 Good evening. Welcome to the February 2021 meeting of the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel. We've got a really two full agenda, which I didn't expect initially. For this evening, we likely will not get through all, well, we won't get through all of it. But we will do our best. So let us begin with introductions quickly, sweetly, quietly. And I must atone for last month, where I completely forgot my partner, both, I mean, like she didn't even exist. It was really humiliating. I will not live it down. So Captain Scribner, would you please go first and introduce yourself? Well, thank you, Aton. I appreciate that. Welcome there, my partner. I am Catherine Julie Scribner with the Vermont State Police. I am the co-director of fair and impartial policing and community affairs with my partner, Aton. Thank you. I'm just going to go through my crazy screen like we all do. Pepper. Thank you. James Pepper, Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs. Thank you. Judge Grierson. Good evening, everybody. Ryan Grierson, Chief Superior Judge. Good to be, good to see everyone. Yes. Representative Grad. Mute. She is muted. It is true. But she is here. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry I was muted. Okay. That's okay. Great. Again, Representative Maxine Grad, Chair of House Judiciary Committee, and thank you so much for inviting me tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Monica. Monica, if you're speaking, you're muted. I think you're unmuted. My microphone wasn't plugged in. Can you hear me now? That's what happens when I move my equipment before meeting. Monica Weber, Administrative Services Director with the Department of Corrections. Thank you. And then I have guest, and I think it's Judge, I cannot remember your name. You're next, and you're muted. And yes, you're waving your hand. Could you please? Hi. Judge Davenport. Judge, retired judge for a number of years now. No wonder you can't remember my name. I'm delighted to hear that. And I am a member of the Children and Family Council for Prevention Programs. Great. Good evening. Good evening. Mr. Mayor. That me? That is you. Okay. Christopher Loris, I am a research associate with Crime Research Group and also wear the hat of a newly minted member of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, where I am happy to sit on the fair and impartial committee with the good doctor. Jen Furpo, please. Hi there. I'm Jen Furpo. I'm a training coordinator with the Vermont Police Academy. Jeff Jones. Hi, Jeff Jones. Retired Vermont State Police also on the essays committee. That's it. I'm here. Thank you. Sheila. Good evening, everyone. Can you hear me? Can hear you? Sheila Linton, community at large, and with the Root Social Justice Center, she, her pronouns. Loretta Sackie. Hi, I'm Loretta Sackie. I'm a policy analyst with the Council of State Government Justice Center. Thank you. Abigail Crocker, please. Hi. I'm Abby Crocker. I'm a research professor of statistics at the University of Vermont, part of the Justice Research Initiative at UVM and the National Center on Restorative Justice at the Vermont Law School. Great. Rebecca Turner. Hi, everyone. Rebecca Turner, head of the Appellate Division of the Office of the Defender General and panel member. Tyler. Good evening, everybody. Tyler Allen. I'm the Adolescent Services Director, Department for Children and Families, Family Service Division. He, him pronouns. And I love the way this all moves when you get going. Olivia Voth, please. Hi, I'm Olivia. I'm the University of Vermont. It's been a year since I've been in the general's office, so I'll be speaking to you. You're a little... Will, your audio's off. That's all. Just so you know. Sorry. I'm Olivia Voth Jr. at the University of Vermont, and I'm an intern with the Vermont Attorney General's Office, so I'll be taking minutes tonight. Welcome. And thank you. Jessica Brown, please. Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Brown, she, her. I am the supervising attorney at the Chittenden County Public Defender Office in Burlington, and I'm an at-large appointee to the panel. Thanks. Elizabeth Morris. Hi, everybody. I'm Elizabeth Morris. I am the Juvenile Justice Coordinator, and I am in the Family Service Division of the Department for Children and Families. Susanna Davis, please. Hi, everyone. I'm Susanna Davis, Racial Equity Director for the State. David Scherer. Hi, everybody. David Scherer, Assistant Attorney General and Attorney General's designee to the panel. Thank you. Karen Gannett. Hi, everyone. I'm Karen Gannett, the Executive Director of Crime Research Group, and I'm happy to be here with you. And Julio, who's sitting in the middle of a hopper painting. I'm Julio Thompson. I'm an Assistant Attorney General, Director of the Civil Rights Union. And then I have a plus four that I can't reach. If I have not called you, please chime in in some decent way. Hi, everyone. Oh, hi, Eitan. Sarah Friedman with the Council of State Government Justice Center here as a guest. Thank you. Eitan, it's Martin Lalonde, Representative on the Judiciary Committee. Nice to see you. Nice to see you, Representative. Thank you. That might be two others left, because, or maybe not. Oh, I'm getting, well, I see. All right. I just got some technical assistance from my dear partner. Jeffrey Pippinger, are you here? No. I'm not sure. Well, we're going to just assume that's everyone. Welcome. Again, we have a fairly full agenda this evening. Oh, I'm Eitan Nassred and Longo. Forgot that. Chair of the panel, moving on. Fairly full agenda this evening. I would like to begin with approval of the minutes from our meeting on 12 January. Of course, amendments, changes, so on and so forth. Please hold forth or make a motion. All right. James Pepper, I move that we approve the minutes. So moved. Is there a second? I second. Okay. Is there any discussion? I'm assuming not. I'd just like to bring up, I don't have discussion, but I didn't receive the minutes I might have dropped off the list. Sorry. You're always the problem, child. I will make sure they come to you. I am sorry. That would be on me. I'm sorry. I make sure. Then let's vote. All in favor of approving the minutes as submitted, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Or raising their hand as Rebecca did. All opposed. Okay. And all abstaining and all in favor of what? I'll abstain out of decorum, although I trust that they are in order. James, do you have a question? No. No, sir. I'm standing aside because I was not at the last meeting. Got it. Minutes are approved as submitted. Thank you. Chief Stevens, would you like to introduce yourself? You're muted. Hi, I'm Chief Stevens from the Noligan-Ebinaki Tribe. Thank you. Sorry I'm late. It's okay. Good to see you. All right. So we've approved the minutes. Now we move on to announcements that does anyone. There are several, but there are probably others that I did not get wind up. Does anyone have anything? Suzanne, you're not quite there, Suzanne. I know you. You're on the list, but there are going to be a couple that I think are going to happen before you. Having seen nothing else, David, would you like to introduce our assistant? Sure. She introduced herself a moment ago, but she is Olivia Voth, and she will be taking minutes. She is an intern in our office this semester. She's working, doing a lot of legislative work actually, and she produces excellent written products, which we are very grateful for. So I'm sure she'll do the same for all of us tonight. And we welcome her, and thanks everybody for welcoming her. Great. And David, you're actually up also regarding stipends. Yes. So I wanted to remind everybody, well, not everybody actually, I wanted to remind a few people who are community representatives to the panel. In other words, if you are a panel member who is not a state employee and not for some reason receiving a somebody else isn't for some reason paying you to be here, which I don't expect anybody falls into that category. If you're not a state employee, you are entitled to per diems. I realize I think there's been some maybe confusion, maybe not, but there hasn't been per diem reimbursement request for quite a long time. I think because nobody is traveling to the meetings, however, under the statutes, the governing statutes, you are still entitled to the $50 per meeting fee compensation stipend, whatever you want to call it. So you can still claim reimbursements for those. And we, and I will send out an email to the community members with a Excel spreadsheet, which will hopefully look familiar to you from back in the days when you were filling them out more often, a reminder that you do not need to put your social security number back on that document. If you've already filled one out, we already have that and no need to have that number out in more digital places. So I'll get that out either later tonight or first thing in the morning and please send that back to me. If you have any questions about your individual situation, how many meetings it's been, things like that, just email me directly and we'll get it figured out. Thank you, David. Any discussion? Any questions? Okay. Short and sweet. Thank you, David. Now, on to what is actually written on the agenda, an inquiry from the Racial Equity Task Force from Susanna Davis, the Executive Director of Racial Equity. Susanna, the floor is yours. Thank you. I'm going to try to keep with the theme of short and sweet by relaying the following. So as many of you know, the Racial Equity Task Force was created by the governor last summer by an executive order. And in that executive order, the task force was directed to examine three main things, the first being systems of support for communities of color in Vermont generally, but also especially as it relates to COVID-19 disparities. The second item is free speech and hate speech and any possible changes to state law that can be made to strengthen protections against hate speech. And the third item, which he explicitly named displays of hate symbols, including Confederate flags. And the third item was how strategies and recommendations to get more people of color to serve in public office at all levels in the state, including boards and commissions. So the two reports that we generated, one was in September, one was just posted last week. I am sharing those in the chat right now, along with the Racial Equity Director report that was issued in January. And the reason that I'm talking about all of this to you is because the Racial Equity Task Force through the completion of its second