 Looks like we have a quorum. So I will open this meeting. It is 5.30 p.m. on Thursday, January 28th. And I'll start by taking a roll call. Ms. Owen, Mr. Cage. Here. Ms. Ferrara. Here. Ms. Pat, Ms. Pat. Okay, just your muted, can't hear you. Mr. Vernon Jones. Here. Okay, let me just open this up. So welcome to the working group. Welcome to those of you who are also joining us in the community this evening. We thank you for your presence. And just kind of quickly review our agenda and get right into the work. This evening, we are going to have to approve a review and approve three sets of meeting minutes. So we'll be doing that right after this review. And then as always, we will welcome any public comment from those who are in the audience from the public, followed by an opportunity for any of our community safety working group members to report in on any new learnings, any new experiences that they're bringing to this work, just to keep us up to date. And then we'll get into the action and discussion items. We're going to take a look at the update on the bid contract language. This was the working group's attempt to solicit some support for the ongoing work that the group has to do over the next few months. And so we'll be reviewing that. There is an opportunity for us to discuss the D-FUN 14 demand letter, a little update on that. And we'll receive comments and thoughts from the working group. And this after action review is just a portion of the meeting. We're hoping to take a look at the community forums, how they came out, what our next outreach initiatives and steps might be, including things like compensation for those who participated surveys, whether or not UMass Police Department will be involved in the work that we're doing, et cetera. And also the et cetera is actually the community representatives. Are we going to take a look at and probably seek the services of some additional help for doing the kinds of outreach we need to do in the community. And this is just a suggestion about task identification and the timeline. Of course, this may come up across a few items, but one of the things we hope to do is to create a tighter timeline on what we're doing when we're getting it done as we start to move down to our June. And I think that's the important piece for us to work on as well, beginning now. And then shared and collective experiences and resources. It's a topic that is important to us. We do receive a lot of information from the community and from each other. So how to process that, how to use it, how to store it, those kinds of things we'll discuss as well. And then alternative services for the Amherst Police Department, we'll get some thoughts from the working group, ask some questions relative to information we need to make recommendations. And information we'll need to decide on what to propose. And I guess this is also tied into a lot of other items as you probably can imagine. Brianna Owen, Ms. Owen and myself would just want to make a brief statement, update from the town council meeting on the 25th. And then response to emails sent to our community server safety working group, who and how often. And those are questions also of task assignments, et cetera. And the timing of agenda items. So we have a lot to do this evening and certainly we'll follow up with any upcoming events from anyone on the working group. We'll set our next meeting date. And then of course, any other topics that were not reasonably anticipated will receive 48 and hours in advance of this meeting followed by a motion to adjourn. So thank you again for all for being here and I want to go right into public comment. And if there's someone here who has not been on our meeting we devote some time to public comment in the beginning. We typically devoted about 15 minutes for this to allow members of our community to speak to the group. This is a listening exercise for us. And we as always intend to listen deeply and respectfully to what you have to say. So we welcome that commentary now for anyone who would like to speak. And Ms. Moyston will recognize you and open you up to the meeting. Yep. At this time, no one has their hand raised. There are four people in the as attendance as attendees. Thank you. We'll wait a few moments. Anyone yet, Ms. Moyston? No. Okay, I think given that and given that we have much to do this evening, I'd like to move forward and just open it up to the working group. Any opening comments, things you'd like to share in our meeting with your colleagues and the community before we go forward? You know, I can share something. Yes, Ms. Ferrerra and then Mr. Vernon Jones, I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. No, go right ahead, Ms. Ferrerra. Okay. One of the things too, Ms. Wally, I don't know if you are gonna go back to where we skipped over the minutes approval. Oh, I did. Thank you. I appreciate that. I was so busy with the agenda item. Thank you so much. Oh no, no problem, no problem. Yeah. But yeah, for me, you know, it was a busy work week for me this week. So I wasn't able to kind of as much as I wanted to get done. The thing that I kind of looked at, I'm still kind of looking at the Newton police, police task force and the committee that they have over there. They had another town hall, I guess if they had three. And they have a consulting firm already working with them that kind of is helping them to kind of look at data and to look at survey results and everything. So I think again, I'm happy when we're looking at the bid because I think we desperately need some assistance with that because based on their third town hall, this consulting strategy matters were able to kind of really look at the survey questions. You know, some of the things that they were able to kind of get from the community was like, you know, where the police have no role and kind of clearly delineate the areas where the police could be