 attend. Yes, I will. Yeah. Great. That would be perfect. All right. So the recording has started. Excellent. And I'm gonna just pull up my agenda here. All right. So I'm calling to order the October 17th meeting of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly at 207 p.m. 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. And please see the instructions below. Actually, I didn't even need to say that, but I'm going fast. Okay. No in-person attendance. 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. And given that we have a couple folks in, I'm gonna do a sound check in just a second. And then we're gonna do a public comment period initially, and then we'll have one a little bit later as well. So let's see if everybody can be heard and can hear. So we'll start with you, Ms. Bridges. I'm right here. I can hear you. Great. All right. And Dr. Rhodes. I'm here. Okay. Great. And Dr. Shabazz. Yes, Shabazz is present. Great. And Hala. Hala is present. Okay, wonderful. And if you could just give me one quick second, please, I'm just gonna put my mute on for once. Alrighty. So I am going to call a period of public comment, and I'll just read our statement here. During the public comment period, the chair will recognize members of the public. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your full name, pronouns, and residential address. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair based upon the number of people who wish to speak. The AHRA will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during public comment, but we will be listening very closely. So if you would like to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. And Pamela will bring you into the room. Pamela, did you call on me? It's Mora. Yes, you're in, Mora. Okay. I just wanted to say that on Saturday, the Hammers Community Land Trust had a small but productive meeting, I think Irv was there, so he can add to this. We had about 15 people that attended, and it was a beautiful day with lots of other stuff happening. But we did discuss two things that will be becoming coming before our board in the near future. And one is can people who own land trust houses rent rooms in them? And currently, our land lease does not permit that, but we're thinking of changing that. And the other thing is establishing a policy for a repair fund for the homeowners. What kind of things will be covered for repairs and how that will be financed and things like that. So that's kind of complicated, but we need to work out a policy. So and hopefully we will be getting another homeowner for using the first time homeowner supplement in the near future. Thank you so much, Mora. And thank you for, you know, I'm so glad that Dr. Rhodes was able to be there and would definitely love to hear his experience with that. And thank you for sharing. It sounds like it was a wonderful day. All right. So if there's anyone else who would like to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. And we'll definitely come back and we'll have another period of public comment later. So something comes up. Okay. All right. So I was hoping that we could begin the meeting with actually Dr. Rhodes. Did you want to add anything about your experience on Saturday at the wall at the land trust walk? Nothing to add more than what I'm just said. Okay, great. I said tomorrow that I'm really looking forward to us continuing to strengthen the partnership with the land trust and invited them and encourage them to come to our listening session on the 27th. So I was hoping we could start maybe Hala or Dr. Shabazz could give if there is an update from BAM. I know there was a meeting, I believe last weekend. And if there is any feedback or any information that okay, hang on, we just need to make sure we're still think Dr. Shabazz just got he's probably switching over. He's in the attendees. Okay. So we'll just wait for Dr. Shabazz to come back on. So I think there was a meeting of the Black Assembly of Amherst, Massachusetts on Saturday. And I was hoping that Hala and or Dr. Shabazz may want to give an update about that meeting. So I'll start with you, Hala. Is there anything that you'd like to offer with respect to an update from the BAM meeting? Or would you prefer Dr. Shabazz? I will say we had a very thorough and great conversation. I'm sorry, I'm traveling. I'm flying back today. But so I think if Dr. Shabazz, you feel great giving them the updated because we did come to a conclusion that we'd love to share with the assembly. So thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Dr. Shabazz, would you like to add to that? Well, certainly appreciate Hala to come back. Anything I miss from it. But I just would say that it was a small hybrid meeting. We did have some in-person attendance. And it was our first attempt since we've been organized as BAM to try to provide for an in-person opportunity. And so we were at the New Africa House on the campus of the University of Massachusetts. And in that space, we were also able to bring in the Zoom and have the Zoom screen up as well. And so others, more people did attend that way on this occasion. So the discussion was good. The discussion was robust. You know, part of the kind of part of the discussion also hinged around the, what I would call the injury area, what we call the injury area of criminal punishment and ways in which we can be a, you know, in repairing can move toward being a less punitive oriented kind of town. And so some concerns brought in about that and where that might stand, some discussions around the who is owed, the eligibility question or who is owed. But again, I may just not be remembering right at this moment in terms of other kinds of conclusions or points. But we did affirm, you know, the need, the desire to continue in our outreach efforts. And particularly we're looking to turn out and support the event Bridge for Unity is organizing in November, looking at, you know, reparations for our African ancestors. And so I can talk more about that at another point. But Hala, was there something else, maybe more particular? I'm not recalling right now. I was sorry to interrupt you. I'm just going to make sure that Yvonne can be heard and can hear us quickly. Yes. Okay. All right, Hala. Welcome. No, you definitely covered it at the the conclusive thing I was feeling us about eligibility. But yeah, so you covered what I remember. