 Good evening. This meeting is of the Arlington Civilian Police Advisory Board Study Committee is being convened by remote participation consistent with the state's allowance to conduct meetings remotely in lieu of the COVID-19 pandemic. This meeting is being recorded. Folks should be aware that although members are visible by video, that there may be some folks who are observing the meeting by phone or other means and they don't have to identify themselves by name. Folks are encouraged to please use their full name to help us develop a full record and recognize anybody that's going to be able to speak rather than use a nickname or a screen name. All votes will be conducted by roll call because the meeting is being conducted remotely. And with that, I'll just acknowledge each member that's, I'll go around and ask each member to affirm that they're here. So I'm just going to go down the line as best I can, trying to remember who all the members are. So Susan Ryan Volma. Here. Kathleen Rogers. Here. Here. Carlos Morales. Here. Elliot Elkin. Here. And Brown. Here. Michael Brownstein. Here. Chief Julie Flaherty. Here. Bob Redouche. Here. I think I've got everybody who's a member of the committee. They see a, I'm sorry, and Laura Giddleston. I'm here. I think I've touched on everybody. There's a, I see Rebecca Gruber's in attendance. It's like board member Leonard Diggins is in attendance and someone identified as Mary, but I don't think I'm missing any members and I'm Doug Heim town council. Also a member of the community. So with that, I'll turn it to the chairs to begin the meeting. And I'm sorry. I just wanted to make a little bit more today. If there's anything else that, that I missed with respect to remote participation, please. Thanks. Thank you all for being here. I know that it's summer and we're trying to get as many meetings in as possible. So I really, we really appreciate that everybody who was able to respond to Sanjay's poll. I have a couple of comments. I'm going to go to Sanjay. The first thing I had on the agenda was approving prior minutes. Do we have. Which yes, we do. From the June 22nd. So if you can enable sharing for me. I will, I will share those and we can see if anybody had, I circulated those before the meeting. And so if people have corrections or If anybody has corrections while we're waiting to bring it up. And you should be able to share now. Yes, I can. Thank you. Now I just have to share the right one. People able to see? People able to see them? Yes, yes. OK, great. We can just confirm the attendance is, I think, one of the main things. And then I'll just slowly scroll through here. Did anybody have any corrections if they happen to read through them beforehand? OK, great. I move we approve the minutes I created. Second, I guess I can take a roll call vote. All in favor say aye. I'll call everybody. My name's Susan. Yes. Carlos. Aye. Sanjay. Aye. Yes. Kathy. Yes. Elliot. Yes. Michael. Aye. Bob. Yes. Did I, Anne? Yes. Aye. Thank you. I think I don't think I think I got all the voting members here. The minutes are approved. Thank you, Sanjay. And then did you, I saw email between you and Ashley. We're going to, these are going to start getting uploaded. We will start getting uploaded. Yes. She and I had, well, I was away from email for a few days and then she was on vacation, but we're a little behind. But it's on me to follow up with her. And we're going to, are we going to be able to use the same space to upload various, like the presentations and documents? Exactly. Yeah. We've just been talking about the right way to have them formatted so it makes sense to folks. So hopefully fairly soon we should have that, you know, all the previous presentations and stuff like that uploaded there. That's great. I apologize. It's taken me a little bit of time to follow up on that. But yep. Great. So the next thing on the agenda is just to go around and give everyone an opportunity to update the rest of us on anything from the committee or your constituency that you represent, any discussions you've had since our last meeting or not, doesn't, if you don't have anything to say, that is fine. But we thought it would be good to make that a regular part of our meetings. So I'm going to start with Susan, Rainbow Commission. No updates from the Rainbow Commission. OK. Carlos. Yeah, no update. Kathy. No update from Human Rights. Elliot. I haven't talked to anybody from the school since. OK. I figured probably not. Michael. No update from Envision Arlington. OK. Bob. Nothing here. Anne. No updates from the Council on Aging. OK. Great. That was fast. And Sunjay in our town meeting, so we have no updates. I assume you have none. So the next thing on the agenda is a presentation. Sunjay is going to talk about, we talked about different models of civilian review that are used in different jurisdictions. And one of the ones that people most quickly sort of identify is the investigative model. And Sunjay has prepared some information for us. So I will give you one second to share that thing now. OK. Are folks able to see now? Yes. OK. Great. So as Laura said, we are continuing our series of reviewing the various models. And so I'll some credit here. The first few slides once we get started here are actually from, I think, Doug and Clarissa at a previous meeting. And it's just a review of the sort of four kind of models that we've talked about before and some basic principles. So I thought it'd be good. We haven't met in a month. And just for members of the public as well to sort of go through those things again quickly. And then we'll move on. I have a information about the investigative model and then a sort of a case study from one municipality that uses it. So just a reminder, right? And I think the bold text here, this is again from Doug and Clarissa last time around. And the oversight agency's mission should bear some relationship to the size of the police department, the department's funding levels, the level of trust or mistrust within the community, particularly among those segments of the community that historically have been the subjects of over-policing or bias-based policing. And this is from a statement from the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. And so I thought I'd flash that back up there again to remind ourselves what spirit we're looking at these models in. And I'll remind folks again, we have the four-ish. And these are very sort of fluid. And different municipalities have used these in different ways. But broadly speaking, there are these four-ish models of civilian review. The investigative quality assurance model, which I won't talk about anymore because we're going to talk about that in depth tonight. The appeal model, where complainants or police personnel can appeal findings from internal police department processes to a review board who then review and recommend their own findings to the chief law enforcement officer or other municipal executives as appropriate. So in the appeal model, things are specifically focused on individual complaints. But they're run after an internal review process and a disciplinary decision has been made. And then at that point, if somebody wishes to, it's brought to the appeal board. And Doug and Clarissa had collected several examples of places that operate in that manner. The review model, so an internal police unit does investigations of allegations, develops and findings. Citizens review and recommend that the chief law enforcement officer or the municipal executives approve or reject the findings. And so this sort of happens, again, the civilian body is not doing any sort of investigation. They meet in between the investigation and the recommendation of findings and weigh in upon those findings before they're made is where this is happening. And again, examples of that, including our neighbors next door in Cambridge. And then lastly, we have the auditor, evaluative performance model. So an auditor or monitor investigates the processes by which the internal investigations examine complaints, reports of the thoroughness and fairness of the process and they make policy recommendations. So this kind of board is very broad in their scope. They can look at all sorts of different aspects of policing and investigations, right? These are, could be along with, but are often after police investigations. And then again, examples that Doug and Corissa had pulled. So hopefully that's a nice quick reminder for folks of where we've been and what we've talked about. Any thoughts before we move on? Okay, so what is in the investigative model? The investigative model involves some or all of the below characteristics. And again, remember, right? Every municipality sets up their board or commission or whatever differently. And so no one, no board is gonna have all of these things, but this is the broad strokes, right? Receive complaints, right? Review and classify complaints. And then in a lot of cases, this kind of board is led by a community board. And those are usually in most municipalities, these