report has now completed the items that we were explicitly asked to do by the governor in that executive order. But there were a number of items that we deliberately did not cover because we thought that they deserved deeper and more thoughtful consideration, namely policing and criminal justice. And there was just a lot around schools and some other things that we didn't quite touch. And that explanation is more fleshed out in the introductory language of both reports, if you're interested. But what we did decide is that now that we're done with what we have been asked to do, there appears to be more work that the Task Force would like to complete. They'd like to revisit the topic of criminal justice and policing. And because the ARDAP is a thing that exists in the world, we felt very strongly that any work that we do on that topic should absolutely be done in coordination with or another way to phrase that nicely with this panel. So I come to you all to let you know that the Task Force is considering taking up this topic, but we also recognize that it is very much your lane. And we would like to explore some of the topics that are creating disparities for people of color, but we don't want to duplicate efforts. And we don't want to step on toes. So I'm here to ask a question to which I don't need an answer now. But the questions are, is this committee interested in that kind of collaboration? Is there work that this committee has not had the time to cover that perhaps we could begin with? Or what do you all see as the best way for us to approach any kind of collaboration or to approach the work in general? Again, I think a number of you know me and I'm very much about bringing the committees together and not duplicating work, because honestly, but I also very much want to defer to the will of the Task Force as much as possible. And so I go where they tell me to go. And that brought me here. So thank you all. Again, I don't need answers on any of that tonight. But perhaps you will peruse the reports. The last two pages of each of those reports contain the summarized recommendations. And if any of that is interesting to you, or if you think that there is opportunity for that work, then you know where to find me. Thank you all. Thank you. My recommendation would be that people peruse the report, and we can handle a lot of this through email. But I can certainly send out email asking those questions again, Chief Stevens. Hi, how are you? Nice seeing you. Question about hate speech. Does that include the cyber world? I know David and the AG created, you know, the cyber bullying and cyber hate speech kind of thing that if there was problems, we could go to them and report it. I ask that specifically and also if your agency or either the AG will help request that some of these things be shut down. Where we run into our problem against native people, there's a lot of hate, rhetoric on blog sites and other types of things. But they get around it by operating outside of Vermont. But since it touches Vermont, I didn't know if there's ways to request that those hosted sites bring them down because they affect people within the state or not. Because now that a lot of things that happened around the presidential election where people are taking down hate sites and hate blogs, I didn't know if that's something that could happen or is it outside the jurisdiction just because they're operating outside the state. Does that make sense? It does make a lot of sense and I'm about to massively disappoint you and everybody in the room by saying that the conclusion to which we came in the report, and this is report number two specifically, is that because of all of the constitutional entanglements, there's very little that we actually can do at the state level on hate speech. And there are some things that we could try, but we know that we would face legal challenges. And that's not to say that we shouldn't try anyway. But that there's options, but there's no guarantees to those options. So what we ended up deciding was we think that certain things would be beneficial to society, like blanket bans on hate symbols, like perhaps closer monitoring of rhetoric. And I mean, we talked about things like potentially changing the definition under state law of what constitutes harassment to include things like displays of Confederate flags. Given that today that flag means something a little bit different than it did even, you know, six years ago. So and at the end of the day, we ended up arriving at the conclusion that probably none of that is legal. So we're just going to go with propaganda and just propagandize people to not be hateful, which is hard. And it feels really unsatisfactory. That's that's where we are right now. And also to the point specifically about social media, I know that this is a big conversation in law enforcement, especially because it's one of the areas where we think background matters for police officers. And yet we also butt up against some of those constitutional issues too. So I don't know that there's a clean answer to any of it, but I don't want you to think that we're not thinking about it. I think it's just a matter of how do we do this in a way that doesn't curtail people's better, you know, constitutional rights, but that actually can move the needle. So I'm sorry for the unsatisfactory answer. No, that's okay. Thank you very much. Pepper. Thank you, Zuzana. Good to see you. I actually I did read the report. And it's fantastic. Great. It's really great work. I have more of an administrative question for you, which is especially for our public members. When do you all meet? Is it during business hours or is it after hours? And do you have this similar kind of ability to reimburse, particularly our public members for, you know, kind of bringing these two groups together, which I wouldn't imagine entails more time and more meetings? Yeah, that's a great those are great questions. We meet we've changed our meeting schedule when we're close to or far from a deadline. So at our height, we were meeting twice a week for an hour, Mondays and Wednesdays. Right now, we are meeting every two weeks on Mondays. And who knows what it'll be by the next time. So our next meeting is actually this Monday, which is the 15th. Thank you. Four to five p.m. We do members are eligible for the per diems under that per diem statute. And I think that one thing that might work, and again, we're talking about a lot of schedules to coordinate. But theoretically, if we were to have like joint meetings or something, I think the task force is probably smaller than this group. And I think we would be more than happy to perhaps shift one of our meetings so that everybody could just show up on the same day and not create bigger volume of meetings. Yeah. Great, thank you. Yeah, no, yeah, I know that that was actually one of your recommendations about kind of making these meetings more accessible for members of the public, non state employees. Yeah. So, Suzanna, you don't need an answer right now. You want I would, because I'm trying to figure out what we should do. In other words, should we put this on the agenda for March and try to get the racial equity task force to this meeting? I don't need an answer now. It would be nice to have a sense of where the panel is at for our meeting on Monday, but I don't want to rush you because you have a process and I want to respect that. So, however you all feel you need to deliberate is fine by us, but we just wanted to make sure that you all knew that our attention seems to be turning toward justice and we just want to make sure that we're not treading on well settled territory without letting folks know and seeking counsel assistance and guidance were possible. So, yeah, I don't need an answer right now, but you should just kind of at least know that that's our thinking. Okay. Okay. Hey, Tom, could you send those reports to us so we don't have to try to download them from chat, the email, if you would please? I will. Yes. Thank you. Yes, I will. Hey, Tom, is it useful if I send that over just to reply to your email that you sent to the group? Sure. I will do that now. Okay, thank you. We will do and I'll get that out and we'll go from there. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. On to discussion. There is an addition that came in this afternoon because your chair is a little scattered and pulling these agenda together is not always the easiest thing to do. What I'd like to begin with is a bit of a report on outstanding research for Act 148 that Karen Gannett of the Crime Research Group will give us. You will remember from section 19 of that act that there were other things we were directed to do and one of them, I mean, Pepper continually reminds me of this as does the Sentencing Commission as a general group that we were also supposed to really identify bits of data that do exist and make recommendations on them. We were a bit overwhelmed as a group by how much didn't exist and how much couldn't talk to each other, the data systems, and that's where we focus most of our energy. However, there do seem to be some things that can be done. And so Karen Gannett will now address what we're calling outstanding research for Act 148, specifically section 19. Karen? Thanks, Eitan. I think you said, I think you pretty much said it. So to further the work under section 19 of Act 148 is a suggestion, and it's pretty convoluted in that first paragraph, but that there would be an analysis of sentencing patterns looking at racial and geographic disparities. So in consultation with you all and with the Sentencing Commission, we're going to take that on and take a look at sentencing patterns by county, race, and gender. And so we'll get started on that. And as we start to work through some of the information and pull down the sentences, we'll report back to you on how things are going. We'll report back to both you and the Sentencing Commission on how things are going. So I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of that. Rebecca? Hi, Karen. Thanks for that intro. And I, of course, am with you on Sentencing Commission as well. But so I appreciate you. And I think I've seen some of this work in the Sentencing Commission context. But when you say that you are going to be looking into and providing for us some of this missing data relating to sentencing patterns, can you go into a little more detail as to what type of sentencing data? Maybe you don't have this information right now, but to provide, like, is it what was, you know, we just did this data report and in terms of