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. Okay. Thank you so much for giving that that report. And you'll see on the agenda today, and this was something that I'm actually going to I'm going to pass it over to Dr. Rhodes in a minute. But Dr. Rhodes sent me an email. He had some thoughts and things that he wanted to make sure that we were getting to the top of our list here. And that included eligibility criteria as well as defining harm. So before we move into our engagement consultation campaign and updates on that, Dr. Rhodes, would you like to share a little bit about the email that you sent to me and why we have these things on the agenda today and what you're thinking? Well, you know, most all of those things came as I said to Michelle and email when these nightly visitations that come to me in relationship to unfinished business and my anxiety surface and come to the top. I have this habit of getting rid of them by putting them on to other people. So I emailed Michelle to let her know some of my thoughts and some of those and Michelle put some of those on the agenda. But the main thing is that I feel a crunch of time coming on and that there are some things that we really just must get done. And so my sense of anxiety was, hey, our expiration date is at the end of June. And there are really important things to have to get done. Among them, chief among them is eligibility criteria, the process for doing out, outlining and confirming the harm that has been done, etc., etc., getting those things done, codified and put down and writing and communicated to the public or whoever may we think will need that, especially obviously the town council. So those are those are the things that were on my mind and some of them are reflected in the agenda. Thank you, Dr. Rhodes. And I think if this is a good transition into talking about our upcoming listening session in the sense that I think we're going to receive, I hope we'll receive a lot of feedback and hear the voice of African heritage residents during that listening session. That will begin to give us a starting point for those discussions to happen. I don't think that means that we need to wait until that happens to start having those discussions. However, so I think more formally in our next meeting, once we've sort of gotten some of this engagement stuff, a little bit more formalized and solidified, then we can start to really have that conversation. One of the things that I heard you say Dr. Rhodes is the possibility of subcommittees. And so I just wanted to remind that and see was there was there a particular idea or strategy that you had in mind with respect to that? Yeah, one of the things that I realize is that there is a lot of work to be done. And we can't expect the chair to do all the work. And it's and you know, since we're limited in terms of the size of a subcommittee, it either have to be a subcommittee or one or two. And and my idea or my thought was that why not break some of these topics that I mentioned down and have them be the responsibility of an individual or two people to start to work on. That's basically what my thought was. Yeah. And so I'm going to check in with Pamela and Athena and perhaps Lynn even just to see what in terms of the number of people in our body where we would be safe, I think it would have to be limited to two to keep us really safe. But I'll get a little bit more direction about that. I also want to welcome Alexis. I'm so glad you're here. Can you hear us, Alexis? Yes, I can. Thank you very much. Okay. Um, so that's, that's great. Okay. And if there are other ideas, like I know that Dr. Shabazz has spoken about some framework for how we might be able to have those discussions. And so I would very much appreciate that in advance of the next meeting so that I can have that framework ready for us for those discussions. Okay, so let's just jump into our community engagement activities here that we have going on. And I'm going to just give you a bit of an update. Just pull up my excuse me. Okay, so I think our engage Amherst project page is looking really good. We've definitely highlighted and brought up our inclusion portal to the top. We've also created a link from the town of Amherst's HRA page back to the community or to the engage Amherst site. So that's something so that if folks are going to the town's website, they'll be able to come back to engage Amherst. And then we have our portal and we're continuing to receive folks that are signing up for the portal, continuing to get the word out about that in various ways. In terms of boots on the ground, I am organizing another effort this weekend with the senators at Amherst College. They would like to get out and talk to folks about the upcoming listening session in particular. So if anybody would like to join them this weekend or knows folks that would like to join them in going to more of the complexes and into neighborhoods, that