 And we started a conversation of last week, have a special meeting again, the creation of new position. This is the director of key. So the motion to adopt the agenda. Councilor McGee, any discussion of the agenda? We say aye. All right then, any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And we have an agenda. We do have a public forum. And there's no one in the room. It appears that we should speak to the board looking online to see, I want us to raise their hands to address the board. And I'm not seeing any hands. So I am going to close the public forum. And we now are at the consent agenda. And I would welcome a motion to adopt the agenda. So thank you, Councilor McGee. Second by Councilor Barlow discussion. All those in favor of the consent agenda, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And that brings us to really our only item of business, which is the creation of the new position. Welcome back to your ad. I think one significant thing that has happened since we last met and discussed this is that the police commission discussed this matter when President Paul attended the police commission meeting and engaged them. And my understanding is that, well, maybe I was not there. Karen, would you like to go for anything? Sorry, President Paul, would you like to report anything about that meeting that we should know? Only that there were a couple of questions that particularly Commissioner Comfort had. And Lacey was also there. Lacey Smith, who spoke much more specifically to the on-the-ground work that they're doing. I did not speak to that. And we sort of agreed, we agreed that if they had any further comments or questions or suggestions that by Thursday morning that they would have them to the administration, which actually, commissioners that we know the chair did let me know that they were fine with the, they were fine with the job description as it was. And there was discussion about, I know it was actually a counselor grant who brought this up and a number of counselors who had suggested that we work on the name, the title, which has now had changed to get away from the word alternative. So I think there was support for that as well. Would that be your assumption here, Jeff? Great. Chair, does anything else you wanna report to the committee about the engagement? Okay. So Chief, anything else you wanna add at this point? I mean, you gave a discussion of the presentation on this last week. Sir, I'm happy to take any questions that may remain, but we did change the title. And that was both counselor Carpenter and I think counselor Grant. It did come up at the police commission meeting as well. So that was addressed. I'm hopeful done in a way that was effective and respectful to that, to those concerns. So that's really the primary difference between what we had last week and what we had this week. Great. So with that and the floor, the floor's open for further discussion from the board. There's a call. So when I said, when I spoke to the police commission, I also, there was a discussion, the key discussion of what commissioner Comerford had asked was that she's concerned about the fact that this area of CAPE is very peer-based. It is, that was one of the compelling reasons to go with an agency like the Howard Center when it came to the good and small. And that she had concerns about the culture not being different than it was through BPD. And Lacey spoke to that. She said that she encouraged any member of the police commission to come down to talk about the people that work at CAPE and to without her there and to find out what their impressions from employees who do this work, what their impressions were of the culture that was there. But I do think that that is a valid concern given the fact that we're trying to do, we're trying to do many approaches to and many responses to public safety issues. You know, I hope that there will be some broad consensus about the idea that perhaps, while it may not happen today, that at some point there might be a discussion of how to address that in a meaningful way that shows even through geography that these are two separate areas of public safety. And to some degree, maybe in the same way that fire department isn't at the police department. I know that may not be the same analogy, but you know, because they do, but they don't do the same kind of work and they aren't together. So I think that would, I mean, I'm supportive of this because I think we need to move on and we need to respect the growth of what we've created and have oversight and management to collectively move that vision forward. But I do think on a longer term basis that it would be, it would be helpful to have that conversation. That's all. Yeah, thank you President Pollock. Yes, we can. Thank you. I won't be supporting this tonight. A lot of the reasons that we just laid out, I think for me, this comes down to how we're having these conversations, when they're taking place and when folks are being brought into the room before the decision is made. To me, this feels an awful lot by the recent commission with the finance or be created sort of a stamp for the collaborative partners in determining what the future of and safety was like in Burlington. And I don't feel like we're in a position right now where we've done all the due diligence that we can to know for sure that this is the correct place for this position that our work could be done to, could have been done to look into standing up in the department for the non-police responses that we have invested a lot of resources into over the last couple of years and now we're going to continue with those resources. And I don't want to make this conversation about the crisis response team, but I think because the crisis response team will be under this new