like more preventative and where they could actually respond to things, right? So no role, like mental health, right? I'm just giving an example, preventative possibly, you know, traffic issues and then respond, you know, theft, burglary, violent crime areas, so that was an interesting way. And then just to kind of delineate certain areas where the community was in agreement with certain things that the police could do and then the areas of this agreement, which obviously highlights where we as the committee could be more effective in terms of coming up with alternatives and so I thought that that was pretty interesting. And then there was the webinars that took place for the past three days with community policing webinar. Unfortunately, like I said, I was really busy with my work this week, so I was only able to get the tail end of it today, which was on kind of what alternative practices. They had some really good speakers, one especially that was really trying to delve into the history of this country, you know, focusing on the colonial aspect of it, you know, obviously why the police were created especially around being kind of like overseers and police patrols, like slave patrols back from slavery, right? And really kind of like talking about how to really focus on re-imagining something different as opposed to just reform. So they talked a lot about that, right? Is it about reform? Is it about re-imagining something different? Is it about, you know, focusing on, you know, what's been done and done before? Reform has happened, you know, for many years, not the first time that reform has been brought up. So then we're really kind of talking about, you know, all those aspects and really thinking about, you know, if we do look at other alternative, how can those other organizations or programs be successful, right? Because we're talking about also, a lot of times when you do that, what happens is that like the police and folks that have the information, don't give them access to that information, so then they can't be successful, right? So if you do have other programs take on things of police patrol right now, then there's also that thing about, you know, making sure that they're not successful. Then of course funding resources. How can you make sure that the funding stays prolonged? It's sustainable. It's not something that they have to fight for year to year, right? So half the time they're only focused on resources and therefore not focused on providing the service, right? So like I said, I was only able to get the tail end but I thought there was a lot of really helpful information here. Thank you. And I know Mr. Vernon Jones, we had your hand up. I don't know if you were trying to remind me as well to go back to the minutes or you had a comment you wanted to make. I have a brief comment, but we can do either first. I think I'd like to go back just to just keep the flow going the way I should have gone in the first place with the minutes and I apologize to the group for that. So we have three sets of minutes to review and approve and they're from the meetings of the sixth, the 11th and the 22nd. So, Ms. Moisten, I just want to, just a point of how best to do this. We have to do these one at a time. I think Paul, do you think they do all three at one time? Yeah. That's what I was wondering. I didn't want it because that's a lot of information to absorb across three. But if I can open it up to all three, then maybe we could start with commentary on the first, the second, third and then. Okay, so, but I have these starting with January 22nd. So I- Working backwards. Yes, there's a lot of information in our meetings. And so I tried to just keep this one as simple as possible and just highlight the main points of the conversations. Thank you. Let's go right to it then. Any comments? Any one in the group would like to make relative to the 22nd meeting of the 22nd? Ms. Ferrer. Just one point to correct is that for the bid revision, it was Ms. Alicia that was on it, not me. So that's just one correction. Okay. Others? No others? I think what I'm gonna do, Ms. Moisten and the group is just go approve each one separately. I don't think that'd be easier. Other comments from the group on the meeting of the 22nd? Thank you, Ms. Ferrer for that correction. Mr. Vernon Jones has his hand up. I'm just seeing now. He has Mr. Vernon Jones. I move we approve the minutes of January 22nd as amended. Thank you. You have a motion to approve them, the minutes of the 22nd as amended. Like a second, please. Second. Second, Ms. Ferrer. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Right through your hands. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Moisten. I hope you move to the next set of minutes. These minutes are the meeting, meeting minutes from January 11th meeting. Same request, any comments? Ms. Ferrer. So, and it's actually like I have the same one for this one and the specs. Just one quick correction for the opening statement, it was Mr. Wiley, Ms. Walker and myself that worked on it. So I was left out. I'm so sorry. For the six also is the same one, just so you know, like this I don't have to say it again. But thanks. Thank you for that correction. Thank you. Other comments, corrections? Hearing none, I welcome a motion to approve the minutes of the 11th as amended. So move. Mr. Vernon Jones, thank you. Seconded. Ms. Owen, thank you. Those in favor? Okay. Thank you. Got everybody there. Thank you, Ms. Rowan. Welcome. Yes. And now the minutes of the six. I think Ms. Ferrer, you said there was a continuing. Yeah, yeah, just a small change. Yeah, thanks Ms. Moyson and the notes are incredible just to kind of make sure you know that. Thanks. And so these both are being approved as amended, correct? Cause I think you guys skipped that out of the 11th. Minutes from the 11th. There are no other comments, corrections. Can you keep