all the points related to sentencing, there's sort of the request, right? There's the max, the minimax possible by statute. There's the request or, you know, what the prosecutor is asking for, what is, what is the plea agreement? What is the actual one's imposed by the judge? Then there's the sentence imposed on the date of sentencing and then who is still in, right? Who gets out at min, who gets out at max? And so we know that, well, some of us know, you know, I don't want to presume there's so much nuance there in terms of when we say sentencing. I just wondered if you could clarify now or later how you're approaching that. Yeah, I can give you a brief idea of what we'll be looking at. So we can get from the court data all the sentences that have been imposed. So whether it's a deferred, whether it's a split sentence, whether it's an incarcerated sentence and whether it's a probation sentence. And we can take a look at all the offenses, all the types of offenses. And Robin can take a look back. I don't know how far she's planning on going, but can take a look back over several years and break that down by county, break that down by race and break that down by gender. We will not get nuances because I don't think that's always available in the court data. But I can certainly have her come up with a list of data elements that she's going to be able to look at and get that out to everybody if you're interested and certainly get that out to you, Rebecca. No, sorry. Can I do a follow-up question? So sentencing in the context of adult criminal convictions, did you or are we a pepper? Does Act 148 the details require us to provide the same analysis for delinquencies? And I know we're not, I mean it's different. It's different in terms of sentencing imposed because it's delinquencies. But is there anything similar? I don't think there is. I just wanted to get clarification. Pepper? I just pulled up Act 148. Oh, sorry. And I don't think it mentions anything about delinquencies or dispositions in juvenile cases. But I think that to the extent that CRG can get that data, it would be helpful. I know it's difficult because it's mostly confidential. But maybe they could work with DCF. I'm not sure. But I don't see anything in here that would apply specifically to the juvenile system. I can see what Robin can do. I think one of the issues with the juvenile system is that many of those cases get expunged within a certain period of time. But I'll ask her what she can do around the juvenile sentences. We do get juvenile data. Karen, this is Rebecca again. I think to and Judge Grierson and Judge Davenport are here too. They might have some useful data on that front as well. Yeah, absolutely. Chief Stevens. Yeah, I have a quick thing, Etan, about when we were surprised about how much the systems didn't talk to each other. I just want to make a note and don't know if there's a way for all of the state agencies we work with to advocate it look like in Vermont Digger that the governor is looking to infuse millions of dollars into the IT realm for privacy. Maybe there's an opportunity to use some one-time funds to be able to maybe have some of these systems. If they're looking at maybe consolidating or reorganizing and it's not just hardware, maybe there's an opportunity to advocate for what we might need and slip it in because we knew it was going to cost a lot of money anyway. But maybe people can keep that on their radar. I mean, it may be outside of what we're talking about, but maybe there's an opportunity to look at where we can maybe kind of get some of the things that we recommended. Anyway, just a side note. I saw it today that he was really interested in fusing a lot of money. I think it was like 1.6 million or something like that. I don't remember, but it was a significant amount of money. Olivia, please, if you could make a note of that. So I'll remember to do something with that. Thank you. Sheila. I think I had a question for Karen. She said that we do receive some youth data. Could you be more explicit of what you mean by that? And I also had a question around that of whether when you charge youth as adults, if that happens and if that's part of the data that you might be speaking about? We receive data from the courts and it's on juvenile cases. We don't receive names of juveniles. We receive them. And so Robin can do research on that data. And I don't know. We don't use the juvenile data a whole lot. We don't work with it a whole lot. So I'd really have to get with her and find out what actual data fields she gets. And I can do that and let you know. And I did want to say in response to the chief that there is another piece to the information sharing work that I think needs to be done that this is something that came new to me when I was working on another project. And I just want to throw it out there for you all to maybe think about. When we're talking about data systems working with each other, there's a certain amount of work that has to go on kind of behind the scenes. And it has to do with data governance and making sure that there are agreements between departments and organizations. So you know what data and you guys have listed the data out that you'd like to see. But all those organizations that keep the data have to have some sense of agreements as to who's going to get the data? Who's going to share the data? Where are the data? Where are they going to go so that other people can access them for research or to answer the questions you have? So there's data governance. There are data requirements which are really around what data are we talking about? What questions do you want answered? And then there's the actual data architecture which is the technology system behind being able to do some of that and the process to get the data to where it needs to go to be useful. And so I just want to throw that out there because being people who want data and I certainly am one of those people so that we can do our research, there's a whole nother piece of work that is I think critical to this that we tend to I certainly have tended to not be aware of and I just wanted to share that with you and maybe that's something at some point this this group might want to take a look at and talk about because it's a I think it's an important piece when it comes to different departments sharing data with each other. Okay. Thank you Karen. I feel an addendum to our report coming on after you get this done Karen. Sure. Yeah I feel like that needs to go to the legislature. I mean it was required by the act so I think our work may not be it won't be as long but I think we will probably have to do that. Normally when I feel the need for that I just lie down until the feeling passes but I think we're required. So thank you for outlining that. Any other questions or comments? Eitan I would just as because my name was mentioned prior I think it would have been very difficult for this group particularly to meet the deadline requirements of analyzing all sentencing patterns using the existing data across the state. So even though I reminded you of it it's only in the sense that given the three or two months that we had to do it I don't know if it was possible. I understand that Pepper I'm just trying to cross tees dot eyes things like that but thank you now. Anybody else have a have comments or questions or material? Okay moving on this is me an update concerning our recent report submitted on 1 December. I just want to fill you in in the interests of transparency about what's going on with that and this leads into a larger arc for the meeting actually. I've been presenting and re-presenting this report and I certainly have wanted to inform you but there just really hasn't been time as you know when the session is underway invitations frequently come late in the game and it's difficult to figure out how to tell people when I get an invitation at perhaps three in the afternoon about something happening in the following morning. So I didn't want you to think I was just doing this behind your back that certainly has not been my intention and I do feel badly about it but life is what it is. As you know last month I let you know that I had spoken with the Joint Judicial Justice Oversight Committee, Senator Sears committee with Rebecca Turner and that was the first presentation and at that meeting Senator Sears directed I guess legislative counsel Bryn Herr to begin drafting related legislation based on the report also met with the House Government Operations Committee which is what Senator White's committee yes she's the chair. David am I wrong on that? David you always. That's right. Okay thank you and then of course House Judiciary with Representative Gradd who's with us this evening. I also spoke with the Council of State Government's Justice Reinvestment II Working Group and most recently with a joint meeting of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and then oh right and then there was a discussion of the report with the Sentencing Commission and I think it was the 25th of January. I don't remember exactly. There's anyway I've been running around doing this it's it's I'm like I got it memorized now pretty much. There's not a whole lot to relate here in some ways. As a result of these presentations and re-presentations two main concerns have come out as you can imagine and I'm sure you can guess them before I suddenly say them. The first is of course how to pay for what we've recommended and we knew that would be an issue. I made an argument about that that I think has been somewhat persuasive. Secondly a question has been where to house this body and then lastly the specifics of its constitution. In other words are three people really actually needed or is there some flow around that. There has also been some very big interest in having the Connecticut officials with whom the subcommittee met back in November November 3rd that was speak to the legislature but I spoke with Sarah Friedman of the Council of State Governments and she's here with us this evening and in essence and Sarah I'm going to just sort of encapsulate this if I get something wrong this is your moment to shine. In essence her response was that the Connecticut situation does not completely translate here in Vermont. The Connecticut people their data collection is not simply about racial disparity it's broader than that. Thus given these other concerns a very different funding mechanism is involved since this other work is concerned. Did I get that right Sarah? Yeah I mean I might add some detail if you don't mind. Yeah so the Connecticut folks