 Monday, May 8th. Thank you, Pamela. This meeting is being recorded. I'm calling to order the African Heritage Reparation Assembly meeting Monday, May 8th at 2.05 p.m. With the extension of Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. And I did say this before we started recording that Dr. Rhodes and Ms. Bridges are both unable to join us today, and Alexis will be joining us late. So just a quick sound check to make sure everybody can hear and be heard, and I will start with you, Dr. Shabazz. Yes, I can hear. I can hear you. Great. And Halla? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, really good. Thank you. Ivan, maybe stepped away unless that's a... No, I'm still here. Oh, okay. I wasn't sure if that was, if you had stepped away from your background or if there you go. Okay. Sorry. No, no, that's great. And Pamela, can you hear us? I can hear you, and I did notice a minute ago that two of your participants had their hand raised, but I don't, and I'm, they're not individuals that I'm familiar with, and they may have lowered them by now. Let's see. They're lowered. Yeah, so, okay. Matea's there if you want to, Matea's there if you want to bring her in as a panelist now. Yeah, I'm actually going to hold off. I'm going to call a period of public comment and then just go over some quick things in terms of a listening session we have coming up, and then I'm going to bring Matea over so we can begin our discussion on the final report. But I... Go ahead, Dr. Shabazz. Sorry. We're saying, so yeah, so there's one hand up. Yeah, so I'm going to open up our first period of public comment, and I'll just quickly read the statement during the public comment period. The chair will recognize members of the public. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your name, pronouns and residential address. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair based upon the number of people who wish to speak. The HRA will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter, but we will be listening very closely. And sometimes we can answer questions if we do have the answers to questions. So if you would like to make a public comment now, please go ahead and raise your hand. We will have a second period of public comment a little later in the meeting. And Pamela, are you moving folks? Okay, great. Welcome, John. Can you hear us? John, would you like to make a public comment? Okay, it sounds like we might be having trouble. Oh, here you go. Here you come. John, would you like to make a public comment? Okay, it looks like John was disconnected. So we will keep an eye out for John and bring them back if we see them in the attendees again. So we can bring over Lauren and then we'll keep our eye out. Welcome, Lauren. Yes, hi. Good morning or afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes, very well. Thank you for having the public comment. My name is Lauren Mills and I was recently at a community meeting that asked for pronouns and I was just thinking maybe it may for some people feel uncomfortable to share their pronouns. So I would prefer not to, even though I haven't passed and I just wanted to share that for others who may prefer not to. But that was not part of my public comment, but I wanted to share that. And thank you for making the opportunity for us to share our feelings because a lot of times I think there are other residents who, if they were to have the ability to make public comment, they may not be comfortable, but I thank you for having the space that is comfortable to share our opinions. So my public comment today is on a few things. I feel from the last meeting that I wanted to share the thought that I personally do not agree that town reparations efforts should focus on federal attempts for reparations and that the AHRA's recommendations within individual municipalities should focus on local community driven solutions instead. Also reparations should address violence in our society and impacts on mental health and youth such as grief and healing. Not knowing how to grieve could be part of the reason why communities of color have a disparity in violence and a disparity in grief because grief is a social disparity in communities of color. So communities of color may not know how to grieve are not able to grieve and are covering up grief with unhealthy ways and that could show up in many ways in our community. I'd like us also to, as a community, think about how we are defining ourselves and are we actually defining ourselves? Again, the term black, it is synonymous with something negative many times in society, in the largest society and does it encompass more than just in tone? Is it the same as using the term African American for black Americans? Where and why does the media use the word black instead of African American and how can we not reinforce the negative perception when conducting research and outreaching to communities of color? I also wanted to state that we are more than a political identity like researching what the definitions of certain labels means. Being black could be a political identity and we are more than a political identity. We are more than the oppressive situations that we may find ourselves in. As the musical artist in the IR says, I am not my hair, I am not my skin, I am not anyone else's expectations, but the soul that lies within and Erica Badoo says that in