 But I'm going to call to order this meeting of the Police Civilian Accountability Board Study Committee. This meeting is being held remotely as allowed by Governor Baker's June 16th, 2021 signed act which extended the remote open meeting measures that have been in place under the order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law until April 1st, 2022. And we are also recording the meeting to be uploaded eventually by ACME. And I hope you saw the email from Sanjay that we have now two or three prior meetings that are up there, is that right? Yes, the, oh, yeah, three of them. August 3rd, July, late July and late June. Okay, great. And so, Sanjay, do you want to call attendance? If you'd like me to. Oh, sure, yes, let's welcome Michael Cunningham, is you're the deputy town council, is that right? Correct, Laura, yeah, my name is Michael Cunningham. Sorry that Doug can't be here today. I know he brings a high level of expertise, but I do appreciate the chance to be here with all of you for this important meeting. And I could confirm member access if you'd like me to run the list, I could do that. Yeah, that would be great. Okay, but please allow me to confirm that all members and persons anticipate on the agenda are present and can't hear me. So to do that, I'll call the names and if you could respond in the affirmative when I call your name. Karen Bishop, Board of Youth Services. Here. Anne Brown, Council on Aging. Here. Michael Brownstein, Envision Arlington Standing Committee. Here. Elliot Elkin, Arlington High School student. Here. Kerry Fallon, Disability Commission. Chief Julie Flaherty. Captain Shawn Kernan here in her place. Thank you. Thank you, Captain Kernan. Jillian Harvey, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Here. Ashley Mayer, with Select Board Office. She actually isn't an attendee, usually. Okay. Mona Motari, Arlington High School student. Carlos Morales, Envision Arlington Diversity Task Group. Bob Ordicchia, Civilian Police Academy alumnus. Present. Kathy Rogers, Arlington Human Rights Commission. Here. Clarissa Rowe, Town Meeting Member. Committee clerk Sanjay Newton, also Town Meeting Member. Yes, here. Committee co-chair Susan Ryan-Volmer, LGBTIA and Rainbow Commission. Here. Committee co-chair Laura Giltson, Town Meeting Member. That's me. I know you gave the introduction, Laura, but just to remind everyone, this is an open meeting of the Arlington Police Civilian Advisory Board Study Committee being conducted remotely, consistent with the Act relative to extending certain COVID-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency, which among other things allows public meetings to be conducted remotely until April of 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Four additional notes before we begin the meeting. Number one, persons participating by Zoom are reminded that they may be visible to others and that if you wish to participate, you are asked to provide your full name in the interest of developing an accurate record of the meeting. Two, all participants are advised that people may be listening who did not provide comment or by telephone and those persons are not required to identify themselves or register in advance of the meeting. Three, all votes this evening will be taken by roll call. And finally, four, participants and folks watching can follow the post-agenda materials that are found on the Town's website. Thank you. Thank you. Thank everybody, I want to thank everybody for being here and not making us worry about having a quorum. So the first item on the agenda is to approve minutes from prior meetings. Sanjay, you're muted. Yes, I just had to make sure I shared the right ones. Now, can you see them? Yes. Okay, here they are. I sent these out actually quite a while ago now. Did anybody have, well, first of all, just double check the attendance and then if anybody had any edits or things that I missed? Going once, going twice. I'll just scroll through here quickly. And okay, I think I move that we approve the minutes. Second. Someone second? Second. Michael, do you mind taking the roll call vote? I do not. According to my records, Laura, we have nine voting members present, is that correct? Yes. I'll call them in order. Karen Bishop? Here, sorry. Yes or no, in favor of the, this is a roll call vote to approve the minutes of the, August 30th. Oh, sorry, yes, yes, yes, yes. Sorry. Anne Brown? Yes, approve. Michael Brownstein? Yes. Elliot Elkin? I wasn't here, so I've seen. Bob Rodikia? Yes. Kathy Rogers? Epstein, I wasn't attending them. I didn't just attend the meeting. Is that the newton? Yes. Susan Ryan Volmer? Yes. Laura Gilson? Yes. Motion passes seven to zero with two abstentions. Great, thank you. The next thing on our agenda is the, what we've sort of done every week, every meeting, which is just to check in with everybody about whether they have any updates from the bodies that they represent. So I will just call on people and see. Michael, do you have anything? So I talked to the chair of Envision Arlington that we, the person that we get together, we should add to the topic that, you know, what do we think the constituent that we represent would want to get out of this? And so we've made that, that will be a topic for September conversation. Okay, great. Kathy. Any women's commission updates? So I shared the slides from the April 3rd meeting with the commission so they could see all the work that was, I mean, all of the presentation that you saw on August 3rd, like Michael, I asked the Human Rights Commission to save time on its September agenda to talk about what their outcome, what they're hoping the outcome of this study group will be. Great, Susan. The rainbow commission met last week and like Michael and Kathy, I updated them on our work, talked about the fact that we had a draft interim report and asked for time in our September meeting to discuss this committee's work. Karen. So we have not met as a counseling board since June, but I have updated people on the work and then we committed to sort of reviewing what they would expect in September. Okay, great. Elliot, I'm assuming you haven't been able to talk, school hasn't started yet, so you haven't talked to anyone. Yeah, nothing going on in the summer, so no updates. Great. And Anne just stepped away. I was going to go to her next. Sorry, sorry, my battery just went, so it's reflugging in. Our leave council and aging has not met. We are hoping to have it on our agenda in September, time permitting. Great, thank you. I think I got everyone with a constituency. Is there anyone else who wanted to say anything here? Okay. I will move on to the next thing on our agenda had been originally on the agenda for the last meeting, but our conversation with Brian Corr was so robust, we ended up pushing it. And that is Bob Radokia wanted to talk about some research that he has done on our neighboring, both neighboring towns and just other towns in the area. So I'm going to turn it over to you, Bob. Okay, thanks. From the beginning, I needed to understand a little bit more in terms of how Arlington's compared with the surrounding communities in terms of everything to do with all aspects of poisoning and things like that. And I came up with something, I did submit it, I'm not sure if you've seen it. Okay, it's a two-carb. I did forward it to everybody, so they should have it. And I can go through this quickly, but basically I broke it down into different categories. And the first one is the size of the town, relative to, now the communities that I compared them to, I'll just briefly go through them to understand. It would be