 All right. So this week we have a quorum. So this week it's my job to call us to order. So as we have a quorum, I think we can get started. And then I need to read our virtual meeting statements. Apologies I'm working from two different devices this week. So please bear with me. So pursuant to 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. See instructions below. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by technological means. And then also before we go any further, Jennifer, I just wanted to ask if there's anybody else who needs to be let in. No, not at this moment, but what time did you start the meeting at? I'm so sorry. Oh gosh. I'm a little bit early. Should I wait? I just started. Okay. 13 or 158. We're running early. That's a good sign, guys. I like that. Or a good sign, people. Sorry, guys, maybe not the most PC. And is Dr. Shabazz here? I don't know if my screen view is okay. Just wanted to make sure my screen. No, but I will make Dr. Jemisin and you, Michelle, co-hosts. Okay. Oh, exciting. Okay. Oh, perfect. And Jennifer, do you know, did he RSVP know? So we're not expecting him or? I have not heard. Not everybody, you know, depending on your device is with that calendar invite. So. Absolutely. Okay. I have not heard. Great. I can share the agenda. Oh, wonderful. And then I think I get to kick it over to you, Michelle. Yes. Although I think we need to approve. We do. From last meeting, if we could do that. I do have one small correction to make just in the spelling of my name. It's Michelle with one L. So that would be great if that could be corrected. Okay. And can we approve with the correction pending or do we push that off till next week? Okay. You can approve with it pending. We just need the motion. Absolutely. Well, first, any other, sorry, I should ask if there are any other comments that anyone have any other corrections or changes to last week's meeting minutes. All right. Hearing none. I motion that we approve the minutes of 928-2021. Lord second. All in favor. And we need to do roll call because we are virtual. Michelle. Aye. Irv. Aye. Hala. Lord aye. And Jemez and aye. And Alexis here too. Yeah. Okay. Wonderful. Sorry. You dropped off my screen when I changed my view. Alexis. Hi. All right. Thank you. Yes. Okay. So without that out of the way, we can move on to our public comment period. So we are going to invite members of the public to speak for up to three minutes. And we will not be responding to public comment, but we will be listening and making notes. So if there's anyone who would like to speak, please raise your hand and Jennifer will let you in. You're muted, but I think that's maybe you telling me to start. Okay. Thank you. Hi, everybody. This is Anna Dublin-Gothier. I'm on Bay Road District 5. And I wanted to do a quick public comment. Hi to those that have not had the honor of meeting yet. And I was recently this week, Paul actually was there too at the new food bank farm out in Hadley, which is a pretty incredible, incredible resource to our community. And one of the things that they had talked about doing with some of the land that they have acquired is I think they're going to lease it. I'm not sure how their specific arrangement is working, but specifically to block farmers in an effort to start to kick off a little bit around land reparations around agriculture. And so it got me thinking. I'm also on the Community Preservation Act committee. And one of the things that the Community Preservation Act committee can do is use funds from CPA to purchase land for agricultural use. So my pitch to you is to consider in a future meeting, maybe having some folks from CPA come and talk to you about what those funds could be used for. And if that's something that folks in Amherst would ever be interested in pursuing around specifically land reparations for agricultural use, I'm happy to support you and kind of how to move through that CPA process to the best of my ability as I'm a member of the committee and need to make sure that that stays there too. Yeah. That was my very rushed apologies for if I hope that made sense. I know you can't ask me any questions, but like, you know, let me know if there's anything that didn't make sense about that. Thank you, Anna. Thank you. Jennifer, do you see any other raised hands? Do I have a way of seeing that, by the way? See here. Okay. I don't see anything. So if you click on the participants at the bottom of your screen, they should show up. You should have an attendees and a panelist. Do you see that? I do see that, yeah. Yeah. So when someone's hands raised, it'll be yellow. Okay. So right now there aren't any other hands raised. So I think we can go ahead and move on. And so we are going to be taking the action and discussion items portion of the meeting a bit out of order. Dr. Jemison and I tried to group things in a way that felt like it would flow best for our discussion. So we're going to get started by revisiting assembly agreements and meeting guidelines, which is A, under our action and discussion items. Dr. Jemison and I spoke about the benefit of taking a few minutes here as we're getting to know each other. It's our third meeting and co-creating some community guidelines as a group. And so I did a little bit of research. Jennifer had provided some excellent community agreements, which you can find in our first packet, I believe. And I also think that Irv provided some very useful community guidelines that are used within the BAM group. I took some really great information from a group called National Equity Project. So just to kind of give us a little foundation for this, part of our work here as a committee is to try to build consensus. And so a consensus on what every person in our group needs from each other and commits to each other in order to feel safe, supported, open, productive, and trusting so that we can serve our community, do our best work, and achieve our common vision. And I liked what they said about agreements. Agreements are an aspiration or collective vision for how we want to be in relationship with one another. They are explicitly developed and enforced by the group, not by an external authority, and as such must represent a consensus. So a couple questions that they suggest posing for us to think about are, what things would make this committee work? What things would make this committee work well for you? And what makes this a safe and respectful place for us to work in? So these are two questions that we may think about. We don't have to spend a lot of time on this, but if maybe each one of us has something that we can offer that we agree on as a consensus to work within. And Dr. Jemisin, if you have anything to add to that? I love these questions. I look forward to hearing anyone who would like to share an answer today. So yeah, we'll open it up and see if there are any suggestions or any share at all in relation to this. If it will make people more comfortable, somebody else shares first. I know something I've been thinking about a lot is sort of issuing an invitation and asking people to bring themselves and their expertise to this meeting in a really active way. You know, one of the things I said when running for co-chair is that I'm not the expert on this topic. And so what I'm here because I'm interested and I'm here to digest ideas and help us push and pull at them. So I hope that folks who know more about this topic or know more about various pieces of it will step up. If you want to be invited, if you want to be asked, I'm asking you now, please bring all of your skills and talents to this meeting. And hopefully I'd just love to see everyone sort of jump in and really contribute as fully as they can. Wonderful. Anyone else like to share? Well, I'll say that one of the things that's important to me is feeling that there is a level of respect as we're working together. And I think and this applies both in how we work with each other, but also how we are working within the community context to as best as possible, not talk about personalities or about people, you know, individually or directly. That would be something that would that is important to me to keep this a safe and respectful place. I guess I can make a quick share. Yes, you are. Please continue. So this is a document that we use in an intergroup dialogue process that I'm a part of called Bridge for Unity. And it's adapted from something from the Anti-Defamation League. But as you can see the little memory device or memory trick is to call it the ropes, knowing the ropes. And just some of the points raised within it, I think are part of making for a space where we can do the kind of work where we're here to do. And I just would particularly highlight, I try to work on the step up and step back to be aware of the space that I use and working to create space for others. That's one I particularly work on. I think Michelle was just talking about the need to speak for ourselves. Don't speak in ways that we want to generalize or point at other people, but rather using I statements. And then the ouches and oops, that can happen in any kind of group dialogue process. Any kind of group meetings is that you can have situations come up and we ought to be able to say oops, that's not what I meant. And then also to acknowledge the ouch if someone else took it a certain way. So anyway, I can send that to Jennifer to share out. But that's what I wanted to add. That's really helpful. Dr. Shabazz, thank you. That would be wonderful if we could share that out. Are there any other comments or shares? Herb, were you about to speak? I don't know if I caught caught that wrong. No, I wasn't. Okay. Well, I guess I just would sort of round this out by saying that this is, I think we're all here because this is work that we feel really passionate about and committed to and it's critical work. And part of it is there is emotional labor that we're all doing here and emotions will arise as we're doing this work together. So just doing our best to stay connected to one another, even as