best it seems like she has a clear idea of what she would like to see which is a little bit different of what i understood last month yeah she she does want to be in charge of it basically it's what i'm trying to say so so this is debora i guess so for me what what is lauren trying to do i guess that's a thing right i'll be are we like in line use her mission vision yeah i know i get it but what about the youth what what is it that she wants to focus on and stuff like that um so that then we can sure so my understanding i want to speak for her you know she was earlier you know in the audience where she left my understanding is that we need resources we need you know to support our youth basically is the summary without going into details you know i've been working with her you know on a private level issues that i think she's looking more to you know community gathering that will you know discuss globally about our youth in our town how are we supporting our youth our supply she will be she will stay a little bit longer that she left already does that make sense to you deb okay thanks yeah i just doesn't make sense yeah okay e yeah so i i think that's a great idea um i love that url has also suggested it what i would like to see you know if we can organize it um as soon as the end of next month um you know in the month of february there's always these very representative events you know um that are supposed to pack in a bunch of meaningful stuff within the shortest month of the year for black history month um i would rather hear from the community and um maybe like what jen and um hamela young are doing in these um uh you know meetings or conversations every other month or so uh we should maybe structure at least um you know two listening sessions or three listening sessions a year and we could begin with cress i would like to also see one where it's specifically you know because a lot of our issues come up it is you know we have predominantly black african-american west african voices i would like to hear from our you know latino hispanic community and what are their issues you know um having to do with equity you know and make sure there's a translator there i think that is tremendously important and it's it's an area a sector of our community that we don't get to hear from a lot i mean we're so blessed to have phillip you know with us but phillips one person you know and i'm sure you would agree you can't speak for every you know uh the latinos and hispanic culture it's so varied so you know i think um having some type of listening session where we have a focus so maybe the first one would be about cress and our kind of cross fertilization of what we're doing as a committee and what cress is doing how we could you know uh support cress etc and then try to think of one where uh it's led maybe the next partner logical partner is the human rights commission you know but i'd also again i don't want to water down let's hear from the the latino and hispanic community you know where we have a have some translation but we have people there that can discuss what comes up for you when we talk about safety and equity so um i would like to see more of this and when you think of you know budgeting well we need a microphone or a couple of microphones we need the space that's big enough for people to spread out um you know it's it's relatively cheap to produce but i think the benefit is large for the community and and should be part of our our service in what we're trying to do so i don't know if we're ready to you know because february is going to be our next meeting but maybe we can begin given a tentative date for the first one with chris of course we'd have to check in with url and and his people uh to schedule something as soon as the end of february what you know then i'm like looking at the friday before february ends and that's the 27th and then the 28th is a saturday so anyway just a suggestion and then after that in our february meeting maybe we could schedule the next thing i'd like to hear you know anomas pat has something to say about like to hear philip you know maybe what you think about that idea as well and not you know not to just focus on the latino community but it's it's a community that i would like to know personally what are their feelings about you know safety and equity you know in in our town you know and then we can move on to to other community groups these affinity groups as we say can i just clarify that the dates in february the last weekend the friday is the 24th and that's the ending week of february break so you might lose some people who have kids in public schools thank you see i didn't even pay attention to that very short very short month yeah yeah yeah you're right i'm looking at the wrong cal i'm still looking at january anyway thank you for that clarification oh because i was like i think i'm not i think i have a flight on the 26th and i hear sunday you're right well and march is women's history month you know it again it doesn't matter it's just you know let's let's go ahead and begin scheduling it right and uh advertising it uh to get people excited about coming out and uh participating and then say well we'll be at an ounce in that one and our next one our next listening session is scheduled for this time or whatever this month and we'll focus on this you know or we'll discuss this so all right i'm finished with that okay can i go yes so very quickly i agree with what you're saying um i was looking at uh email that miss lauren has said for a very small group of people and um so basically she's thinking of putting together different town committees which is what we talked about last month and um i think um public health department which she's a committee member she wants to involve them it would be a webinar type of thing zoom um yeah webinar type of gathering and she's wondering how the town could provide some stipend for the participants and for the event basically is what she's saying so it seems like she has very clear idea of what she would like to see happen so um she has sent it to including miss Pamela that she's not here tonight for the very small small group of people so she did remind me to bring it up today um so how can we support her project i can forward it to you guys if i i have to talk to her well i i like the idea and i think it's it's very similar um to what we're we're talking about with yeah you know um mental health is what our focus is is what yeah she wants to focus on and the reason the reason why i'm getting the email she said she doesn't have everybody's email and css jc don't have one email so she says stuff to me assuming that you know i can forward it but i didn't ask her if i should do that in this case but you know i will check with her and i forward it to you guys so that you guys will have an idea of what she's asking for and she's thinking of it to be in March oh also in March okay all right yeah okay that's all all right thank you um