Lexington, Wolbin, Redding, Medford, Wakefield, Cambridge, Winchester, Melrose, Belmont, Somerville, and Watertown. And they all surround us in some ways like us and some ways not like us, but anyhow, just in terms of area, not that that's anything to do with anything, but some go from Lexington, goes from the 16 square miles down to Watertown, which is 4.1. And we ranked down there at 5.2, where about five up from the bottom in terms of size. So the others are bigger, not that that means anything. And then we go over to the population and we're the fourth largest of all of them. And then it breaks it down to the density and where we ranked third highest in density of all the communities. And then we looked at the police employees per 10,000 residents and we're the fourth lowest in terms of police per 10,000 people. And going forward, we look at the crime rate and the change from 2019. And we're fourth lowest in terms of the crime rate. Our crime rate was down around 2,424 compared to the high in Cambridge of 6,000. So, we're adjacent to a community that has a lot more going on, but some are going Cambridge than we do. And how do you compare us to that? I don't know. And then the crime rate, we're the second lowest of all of the communities in terms of crimes per, I don't know what it is, as we ranked somewhere on 9.3, but per 1,000 residents, that's what it is. So we're down at the bottom, Lexington is the only one under us. And then there's a ranking, the mass safest community ratings. And we ranked of all of them, we ranked fourth of the safest communities of the total number of 12, 13, whatever this is. And then there was another category of reported hate crimes and only five communities reported any hate crimes from the data that I had. And we were fourth on that. We, at that time, we were seven, as opposed to 27 for Cambridge and 14 for some of us. So again, we're looking pretty good. Overall, I look at it and say, we're doing a pretty good job of things, if this is where we stand and how we can compare ourselves to the ratings of other communities. So I think it's gotta be, I would have to factor that in as we go on in making decisions about what are we actually looking for? And that's the other thing that it's nothing to do with this, but we haven't really discussed what the problem is and that define the problem that we're trying to resolve here. And I really can't get going on this thing until I understand what is it we're trying to accomplish and what is the specific problem? So that's it in a nutshell. If anybody has any questions, let me know. Okay. All right, that's it. Thank you. No. No. Oh, go ahead. I have a question. Okay. Go ahead, Kathy. So I think something's wrong with Mike. Do any of the towns that you named have something like what we're working on today? I, not that I know of. All right, that was a tough, a difficult thing for me to find out. It was, you read a little bit. Medford has something going on, but it's not clear what it is and how do I get at it? I just, there was no consistent information on that. Everybody's thinking about it and doing something in one form or another, whether it's just simply playing softball with some group in town or something. But the police are really, most of them, they extend themselves to some kind of community activity and from what I've seen. But no, that's something that would be nice to know what they're actually doing. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions or comments about? Sunday. I was wondering, Bob, if you'd managed to find any information about complaints or things like that. It's probably in the data, but a little deeper into it. These were more summaries from state records on communities that reported into the feds and other things like that. So my resources were kind of limited in terms of those kinds of things. Yeah, I did list, I think, the resources that I used and I think if you are going into it, you could dig into it, but it'd be about six or seven pages of information and I didn't see anything standing out like that in it. Okay, okay. Thank you, Bob, for pulling this together. I think it's helpful context as we continue. It puts us in perspective with the other communities that are having a tougher time, I think, too. And there are those that don't have any problems. Okay, so if nobody has anything else on that, I will move forward on our agenda to our draft interim report. So the next item is the draft interim report, which we first discussed the idea of at our July 20th meeting when we were talking about what would be useful for us in terms of going forward and talking to the community and letting our constituents of all sorts know what we have been doing. And I think we were extraordinarily lucky to have Kathy Rogers step up to take point on this because I think that it's pretty amazing that a month later we have such a well-written and detailed and organized report. I made me feel proud of everything that we have done over the last months. So thank you so much, Kathy, for doing that. I think it really helps shape our discussion going forward. Very welcome. And I know we're all gonna share our feedback, but I just wanted to say that to Kathy up front that I think it's excellent. The draft that you all saw has a few edits that Susan and I made after Kathy sent it to us, but for the most part is Kathy's work. And I hope everyone saw that somehow when I converted it to a PDF, the one of my edits had disappeared. So I've sent a copy this afternoon that just added some language relevant, I think, given in our discussion with Bob's presentation of data about what kind of data other towns have felt helpful as they've looked at this same issue. And it's just the list of data from the NACOL report that we've all used as resources for various presentations. So I want us to open the floor and have some discussion of the report. I think we have two main goals. One is for people to give feedback about any edits that they think would be important to make to the report. And the other is to see if we can get to a place where we could formally vote to accept the report. So I'm gonna open that discussion up now and see if anyone has anything to say. I'm always willing to. Okay, well before you go, Senator, I did want to just seeing Michael's face in the corner. I wanted to also say that I also sent along, Michael did look at the draft of the report also and created a very helpful sort of succinct chart looking at the different models we've learned about, just maybe a sort of a different way of processing the information that I think ultimately could be a really useful appendix to whatever we end up with. I will go to you, Sanchez, since you are willing to start. I think Michael had something to say about that first. I can see that. Go ahead. Oh, wait, I'm fine. Okay. Did you send that chart to us? I thought I did. The first question I was gonna... I thought I did, but I possibly didn't. So I will double check. Okay. I mean, I was just gonna say, I really sort of echo what you said in terms of Kathy and thank you, thank you. I think this is a really great summary of what we've learned and what we've done for the past several months. I think it's incredibly thorough. I think one thing that we could consider doing just on top of this is also an executive summary. If somebody wanted to create that on top of what is there, right, a sort of a one pager for somebody who's not looking for quite as many details, I think it is something that, if somebody wanted to take up that work as well, I think Kathy's report provides an excellent baseline for that. It was the only sort of thing