emotions may arise and caring for each other as we do this work. If there aren't any other comments on this, then we can go ahead and move on and I will be handing it back to Dr. Jemison. All right. Jennifer or Michelle, would one of you be able to share the agenda? I think our next topic is this screening. Yes, that's right. Awesome. So we decided we would go to, if you could scroll up a little bit, Jennifer, I think our next topic is actually going to be F to handle that quickly. So one of the reasons we're going out of order is to possibly take items that we could sort of vote on or have a disposition for pretty quickly and then leave the bulk of the time for items which require more discussion at the end. So we were approached by a group in Boston that has developed a documentary called A Reckoning in Boston and they they're basically offering us an opportunity to possibly have a screening of this film and then use it as a point of discussion. This came up this week and so I just kind of wanted to share it with you. So I can read a description and is this email in the packet as well? I just don't recall. It's kind of a long packet. Okay. So there is a link in there where you could view the trailer. And so what I was hoping is we could basically, if folks had looked at this and had an opinion, we could hear it. If not, encourage everybody to sort of think about whether this might be a good in community option for us and if we'd be interested and then we can perhaps move it to a vote next week if we're not ready this week. So if you didn't look at this briefly, there's a little bit of a description in here. Yes. So this film explores the history and lived experiences of racism within communities of color facing systemic oppression in Boston, as well as demonstrating how community members seek to define their lives beyond these systems. It also opens a critical dialogue about whiteness and complicity as the filmmaker James Rutenbeck works to understand his role while filming parts of the daily lives of two Black Bostonians. As I said, there's a link to the trailer and we can sort of provide that after the fact. But did anyone take get a chance to take a look at this? And did they have any thoughts about it? Or have they heard of it in other channels? I had a chance to take a quick look at it. And, you know, this is an interesting opportunity, I think, for us. And it may be something that we could consider pitching even to Amherst Cinema to do in collaboration. But the way I kind of look at it is that any engagement or participation or work that's being done around reparations is worth us seriously considering synergizing within. So yeah, my thoughts. Thank you, Michelle. Any other thoughts about perhaps more broadly, you know, a topical film and sort of talk back afterwards and community engagement as a tool to have the community, you know, see these issues and get discussing them? Oh, Halle, yes. Yes, thank you. This is definitely for us doing it more broadly in the community. But it also got me thinking about if we could budget some of our funds to document our process. I know we're not right at the beginning, but will we be able to have a documentary filmed? And I know some people in our community and in BAM do that. So that's just a suggestion that maybe we want to also document what we're doing here in Amherst one day for others to use. But yes, I also support showing this to the community and having a talk back. Thank you. Thank you. Now, Alexis. I'm inspired by what Halle just was talking about. I'm very interested in helping out and doing that, if people are interested in doing that, because the film stuff is kind of in my in my wheelhouse. So I am definitely interested in that and can contribute to the creation of that, if people are interested in doing that. That is awesome. Glad to hear both of those things. I like the idea and love something coming together on that. So I would like to ask everyone on the committee to do two things. One, please take a look at this trailer and come next week prepared to say like yes or no if you're interested in doing something with this film specifically in this community. And then we can get some folks to maybe spin that up. And then I don't know how you can do this. But Alexis, Halle, since you had this idea and inspired by this idea, maybe you could sort of individually come with sort of like a proposal, what you think that might look like, or just a little bit of language so we could have that next week. And then maybe we could also put that to a vote as to whether or not that's something we'd like to work on. All right. Thank you. Yes, please. Dr. Shabazz. On this one, I don't know that we have to necessarily kick the can. It looks to me of educational value. I can't see the rest of the letter. Is there a cost associated with it? Are they offering to be on hand for the screening or zooming in or something? Is it going to be airing on PBS? I saw PBS in the subject line. Is it just kind of getting an advanced look before it drops on PBS? Do we know anymore about the context for us doing a screening here? Yeah. And I think they did not mention any costs associated with it. Those are all excellent questions. They did not mention any costs associated with it. They did say that the director and the producer who reached out and Dr. Fernanda Ona are available to come to screenings. So they were asking if we were interested in coordinating one. So if there is enough interest for this, I think what I would most like is someone who's willing to be the leader on researching this and getting it to happen. Oh, Erv, you raised your hand. Yeah. I watched the trailer and I think it's an incredible film and opportunity. However, what I couldn't determine was the amount of time that this would take as A and B. If we're going to do a screening with discussion and have a person come out, then that is something that I'm really not in favor of. I'm in favor of having this information, but I am not in favor of taking time and one of our meetings to do this if it's going to take any more than 15 minutes. We just don't have that time to spare in terms of the work that we have ahead of us. Thank you. I agree. I was not anticipating. My vision of this had been that he was approaching this group to facilitate a screening that was perhaps more of a community event as opposed to us necessarily watching it and giving feedback during this meeting time. Because I agree with you, this meeting time is absolutely precious. So how does that feel more useful? Because if it were just a community event, you would obviously be invited, but not necessarily required to come. You know, I think that this is something that would be really good to take up with Amherst Cinema in terms of screening. I think that's a more appropriate venue for and also could be a part of what we do, but not necessarily something that we are taking the lead at. Okay. I would be happy Dr. Jemison to get in touch with these folks and Amherst Cinema and see if there's some collaboration that would be possible and then bring that and report that information back to the group at a future meeting. That'd be great. I appreciate that. Thank you. All right. Are there any other comments on this before we move to our next topic? All right. I'm going to take silence as no, nothing else there. So, Michelle, I think it's back over to you. Yes. So now we're looking at E under our action and discussion items, public engagement. And you know, one of the themes that I'm seeing, particularly in this campaign season is a lot of discussion around the need for more public engagement. And how do we reach people? How do we get people to engage with our work? And how do we do it in ways that are accessible and equitable? And so this part of the discussion is to brainstorm some ways that we can be sure we are reaching as many folks in the community as possible. And also how are we taking the information that we're receiving from the public and integrating that and making sure that those voices are being, you know, heard and uplifted as we do our work. So that's an open discussion open for any suggestions people may have and go. Well, one discussion point that I've been bringing up a couple times over the last meetings is I am in favor of having a public comment period at the beginning and at the end of the meeting. And I understand that that could add a little bit to our meetings, especially if we're getting through a long meeting. But I think that the opportunity for people to comment after they've listened to the meeting or if they haven't been able to get there at the start of the meeting, they still have that opportunity. I don't know if we have to put that to a motion to vote on or if it's just a discussion about splitting the public comment period and adding that on to our agenda. Jennifer or Paul, if you have any thoughts on that, it would be great. Yes. I think if the committee wants to do it, you can just vote to do it or the co-chairs can choose to do it. But I think it's best for the committee to say, yes, this is how we want to conduct our meetings. Great. Before we go on to voting on that, something else that I was interested in is, are there ways for us to elicit commentary from the public that are not at this meeting, for example, if you produce minutes every week, if there were ever a document like we're supposed to come up with a little bit of our plan to share, is that something that we can solicit written comments about or some other ways that we can get them? Yes, Paul. Certainly. I think anytime you want to reach out to the public, we can help, do Jennifer or Communication Department, we can help put that out there if you're saying, we're looking for feedback from people, even if it's not a public hearing, but we have this new proposal. We've just posted a document that we'd like it to know about. We can help do that through. We have different notice either beginning with our putting on the website, but also we can push it out to people who have subscribed to our different