Allegra you know you stand up unless you know what to do it you didn't have your hand up okay all right go in so i also did talk to the affordable housing trust at our last meeting and they would like a little bit more information about what might be an idea they didn't have like we don't i was just like they wanted we want to do listening sessions with different committees it wasn't like very set in stone or anything but philip and i did talk yesterday because i guess the human rights commission might be on board in supporting something around housing as well so i think i think if the structure if we can kind of develop what the structure would look like and then can partner with these different groups or different stakeholders that have an interest in whatever theme we're discussing that would be a great way to a build connections and be kind of hear about different topics that intersect with community safety and social justice and i think if lauren is wanting to spearhead something like hey go for it and we'll show up and support you and you know if we decide to co-host or whatever that would be great but it it doesn't necessarily all have to come under the umbrella of cssjc organizing things if there are people in the community who are wanting to do this on you know with their own networks and but i do think i do think kicking things off with crest would be great i think having something specific to youth especially perhaps with a ear to the idea of a youth center or what kinds of other services are needed and and making sure that we're not just catering to parents but to the youth themselves um and whether that looks like having affinity groups so the youth are in one group and the you know it's not youth are in a different group whether it's a parent or guardian or you know teacher or whoever might show an interest in the future of our youth um so what are we deciding tonight you know so i should connect with lauren hold up miss pat philip has something to say sorry yeah sorry i said oh my gosh if i could figure out my computer i could talk um yes to your point d um i think that that would be actually really good i we found that um the last latinx um event that we did was um latina latino and latinx latina heritage month that was a very well attended um event and from that um a lot of community members have reached out to me i've reached out to um different people to basically try and make that presence that you are talking about that is not in this town a little bit more hard i think that it there is some difficulties with work related and child care issues so that's something i think definitely to consider whenever we put on a group i do want to say that the overall idea is great and i definitely do support lauren mills i just do feel like if we're going to have this listening session and that listening session and this and that like i think we need that's a little bit too much that we might need to hone in on to like what we want to do what we want to um hone in on and as far as obviously reaching out to any members of the community i will gladly do so to get people hopefully to show up and have their voices heard at a table right i think you know planning the listening sessions and who to partner with um maybe would take two groups with us you know as opposed to one for each one i think press is a big enough project though that it could maybe us and then press um but i agree not to have too many of them but we could plan it out for you know the year and then um you know with foresight uh you know think towards the the following year but i i think trying to solicit participation or interest from from those other departments and organizations i mean i think a poku at the high school you know and the youth there they should like what Allegra was saying they should be a part of any decision making and input and you know engagement having to do with the youth empowerment center you know um sunrise uh being another voice but particularly poku you know so i i think it would take some planning so you bring up a really good point uh philip we just don't want to spread ourselves too thin on on that regard so but i'm i'm glad to know that uh the latinx community i just know that some are language speakers and then some identify you know so i i'm always very careful but uh probably too careful thank you latinx yes so this is deba can i chime in so i guess like i think you know and i definitely agree that we probably should start out with crest just because you know cswg have recommended it and obviously it's something that cssjc has been you know we've been very supportive of and making sure that they're successful so i think we should you know start out with them but i think in terms of lower males i i think that that's a really interesting you know focus too in terms of the youth um you know the other part too could be that maybe certain members of our group would want to work collaborate with her you know what i'm saying so it's not as if we all have to kind of work with her and things like that just to kind of like make sure that we have some input if we wanted to collaborate right and so that we have some input in terms when the date is and blah blah blah but i it wouldn't be a bad thing for us to do two listening sessions you know as long as they were again well organized and all of those things but our whole group wouldn't have to kind of be involved in it it could just be one or two members kind of working with her you know i think and even like the crest one too the whole group wouldn't have to kind of iron out every detail with with earl it could be some committee members you know um and then my other point is in terms of it being well organized is again you know we need to kind of get advertising i don't think we need to rush this like of course i don't think we need to do in months down the road but i'm just saying we need to have it organized so that we have as many people as possible because you know what are we thinking are we doing in person and zoom are we doing zoom are we doing just in person i mean we got to figure that those things out interpreters translators translation for folks who you know are disabled um you know daycare possible transportation you know maybe do it like like how the di had done it when there's you know buses and things like that we want to have as many you know want to make it as accessible as possible for a variety of different people the elderly so on so forth um you know i think i said daycare right daycare so on so forth so that we can get as many people there so it's not a rush job just to kind of get people to to come in i really want it to be an opportunity for them to tell us you know what are they thinking about crest right what a you know have a conversation with oil and his team and really get an opportunity for them to to get to know more about crest and everything that that crest does and then the same thing with the youth conversation it should