are volunteer positions. Maybe some sort of stipend in some cases for some of the more major ones, but largely volunteer. They may allow or disallow appointment of current or former police officers to that volunteer board. That definitely varies by municipality. These kind of model almost always employs trained professional civilian staff, right? These are the people who conduct the investigations, who pull all the data from police reports and that sort of thing. In a lot of models, this trained staff, right? Is the person who classifies the complaints as they come in decides which ones actually need to be seen by the board and makes those sorts of determinations. And so that person has to have the right kind of training and the right kind of skills. But that person or persons, right? Again, depending on the size of department we're talking about. So then an investigation is performed and this is another area of wide variation, right? Many places that investigation happens in parallel to an internal affairs or professional standards, various names for the internal police department investigation, right? Many of these boards run in parallel to that. So it's a separate person talking to witnesses, looking at documents, right? And performing their investigation and asking their questions and however they want to ask them. And then, but some places completely replace their internal affairs and professional standards department or department's not the right word, but they completely replace those with this investigative, civilian investigative authority. And I don't have enough to tell you which is more prevalent. I don't recall, but I believe that the parallel is more prevalent, but I can't say that for sure. Many of these boards have the ability to speak on witnesses or documents either during the investigative process or later during a hearing or at a later point in the process. Many of them hold a hearing and then, and those hearings may be a mix of public or executive session, so, you know, so non-public. And then they make findings on investigations and they recommend discipline. And important to remember, right? Those findings and those discipline recommendations may or may not be binding. And in fact, most places, as far as I've seen, they are not binding, right? They are recommendations that are made to the chief law enforcement officer or to the municipal, you know, somebody, mayor, or, you know, depending on the municipal structure, right? These are recommendations that go to that person. Many municipalities that I've read about require whoever the recommendation goes to, if they don't follow the recommendation, they have to submit a written report back about why they didn't follow the recommendation. So that is one sort of bit of transparency that is often there in this model. But, yeah, but they are often, you know, they're most often not binding, okay? So what is not in the investigative model? Investigative bodies are not typically involved in collecting, observing, or examining trends in police data, right? They are very specifically focused on complaints that are brought to them. So, you know, if nobody complains about it, right? They are generally not looking at it. They're not, you know, generally involved in reviewing overall police department policy. They're not reviewing, you know, training. They're not looking, they're not usually looking at the quality or effectiveness or thoroughness of professional standards or IA investigations, right? They're gonna have their own investigation, right? They're not necessarily offering comment on the quality of the police department internal investigation. And they are often not involved in hearing appeals, right? Because they've heard already, right? And made their recommendation. They vary widely in the following parts. Their access to investigations completed by internal affairs or ongoing by internal affairs, professional standards. Some have access to that. Some do not. Some, you know, both organizations operate completely independently, right? And then, you know, come together at the end after the recommendations have been completed. Their ability to mandate versus recommend discipline, I already talked about that, right? A fair amount. And so I don't think I need to talk with that anymore. And then how much they report publicly about complaints, investigations and findings is all over the place, right? Some municipalities, you know, at the end of the year they report out a number of complaints received, a number of hearings held and a number of decisions made, right? Some of them report, you know, much more detail about specific complaints. You know, they might provide a breakdown of what kinds of complaints they receive. Some of them, and we'll talk about this in one of the, in the example that I have put together, but like they may offer a summary of all of the complaints that they sustained in the course of the year. So there's a wide variety. You know, one of the things we sort of think about, right? When we're talking about a civilian oversight, right? Is transparency and public access to information, right? And so that varies widely in the investigative model. And for good reason, right? There's a lot of reasons that, you know, not to disclose information in a non-sustained finding, right? A lot of rules and laws around disclosing personnel records or records, things like that, right? So a lot to think about in that respect. Okay, I've talked a whole lot here. Shall I take a pause and see, let's go around and see if there's any questions. And I can't see everybody's face. So you may have to actually speak up and not just leave. Let me see if I can see more of you. Any questions or thoughts on what? Hi, yes, Kathy. I was wondering, given the, the personnel involved, do you think of this as you, as we look at the four models, do you think of this one as an expensive model, the most expensive model? Not that I think we need to be hung up on money, although I think we may, that is certainly, I would think a consideration. So I was just wondering if given the research that you've done, you had a comment on that, Sanjay. Yes, it is, you know, everything I've read, this is definitely the most expensive model, right? And the reason for that is professional staff, right? You can't expect quality investigations, right? From if you're not paying professional staff to go about doing them, right? And that's just the reality. Thank you for confirming that. Yep, no problem. Yeah, and I totally agree with what you said about like, you know, we should know and acknowledge that, but it doesn't have to be, yeah. Anyone else? Okay, so let's move a little along here. So this is, comes from some of, Nicole has what published and some other reading and stuff that I've done. So as sort of what are seen as sort of the strengths of, you know, going with an investigative model. So may reduce bias or reduce the appearance or the perception of bias in investigations. Civilian investigators often have very specialized training. Again, right, that's where part of the cost comes in, but, you know, you have paid for specialized training in doing that. And it may increase community trust in investigations, right? That's really what this model is attempting to do, right? The potential weaknesses, you may lose public confidence if timelines are not met, right? If the number of complaints coming in and the number of, you know, are not being investigated in time, right? You may lose public confidence. And that's been seen in numerous boards around the country. But the public may lose confidence if recommendations are not routinely adopted, right? So if the board is, you know, producing these investigations and making recommendations and then those recommendations are not, routinely not followed without sound reasoning or without publicly acceptable reasoning, right? Then that can lead to, you know, loss of legitimacy for the board itself. It may be difficult to maintain readiness and credibility when there are a few complaints. And this is one that, you know, I think honestly we have to think a little bit about, right, for ourselves because we are a small municipality, right? You know, this is, that board, right, may go a significant amount of time between serious complaints, right? You know, they may receive some regular run of the mill stuff but to deal with a serious complaint, right? They have to have the institutional knowledge, right? And they has to have the credibility to be able to look at that. And that's one area where for a small municipality, this model can be a challenge just because it can be a long time between those serious situations. As, right, Kathy and I talked a little bit about, this is definitely the most expensive model. And, you know, this isn't my judgment, right? But it may face resistance from police personnel. Let's come from reading. So, thoughts or questions on that? I have a question. Okay, we've got a few. Yep, sure, go ahead. All right. I, when you were reading about sort of, I'm really struck by, and