digital assets. And for certain things, it might migrate over to our social media, Twitter and Facebook accounts as well. So, yeah, there's lots of opportunities for that. I think your meetings get, when they're posted, that gets distributed to members who have subscribed to every meeting. So people get notice of that. But if there's something in particular, you say, pay attention to us now. I think that's a really useful opportunity to say, we want to put something together, and here's what we'd like to have put out there. Thank you. And other people jump in here, but also, Michelle, I was actually wondering, so you make good points about people who couldn't join at the beginning or other things, but I was also wondering, is there feedback you've received somehow or like during your other process before we got to this committee that makes you feel like there are voices that want to be heard that are somehow not finding, either finding their way to our meetings or not able to connect. Yeah. Who are we not hearing? Yeah, I think it's, you know, it's difficult for people to tune in to everything that's going on in the town. And I only just learned about the subscriber, which is, by the way, something, if you don't know about it, it's a wonderful feature of the town website where you can go on and you can subscribe to receive notifications by text or by email about literally everything that's happening. Now, my phone is getting a lot of activity since I signed up, but I will tell you, I feel much more in the know, and I can silence things that I don't want, like I can go back and turn things off. So I'd like to do my part at least through my Facebook platforms to let people know about that opportunity to engage. But specifically with our committee, I think that this is a really important topic that a lot of people care about. And I want to make sure that as many voices as possible are brought to the table as we're doing this work. So I think generally like the input is that people feel like they either can't attend meetings or they can't find where a meeting is after it's been recorded or things like that. And so any ways that we can try to streamline, there is so much available, Engage Amherst is another excellent website people can go on to. So it's just a matter for us getting it out through our channels to people that we're doing this work. And yeah, yeah. So I hear you guys speaking about how to get our information or your information out to the public, but I think that we still need to figure out how the public is going to get information to you all, how they will receive that. So I know that like the CSWG does public forums, but we still have to factor in that some folks aren't going to be able to attend those. And so someone might just come up with an idea and they're going to need to know who to send that idea to, whether it be email or a phone call. So I think that's what needs to be hashed out. Paul, yeah. Yeah, so I think, I think Jen is right, but also Michelle mentioned the Engage Amherst. And so that's another platform. We try to have as many, there's no one obvious good place, right? Engage Amherst is a different type of platform where people can, you can have a presence there. People can make comments. It's a public dialogue ongoing that stores the questions and the comments. And so people might say, well, what does reparations mean? And then the designated person will respond to that. And that lives there sort of as a library of questions that people may ask. So we could work on setting that up as a separate location. We've used that for about a half a dozen things like Hickory Ridge, most recently, different projects that we have ongoing, but I think it would be a really good place. And actually, to Alexis's point, it sort of creates a sort of historical record as well of the development of what happened and gives you an opportunity to put out, you know, you can keep updating it on a regular basis. So we could work with you to do that if that's something that committee is interested in. I am. Yeah, I was gonna say, I like the sound of that. Yeah. Does anyone else on the committee have thoughts about that? I thought I was muted. Sorry. So again, I, you know, I'm always looking, we're trying to think about that person who doesn't necessarily want to have their comments on a public. I mean, I know that it becomes public, but if they have a specific question, perhaps they don't want to ask that on that public platform in that manner, because it does become public, but also, so I'm not sure if some, like, if someone should be a designated person to, for, you know, the CSWG has a lot of people who have submitted different information that was very helpful and resources to them. So I'm thinking of a platform in that manner. Yeah, Alexis. I guess I'm just wondering how that forum is moderated. Yeah. Can you repeat that? I'm sorry, Alexis, I didn't hear it. Just how that forum or how those forums are moderated. Maybe Paul, are you speaking about the forum on the Engage Amherst, Alexis? Like where a question could be posed, what is reparations, for example, that, yeah. Okay. Maybe Paul can speak to that. Yeah. So usually there, we have a person that is identified as a person that's responding to that particular thing, so that people know who's responsible for responding to that. That may say be Jennifer or whoever we designate for that, but it would, you know, clearly the co-chairs will want to have, you want your, probably your leadership being the people who are putting the content up. Well, I mean, I guess I'm speaking more to, like, if there's, for example, in polite comments. Oh. Yes, I think there are, I'd have to look. I'm pretty sure we have some standards, some protocols. That's a really good point, yeah. I just, I would have to, we'd have to talk to our communications manager who manages that site. There must be some terms of engagement there. And Jennifer, just to make sure I'm understanding what you're saying, you're thinking about also another way where people could get to a designated point person in this group. They could submit whatever it was, but it's just sort of one-to-one. And I personally would be fine with that. Michelle, I don't know how you feel about that, or if anybody else, you know, wanted to be the point person, but I, as someone who would like to invite written comments, I feel like I have to at least step forward and say I'd be willing to receive those. So. Yeah, I think that's great. If you would be willing to receive those, you know, they can certainly be sent to both co-chairs or just to you. I'm totally fine with that. And does the community safety working group, Jennifer, have like an email that is community safety working group at Amherst? Yeah. I wonder if the group thinks that would be beneficial to have an email that would then come to all of us, but it's not an individual person. So that way, if anybody wants to put a general comment, they can send it to that email address, and we would all see it. We would just have to be really cognizant, I think, about not replying to the emails. So just receiving them as if they were being received here in a meeting. I think that that no matter what would be helpful to have. And then maybe, Jennifer, if someone specifically says to you or to Paul, like, we have a question we'd like to have a one on one, then they can send those directly to Dr. Jemison. So the CSWG emails come in and they go to everyone and only the co-chairs respond to the emails. Often it's lots of resources and, you know, like, dear CSWG, you know, I was looking and found this resource or that resource that might be helpful. Less about commentary, but more either support, general support for the mission and also just resources. So that's what it's mainly been. And then if there is an email address, then I would suggest that that would be put on the page so that people can go and submit it that way. That would be great. Perfect, yeah. One other piece I just wanted to touch on here that when Anna spoke, it made me think about how do we take a really valuable public comment like that about something she learned at the food bank and about a possibility for, you know, this land for black farmers. How do we take that and move it into action, you know? So is there potentially a time that we can allocate in our meetings to identify a person who may want to take a particular item up that came in through public comment and follow up with it and get more information to bring back to the group? Yes, Jennifer. So typically I think what would need to happen is it would be put on the next agenda if the group felt like that would be something to discuss and then it could be discussed at the next agenda and you could if you wanted to invite the individual back to speak during that time. Does that sound about right, Paul? So do we need to vote on the groups, the email address and the public comment? There's a little bit more behind the email address because you have to kind of figure out where that email address is coming from and is it, you know, so that is a little something that the co-chairs, Paul and probably myself would talk about a little bit more in detail. But the piece about the public comment and moving that next piece forward can just be sent in or you can submit for one of the agenda items or the group can decide to vote on it. Dr. Demerson, did you mean the public comment before like at the beginning and end of the meeting, that piece? Okay. Yeah, so I meant all of the pieces. So it sounds like having an email address that or email distribution that comes to everyone but you and I answer sounds like that needs a little more conversation. I understand that there's a, I'm sorry I don't remember the acronyms but there's a bulletin board or there's a sort of bulletin board that we could write up. I was wondering if we need to vote on that and also on your suggestion of a public comment both beforehand and after. I think what I heard is that if we wanted, if there weren't any objections to adding the