that spoke to the to spoke to the subcommittee or the criminal justice policy and planning division they're both the state's state administering agency and statistical analysis center so they do connect data across all criminal justice all the agencies in the state on a variety of different research topics including things like you know doing corrections projections I think we actually had a conversation about that in the in the subcommittee and kind of more broadly than just racial disparities and then they also have a whole other like section of what they do around federal grant administration and so when Aetan asked me to research you know well how much does Connecticut spend on this you know in in doing research on that and speaking to Mark Pellke about it it's just there wasn't really a one-to-one model that Vermont could use because they're kind of were embedded in a larger agency that already had all of its infrastructure up and running and their and really their mission and their overall their overall work is much more broad than what Vermont is is proposing so just that in terms of funding mechanisms or there isn't like a you can't pick up and say oh well Connecticut costs X amount of money so Vermont should invest X amount of money in it it looks a little different and and I think within that also is recognizing that what Vermont is proposing is actually pretty unique in a way that's that's really that's really amazing and and that although Connecticut can be an interesting model and there are pieces of it that you all are definitely emulating you're doing your own thing and kind of the first in the country way in something that in a way that you all should be really proud of and kind of also you know like yes we're doing like kind of taking some of the best practices from Connecticut but we're also doing something unique and really really cool frankly thank you for filling that in I wouldn't have gotten all that anyway so there we have it what we're doing is frankly unprecedented and so we're a bit in Sarah incognita or unknown land as it were again the details are concerning as they should be to the legislature questions have come up again our three people really needed there has also been some interest in working with other bodies in collaboration and so there have been questions as to how the crime research group and also the national center for restorative justice could interface with this work you'll remember we met with them in the fall and they made a statement which became appendix five of our report on page 25 if you all have that open those had questions about all of this sort of collaboration have been raised both within and notably also without legislative meetings. Collaboration of course between various research bodies would have implications both for housing what is being called the bureau of racial justice statistics and of course for funding. The important point here I think is that the recommendations that we made in the recent report are indeed being taken quite seriously and are resulting in what will be the next agenda item which is a draft of an act relating to establishing a bureau of racial justice statistics and a bureau of racial justice statistics advisory panel and we'll be looking at that this evening and commenting upon it. This is what we've just done in brief what's happened during the last six weeks or so around the report that we completed and submitted on the 1st of December it's been a rather busy and consuming time as you can imagine. Anyway I just wanted to put that in front of you all as a sort of synopsis of what's gone on. This is a good moment for questions any additions any corrections concerns this would be a good time to put that out there as I say I don't always have time to like let you know that something is happening I have to just kind of go with it. Okay I am Chief Stevens. Hey Tony I hate to keep jumping in but I I've seen this happening with state government a lot is that you want to create all these commission and boards and have just pertin per diem you know allocations I think at some point they seriously got to think of full-time positions to work on some of these things because there's only so many people that could volunteer their time to do per diem work I mean you see a lot of the same faces on the same commissions and committees and I'm just saying is at some point instead of just creating commissions with per diem they should look at actually put in some meat in the game and and putting full-time positions that could actually work seriously on on these things full-time it's just a comment but you see this happening a lot with creating boards and commissions that they're basically almost volunteer with with just very little bit of stipend and and I think they really need to start putting some skin in the game with some of these things anyway it's just a comment that we anyway is what it is. No it's great and glad it's a comment because it will go in the record it will go in the minutes thank you. Professor Crocker. Thank you and I just wanted to comment on your note about collaboration with existing entities so I sort of sit at that intersection of UVM as well as the Vermont Law School's National Center on Restorative Justice and have been so impressed by all the work that's going on with this group and I know that folks in both of those entities are interested in gauging more in conversation because a lot of that infrastructure that that Karen mentioned earlier about secure data systems data governance policies data architecture data management and negotiating sort of contracts and agreements a lot of that infrastructure exists at right now within the university and and I know there's interest in you know sort of how can we how can we leverage all these great partnerships to make the most for everybody and create that system so there there's definitely maybe an opportunity to leverage existing resources with this opportunity so I just wanted to put that out there for folks to think about. Great thank you. Anybody else on this on my the summary of the last six weeks okay moving right along and this is I want to introduce this and then it really is going to it's the panel everybody I'm hoping has had a chance to read the draft of an act relating to establishing a bureau of racial justice statistics excuse me and a bureau of racial justice statistics advisory panel I don't know why I can't say that word tonight but it's not happening anyway I did send that out to you was an attachment and I do desperately hope dearly hope that you would have all had a chance to take a look at it. The background Eric Fitzpatrick is an attorney for the Vermont Senate and House Judiciary Committees with the office of legislative counsel. He reached out to me just before I met with the House and Senate Judiciary Committees with the intention of starting to draft the legislation that you see in front of you or somewhere near you at the moment. He has been working on this and submitted the draft of that legislation to us for our consideration and as I say passed it on to you we've been in contact about several issues during the drafting first where these bodies should be housed and secondly the matter of the advisory body that would advise this bureau of racial justice statistics in terms of housing there seem to be three options first in the office of the executive director of racial equity that would be of course under Susanna Davis's purview secondly in the agency of digital services or three as a standalone body those the call from him was rather difficult for me because in those calls of course I represent you all it's not about me and there's no way to get your feedback in the middle of a phone call so I did the best I could I thought of the executive director of racial equity for reasons that I assume are obvious and then I called director Davis to get her feedback on this idea you should know that I said a lot to the legislature about how more staff would be needed and that just throwing more work to that sadly understaffed office was not going to be meant acceptable to many folks on this panel and certainly not to me personally as the person of color so in the end the draft that you have has all of this going to the office of the executive director of racial equity we also discussed the advisory body and that was an interesting conversation we discussed the what might be called somewhat terrifying proliferation of racial equity work groups indeed Susanna Davis and chief Stevens have kind of talked about that this evening in different ways and that is an issue which director Davis has been addressing along with members of the various work groups that have come about really in the last few decades but most dramatically in what perhaps the last eight years or so Mr. Fitzpatrick was sensitive to this and was wondering whether the RDAF in other words us could serve itself as that body the recommendation in the report is as follows that this body's work meaning the this advisory body that we proposed should be guided by an advisory organ consisting of stakeholders from historically impacted communities such as BIPOC communities neurodivergent communities and communities of gender and sexual minorities that concerns itself with the definition collection and analysis of data pertaining to the amelioration of racial disparities in the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems stakeholder input on these matters is crucial unquote so those are two matters that immediately need our attention and about which I'd like to get back to Mr. Fitzpatrick as soon as possible after our meeting tonight because this is again as it says in the watermark a draft everything else is obviously open because this meeting tonight is our chance as a full panel to weigh in on this legislation as it is being created so now I am going to shut up and hope that you all have some absolutely wonderful ideas yeah pepper I see you thinking I am thinking okay I'm hoping everyone had time to read this because basically what it does for those of you who may not have is it goes through the data points that we suggested very carefully that he makes a really good effort at saying these data are what need to be collected it all it codifies it really quite dramatically in my opinion Eitan could you I'm sorry to even ask you it's embarrassing but could you just summarize the two decision points that you'd like us to be discussing just very briefly kind of like a instant replay and in football just uh I can um one would be where to how is this is that it correct that's