her bag lady song that love can make a lot of things better. And sorry, I'm trying to read my own notes here. Also, the black population amherst can reject or accept any recommendations from the HRA just as the town council may and it is important of having a way to honor and recognize black African American contributions in art, culture, and academics in our community in the HRA meetings. And I hope that this is something that the HRA and any coalition committee that follows it will take up. And lastly, I always, you know, go for more than what I was going to do, but I would like to just say and give things for the artists who have paid the way and have shared their thoughts with their music and one being Little Richard who is no longer with us, but his music lives on and also I'm sorry, Bell Hooks, who was a writer and I would like to leave with the quote from Bell Hooks, as she said that I see it, the civil rights, she sees it as a great movement for social justice that was rooted in love and that politicized the motion of love and that real love will change you. So I just wanted to share those thoughts and thank you very much for public comment. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else? I'm sorry, I meant to move Lauren and I moved Michelle by mistake one second. Okay. All right, we should be back. Michelle, I'm so sorry, I was trying to move Lauren. No worries, I was able to hear that all go down so don't know that's fine. All right, so if there is anyone else in the attendees who would like to make public comment at this time, please go ahead and raise your hand. And otherwise, we will move on and we will have a second public comment period later. All right, so I'm not seeing any. So I'm just going to give a couple quick updates and then we're going to bring Matia into the room so that we can have a discussion about our final report. The first update I wanted to share is our survey closed today. And we did have a discussion with the Donahue Institute about keeping the survey open, you know, to collect responses, meanwhile having them begin to do their analysis, but there were lots of reasons why that wasn't the best way to approach approach it. So we did close the survey and there's a statement at the if you come to the survey now you'll see a statement that says the survey has now been closed. However, if you would like to provide feedback to the HRA here's how you can do it. And here is further information about the HRA. So just some final numbers. We have as of this morning when it closed a total of 614 survey responses. And we have of that 614, 95 respondents identified as Black and 428 do not. So they, the process now is that the Donahue Institute is going to create tables for each of the responses and then provide those for each of the questions excuse me, and then provide those to us prior to our meeting next week at two o'clock so that we'll have visuals and be able to look at the survey responses. We also will have seen the narrative responses in a PDF document. And I've started to look at some of those, but I received them last week. So there's going to be an updated PDF with all of the narrative responses. And then the Donahue Institute will be looking for some information from us and feedback on Monday based on what they provide to us in terms of how we would like the final product to look in their analysis. So are there any questions or comments about the survey or the anything regarding the survey at this time? You mentioned there were good reasons to close. Could you share with us one? Yeah, sure. If I can remember Dr. Schvast. Yeah. No, I think that the primary concern that Kerry had is if we left it open and somebody responded to it, they would be under the belief that their response was going to be incorporated into the analysis. However, the analysis must begin now if we are to have our final report due at the end of June. So we did consider the possibility of leaving it open only for narrative responses. We explored some different possibilities and then we landed on to ensure that anyone who wants to provide feedback would have their feedback heard and somehow included. It would be best just to let them know that the survey itself is closed, but they could reach out to us. However, Dr. Schvast, and maybe this is for a different, this is for a different meeting, but we did start to explore the possibility of that survey being an ongoing survey that the town of Amherst could have available for residents as this process continues. And how might we do that in a way that is so that it's a living mechanism for collecting feedback as the process continues? Does that get at your question, Dr. Schvast? Okay. Yes, thank you. All right. Any other questions about the survey? Okay. I will share feedback. Kerry and other members of the Dunnehu Institute were very pleased with the number of responses, particularly considering that we didn't do a mass mailing and it was really our own efforts at reaching different people in the community and sort of approaching it in a multi-layered, multifaceted way and they were very happy with the response rate. However, I think that we of course wanted to hear, we still want to hear from as many folks as possible, so we will continue to consult as we can throughout this next couple of months. Okay. The only other update before we bring Matia in to talk about our