it's something I've been thinking about for a while, the volume issue. Like we know from what Chief Flaherty reported to us at our second meeting that the number of complaints being received now was very small, you know, even if you, you know, had some reason to guess that there would, you know, they would double if it was a civilian, it seems like we're still dealing with a very small number. And what I wondered is, if that is data that you saw in the reports, like what number of, like a well-functioning investigative review board, like what kind of caseload, I mean, obviously, I mean, obviously we're not in New York City, but like does anybody smaller who's doing it? So I have some numbers from the specific example that I have. I can't quote like an average or anything like that. There are some places, and I can, I'd be willing to do this, right? Who have calculated sort of like complaints per officer, you know, across lots of different, lots of different departments and we could certainly look at data like that to see where we fit in or things like that. Yeah, but I'll walk us through the numbers for my example case. Yep, I think Bob and Susan also had something. My question is, what's an example of a minor complaint? Minor complaint of, now I looked through all those reports. A minor complaint, oh, sorry, yeah, go ahead, Doug. No, I'm sorry, go ahead, sir. No, no, go ahead. So for example, and again, I know we don't want to talk about New York City as a perfect lens of this, but you could have a category of complaint called discurting, which is basically not to say that this is not a big deal when professionalism is an important piece of policing, but you might have a complaint that's basically about an officer, you know, being rude or unresponsive or not, you know, maintaining a sort of era or a professionalism. There might be, you know, something about being given a ticket in a way that, you know, somebody didn't think was appropriate or something like that, whereas a false arrest, excessive force would be your more serious complaints, you know, up and until, you know, obviously the most, you know, dramatic types of things. I also said, if the chief might have other ideas about what the spectrum of complaints is from professional standards right now. Doug, you took the words out of my mouth. We would look at a minor complaint as some type of incident on a train, a traffic stop where somebody, a motorist didn't feel that they deserved a ticket. I think that there were several examples of minor complaints or what you all may consider a minor complaint and a discurrency would fall into that category. Thank you both. Does that answer the question, Bob? Yes, that's fine, thank you. Susan, did you have, you had something too, I think. I had a question, but maybe it is best for the end, but I'll mention it now. Do you have any examples anywhere where this model has been successful? And by successful, I mean, the community has felt good about it. It works with police. That's a good question. I don't, I think this is a very evolving, I think that's an evolving answer, right? Like I think, and I think that's the truth about all sort of, you know, systems, systems everywhere, of that something that works in a time and place may eventually over time no longer work or may work for a time and then require updates or move on to something different. I think we can, I think, I don't have a straight answer for you of some place that's like a great example of this working, but I can certainly take the initiative to go and let's see if we can find an example of some place that this is. Yep, thanks. Anything else before we move on to my case study here? I think that's what I have next. Yes, okay. So, Nicole has a database of municipalities that use civilian oversight. And so I went through their database and sort of looked at all of the smallest municipalities in their database. Now, there may be smaller ones out there, but this is where I could search and find information. And so Syracuse, New York, is one of the smallest municipalities in their database. And, oops, sorry, I just lost my window here. Where'd it go? Apologies. And so here, I gave you some a little bit of statistics about what Syracuse looks like as a community to sort of compare with what we're talking about, right? So Syracuse has a population of 143,000-ish compared to Arlington's maybe 40, I think we're 42 or 43,000 today. They have 375 sworn officers, which is about six times, I think what we have. I think we're around 60, 65, I think it's been over the years recently. Is that right, Chief Larrity? We're budgeted for 68. Okay, great, yep. And then, so their board was established in 2011 and their budget, I think that's a 2018 number. I think all of these are 2018 numbers, was 140,000-ish dollars. And most of that is, again, they're staffing, right? They, their overall police budget is about $47 million. Chief Larrity can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think our salary is approximately $8 million, I think, for the town, is that about right? Correct. Yep. So again, comparison. Their board has 11 members and two professional staff. It was a little unclear in my reading. I think there is one full-time professional staff and then they have another staff member that they either share or, again, it was unclear whether the second staff was actually full-time part of the, part of the board. In 2018, they received 83 complaints and held hearings on 15 of them. And I went back, they, 2018 is the last year that they have their public data posted for. And so I don't know what may have happened in the last two years. I did poke through, you know, a few years prior and saw roughly similar numbers for previous years, but I didn't pull them all or do any averaging or anything like that. So 11 member board, they're appointed by a combination of the mayor, city counselors. And, you know, in their documentation, right, they say that they expect board members to each spend about 10 hours per month, you know, averaged across the year, attending hearings and meetings and preparing for hearings, doing training and doing community outreach. And so then, you know, in terms of what they can and can't do, they can hire and fire the CRB administrator. They accept and they investigate complaints. They hold hearings and they make findings on complaints and they make policy recommendations. The CRB has access to dispatch records, use of force reports, stop search, stop search and arrest records. It has access to body worn camera footage. It has access to professional standards investigations that are open as well as closed ones. And then, oh, I didn't mention it here. I think it's on the next page. They also, when they go to a hearing, they may subpoena witnesses. Okay. Questions about sort of how we compare to Syracuse or the basics here before? If you're probably about to get to this, but I'm curious about sort of the process, like how they get from 83 complaints to 15 hearings. Yep, that's where we're going right next. Thank you for the segue. So what happens, oops, I'm missing a page. Oh, here we go. Sorry, I skipped a page. What happens to a complaint in Syracuse? And so this is based on me reading their documentation of what's supposed to happen, right? I'm not reading a report about, we all know that the reality of what's written on paper versus reality is sometimes a little bit different. This is based on what's written on paper for them. Complaints can be received by CRB or their Office of Professional Standards. CRB and OPS are required to immediately report to each other whenever they receive a complaint. And then mediation is offered to the complainant both at the beginning and at several steps along the way that they can either choose to participate in or that will happen if they choose to participate or not happen if either party chooses not to participate. And the complainant may withdraw their complaint at any time during the process at which point it disappears. Like the CRB would stop taking action on it if the complainant withdrew it. So after the complaint is received, the CRB administrator and OPS conduct their investigations in parallel, right? Some of those investigations may be very short, right? And this is unfounded, this is, yeah, it may be very short and some of those may be fairly involved. OPS is required to provide their report and recommendation to the CRB administrator, right? And then the CRB administrator incorporates that information into their recommendations, right? And so they bring that recommendation to, excuse me, the full CRB, okay? And the CRB will decide whether to proceed to a hearing based on the reports and recommendations of the CRB administrator. So again, the professional staff person is taking, is receiving the complaint, is doing an investigation, right? That may be very in-depth or not so much, right? Depending on what they find about the complaint. And then they bring their recommendation to the board. And the board then votes whether to hold a hearing on that