public comment then the co-chairs could add that on to the agenda and I'm sorry I misspoke. I think the subscription piece was different than what you're talking about which was being on Engage Amherst and whether or not we want to go forward with that. I think based on what Alexis brought up is such a good point and maybe we want to, as we explore this other email thing with Paul and Jennifer, talk a little bit more about that and what safety pieces we can put in place to make sure that that's going to work to support us as opposed to yes Paul. So maybe that's for your next agenda we can get sort of how to connect with the Reparation Assembly like how to talk to us, how we will talk to you, sort of get some options out there for you to consider at your next meeting and that could be the Engage Amherst, your website, email, whatever you know if you're going to do a public forum where people are going to be engaged. So some options out there for that'll be a little more structured discussion for you. Sounds great. Great. Thank you. So if there aren't any more comments on this piece then we would be moving to G under action and discussion items, BAM's engagement with the Assembly. We had previously talked about this and I think the main thinking on adding this onto the agenda is just to really solidify whether we feel like the three members that are here as part of BAM are sufficient or if there were additional methods of engaging or wanting to engage that group. Yes. I would note that among our attendees is another founding member of the Black Assembly of Amherst, Kathleen Anderson. The meeting for we've been meeting monthly so our next meeting hasn't occurred to really process whether the BAM itself wants to send a delegate beyond us. So I think for the time being there really isn't a need to vote on that right now. As you say, we have people here who are members of it and so we don't have to necessarily take action on that item until after BAM itself meets and thinks about whether they confer upon us, if you will, that role of liaising with this group, this body or whether they feel someone besides us ought to be liaising. So I would just say we can table that for now. I don't know if Irv or Hala or even Kathleen would have a different view of that but I will say one other thing on the piece is the real work that BAM offers is to be a conduit to the African heritage community, the people of African descent in Amherst. And the strategy of how to become that conduit involved this creation of this census, this listing with contact points, whether ground mail addresses, whether email addresses, whether cell phone numbers of some form. And right now that work has not really proceeded very much within BAM beyond word of mouth contact to people and the attempt to kind of gather names through that more informal method. The step that is needed and has been called upon and asked about for some months is to be able to get a website and some means of reaching out to people, create it, someone with time or someone hired to look at things like voter rolls and work with people to go through to try to identify from existing databases, the African heritage people who live, who are resident of Amherst and then following up with contact to people on that list saying are you okay being a part of this assembly, this census, this process of communication. If this assembly, if this body is choosing to take the time above and beyond the planning work that we're actually charged to do, if we're interested in now becoming that conduit and that will set up all these channels for information and people to send information in and flow in, if this group thinks to do that itself, then I can bring that to BAM and we'll talk about it at our November meeting. There's really no reason for us to continue to exist. If this body thinks it can do that work itself of identifying the African heritage community and reaching out to it about this reparative justice process and soliciting its ideas. So I just want to put that out openly and seek ideas from this body about that. Thank you for laying that out so clearly Dr. Chavaz and I think that actually dovetails with our next topic. I don't want to rush away from this though if other folks have thoughts or responses to Dr. Chavaz's comments. I don't want to let hang out there what Dr. Chavaz just said because it's very important. We need to have that work done. We cannot leave it just sitting there. Either we will take up that task or BAM will do it. Either way, resources are going to need to be put to that task. So whenever we want to deal with it, we have to deal with it. I would assume that we will deal with that sooner than later. Thank you, Erva Lexis. Yeah, I completely agree. I think that this is something that's directly tied to what we do and that it's so vital that we maintain a connection and that we do the work to go out there and connect with the community in order to know how best to serve it in doing this work. So I third this. I agree. I think it's really important that I have some knowledge as to getting a website build and stuff like that and knowing how to facilitate that process so I can help with doing that. So I wonder if because our next topic is going to be Dr. Jemisin's proposal on our work process, I think probably what she meant about this dovetailing is that if we want to get a couple people together to further explore this in between our meetings and then report back, and I'm sorry to speak for you, Dr. Jemisin, but I think that's what you were getting at. So perhaps I do see Erv's hands up and then maybe we can move to the work process and it will sort of fall into place there where we can continue that piece. You're muted, Erv. But that was, I guess, I was going to say a point of order here because if this is going to be an action item, it's an action item. It's not an action item. It's not an action item. So we don't need to discuss it unless we're going to come to, we want to have a vote on it. If we're going to vote on it, let's say that it's an action item. Yeah, I appreciate that. And given we've sort of extended beyond the item that was indicated on our agenda, perhaps we want to add this to our next agenda because what I'm hearing is that it's a really important piece of what we need to do to move forward. And so my feeling is that there isn't a vote on anything today that we need to do a little bit more discussion around this in the light that Dr. Shabazz just brought forward. So we can add that, Dr. Jemison, and I can add that to next week's or next meeting's agenda. Yes, Dr. Shabazz. I can just ask Kala, is that okay, this idea to the original agenda item of just deferring the question of a BAM liaison being a non-voting member, just deferring that for now until BAM itself can meet and until we can have this work process discussion, is that okay with, is that you agree with that? That feels good. That feels okay. Yeah. Yes. So I think to the original agenda item, I think we're taking no action. We're saying we're going to table that for now and come back to it. Earth? Just, this is, anyway, work has been done on this in relationship to identifying source of money to do the census as well as to compile additional information that's necessary for BAM to do a website, etc. That work has been done. And Dr. Shabazz led that work. So at some point, either we're going to, and I guess I'm a little bit frustrated, I'm thinking, if we're going to do this, we need to come to a decision quickly and get it done and get, move it off of our agenda so the work is in process. I really don't want to discuss this ad infinitum. Thank you for offering that additional information about work that's already been done and resources and also expressing your frustration. I thank you for pointing out that this is a safe space where people can hear that. I don't think we're trying to prolong the discussion. The next item that is on the agenda is a space where I outlined all the tasks, I think, that need to be done for us to get this entire project done. And one of them is about identifying the population, which is, to me, dovetails is exactly what the census would do. And so what I didn't want to do is have us vote on this single item alone when there might be other items that come out of all of this work process that need to vote. So we're not trying to delay for multiple weeks, we're just trying to delay until we have a little more discussion about everything we need to do so we can make sure that things get done efficiently and effectively. So I think that's a good time maybe for us to move into that portion of the meeting. And Dr. Jemisin, I just wanted to ask you, do you want me to share, or Jennifer could, because it's in the packet, the presentation as it was typed up? That would be perfect, yes. I realize it's a lot of words, but I only had a phone at the time that I was doing this. Jennifer, do you want to share that, or do you want me to do that? No, I can share. Just one moment, please. It's probably easier for me to scroll down and find it versus scrolling down while you guys, it's on the screen. I know the feeling Jennifer, I just had to do the same search so I could make sure I had my own reference. Okay. Do you see the document and not my millions of? I do. Excellent. All right. So I will give a little background, just so people know where this came from and how my brain works. I wanted to understand the scope of what we needed to do and try to break that down into tasks so that hopefully we could start to work as ones or twos on this to kind of like go out every week, get a little bit more information, bring it back to the group so that we could do, we could make more things, action items and have more votes and move forward, you know, faster that way. I did number and letter things because that's the way my brain works. I'm not saying we have to do these things in these orders, they're just buckets that I made. So the first bucket is the money bucket. How do we secure funding for the 2023 budget and beyond? And what