final report and I'm noting that Yvonne has to leave at 2.45 and that means that if Alexis does not arrive in that time, we will lose our quorum. So the listening session for the survival center, I met with the survival center last week and the listening session is tentatively scheduled at from 12.30 to 2.30 on May 18th. It's a Thursday and as many of us who can be there as would be great, we don't all have to be there. What they've suggested is that from 12 to 12.30 we have a table in the dining room where we can provide information to folks who may just casually want to engage with us and then in their room that's sort of more private at 12.30 once folks have had a chance to get their meals, they can join us in that room if they would like to participate in the listening session. And we have some marketing materials, they're going to put them on all of their napkin stations and they're going to get them out to the community there at the Amherst Survival Center to try to raise awareness and get as many folks as possible to join us. Does anyone have questions about that? Okay. If there are, I have been trying to reach Mary Custard. I sent an email and I followed up with a voicemail, I believe Jennifer Moisten also followed up with a voicemail. Mary is the dean of students at the high school and trying to reach her to see if it's possible to engage the high school students in a listening session. If anybody is in contact with Mary or knows somebody who has a connection with Mary and would be comfortable or available to reach out to follow up with her, that would be fantastic. I think that's the one group we really, the youth in the high school that I personally would like to make sure that we consult with before our work is completed. Okay. So I'm going to, Hamely, if you could bring Matia in, that would be fantastic. Welcome Matia. Hello. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Thank you for being here. Can you hear us okay? I can. For some reason, I'm not seeing myself. I must have, are you hearing me and seeing me? I hear you and see you. Yes. Everyone else here. Yeah. All right. Welcome. Thank you Matia. So in case you weren't here when we talked about Matia joining us in a previous meeting, Matia was integral in helping the reparations for Amherst group with the two research reports that we worked on and is a writer by profession and she can say a little bit more about her wonderful self in a second. But the other piece to know is that Matia's heart and soul is very, very much in this with us. And so I couldn't think of a more perfect person to help us with this, particularly the editorial pieces of getting our report together. So I thought we could just quickly begin. Actually, you know what? Let's do it the reverse. Matia, you were going to kind of pose some questions to the group and then if we would like to review our charge, once again, we can do that if it's helpful. But for the sake of time, thank you. Great. Thank you, Michelle. I am very much honored to be brought in the room today and to assist in the final report. The questions that I wanted to pose and then hear from as many assembly members as possible today and perhaps over a couple meetings is really the very open-ended question of from preamble to recommendations, what do you want the report to say? And I will, in my work as a writer and in technical writing, often use and will in this case plan to use the transcript of all of your words to begin to put the that work into prose and then we will come up with a collaborative back and forth as I work in all feedback until there's a sense that it's where all assembly members want it to be. So I will step back and again that question is from preamble to recommendations, what do assembly members want the report to say? Thank you, Matia. And I'll just quickly, I'm going to just quick, I can't, Pamela, if you're able to allow me to share screen, that would be great. I just want us to quickly consider our charge. There we go. Okay, so here's our charge here and so at minimum the report needs to include a plan for developing ongoing funding streams to repair past harms, an allocation plan including eligibility criteria, additional means of repair for anti-black structural and communal racism, and this is in coordination with various groups and we've tried to be in touch with these groups throughout our process. This is the minimum, however, I imagine that our report will include much more than this and you know I think it's not a secret that the world is watching us in some ways in terms of our reporting and so this is for our local community absolutely and also you know sort of setting up a model in some sense for other communities who might be while unique also pursuing this work. So I'm going to open up the floor. Yes, Yvonne, please. I just have a quick question about like are we, what, when is the end of our term for the committee and are included in the report? Do we suggest continuing the committee? I think that happened last time as well, correct? Yeah, so our, this particular body, our charge is up at the end of June so ideally our report will be ready to present at the probably earliest July council meeting and whether this body recommends a successor committee or another committee is still yet to be determined but that certainly could be a recommendation in the report. All right, so