would be fantastic. Just let me know and I'll make those connections. And then we have our listening session. That's what I really want to spend the bulk of our time finalizing here for us. And really strategizing with you all about how in these next couple of weeks, we can get the word out to as many folks as possible. So I'll start by sharing so far what I have done is it's been in, I think, every paper. So the Gazette Mass Live, the Amherst Indy. It's been in our committee calendar at the town of Amherst. I sent it to at this point, all of the PGOs at all of the schools. And so everybody has it, I've gotten some great response from that that they'll be including the information in their next newsletters, which is really great. And then I've also sent it out to some of our faith organizations. I sent it to the folks who created the Stolen Beam series who you know, through the JCA. And I have so I have sort of a running list of where I'm sending it and how I'm getting it out to folks. But what I wanted to ask is how we might strategize because it's possible that this might be our one and only in person, big listening session for full community. And I really want to get as many folks there as possible from the community, community leaders, town leaders. So I've also, of course, included Cress, Cress and Earl Miller plan to be there and and trying to get it out to other folks in the town as well. So wondering if we might be able to brainstorm like if each of us could identify two or three either individuals or people that we can commit to calling and talking to and and inviting them warmly to join us on that night. Dr. Rhodes. Two things. Unfortunately, this in our event corresponds and with the annual trivia. And that's unfortunate because a lot of community people will be involved with that when I say community people. I mean, the various groups usually send teams. And those teams come from all segments of the community. And a lot of those people are community leaders in one way or another. And and unfortunately, they're they're going to be involved with that. So that's one thought. The other thought is is that it's I know that I have compiled a list of 10 people who I've been firing emails off to individually and notifying them of this upcoming listening session. And I think if each one of us would do the same that that would cover a lot of people. Yeah, I think that that would be really great because we all have different folks from different parts of the community that we can reach out to. I do want to let me go to Pamela first and then I'll continue. Kamala, please. I just wanted to note that you guys are freezing. I don't know if anybody else had a frozen screen for a moment. I only heard a portion of Dr. Rhodes comments. So I will maybe chat with you or send your email later, Michelle, about the segments that I if I miss something because the screen is freezing on my on my on my end. Interesting. Okay. Yeah, for the minutes, absolutely. We can fill in the blanks there. And is anyone else having that problem? Ms. Bridges, yours was freezing as well? Yeah, for about 10 seconds, it was. Okay, just now it did when you were talking. Okay. Yeah, mine is not freezing over here. So I don't know. Let's keep an eye on it and we'll. So Pamela, Dr. Rhodes was talking about the conflict with the trivia be and and then also was talking about how we could reach people. And yeah, I I it's very unfortunate. I've been sort of going through my own personal struggle with the conflict of the trivia be being on the same night as our our listening session. And what's interesting is the trivia be I think has fallen on the same sort of timeframe every year. It's been around for a long time. And it's an excellent I've never personally attended it. But I know that it's a very, very fun event. And it's also for a great cause. However, they announced it very late this year. Assuming I think that that date was sort of a hold. And they didn't put it in the calendar. So when we were looking dates, it wasn't in the calendar. And I wasn't aware of it. And it was not brought to my attention, even with all the places that we put our event into. So it is unfortunate. I think we're still going to have a really great turnout of folks. And we're going to have town leaders and Mindy Dom unfortunately, by legacy, the the the sitting state rep is the host of that event. And so unfortunately, she won't be able to be there with us. So I've really been struggling with this conflict of dates. I am very happy to say that although Alexis was due to be there in her capacity at Amherst media, we were able to work it out with Jim so that Alexis can be with us that night. So I'm really happy about that. And unfortunately, I think Lynn and Anna, who are our council president and vice president will not be able to be there with us. But I know that there will be other counselors and other leaders and staff that will be there. So Dr. Rhodes, you still have your hand up. I'm wondering if if that was okay. So I like herbs idea if we can each come up with a list of five, 10, 15 people that we can personally call or email and invite them to come. I think you all have the materials. So but if you need anything, I can certainly help. And I'm wondering if there are any other organizations other than the ones that I mentioned that Oh, ABC as well is is an organization on my list. And I think I pretty much I think that's pretty much everywhere. Is there any? Oh, survival center, family outreach of Amherst, I covered a lot of bases, but I'm wondering if there are other places that we should be sending it to. And if there are any thoughts on that, or any other strategy about