I put under here are all the things I thought we needed to understand to go do those tasks. And then bucket number two was understanding the legal concerns. There's a lot of information that came up this week, some of which I hope we'll have time to discuss after this part. And again, the sort of several items that I think we need to understand before we make decisions on that. Can you scroll up a little bit, Jennifer? So we can see three and four if they'll fit on the screen. So number three would be a visioning process. Does that, that bucket, you know, does that happen now? Does that happen with a couple of people on the side and bringing some ideas? But these are the, you know, these are things that I suggested could go in that bucket. And then number four, determine eligibility for reparations. This is the bucket where particularly B and C understand past, present and projected populations or understand the potential size of a population to receive reparations. That sounds exactly like the work that was just being discussed. That has been initiated by BAM. And so I think it makes perfect sense to bring that, at least the question of whether or not we're going to bring that under our umbrella into the conversation. And then can we just look at five quickly, Jennifer, before we go back to the top. So define how reparations will be distributed. Once, you know, we kind of have to know what they are before we know how they're, and who's getting them before we know how they're going to be distributed. So there is some linearity to how this works. But yeah, that, and then the final thing was to prepare and present the outcomes of this work in a report, or maybe it's a documentary based on some earlier discussions. So can we go back to the top and just sort of look at one and two for a moment. In, when Jennifer sent this out, she sent it out with my food for thought comments, which was things like, Hey, you know, what are the parts of this that you'd like to get involved with? Where do you, where do you feel your skill sets lie? But the first thing I would want to ask here, as always, is, did I miss anything for folks who reviewed this ahead of time or are looking at it now? Are there steps here that I missed? I know I may have gotten some of the words wrong, but in general, is there any task that I missed here? Irv. I think you really did a great job in outlining the tasks that are to be done. Well, I would like to add a comment that number two should be should be defined. I would have put it in as understanding the legal legal concern, legal concerns around reparations, because when you limit it to individuals, we've already eliminated ourselves, you know, almost, almost entirely, because of the legal concerns about direct payments that town can make to any individual. But so I think that really, really, it's really important for us to have a discussion around those legal issues surrounding our work. And that amount of the amount of material that came through was incredibly great, dense, definitely would make you go asleep and fall up or fall come awake all at once. But it is definitely something that we need to do. I can't, as for myself, I can't see how we go ahead without doing number two first. Okay, that's this great feedback. Any other folks? Oh yeah, Michelle. I had a similar thought myself that starting with the legal opinion that we received is going to be fundamental in terms of how we can move forward. I sort of saw number one and number two as items that we could begin to group off into and work on. And then, and I also just, I want to second what Irv said, this really helped me to get my head around everything that we have to accomplish in our charge. So I thank you for putting this together. And I would like to see focus on one and two kind of simultaneously in smaller groups if possible, and then move on to those other items as they arise. Irv, did you have another comment? Or you're still on mute? I just want to say I really, I want to second what Michelle said. And when I look at this, what you put together as in total, there are certain things that need to be done almost simultaneously. Because we're looking at, you know, who's eligible? Well, eligibility obviously dovetails in with number two, and also number one. So it's, these things have to be done and trying to sequence is going to be difficult. But I do think that we need to figure out this session what we are going to focus on going forward out of those three items, that three items for me are number one, number two, and then the eligibility, who's eligible. Thank you. I think that's great to introduce that third bucket in there as well. Do other folks have any other reactions or thought, also, sorry, let me say Irv that I absolutely agree that yes, I hope this is like this session, we can make sure everybody has some homework to get those, those three most two or three most important things done. Any other reactions or thoughts or, yeah, or responses to what's been said so far about this? I'm wondering if other people are hearing that background talking. Is anyone else hearing that? Not anymore. Okay, I did. Yeah, it's gone away. All right, so then, so Michelle Irv, as I said, I think I think you're right. I think this should be definitely the session. So it's sort of an idea that one in two or possibly one, two, and I think eligibility is four, but that those three buckets need to be sort of worked on simultaneously. Does anyone have thoughts about, I mean, so I guess I don't like, I don't know exactly how people can do that. Can people only work like one at a time or two at a time on the side here? Paul, thank you. Yeah, so I think like on the number one, that's a really tangible task that can be done. And I think if you had someone from the committee, I mean, Mr. Rhodes has already sort of talked a lot about the financing, where the money would come from. This is about where the money would come from. And what is the time is we don't want to miss any deadlines. I think if he worked with our finance director, Mr. Mangano, they could come together and sort of chart out what are all the things that are available, possible sources of revenue for the reparations program, because that's filling up the bucket that we're talking about. And that there are no legal impediments as far as I know to starting to fill that bucket up, because the sooner we get started on that, we've already started. And there's some premonition of that happening. So I think Mr. Rhodes has worked with Mr. Mangano before and they work well together. So that might be a task for your next agenda item. I think for the legal research, the legal one, there's different things there for what have other towns do done. I think there's multiple tasks there. If you start to have people working together, it does get into the committee business. And I think it's just sometimes easier if you're not talking about logistics. I think you're right that the legal opinion from our town attorney is pretty very dense and very detailed. So it could be that there's a follow up with the attorney on that, because I think that's really crucial to your understanding of your work. I think it's really helpful to know what other towns have done and what in other states. I think that's where we may benefit from talking to Evanston and how did they figure things out? Our state's rules may be different in just other places that have taken it on. So I think that's another set of tasks that some folks can take on. But we do need to basically kind of take them on individually, is that right? Unless you want to set up a committee that, yeah, unfortunately. Erd? Yeah, I am definitely interested in number one. And I think I indicated that all along. I'm anxious to sit down with Sean and Paul as soon as possible. Excellent. So can we sort of formally consider that your wheelhouse and we'll put an agenda item on next week for you to report back if you've got anything? Yeah, in terms of reporting back next week, really depends on two things. One, when the meeting is going to be, and two, when I can sit down with Sean. Absolutely. Understood. Michelle? Yeah, and I would volunteer to work on the legal piece of things. I have a strong interest in this piece. I think I, most of the questions that went to KP Law, I worked on. I've also sent this to Robin Rusimans for review and Robin is very interested in being part of the dialogue and providing expertise and resources to us around what Evanston has done and what they've run into. I certainly also would take a broad look at all of the other communities that are working on this. I know we have some community members potentially. I think I'm identifying that there may be one even here today that has a particular interest in this as well. So I would love to take this on with somebody else or on my own and also ask the group if we want to invite Robin at some point in the next couple weeks to talk to us about this and more generally. I also will say with respect to the law piece, I was directed through reparations for Amherst to an aid of Congressman McGovern and it was suggested to me, this was the mother of an aid, the Northampton aid of Congressman McGovern. And so I reached out to Repdom and we're also trying to talk about the possibility of a meeting. So I wanted to bring that to this group with respect to particularly the third recommendation that's in the legal opinion. So all of that said, I'm very invested in this piece of things and would be happy to take that on. We've had several hands come up. So Dr. Shabazz? Yes. So I think that the being up of these areas, first of all, I think these are fine. They've been identified. I think the divvying them up is fine as well. But I think we need a little more discussion beyond the alphabetical bullet items of what we're actually going for. I'd like to be clear, for example, are we clear? Is there a consensus that the goal is that we're sending, if it's heard out, to discuss and to bring back is the idea of creating a financial instrument that is based upon