really be you know a meaningful kind of conversation and listening session not just a rush job thank you deborah miss pat thank you deborah so um i have a slight different um thinking um our committee uh have different terms some of us will be exiting in june if we don't get reappointed and you know starting from may we're talking about school vacations people planning vacations people losing interest i feel that whatever we decide to do it has to be march and april that's all we have may people already planning and this is election year soon people are thinking about campaigning and stuff so i'm a very deadline type of woman i get lost when things are overextended it's just out of sight out of mind if things get too too much um over planned that will not be me i you know i don't roll that way i'm just saying i'm very practical and my concern is june might be a transitional month for css jc you know some of us might be moving on i would like to continue but i only have one year term i'm just saying i would like to see through something i you know you know i'm kind of involved with and then say it through i'll just shut up that's where i'm coming from and i hear you deborah um but the way our society is setting out people just have sharp memory oh we're running an event in september oh yeah yeah yeah people forget oh no but miss pet don't get me wrong i wasn't saying that's what i was saying not down but you know i was just saying first i have it well planned first to think through all of this doesn't mean we're going to do it like in june i'm down with what you're saying like march april even february and the february if we can pull it off but i want us to think about i want us to be intentional and really think about those elements right to kind of really put it out there you know as long as we're you know able to advertise we're able to kind of get these other things like interpreters so on so forth you know make those happen we'll just have to do some work you know i'm saying as long people wanting to do some work i'm good with having it you know setting a deadline but let's just be intentional about it got you i'll just i'll do the work people tell me what to do i'll i'll help i'll help lauren else you know whatever needs to be behind the scene i i do very well organizing behind the scene more than anything else well can we check in with url to see if march is a good time to have a listening session if that if we all agree that that should be our very first one and then uh follow through with uh checking in with lauren for this this next one but uh march could be the the one that we kind of kick it off with cress and i i mean you know url's right it's like it's coming up on a year it would be good to you know for everybody to check in with the community to see how are they understanding how are they feeling um the job has gone in terms of cress and the rollout do they see their taxpayer money and and the the grants and all of that uh being well spent you know in the community i mean these are all things that for people to really support cress and in the long run um they have to feel you know somehow that the it reflects what the vision was of cswg you know so uh i think maybe going with that as the first one i would propose i i'd like to get the feedback of the of the rest of the group and um i think deborah makes a very good point that whatever we're going to do it has to be something you know that we can be proud of that is well organized as as much as we can plan um and it'll take some work um i'm willing like i said to url to to you know work with him on that and it sounds like others voiced that they would be willing to to work on something like that thank you d and strategically i think match makes a lot of sense where in the budget season and maybe that might help to move the needle for the town council to increase funding for cress program so i kind of like that that's what i'm thinking okay so do you want me to reach out to url yes we can uh see about a march date and then um i guess jennifer i would send that to you all for us to discuss for the february meeting but if we're already kind of in the mist of planning if it jives with url um i guess we would have to ask for uh supports within the town for a space all the things that kind of dei did to plan for that conversation we would want something very similar but with translation i think you know um people uh with different language you know languages should be able to you know hear and participate in a conversation about cress allegra um i am willing to help um i'm just wondering if because of like if we are if there's just one or two people in conversation with url if that is not a violation of open meeting law for planning purposes or if it's a you know if it's a working group for a specific thing that that february could just come back with an update as to because because if we can't make any decisions until february then i mean if we can only make one decision every month we're never going to get it you know something planned but if if one or two you know committee members are working to plan something is that allow no usually usually you can have two people right um jennifer you mean two coaches or you know a co-chair and a member so if you appoint people in the group during the meeting to work on something that's fine yeah right like these two people are going to work on this that's fine okay yeah because now that's what hrc update next month rather than right where you did yeah we'd have to on it oh and one other thing d um maybe what we could do also just think about dates and much where we're available and then you can bring that to url can we do that now yeah can we do that quickly now okay well let's hear those people have their hand up jennifer did you have your hand up or you know what i don't i'm someone said something so i'll have to maybe it'll come back up you have your hand up yeah i just want to add in obviously when the working group guts form that would be decided but thinking about translation and if we're doing multiple languages how that works out because you know having someone speak in english then having someone speak in spanish every other sentence or whatever it is is time consuming one and then two doesn't allow for some translations to translate into a productive way so then it just kind of may fall on like not understanding and then if you add in any other language that will obviously then you go one language two language three language and so on so just want to keep that in mind no that's your to your point i've been in those meetings where it's french spanish and english and it takes forever so i think maybe if we can you know choose um you know in this case um you know spanish for for those who are spanish speaking at least we would have that i mean when we think of numbers within the community of course there's kamai and you know we can go on um but in this case i think it would be important to have um