how to reach more folks and invite more folks to be there. I will also by the way be sending an email out to the folks on the portal that have said they want to be contacted, they're going to get a very special invite. And then perhaps, I think BAM has received the information as well. So that that will be happening. And then we'll also send the information out in the reparations for Amherst newsletter upcoming. Any other thoughts on that? Okay. So can we all commit to five, 10, 15 people that we're going to reach out to? All right, awesome. So just finalizing, I wanted to really make sure that we were all on the same page about the way that the evening is going to look. I did have the opportunity to be at the Hitchcock for an event yesterday. So I got to see the space and it's such a lovely place. As I said, the bus will be stopping there will be having temporary bus stop for that evening right in the right in their driveway there. So that that will be good. And so I wondered if anybody has an idea for just sort of the program for the night, how we might want to frame things, I have some ideas, but I certainly would love to hear input on that. Well, I think Dr. Shabazz said it right at our last meeting that this is an opportunity really for the HRA to be in listening mode. And whether that is, of course, I would imagine that we would want to begin with some sort of framework that while from my mind, the way that I would imagine or what I might imagine could happen is that there may be residents of African heritage that are there that want to speak about their experience being black in Amherst, and what reparations means to them, and all sorts of things. And I think we want to have some really good framework in the beginning, inviting that to be the priority of the evening, first and foremost. Yes, Yvonne. Well, you know, at the last meeting, we talked about having some materials that was about education, about what the framework would be. And I think it would be important to have those materials there for folks or distributed beforehand about like, I would say what our charge is and kind of goals at what we're at the information we're trying to get at, not to shut people down, but to actually give some context around what kinds of stories we're trying to gather that would be most helpful. So I think it's important for us to have that in advance and to have someone address that. I'm sadly, I mean, I would do it myself, except I can't come that day. I would. But, you know, I think there needs to be this sort of at the same, you know, like, setting up what the framework is, but also being welcoming and really welcoming people to share. Because this, you know, some of these stories are really difficult. You know, I was in a session, a diversity session where, you know, there were maybe five people of color in a room, you know, of about 35 people. And some of the stories that were shared by the facilitators who happened to be, you know, they were BIPOC. But I found myself tearing up because some of the stories that they were telling about like in adequacy and, you know, systemic racism around housing, which touches, you know, you know, like a chord with me because of my family experience, there's all of these triggers that make it so people will either share or not share. And so I think there needs to be this context around, share what you can. Everything is welcome, right? But we're within this context with trying to get at this kind of information. And this is the stuff that will help move things forward in a productive way. You know, and then we need to have a really great facilitator who can like move people, you know, move people in the right direction. And then, you know, like, have there be boundaries around like how much time people can talk and what, you know, like if someone is on the rails, it's like, yes, we hear what you're saying, but let's move on to someone else who can give us more information. You know, there has to be that very thoughtful managing of the event because we don't want it so that there's folks there who could talk and they don't. And we, you know, we don't want the time to be taken up with folks who might take up time when we want to get to other folks who have things to say. We're trying to make it so that it's, and I think that should be the number one thing that gets expressed to folks when they show up is that we're trying to hear everybody's stories. So we're trying to manage the time and get at things, you know, in a timely way so that we can get as much as we can. And that this is is one of a few. Like this isn't the only opportunity that folks might be able to, you know, contribute. But I guess my other part to that is I assume we're recording. I think you mentioned maybe like a CTV would be recording. I don't know. And that was a question actually that Lynn had asked me. So, Alexis, I see you thumbing up. Do you are your is someone from Amherst Media coming or? Yes, this intending on coming with an intern to be able to cover the event. But if that if it is too much of a in the with the intent that whoever could not physically come to the event that they would still get the information. But if it is intending on being a space where sensitive information, I don't know, I guess that we could tell them, but also if it's going to create an environment that is not going to be conducive to actually sharing that information, I could either not film certain parts, cut some out or just. Well, my my my idea is often people don't want to be on camera, but they don't mind being audio recorded. So maybe it's about having a audio recording instead of a video recording of of the event. And