or whether to not hold a hearing, okay? So that's sort of how we get from the 83 to 15. And I'm understanding, so any complaint, that 83 by definition includes any complaint that goes straight through OPS even if, so like to bring it back to Arlington, sure. Flaherty now has like, you know, she's explained to us sometimes someone might walk in the door, there's a variety of ways, but under that system, any of those complaints would get, there's no complaint that OPS gets that CRB doesn't at least. That is how it is intended to work. Yes, that is the design of their system. Any complaint that goes to OPS, right, or goes to the police department in any form makes its way to CRB. And any complaint that goes to CRB makes its way to OPS as well. And does the complainant have, can the complainant, I mean, obviously the complainant couldn't stop OPS from doing an investigation, but could a complainant say like, I'd rather just see what happens with OPS. I don't really, I'm not interested in the CRB process. Yeah. So the complainant can withdraw their complaint, is my understanding. So if they withdraw it, it's just from, okay. Yep, that's my, again, this is my understanding based on reading. Yep. Can I ask a question? Yeah, sure, sorry. Sorry, I was a little bit late checking in. I think this certainly sounds good. I've done some work in other places that have been on, have taken people's complaints and what have you. And what I'm wondering here is, what the timeframe is. And that I think should be specified so that the person who has the, just filing the complaint and folks who are responding have an idea as to. So we're actually gonna talk about that in just, in a little bit. Well, see, okay. Yeah. Yes. Cause that is a big, a big issue. Yeah. There are in their documents, right? In their charter, right? They have timelines for all of this stuff laid out. Oh, good. Is the answer, right? Yeah. They have timelines for that laid out. Yeah, but we'll talk a little bit more about what comes after that. So the CRB, that's how we got from the 83 to 15. Any other questions here? Okay. So what happens? So, you know, many of these complaints don't go to a hearing, right? Nothing, you know, OPS and the chief can decide to do whatever they're going to do. And the CRB does not weigh in on them, right? For those 15 that we're having a hearing for, what happens? So the board members in Syracuse rotate making up three member panels, right? So again, we remember we had 11 board members. They take turns dividing into three member panels for four hearings. Officers and complainants at these hearings have a right to obtain counsel, right? And they may cross-examine witnesses at these hearings, right? So they are present for the hearings and they may ask questions of witnesses. Hearings though are closed to the public, right? There is no public access to the hearing. And then after the, you know, witnesses and the presentation of the hearing itself, the panel goes into deliberation and that is actually just the panel. So the complainant and the, you know, any department and personnel who are involved in this are not present for the deliberation of the panel itself. Okay. The decisions, including findings and recommendations are made by a majority vote of those three panel members. And the panel essentially chooses whether to sustain the finding of the CRB administrator, right? If they choose to sustain it, right? Then, or they can choose to not. As well, you know, if they sustain it, they may recommend restitution for the complainant. Now they don't get to automatically award that or give a dollar amount, right? But they can recommend it and the complainant can then take that up with the city, right? The panel may recommend specific disciplinary sanctions for an officer. And, you know, they have a whole list of sanctions that they can recommend that run the full gamut, right? If the chief of police does not accept their recommendation, the chief is required to respond in writing. And this was actually a matter of some dispute in Syracuse for a number of years. But at this point, the chief does now do this. And then I should note in 2018 in their report, the CRB sustained eight of those 15 cases that they held hearings on, okay? And the chief followed the CRB recommendation in one of those eight sustained cases, okay? And I think that's, you know, that gets back to one of the challenges in this model, right? When there's not alignment between, you know, what the board is recommending and what the, you know, municipal executive or the chief is willing to do, right? There can be a loss of legitimacy for somebody involved in that situation. And that, you know, makes a very challenging situation. So those, the CRB provides a summary of their sustained cases in their annual report. And so I've provided the 2018 one there. And at the similar link, you can find, you know, a bunch of previous years if you wanted to go sort of read the kind of summary that they provide to the public. Cause remember, the public has not participated in the hearing, right? They don't get any evidence for anything that's not sustained, there's no reporting other than that a hearing was held for sustained ones, they do provide a public summary. Sorry, Kathy, did you have a question or? No, finish your thought, but maybe at the end I have a question. Yeah, sure. And so the, you know, you can go through and sort of read, it was very interesting to sort of read their summaries of where they had sustained and what they had recommended. And I did not, they did not that I saw post publicly the chief's responses, the chief provides them, but I don't believe we saw, I don't believe I saw them in their annual report. So first year accused, go ahead, Kathy. So Sanjay, in the course of your excellent research, this is really quite fascinating. Did the role of unions or labor contracts come up and whether that, you know, how does that work? For example, you know, the one out of eight is quite a low number, but I have to wonder whether union issues may have impacted that number. Syracuse did not offer any sort of specific details on why they thought that the chief was not sustaining their findings or not implementing their sustained recommendations. I don't think you're wrong though, right? I think that that, right? Whether it's directly through labor contracts, right? Whether it's in Massachusetts through, you know, civil service kinds of things, right? There's a whole lot of things that are outside the scope of that CRB, you know, that, you know, if they don't know what they can, you know, what the law is gonna back them up in recommending, right, they can run into problems for sure. Sanjay, can I offer some additional context on that? Absolutely. So there's two bucks of issues. One is the council that they're talking about, people being entitled to council are usually union lawyers. So usually a lawyer provided by the unions for the defense and that can similarly, that's not that different from the process that happens in an internal disciplinary matter with the unionized employee in the town. So if the professional standards, you know, reaches a finding and there's discipline involved, chief is more active in this than I am. But, you know, there's usually a union representative and oftentimes a union lawyer if the charges and consequences are significant or serious. The other piece I would say that you're getting at Jaffee is that if you're gonna have something like this, it's probably gonna have to be what's called impact bargained. So, or even more, I'm sorry, even more than impact bargain, it has to likely be bargained and there's a potential that would go to the Joint Labor Management Commission. So there's a front end to it. That's probably where the unions are most involved is, you know, collectively bargaining to have something like this because you can't just sort of unilaterally impose a secondary or a parallel investigative and disciplinary process. The other point of tension that's quite common though is a mixture between management and labor issues that you guys are highlighting, which is typically under most forms of government, the chief and the mayor or in some forms of government in Massachusetts, depending on our forms of manager, are the ones that make decisions about terminations, things like that. So not necessarily just the unions, it's part that that authority isn't typically given to any other body in any context other than the chief executive officer. Thank you. That's very helpful. Carlos. Thank you. By the way, thank you so much. I mean, this is fascinating. It's great, great job. Question here, I haven't, and what you were saying about the statistics that the chief in the Syracuse case in 2018, they say follow recommendation one out of eight just to make sure that maybe, is there any sense that maybe the CRB recommended A and the chief did B, which is if you didn't follow recommendation. So it's not that there were no actions because that's very low budding average, but I suspect that many of these are