 Thank you. So this is Senate government operations. It is Friday, January 28th, and for those of you who are watching, we don't normally do the live transcription, but if we have a request from one of our witnesses to do that, we are happy to do it. And the reason we don't normally do it is because we've found in the past that some of the transcription ends up being not at all what was said and it's very poorly transcribed and we don't want to confuse anybody thinking we're talking about something that we're not talking about. But we have had a request today, so we are using it. So for those of you who are watching. So we are going to look at S-155 and we've been asked in particular, I believe, to talk about the Office of Community Engagement, which was normally, originally called in the original bill that we were drafting was called the Office of Community Relations, and that just seemed to one-sided. It wasn't looked at as a kind of an interactive department or committee, and so we changed it to engagement. And I worked with Representative Hal Colston, who's on the House Government Operations Committee, to come up with the language that's in there now, a real discussion around what it would be. But we've talked about maybe having a little more detail about that and how it works, and then just anything you have to say about the bill in general, which is a bill that would change the Department of Public Service into an agency and remembering that this bill is simply a reorganization bill. It doesn't address the many, many issues that we are working with, law enforcement and emergency management and fire and safety. The issues that we're working with all of those entities would exist whether we had a department or an agency. So with that, I am going to say that at 1.30, or when Gail sends us, I don't know if Senator Rom Hinsdale has done it this way, but at 1.30, each of us, unfortunately, are going to be asked to go to another committee. I will be gone for just a few minutes and I know Senator Rom Hinsdale won't be gone any longer than she needs to, but we've been asked to go to another committee to just present a bill that we've introduced. So knowing that, I just wanted you to know that if we disappear from your screen, it isn't because we're not interested. It's because we've had to hop over someplace else. So with that, I think that who we have on today is Susanna David. Oh, yes, Senator. I just want to have a request for Gail, I think I'm trying to open up the bill that we're going to be talking about my iPad. It's not allowing me to open it from our, from our website. So I wonder if you could, can you email me a version of S 155 or somehow make it so I can read it. Yeah, I'll email it. Sometimes when we post a link, it doesn't work so that is probably what says the URL cannot be found. So anyway, I'd like to have a copy of in case I want to look at it. Surely. Thank you. Sorry about that. And remember, we also will be, we're only doing this. I'm not sure. I wrote down what times we're doing this. But I can't see it on my pieces of paper here. So I don't remember how at some point we're jumping to we have this down until 215 and we're going to go with comfort information concerning the initial rest in charge of a child. Yes. Okay. Great. So, um, so we also are going to be putting putting this on the agenda, probably not until the week of the February 14, I think it is that week. So, um, with that, I'm going to. On our schedule today, Susanna Davis and a doctor a ton and will the white. So, if you can talk to us about the bill in general as you feel about it but also particularly around the department or I think it's called an office of community engagement. It's, it's in the department, it would be in the agency, but and work for a community engagement around all the departments which is law enforcement fire and safety emergency management are would be the three kind of departments so who who is Susanna I think you're first on the list so it first of all I should say any of you have any time constraints and want to go first. No, okay. Madam chair, I just want to make sure if if I wasn't sure if will the whites also a doctor and if she might want to be called doctor. I just couldn't remember. You're not okay. I just didn't want to miss, you know, represent. I only said Dr a ton because I have such a hard time with a tons last name and we are friends so I, but um, Okay, I think just like Susanna we both hold jurors doctorates. Yes, yes, I don't want to be called doctor. All right, thank you. Sarah Parkson did you have a. Yeah, I was just going to say we don't usually use on the agenda anybody's suffixes so it's, it's unusual, but we're glad to know why Dr a ton is being called Dr a ton today. Always good to have the banana belt represented. And those are not banana trees in his bat in behind him there. It's just where he lives. Susanna, would you like to kick off here. Yes, thank you very much. When I started this everybody Susanna Davis racial equity director for the state. I will be brief in my remarks because you have other representatives who are probably going to speak much more in detail. Then I will about what this reward bill and the resulting activities will mean for the state. But I just want to talk a little bit about the benefit that it could have from an equity perspective. So, I first want to reiterate chair whites point that this is a reward bill it's not the totality of the reforms. I'm sorry. No, the first thing I'm going to do is state that I will try to speak slowly and clearly because we are transcribing. So please join me in the mindful that it takes everything I have to slow down. Not only in your speech, but just to slow down. Okay, go ahead. Thank you. So I reiterate the chairs point that this is a reorganization bill, but it does not represent the totality of the reforms that need to happen in community safety. To say community safety, I don't just mean policing and law enforcement. I mean, all aspects of daily life and local state and federal governance that contribute to the community