that I was gonna say about what we might want to consider. Yeah. Hope you're muted, Laura. You're still muted. Can't hear you. Sorry. I just found the unsent draft of the email that had Michael's chart in my non-sent part of my Gmail. So now that has been sent. Michael, did you wanna say anything? I'll let Susan do it and then I'll talk after Susan. I think Susan will. Go ahead, Michael. Again, I want to echo what everyone else said. I had just thought that it was very well organized. It was very rich content. There were some action steps at the end that told people about what we were thinking about doing next. I thought that was really helpful. I had some broader questions. It's a very dense document. So I'm wondering who is our audience for it? And have we, we haven't decided who that, I don't know if we've decided who that is. And I like what Sanjay's idea was about an executive summary for people who might not benefit from a longer read. What kind, how are we sharing that information so they can digest it easier? And I mean, I think an executive summary is a great thing, getting things on one page. I think if you look at the chart I created, I basically just took Kathy's good work and I put the different models that we had been looking at and I put them side by side. So people could look at the features out of it and they'd have one sheet. So it's sort of like, there was good rich information on one page and then people could make their own sense of it. So I just want to ask the group, this is a very fine report for whom and then how do we get to, how do we get this message out to a wider audience that might not enjoy going through such a dense rich document? Elliot. I think if we have an executive summary, I could then, I guess somebody would make that, I could then take that and kind of break it down even further and smaller to put into something for the high school. I think we talked about that two meetings ago, but. Okay, great. Susan, were you? Yeah, I just wanted to echo the praise for the report, Kathy, I think this is just an excellent, excellent summary of the work that we've done. This committee has done a lot of research and Bob, to answer your question about what we're trying to do, a big part of what we're trying to do is respond to the request from town meeting to study this issue. And, you know, Kathy outlined it in this report and if anyone on this call hasn't yet had an opportunity to read the report, I'd really encourage you to do so because it's absolutely terrific in terms of summarizing the various presentations that people have made, the time they've taken to learn things and research them. Michael, in answer to your question about who our audience is, our audience is town meeting in residence of the town of Arlington. That's who asked us to undertake this work and that's who we have to report back to. We obviously can't make people sit down and read this report. I think there's a certain population of people who will gobble this up because they love this stuff. Other people are going to need an executive summary and as we've previously discussed, other people are gonna need even smaller snippets. Thank you, Rebecca. Aren't going to need smaller snippets and we've already discussed that and I think we know how to do that going forward. There are lots of ways to share the report in full and in part with the community in all of the various ways that people get their information on Facebook, media, town emails, et cetera. So thank you again, Kathy, for doing this. Carlos, did you have something? I thought I saw your hand. Yeah, thank you. So Kathy, up first, thank you. This is fantastic, fantastic work. It's, I think it memorializes a lot of the issues that we've been talking about it and it really makes the rest of us look very good. So thank you. It's, I'm just echo what all of you have said and definitely I think an executive summary is a must just for like anybody who wants to understand like any town meeting members or something like that. But I think earlier you alluded to something that we have talked about it before to idea of a pamphlet because that's when I can help us maybe reach out to the community to get feedback about what is it that you wanna hear about, what are aspects, anything else. So maybe the two takeaways, like a second summary that can precede this work, the great chart that Michael, you did in there, I think it's like a lot of people are very visual. They wanna see things organizing in that manner. I think that's really helpful. So I think in second summary at the beginning that the appendix is gonna be that great chart that you have, but there's a different document with a different audience, which is not the town meeting members, but it's just like, it's the little pamphlet. It's like, what is it that this is about? What is it that we're trying to solve so that we can get any feedback from the community at large? So I don't know if you know, I mean, that's a lot of work when the second this summer we can do and I don't know if we could be earlier if you are up to it or somebody else, maybe we can create like something that is more reduced form, but that can elicit conversation and ask questions. I don't know, that's my comment. I think it is important no matter what sort of summaries we come up with to remember what Susan said, which is that ultimately we are responding to a very direct request from town meeting to study this issue. And so I think that's just an important preface to keep in any of these discussions that this isn't out of the blue. This isn't, we didn't create ourselves. We have a very clear ask from town meeting. Susan. What I was going to suggest only because we've had this sort of marketing conversation, it sounds like twice now. I'm happy to work with Elliot and Kathleen and anyone else who would like to work with us to come up with the small pamphlets that Carlos says Carlos calls them and happy to have items for review. Our next meeting is in two weeks. I think we can turn that, turn some of that copy around in advance by then. And rather than belabor and repeat what we've already agreed needs to happen. Great. Susan, I think if you don't mind, I'd like to, first of all, you're all being so careful and nice. And I really appreciate it. Each of you have started with very kind remarks. And I'm, you know, you should feel very comfortable just sort of saying how you want to change things. I'm not offended in the least. I'm, you know, at all. I just want to put that out there. And I thank you for your incredible politeness tonight. I'm not in a good place for the next couple of weeks to write something more Susan. So I'd like to be out of that subgroup if I could. Yeah. You've given us a great starting point. So that's makes total sense. Sunday. Yeah. And I was just going to say, I don't think we need to put the executive summary in this document, right? I think this document stands itself as it is, right? I think that, you know, as we had talked about a month ago, this is something that we can add in two weeks, right? An executive summary and or a pamphlet, you know, the one page version of this report and the half sheet version of this report. If people are, you know, so inclined to take the time to do those things. But I think this, to me, this stands as it is. But, you know, let's hear from other people too. Susan, do you still have your hand up or was that from? No, sorry. Okay. I'm going to check in with other people who we haven't heard from. Karen, did you have any feedback about the report that you would like to share with us? I think the report is fantastic. I really do. I