like the chief had a different response that what is the CRB, you know, adjudicated. So I was thinking that maybe there's something. That is, that kind of thing is very possible. And I, but I don't, right? Again, from what I have access to, right? This is the information that, yeah, this is the information that they've provided. But I do think that that is a very real possibility, right, of, you know, the CRB recommended A and the chief, you know, instituted A minus one or A plus one. Exactly, or B plus one. Or B, or yeah, I can't say for sure, right? Again, they didn't provide, they didn't provide, it would be nice if they had provided the chief's response, right? In all of those cases, and at least I didn't find it in the searching that I did. Right, I mean, it could also be a matter of like confidentiality, right? Possibly, possibly, yep. So I have one more slide here. So most of what we've seen so far is from their official documentation, right? There's a couple of other things that come from sort of more news reports and, you know, reporting about the, the Syracuse CRB from externally, right? So in July 2020, there were reports about the Syracuse Citizen Review Board that they had a significant backlog of cases. Now, again, this is public reporting, so, you know, you don't know exactly what's going on here, but out 89 cases were outstanding in July 2020, dating back as far as 2017, okay? And 44 of those cases were outside of the window to impose discipline. So, and I, again, from the reporting, there is a window, and I don't know whether the law is New York State or whether it's Syracuse particular or it's collective bargaining, but basically the Syracuse Police Department has 18 months from an incident to impose discipline. And after 18 months, the clock has run out and they cannot impose discipline for it. And so, right, what this reporting was saying is that 44 of their cases had passed 18 months since the incident involved, right? And so even if the CRB made a finding, right, sustained a finding and recommended any sort of discipline, you know, there would not be, it would not be possible for the chief to impose it, okay? Okay, so this is reporting as of last summer, year ago now. And then there was initial movement there in this spring where the CRB administrator requested additional staff and additional funding for staff, right, from the Syracuse Council. And specifically, she wanted to hire an investigator or two analysts and a community engagement specialist. And I think what ended up being proposed to the council was doing half of that and a cost of about $80,000. And they declined to do that. And it unclear whether it was bogged down in just the politics of where money has to come from and that sort of stuff or whether they truly didn't want to do this or again, right, I'm reading news reports after the fact, not so. But in the end, they did not do that. And so the CRB in Syracuse appears to exist in the same form that it has with the same backlog. And I think this comes back to sort of, Kathy's question about resources and that earlier in that strengths and weaknesses, right? If you get behind, if you don't resource it properly, you can get behind. And when you get behind, you can lose public confidence. And if you lose public confidence, what are you here for? So there's a real risk, real risk there. So anyway, that's the last slide that I have. And so, I don't wanna say I'm speaking authoritatively about what happened, right? In terms of this backlog or the staffing requests or anything like that. But I did think it was, I found these news reports and I did think it was worthwhile to bring them to your attention. So. Carlos has his hand raised. Oh, sorry, that was from before. Oh. But now you call on me, I can say something. Of course. So Sanjay, thank you very much. I mean, this is fantastic. You have mentioned in your email that Nicole has a new report, when you're data. And I think that when I first did this, you know, not long ago, I only had access to the old report. Yes. So I'm more finding that because I think it's important to have some newer data. And, you know, when you post, when we finally post all these documents in a place, it'll be great to go and check those out. Yes, I have the links for those two new documents here. Like I said, right? I had been looking earlier in the spring and it only seen there, I think it was 2016 reports. And these are fresh new 2020, or 2021. So they're really quite interesting reads. Yeah. So I have a question for you or for Doug or chief. So say that, you know, this investigative model is, you know, very expensive for a town or size. And we don't have the caseload to support this type of, you know, model. Is it possible? And I don't know, given the Massachusetts Police Reform Bill, where they have, you know, state levels and investigative, you know, authority. Is there, would it be, you know, I don't know how it would work. And the question is, like, you know, can we piggyback out of that system where maybe there is a CRB in Arlington that said, we don't have something to investigate, but we have some kind of claims. And we, you know, we basically ask the Massachusetts, you know, police, you know, whatever authority to look into something because we don't have the ability. Will that, is that something that is even possible? I don't know, a dog or? I think I could comment on that. There is an investigative body. So for police reform, I'm now required to submit any complaint to the state within two days of receiving it. We're still waiting for guidance on where we're submitting that to. We don't, they don't have everything in play right now. I know they're in the process of hiring an executive director for post. And I expect that that will be pretty soon by September 1st. But we are required to submit those and there will be an investigative body investigating those complaints. But I also wanted to comment on, I find it very interesting about the backlog because in my experience, we try to conclude any type of investigation within 30 days and sometimes it goes much longer. And there's so many things that come into play. And I'm thinking of our most recent investigation where we had a witness that was on vacation for two weeks and then that witness had to quarantine for two weeks. So the investigator wasn't able to interview them. And then we had private businesses who had video footage who had camera systems down and they had to wait for experts to come in. And then we're making appointments for interviews with outside attorneys. And it just can go on and on and weeks could literally go by before you can pin someone down. So I can see how investigations can really take a long time. But having that many on backlog is pretty amazing. Thank you. Carlos, if I can just add one other thing. I think one thing that might be important for everybody to keep in mind, no matter what the end model this body decides to recommend is there should probably be some element of what we're discussing that makes sure that people have whether it's provided by a new entity or it's provided by existing entities, but they have a lot of information about the post because the post has the ability to receive complaints directly. They don't have to go through a police department or through some other local entity. If somebody has complained about the police they can file directly with post. Now that being said, it's important to understand that they have discretion to investigate some complaints. They must investigate what they call serious complaints. We're still waiting for some information on what constitutes a serious complaint to the post. But I think we can imagine what some of them might be. And it's also important to remember that there's like some other things that the post does or the reform bill says need to be done that might also be important to have some sort of point of contact for conveying and making sure that people understand that information as well. Okay, any other thoughts or questions before? I know I've taken up a big chunk of our time here tonight, but thank you folks. I think that was a really good discussion and thank you for your questions. Thank you for... Thank you. I think the case study was also just a really good way of looking at it. I'm just curious actually, when you said Syracuse is one of the smallest, what made you pick Syracuse other than... So the two smallest bodies with investigative models, a lot of the smaller ones did not have investigative models, first of all, just looking at what was there. And the two that had them were Berkeley and Syracuse. Those were the sort of two smallest. And Berkeley actually, Berkeley, California that is just totally redid their police oversight program, totally changed the body and the way it works. And so I didn't wanna wait into trying to figure out what was old information versus what was new information on a body that I think literally was passed into law like July 1st or something like that. And so I said, okay, let's take Syracuse. Yep. That's how I