spanish uh as just in case someone needs translation someone available and actually pay them not let it be oh this is a volunteer that just happens to speak spanish it's just so unfair for that community member they're not hearing what's going on but if someone is it's their job to do that for folks that need it they're available that's that's what i'm proposing yeah that's great and i don't want to speak for anybody's time but i do know that crest does have a spanish speaker on their team so great and so if that would be amenable to you know uh url to that person's time would be compensated for that i i think that would be because it's about equity right we don't want to exploit folk and and their skills so i think it's important to respect that so anyone else have something to say about it for a k thank you oh okay then all right um so someone proposed uh i think uh was it you miss powder debora proposed we look at dates possible dates oh debora proposed that and then i could bring that to url yes so are we thinking more at the end of the week or a weekend what are we what would be more respectful of particularly um working folks and i know work i work all the time but you know there's different types of work in this community and so i'm trying to think through that like the event you held uh philip and then also the de i held for the conversation um what time of day and what you know what day of the week it was held our event we held it on saturday morning and and that worked out well okay thank you and the the conversation was held when we held the conversation the racial healing day in the evening on um it was the 17th so what was that was a tuesday tuesday evening okay all right so it's saturday morning like uh horrible time to have something like that particularly if we provide like let's say just coffee and donuts you know is that yeah i would lean more towards that yeah so how do folks feel about that what do folks think allegra you and and philip y'all have the kids i mean i can skip gymnastics i mean debra has has of course a young person too but i'm just trying to think like okay the younger ones okay yeah i mean i can do saturday morning and not saturday afternoon because i know yet he has like soccer stuff in the afternoon or mornings i can usually do okay i mean if there's child care i could do like a 10 30 time that would be okay philip yeah that works out for me okay so is there a way to do hybrid because we're talking about some folks who would like to attend but don't want to be in person um i'll probably be one of those you know i mean covet is still around so you know is it possible to do it in a building where there is where people can also access it by you know right right and so you know i'm for some elderly folks who have like you know medical issues that would don't want to get exposed but they want to listen there so there's something yeah we should definitely try to do it like both remote and in person right right and it can be recorded um so that we could share it with people later i mean you know there's certainly the technology is there now with the town um i guess jennifer is that something you can check on perhaps i mean i'll be glad to check myself but since you're you of course work for the town can you check to see if there's a way to just like how town council is is done now it's hybrid um one of the one of the the town rooms whether it's out of school which i know is connected to the the cable um or another public building isn't bangs is connected as well isn't it it's not connected bangs doesn't work for hybrid so the town hall the town room here at town hall does and i would assume that one of the schools must be at least um like maybe at the library where they do the school council no school committee meetings so those are two options okay i i don't know like i'm always iffy about events and having them in the town hall just because some people won't feel like that's exactly why we picked the asc for the racial healing day was because it was a neutral place so but the schools are pretty neutral at the same time too so yeah we just would have to make sure for transportation yeah yeah and i can usually i go through the facilities department at the schools for transportation okay that's why check in what so would it be possible for you to check on that for us so transportation um and then what school whether it's the gymnasium or the cafeterias um would i guess allow for something where we could possibly figure out something to do hybrid i mean you know there are like amherst media has a television on wheels like one of these big screens flat screens that um you know maybe the town has one i don't know but there are this is in the realm of possibility and how you do one of these hybrid type of meetings now so we could see the um you know the person that's on zoom maybe posing a question and um they could hear and see the speakers you know that type of thing so it maybe would take some coordination i'd be glad to to think through it um amherst media could be a resource for that um so you know i'd like to try to think through how we could make that happen yeah so i think that the library at the middle school is i believe where they hold the school committee meetings so my thought process is that somewhere there that they have the equipment for hybrid otherwise you know the other way to do hybrid is everybody has a laptop and then we put a laptop at a at a at a table where we would have speakers come up and speak so those are um right but then the the audience the live we have screens okay good that's what i want to great all right so we could figure it out sounds like we could figure it out all right okay that could potentially help with translation issues because well i mean you would have to have a special zoom that has the capacity to do like a separate channel but then it can be more simultaneous to have the you know the translation on the separate channel to people who are logged in with it um but i i think that might be like a different subscription that we don't need to have for zoom um yeah do we have that in the channel just just i just wanted to because i'm part i'm probably gonna have to leave like as soon as my son comes back from practice so in like five minutes so i just wanted to kind of just say the calendar so i can go because i know we're getting into the weeds um on some of this but i just want to get the calendar down um because then like i said i might have to go sure so so let's start with next month yeah next month now figure the calendar for next month what time are we meeting next month what day do we have date for next month so i'd rather i'd rather meet on Wednesday as opposed to Tuesday because Tuesday is when i have to bring him to practice okay so um we're on each day the eighth would be back to the second Wednesday of the month oh okay would that work for people i mean i know that's like a weekend no um like two weeks away would that