what is in the stabilization fund that was created or if it hasn't been deposited to yet will be in that relation to an endowment at a certain amount. I don't know that we're clear that that's what we're talking about and whether we are at this point feel we're able to talk about what is an appropriate number as a goal for where we see building that fund. Is it a fund of 10 million? Is it a fund of one million? So that is one area. Are we clear that we would be sending heard out to discuss with respect to all of these bullet items that it's about the creation of an endowed invested fund that reparative justice programs would be funded through? So I think Irv has a response. Did I miss another hand? Yes, I do. I think that it's really clear in terms of what has been written here. And I look at it as the securing funding from 2023 budget and beyond. Understanding all sources we might be able to use, that's clear. Second, understand the process, paperwork required to apply for or airmark those sources. That's clear. Understand the timelines reach source. As Claire said, the target for the amount of money to endow reparations, we can talk about that because that has to be clarified and do the math based on funding sources available. Decide on the amounts, apply for secure. This has nothing to do with making any choices or making any decisions. It's about finding out all the ways in which we may be able to secure funds and where those funds could come from. The amounts and times etc can be reported about back to the committee. The committee then can do some work together and a live session to determine the path forward with all of those suggestions that I would come back with. This is not something that is narrowing. It is something that is making it available for us to know exactly what is there and what is not there. So we do not continue to lose incredible amounts of time in terms of moving forward. Discussing this without having something that we can look at in order to inform our decisions. Yes. Thank you, Erv. I gathered that. It still doesn't quite address what I'm raising. I'm raising that right now there is an implicit idea and I'm asking should we make that an explicit idea that we reach a consensus on. The Stabilization Fund work was made toward doing that even before we were created as a body, as a public body. The sending out to the attorneys to get a legal opinion, that was discussed and was being moved on even before we were created as a public body. So certain things have happened even prior to our being organized. But I'm saying now that we are organized, is there ever a point that we want to make explicit our understanding of what we're working toward? What I hear you saying is let's just figure out the buckets of money could come from and then we can decide down the road or we can make explicit down the road if we're talking about creating a fund. If that's where the body is at right now, you want to kick that can down the road? Fine. I'm just asking is there some point at which we actually discuss where we think this can is going instead of just kicking it down the road? All right. So two things. I think we're talking past each other. One, what you're talking about is obviously one bucket of money that is possible. All right. Yes, that has been acted on by the council. We do not need to revisit that in terms of what I do not need to revisit because that's already been determined. What we're talking about are other sources of money in addition to the stabilization funds. And by the way, the stabilization fund, when you look at it, the question that comes to mind is all right, are we just going to be is it going to be a one-time deposit? Can it be other monies be the deposited entity stabilization fund? Of course they can because I know that. So yeah. But again, Amil, what I want want you to understand is this is not being dismissing the idea of the stabilization fund. It is getting other information and bringing other sources of funds to add to that particular bucket of funds so we can have different pockets of money that we can look at and make some decisions on. So nothing is being eliminated. And Dr. Shabazz, I want to hear from you again in a moment. I just wanted to jump in here. So at the end of our last call, actually the discussion had gone in a direction I was really kind of excited about because it seems to me that folks were all on the same page that no matter what we do, it's going to require money. And there are time constraints on us securing any of that money wherever it's coming from. And so I appreciate that what may be happening here is what I wrote might be causing some confusion because all I was trying to do was get us to act on the part where we're going to need some money. Let's find out when we have to ask for it, what we have to tell them to get it and let's make sure we can have that coming in. And then I guess I want to ask you to clarify, what is it that you feel is implicit that you would like made explicit? Thank you. I'm asking at some point if we have a conversation about what we think our recommendation will be, possibly even to have it explicit by the time of our end of October report, what do we think we are building towards financially? Are we assembling all of these money or is we're going to recommend it all be spent in one fell swoop? Or are we protecting a kind of continuing ongoing fund that these funds and Dow extended period of time or an indefinite period of time? I just would like to know if we ever plan to have that conversation and if we plan to have it before our October report, just to give some sense of the direction we think we may be going to the council. Because I've heard people getting excited about wanting to gather the money in and I understand the time factors that press that. It's just a question of is there some point we're going to discuss whether that those funds that would be gathered and we'd ask the council about gathering and approving, taking steps to approve, is it going into something for a more indefinite payout or is it or is that not the Dow fund that will last? Okay, you're breaking up a bit so let me just make sure that I heard you and hopefully everybody has some ideas. So what you're wanting to clarify or have us discuss is whether or not this is like we get a bucket of money, we spend it all or we get a bucket of money and we're hoping to build instruments that we can use maybe not in perpetuity but for a prolonged period of time. Is that accurate? Yes it is. Excellent and then Erv, sorry you had a response? Good. I'm glad you said that and you got that clarification because I think yes that's where we are headed Dr. Shabazz. That is the objective and there is some sense of urgency not only because of the report but because of the budget timeline. The budget timeline for the town really dictates a lot in terms of the timing of when we decide to do what we're going to do. So to be clear we're not only talking about what you just mentioned in terms of the stabilization fund but we're all also talking about other sources of funds. Some of those funds might be expended in one fiscal year, some of those funds might extend beyond the fiscal year and be a continuing source of funding. We would be you know some funds will be looking forward to obtaining what would be funds that would be able to be sustainable from budget year to budget year. Thank you because if I may. Go ahead. Because the public comment from Anna Devlin Gautier becomes relevant to both this piece that I'm raising as well as even to the legal piece in the second area and that is actually finding a way to look at the CPA model the Community Preservation Act model and looking at how that is organized both financially and legally as a model for us to consider what it is we're predicting and what it is we may ask the council to act upon. I am personally want to revisit that to say I hope that is something we would look at whether through an individual starting to look at it and bringing an analysis whether under the financial or under the legal or whether we just want to designate one of our meetings to to have a sit down with with someone from CPA to talk about that that particular model and how they're funded as well as how they are legally able to operate vis-a-vis local law and municipal law and state law. Thank you. Michelle. Alexis, would you like to go before me since you haven't had a chance to speak on this topic? Please. I was just going to sort of piggyback off of Dr. Chavez and almost ask like are you or are we at all considering like the possibility of the creation of a fund specifically for this and looking at the CPA like as a model for that? Sorry Paul and then Dr. Chavez and then Michelle. I deferred to Dr. Chavez. Okay. My response is just quick yes it's I see it as a model. Paul. Yes so the town council has set up a stabilization fund for so it's basically a bank account that where you can put money into but there's no money in it now right so there's a fund there for reparation but there's it's empty so the next step is put money in it and where do you get the money to put in it and that's the next that's how I see that what Mr. Rhodes is going to do with the finance directors like here are the different sources we can get we can get ARPA money we get town taxpayer money we can get CPA whatever it is and say and donations can we can we start to publicize people can make donations and so let's start to fill up that account as the as the reparation committee as you start to decide well how are we going to distribute it what are our goals and stuff but we as Mr. Rhodes said we don't want to miss any deadlines because the deadlines are coming up in like November December so let's I think you will want to know you would hate to miss a deadline of saying we want to request funds from this account and have missed that deadline I'm sorry thanks for the clarification and I am adding that you know I think that there are short and medium and long-term goals as we approach this work and so there