sense of safety and cohesion. And that includes everything from housing stability to transportation access to whether we have street lights or sidewalks. So, on this piece specifically, I'm here to speak in support of a bill that would create an agency of public safety. One key to equity work is the concept of consistency. Not saying this, because as we know equity doesn't mean treating everybody the exact same, but rather treating people or governing in such a way that people's needs are met. So when we think about equity, consistency is a very large piece of that. Of course, we respect the desire for local control and the ability to adapt and flex based on local and regional needs. However, at the state level, we very much have an interest in consistency, uniformity and some degree of predictability in the way that people can expect to be treated. Around the state. This is something that would also provide benefit to local leaders as well. Because it does help to add resources and support from the state. Within a structure that is years old and that has I'm struggling to phrase this is add support and structure within the state existing agency structure. Which helps to create again that level of uniformity and predictability. It also helps us to streamline resources. So that any decisions that get made, we can minimize the disparate impact that those decisions might have on various law enforcement agencies. I'll explain that a little bit better. It is the case that sometimes when we consider a public safety reform. Let's take last year's conversation about demographic data collection. One of the things we hear in response is XYZ local agency cannot afford to do that. Or Jkl law enforcement agency does not have the staff or technical expertise or capacity to do that. There is a disparate impact with respect to some of the reforms we intend to implement. And so by being able to restructure government in a way that better cradles the law enforcement agencies. We are also able to minimize that disparate impact and ensure that the agencies across the state will have access to the same or similar resources and support. It is often the case that I am contacted by members of the community from around the state. I've been told often with a great deal of desperation frustration and fear that the police department of ABC County or element OP town is doing something to cause harm or is failing to respond to a conflict or a problem or is refusing to take a report in my case. And it's a difficult position to be in to have such limited options for how to respond from the state level. So being able to recognize that the state has an equity director position. And the state has a fair and impartial policing team that is dedicated to the FIP policy. It seems to me that we can either put those roles in all the agencies across the state, which has an operational and a fiscal impact. Or we can bring those agencies around the state to those existing roles and offices. Anyway, it's clear that across the state, we must do better on equity, particularly in policing. And this bill presents us an opportunity for consideration on how to do that. Now, speaking of the fair and impartial policing team and the potential for a community engagement office. I will also address that directly by saying that the potential for the office of community engagement is great. The things I want to remind us in these discussions are number one, mind the gap. Beware of the power dialectic that often form when we think about community engagement with law enforcement. It's really easy. And I'm coming from a jurisdiction where the big novelty is let's have uniformed officers play basketball with young brown kids to show that we're cool and we're not going to hurt you. And I get it as a strategy. I get it. It's one aspect of community engagement. At the end of the day, it sends a message when we interact with community engagement officers law enforcement officers. Are they dressed in plain clothes? Are they wearing uniforms? Are they armed? Are they not armed? Do they have the full force and weight of the law behind them? Or are they in positions? Are they in civilian positions? All of these things matter. And they create a power dynamic that if unaddressed impedes their ability to make meaningful connections with the community. So that's the first thing that I asked us to consider is to remember that there is a power dynamic at play. And as we consider the formation or build out of an office of community engagement that we keep its structure in mind. And the second point I want to make is related to that, which is that we must insist on process equity, both in that office's practices and also in the very formation of the office. The second thing in more plain terms is if we're not including the community in any decision making surrounding the formation of an office of community engagement, we will fail. To say the community, I don't just mean people who have retired from the force and people who are currently in government and people who have never been arrested and people who look like everyone else in the state. I mean the people who do not have that direct line to government. You are not the same 12 brown faces, you always invite into these conversations. And as we think about engaging the community in this process. Let's also keep in mind that we're asking people to perform labor to be visible and present and vulnerable. And as such, we must consider fairly compensating people for their time and their energy that I think is everything I wanted to cover today. I am happy to address any questions or feedback you might have for me. And afterwards, I will apologize for needing to sign off but I do look forward to watching the rest of the footage from our time today. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm going to say do we want to ask this is on questions now or wait until we've heard everybody or the, I think that the center around him so I think I saw your hand. Yeah, I mean, I don't watch the testimony to so if, if, if Weldon a time want to answer this after I go I'll go back and watch. I don't have to. Um, one of the things that I was struck by when I was looking around the current Department of Public Safety website is the very internal complaint process. I can say as a person of color, you know who is arrested at a young age that that was one of the first things I looked for something horrible happened to me I was racially profiled, and I would like to figure out how to right this wrong happened to other people. I'm very disappointed by the language on the Department of Public Safety website I don't think it's becoming of an agency to have a complaint system that basically says the top law enforcement officer will decide if this is something that that is worthy of further discussion deliberation or remedy. And so I think I could only support some like this and appreciate what you say Susan about including the community. If a new transparent process for managing complaints was put in place as part of this department or this particular piece of the agency. I think that would be really important because otherwise, I don't know how you engage the community and they bring real harm that's happened to them to you, and then you say great. Our agents, our commissioner, our secretary will decide whether or not that is worthy of addressing. Susano, would you like to respond. Yes, I would completely agree. I would completely agree. This is a good model from other jurisdictions that we can look at to figure out how to create more transparency in the complaint and the review process. And I recognize that, of course, government has an interest in protecting information that may be sensitive either for personnel reasons or other privacy reasons or just strategy reasons from legal perspective. I do agree that a huge part of trust building with communities that have been historically oppressed by government and by law enforcement must include revision of complaint procedures and other procedures that to the public feel very opaque. The short answer is, I agree and would be very happy to support to participate in conversations about how to build that out. I guess my my question and then I think both the senator around his own I have to run, but my guess my question is, does that belong in the reorganization bill or is that something that builds out after the during that. Is it part of the reorganization or is it an issue that has to be addressed with or without the reorganization that's, that's my only question I don't disagree with any of that. I'm chair, just my opinion and you know, I'm, maybe I'm, I'm not the best opinion giver here, but I would suggest that that probably belongs outside the discussion of the reorganization, because I, I don't see a reorganization plan, hinging on how we modify a complaint procedure. I think if it's something we can commit to doing and doing early, then perhaps we can move forward with the reorg discussion and add that to the very top of our list for early priorities afterward, but that's, of course, one person's opinion. Okay, but we could in the, in the, in the section that deals with the community engagement office we could say we could emphasize the need for engaging people in the structure of that community engagement office and that that outreach that would be necessary, keeping in mind the two things that you talked about. Okay, okay, because that is part of the reorg. Okay, I, I am going to run and turn this and I really apologize a ton and I'm, I will be back absolutely as soon as I can I'm trying to get some money for the towns out there. From cannabis if we ever have any cannabis. But I will be back as soon as I can I'm going to turn it over to sender Polina. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to say before we move on that I think the question of whether the community engagement offices defined before we vote on the bill move the bill forward is an important question for some folks because it's actually in some ways, most of the reorganization looks sort of logical. The new thing is the Office of Community Engagement so I think for some people to vote to support the bill or not will hinge on how well we define the Office of Community Engagement before we actually vote on the bill. So I think you know you're, you're right and what you're saying about trying to move forward beforehand but there will be people who will be saying well the new thing here is the Office of Community Engagement. It's going to work which is actually why we asked you folks come in today to help answer that question so I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. And that is a very fair point. It's, if we want to do this correctly and inclusively, then we should have community input before we finalize the structure for the office, unless of course, we, and I'm sorry for not, I'm thinking out loud here so it might be jumbled but. That's okay. There are the parameters that we must set through legislation. And then there are the details that don't need to be legislated. So I think that to the extent that we can set up a good skeleton that must be done through statute. Let's do that. I think it would be uncomfortable moving forward with too many details without being able to go through a proper public engagement process on the rest of it. I certainly agree with that I think we would all agree with that. Senator Clarkson have a question or comment. I would agree with both of you. I think what we can do in legislation is ask identify and call for the process of establishing the community of the Office of Community Engagement and and and really identify what we hope will happen before it's established so that there's a process in place to make sure that the community is engaged in its creation. So we can lay out like I think there's honestly a skeleton process. Yeah, a vision for what vision for what it should do. And I think we can do that in the legislation so that people would be comfortable that they know that there is a process that will be set in place to a sort of a roadmap for how to get there. Okay, so you time I'm not going