be okay February the eighth uh yeah tell us no it works for you i'm just that's a i'm just missing a friend's um art talk that uh on Native American uh her work so uh what about what about the 15th yeah the HRC HRC oh okay that's okay i mean i'll i'll just run there so um that's fine don't worry about me i'm just like oh that's on my calendar so um yes are you sure because we can do last Wednesday or February that would give us plenty of time well that's ash Wednesday as long as i'll be out of town or i get i can also do Mondays Mondays another time Tuesday's the only time i can do Thursday can we do Thursday it depends on February can we do the 16th yeah sounds good to me okay so let's do that okay preke is like oh wait no no preke can you do it that's uh you can't do it Allegra no i forgot okay um so the 23rd oh no that's that's the week of the vacation school vacation week oh okay and then the um the nine did we the nine so that so the week of night can we do the first day that that week yeah i could do the night some trust meeting on that Thursday oh you do okay so go back to the Wednesday that everybody could meet which was eight don't don't worry is that are you sure no no there was also the 13th right the week of the 13th can we meet on the 13th that Monday yeah well isn't there a town council meeting i don't want to miss that town council meeting i like to watch it so can we meet on the 6th then if there's one there we uh the 6th is the Monday before and if if there's a no wait no wait the the council meets on the 6th and not the 13th is good oh like as of their posted meeting schedule like i can't you know no no no we cannot do Mondays we cannot do Mondays can't do Mondays yeah probably better to stay away then okay yeah we can do Monday go ahead and do the 8th please let's just if people can meet then let's just do it okay how is Friday for people i know it's weekend for staff Friday just only exception only for this for February any Friday let me see i guess i could do the 10th okay can people do 10th it's not an exception is that okay jennifer i mean you guys tell me when we're meeting and then one of us will be here so yes oh god sorry fine with me okay thanks we will do Friday very often phillips i didn't hear from you or freaky phillip the 10th yeah yeah yes i will commit to that i hate Friday meetings but yes what did you say is that a yes we lost freaky he's not on the screen anymore okay phillip is that a yes for you okay uh oh we lost freaky okay we're just letting you know okay so css jc february 10th 6 p.m. meeting yes yes all right so let's do much i shouldn't have said anything about about all right so wait so march two things we're talking about um the the discussion and should we make that that our meeting because if we're all there it's going to be quorum no no much is when we're supposed to to do the crest right yeah but i'm saying but we could post it as an official meeting we probably have to because yes all there is quorum yes yeah you know i haven't been posting when the full group meets for an event if it's an event where you guys like when we had the mlk i don't post a meeting for that it you guys aren't making any deliberating and you're not making any decisions okay but we are but you're listening if you want me to post it i will post it but i'll post it because we're probably going to be talking about it jennifer yeah you know right making some you know just making some comments and stuff we don't want to yeah it might get a little bit dicey right that's right rather i'd rather err on so a saturday morning we have the saturdays and march are the fourth the eleventh the 18th and the 25th this is like a weird question but do we know when whatever umass yeah so umass that's what i was about to say let's stay away from the 11th and the 18th because that's umass spring break it's from the 11th well yeah 11th through yeah the 18th 19th whatever you know that weekend 11th and 18th so let's stay away from that so it'd be the fourth and the 25th so do we think that the fourth of then is the the blarney blowout or whatever because that might um impact crests availability if there's a number of drunk college students roaming around honestly i feel that when the students are gone might be a good time to to hold it actually you know i know maybe maybe some of their staff will be gone too but i feel it will get yeah i'll be i'll be i'll be gone too though i won't be around because i'm doing a trip with uh with the students we're doing community service with the students for umass okay yeah the k-bridge yeah i believe blarney barney blowout is happening the 11th but i will check with someone to get an actual so let's just start first and last uh Saturday of march okay so why don't we pose those two options yeah incentives yeah either of those work um and early know about the blowout too just i i tend to like to avoid anything amherst during that weekend but okay so i can choose those two as as tentative and then i'll block them out on my calendar that's what i want to do just block out okay so yeah i will pose those two dates okay and it's my fourth all happening all happening before 12 noon yes okay the other one's the 25th miss yeah okay i will like like a 10 10 to 12 type of event 10 to 12 yeah maybe so and then uh people can come in like at nine and start having coffee and donuts and then everybody settles in for 10 conversation okay i probably have my coffee from my house okay yes i'm i'm a picky coffee drinker too that has to be strong all right so good good we have that now are we meeting uh during the month of march i think no do we i don't know we probably should have a brief meeting just to kind of prep for these listening sessions yeah okay okay can we decide that the february meeting yes okay great so alegra don't forget uh public comment the second yes well and we still haven't talked about the youth center right yes i know that um so wait hold on one second okay i don't know where am i out there this um wait and so just wait just so we could wrap that up so um d you're gonna follow up with earl and then pat you're following up with lauren then yes okay and should i just tell the housing trust things but we'll think about something in the fall or something no no no no no because chris program is very related to homelessness yeah yeah i think you know it's very relevant don't just tell them about chris program okay yeah that makes sense yeah um and does anybody else have anything else to add about listening sessions before we leave on i'm sorry folks so i'm just gonna say bye right now okay okay bye okay bye bye um and we're still at quorum even without freke yes okay um before we move on to the youth center i wanted to double back to gen because i realized we did not finalize an answer about the email whether cssjc can have an email and i would i would like to know if that's a yes or no because i do think kind of into what miss pat was saying about lauren it brings up