think it captures everything that we have been doing so far. And I do agree that we need something much more sort of accessible in a pamphlet so that we could literally just get it to more, in more people's hands. And I would hope that we would consider translating those, all of these documents as well into various languages that are represented in Arlington. Thank you. Bob, I'm going to go back to you. Oh, no, Anne raised her hands. I'll go to her first. Yeah. I was going to say, I appreciate this document. And I think this is what I've been trying to figure out how to talk to my board about what's been going on here because so much has been done. And so I was thrilled to see this in my inbox and say, oh my gosh, this is what I can share with my fellow board members who are wondering what I'm doing since they appointed me to be on this position. So I'm really excited to have something like this to use. I agree for us talking to our constituents in the Crown Council on aging, a smaller pamphlet makes the most sense, but as far as working with my board, I think this is ideal. Michael. I just want to give maybe the perspective of someone who hasn't been at prior meetings but is interested in these issues is picking up a report like this and reading it the first time. I think Kathy's report is extremely helpful in setting forth the different models, the strength and the relative strength and the weaknesses of each. It made it really something for those interested in these issues, easy to understand and try and reach some conclusions about what my opinion might be about what the best model might be. So I think if you try to reach the general public with a report like this, I think it's effective. I think it's very well done, very laid down, very easy to understand. The one question I had was the next steps section at the end, talked about community outreach in a couple of different steps. Is there any thoughts on how that's going to occur or how it can occur with, just to get some additional public input into some of these different models maybe to find to the report. So you can get back to town meeting with some more concrete one as you find to it. I don't know if there was any thought on the next steps. So we've actually talked a lot about this and that's, I think what Susan was referring to earlier in that we've talked about ways for those of us who have like smaller kinds of constituencies, the boards and the commissions to go back to them. And also we've talked about setting up community meetings. Unfortunately, by the time we got to that point, it was the beginning of the summer. And so we kind of concluded that we have to wait until September to really get any sort of attendance or input or participation. And the drafting of this report came out of thinking about how to prepare for that to put together the information, we've all learned so much so that when we do have these community conversations, they're not, we're not starting from scratch. It's great work and you guys, the whole committee, you get clearly put a lot of time, research and effort is impressive. I'm gonna, Jill, did you have any comments you wanted to give us to go to our ex-officio members? I thought the report was wonderful. Kathy, you did a great job and I'm just saying you're doing a great job but it really was great and informative and helped me I think better visualize how the information can be shared with the community. I think I'm still struggling with the fact that the same people always get the information. And I know like the point we're bringing this to town meeting but town meeting is exclusive. So I think that's the piece I'm just struggling with. So I think continuing to brainstorm around expanding that outreach is where my concerns are but the report itself was spot on. And I'm gonna go back to Bob now since making sure everyone had a chance. I wasn't amazed that Kathy put this together. Just knowing what I do know about her as she went well beyond what I might have expected. And it was a great summary I thought and it's important to me to have this as to where we've been and she captioned most of it in straight, no-nonsense kind of language. And I love it, but I left it out on the deck and I don't have it on me now. I'm reading it out there but I'm looking through it. But that's a kind of example I think, okay, it gives us a good basis now to go on. Okay. And Captain Kiernan, I don't know if you've had a chance to see it or if the chief passed along any comments but I wanna give you the chance to speak. I did, I haven't had it that long. I did peruse it. And the one thing I focused in on is I really liked the breakdown of the models. It was very well done and very easy to understand. Great, thank you. I don't think I could have broken it down better myself to explain it to someone so. Great. Very good. So does anybody have to get back to the sort of nitty gritty? It's, I mean, we've heard a lot of praise and some questions about what we do going forward. But in terms of actually editing the report, I'm wondering if we think we're ready to take a vote on that tonight. Does anybody have edits they think are important? So I would suggest that you add the chart from Michael that you just sent out as an appendix. I think that we should make that change. I think it's a really great visualization of it and we should add that as an appendix. And then we do need to insert, there were a couple of places where there's language that's like insert link here and like that. So we need to go back and do that before we send it out. I move that we, you know, I don't know what the right wording is, but to publish this report pending those minor, adding Michael's appendix and making those minor. Yeah, I second that. Great. Michael, will you take the vote? Maybe Michael can tell us what the correct verb. Oh, what are we doing the right? What are we doing? Well, it's my understanding and you can correct me if I'm wrong that the motion is to accept and publish the report with certain minor edits and with the inclusion of Michael's chart as an appendix. Is that correct? That's what I was. Yes. And I guess the only question of clarification I would have is where would it be published? Where is it being produced? So I've been in talks with Ashley Maher about adding some of this stuff to the town, our committee page on the webpage and so it'll go there. Okay, then Laura, if I'll attempt to summarize it and if you think it's okay, I will, we can take a roll call, but I believe the motion which has been seconded is to accept and publish the report with certain small editorial changes that were necessary, as well as the inclusion of an appendix, which is the chart that Michael prepared. Is it that the vote we're taking? So I'll read the role of the president and the committee. Karen Bishop. Yes. Ann Brown. Yes. Michael Brownstein. Yes. Elliot Elkin. Yes. Barbara Dickey. Yes. Carlos Morales is now president, was not president initially, but you'd like to vote at this time Carlos? Yes, the vote yes. Kathy Rogers. Yes. Sanjay Newton. Yes. Susan Ryan Volmer. Yes. And Laura Gilson. Yes. The motion passes unanimously 10-0. Thank you so much. So we will, oh, Jill? Were you raising your hand? Yeah, just before the final draft is edited, I mean, published, can you send it to me just so I can double check it for ADA compliance? Because there's been kind of a chart of that too. So just to make sure it's accessible just because with the coloring and cotton stuff. Oh, yeah. And can I, maybe I will also check in with you about what the best resources are to use to translate it and which languages we should be