to try to pronounce your last name, but if you could identify yourself so we can hear it anyway and then give us your thoughts. That's fine. I'm a ton that's read and long ago I am the co director of fair and impartial policing community affairs, or the state police, and I'm also chair of the art app. Thank you for having me here, although it seems a bit anticlimactic at this moment, because Susanna said every I have an outline sitting here, and Susanna hit every point, although not in the order that I had them in. What I would like to add to this is perhaps a bit narrative. I think that's the one of the co directors of fair and impartial policing. I get perhaps three emails a week from various people around the state, asking for me to intercede in the kind of matters that director Davis just mentioned around some kind of certainly I'll say to be fair alleged unfairness and partiality on the part of law enforcement. I am then in the unenviable position of having to disabuse these people of my power, and let them know that all I can do is talk to the state police with the state police and about the state police. Sometimes these discussions get broader. And we talk about the way that Vermont as a whole tends to like these sort of decentralized political structures and such and has historically been that way for many years. It doesn't feel very good when you are not only a woman of color, but queer and are in a parking lot and feel that you have been thrown up against your car and handcuffed in public for something that you actually didn't do. When I say to them that they might perhaps the next line of defense if you want would be to go to the select board, but frequently the coziness between the select board and law enforcement makes that a really unpalatable option. I think that the whole idea of the agency could put the state in a position that the kind of policing you get let's say in Charlotte is the same kind of policing you get in Wilmington is the same kind of policing you get in the Hartford. It also makes things much clearer for officers that here is what we expect as a law enforcement officer in the state regarding fair and impartial policing. This is what we expect now we can sit and talk about the fair and impartial policy, but I would point out that I get these three letters every week. Not every week, but close to every week. In spite of the fact that there's a fair and impartial policy out there. In spite of that fact, these letters still come to me. And they're really some of them quite heartbreaking. I think we are contemporaneously witnessing around the country, a fracturing. That is sometimes gerrymandering and such, which means that people of color nationwide cannot expect the same treatment depending on what state they're in. I would say one of the things that this agency stands to be able to do is to keep that, at least internally within the state to a minimum, certainly around issues of public safety. And I think right now, communities of color, neurodivergent communities, communities of gender and sexual minorities are in sore need of a standardization of interaction. Exactly. Exactly. And it's nothing. It's nothing that many Caucasians in the United States can't expect. And I think that it's time in the state of Vermont, regarding public safety for that fracturing to stop. And this seems relatively organic, I guess I would say, given everything else that's gone on. I think there are a lot of aspects of this bill, this initiative that fit in quite comfortably with age. God, I'm going to get it wrong 546, which is the bill that was based on the report that the Rdap submitted in November. The Rdap 2 is a bill in which standardization is really that uniformity is really at the forefront that the idea of collecting data, being able to put the data together into some cohesive dashboard that allows people to get a sense of what is in fact going on around the state is rhetorically a very similar bill to this. So can I ask, when you talk about the fractionalization, different areas of the state being the different levels of compliance, let's say, do you think it's because of the difference in training difference in resources difference in people's recognizing that fair partial impartial policing is actually a policy. I mean what's missing in some of these places. That's an excellent question. I could run for office if I knew the answer to that. I think it's probably all of the above. I think it's all the above, I mean we have what 78 agencies statewide, I always get that number wrong. Yeah, something like that, yeah. And I would imagine that there are probably very many different reasons for the problems that we're mentioning here. And I would imagine that every one of the issues that you've just ticked off is an issue with at least one department around the state. When you get those emails, I'm sorry, I mean to interrupt. Go ahead. Well, when you get those complaints, those emails three week, and you have to admit to people that you don't have all the power to make things right. How are those issues resolved right now. In other words, we hope that the Office of Community Engagement will have a policy and a process that involves the public and whatnot. I'm just wondering what happens today. Frequently, not a lot, to be honest. I can tell people what their resources are within the state. I can tell people about the Human Rights Commission. I can tell people about those sorts of possibilities leak Vermont legal aid in certain cases. Beyond that I don't have a lot I can do. I'm referring people to other resources. I'm referring people to other resources that in fact have the power to do what the person the interlocutor wants me to do, but which I can't do, because I don't, I don't work for. Name your department. Who do you work for by the way. State police. Okay. Questions before we move on. One other thing I would point out here is an issue that's come up repeatedly. And again, it's around data. Executive director Davis sort of alluded to it at one point. The issue with collecting the data I think is