position, I think it's important to note that when we released the RFP for this program, the intention has always been, as is with Cahoots, that it would be programmed as far as we move through the police departments as is possible. So the idea that we're going to be doing this in-house and it will be within the police department gives me great concern. I am supportive of us doing this as quickly as we possibly can. So I've said many times over and I am supportive of the civilians currently in the police department being overseen by a civilian. I think that is important to us. But I can't support this item tonight because I don't feel like enough conversation happened to avoid us getting to this point. So while I am overall supportive of all of the work that was worth doing to continue to invest in our police responses to continue to our safety transformation, I just don't think that this is the best way for us to go about it. So I don't have more to say. Full council meeting. Thank you, Councilor Geary. I guess I'll share a few of my thoughts at this point. And then we'll go back to the board for more discussion about the, so I guess, first of all, I want to be clear that from my perspective, the police department is, has embraced and is implementing these new resources that we've already created. Wow. And I don't think I have heard anyone. I've heard no feedback from councilor's commission or the public that the CSL program is not been a very positive addition to the city's services and capacity. And that has been happening in a structure with that new program being housed at the police department, led by a police department employee reporting up through destruction. And if that's not the shared understanding of this table, I'd be interested in hearing that, but that's where that's my sense of it. I don't agree with the characterization that it certainly wasn't at all my feeling that we had put out the RFP, the idea of making the program as I think, or Ms. Councilor Geary, but as far removed from the police department as possible. To the contrary, we have, I think we explicitly decided that after reviewing all of the options, discussing in various public bodies with the police commission, with the public safety committee, informal conversations, we decided with the advocates, I remember with the leading advocates on this, there was a discussion that having it housed, having the first response team, RFP issued and managed by the police department, was the option that made most sense and was consistent with the kind of drumbeat of public input that we had received, that we wanted something like CAHOOTS. Well, CAHOOTS has always been a program managed by the police department that works very closely with the DPPG and the police department in that response. Our biggest precedent for the CSL or PTD CARES program, I'll read you that name in CARES program that close to existing relationship like it is, I would say there's a lot of similarities between what we're trying to create there in the street outreach program. Street outreach program has always been the way in which the street outreach program has coordinated with the city has always been most closely with the police department. So, I thought to the contrary of trying to get that program as far from the police department as possible, microstructure could be made, had votes and a lot of public process around after considering all the alternatives deciding the police department was the best place for it. I think the police department's record of working on social programs in a collaborative, productive way goes well beyond. It goes back a long time. This goes back to 2015, 2016. I'm very proud of the police department's embrace of harm reduction, both from an enforcement perspective as well as through leadership role with community staff with the public health approach pushed by the police department on opioids. So I think for all those reasons, I'm very comfortable. I think there's a long track record of success with this type of work happening out of the police department. Moreover, we have created a lot of these resources and as much as I hear consistent feedback that the CSL program is working very well, I also hear consistent feedback that all these new resources that we have created are not being coordinated as effectively and impactally as possible. And that's an urgent problem. And so that leads us to this point as well that having created all these resources housed them at the police department or in some relationship to the police department. I think there's really need this position to get the most value out of it. All that said, looking downstream, maybe looking some time downstream, I mean, could future structures evolve? Could there, you know, is from my perspective, this is clearly an area of rapid change and evolution, both in Burlington and nationally. I think there are different ways of organizing these resources that different cities are attempting. And my understanding is there's a growing kind of trend towards the many, and here I'm talking about the crisis response resources that there are numerous cities that are setting up capacities like this. The majority of them, a growing majority of them are taking, are doing it the way we are proposing to do it here. But that's obviously an area that's sort of new and it's evolving and we'll continue to watch and I certainly don't, I'm open to further conversation about it. I think, you know, every time we make a decision and add resources, in some ways it, you know, it's a further, it's an important step in this direction. So, you know, I guess I understand, Councilor Geary, if you're fond of Mellion, come forward with it, why you'd be voting against it. But at the same time, I certainly come forward with the idea that it's