picked. No, I didn't know if you picked it because it was like East Coast or yeah, it's just... Yeah, that's, it's the smallest. And again, I would say, right? It's actually, it's not a very good analogy for Arlington. It is the smallest, but it is not actually a very good analogy for Arlington. As we saw just in statistics. And also, as if thinking about the kind of community that it is, it's the largest community of its era. It is a fairly diverse city, right? It's a place where people from around come to Syracuse, right? A little bit different. It's the 10,000 pound gorilla in its area, right? Right, right. And also, but I think that, I mean, to me, the fact that it's so different is still super, is very useful because I think a huge, to see what the scale of a community three times our size is, I mean, that you can sort of roughly, yes, we're not gonna do, we can't do, if we wanted to do exactly what they do, which I'm not suggesting at all, because it doesn't, my feeling is that it doesn't make any sense to me, at least from what we've learned. Even if you guessed a third of the cost, a third of the complaints, you still need. Yeah. And for me, I don't think we even necessarily have to have the cost conversation, right? We can have the conversation about what works for Arlington or what would, what might work for Arlington, right? And then we can layer cost on top of that, right? So I think, yep, yep. So anyway, that's one investigative model. So I think we should probably, I think we've got lots of other things to talk about too. So unless there's other questions, maybe we should move on. Kerry, was that a question or thank you, Sunday. You wanna share? I'll stop sharing. Thank you for reminding me. Okay. So the next thing on our agenda was, we started talking last meeting, we talked quite a bit about the challenges of outreach and gathering information. Unfortunately, Jill wasn't, she was gonna try to come into the end of the meeting. She had a conflicting program. So we don't have her to hear more about what she has done is thinking, she gave us a lot of really good insight, I think last time on how challenging this is. And Clarissa had said she was gonna start with the faith community. That was sort of like a place to start in terms of having a community meeting. Clarissa couldn't be heard tonight. She sounded like in the email that she sent me, she's thinking that this can't be done before September. So I don't think she'd have any updates for us either. Susan, who is for those of you who don't know or may have forgotten is a, she's a communications professional. And so she has given us some thoughts initially about some part of how to get to go about beginning this. And I don't know if everybody got a chance to read her memo, but I'm gonna turn it over to her now. Thanks. Thanks, Laura. And I'm sorry I missed the discussion the last meeting, Laura described it to me, and it sounds like it was very interesting. And obviously there are a lot of complications to trying to solicit community input. You wanna make sure you hear from everybody. So one idea that I had, and this isn't to replace the idea of holding one or two meetings to solicit input, it would complement anything that we do. And that would be to ask those of us who are here, as voting members or any member representing a group that we go back to the group that we're from. And in my case, that would be the rainbow commission and say, hey, the police committee, the police study committee is interested in hearing from us about what we think the police committee should be thinking about as it deliberates on how to get more civilian involvement with police operations. And by way of one caveat would be that I know, and again, speaking for the rainbow commission, I know that no one on that commission would say that they speak for the LGBTQIA plus community in Arlington. That said, I think that again, speaking solely for the rainbow commission, it could offer insight into what members of the community feel about the police and what they might want us to consider. And I have no idea what they would offer as a potential solution, but we might gather some interesting information if we send all of us out to back to the groups that we represent and put it to our committees or commissions. What do you think the police committee should be considering? And if it's helpful, I can give a very concrete example. If I went back to the rainbow commission and said, hey, this police committee that you've sent me to, they're very interested in knowing about what the queer community in Arlington, what its concerns are around police. I am absolutely confident that the commission would probably say there are low levels of trust in the community with the police, not necessarily with Arlington police specifically, but for people who may live in Arlington, but work in Boston, if they're transgender or trans feminine in particular and what trans feminine is would be somebody who was assigned a male sex at birth, but now identifies as female. In Boston, in Lawrence, it is just a nightmare dealing with police. You can be walking down the street and you'll be questioned for being a prostitute. I just can't tell you how many people share that experience with me. And again, it's not necessarily happening in Arlington when you walk down Mass Ave, but if you work in Boston or you're socialized in Boston or in Lawrence, those two communities are very problematic. Another thing they would share is that any gay man in their 60s or 70s has likely had incredibly negative interactions with police just because it used to be illegal to be gay. And the third example would be people like me, you know, until 2015, when the Obergefell decision was in the Supreme Court, my wife and I had to give very careful consideration to what documents, what legal documents we brought whenever we went on vacation and left Massachusetts. If we frequently go to Vermont, we drive through New Hampshire, we would always have to have a copy of our marriage license, healthcare proxy, power of attorney, just in case of an emergency. So all of this leads to low levels of trust. I think the Rainbow Commission would share those things with us. I have no idea what the commission would say, what this committee might come up with to help with those issues, but we might get some interesting things if we go out to all of our people and ask for ideas and feedback. So that's my idea. Tanjay. Susan, did you envision putting together a form letter that each person takes back to their committee so that we're soliciting in a standard way? Yeah, I think that's important and we would have to agree on that. I provided an example in the memo, like just saying based on your committee's knowledge of the community's interests you represent, what information do you believe is important for the civilian police advisory board study committee to understand about the community that you represent and do you have ideas? Yeah, do you think we need to provide them any additional information to sort of help prompt that discussion? To contextualize it or? Yeah, yeah, right? Like we've done a whole lot of learning here. Actually, I'm so glad you asked that question. This leads to another idea that's kind of related and I think it's something that Kathy may have brought up in the last meeting, which is the idea of an interim report. Like we've had the opportunity right now to listen to your reports on Jay and Carlos and Kathy. We should be sharing that with our committees and commissions and that might help contextualize what we've learned and I mean, if we wanna go crazy we could even present before the select board, hey, this is what we've learned thus far and whatever you wanna do, it's just a way of sharing out but that might help with the contextualization as well. I told Susan in an email that I would be happy to take a laboring or on that and would seek help from another or two if you really wanted to do something comprehensive but I'm willing to take that assignment on if that would be of assistance because I do think Sanjay, you make an excellent point. It might be better to provide some context before we ask for input. And if I may, Susan, I'm looking at page two of your memo at the bullet point. I'm wondering if you might be open to not only asking about the community whose interests you represent but consistent with the mission of your organization. That is, what is the historical mission and then what are the interests you represent? And another question that I would be interested to hear answers from is what are your hopes for our group? What are the, what are you hoping? I mean, we have expectations out there and certainly we need to either meet them or try to meet them but it would be, I think it would be useful for us to understand what are the expectations of our town. That's a fantastic. I think that makes so much sense because though I feel like I'm just starting to be more out and about when I've talked to people around town about it there's a pretty, there's some people know nothing