really, really important that when we're talking about agencies that have perhaps two or three people. And that data collection can be not merely onerous, but frankly, well not impossible. I got a good lesson in this over the last, I would say two years, working on two different our DAP reports, both of which were profoundly concerned with data. Another good answer to all of this is I learned really quickly, how impossible it is to get data together, not only to identify it, but to collate it, put it together and then God help you. At least people are not analyzing it it's going off to the Academy, but even they don't have the resources they need to do this as carefully as they'd like. So I simply want to put out there as a, as a something to remember that everybody does not have the same resources that too is a kind of standardization, a problem around uniformity. So again that issue comes up, and I just want to raise that. And that's really all I have to say. Susanna said it. Senator Clarkson. I couldn't agree more. I think a data is power but you have to be able to analyze it or it's nothing it's just sitting there in a box or on a disk or in a computer. So, you're absolutely right. I think one of the pluses here is that hopefully an agency would bring up all the things you and Susanna have discussed uniformity predictability consistency, and more resources. And so, I couldn't agree more fully because until we analyze the data that we collect. And until we commit to looking at it over a long period of time and one of the real benefits of the fair and impartial policing work is that actually for this state. We've actually been on it now for 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah. I can't tell you how few. It's not exactly a longitudinal study, but it's about as close as we get. And until we commit to doing that kind of consistent follow through, and then analysis, if the data collection doesn't mean much. I applaud you and it's a good reminder that we need resources for exactly that. And we talk about that often in this committee is in. One of the things we've talked about about this reorganization would be that there would be more administrative help available to the different divisions or offices. Exactly, which is where you bring you collect your data and you bring it back to the office and there'd be people there who are willing and able to qualify to deal with the data and make sense of it. Right. Well, and, and maybe that's one of the with the process of community engagement that we hope to bring to bear in the creation of this office of public engagement that that is one of the requirements is that is the resources for not just data analysis and management almost like a many research center embedded into the agency is essential for us to know over time what we're doing now, how we're improving if we're improving. And then of course, the additional piece, I would hope would be how we improve not just measuring it. Right. Well, thank you for now, will the white. Thank you for being so patient. You're muted, you're muted. Thank you my name is will the white. I've enjoyed the conversation and I was really engaged so no need to apologize for my or recognize my being patient it was very interesting conversation. I am the founder of an organization called Matt freedom, which is a civil and human rights advocacy organization that's dedicated to the mission of ending the discrimination and oppression of people based on their perceived mental state, more commonly referred to in the dominant culture as mental illness. And I also, in the course of doing that work was retained by the Department of Public Safety as a policy and training consultant to help with training law enforcement officers. Supervisors administrators dispatchers EMS and fire on the state's new use of force law and the statewide use of force policy. So I did that that work took place in August and September of 2021. And for some reason, since then I've also taken on other roles. So, for example, for some reason. I don't know I get I get emails say hey can you do this or can you do that you're available. Good. And so I you know I also became the final author of the Department of Public Safety's language access plan. I also put together the department's language access training for staff and supervisors. I'm also writing the state's playbook for opening up alternative care sites so we should we need search capacity because right now we don't have anything committed to writing. And I'm also just being invited into conversations about policy in general. So I'm going to report to Deputy Commissioner Jennifer Morrison and I'm in frequent contact with Commissioner Shirley. And I say that because I will you know I want you to know that that that's really kind of the source of my, my information and my engagement with with these with these issues. The first time I ever heard Commissioner Shirley speak I was quite annoyed with him. And because you know he was talking about people with mental illnesses putting them in boxes and I wondered I wonder what box he would put me in. And I tell you that because I recently had a conversation with Commissioner Shirley about this and I told him the first time I heard them speak I was quite annoyed by his conversation, what he what he communicated to the legislature. And he didn't display any defensiveness and took it as a learning opportunity. And so, I have to say that my, my work with the Department of State Public Safety is probably the first time in my life, where I have not been tokenized and marginalized and objectified. I feel like I am a full partner I feel like I'm respected not because of the color of my skin. Or because I'm a psychiatric survivor, but they find something valuable in my perspective for, for me as who I identify my identity as well the white. So, I think it's important for you to understand that because that's where I come from so when I, you know whatever position I take on this bill if any. It's really because of the people that I have met in Department of Public Safety who I've come