issues of equity and like who has contact with us you know so if somebody in the community knows us from something else and has one of our contact informations then they can send us something but that's there might be people out there who are interested in engaging but don't have a way to do so and i i feel like that's an issue of equity um so jennifer wild hopefully have an answer for that but um ahra has their own email engage amherst yeah that's on the web page that's not an email and i don't the stuff doesn't go directly to them okay so when we look at engage amherst okay hold up let's so because i know this came up for uh board of registrars when we were doing um the redistricting and that was a temporary committee and people were trying to get in touch with us about their comments on you know the mapping and all of that and i think that they concluded for whatever reason we couldn't have our own i mean that's typical the typical practice i don't see that ahra has their own email on here what's engage amherst then engage amherst is just a oh it's like a page and that's something that you guys could think about outside of the css jc web page where people like on the ah want me to share my yes oh yeah can you okay can you see the page yes is it full yes okay so this is the engage amherst page and so typically the when the town has different projects and we want community feedback this is an alternative way to receive feedback um but this email goes to me so they don't have their own email in that sense but they do have different ways that people like notifications of how to get involved and what's going on jennifer who who built this was it briana sunrit yep briana built it so is it possible to consult with uh briana on something similar for the css jc where um you know we could have an informational uh page where people encourage people to get in touch with us uh they have you know ideas whatever feedback something similar to the ahra absolutely so um if you you can either one of the one of the co-chairs can reach out to briana and just cc me because she's gonna call me into that anyways so um and and and schedule a meeting that way just because i don't have i mean i can do that for you but i don't have a schedule so i don't want to have to go back and forth to you with like you know different dates but if one of you as co-chairs reach out and say we're interested in having an engage amherst page you know um to move forward that way so she's on our good thank you allegrin she's on our board for amherst media so um you know she's very accessible and she's fantastic she does a great job as the communications director so so thank you allegor for doing it if we comment allegra thank you for for bringing it up again i almost you know cannot forgot so for me um people who know me very well that i challenge roles and and laws sometimes when it doesn't make sense to me the thank council have you know if you want to send information to them you can send one and everybody gets it and i know cs wg with temporary group working group it doesn't make sense to me that thank council that's for two years you can send information with one email everybody gets it and says ssjc can't do that so that's what my brain has been telling me like it doesn't make sense so i'm glad we found the solution to connect with briana to see if you know she can help us out i i do not take no for answer unless if it makes sense to me and that's what i teach my kids i just want to be clear that i just want to be clear that briana wouldn't be the person to answer whether or not you can have your own email that would be the it director briana can help you engage amherst page i just want okay the expectations to be clear there so and who is the you know i'm happy to reach out to that person what is her name his name he's on her name um i mean what is it going to take to do that i mean yeah what is it going to take to do that i just i don't understand i mean people it's people make rules and rules can be amended that's what we're here for i'm sorry but that's how i feel i have a i have a question is having an email address like who's going to be monitoring that would that be molecular or d is that going to be gen like i don't want to have their time taken up because we created an email address but if we do an engage amherst and it goes to let's just say jessons she does e h r a that information is still given to us that's just my no no no no no i'm thinking more like i've sent email i'm sure many people have done that one email that all the time comes lost get like immediately i don't know whose email is that but it doesn't have to be monitored by anybody it is it is oh okay so first win monitors it like she's the one that has she's the only one that can respond but myself paul and angela and athena all receive every email that gets sent to that all okay to that town council email so this if if they're going to give you an email i can't say that they will or they won't it's not typical practice but like you said rules are meant to be amended but you're going to have to have staff on it right there's and so part of that is because it the reason why i think from my understanding in the past that not every group has their own email is because a lot of it has to do with when people put out public records requests and um and open meeting it just more public records request because then they have to find all of the information so with the cswg i also had all of that so they could just come to my computer and and get all of the emails that were sent problem is if the cswg when they had that one email they it was going to their own personal email and so it's a problem when somebody responds but not everybody else is included in that response and so i think at some point because the human rights commission has one but that's because we've complaint forms that come to us but i said but i think that it just seems like it would be easier and cleaner if they limited or didn't have other boards and committees with their own email so engage am excuse me engage amherst is deal is an alternative but i i do suggest that you can reach out to i let me let me try to talk to shon one more time again before you reach out to him and then i can email that result to you guys tomorrow or whenever thank you i guess because i'm a boss i do not you know i i make up my own rules as i go so we're gonna find out we're gonna find out i mean engage amherst actually i like the visibility um and i do think we need something where people can somehow directly um common or engage with us so yeah let's figure it out thank you quickly the nice thing about yeah the nice thing about engage amherst is you know like whenever there's an event we use a qr code right so people love qr codes it gets people right to where they need to go and it's just like you know i'm not always the biggest fan of having stuff you know because they're responsible we did it on our website but again like if