about the fact that we exist or what we're doing. Some people, particularly if they're town meeting members you know the origin of the, of where we came from but there's a lot of sort of like gut responses. And I think it is really important to share the information that we have, I mean we're a study committee, remember, that's what we're doing. You know, we're not, that's the origin of it and to show that we are truly studying it and want to share that knowledge with everybody. And it does seem like I have, when Susan and I were talking about this I mentioned what you and Michael at the last meeting you Kathy and Michael had talked about interest in sort of trying to like have a concrete like summary of what we have learned so far. So that's where I thought this had, this had overlap. Yeah, I mean, I see what Kathleen was saying the same thing that we're talking with Michael last time, right? It's this summary of what we've known so far. Can we just get a summary? It's like, okay, now that we all have explored all these different pieces, right? So dog, St. Jay, and then we, two things, right? I see a comment up here. One of them is more like a summary document so we can just like, you know can we read in one place the summary of all the different pieces, right? So organize the information. But another one, which is very critical I think is what Susan is talking about. I mean, potentially here is the idea can we have like a pamphlet, like a one page of what we are and what we kind of know so far and what we're trying to ask people, right? And it's a different thing, right? One of them is more like the summary of all the information that we have so we can quickly, you know see what we have on somebody who wants deeper questions can answer that but the other one is like, what is the elevator pitch? So if I run to somebody at Starbucks telling like, this is what we're trying to do. What, tell me something about it or when we go back to the community we just say, this is where we're trying the question that we have. What is it that you want to look at? I mean, I went back to the diversity task force and I only told my part of the story, right? But I wish that we can just go around and along with that be able to have a summary of what Doc has said, what Sanjay did today and all these other pieces which I think that in a succinct way, right? Something that is succinct, a summary but I see two different documents in here and I don't know, Kathleen and Mike or if you wanna tackle either one of the two I'll be happy to join with you in doing that. I don't know who's more like marketing oriented to do the better pitch piece, right? I mean, I'll be glad to do. I mean, we'll- I feel more comfortable on the summarizing the facts than the marketing piece, although I absolutely agree with you, Carlos that it may be that we have two different goals and we may need two different documents. Elliot. I think especially for the high school like it's probably important to kind of combine the two because if I go back in the fall and I like send out a list of like for a document of what we've done and what we've studied probably nobody's gonna care even look at it but if we send out a list like here's what we've done and here's what we need your help with I think that'll probably get like a lot more interaction response. Elliot, you've just summed it up in one sentence and this is why we love the young people. Yeah. Here's what we've done and this is what we need from you. Or just the great communicators, regardless of age. That's true. That's true. No, I think that makes so much sense and I think of them as I think I can sort of see them as companion documents. They both go up on the website. We try to distribute the both of them to us as all of the bodies that we represent but then that sort of one or two pager, when we talked last meeting about like the attempt to like get information to all of these different places to the, you know, to monotony manner to the council and to places people that aren't necessarily gonna talk to the rainbow commission directly or that, you know, whichever groups we're talking about. Like to have these, a pamphlet type thing available would be really could be incredibly useful. And if they're done in digital format they can be used as ingredients and moved around in different pieces. I mean, it's not static. If Elliot needs something and he's right he's gonna try to do it in 144 characters or, you know, no one's gonna read beyond that then he can take what he needs from the documents that may be written by two or three of us. And, you know, he can have that freedom. What speaks to his constituency best and most effectively? Doug, I see you have your hand raised. I just wanted to add that I think a couple of you at different times have articulated something that would be useful in both of these contexts the sort of information document and information seeking document. And that's the idea of what are the gaps? So we've talked a lot about post and what that is. We've talked a little bit about what professional standards internally in APD does. Now we've talked a lot about what are some different models for providing additional oversight. And so the question, I'm sorry, the information is, okay, here's what the state is gonna be doing now. Here's what APD does now. Here's what some of the models for review are. That's kind of part of what we've done. And then the sort of question that we're, that I think Susan is rightly provided a sort of pathway towards is, well, what are the perceived gaps? I'm sorry, I'm stealing this from somebody. I can't remember if it was Carlos or if it was you, Laura, who it was from, but what are the perceived gaps within different constituencies in Arlington that help us identify what are the things that we really wanna solve understanding that these are the pieces that are in place now. And this is the community that we're, I mean, I'm always optimistic that concise presentations can be made, but then I'm one of those people that starts thinking about, well, it's also really important to say that this is in the context of the town form of government. And town meeting does have a lot of ability to raise, but I think there are better people, there are people who are very good communicators here that are equipped to sort of get what the, but I really like the way that a lot of you folks have talked about it in terms of what are the gaps? What are the gaps that people see that they want to sort of understand better? And what are the pieces that are gonna be in place regardless of what the committee does? So obviously the title of our interim report is Mind the Gap. Thank God somebody laughed. But what would next steps be for moving these ideas forward? It sounded to me like Kathy was perhaps volunteering to lead the charge. I would be very willing to contribute if my services could be helpful. No, you're muted. You provided excellent content already, Sanjay. That's great. But I do, I mean, I'd like to be able to, even though I'm offering to take the laboring or I need a thought partner or two to figure out what do we want to cover? I don't want to, you know, I'm hearing a lot about being concise, but boy, our work is gonna be hard to make concise given what we've done. And I think we can have an executive summary and a longer, right? I like that idea. Yeah. I mean, I think like, yes, we want to have, you know, something that is useful, you know, useful to Elliot, useful to all of us that is concise. You know, I feel like there's the executive summary, there's the pamphlet, but like I think I don't think we should worry too much about how concise we are with what's at the back of all of it because that's what we were asked to do is to study what's out there. And, you know, we can't force people to read it, but if we've done it, it should be, I think we should document it and it should be available. Yep. Yeah, I would definitely start from what Cathy said, cover everything. And then in communications, if you have a really solid product that's comprehensive, you can carve it up and share it in many, many different ways. I was going to ask Elliot, I don't want to draft you Elliot, but I wanted to ask if you would be involved in this process as well. I think you will offer a really important point of view if you have time. I would be happy to be away for the next three weeks. So I don't know if Mona's around then, but apart from that, yeah. Thank you. And I'll just say the two names that had been said last time around, right? We're Carlos and Michael. I don't know, you know, we're Cathy, I don't know how many cooks you want in the kitchen, but I wanted to say those names since they were out there last time too, right? I'd welcome it, I would like some help in at least getting what is the outline? Because from a good outline, you can start to write meaty things, but without an effective outline, you're sort of wandering the woods. And stuff. So if Michael and Carlos, if we can be the team of chefs for an outline, I would appreciate