first and the second would be the advisory body that we proposed that would help these three poor individuals who are going to make that beautiful drawing on page 24 of our report make some kind of sense to a human being that that advisory body not be a brand new body but in fact be this panel as it presently is constituted or as it might be in another year whatever but you get the idea well so on the on the first point you know one of our recommendations was to try and offer this body some sort of independence from kind of the I forget the phrase that we use but the essentially just separated from the political vagaries of the yeah um and if it was with the director of racial equity the executive director of racial equity I'd be curious to know just because I know she's on the call right now how how she feels about being housed within the um what is she a cabinet position um how she feels being kind of housed within the office of the governor and whether you you feel that you um are kind of you know not controlled by kind of the politics of the moment kind of yeah um it is a very uh ambiguous spot I don't think anybody quite knows where to put me and to some extent I kind of like that because eventually we're going to do something bold on racial equity and they're going to say can she do that and I'm going to say well prove that I can't but for now the way that it sits is that it's the role is housed within the agency of administration so technically it is under Suzanne Young but it is also considered a cabinet level position so it also technically reports directly to the governor um but more often I interact with Suzanne Young and with the deputy chief of staff in the governor's office um I am aware that when the role was first created there was a lot of back and forth about its independence and about making it independent of the governor's office and it ended up not being that and there are enough people in the state who have opinions on that that I'm not going to share one tonight um I will say that I have I have experienced really good um collaboration from the governor's office but I will also say that um really really really hard challenges and really really really really strong disagreements haven't happened yet so it's unclear how that will go when that does happen um I don't want to I don't want to stray too much from the point of your question so I'll I'll eat your here thank you that is helpful chief Steven oh now pepper you're still going no I'm not I know I mean I have another thought but I but I don't want to you know I don't want to disrupt the flow of the conversation okay hold on to that chief Stevens I just want to ask uh Xana one would you even want that um responsibility for one and and b what are the pros and cons because we did we we focused a lot on the human rights commission and that's where that those three positions came from is because they are somewhat independent um remember that we when we first talked about this and we had a testimony that came in we said how many people would you need to take the complaints and follow through with some of the statistics and that's she's the one that recommended they would need three positions I believe that's where all that came from but what are the pros and cons from having it housed in the human rights commission compared to what you're doing Xana and also on the second point I think there's a lot of talented people on this board uh who who uh for the the attorney general racial disparities uh to be able to provide that kind of insight on on the data points that they're looking for but I'm just concerned about the time commitment it would take for a volunteer board to try to crunch this number even even pepper said to try to go through all that in three months was probably impossible and this is going to be a full-time thing right this isn't just a one-off so I think we have the expertise I'm not sure we have the time unless they do something different so those were the two comments I wanted to make and ask if you were up for the up for this or if you you know uh or if it should go to the human rights commission as we had discussed it a while back thank you chief the one thing I think you you're laboring under a bit of a misapprehension the the question around the human rights commission that was the report of a year before that was the 2019 report it's just happenstance that it's three and three that there were we recommended three people for that and that there's three people for this particular proposed bureau they weren't connected okay I was I was thinking about because we were trying to we were trying to house data collection and and recommendation around the human rights commission because they were often the first point of contact and then they were they were having trouble following up and they needed data points and I could be incorrect but I just remember the director coming in or the former director came coming in and testifying that that's some of the information they would need in order to carry out that data collection and follow-up so if I'm mistaken I'm sorry but um that's what I thought we were talking about data collection and data statistics so I thought that it was one and the same right now but thank you Jeff just briefly um more and more I come to the position that uh data in many cases is the energy that drives this particular machine we call our DAP if Ms. Davis declines the wonderful opportunity to have even more work to do um I submit that possibly a part-time or full-time paid position reporting directly to this panel to look at which would require no additional time for the chair who totally overburdened that would report to you with copies to all of us maybe beneficial that's an end around but that's what comes to mind thank you um I'm glad that's in the minutes um Sheila I yes I I had I had seen your hand and then I saw it go away um thanks Eitan I just I also had the question that chief Dunn Stevens had too for Susanna which is around what are the really the pros um wanting to actually hear that question answered of what would be the pros of having it in her branch and what are what are the cons to that and I also depending on sort of what is being said with that I I'm leaning towards it being more of an independent because we've talked about on numerous occasions I agree with Jeff that data is driving these conversations and I feel like they often have and I've expressed my concerns around specifically having data-driven conversations within this panel and within this body of work understanding why it's needed but there are many things that we've talked about on this panel that is not just inclusive of data we've talked about oversight we've talked about accountability and we've talked about other things that are also things that we've talked about having an independent source to be able to do those things so why not create something that is independent when there are so many things that we're trying to address to where we would like to get it out of the bureaucracy get it out of the um sort of the um powers that be the political scene all of those things um I'm kind of questioned why wouldn't we want to be putting it in an independent place thank you Zuzana do you want to talk about okay yes so the short answer is on pros and cons I would say the main pro to having it in AOA slash office of racial equity which is in a real office people say office but they just mean me but I let them because you know it sounds very grand right um in this office we always wear sponge bob pajamas um so the the pro is centrality you know having the work kind of because this role is supposed to oversee the statewide collection of race data that's explicitly stated in act nine of 2018 that created the role so um overseeing the statewide collection of race data of course is easier when that collection is happening through this office so having a central place is the pro the con is that it uh I guess I don't know how to how to phrase it but um it's an odd fit for the agency of administration specifically because it's not topically relevant to the other functions that AOA performs AOA performs functions like human resources IT finance that kind of thing it feels like it fits better in a criminal justice oriented entity um and yet there is a racial equity person in AOA and so it's not a clean fit but it's um I suppose to the second part of the chief's question it is um it makes sense I mean am I am I am I chomping at the bit wanting it not particularly but if I'm being honest it makes sense to put it with me and I wouldn't I certainly wouldn't mind it and I would be um I would do the absolute best we could but I'm actually also very intrigued by Jeff's comment about perhaps having a paid position that reports to the panel that's something I hadn't heard before or considered and I think that that um could make a lot of sense and it also I think calls for the making sure that this panel is supported with the other administrative and and other support that it needs um if we're now providing staff who are going to be doing that kind of substantive work so I would also want a couple if if the panel were to make that recommendation I would want to couple it with another recommendation for whatever additional admin support is needed to um to support the panel's work other places that it might fit and I'm sure you all have considered this already um you know public safety sure um ADS the digital services which is IT was floated I do think again that um the the technical mechanics might make it fit nicely in in ADS but substantively it doesn't necessarily feel like they should be the keepers of of this so I I hope that answers questions it was oh Rebecca so I was I was um thrilled to read this first draft by the way in terms of the data collection points and appreciate how close uh if it mapped a lot of our recommendations in terms of the data collection points both on the link inside and criminal uh core system side so hey thank you I appreciate a lot of hard work going on behind the scenes to all the people there um in terms of that question and hearing your responses Susanna I have to throw in my vote with where I'm hearing Jeffrey Sheila Chief Stevens going um and it really isn't saying anything new in the sense that for me my sense of our report number one was independence and what I'm hearing from you is the pro is centrality but you yourself are admitting that it's not independent from the governor's office that the fact that's within the agency administration which is certainly central in terms of the other government