you're not in touch with town local government you don't know but i will say that the engage page does make it a little easier by the fact that you can run qr codes at events like if you saw the postcards that ahra had when they had the listening session with go with mcgovern they just had the qr code to the meeting right and so you just got a card makes things a lot simpler um it's more about the distribution yeah yeah i even use them for some courses a syllabus and the students could just bring it up um so i think that's a great idea also if we're leading up to this conversation with crest it'd be a great way to uh spread the word about it so let's see how quickly we could get something going so legra you'll check back in with us about that yes and then you guys can also get feedback from the community about new initiatives or new recommendations and stuff like that because they can they'll have that portal that it'll that they can use great all right thank you um thank you is there something left on the agenda there is yes your center yes so do we have word about how that is being handled because i've listened in on gol and finance committee meetings uh and it's either not discussed or when it's discussed it's been um kind of punted to you know well we have to hire or pay for more study uh and then lastly i think the other conversation was that um they were going to bring in a ymca or some other third party to see about creating a youth empowerment center which is not what cswg had in mind so is there some clarity on this discussion i i'm sorry i i don't have any clarity i didn't check in with anybody about the youth empowerment center even though i created the agenda but let's have it back on the next agenda and then i'll have something for you or i can just ask and then email you guys what i find out whichever you prefer um again i'm still in the thinking about it being regionalized so that's where my thought is okay so even you know i hear what you're saying it's not a bad idea jennifer except that part of the cswg vision and the in the community vision was to make sure that um youth of color had not only a safe space but a space in which they in indeed could feel empowered and have some self-efficacy so um you know that's part of community safety right we want to think about the models of these larger cities and smaller the towns actually paying for uh lighting at basketball courts at night so that these young people are playing basketball instead of getting into mischief you know things like that it's part of you know it's part of parks and rec yet other things were discussed taking place there you know cultural events um you know the the young people organizing themselves uh into doing you know community uh types of service so i think it's it's something beyond a parks and rec type of uh commitment oh i wasn't saying that it was part of no i know you are i think it no i know i'm just thinking that the bipoc kids in sunderland and the bipoc kids in sunderland are going through things and so could benefit from a space like this and the their towns could contribute to the success of art you know we could all succeed from that absolutely absolutely so and we'd have to think through transportation but anyway we just need to find out what's going on with it so thank you and thank you yeah just i was looking at them there's a center i think it's in lowell it's u-tech um and yeah yeah they do like job readiness stuff and yeah just you know that um and they do have a component of like you know kind of mentoring and and trying to keep kids from getting into criminal activity or um or if they are involved in criminal activity helping the impacts of that be mitigated through more productive um opportunities for them and and i think they do some really great stuff they have some of their own like industries going on um where so they're learning kind of a important skill on connoorship um i was just looking at that the other day and i thought yeah i think i think what i've observed is that the decision makers have not made you youth empowerment center and bi-cultural, BIPOC center priority in their budget and so they're trying to go easy way uh contracted out to YMCA for example i'm just giving an example and that's not what CSWG had recommended it's beyond WREC it includes you know um like for example what you've just described Allegra so it's not just handing it over to you know recreational department i know there was some upper fund you know that's supposed to study or whatever to youth program that's not no you know um there's just joking us around the time council the school the um the finance committee the administration it's not a priority library it's priority for them you know that needs to be done before anything else that's the way i say it sounds like a lesson we keep putting pressure yeah exactly jennifer's going to find out some info yeah jennifer you have your hand up i was just going to say one of the things that i missed from being a youth a lot was the upward bound program so that's another way to consider things for the young and i'm like anytime i asked about what happened to upward bound i'm told that amherst was not included because we do not qualify for our low income but then i did but that's coming from you mass so i'm not like i don't know all the details so but then i read somewhere where it is it's not limited in the way of finances so i don't know how really to start but that is something that the it would be great to see um come back to life because my children could have definitely used it i it was it definitely kept me and a whole host of people out of trouble over the summer and there was something very empowering about being like 16 in on the umass campus and like going to your classes and then going to eat in the cafeteria so um and the memories that i have from there are you know very very positive and they and they're very alive so um for a lot of kids it was like their first time there was a cape cod trip that they ever went to cape cod so there was just a lot of really um positive out of the upward bound program and to see it amherst included in that again or the amherst area that would be wonderful right right so let's put it in one of our goals you know cssjc to explore and find out why we're being a student sure thank you for sharing that uh gen okay so where are we now in our agenda done all of the agenda items um we have our second public comment period okay um there are still three attendees if anyone would like to make a public comment please raise your hand Jen is your hand still up or okay i'm not seeing any hands from attendees i think there well there was a hand up it was my handy oh okay i'm trying to look through it all right well then i guess that is it if we don't have any public comments thank you for staying three attendees i did have a question and i don't know if Jennifer or perhaps Dorothy Pam could answer it i was trying to understand because i think