it. I would be happy to be with you. Thank you. So do we need to like, I mean, we can just, do we need to take a vote on doing this now, right? I think we should vote to receive it after they've completed it. Okay. Is that, unless other people have a- That makes sense. Have thoughts about that? Do we have a timeline? Just out of curiosity, I just sort of, I'm just trying to think about my summer and what's our process about sort of backwards design. I think next week would be the right time. Well, thank you so much. You're all, I appreciate your wish at all moments. And I love that he was wonderful. It's just sort of thinking as we're trying to bring more momentum to the work. Well, what do we imagine in our minds? I, you know, when do we imagine wanting to share this with people given the requirements that, you know, that were set up by this, you know, do we need? So, so I did, Doug is a great person. That's who I meant to ask Doug, but go ahead. When's our next meeting? That's an excellent question. And I need, let me pull, well, I won't derail us right here, but I have in the poll. You had it, something to say about what Michael was saying. Doug, you raising your hand. Yeah, I'm sorry. Did somebody else have a point they wanted to raise first? Go ahead, Doug. So yeah, I mean, just as a heads up, like most committees and commissions are pretty inactive in August. And that's both a good thing and a bad thing. It gives this group time that they need. But for example, the next select board meeting is August 9th. And it just seems unrealistic to expect that you guys are gonna be able to pull some in together meet with this body. And so the next meeting, I don't think for them and not that they're necessarily the chief body that you need to hear from. It's pretty clear that you actually need to hear more from the bodies that you guys represent. But my guess is that most of your respective public bodies maybe have one meeting in August, maybe. And then more likely than not, are really back in swing in September. So I know that we've got not a lot of time between September and the timeline, you guys had previously etched out. But this is a pretty concrete and important step. And I for one would suggest, or I guess my personal take is better to have a document that you guys feel really good about in September than to be rushing to get something on October so that you can try to get the focused feedback that Susan is sort of talking about from these constituent representing organizations. Is that perfect? We all know that. And I don't think Susan was suggesting that we can't do anything else in the interim. But this might be some of the most concrete and constituent focused feedback that we get. So my take is a September date. That's, I mean, that's what I was thinking. I mean, we've said in various other contexts that we can't really expect to have a lot of swell of public input before September. So if we took the next six weeks to create this document that is a real foundation for helping us get that input, I think that would be worthwhile. Yeah, and I don't think other people might disagree. I'm curious to hear what you think about this. I don't necessarily think we have to have this document done before we go back. Like I would be entirely based on the updates I've been giving to the rainbow commission all along. It'd be a pretty easy conversation for me to have with them about, you know, what do you think? We need the police committee needs to know and what are you hoping to see from the police committee? So I don't think we're necessarily we have to be sequential. The interim report has to be done. Then we ask people for feedback. So, but I do agree that the interim report should be, you know, take the time. And I would ask Kathy, how much time she thinks she needs. You're muted. I think a few weeks. I'm not going on vacation in August I've been. So I am, I am around and I just need to date. But, you know, Carlos has put in, you know, Sanjay put in, for example, that, you know, there could be a meeting on August 24th. I mean, I could certainly have a draft then and I would have shown the draft or worked with the outline and shown the draft to Michael and Carlos first and then be ready to present something August 24th. How would that work? That would be wonderful. But I mean, I couldn't do your first date Sanjay wouldn't want, I mean, you know. Yeah, the third wing work. I mean, that's just, that's just, I'm trying to work within the confines of a meeting. Yeah, yeah. I think August 24th would be wonderful. Yeah. Yeah, I do too. That would give me four weeks. Right. So, you know, with Carlos and Michael, I could see them being the most help for me at the beginning and the end. That is the beginning as we try to figure out what should I be writing about? And then, you know, the second week in August or so to be able to give them my product and say, you know, rip it apart, improve it and stuff. And then we'll still be in draft form where there's plenty of time for the rest of you. This isn't a product of one or two or three people. It's the product of this, but you know, somebody has to take the labor in order. The first draft is usually the hardest. Right. So quick question for Douglas Sanjay. How many people is current for us? Seven of the voting members I believe. So if there are at least less than seven people working together on some subcommittee, they're doing like that, we're okay, right? As long as you're underneath the quorum of voting members. Okay. Okay, perfect. So we can have four people doing the most work and we're going to be five. So four or five people will be five. Yeah, I just want to know, it's not really like somebody's creating a subcommittee, which is a whole other animal. The whole thing is just like- The guys are just working together and put together. Yeah. Yeah. And Susan, I think you were suggesting that maybe the other piece of it could be developed in parallel. So it doesn't have to be all on Cathy and Carlos and Michael, while the sort of report pieces to be developed, right? Correct. That sounds good. Elliot, when will you be back from vacation? On the 13th. Right in time to read it before the committee. So you've got homework. Thank you so much, Cathy, because I think you're right that the first draft is the hardest. And I also think like this is a, I mean, ultimately, I just think it's a huge amount of the work that we'll need to get done for town meeting next spring. And so I think it's great for us to put it in a format that we get use out of it, like public use out of it before then, but it's also really getting the ball rolling on what we have to do for our ultimate product as well. Okay. So have we agreed that August 24th is our next meeting? Unless we think we need one on August 3rd for other topics. I mean, I don't know, what did people- Maybe we could do a check-in on the 24th, see how it's going. And then if more times needed. On the 3rd, you mean? On the 24th, August 24th. We're excited, we're gonna meet on the 24th. So the question is, do we meet once before the 24th as well? Why don't we leave that for after this, right? And why don't you and Susan and I sort of take a peek and see whether we have any agenda items that need to be covered. And we can propose via email at the end of this week if we think that we might need the August 3rd date as well. Does that sound reasonable to folks? That works. Okay. Thank you all, I feel like this was- Michael, did you- I can't- Sometimes when people move their hands, I can't tell if they're- I just think, Kathy, Carl, so I need to find the time soon to meet. And I guess we have email to do that. Yeah. Or- We have each other's emails. You have- Yeah. You have email from me today. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I do have it. Yeah. Perfect. And did- Were you raising your hand, Susan, or were you just- It's on Jake. Okay. Oh, for me. Great. Does somebody want to make a motion to adjourn if we don't have anything else tonight? Michael, I just put my email in there if you want. Pretty simple. I'll put mine in. So moved. Second. Hello. Hi. Kerry. Yes. Kathy. Yes. Sanjay. Yes. Michael. Yes. I'm sorry, that reminds me. Bob has been doing some other information gathering that he- That may be something to put on the- If we're going to have an August 3rd meeting, maybe I can check in with you, Bob, about you wanted- You had some research you wanted to present about other- You've been looking at the other nearby communities. You're muted. Yeah. I simply have to kind of reorganize and really have to perform the- I'll check in with you about that then. And what I'll probably do is, if you think you're going to have a meeting beforehand, the 3rd, possibly, I'll email that to you. And if you could attach it to what I have something else to distribute it. Yeah. I will check in with you at the end of the week after we talk about whether that meeting makes sense. Okay. Susan. Yes. Elliot. Yes. Ann. Yes. We are adjourned. Thank you, everybody. Good night, everyone. Good night. Thanks.