to trust as people who are thoughtful earnest, open minded, and people I'm willing to work with. So, I've read the bill. I don't know if I've read it as carefully as I might because some of the things that people have said in the bill to describe them describe the bill is not how I read the bill. How I read the bill is you're simply reorganizing state government state resources and trying to bring in similar things under one heading. I think it's like similar to what the agency of human services that has the Department of Mental Health in it in a department that I deal with quite a bit. I don't see how this would affect small law enforcement agencies in Vermont. And I think what's happening in Vermont is policing is very local. You have what I think of as a very professional police police agency, which is the Vermont State Police, and then you have the smaller, like in my town we have a part time constable sometimes might have two people and I see problems with those structures. Senator Polina, you asked the question, you know, what do we need, you know, in these, you know, these smaller agencies that I think do have a lot of problems. And I, you know, some of it I think is cultural because when you see many different officers in the same small agency engaged in the same kinds of excessive force you have to think of that as culture. Some of it is they're small, they don't have the same, you know, they don't have the same background either educational experience to be able to engage in an investigatory process that would result in somebody being relieved for their duties and so they don't do it. So I think as a ton said, it really depends on the agency those small agencies, what they need. But it is some combination of culture, leadership, resources, you know, even expertise. So, so that's, so I don't think this organization will touch those problems at all, based on my reading of this legislation. In terms of the Office of Community Engagement, I am probably not as sanguine as other people about that I don't really think that creating a office is a way to promote community engagement. Because the provision and the bill is so sketchy, it's really difficult for me to conceptualize what you're talking about. That's why we're having that's why we're having this conversation so we can begin to conceptualize it better I think that's part of the reason we're here. Yeah, so I don't even know if I like the concept. The idea that, you know, you use language in there keep a list of relevant public safety stakeholders like what does that mean, who's really are we aren't we all stakeholders and public safety down to each and every for monitor. And so, and then it's, and then it's helped with these key agency policies, what is that and how are we going to help. And as a as a for monitor. As a citizen, you know what I really want is access to decision makers. I don't want lower level employees staffing an office where I bring my problems and make somehow maybe they get. Relay up the chain of command, and by the time they get there, you know, they're watered down and they're put into some bureaucratic speak, where my voice and issues have really lost any passion, or it's so changed that that nothing ever happens. So, if if I were to conceive of how a agency of public safety to put engaged the public, it wouldn't be in this office, it would be a way of giving access to the public to decision makers. And along the lines that similar rep round, hence they'll talked about a more transparent process for handling and responding to concerns from citizens. But I don't really support the framework of this side agency at all. But it makes more sense to you to have it be more localized. People don't feel as if it's, you know, going up to authority and Montpelier where they might just get lost in the bureaucracy. I don't know what it would really look like because I'm not even sure what you're trying to achieve. I mean if you just want a place for people to register their complaints, you know, an office of community engagement will achieve that. You want a place for people to feel like they are they are a part of, of, of, of keeping our community safe, that they are a key player in that role. A couple of hands, a couple of hands are up. Senator White. Can I jump in here as somebody who, when we were originally doing the bill, it was felt that there really needs to be some, some entity within the agency that works with communities. And this is not, this is not in any way seen as a complaint department. This isn't, this isn't where you bring your complaints. This is where whoever is in charge of this office. If it's a ton or Anthony Polina or whoever is hired to be in charge of this would be working with communities around what are the issues in your, what are the issues in your community, how do you, how do we bring those issues into our decision making and our policy making and when we're looking at developing a policy on the use of military equipment, do we, how do we engage those communities in that conversation. This was never meant to be the complaint department, ever. Well, yeah, I didn't read it as being a complaint department, but I did read it as being a kind of an office that's off the beaten track that is for where the community comes in is the interface between the agency and the community. And what I think, what I think conceptually what I think it really needs to be is that embedded in every single person's job at the Department of Public Safety is outreach to the public. It's not, it's not a separate office. So, I think the Department of Public Safety, when they did the use of force statewide use of force policy they actually hired a consultant to sit to help them figure out how to engage the public. You know, and so it didn't need an office of community engagement to do that. For some reason Jennifer Morrison decided she wanted to figure out a way to do that and she figured it out and that should be her job. And so I think that embedded in each of these divisions that they should, and it should be from the top, you know, it should