doing that with. Yeah, that's fine. OK. Great. Thank you. So I'm very excited that we have our first real concrete publication to take back to the community. And I think as we continue to talk about the outreach, once this is published on the website, at the very least, people should feel free to start sharing it with anybody who they think would be interested. Taking into account that we will also be distilling it down into formats that may be more easily digestible. There's no reason not to be sharing it with the community as soon as it is official. I think that what occurs to me now is that where we are in terms of having delineated all of these models and done the research about what exists and what doesn't exist and what the costs and benefits are for all of these different models, it seems to me like we've learned that an investigative model is not a model that would be practical or work very well for Arlington based on compared towns of this size, looking at nationally what towns, most of the towns we've been able to look at are still so much bigger than we are, but looking at what has worked and hasn't worked and perhaps most informed by our last meeting, the presentation by Brian Korr who talked about the hybrid model in Cambridge and even though they have an investigatory part of their responsibilities, that is actually not most of what they do. And Cambridge, as we've all discussed before, is larger and based on Bob's research in numbers, has that if Cambridge doesn't have enough to do to merit an investigative body, it's hard to see Arlington making sense of it, which points me to thinking that what we're discussing, if we are going to recommend something to town meeting, that we're going in the direction of some sort of hybrid model, figuring out what works best for Arlington to go forward in its civilian police community relationship and that we're going for. So basically a hybrid model of those two is what makes sense. And I think it would be really helpful right now to hear if other people have reached different places or are still unsure just to try to define the scope of our work going forward, where are we? So because I know he will volunteer to go first, if I don't have any volunteers, I'm going to start with Sunday. OK, I'll say, I'm in a pretty similar space to you. I think we've learned a lot and done a lot here. And I think one of the really big things I took away, both in the research that we did independently and listening to Brian Korr talk to us, was how important it was to tailor to our specific community. We're talking about something for Arlington. And to me, that looks like choosing some pieces from, at this point, what we've looked at so far really seems to look like choosing some pieces from the monitor-auditor model and some pieces from the review model. And I think let's continue the discussion here. But I think that I would agree with the idea that the investigative model doesn't seem like the right fit for what we're talking about. Thank you. I'm going to move around my screen. Ann, I know you're not looking at me. I'll just step away for 30 seconds. I'll be back. Oh, sure. Ann, can I ask for your status update about where you see us going? I'm, as far as the models go, I kind of I agree with what everyone else is talking about. I do feel like I don't want to get too much in the weeds because I do feel like I feel like we do need to do some listening sessions and we do need to be out there in the community. But I don't mind, I think, giving two options for people to look at. I don't want to go in with us completely having decided what we think should be put forward before we've talked with the community. So the whittling this down, I think, is important. But I'd like to see us not kind of go too far. Yeah, I think what I like what Sanjay said about remembering what Brian said, which is we need to find the pieces of these different possibilities that work for Arlington and one of the most important ways of figuring that out is going to be from listening to what Arlington residents think or want. But giving them if we're going to try to focus them on what we think would make they asked us. So I agree. And so that's why I think moving off the table, I agree with the consensus so far. Karen, I'm going to ask you to chime in. Yeah, I would also agree that I don't think an investigative model works. I agree with what you're saying about the size of Cambridge and if it doesn't work there, why would we try to do that here? I do think listening sessions are important. And I know we have not connected about some of the listening sessions. We've been trying to sort of find a common time that we could talk about some listening sessions that I've been involved in that have worked well and some that haven't worked so well. But I do think it's really important to hear from the community what they feel like would be the best model. Jill, I know you are an ex-officio member, but I think it's important to hear from you as well. I have a question before I give some two cents. I know I missed a few meetings, but have we already reviewed as a group or been given information of how complaints are already handled? We had the chief talk about it. Yes, I can't remember exactly which meeting it was, but I think if I went back and looked at our notes, I could tell you. I think it was the April meeting. OK. Yeah, maybe it was May. OK, I definitely don't. The investigative one is like, no, just now. But for me, I think a version of the hybrid and incorporating what's already there, I know some of them. I mean, for my own experience being in the process of one of those complaints, I can see how it can be combined with oversight. And I think that's part of one of these. But I think just keep in mind resources in addition to what we suggest, figuring out costs as well. But yeah, I think I'm leaning more towards a hybrid and with more information. Thank you. Michael, you're back. It's all right. You know, I've just been sort of thinking about not having a point of view yet about which model I would want to share, but really to hear from the group that I'm with, what are the issues that are coming up with for them about the models that we present? Because they may be something else may emerge that I'm not aware of and wouldn't want to filter that out. And I think the other issues, as Bob was talking earlier about, in sharing it, we'll be talking about, so what is the purpose of this? And what are we trying to solve? And I think we still need to unpack. I feel like I need to unpack that with the group that I'm working with in order to get good information about all the research that we've done. Because I think for me, it feels like a little bit premature for me to have a point of view of what I think is best without unpacking more of the purpose of what we're doing and the strengths and weaknesses of the models we've researched. Thank you. Carlos. Yes. So I really, going back to what Sanjay was saying about, we need to find something that fits. That's for us. That's why I think talking to the community and trying to see what we know, we can bring it together to see what fits. But there is something that we already know. We know what doesn't fit. So investigative reporting models that doesn't fit. There's some of those things that are very costly that have to have some kind of permanent or some professional staff. None of that staff is going to work. So that much, I think, we know that it's not going to work. So the thing I want to maybe comment on is models are really good to understanding, to organize our thoughts, to organize the discussion. So now we