is a budget cycle that we want to capture and we're doing this work for the long you know not just for the the moment but really this is an iterative process that we're going through and so I think getting the information back it seems to me like we're in an exploratory phase right now and that's the work that Irv is going to do is to explore what the options are and then bring them back and then at that point this committee can have a discussion about short medium and long-term goals that we can bring as recommendations to the town council Dr. Shabazz so thank you I think I'm hearing in relation to my original question that yes at some point a discussion is envisioned where we talk about how these these finances that we're gathering will will will what they're going to go toward long short term medium term long term so if that's if that's the view I'm hearing then then that that answers my my original question the the one other thing I just comes up from what town manager was saying please rescue me if I'm wrong but my understanding is is that the council did also approve that free cash from last fiscal year of 200 000 plus is to be deposited sometime this October is that am I am I wrong on that yeah so they they did approve but that that hasn't actually happened yet because we haven't had free cash certified so I think it's important to lay all that out so you can see where where all the funds would come from it where the proposal was and how to seed that account then with that I think we've got a clear charge for member Irv roads to to go out and address on the on the legal then again I'm I'm would support if that's an area that that Michelle wants to to look at I just would raise or add that again relative to the CPA model that is based upon state law the and state law that then married with local law to to create an ongoing fund and an ongoing mechanism for looking at proposals and distributing those funds and so again I like that model I I hope that in the legal investigations that are undertaken that that model could be studied and if it requires statewide action I will it will require statewide action to replicate that kind of model that those discussions are going on Kathleen Anderson and myself and some others were a part of a statewide conference and there is action being being taken Cambridge is getting ahead of us other municipalities are getting ahead of us on looking at looking into these years and they are already beginning to generate proposals for state legislators to begin to consider how to create a similar kind of of legal framework as is created for the Community Preservation Act so I would hope that in the legal study that efforts would be made to to specifically think about and look at that aspect if you're speaking with Mindy Dom if you're speaking with Joe Comerford to to look into that particular aspect of how state law can help us and rather than us being particularly reactive to KP law analysis and let's get ahead of that and look at how do we create the the environment where state law enables us and facilitates us to do what it is we we we want and need to do. Thank you Dr. Chabaz. Michelle you're so charged. Oh yeah I'll just say that Dr. Chabaz I don't actually know and maybe Paul or Jennifer can clarify it was my understanding that two people could work before it became a committee is that that's not true it's not possible okay um well yeah I I just want to let Dr. Chabaz know that I heard everything he just said I took notes and I I got it. And I will throw myself into the mix here and like if I can help on a different aspect Michelle like you won't you do your thing I'll do a different bullet point or whatever I'm more than happy to get involved with the legal piece of piece of this since that and the financial seem to be most urgent to work on in parallel uh Dr. Chabaz. No I should have taken my hand down I'm okay no worries um so uh Irv did also propose um and this goes back to the item we were discussing previously um he did propose that eligibility maybe sort of the third thing that we could sort of work on in parallel um and in particular there is kind of this question out there whether or not um uh this this particular committee uh which should should take over the the census uh from BAM so I I didn't want to leave that undiscussed if there are further thoughts and maybe we should think about how that is an actionable item for for our next discussion to make sure that that gets covered so um so I guess first are there folks who sort of like saw eligibility felt that it was important and would like to do some work on that or towards that next week um Dr. Chabaz. So for me I guess this is where I would insert the again the model of of CPA that residents African American African heritage residents would be able to to submit projects in the similar way as the CPA model projects of relevance to African heritage people and addressing harms and addressing um uh repair in the context of repair of justice and there would be a body set up to uh to recommend to approve those uh those projects um or vet or and discuss those projects with people and vet them and and try to get them to a place where they could be approved so if again if that's consistent with our thinking then I don't mind uh trying to to look more deeply in that area talk to Anna Devlin and and others with CPA to to understand their model but for me then that that then begins to skirt the whole question of um you know getting into uh blood quantum and genealogy and and all these other matters that I think are relevant matters at the federal level and at the level of true reparations uh as relates to slavery um and and anti-black racism but but at the level in which we're envisioning on on on this uh municipal level I think that uh that area can really be uh uh taken care of by looking at a model like CPA. Great thank you uh Irv. Yeah um Dr. Chabaz I absolutely resonate with what you're saying however when I look at the legal land landscape that would impact upon what you're talking about I believe that it would be fruitful for you uh to um well actually right now that legal framework and understanding all the legalities around what we can or cannot do and is really important because when I hear what I when I really listened to what you're saying I said that's really a great idea the CPA model was great but is it possible to use the CPA model to disperse funds for a project strictly to African-Americans and everything that I've read says no we can't do that uh however if we said low income yes we can do that so anyway there you go quick follow-up to say I leave that to the to the legal bucket group I'm just going to look at I'm really I'm just trying to squeak in Federation A model uh under under item three got it got it I appreciate that um so I guess I'm going to take one last call for anything on on the sort of work work process or any of these items for people to volunteer respond and then I'd like to move on to Michelle's last items um Alexis yes um I can volunteer um to do some work um around legal stuff and what not on on eligibility um awesome yeah um I also can well I don't know if we're still talking about the census um yeah go ahead if you've got comments on the census please um um I mean I would love to be able to take some of the like labor off of BAM if possible especially especially like if we have funding to do so like I feel like that sort of like is part of what we should be doing um in like using funds to be able to help with that um but I also don't want to like like step on any toes you know and I think that BAM should also like agree if they want to be able to hand that off um so in in any way that's helpful I'm I'm willing to help out with the creation of that if everyone if that is the the agreed upon decision awesome thank you Dr Shabazz uh so just looking at the the topic areas then um I think then maybe I would look more at vision the item three if Alexis would move more in an area four and on that issue with with Alexis on area four I don't think it's it's a problem with yourself set in terms of helping in the development of a website and helping in development wait to get some outreach uh going in the community as well as a database through which some outreach can happen in terms of a postcard in terms of a letter to everyone um is there but in terms of the budget question is is there still a couple of around Paul um Tom manager Bokelman uh and if so is and is an individual from this body Alexis able to receive that to use torque toward offsetting costs to to get some of this work done so for any expenditures uh there are funds available we we would have to go through a procurement process so all of our work has to follow up procurement laws um so I think the first thing you'd want to do is say what do we need to do and what are the tasks tasks um that we you know if it is developing you're coming up with census that might be a pretty good task that we would identify um and then we go out and follow our normal procurement rules for securing those services alternatively to that to Paul is there a way if there were any existing uh may it help um from within the town the town clerk's office or within your your bailiwick in terms of I know their their voter there's voter data if if some people could could come in and sit down with um from BAM who who know who have a long history can you recognize names is there possible to get like that well you were breaking up a bit Dr. Shabazz but I think what you're asking is um can people come in and access public records and that's clearly yes that's the case um I know the town clerk's office is preparing for the election on November 2nd so they're pretty swamped right now and there's early voting coming in three weeks but yes those are all public records that are available um for people to review at their convenience so Alexis um if if I can see folks I won't look for a response I guess it's okay for one member of this body to at least send information to another member of this body without