agencies that could be providing doesn't necessarily make it an actual fit and for me if we're going to start this right and dream it and we have been dreaming it our DAP has been the ones to give the legislature and not be burdened by current structures uh I hope that this panel holds true to what we mean by and this is our moment what did we mean when we said independent because what the current proposal is not just that this is an organization within state government right because that's a one but be that it's very it's within the governor's office it is closely tied and so I would like if we're going to keep within state government I agree with with what Susanna is saying about IT digital services is not a great fit and it certainly isn't a match for the substantive of importance I mean certainly we're going to need to rely on computer experts for this but I would suggest that the current options that we that we suggest something beyond what we've been just given that we create a new body it's okay okay um I I'm really intrigued by what Jeff was saying about about um a position that would liaise with the panel I guess my question that would attach to that would be to the second point that I would like us to consider this evening with regard to this draft and that is are we then saying that we would accept as a body the advisory function to the proposed bureau of racial justice statistics I asked that because chief Stevens pointed out or you guys are like right on top of each other on my screen so I'm getting a little this virtual thing is not working for me you don't look alike at all but I'm like confusing you with the moment which is really interesting um sorry that's not meant offensively it's just a computer thing um what you were both I think focusing on this is a volunteer board oh my god we're going to have yet more work um so I guess my question is sort of sort of combining Jeff's suggestion around a staff person who would liaise with this board and possibly make that work less onerous um does that then impact the thought of making the rdap the advisory body that this legislation is talking about I wouldn't say aton only if the necessary resources are provided I mean they can't do it without giving the resources necessary to be successful I'd also I'd also like to hear pepper had another thought that he was holding I don't know if you ever expressed that or if it has to do with this pepper but like I said the caveat is we get the necessary resources got it pepper you you're on you're on the hot seat right now because you were holding back the only thing that I was going to say is that for some reason I feel like when I originally heard of when we started talking to the folks in Connecticut uh Mark Pelka in the office of management and uh god I can't even remember their name um but uh that we used to have something like that in Vermont actually um and it was specifically designed around healthcare reform but there was a team of data analysts and specialists that worked out of the governor's office um there was specifically advising around changes to our healthcare system to you know improve access improve quality improve um well just the system in general and uh that was out of the governor's office and I and I only the reason why I held back was because I don't know much about what what became of that group of policy kind of experts I I know that it was housed out of I think AOA on the fifth floor but I just can't remember why they went away why why they were created in the first place um but it might be in this discussion it just seemed like it might be relevant but um um it's kind of a dead end because I don't I don't know where to go with it but uh I just I seem to remember that there was a and this was under Governor Dean um so it's relatively ancient history okay and then she's Stephen you just asked in the chat since the RDAP falls under the AG does this new proposed position fall under the support of the AG's office good question Sarah you're muted I was just hoping to chime in from the Connecticut perspective um just just to connect some dots I hope you don't mind as a non-government but um in Connecticut Connecticut does have this advisory board for their work um and but it's staffed by the staffed by the folks who staff the agency so um and in in the bill that uh eight time passed along there are four there are four full-time staff members in the bill to do the criminal justice research the executive director to researchers and an administrative person um so if you were emulating the Connecticut model those people the I mean in particular I would imagine the administrative person and the executive director would be really pushing forward the advisory panel um or you know uh so if that's you all that might lend that person to support your work so it's already in the bill it doesn't have to be extra or if it's a different body I just wanted to note that that um that the kind of the the agency you all are creating or the you know those four staff members that you're suggesting would also support the committee so I think there is kind of more support built in than than what this committee has right now thank you very much for that Judge Grierson so look I I don't know what my ultimate recommendation is but if the if this panel was going to be the advisory board we can't do it unless we have some kind of permanent staffing um and and maybe the answer is as as Sarah just indicated but it just won't work any other way in in my view I mean we have people that come and go as come and go on this committee and it for those of you like myself who have been here from the beginning that first year is not one we would ever want to um replicate and thanks to your leadership aton we have come a long long way but we're still subject to new people coming and going and and not that that's that's necessarily bad but there's got to be some to this I mean if you remember I think when you first came on board and when they created Susanna's position one of our first reactions was well do they still need us do they still need the RDAP panel or do we just let Susanna do her thing and you know after talking about it we decided no there's still a role for us and and maybe maybe it does make sense for us to be the advisory panel but I don't think we can do it the way we're presently structured I think we would need some permanency a staff person to maintain that continuity that whoever we're reaching out to you know is getting direction maybe from the panel but we've got to have that I think that that permanency and maybe it can come from as Sarah said what's in this bill that's a big step I think for this committee with everything else this panel or whatever else we've been doing to take on what really is becomes a very very significant role the way I read that that that proposed bill yeah so I'm not sure what my final answer is but without some permanency staff administration whatever you want to call it I don't think we could I don't think we could do the job that we would want to do it's just my thought thank you thank you Monica hi everyone um I think I'm I'm in your back I'm back I've been back I had a weird glitch came back and just remained hidden here but I've been listening carefully um trying to I think I'm in the same sort of position Judge Gerson is in is um you know wanting to think about this but I I do agree that um that I wanted to make sure I understood maybe what Sarah was saying because what I'm hearing is that the Bureau itself of recommendation we're considering is that the Bureau itself be housed with our DAP and that the resources of the Bureau and maybe an additional position to staff our DAP would be necessary and then it would all be housed within our DAP because I can't I can't see as being the advisory panel and not having the Bureau at the same time and I didn't hear a resolution about where the Bureau would be um and so I just wanted to make sure one I wasn't I was hearing that correctly or maybe I wasn't hearing it correctly but wanted to kind of throw that out there that I feel like there that was unclear to me at present it's said in the bill that the Bureau is housed in the office of the executive director of racial equity the advisory board is not it's not about it's not housed it's not housed it's not housed anywhere so okay and so maybe I misunderstood the question even though I promise I've been listening um that the question was should the should the Bureau be at um in Suzana's office correct and where should the panel be housed you mean the advisory the advisory panel the proposed advisory panel and I thought the question was maybe that the Bureau would not be in Suzana's office and so I guess my question is do they belong together in the same place if it comes if our DAP is if our DAP is the is the advisory panel doesn't make sense for the Bureau to be there as well and I think that's maybe where Sarah was going um okay but I'm not a hundred percent sure Rebecca so when I chimed in I was addressing that first part of the question and thank you Monica for teasing out further because I also feel like I think I understand your ask on the second part which is should our I'm looking at page seven of the draft section 5102 and right now it's identifying that members of the panel they would consist of five members and not as I understand and not necessarily include members or someone from the judiciary someone from DOC someone from DCF someone the community members right there's not sort of that so what I how I see the shift in the ask now is you're asking us to consider not this currently on the books but to put our DAP itself as the panel right and I okay and so I think to respond to that what I like about the current draft it is definitely something different again it fits the theme of independence which is really to me at the forefront of concern that I want us to hopefully make sure we stay true to and it follows through with the panel the way I saw the potential is panel well I wanted to make sure that if the human rights commissioner wanted to be a member that that's such a natural fit that that's not written in such a way that it has to exclude that person same with the Chief Justice but the point being is that it almost sets up a situation where I hate the word stakeholders but for about the key government stakeholders members on this panel for instance are not necessarily included in this right and so it struck me and others can chime in how this is similar to other type of analysis centers and I would hope that while the beginning of this draft says