scrolling? Oh, sure. Sorry. Thank you. I have one correction. Yes, Ms. Penn. So when it says, Ms. Pat looked at material, I felt overwhelmed. Can overwhelm be changed concern? Do you know what I'm talking about? Where is that again? It says, I remember it in conversation. One, two, three, four. Okay. Yes. Changed your concern. Sure. Thank you. And as we're thinking about this, thank you Ms. Pat for, you know, asking to scroll down. And some of these things that we have are fairly lengthy. And even though we may have in front of us, even for the public, it's good for everyone to be able to see them. So if you ever have a need to scroll up or down, you know, please feel free to say so. And thank you Ms. Moyson again for doing this. Thank you for echoing earlier comment. Any other comments, corrections to the meeting? Yeah, I really liked the minutes. It's very simple, straightforward, not so heavy. Yes. So Ms. Moyson, thank you very much. You're welcome. Really good. Yes. Thank you. I almost felt like I want to make a motion to, to like Ms. Moyson, but I, I'll second that one. Oh, okay. Sorry. I'll in favor. I just don't want her to get a big head here. Hi. All done. So this, what are the minutes? So I'd welcome a motion to approve the minutes of the six. As amended. As amended, yes. No more. Thank you, Ms. Pat, a second. Second. Most in favor. Put your hand, I can see. Thank you, unanimous. Thank you so much. And again, please for getting out of order there. I'll have to go immediately back to you, Mr. Vernon Jones in the working group comment. I just wanted to say I got to go to the first day of that series of webinars and found it very interesting, a lot of good background and perspective. And I finally got to read the North Hampton Task Force preliminary report. And I'm very impressed with what they're doing. I think there's a lot we can, can learn from and maybe even use ourselves. And I really want to appreciate Judy Glaser who sent us today some notes on a community responder report. The notes were concise and helpful and the report looks like it may be very useful to us in the long run. If we're not speaking, can we mute? I'm hearing like background noise. I think we're good now. Thank you, Mr. Vernon Jones. Other comments or offerings from the working group? Ms. Pat. So I actually attended the three webinar that Ms. Allegra has sent to us. A lot of information from academic perspective as well as people with lived experiences share their thoughts. I think for me personally, instead of, you know, trying to explain everything I understood on those three webinar, it will inform me and help me when we start recommending alternative programs. It is very powerful, very robust. Webinar, very, very informative and educational for me personally. That's all I want to say. I also want to thank Ms. Brigitte Heans. Is that her last name? That sent us an email, you know, wanting to, just want to encourage all the resident or community members to keep sending emails and their feedback. You know, we appreciate all of you. That's all I want to say. I'm done. I'm done. Paul, you're muted. I'm muted? Again? No, I'm muted. Oh, okay. I'm muted. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. I also want to just offer that I happen to, in addition to reviewing some of the things that you all spoke to, I had an opportunity to read through a publication called What Works in Community Policing that came out of University of California, Berkeley, in the, it's in the Warren Institute of Law and Social Policy. And I will share that going forward as another resource for the group. Some interesting pieces of information in there. Some things that might offer some good guidance in addition to the other information that we're receiving, you know, within the group, sharing each other and from our community. So it's really, to me, kind of stunning how there are so many similarities in terms of things that people are looking into and studying and questioning across towns and cities all over the United States, relative to the police departments. So, you know, I'm hoping that, you know, as we start to, you know, go through this information, you know, we can also be into kind of collated a bit and see where thematically we can go to provide some focus and useful information for Amherst Police Department. So anyway, just one other thing to add to the group. Okay. If there are no others, thank you all for your contributions, your extra work beyond the meetings as always appreciated by everyone. And I'll go right to the update on bid contract language. I know we sent some information out a couple of weeks ago. We got some information back, certainly from Mr. Backelman in terms of a proposal. And then there was some feedback on it, which is here today in a revised version. So I'd like to just open it to the folks who are working on that too. To comment if they'd like Mr. Backelman, certainly comment on it as you need to. But let me start with the working group and see if there's anything you want to lead off with on this discussion. Mr. Rush, you wanna start? Oh, I thought I was hoping you would start. Oh, you start, you go ahead, start, I'll follow you. Well, Ms. Pad and Alicia and I all, looked at this and sent in various suggested revisions. And I think the document you have now and incorporates the input of all three of us. And it may still need some tweaking to be workable, but I think we found ourselves in agreement about some of the revisions that we recommend. Thank you, Mr. Rush. Well said. We did not do anything on the dates, the timeline. We left those for the group to discuss the town manager. Other comments, Mr. Backelman. Thank you. So yeah, I think this is, you've done really good work on this. There's still a very, what I had started with was very large and it's still pretty big. Our procurement officer is in the audience. So if there are technical things, there's