have a language to talk about this. But I think that for us to find what it fits, we need to go to the next level of functions. So to find what is hybrid, something that is hybrid is going to work for us. It's like, what are the pieces that we're going to go around? It's like, imagine that you go around and you go to Comcast and they sell you a package. This is a model. It has all these things. It's going to cost you this much. Did you get it? It's like, no, no, no. I want to do a card. I want to watch soccer. So when I get this channel, I want to watch tennis. So when at that channel, I want my politics to come from this channel. So that's what we need to do. We need to see what are the functions. And the functions are right there in the document. And they're in the chart that Michael put together. So let's go back to that level and say, what are those pieces that maybe resonate and what are the pieces that are going to try to solve some of the problems? So we know that we have a chart. We have given a mandate to investigate and to understand these issues. But we need to understand, what are we really solving? So I think that we need to start moving to that part of the discussion. And I'll tell you why I said that I joined this committee. It was because for me, part of what really resonated with all the staff is about policing and about being a community is how people experience living in that community. So I'm allergic to certain ants, fire ants. Good thing I don't live in Texas anymore. So I carry with me always a pack of antihistaminesic. Just in case I go around and I get an ant bitten by an ant so I can take it and I can save my life. That antihistamine package is there. I never want to use it, but it's there. And it makes me feel secure. That it's like, honey, do you remember to pack my pills? Yes, great. It makes me feel good. So I want to live in a community where we are thoughtful and we want to have norms and regulations and systems that make us feel safe, that make us feel that we're careful and that we can care for each other. So that is one of the things that I think is something like this. It's not the problem that we're going to solve. It's the problem for everybody to have, yes, if there is a problem, we have that set of pills that I can take. So that I think is the real problem that we're trying to solve. What are the things in here in the community that we say, if right now, what is the minimum cost that we can have to have that antihistamine set with us? So that's I want to start there. Thank you. Thank you. Michael, I don't know if I'm going to give you the opportunity to speak for Doug or for yourself or whoever about whether you've had any discussions about this. I know Doug is always very mindful of his role, and I don't want to force something you're not comfortable with. But we, of course, do want to hear as much as possible. Doug, thank you. And Doug, as you know, is very knowledgeable on these issues. And I'm sure he'll be weighing in if he could at some point. I think that at this point, though, I think this group voicing these different opinions at this stage is productive and trying to analyze the different models and understand the relative strengths and weaknesses, not only from the individuals who are here at this meeting, but also the constituencies they represent and the people they've spoken to and bring all those opinions. But I think it's important to what Jill said earlier about reaching out further to the community and trying to get some voices who may not have been heard from yet to weigh in on these different models. I think it will be an important part of this committee's fulfillment of the charge from town meeting. And I think that's going to be helpful as this group goes forward. But I'm just really impressed with the foundation you've got so far. It's impressive, this report, but also the thoughtfulness that everyone here has exhibited. And Doug is coming back and everyone wants him back. But if I can continue to participate, I'd be more than happy to. You are always welcome. Just continuing on to any way that I can help as well. Great, thank you. Bob, I'm going to go to you next. I'm still, it's like designing something. You need to know what it is you're trying to accomplish in designing this is that to go up down sideways or heat up a cool and you can't really begin until you understand what the mission of the object you're trying to design is. And I don't think I understand what it is that we're trying to do, even though Susan gets a little frustrated with me because I don't understand it, but I need specific stuff for me to grab on to. And I think we're going to get there soon. And I'll just sit back and wait. And I think it'll evolve and get on with it for a minute. Okay. Jill, I have another question. I'm just full of questions today. Has there been in, I don't want to say a survey, I'm over a survey, like some way to know that there is a reason community members either like the current reporting system there is for filing complaints or that they don't like it? Like is there information as to like, I think that might be what you're trying to get at Bob. Like what is the problem? The problem to some people might be that they don't feel safe or comfortable or feel that their complaint is going to be taken seriously like all of those possibilities. Like that might be part of the problem, but I'm wondering, do we have any of that information from people as to, do they even know that there's a complaint process? I actually just sent it to someone a couple of days ago. Like there's, do people even know that that exists? And I think that's a mix of what the problem is around, oh, I feel like a lot of people in town don't even know what's going on, honestly. Again, back to outreach because there's just this gap. So I think, I don't know if that kind of... I think your question is like an incredibly good one. And as someone who likes data, I, if we had the answer to that question, I think that would be great. I am not aware of any effort to collect that information. So I think the answer is we don't know, which is part of what's hard about our task. Right, I think then then if it's feasible and I don't know how, I think I need to put more thought to it to figure out how we can also include that step because to me, I can hear folks saying like, why fix it if it's not broken because we have the system already, but we need to know either if it's working, if it's not working. So I think, and maybe that's not on us, but it needs to be brought up that that piece is missing. That information's missing. Yeah, I agree. Kathy. Well, I wonder, Jillian, your question is spot on and I agree with it. And I also, I sort of see Bob, Bob, I think you're an engineer in a past life, right? Yes. You are an engineer. So you like to see how things work. And so I can totally appreciate that. I wonder if the elephant in the room is that, how much of this started the study committee is related to unhappiness, unrest, dissatisfaction in the community about how the Lieutenant Padrini matter was handled. And so if that is where sort of the nub is and then it grew from that, I mean, that's something to be thinking of either to decide that, is that the problem we're trying to solve? Is it a different problem? And so I just, again, I think Jillian's question is, she's saying, are we trying to fix something that's broken? And I think part of the question of what's broken is, is our existence in whole or in part related to the Lieutenant Padrini situation? And I think to add on to that, I mean, and broader than that history is more recent