Alexis, welcome. Can you hear us? Hi, yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Thanks for being here and we are meeting Alexis with Metia Cramer who's going to work with us on our final report. I'm not sure if you heard the question that Metia posed but we're looking for assembly members to provide feedback to Metia with respect to what you would like to ensure is in the final report. So the floor is open for any other comments that you might want to provide to Metia. I will say, oh yes, Yvonne. All right, so Metia, you actually are the writer and so you said that you were taking some of the information that we give you including maybe minutes of our meetings. Is that what you're... Okay, great. And then synthesizing that into a report. Do you think that they'll be specific? Should we be trying to work up an outline for you or will you do that? I am glad to do that. What I imagine is that it's easiest for assembly members to dictate, so to share live what you want to be written and then that that could be the easiest workflow. I'm glad to receive an outline if that feels best, if that feels like the best way to proceed from the group and if not, I will exactly synthesize as the perfect word. Take the minutes, the retreat audio, what you folks, all assembly members over today and when Dr. Rhodes and others have a chance, Ms. Bridger, have a chance to be on as well. We'll use those transcripts too and then any and all other supporting materials including of course the survey results and so forth to synthesize into a report and yeah. Michelle, do we have a time frame? Our report is due at the end of June, so we're going to have a very condensed writing period. Essentially the survey results are going to come to us and then to Metia. Metia has already started to transcribe the listening sessions, the retreat. We did make a request to have other meetings transcribed as well and then of course I think one of the things that Metia and I have spoken about is we want people to read this report and we want it to be vibrant and alive and so what that may mean is a shorter report with a lot of appendix. Is it appendix? So what I, my thinking and I'm going to go to Dr. Shabazz because I know he has thoughts on it as well. I was thinking that if he and I could, based on the charge, begin to draft an outline with respect to like the bones, the bones of the report and then bring those to you all to sort of see how we want to fill in. Let's go to Dr. Shabazz and see what what thoughts I have for you, Dr. Shabazz. All right, so thank you. I am like you were raising a moment ago looking at our charge for guidance and when I do that, I basically see three major areas. One concerns the section of our charge that says a plan for developing and ongoing funding streams to repair past harms committed by the town against black people. So I think there that's one area this report needs to speak to is our plan for ongoing funding. You know, part of that is something we initiated early on and was approved or at least the general direction of it was approved and that is developing a fund up to two million based upon money that are available from the previous year's budget once it's certified as free cash and that from that amount of certified free cash, as you all recall, we are getting a percentage more or less modeled on the amount of cannabis tax revenue that was collected in that same year. So we would certainly in this funding section report on that piece, but then I think there is more to be added in that section in the way of other funding streams. And of course, these are things and all of the things I'm going to mention as I go through one, two and three are things that will have to deliberate before Mattia could write up anything in that area. We need to deliberate and make certain decisions that I mean we need to begin doing this soon in our forthcoming meetings, putting forward a motion in advance, giving people some time to research and think about the motion and then coming to the meeting prepared to vote the motion, amend the motion and then vote it or vote it as is, up or down. And so for example, and I lean on our chair for guidance particularly, but you know how to begin to fashion a motion that talks about other funding streams that we have at least talked about if we want to further talk about identifying them that's where we need to go but for example, Community Preservation Act funds could conceivably cover things that have come up in the course of our listening and the course of our work over these past many months that rather than trying to pull it out of the two million dollar fund that we've that we're developing or rather than try to ask for it as some separate appropriation, if it follows under the general criterion of those four areas that the Community Preservation Act supports, open space, recreation, historic preservation and whatever that fourth one is, I'm blanking right now, but recommendations that concern Black residents of Amherst that could fall into those four areas, I think it was co-housing is the fourth one, then we ought to list that as a recommended funding stream that somehow the council and the CPA maybe deliberate on how it will respond or prioritize recommendations that may come in the area or projects and proposals that may come in the area that would relate to Black reparations. And again, there are