I mean, I leave that up to the folks who make decisions like that. But often people don't want to be on camera, but they don't mind if their voice, because, you know, you can't necessarily identify people from their voice, but often you can from their image, you know. So that was my question is, are we recording it, even if it's just for our own, you know, as a committee, being able to go back and sort of glean information from specific comments from the audio recording, you know, and then the, you know, at this event, talking about subsequent events so that folks know that they can come back, you know, or they can have folks, you know, they get an idea. This one's important because it's gonna it's gonna set the tone for the future ones that we do, right. So there might be people who didn't want to come or there, you know, I'm gonna go scope it out. And if they have another one, I'll bring my two friends with me or bring my three, you know what I'm saying. So having it be like, yes, we're doing this one, but the other two, maybe there's one more in the spring, or two more in the spring, and we can tell, we can announce that so folks can plan to bring people with them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, to everything you said, I think the idea of beginning by giving some context to our charge and really uplifting what it is we're trying to do here on this committee, first and foremost, and then also giving some sense of we're here to listen and so that we can listen to everyone, we'll have to have some management of that of the time. Yeah. And so we might think about creating a brief slide show. I'm not a big slide show person, but I can definitely work with somebody to do that just to show our charge and some other pertinent information to set the scene, so to speak, and in the context for the night. And in terms of recording, I really want to hear from other folks on that my preference would be that it would be only for internal use. But I am certainly not I would be very, very curious what other people think about that. I think I saw, hold on, let me just check because I can see what I think I saw Dr. Rhodes and then Alexis. Yeah. I keep hearing sharing and people sharing and the sensitivity of that. And which I applaud the question I have is is is this just for people sharing their stories or is it for gaining feedback from people in terms of the reaction as it regards reparations in general or in specific? Because I was trying to go back and I to find the agenda for that evening that was listed on the material material you sent to us, Michelle. And but I couldn't go back to find it on my phone. So I couldn't determine whether, hey, that was, in fact, going to be the overall objective of the evening or whether there was whether there were other objectives, objectives for the evening. And I think those need to be clarified because when people come they will come with some kind of expectations and we need to know we need to be able to try to manage those expectations beforehand. Absolutely. And I think that will be part of that opening statement and creating the framework. I think we're going to have a combination of people who want to share their experiences of being black in Amherst or otherwise just share experience of being a resident in Amherst. I think we're also going to hear people that have opinions about eligibility, about use of funds. The one area that I want us to be really aware about is the debate on whether local reparations or not local reparations, because as far as I'm concerned, we're doing local reparations already. So we'll be sort of spinning wheels if we have that debate. I think pointing back to our charge of this is what we were charged with looking at and we're already moving forward with the municipal reparations plan. But we may want to even figure out some more detailed framework. And so Alexis, please. Yeah, I was just going to ask, well, OK, I guess the first thing was a desire for like and I forget the word that we used to use at Hampshire, but like community guidelines. So that basically getting to what you all were saying about like, you know, like what happens if somebody is, you know, saying something maybe that's inappropriate or like, you know, how do we maybe like a posted list of guidelines or something that we can point back to something that we would agree. The agreements. That's about community agreements. Yeah, yeah. And so I think that that helps a lot also. My. And I also want to like kick it back to everyone else to hear their thoughts, too. But I guess my intention with the covering of this event, I wasn't intending on including the sensitive parts of it, but more of the informative pieces of it because the last time that we sort of talked about it apart from our entire meetings, which someone would have to watch, you know, be aware of, you know, the progression of it is, you know, a lot of people still are very uninformed about it and hear from us, you know, OK, where are we now? And then also hearing the questions from the community and getting those answers, I think, would be very helpful in sharing that information with our community when we're when we're talking about outreach and we're talking about spreading this information when we're relying on, you know, just the people who get there physically, especially when there's, you know, people are still dealing with COVID, people are still dealing with, you know, being scared to come out. So I think it's a part of accessibility that I don't want to ignore, but I also am very sensitive to the sensitive pieces of it and the the testimonials, though, I guess I'm curious if people and maybe this