that you shall work in collaboration with government agencies it was sort of written in the context of data collection right but in terms of how to generate the report I almost like the fact I mean this panel is comprised of a mix we never thought about the makeup of the panel or certainly we the legislature in the context of how that would play out in a supposed independent data collection body right and how if the various interests are appropriately represented by the numbers on the panel so I would say that it is an interesting suggestion I have to think about it I don't think it's a natural fit aside from the fact of it if what's going to happen it should be well funded we certainly don't have the expertise on this panel necessarily go right into the data analysis I would certainly hope that by financing it and staffing it well it would obviously presume the expertise as well to that Sarah did you have a comment Sarah Friedman oh I just put it in chat I just wanted to run to my uh but that yeah you know as as much as you all might want to emanate uh emulate Connecticut or not um you're doing so in some ways and not in others their the advisory panel is located and how you know is housed within their criminal justice research shop and staffed by those people in that agency so they're they're all they're one in the same and this you know and and the folks that do that staffing um staff the advisory panel as well I will also say that you know the panel is definitely not doing any analysis in Connecticut you know there they have those researchers on staff who present the analysis to the panel and get their kind of input and take and there are recommendations for moving forward or you know like how to operationalize the analysis folks on the panel are not doing analysis that's why there's researchers on staff and that's an important point Chief Stevens just one other point that we discussed before if you have uh uh Susanna's um her her area then you have the panel that she works with right because there's another panel of for racial advisory then you have us and then you have a new panel and you know and then you have the state police doing data collect so where are all these things we're adding another panel where where are all these things fit and like you said we don't want to redo redundancy um so we we just have to think about all these things I guess or the legislators do about how do all these pieces fit together so we compliment each other and not repeat work or or I don't know I'm just I just want to throw that out there because if we're creating a separate panel all by itself then that's another entity that's also requesting information from different sources and I think if we're confused they may be confused about who do they report to you know where do they put this data anyway just a comment okay well let me see representative grad can I can I prevail upon you for a moment here would it be most useful to you all just for us to make a summary of this conversation and the ways in which the thinking is currently going um rather than perhaps forcing through emotion and voting it up and down and so on but just really doing what perhaps the report itself did which was to really make a bunch of recommendations from a variety of standpoints including crg the national center on restorative justice the rdap etc and allow you all the lawmakers to make some decisions perhaps based on further testimony I I'm really I guess I'm asking for a little direction from people who are going to be making some final decisions here right thank you I appreciate that I I'm actually asking my myself the same thing I I really appreciate the discussion that you are having now and so and and I I would hope that that plays out and that we actually the legislature isn't you know coming down saying you know giving you direction I think it's I think it's really important given the the nature of this group and the expertise on this group um to you know to come with recommendations or to you know to continue um along the path of the report uh you know certainly certainly we share your your goal um and also for instance my committee in terms of many of the things that you're talking about now what type of entity where does the entity where would that entity live all of that um that's really the jurisdiction of government operations um so so I guess I'm not I'm not giving you a clear answer but yeah no I um I think it's I think it's important for um for you all to do your work and and um and it takes time and I know it takes time and um and I and I think it's I think it's really important and of course so thank you just want to hear what you might have to say thank you sure thank you pepper what one thing that I was thinking is that you know a lot of well first of all the RDP uh is set to sunset I mean I know that it seems like uh we get asked to do more and more which is fine but one thing that I was thinking is that a lot of our recommendations that we make and a lot of the data analysis that we've been asked to do and a lot of the committees uh ATON that you were asked to testify in front of are all you know legislative and they're all related to criminal justice reform I wonder if the best place to house any sort of data analysis group is in the joint fiscal office um which which responds to the legislature and I know that you know when I'm testifying in front of the judiciary committees that often um there's a crunch when we're look when they're looking considering a bill um to say well what is the independent analysis we have to rely on the state's attorneys data or the defender general's data we don't have anyone that can kind of I mean there's crg that has kind of the tableau of data and statistics but it seems like you know maybe this should be a branch of a legislative body that could respond in a non-partisan way to request from the judiciary specifically from the judiciary committees and that that might be you know I know that the I don't know a lot about the joint fiscal office inner workings but I do know that uh it's a possibility that this could be an arm of the joint fiscal office um specifically you know tailored to judiciary committee the the two judiciary committees oh I'm liking that but I want to hear if possible and it's I'm always putting people on the spot and I hate doing that but both Rebecca and Sheila have been making really passionate cases for independence and you've just suggested something pepper that's kind of a yet another path and I guess I'd like to hear from either or both of them about what that means in terms of their notions of independence I mean it may be it's a tough one I'm I'm feeling like poor Olivia welcome Olivia and I hope you're getting this down because I'm imagining there's going to be a long letter going to a bunch of different legislators after this Rebecca are you are are you oh I thought I saw your hand never mind oh no I do see your hand well I I I'll acknowledge you trying to draw me out to make a comment and and respond to pepper suggestion on the joint fiscal office although I don't have to commit to because I like I like the suggestion in terms of thinking outside of the box where is the best place to house it within what is currently structured I I don't have that answer or expertise right now but I would I can quickly come back with some suggestions probably um when I talk with the defender general uh with my other circle of folks to to consult and happy to I can just you know a couple days uh come back and share with the panel let's try that cool thank you Sheila so thanks Aitan um I I just I agree with Rebecca and everything that's been said and I just want to really advocate again for having that independence like I really like a lot of things that were suggested tonight and I don't I don't really know the answer to the joint fiscal what I do know is that I don't want it to be associated with any um really the branch or within the government in that way and I would like it to see it be more independent I think the suggestions tonight about having the um advisory and the panel together and what that means and what that looks like and then the references with Connecticut I think is something that we need to sort out and I do think it makes sense for that to be together I think it also makes sense for um this to be staffed and really well paid and for there to be somebody that um as a researcher or analysis to be a paid position to be a liaison with this body if we choose to take on this to be taking on this work and I'm really I'm really concerned too of who will represent be represented on this if we do have a lot of people that are connected to the state and it it seems or in the field and it seems as though having those most impacted communities voices at the table and decision-making power would be really great so I would like to see that if we are the body to do this that we consider adding more members of the panel panel from the community at large that are directly impacted and not just with the quote unquote um expertise but maybe with the lived experience or so on um that we're really talking about and um I I'm just taking note of what Susanna said earlier which was that I thought it was really funny is that they keep calling it an office and really it's just her so I just wanted to reiterate that that um that's like not okay and um and if they're going to continue to call it an office then we need to actually staff it so we can do that and I think that's the pun that's intended here and I think that if um we were to keep it in the government somehow then um that is going to be uh needs to be a priority thank you chief Stevens back to you yeah quick question going back to what Karen said a long time ago is about partnerships and who has access to data is there any legal authorities that would dictate where this would be housed like they have to have some kind of authority to get the data requested or partner because of privacy or other things is there anything like that that would dictate um needing to have that kind of authority control power to get the data needed I just wanted to throw that out there because Karen had mentioned we it's not just the data it's the partnerships between them to try to get the data needed so I just I just want to make sure we're not overlooking that when we're making decisions because if they have no authority to get the data requested then um the legislators would need to take that into consideration it would and one of y'all smart people will have to check me on this my understanding as looking at the bill as currently