other funding streams we might also think about besides the two we've mentioned the the free cash amount being tucked away modeled on cannabis revenue as well as the CPA funds that may follow, but we ought to have a discussion about that funds in the area of housing funds in the area that are already, already in other funding streams, if you will, that we might argue or we might present an idea that some of those funds ought to be reserved or prioritize to reparative justice actions. Finally, the other two matters, we talk about eligibility criteria. Now, we've talked about this a lot, we need to again move toward voting up or down where we stand. The little document that I have presented again acknowledges a lineage test as a as one domain of eligibility, but it is not the exclusive domain of an eligibility criterion. I that document argues that there are to be, we ought to think expansively. And while some projects may be targeted to and prioritize those that meet the lineage, as well as racial identity, as well as residency standard, there may be other areas of harm other areas experienced in the community, where the people are Black, they're African American, but they don't meet a lineage test. So we need to come back to that, we need to revisit that, and we need to vote up or down again before anybody can can write up in this area. We've got to make a decision on it. And thirdly, and finally, the charge raises that additional means of repair for anti Black structural and communal racism, including public events, activities, prioritize truth telling and reconciliation. So again, this dovetails with what the report will show, the survey will show, and the analysis of the survey will show regarding the area where we provided respondents to the survey. I don't remember five, six, seven different truth and reconciliation areas that based upon what we're hearing, what the feedback is of the nearly 100 persons identifying as African American Black or of African descent, that group, we need to look at those responses, we need to look at any narrative information around those responses, we need to look at the non African Americans, the non Black descendants of enslaved people as to what they raise as well. And then think about all of our listing sessions. And then, you know, again, start to develop a proposal that outlines that suggests what our actual recommendations are around the truth and reconciliation processes that we believe ought to occur as part of Repair of Justice. And then there is related to that third area, you know, the other groups, the interfaith community, the business sector, the other departments of town government, you know, Pamela Nolan Young and the DEI office and Jennifer, you know, soliciting their ideas, their input on initiatives and priorities that they see specifically relevant to Black folks, to African American residents of this town, that we can support within their work or call for support within the initiatives they're already taking. And again, fashion a motion on that, approve that. Otherwise, then we're not, I don't think we're able, we're going to be able to fulfill our charge if we don't reserve some time over these next few few weeks and meetings to actually talk about motions in each of these areas of funding, of eligibility, and of the ongoing truth and reconciliation and relationship to other departments and activities in town. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. Let me just highlight a couple things that you said. So I have started to work on, similar to what you've described, a series of deliberation meetings to a schedule, essentially, to put out to the group. And I think you're absolutely right. It's time that we have that dedicated time to deliberating on these matters with actionable motions in place that we can move forward. In the meantime, I think Metia can start to frame the report with the, by documenting sort of the work as it has arrived to this point, including what our charges and what sorts of things we have done, such as the passage of the $2 million commitment, the consultation process, sort of, and again, these might be as part of appendix, they may not be the bulk of the report, but they are things that Metia, as we're working through deliberations, you could begin to work on so that we're not sort of at the last minute trying to do everything. I also wanted to clarify with you. I have to leave. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Bye-bye. Do you have, I believe, Metia, that I sent you Dr. Shabazz's position paper that he was referring to? Do you have that? I don't have that, although you have mentioned it to me, so I was aware that the process to understand eligibility, that that has begun, assembly members had a chance to digest what Dr. Shabazz put together, and I understand that that, so that that is underway, but I have not seen that document myself. Okay. Great. Unless Dr. Shabazz has some updates to that, I'm going to go ahead and send it to you, and so you can, and that's something we're going to be discussing in the very near future. The other thing to Dr. Shabazz's first point, I think something we want to consider is cannabis tax revenue is looking like it's going to be declining. It is already declining, and that may be the trend. So we may want to consider expanding upon that piece to include a recommendation that takes