national context in history. And one thing we've learned as we've done the research and from hearing from Brian Korr is that there is a seem sort of slow building movement among towns and cities around the country to whether they're responding to a specific incident or just responding to the national like discussion to have something that I think is what Carlos was getting at in terms of like the thing that makes us just feel like the systems are there and the safety is in place, which is harder to design or solve when we don't know the answer to Jill's question. So I think it all ends up fitting together in that way. Carlos, your hand was raised. No, Jill, I really think that's a very key question. And the problem is that by design that data doesn't exist in general, because basically it's basically saying, hey, how can we hear the voices of those we have not heard? Because we cannot hear them because they're no near us because we cannot go reach a mile. So if somebody's afraid to complain to the police, are they gonna, who are they gonna complain to the priest, to somebody else? So we need to see what are all the other pieces where people go around and feel that void. So there's not a unique system, there's not a unique place where that data comes to. So it's very hard. And I mean, anecdotically, I have heard some things here and there, but that's just anecdotes. So it's like, a former town member, town meeting member here, told me, like in general, how I said that he felt as a person in different towns. And I don't know if he was the same thing here or not, right? And how I said that he would, it was afraid to actually go there and complain to the police. And there were maybe one or two opportunities that he wanted to in his time here. He now moved to another town. But that's it. It's just like we hear something from somebody or there, but it's by design data that it's difficult to collect. Um, Elliot, I'm gonna call on you to see what your thoughts are. I don't really have anything new to add. Just echo what Carla said, but not really nothing new. Thank you. I will note that Carrie Fallon has joined us, I think. There she is. You're muted. We can't hear you. We still can't hear you. You're muted. I'm not too sure. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can hear you now. Okay, thank you. Sorry, I've been listening. I had a hard time. My computer's acting up and I had a really hard time trying to get in. So I'm sorry, I'm so late. Can I just add something to this conversation? Sure. Sure, thanks. And what I was thinking, and again, I came late to this, but one of the things I know, because I've worked in the mental health field for a great number of years, I also worked for a great number of years with women who were targets of domestic violence. And what I have found is that if they had someone who they trusted to have a conversation with about what had happened and not happen to like go to the police alone, but having some kind of a support system or whether that it made it so much more, and I don't wanna use the word simple because it's never simple if I think for someone to come forward and talk about some issue that they have with the police or something, but that they felt like there was someone who heard them and that they were not alone in bringing something forward. So I just wanted to throw that in. Thank you. Anne, I think I saw your hand go up. Everybody keeps moving around. I know I hate how we jump around. I think Jill's point was really important and I do think that we need to, and I'm not clear on how this came about at town meeting when I mentioned that I was gonna be on this board to somebody, their reaction sort of, I said, I guess it kind of was, oh, that's cause of the Padrini case. And I don't know if that's actually accurate or not. And I do feel like whatever the rationale was that we've been formed, we all do need to be clear on that whether it has some relationship to people's frustrations with the outcome of that case or whether it just came out of the fact that Arlington said, oh, we need an equitable, fair and inclusive process. I'm not sure that we have one with the one we've got, so we need a group to study this, but we do need to understand where this exactly came from. And I apologize that I don't know that. And I don't know if anyone here, I know Clarissa usually is our town member rep who seems to have this great photographic, not photographic, but memory of things. But if someone else, I would appreciate it. If someone knows the answer to that, that we do get that out, we open a little bit and discuss that further. I'm gonna, the other person who had their hand up is Sanjay and as, so Sanjay and me and Clarissa are the three nominees of town meeting. So I'm hoping that one of the reasons Sanjay's nodding his head is he can help provide the context. Yeah, I mean, the way I would say it is that it is not, that situation is not separate from why we're here, right? But I don't think, I think we would make a mistake in making it the driver for why we're here, right? If we view that as the problem we're trying to solve, I don't think that there's, well, I'll leave it there. I don't think that that's the problem we're trying to solve, right? We're here having a much larger and broader conversation. But that is important that we make sure that somehow that our constituents and the people that we're sharing this with understand that that was not the only motivating factor in establishing this group. Cause I think that there are people out there who believe that is the case. Right. Sure. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so the other thing I was just gonna sort of say to that is that, you know, complaints are part of what we're talking about here, right? But I think we'd be remiss if we only think about, right? Part of what we, or I learned, right? In this is that there's a whole other section to oversight, right? And, you know, to extend Carlos's analogy, right? You know, you want your antihistamine and you wanna have it, but you also wanna understand, right? Hey, I have the correct antihistamine and it works. And, right, this is the one that will treat the problem that I have, right? And what I mean by that is, right? There's lots of functions that an oversight board can have beyond just receiving complaints and doing something or reviewing what is done with those complaints, right? Whether that's gathering and publishing data or, you know, reviewing policies or holding community, you know, gathering, regularly gathering community input, right? That there's all these other things that are there beyond just complaint. Situations. And I think, you know, we're here, right? Regardless of how we got here, right? Our charge, regardless of why people voted to create this committee, right? That the charge is there and is pretty clear as calculated out in the report, right? We're here to look at the best practices and see what might or might not work for Arlington. And I think, you know, that's what we're here to do. It's, we're not always here to fix a giant glaring problem, right? We're here to move forward with the best possible thing for Arlington, right? Sometimes it's just, hey, there's a great, there's a better way we could be doing things and here's the better way we could do it. So. I do not want to make Captain Karen uncomfortable or put you on the spot, but I also don't wanna not give you the opportunity to speak. I know it's, it's cause you're not a regular member of the committee you might, I don't know what you and the chief have discussed, but I just wanna give you the opportunity to chime in