constituting a deliberation but um or if I need to send it through Jennifer I can send it through Jennifer but I can share with you notes of of what we've done and um and I had set out you know scope of services that we'd worked out with uh with the town and and maybe you can take the ball from there yeah I try to look at you for the eye absolutely absolutely um just one clip oh halla yes um everybody else on the committee has volunteered and I'm sorry I didn't jump forward I'm doing something else as well but I'm happy to work and volunteer wherever we have an empty spot just to apply thank you so much halla we really appreciate that and totally understand um if something like if you have a if you do have a chance to review the document and something comes up um she's allowed to just tell Michelle or I like I'd like to do this right yeah so just send us a note um and also you know I think the the documentary idea like even just fleshing that out that's sort of like kind of six but I feel like that that that's the kind of thing that would take some some lead time so if you feel like thinking that through that's that's a great start as well so thank you yeah that was really inspiring um Paul just a quick um follow-up is it can a member of a committee receive payment through the procurement process like for example if Alexis knew how to build a website for BAM could Alexis be paid through the procurement process being that she is also a committee member um is that a conflict of sorts or is that a possibility um we'd have to look into that could be a conflict um again we'd have to follow procurement rules so if you said we want a website we probably go out into the market and say we need a website that does this and see who bid on it and then if if then I think that sort of insulates you somewhat and from the but so if someone comes forward and says I could do a website that meets all your requirements at a lower cost um I think just for optics you might be better off keeping it out of committee members hands um just yeah but whether it's totally illegal or not if we go through a procurement I can't I can't say that I'd have to look into that okay no problem um earth or if you're muted or if you're muted is there Paul is there um a certain amount of money that can be expended without going through a procurement process so they're different levels you know um there's like under a thousand dollars I mean from one thousand to ten thousand dollars and over ten thousand to fifty thousand so they're different requirements at different levels um and I think you know if we bring Mr. McGonnell into our your next meeting he's right now serving as our chief procurement person he can walk us through those things all right I mean it is important because I do remember some of those in my mind but I'm so yeah so some so some of them you can get three verbal quotes some of them you need three written quotes some of them you have to post in the newspaper it depends on the um the dollar amount that you think the project is going to cost all right so you know we can we can leave that until after I meet with Sean because I think that's an important discussion to have yeah and I just wonder along these lines if Irv or Dr. Shabazz or Hala um would be able to make contact with BAM now or sooner maybe I don't know when your next meeting is but to see if there is interest in having this committee develop that census or work on that census so that then we can add that um to our agenda for maybe even the next meeting to flesh out how that's going to happen and work with Paul in terms of the procurement process Dr. Shabazz are you can you still hear hear the conversation I can still hear sometimes I'm inaudible can you hear me yes okay then yes I will we'll we'll we'll take that up with with BAM I think uh the the the creation of the means to reach out to people is one part of the task and I don't think BAM has a problem with how how that gets done the second part is who's making the outreach and I think that that would be another area for for consideration for them to talk about I think part of what they're they're hoping to do is is when is is to convene to use that list to try to convene a kind of a a conversation within the black community by the black community by the African heritage community so in that regards then no that would be an area I think they'd more want to take charge of but the creation of the of the the database the creation of the way to get that word out to convene the people I don't think they'd have a problem with how how that gets done great so just let uh Dr. Jemisin and I know and we'll add that for next week's agenda once you've had a chance to have that conversation um and sorry one more follow-up question before we move on really quickly Paul or Jennifer is there anything that um is is there any issue with a member of this body working with a skilled member of the community like we have somebody I think she may be here today who has legal expertise um and so if I were to work with that member of the community is that is there any problem with respect to that no I mean if it's volunteer work you can consult with whoever you'd like great all right so time to move on um to we have member reports as the next item on the agenda are there any member reports Heather or holla oh okay sorry I thought I saw a hand okay great um and then we have upcoming events I don't know if there are any events Jennifer that you want to communicate that are relevant here I don't Dr. Jemisin I don't have any in mind we didn't quite cover that piece me either okay nothing all right great all right and the next item is setting our next meeting date which um is always fun so um if we're looking to meet oh go ahead Dr. Jemisin I was just going to say can I can I ask just in general for folks did it go better when Michelle and I kind of came down to a few narrow things and then asked or do you like to be in this moment checking calendars and grooving away on this because I'm happy for us to take the burden and you know come up with three possibilities sort of thing if that's easier Alexis um my thing always sort of stays the same I would enjoy it if we could be after six six or six or later I'll make it a six if we need to um but yeah thank you absolutely um yeah we sort of kind of we kind of came into a crunch and part of that was due to my schedule this week so thanks everyone for being flexible um anybody else like want to go through the pain of scheduling now or and also Michelle feel like if you want to share this like we can be insistent but I think it would be good for I don't mind doing the the work at all to send out some dates and but if there are any times that people know they can't meet next week for example Jennifer I think you have a community safety working group meeting next Thursday are there Paul there is not we will not be meeting on Monday because it's Indigenous Peoples Day so we have basically Tuesday Wednesday and Friday to work with and how I see you have school committee on Tuesday on Tuesday okay how about Wednesday look for people at 615 um not for me not good not good that's the uh night of the uh legal oh our of you are muted it's the night your school committee candidates they are women voters okay then you both definitely cannot be here we definitely will not be here okay so that leaves us with um overlapping on Thursday um which would not be ideal for Jennifer yes Alexis sorry I just wanted to check in are you sure the League of Women Voters is on the 13th and not the 14th it's the 14th it's the 14th oh yeah I thought we were just talking about Wednesday I could be wrong oh maybe I'm totally I think that's how it was on this oh yeah I think Alexis is right we were talking about the 13th being Wednesday so is is the League of Women Voters school committee can't uh is it on the 13th or 14th or 14th okay so is the 13th then I'm just checking I there's a candidate forum for my district too and I'm trying to see when that is but um is Wednesday at 615 then the 13th is that a possibility for everybody thumbs up if it is okay uh and Dr. Shabazz and Halla is that good for you say the date again it would be Wednesday the 13th at 615 yes I think that's okay for me okay and Paul I I know you're not required to join but if you're available okay um and how about you Jennifer is that possible for you um yeah but I believe that I have to post an agenda today because Monday's a holiday so I just need those items now if you if I get off of this call I which I don't have to necessarily be on here I can post the agenda with the clerk's office but it does need to be posted by I have to do it by 425 great catch they get mad when I do that 428 very good catch um okay do you um Dr. Jemison do you have a few minutes to stay on with Jennifer I was just gonna say yeah let's do that yep okay that would be great and before we go though um well we do have to move to any other topics not anticipated by the chair um but before we do is there any specific agenda items that you would like to have added that you know about right now other than what we've discussed okay great um and so then let's move to other are there any topics the chair did not reasonably anticipate this coach here doesn't have any topics um I don't know Dr. Jemison I do not okay all right then I think we can move to end the meeting second thank you great meeting thank you thank you all right just trying to check my notes because I definitely wrote um I only took me to to forget one to post the meeting once for me to be like super on top of I was talking to Paul because he just woke by and said my mind's I'm so glad that you thought of that and I'm like it really took one meeting for me to forget to post one time during like town meeting time and then they had to have the meeting during town meeting and it just caused all kinds of ruckus so I just am very like meeting posting meeting I'm aware we have a few participants still on here yes and we're still recording maybe we can so I can unrecord because we're not