that into consideration so that we're not getting into a situation where we're only putting in $100,000 or 100, we may want to figure out a way to work with our finance committee and our council to ensure that at least the amount that we've historically been putting over is maintaining itself. So those were just some thoughts that I had right now based on what Dr. Shabazz has offered. So are there any other comments or questions, and just I think, Matea, as far as I understand it, is this is a priority for her, and she is, I think even in between meetings, if there are comments or suggestions or questions, am I speaking okay to say, Matea, you're available? Absolutely, and I think perhaps sharing my contact information with all assembly members, glad to receive, and actually Dr. Shabazz, in the last meeting you mentioned, making sure that we all had eyes on other cities' reports, for instance, so California's report, Providence's report. If there are other pieces of guidance like that that assembly members want to share to make sure, you know, I went back and reviewed the community safety working groups' final reports, for instance, because some of their recommendations remain relevant, of course, and unrealized. So if there's guidance like that that assembly members would like to share, that's very much welcome, as well as any other kinds of guidance or things that folks might want to send along. Perfect. Thank you so much, Matea. All right. So let me just check here. Okay. We do have four folks in the attendees, so I am going to call another period of public comment. I am going to, in the next day or so, follow through to send you all a schedule for upcoming deliberation meetings. They'll be entirely centered on deliberating the various matters that Dr. Shabazz just spoke to us about from our charge. And I will also work on putting together some motion language that we can use to move those forward. And I believe that Ms. Bridges and Dr. Rhodes will be available. I did want to check in with Alexis. Alexis, if you'd prefer to check in offline, we can certainly do that, but I did want to check in with you knowing what's happening in your life and seeing if you had anything that you wanted to share with us in terms of where you might be in the next several weeks. Yeah. Let me, yeah, let's connect offline. That sounds great. Okay. I will touch base with you. All right. Let me just see here. Oh, and just another quick update. I did submit with the help of Pamela and Jennifer, a revised Amherst Cultural Council grant application form. And I believe they're meeting this week. So we should probably hear something back from them. Depending, we put forward two options. One was to use the $500 to have our meetings transcribed as part of early documentation of our work for a bigger documentary. And then the other was to meet with the folks that Pamela had referred to us who do storytelling and documenting through storytelling. So we'll see what they come back with. So if there's nothing else, I'm going to go to our second period of public comment, and I see that we have Dmitri Shavas. And so if we could bring D in, that would be great. And if anyone else would like to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. Hi, Dee. Hi. Just briefly, again, thank you for all the work you all are doing. I wanted to make sure another group was included. And maybe this has been stated at other meetings, but I'm not sure the Black Business Association. It sounds like you're holding forums in constituent communities that should be heard. I love that the youth are being included because after all, this is what they will inherit. And we know that certain harms have been committed against our youth in this community. And so I'm glad you all are including that to hopefully offer some ways in which we could nurture and support our youth in better ways. So the Black Business Association that is headed by Ms. Pat Ononubaku and Dr. Milcar Shavas and others, I think it would be important and necessary to hold a forum with that group as well. So I just want to put that request out there. And hopefully that will happen and be included also in the larger report with Matia. Excellent, Dee. That is a fantastic recommendation. And I will reach out to Ms. Pat and Dr. Shavas and we'll get that organized. I wish we could amend our charge to include the Black Business Association in that grouping of other organizations. And perhaps we can, but either way we will consult with the Black Business Association and they will be included in our final report. Certainly, because part of the charter has to do with economic as well as other disparities. So this is certainly under the purview of AHRA. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Are there any other attendees who would like to make public comment? I see Dr. Shavas. I couldn't find you. Okay, Dr. Shavas, yes. Yeah, so I just wanted to ask in terms of the planning, or if we felt we've already communicated somewhere along the way, but our charge does explicitly call out certain communities. And as I said, we've had meetings. We've certainly engaged in collaborative activities. For example, with the faith-based community, I think of the Majuba and other things. I know that, but is there something more, and then there's the survey, but is there something more specific we feel we ought to do vis-a-vis some of the constituencies that were actually called out in our charge? And also in particular with the DEI office, which didn't exist at the time of our, that this charge was formulated. But there's something more formal we ought to do to like hear from or invite input from the bid, the Chamber of Commerce, the DEI office, in terms of what they might particularly see as overlapping areas or areas that our municipal plan might incorporate or should incorporate. I think that's an excellent question. Hala, I see, are you speaking to us or to some, I just wanted to make sure I'm not? Okay. Yes, I think that's a really great question. And I think that it would be important for us to reach out to the bid and the Chamber to, we haven't really had any particular consultations with them regarding our work up to this point. So I think that's a very important, as well as meeting with Pamela and Jennifer, I think, to your point, Dr. Chivas, and particularly also for Matia. Matia, in the, during the retreat, I think it was Pamela spoke about incorporating some of the work that is ongoing in the DEI department and incorporating that into the pros of our report. Did I get that right, Pamela, when we talked about that at the retreat? To be quite honest, I can't remember what I said from the retreat, but I do think that there's work that's ongoing in the DEI office that would be informative for the report that you're writing. So, yeah. Setting up a meeting to talk with us, Jennifer and I, about the work that we've done, especially around, I don't have the charge in front of me, I don't remember the words, but around the connection piece of the community. I think there's a lot of work that we've done there, or that Jennifer has done to make connections. So I, and there's no, I can set up a meeting, is this correct with you and Jennifer without there being the open meeting because you're- Correct, we're staff, yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Okay, so I will connect with you directly about that. Okay, great. Yes, that would be wonderful. And also what we could do is send you the DEI department and the town manager have put somewhat of a report together. It was in response to a motion at town council, but it will also be helpful for you to see some of the progress that's been done that really hasn't necessarily been in the awareness of the public. So that might be helpful. If you think so, Pamela, that report might be helpful for Matilda with that. Okay, so let's see. Any other questions or comments? I see Alexis just dropped off, which means we have lost our quorum. So if not, then we will plan to meet next week as usual. And I will be sending out a schedule that is a proposed schedule for you to respond to shortly. And we'll go from, we'll take, take, oh, I see D. D, is your hand still up from last time or is this come on in? And I think this might be put it down if it was from last time, but if, okay, or D's coming over. All right. Yeah, I'm so sorry. I'm listening. And, you know, I don't want it to become too inflated, of course. I know Matia has her work cut out for her. But as was mentioned by Matia, the unrealized work of the CSWG and the current work of the CSSJC and the Human Rights Commission. So even though these groups aren't 100% African American, they represent the BIPOC community and speak to many of the issues that are currently, you know, being challenged in this community around race and, you know, equity. So I don't know at what point those things are included either historically, but the CSSJC certainly has part of the voice of DEI, but we also have our own voice as a committee. And so I would hope that this is included within the report on some level. So that's it and I'm signing off. Thank you. Thank you, Dee. All right. Yes, okay. I'm just making sure I don't have any other notes here. Okay, any other comments or questions before we start? Just information, Lily. Hala, do you want to mention when the next Black Assembly of Amherst mass meeting is set for? One second. Yes, the next band meeting will be May 20th at 1.30, Saturday. Thank you. So that might be something to put up on our engagement, engage Amherst's page, might be something to, you know, help with whatever our updated kind of email list coming off of the survey, coming off of, you know, preparing for the survey just to kind of blast that word out there again for point of information. This is a particular convening of people who identify as African American, who identify as descendants of the enslaved people of the United States that has been meeting, you know, even before AHRA. So it would be good, any help in getting that word out. We'd appreciate it. Yeah, I'll make sure to get that out to all my channels, Dr. Shabazz. And I do wonder just putting a pin in that in terms of our final report and what Metia may want to, what we may want to include in terms of BAM's role, again, being that this is a report where we want to capture everything that has been occurring in the community regarding this work. So that might be a conversation for you and Metia or Hala and Metia to be able to have to talk about that. All right. If there aren't any other comments or questions, I am going to thank Metia for joining us. And thank you all for being here. And we will see you next week and have a great week. Bye-bye. I'm adjourning at 3.04 p.m. Thank you, Pamela.