some council committees appointments got changed and it looked like perhaps liaisons were changing to and i just wanted to verify that our liaisons are still the same or if they have changed who they would be um so Dorothy has her hand up hi Dorothy all right i'll avoid myself here okay yes this i'm allowed to say um the liaisons were changed uh i am still your liaison and pat de angeles is a liaison to a different committee okay so um that's that's just the point on the liaisons i would love to say something about upward bound because that's where i met bob working on upward bound i can't do that so i won't well we are glad to still have you as a liaison and thank you i'll disappear and it looks like we do have one more person with their hand up for public comment in the public we can't hear you jen oh there we go oh yeah hi can you hear me this is Vera cage yes okay sorry um i have to stop my car uh let's see um thank you for a very um wonderful meeting um i um you know i when i listen to c s j c s s jc meetings and the human rights um meetings i feel that that is the heartbeat the pulse of the community um and you know i i have so many comments but um i feel like like there needs to be recommendations um i think i think the the the Crest program um is well situated to to point out the gaps between government and how people are you know the gaps in social services um and if it is an economic issue that people cannot you know access transportation health care mental health resources housing all those things if if if if money is a barrier to receiving these these services that can um you know uplift communities and provide economic relief i think that the town really needs to pay attention and and move accordingly with how it it budgets um and how it it spends you know prioritizes how we spend our money um if there are you know if the school is not providing transportation you know it's it's something that Crest provides transportation but it's another thing to say okay Crest you can do this like immediate support but let's talk about the long-term solution because Crest is going to burn out you know um we can't over promise and under deliver we have to be realistic about what we can do right and so i think we need to tell we need to be be part of transforming institutions to better to better provide and and be applicable and you know to people's lives um if there's if there's because there are organizations out there if there aren't resources to refer people to that we the government our local government our local officials we you know all these appointed folks you all need to come together to to recommend um things and how we change the system right um to better support families individuals um i i i think that the cswg was able to get feedback from the community through very targeted focus group um surveys where the questions were asked by community members who identified with those um communities different various communities and and and was able to compile that um into a format that was you know shared with with the public um so i think that how the government you know wants to support people getting vaccinated for covid and all that you know recently they said oh everybody's going to get a $75 gift card if you come and and and and get vaccinated right and so i witnessed myself that the at the bank center there was like a line around the building and people like didn't have time to wait over an hour you know just to get vaccinated but it's that type of incentive and i'm really pleased that jennifer um moisten is there to speak from you know her her her place of experience to be because i know if she she knows how to get people to to come out she knows how to get people to provide feedback she knows that these certain things that we can easily do to get the surveys and the opinions that we need you know um or that we want to hear because i mean listening sessions or listening session they're going to attract who they attract um but if we really we should be really targeting the communities that we want to hear from that aren't coming out to listening sessions that aren't coming out to zoom meetings like we can do it because we've done it before the cswg has laid you know um an example of how that can be done and if you use the cswg the the crest folks to train them to to do that type of you know um information collection from people and provide people incentive to participate um you will you will get the feedback but i don't think that there's interest in in coordinating all of that because you know we we we have the people that can that can help make it happen we have you know you know the mary custards in our community who are who is an advisor to like a handful of student groups right we have you know retired elizabeth hey good you know who has you know access to people still living in the community you know um we have you know the family outreach um in in in town we have you know um amherst community connections if we wanted to learn about you know what people need for food security for housing stability for you know job economic stuff like we need to we have already the people in place you know organized already we just need to be where they are and ask them and and provide you know respect to them to provide their opinion because you know they want to know that it will go somewhere meaningful um you know when i hear about we need transportation to these events you know i'm thinking you know all this arpa money it could help really you know provide incentives for residents to create their own business models right and you know transportation can be an easy one for people to to get into and that will help with financial you know stability and all that stuff too so i mean there's a lot of things that the the town can do to support you know the work of social justice it takes coordination and implementation and support for existing groups and entities people are there to tell you you know like there's there just needs to be coordination that's all and so i'll i'll just leave it at that for now but you know i think there's potential and opportunity with crest folks to think about long-term solutions and transforming our systems and institutions and how we prioritize our our spending um to really uplift communities so that we don't burn out you know crest responders but we actually change you know how we behave as as government thank you thank you vera any other public comments okay so it sounds like that's a good way to end the meeting oh my goodness um so we have our next date February 8th the 10th February 10th and we have potential dates for um a partnership with crest for a listening session yes and we have various tasks to complete including you and miss pat are going to work on um about the the child type proposal yeah elder care yeah okay all right i was good thank you everyone thank you it is 938 more adjourning yes we don't have to vote on everybody thank you bye going to have dinner now