something we continue to talk about and look at and watch what's happening around the country and consider whether my piece of change, you know, that's it, I'm excited to be taking the step. I think it's really important and I hope we'll have, I hope we'll have what happened today. Councilor Geary. Thank you, Mayor. I think, you know, there's a fundamental difference between a contract managed by the police department and a new team created within the police department. Thank you. Kahootz is certainly a contract that's managed by the police, but they don't operate within the department. I think there's a fundamental difference that exists in the program. That's why it's been as successful as it has been. And so I think that's my overall concern here. And I think that was the intent of the RFP was to have that contract. Yes, managed by the police department, but that team would be separate. And so what we're talking about here is pretty much a little difference. And so I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you, Councilor McGee. To make sure we're all clear and the public's clear if they're watching this, the decision that is being made and I is focused on the creation of this new position, which from my perspective is needed, is needed regardless of where that program starts out, which we're not making any decisions on today. And I hope that we will, we hope to have some decisions in front of you soon. But it is, at least that is, that is a separate decision that I think to make sure that we're all clear of that. President Paul, the Councilor, Councilor Jiang, do you have a first Councilor Jiang? And President Paul, then we'll go. Jiang, Barlow, then back to you, President Paul. Next slide. Very quick questions. And the first one is about the position saying it's Assistant Director. And I was just wondering if we could have a connection of the police department for this. No, Assistant Director, in the sense that that's, with the police department, we don't call the director, director we call him the chief, but it's the one Assistant Director's report directly to the department head. That's what's envisioned here. And so instead of, so we're not going to call this person a deputy chief because the person is not going to be a sworn officer, it's going to be a civilian, but Assistant Director, in a way, then Norm Balwin is Assistant Director at TPW, in a way that Samantha Dunn is Assistant Director at CEDAW. So our most senior position step down for the director of the CEDAW department. Well, I think all those positions, I don't think we'll have a connection. So Assistant Director, actually, did I address some of the data from this point? Yeah. Nice position, we'll respond to the chief. To the chief, okay. Now, I wanted to also understand the correlation that we're making between this position and the CEDAW. Right, because I was hearing, being mentioned about the director of the CEDAW. So this crisis response team is very committed to standing up for the Burlington version of CAHOOTS. And we got the RP for it almost a year ago now, approximately a year ago. We sought and secured state money for the creation of this in the fall. And we are trying to get this started as soon as we can, whether it is an in-house program or through a contracted program. Either way, the vision is that the program is managed by the, it comes through this department, through this structure within the BPD and is the responsibility of the Assistant Director for CEDAW to oversee. I do think we had been up until the last couple of weeks working very hard to try to do this through working with the Howard Center, through a nonprofit model, which is like the, as Eugene does it with the CAHOOTS model, we, I don't think what we want to get into is in a lengthy discussion of this tonight because it's a sort of separate issue, but we are, as we had some discussion last week and we're here tonight, we are increasingly seeing the best option for getting that program started soon and managed well and managed consistently with the goals we've had for the program to be getting an in-house team, at least a partially in-house team. There's a plan on the table, there'll be a fire department, employing one member of the team, medical, you'd be a medical center employee, another member of the team, but then there would be a report through this Assistant Director's structure. Yeah, so that, to be clear, that decision's not being made tonight, that is false. Thank you, yeah. Another element reading this memo, and I feel like when we talk about public safety, I don't know, in ways of public safety, I don't know, like the level, some people don't like the level, but it seems to be missing the park patrols. Where can they be from two provinces? Great, great question. Explicitly, in the job description, there is a reference to the park patrols, I believe that the idea is, the park patrols are housed in parks, so this person, they won't report to this person, but there's like a dotted line over, this decision is supposed to better coordinate both city resources as well as external resources that are working in this area. So I see there being quite a bit of communication from this position to parks to make sure that those resources are fully coordinated with the resources within this department, in this division and with the police resources more broadly. I don't know if that's what I said. Okay, Councillor Barlow. Yeah, I'll be brief. Yeah, I was supportive last week, I'm supportive this week as well, and I do like the title change. It makes sense to me that organizationally, we have this housed with the police department only because what we heard consistently from our street out of each community park patrol and we heard testimony is that oftentimes when getting into situations