would be too much work in the in the moment, and maybe it would be too much and maybe a barrier to ask people to consent, but I don't know if anyone would be. Would want to be open and want the community to know what it is like and what people are really dealing with right now and have been dealing with. And and I think that that's potentially a creating a platform to be able to amplify those voices. So I I would definitely like to hear that, but I guess my initial intention was to film the panel and to get the informative pieces for the community specifically. Yeah, I really appreciate that. And I'm just so grateful that we're going to have you there in that capacity. And, you know, we did start to talk about media presence last week. And I think that that sort of is also part of what we're saying here, right, is do do we ask our media partners to be aware of quoting people without their permission or however we might want to look at that. Do we have different segments of the listening session, perhaps a segment where we're giving an overview and we're answering and taking questions about our charge and eligibility? And then do we have a separate segment of the meeting where we're really just listening to people's stories and maybe that piece is not going to be just sort of made available publicly unless that person says that they would like their voice to be amplified somewhere. But I do think it could be a lot in the moment to ask people and they may not know in that moment, you know, once whatever is expressed, it could feel. So, Dr. Shabazz, please. Requesting co-host status, please, to share screen. I formulated a slide to try and express a little bit of what I've been hearing and to see if we have consensus to move in that direction. You see here, what I've noted is and I'm adding this in, but perhaps to begin with a reflection and brief statement about the town's statement of its commitment to instructural racism, which gives rise to the entire reparative justice planning process as a part of the town. Then from, as people have mentioned, to perhaps flesh a slide or mention briefly what our actual charge is to find funding streams and to create a plan that is expected to go before the town via its town council and in general by sometime in June. Perhaps a statement, one sentence or what have you of what reparative justice is and reflection upon one, the town's support of federal action, whether the current House Resolution 40 or other forms of federal action, a presidential executive commission, a presidential commission by executive order that we could also just briefly outline what reparative justice is. Also, this is an occasion to bring up knowing the ropes and reflecting upon our ropes document with its emphasis on respect, on acknowledging oups and ouches that sometimes we might go into an area of saying things, expressing things in a way that impacts someone's feelings and there could be an ouch involved and then vice versa once acknowledging that we may have misspoken, we can say oups and then with the understanding of what that means and be able to kind of move on. And the other points on process being able to pass, not feeling put upon to say anything but that we are here to listen, so on and so forth, brief acknowledgement of knowing the ropes and then the note about the presence of media and whatever ground rules we've laid about that, that no one is to be quoted on the basis of their statement in this public hearing without the media speaking to that person after the event is over and getting their expressed consent to publish any words or any remarks that a speaker makes, that we can just establish this is what we've requested of any members of the media that are present and certainly we wanted you to know that that may be the case. And then finally, overall we've mentioned the need for facilitation. Part of that facilitation is not only the ability to kind of ask someone to pause or to rein it in or to stop if they're going into an area that's clearly out of bounds, that's off the ropes, if you will. But at the same time to just facilitate in the way of pointing to time, that it's three minutes with grace. If you're in a real flow, you're making it in a real point, everybody's kind of hinging on your words. Well, all right, we ain't gonna come in and break the flow and talk about three minutes. But if you are at some point, kind of going beyond what's necessary to make your point, then everybody's kind of starting to tune out, then okay, excuse me, can you kind of wrap up that we'll try to do it as gracefully as we can? Those are some of the things that I've heard so far relative to how we can manage this event and make it a great listening session. And so I just wanted to flash that. The other area is the possibility of as something of a framework to note the five injury areas of systemic oppression and slavery as acknowledged within the reparations movement in Cobra, NARC, other groups, it's within international. Some of this spines expression within international protocols around reparations, but it's the broad areas of criminal punishment, crime and punishment as an area of disparity, our age of mass incarceration that we're in. Secondly, education or the so-called achievement gap, the health or so-called health disparities, public health disparities, wealth, which is often looked at, particularly in terms of land, housing as the most common forms in which people in the country acquire or develop wealth that is money beyond income. The income that you need to live on, that wealth is sometimes talked within the area of the housing gap, the homes and land ownership gaps. And then