a couple of things that he identified that I'd like to add to your attention as well. The sense, in general, the still question is if we're gonna do an invitation for bid versus an RFP. And, oh, Jennifer's bringing him in. This is Anthony Delaney, where it says accounting department. So we don't need to get into the details except that the invitation for bid is much faster. It can be turned around in a week, but you have to take the low bid. The RFP is a more complex process that requires us to establish criteria on how we're going to make our decision and have different sort of categories on how you're gonna rate everyone. There's some terms that need to be defined, which is just sort of a technical thing. Like when we say anti-racist work, what does that really mean? We just need to get a little more definition in that, which I think is easily done. And those are, I think, are the big ones. And if I could defer Mr. Chair to Mr. Delaney, if that's okay, he can comment a little bit more. I mean, I think he knows that our mission here is to get this out as soon as possible and to get a consultant on board to help with the key components of the working group's work. It's just an enormous task, so it's... Yeah, yeah. Thank you, certainly. Thank you, Mr. Bachman. Thanks to Vernon Jones. And yes, welcome, Mr. Delaney. Why don't we let you open up with a comment and see if we have any questions or comments from the group? So, I'm not sure exactly where to start. I think I would say it's in pretty good shape. My, the biggest thing that needs work is your comparative evaluation criteria. If this is being done as an RFP, the state law mandates that the RFP have comparative evaluation criteria that are spelled out. It's not exactly a grading rubric, but rather we'll be looking at the quality of the proposal and a very good proposal will have characteristics x, y, and z and a good proposal will have characteristics x and y and an unacceptable proposal will have only characteristic x, say. And I can, we're working with a delegate from this committee or the entire committee, whatever format you deem most appropriate, but we can workshop those. That is the only required element that is missing from the document as I saw it this afternoon. There's other little things that I probably want to expand or get clarification on, but that's where I would start. Thank you and appreciate you being here. Mr. Vernon Jones. There was another issue that Ms. Pat raised and that was whether there are really two different sets of expertise we want for different parts of this work where one might be really important to have someone with lived experience of being targeted by racism or working in a town somewhat similar to Amherst. And might even be open to some local people. And then there's some other things about collective bargaining and evaluation of statistics and legal issues that might bring very different candidates. And so the question was whether we wanted to split it into two different proposals so that we could have one kind of candidate for one part of it and another kind for another part or whether if we keep it together then I assume we would be hoping that there might be some teams that would apply that would have a variety of expertise. But we did not resolve that issue on our subcommittee but wanted to raise it for everyone and really invite people to look at the possibility of dividing it into two different proposals. Ms. Pat, is there more you wanted to say about that? Yeah, basically I said it very well. So my, I was thinking about in splitting the project is for big consulting firm, they will just take off the whole project and they may not necessarily the management may not be a person who have a lived experience about the project. So I have, you know, I have concern about that. And we feel that if it's split into two perhaps people with lived experiences might take one of the project and people who have expertise on legal and legal union could take the other project. I have another, I have a question for you. Is this, does Town of Ames advertise Biaid or RFP, whatever you call it on combo, on combined or the state combined? Yeah. Let me, before I answer that, I wanna just defer momentarily to Ms. Ferrer and Ms. Walker, you had your hands up. Can we get an answer to that question and then I'll go to Ms. Ferrer and then Ms. Walker. Is that okay? So Mr. Delaney, please. That's correct. We would advertise on the Town's website on combines and in the Gazette. Thank you. What is combines? Go ahead. I guess. Combise is the procurement website that is run by the Commonwealth. It's done for the state's own purchases as well as it's all the towns and cities in it. It's just a, it's an advertising portal essentially for Bids. And can we also kind of refer people to apply, do our own recruiting? Once it's public, yes. Was that your original question? I didn't think so, so I'll go ahead and answer it. My other questions kind of goes along with what Mr. Vernon Jones and Ms. Pat on Ibako were talking about is, well, me, one, I wanna get a little bit more sense about the bid and the RFP because one, I am, I do want it to be as quickly as possible. I supposed to go through a whole drawn out process because we have a very short timeframe, right? But I want us to get good candidates and good applicants and people that are gonna do good work because this is something that we're gonna need in terms of health. So that's one, right? And I need to know how can we do this so that we can get this done, right? And as quickly as possible. But the second one is around the multiples, right? So if we do the bid or if we do the RFP, can we get kind of, if we wanted to buy for K or to have three people that we hire or whatever that are gonna do different segments of the job, because this is a lot. It might not be in just one person. It might not be in just one firm, right? So how