if there's anything you think would be helpful for us to hear from the APD perspective here. I won't, well, I won't speak for the chief. I'll speak for myself. Looking at the models is, I mean, it appears to me there's no one model that's gonna fit like a glove. And the other departments that I see listed under each model that use that type of model, this size-wise there's nothing close to us unless maybe Urbana, Illinois is, but they're the only ones I'm not familiar with. So I have no idea what this size is. So you probably don't necessarily need something that caters to a larger size. And when you go to the back of the report and you see our actual number of complaints, it's relatively low. So I would think you'd have to, I think you'd be best suited to build a hybrid that works for you. Cause it may be one of those things where it's not, it's not a constant revolving thing. It's a thing where sporadically things come up that have to be addressed. But again, that's stuff to you. I mean, that's my two cents. And I'll certainly follow up with the chief about the meeting and I'm sure she has her own opinion too. But like I said, I just don't see one that just fits perfectly. Thank you. I think that is an important perspective for us to have. Okay. Sanjay, your hand's still up. I don't know. Nope, sorry. It's okay. I'm just trying to get better at noticing the hands. Oh, Karen. So I just wanna go back to what Jill had said in terms of trying to reach people who don't actually know the process to which they can register a complaint if there is one. I know this is by no means a study but everybody that I spoke to about this board, my friends, other people who live in town had no idea what the process is if you have a concern. So I don't know that that's widely known and maybe that's part of what we do with the pamphlet that we're talking about is sort of, you know, outline how something like this can be registered with the Ireland Human Rights Commission or some other way that we can just make that known to folks. Yeah. I'm mindful of talking too much but since we've been talking about the complaint situation, one of the things that I happen to run into in reading and hasn't come up in conversation here yet, there are some municipalities that ask officers to carry a card and in every interaction with the public, they ask them to give them a card and on the back of the card, you know, is a, you know, here's how you can commend or, you know, make a complaint about an interaction. Right, that is a, I don't think that that's something for us to necessarily decide upon, right? That's something that perhaps if we created a board, right? They might recommend, right? That's something, you know, yeah. Anyway. It's like that, how am I driving? Yeah. Yeah. We should all probably have one of those, how am I driving on the back of our cars? But anyway. Yeah. It's a thought that's been in the back of my head in the conversation. Anyway. Thank you. Does any, I mean, we don't have to reach any, we shouldn't be reaching any sort of conclusion here. So I don't, I feel like we've, we've had some really good discussion and we have a lot of food for like feet, for thought about what, as we move forward in our next steps of talking to constituencies, what kind of questions are important for us to have answered by them. And I know that that is something, I think with Susan, we talked about two meetings ago, you were talking about lists of questions. So I don't know if that should be sort of on our agenda for a future meeting. Maybe our next meeting. Okay. I am gonna move on to the next item on the agenda if nobody has anything else to add. Okay. So the next item, I think I called just new business future meetings. So one thing I wanted to bring up, which is that when we were going through the draft report, I think it's on page eight, there's a section where Kathy points out that whatever we recommend will likely have, we'll have to sort of know more about the collective bargaining agreement between APD and the town. And I know Doug has offered to talk about that before, but we also thought it might be useful to talk to the deputy town manager, Sandy Pooler, who's the one who actually goes through that contract negotiation every cycle. And so I took the liberty of reaching out to him and seeing if that's something he'd be able to do. And he is available to talk to us and answer our questions about that process at our next meeting, September 8th. So I did wanna raise that as something that I think we will put on that agenda and anybody who has any questions that we wanna give him ahead of time, if you feel free to pass those through me. We have any other new business or questions about future meetings and agenda, Susan. At our last meeting, Brian Core mentioned other models in place in Massachusetts, and he mentioned the Pittsfield model and Chief Flaherty noted when he was talking about that that it might be interesting to hear from the chief of police in Pittsfield. And so we have invited him, Chief Nguyen, to come and present at our September 20th meeting. And Chief Nguyen is also one of the nine people around the state who's been appointed to the Post-Commission out of the new criminal justice reform law. So great. That's great. I didn't realize that second part. That's great. I had one thing. So Susan, in the course of getting all of our recordings up on ACME had been talking to the ACME folks. And I don't know exactly what all her conversation, but anyway, they've asked to interview one of us. And so I'm gonna be interviewed by the ACME folks to sort of give an update on what the committee has been talking about so far. I think luckily we're doing it after our report is released. And so I can talk about some of that stuff. And I don't know, we'll see what else they ask about. Great. Well, thanks, Post. Towards that end, they're very interested in hearing from anyone on our committee who has made a presentation to the committee. So I know there are a couple of folks, Carlos, Clarissa, who's not here. And I will connect you, if you don't mind, with the ACME folks. Great. Great. In terms of future meetings, we have our next two sets. So we don't have to do anything about that. Where's agenda? I don't have any, go ahead, Sanjay. No, I just wanted to thank everybody again for replying to the polls and letting us know which meetings were gonna be possible. I know we've met a lot in the summer, which is not the norm for town committees. And so I appreciate the time and the effort that everybody has put in, both in being available for these meetings and all of the prep that everybody has done and going to them. I think, thank you guys. Well, thank you for organizing our answers into actual dates of meetings. Okay, before we adjourn, I just wanna say thank you to everyone for a really, I think, thoughtful discussion tonight. I think we covered a lot of ground and we know we have a lot of ground left to cover, but I feel like we're really in the heart of this and the need of talking about these really important issues. And I'm feeling optimistic that we are going to have some really good conversations in the fall as well. Can someone make a motion to adjourn? Kathy? Motion to adjourn. And ground. And Michael, will you take the vote? Motion to adjourn has been made and second, I'll call the roll. Karen Bishop? Yes. Ann Brown? Yes. Michael Brownstein? Yes. Elliot Elkin? Yes. Kerry Fallon? Yes. Carlos Morales? Yes. Barbara DeGheia? Yes. Kathy Rogers? Yes. D Newton? Yes. Susan Ryan Volmer? Yes. And Laura Kielsen? Yes. Thank you, everyone. See you in a couple of weeks. Take care. Bye. Bye.