finally, peoplehood. And I keep deferring to go into that because I could talk all night, but that's where a lot of things like somewhere I was reading recently, this notion of the symbolic conquest of public space, how is public space? Okay, not in the form of land now per se, but public space in terms of public memory, in terms of public, the culture of the people, how are, where's black people in that form of public space in Amherst? So I'll just leave it at that and say, these are just some notes that I have toward the listing session. Dr. Shabazz, thank you so much. That was really, really helpful framework and really great just taking in everything that I heard too. So let's use that, let's save that I think and have that be our framework for the night. And Alexis, yes. Yeah, I'm so sorry that I'm gonna have, I have another meeting at three, but I just wanted to ask if we knew about the audio situation. If not, I, you know, how to reach me, but it would be great to know about that. And if I need to bring any microphones or anything in order for people to be able to hear us or anyone better, it would be great to know in enough time in advance. Absolutely, I am on that. I will contact the Hitchcock Center. There was another matter I wanted to, being at the event yesterday, they had some volunteers helping with parking. I think there are some logistics that we're gonna need to cover. We really have no way of knowing if five people or 500 people are gonna come. And so because we don't have the answer to that question, we have to be prepared, I think. I do think that this is going to be an event that will have a large turn up. And so I'll, I think microphones in that case may be necessary. And so I will certainly check in on that and let you know. Thank you. Dr. Shabazz, I see that your hand is up. I wasn't sure, okay. Sorry. No worries. And so just, we have another item on the agenda, our institutional partners. And I just wanna mention in terms of the listening session, that again, we will have members of the Student Senate from Amherst College. I am going to personally reach out to folks at Hampshire College, which we really haven't connected with at all. Unless somebody has, like Alexis, if you have a contact at Hampshire, then you think that it would be better for you to reach out or you know somebody you'd like me to reach out to, please let me know. Maybe Pamela has an idea about that. Oh, yeah, Pamela, please. Yeah, so Jen and I just met last week with the chief diversity officer who actually has a different title, but the vice president over at Hampshire. So I can communicate with her anything that you'd like for me to share with them. That would be awesome. If you could send the JPEG of the information with the listening session. And you know what? I'll send you a little blurb that I've been using for everybody, Pamela, and then that way you can take from that. That would be really great. I also wanted to share that I had the opportunity last week, I think it was, I'm losing track of time, to meet with the dean of the Fine Arts and Humanities Department at UMass, Dr. Barbara Prothammer and the associate dean Joyce Bowman. And we had a really, really good discussion about ways that the students at UMass can be involved in this process and ways that we can work together to educate our community through the Fine Arts and Humanities Department. And it was a really, really positive. And I believe that we'll have some further development of that and more collaboration as we go along. So Pamela, I see that your hand is still up. Just checking in with you. Good, okay. So let me just take a quick look here. I know there's some things on our agenda because agenda, I think Jennifer was out for a little bit and some, there were some different holdovers maybe on the agenda from that, like for example, the annual stabilization transfer. That is being, we already discussed that. That was unanimously recommended by the finance committee last week in the amount equivalent to the cannabis tax revenue from FY22, and it will be voted this evening at the town council meeting by the full town council. So that's on there. The CDBG should have dropped off a while ago, but that's okay. We'll make sure for next time. And so I'm gonna just ask once again for public comment. Oh, Dr. Shabazz, I'm sorry. I see your hand. Yes, just quickly, in terms of this image here, where are we? Are we on this side? Yeah, so that's exactly right. Like apparently that last night it was opened up. So that can be two classrooms or it can be opened up to one. And so- It's got a like a divider that can collapse. Yeah, that's how I understand it. Yeah. And what's kind of the general capacity we're looking at 60 here or? You know what, that's a great question that I should have an answer to and I don't. So I'll find out, I'm not sure what their maximum capacity is for the two spaces combined. And they do have another, I think third classroom that's separate where the last night the auction items were in. So if there were to be, we should have a plan here if there are more people than capacity and all. There certainly is that kind of logistical matter we might wanna look at, but just going with what we have and just thinking whether, because my last time in there of course, many years ago, pre-pandemic, was an event we organized, Kathleen Anderson, myself, some others had organized their community summit. And I seem to recall us being in a circle maybe, you know, or there could be audience styles chairs and if the AHRA members that can wanna kind of sit in one area up on within an audience framework or if we can go more circular, we'll see there might even be like