written is that one full time exact exempt exempt executive director of the bureau um we shall be an information technology data analyst would be that figure is that just a bad assumption on my part somebody who's smart needs to answer this that might be the figure but do they have the authority in the bill to to to get data from all the different places that they need I guess that's what my question is based on what Karen was saying before because like maybe they can't request it from the state police maybe they can't request it from these different agencies because they don't have the legal authority to do so and there's nothing in the bill stating they might have that so that was the question is if like the AG might have a specific authority or maybe this joint commission might have a legal authority but I just didn't know if that would dictate this or if it would have to be included in the bill to give them that authority well chief I have to go back to the man who drafted this Eric Fitzgerald Fitzpatrick and I'm gonna I'll put that in him I'll put that in him because he's expecting me to get back to him with everything we've said this evening so he can look at this draft again so I will put that concern to him Monica yo your hands down again okay anybody else David yeah I just wanted to um I appreciate everybody's brainstorming tonight I think it's really it's a lot of really good ideas and I I agree with the underlying what I what I hear is the underlying um concern that we need both the reality of independence and we need the perception of independence together we need it to be independent in fact and and we need people to trust that it is independent um and you know I was thinking it thinking through some of the structures here one I can see how having the RDAP be a sort almost a supervisory body for the staff could potentially provide that my concern though is that that would be such a consuming task even with staff that um I don't know if this body could do that much else I think our time is is filled up right now without also supervising a staff doing a serious data collection project and I don't want our time to be filled up with because I think we're doing important work and we're becoming increasingly relied on by other areas of state government in a way that I think is to generate ideas and think these issues through in a way that I think is productive and helpful um I do find the um suggestion of joint fiscal intriguing I I you know I'm not attached to any ideas at this point I find it intriguing though because it both has the benefit of being a pre-existing structure that also by law is supervised by a multi-partisan body which I think would help insulate it from some of the um you know what could be political pressures or or you know the political wins um and so the sort of staff would be a little bit insulated and then you'd still in addition to that have the have the panel whatever that panel is ultimately having that panel overseeing it and sort of providing an additional uh check and uh and balance on on their work so anyway those are just some thoughts a little bit of concern around making sure this panel is still able to do useful work that's wide ranging and uh and finding that joint fiscal suggestion intriguing but I'm not not attached to that and I want to certainly have the opportunity for folks to check in and and come back with uh with further thoughts on that anyone else Monica I was I was trying to find something online and maybe somebody else on the on the meeting call will remember this but to Pepper's uh point about joint fiscal housing this I think they're it I think it's Washington state um had a similar type of research organization Karen is at it the WSIP group remember all that work we did that came out of um pew and so you know they were a group that was how sort of um specifically um in you know a joint fiscal type organization to respond to legislative requests it did a lot of analysis about the effectiveness of of programs into that and they did actually collect a lot of data um and I was trying to um search for them so I could get a little bit more detail to share with you but I do think that that model is really interesting um to to consider um and if I find um a link to their or maybe they're not even in existence anymore I hope they are but I'll send it to you I think they are Monica and it's called the Washington state institute for public policy right I knew it was like WSIP Washington yeah you're right Washington state you know it's funny when you get when you search for acronyms anyway I will look it up great my feeling is I mean I know normally at this point in the evening given that we have like 11 minutes I ignore I'm like pushing and going let's vote and let's get a resolution I'm actually not feeling that at the moment I'm feeling like well welcome Olivia I can't wait to see your minutes because on the basis of them I feel like I'm going to then speak again with um Eric Fitzpatrick and um put these to him I have no idea having spoken with him several times how this is going to evolve what he's going to do with the conversation that has been had tonight I don't know what he'll do with these thoughts how they will influence the draft that we have in front of us um we didn't get that far um sorry about that uh I so what I'm feeling is I will simply over look over the minutes and have a discussion with him and go from there and then probably this will come back to you by way of email um and there won't be of course as usual a great deal of turnaround time on that um but um these issues obviously are going to be the ones that keep coming back these are the two main ones um I'm not hearing a lot of discussion about the data points we had already decided that when we wrote the report so these are the two biggies these are the two biggies where does it go who's the advisory body and then tangentially who's supporting the advisory body is it enough that it's the people who are mentioned in the draft of the bill or does it need to be more it's fairly local here what we're talking about I don't think it's huge well it is huge but it's not it's not that diffuse um so if anyone else has anything they want to throw in there that's the path I'm thinking of following and certainly keeping you all in the loop as best I absolutely can I feel terrible guilt that when Eric Fitzpatrick calls me that I can't get us all immediately on a conference call but it's not possible any further discussion here and ton uh question um are you looking for authority to make a decision quickly because obviously we meet every month do they need something before next month or you just call an emergency or you would call an emergency meeting or you just uh we'd do it by email and then you would make a decision on how we move forward with that I mean how are you thinking of structuring this I I think we have to take it in smaller steps than that because I'm not in charge of the entire process um I as far as I have been told I now need to get back in touch with Eric Fitzpatrick with the discussion that happened here this evening and have a discussion with him that is as far as I can go at this moment I'm really not in a position to speak beyond that if anyone knows more than I do feel free Maxine do you or sorry representative grad do you have any sort of sense of um I can't remember all the dates as far as bills being introduced um and I know crossover is usually right around town meeting week um sometimes it's a little bit later and but I would also just preface this question with a bill like this I know it's not it's a big it's a big lift especially when it involves you know creating kind of a new department or agency or whatever we want to call it so I you know but uh I'm just curious do you have a timeline with respect to introductions of bills I forget if there's a date in February um that we're working up against right right so so may may I go ahead um Eitan and oh my god please okay thank you um so yes um I think it's the end of uh February but when um bills actually have to be introduced but at any time there could be a committee bill and this is this is certainly a longer project um you know in a longer conversation that um that myself and and um you know certain committee members and senator sears are are committed to so um so I'm not so concerned about crossover or whatever you know I think we um will get the conversation going um I also as you as you do continue your conversations um you know again it's a deliberative it's an iterative process so don't don't worry about you know getting it all all right or whatever um let's just start the con let's start the conversation and and the more we talk about it together the more questions will will come up and uh yeah and I think we'll we'll you know just consider all all of these things many of the things that you're discussing now are things that will be discussed again and whether it's government operations house judiciary senate judiciary um so right yeah thank you that lowered my blood pressure significantly well i'm trying to figure out mine as well right you're right anyone else we've only really got five minutes um um I think I think given that um I want to address a few other matters one the obviously on the agenda there was a discussion of readings that pulio had sent us Rebecca had sent us and by the way your chair has messed up yet again there was a reading sent to us by Sheila that your chair managed to screw up and not put in so he will rectify this um and that will go into march these are discussions concerning civilian oversight models for law enforcement again my apologies for that um does anyone have any new business at this moment they want to raise okay seeing no hands our next meeting will be because the way things work out the 9th of march of 2021 if something comes up that is immediate that needs to happen I will do the best I can to get us together in some form uh thank you all this was really productive this was profoundly productive again welcome to you Olivia I can't wait to read your minutes so much is going to depend on them you have no idea how central you have immediately become to this body um and thank you thank you for being here and thank you so much for your effort and for your work um and I would entertain I guess a motion for adjournment I so move is anyone second second all in favor all opposed lovely anybody oh Sheila wants to go on no never mind I misread that all of stating we are done I love you all thank you so much and I will talk to you certainly at the outside in a month