be the, what you're calling the secretary in these commissioners who need to be involved for every policy they put out a process for engaging the public. So it's a good of relegating it to this office, which is not at the same level as these departments, or even a division. So I'm saying in bed, I'm the I'm saying not. Okay. You know, I don't really like that model. It's like staffing it out. I don't like staffing it out. But that's why part of me thinks that maybe it's the practical but my gut tells me we have to do more be more localized. And stay in touch with the people. But Anthony this is does not deal with local police agencies. This is a reorganization of the state agency, a department. But the all those other things like community involvement and community oversight committees and stuff that's happening out there, external to this this is only a reorganization effort. Anyway, I'm sorry, and a ton had his hand up I'm sorry to jump in there but. That's fine. Glad you're back out center here but a ton has had them to. I just wanted to point out as a possible thought here. We have in the state police, a, an FIP committee that meets quarterly. This committee is composed of. What is FIP. I'm sorry. Oh my God. Right fair and impartial but I never, I never hear, think of it as. This is so embarrassing I yell at them about acronyms all the time, and I'm turning into one. It's it. Yeah, it's, it's humiliating anyway. But we have this committee, and there are a lot of people from around the state who are stakeholders simply because they're interested in the issue. They come from all over. Certainly in some ways as I'm sure you all have found zoom and teams have made this easier in many ways. And that committee is conceived of as advisory to the commissioner and the colonel, and we frequently go back to them with things that have come up at that committee. I mean, we take notes on Barb Kessler captain Kessler and I, my partner, who's also a co director. We take notes and we go back with stuff that's important and bring that to them. I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm just saying that may provide some kind of framework here. I have to reinvent the wheel I guess is what I'm saying. There's something like a wheel there. It may need to be chiseled in some ways. It may need a new tire, the valve stem probably needs to be replaced, but there's something there to work with. So I'm going to throw out a comment here and then I think Allison had a comment and then we actually need to go to our next topic but I think that the what we need to from what you just said, I think we need to identify the relationship between this committee and the secretary. This, this office is under the deputy secretary already it doesn't report to any of the departments it's under the deputy secretary so we should, if we're going to have it in here we should be clear about that. And the other, the other thought I had was, remember this is not just about law enforcement. This community engagement office is around fire safety emergency management. This is not a law enforcement community engagement this is, this is saying how should this agency relate to our. How do we get input from our communities around what we should be doing. That's anyway, I've said enough. I just like to go back to will the will does thought which is actually my, I think the whole purpose of the office of engagement is to do exactly that to design how to embed a process for public engagement within that department. So, to me, that's, so that's how I sort of envision its purpose. I love this, I like what a time was saying about, I don't like the word advisor either but like in the department of the agency of human services uses thing called standing committees and they don't use them well, but I can see that a standing committee that were the commission, where the department the secretary actually had to attend these meetings you know monthly or something. And it had a representation of remonters on there across all because I was thinking I knew it was more than just law enforcement I thought it would be across this whole sphere and they would be this, they would be meeting monthly they would be first talking about things that this department was thinking about they would be discussing it among themselves bringing it back to their community getting their communities away on bringing it back to the standing committee discussing it taking it to the, the head of the agency. For me that's a better model than this step child office. That I see how I read it on the page. It'll be perceived because you want to be engaged with people who are the decision makers directly. So that that would be my and the only thing I'll say before I leave just another comment and another part that I'd like you to the committee to look at when I looked at how you were planning to amend the membership on the Vermont criminal justice you've crossed out the word public safety and put in law enforcement, but you left a commission of motor vehicles there and I believe under your rearrange your organization there will no longer be a commissioner of motor vehicles so I would just ask no there will be. We're not putting motor vehicles under there only their enforcement. Okay, okay. Alright, because so alright that thank you for clarifying that because it just looked like when you said it was going to be under law enforcement it was going to be the division of motor vehicle enforcement you're right, I just read motor vehicles. Okay, yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I am sorry and I will go back and look at the testimony from the two of you because I missed most of it. Sorry, thank you for coming. I haven't seen will the for a long time so it's good to see will again because I haven't likewise it's been a year probably to the day. Yeah. All right, well thank you for. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for your attention. Thank you. Thank you for all your contributions to DPS. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. Coffee at the general store.