pillows on the ground you can do, but it's just, yeah, that'll be something to sort of begin cause where are we now? We're with like the 18th today, so this is what in? 17th, yeah. 17th, so this is in 10 days or? Yeah. Okay, so we might have to break down whatever help I can give, I'll just leave it as that, you know, round logistics, just give me a shout what art I can do. Well, you know what would be great, Dr. Chabaz, if I can organize with my dear friend who's the director of development there who has helped us so much with this, if I can organize with her for the two of us to meet there and just go over a plan so that we, you know, have an idea of how we want things set up and things like that, would you be open to that? Okay, great. Dr. Rhodes? Yeah, one of the things that we need to check out with that is whether or not they will set up those chairs or are we gonna have to have some help setting up those chairs? And if so, we need to know that so that we, i.e. people in this assembly, can be present to do that before people arrive. As I remember from events that I have participated in and also sponsored, we had to set those, set that up ourselves and those chairs and things were made available but you need to know where those chairs are gonna be located and how one accesses them and then the second other side of that is setting it up as taking it down. So anyway, there are some tasks that we are gonna have to be tasked with with this in terms of this event. It's not something where they are automatically going to provide all the kinds of services that one would expect. I don't think that's a part of this. You know, you kind of feel bad for us to say, let's bring some bottled water there. Right, yeah, well, I wouldn't suggest that's something else. They wouldn't be happy about bottled water. They're living, building, they're beautiful living, building. Are the Ameson College students available to help with that? I believe they would certainly be happy to help with that and so that's a great suggestion. I'm speaking with Cyrus tomorrow so I'll ask him if he can arrive at six o'clock. I'll bring my thermos. Yeah, yeah, I'll figure that out. I think they have a something or other. I forget, I don't remember, but I'll check in with Kim and see. Yeah, they might have one of those big, like cooler things you fill with. Sister Michelle, you would just say yesterday. I know, but it was a catered event so I will tell you that their toilets take a really long time to flush. I am not joking. These are important items, right? This is what you make yourself. That's right, that's what you get with zero energy building. Yeah, everybody be ready Amherst, because it is something. All right, great. So I think that about covers everything. In terms of future agenda, it sounds like I'm gonna get and remember just as the rule always to send anything to only myself, Pamela and Jennifer in terms of if there's eligibility and use criteria framework that you'd like to be brought forward for the next meeting. And then also, of course, anything else. But that will be on our next agenda and we can start to, which is gonna be on Monday, okay? So we'll have a meeting next Monday, which is the, let's see, the 24th. And that will be right before our listening session. And then. That's the week I can't attend. So I'm gonna be here. I'm gonna be a check for some last check-in on the. Yeah, on the 24th, yep. And there may be a couple other agenda items that are one other agenda item that is coming to mind. But I'm gonna wait to talk about that one until we have, I have more sense of it. So I don't have anything else other than those items right now, but if something arises, please just email me. And are there any other, let me just go ahead and quickly call another period of public comment. If you would like to make a public comment at this time, I think everybody that was here was here when I read the statement. So I'm not going to read it again, but if you'd like to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. All right. So not seeing any public comment. Are there any other member announcements or anything that a member would like to add before we adjourn? Oh, sorry, Dr. Schauss. Just with respect. Yeah. Just mentioning that the HR 40, the commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African-Americans. Sheila Jackson Lee was recently speaking on where the legislation is, where the efforts are. And it's noted that we have toiled and struggled, told our people to take the bag off your head because there's a misinterpretation in the whole community. The study is the roadmap for the physical and mental trajectory of reparations. The bill did, of course made it through a hearing, but has not been scheduled any further in this legislative year. And so it's something that she is still out there actively seeking to push within the Congress. But at that point, she's really calling for, in a recent piece, calling for broader societal acceptance of reparative justice, of working for reparations and that we have to do more as we are doing here locally to try and educate, to try and pave the way for greater societal acceptance of action at the federal level. That's all. Thank you. And that's been on our agenda every week to do an update on that. So as just a standing item, so really appreciate. Is there a recent piece that she, like an opinion piece, or was it a? It was a news coverage five days ago that I can send out to you. Please do, yeah, and we'll make sure everybody gets it. All right, any other comments before we adjourn? All right, well, thank you everyone. It was really another great meeting and I'm adjourning at 3.09 p.m.