that are not well understood or unpredictable that there's need for us to have a sworn officer nearby or available and our outreach worker that I was talking with said there's times when they have to stand off and they can't do this. And I see this as a way to really be able to be more effective at addressing these things. We also heard it impact from the park rangers, there's not a lot of coordination. So I think this is overdue that we have kind of a way to better coordinate the resources we have and this position suits the page well suited to do that. So, President Paul. The only thing I just wanted to mention just because I wanna make sure that the public does understand that in reference to what counselor McGee said about the CAHOOS program, it was always the intention to model it really, after a successful project, after the successful CAHOOS project, which is as you say, not housed within a police department, they respond, they collaborate but they are not one in the same. And had it been for the Howard Center being able to prioritize this and do this work, we wouldn't be having a conversation about anything but that. So I think it really boiled down to a question of, do we wanna move forward with this and get this going? Or do we potentially after about two years of planning, now potentially wait another year, maybe longer until this became enough of an ability for them to actually get this work done with all the many other pressing needs that they have and a very difficult labor environment, et cetera. So I don't think anybody was jumping up and down wanting it to be, end up to the way that it has ended up but we do want it to get going. So there are sometimes trade-offs that have to happen but I do think that we should still have that conversation on maybe not tomorrow but certainly at some point as this department, as this arm of public safety grows, that it should be given full consideration to being its own department with potentially it's just a department, I don't know, overall department of public safety or whatever we end up calling it. But I'll leave it at that so that we can. So that we can. Okay, I think I'm sensing we're ready for a vote. Sorry. I'm so excited. We still have time for the city council. We have time whenever we get up there. So here are my thoughts. My thoughts are we need to be very clear and make the distinction between the position and the public's model. I try to understand the dynamic between the two. How are the relationships between the position and that model? It's not very clear to me. It is sounding like this position, whoever holds it, will be managing the current model of policy under the leadership of the chief. That's what I'm hearing and I don't know if it's clear. I have expensive amount of time. The reason why I'm thankful that we requested to delay this talk to the police commissioners, talk to those who are brought the police, the court's model to the city. I agree with them in some part, but I do not agree with them. I think this position to be housed in the police department, no problem. But for the court's model, for the city, just move forward in housing it within the police department, I believe it's a problem. I can vote with support of this tonight. But to me, the current model, we need to bring now a different process around how are we gonna get there? I think from that Howard Center responded, we don't know exactly why. They didn't wanna take it, it tells. We don't know, right? But I completely didn't believe that. It's not about starting something and changing along the way, no. But I think it is about doing something right, taking the time necessary and doing it exactly right. Who is it? When is it? Who is it going to respond to? How many people are, and to get there, I believe we need like an ad hoc committee or a type of committee representative from city departments, community members, board of health in order to bring into what the court would or should look like. How much money, where it's going to be housed, how many people need to manage it, et cetera, et cetera. I can vote in support of this position tonight, but I'm requesting that we open a new process around how do we implement the idea of the court model for the city of Maryland. That's what I am. Great, thank you, Councilor Jain. I appreciate your separating the two issues and being willing to move forward with this position tonight. I would, because we're not making a decision about the crisis response team tonight, we haven't shared all the information and all the background and kind of where we are and how we got here and we will certainly do that. I'm hopeful once that's all laid out for you and you see it that maybe we don't have to go back to square one because we're a long way down this path and there's urgency I think to get us set up, but let's take that conversation up on a separate track and I'll personally spend time with you if you were like that and we'll come back to that very soon. I think we're ready to vote on this item tonight. And like there's no more members who wanna get in. So, well, I guess we have not, I don't believe we've brought a motion yet, right? So someone, are we ready? Is someone ready to make a motion to vote on this item? We already have. I think from last week. I thought we had one. Oh, maybe not. I'm sorry. I don't believe so. Don't think we have a motion yet. Thank you, President Paul. Seconded by Councilor Barlow. Thank you for the discussion. Seeing none, vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. I'm gonna record that as a for one vote with four ayes and Councilor McGee voting no. And I think that's accurate. And if there's no further, there's no objection. We've not completed the board's business for the evening and we are adjourned at 537. Thank you.