do we do that, you know, well so that it gives everyone an opportunity if the opportunity to apply to this? So that's my question to Mr. Delaney. So Mr. Delaney, maybe you would respond to that and then I'll go to Ms. Walker. So first, a question for the committee. Have the various procurement vehicles, methods that are available to you been explained at a previous meeting, getting quotes versus getting bids versus getting proposals? Yeah, Mr. Bachman explained a little bit but not in a lot of detail because he said basically you could explain it better. That's too dead because I do business with the state and the federal government. So I understand it. Oh, okay. So there are essentially three ways to get the services that you're looking for. There is a simple quote solicitation in which you would pick three or more firms that you believe can do the work, send them your scope of work, get responses. This would not be an advertised process or it wouldn't have to be. And then you would take the lowest bidder that meets your minimum qualifications. The second more rigorous kind of procurement would be an invitation for bid and IFB which is like the quotes except that it's an advertised process. You would publish your scope of work, receive responses and take the lowest bidder that met your minimum qualifications. And the RFP, which is I think what we were leaning towards for this procurement allows you to balance qualifications and price and take them both into account and decide who has basically the best bang for your buck and you don't just take the lowest bid but the best services you can get weight against the price. There's a unfortunate catch with the RFP which is that it cannot be used for procurements below $50,000. It's not a very sensible law in my opinion but the Inspector General has been pretty clear on it. So if you are going to divide this procurement into two I think your odds are good that separately each of them would be less than $50,000 and you could not conduct an RFP process. On the other hand, the RFP process is longer because of the complicated evaluation. You don't know who the winner is on the minute you open the bids. So you are looking at extra time to conduct that and I know time is important. So multiple ways to get to what you're looking for here there are pros and cons to each. There would be no issue with splitting if you did an invitation for bid. If you did split, I would probably not go with soliciting quotes route and you can't do since that might look like bid splitting to avoid competition and I think you're not. And the quote route has a ceiling of $50,000 anyway. So realistically, we're probably looking at either an IFP for one or two or an RFP for one. I kind of ran through that. I hope that was good. Sorry, just one quick one. Is there any ceiling in terms of price for the IFP? But you said with the RFP it has to be above 50 and then the other one quote below, but what about IFP? The IFP can be for any value. Walker, you had your hand up. Thanks for your patience. Thank you. I think Mr. Delaney answered a few of the questions that I had and also may have changed my comment a bit because I originally was going to speak to wanting to do an RFP because I think that because of the nature of our work that there's a lot of value in being able to weigh the different criteria that we want to meet for whoever comes to work with us. But it complicates it because I also agree with Ms. Pat's suggestion and splitting it into two and that way we can get to a different area of expertise is working on the categories at a time and the fact that some of the things we need vary in nature and one group may not have all of the expertise to address both of them. So that just for me anyhow complicates things a little bit. So I would just be interested in hearing what other members of the group are thinking in terms of which route to go. Mr. Vernon Jones. I have another question I think for Mr. Delaney. Is there a way to do this so that we can put it out and when we get a response we can go, this looks great for items one, two, seven, eight, nine but not so great for the others. Can we then hire them for the parts we like and not awarded at all or maybe go to a quote process for the pieces that we wanna fill in? Yes. You can structure the bids such that you give yourself the option to award multiple contracts. We do that normally more for goods if you offer the best price on widget A but not for cog B but we could do it for a service like this. The easiest in the IFB format and the RFP format, the evaluation would become very complicated but it's feasible, it could be done. So let me go, Ms. Walker you go first please. All right, I was just wondering. So the IFB we have to choose the lowest bid. So how would that work if we were to decide to assign them certain tasks and then try to have a separate contract for the other tasks? So you would structure in an IFB where you were awarding, possibly awarding multiple people you would ask for a price for however you decided to divide the tasks. So if you, could someone remind me how you were thinking of splitting the? Oh, we're thinking of splitting the A and C and then B and D. So the community engagement and the training. So you would solicit, you would have on your price form say give us a price for the community engagement, give us the price for the training and we will award one contract for A and for A and one contract for B. And if it's the same person that has the lowest price then they get both. But you would essentially ask for two prices one for each half and in the same form and award based on that. You mean A and C and B and D, correct? I do mean that. Thank you. That's my question. And Anthony, is there a limit to how many people they can ask to submit for the bed? There is no limit under any of the schemes there would be no limit to the number of people you could solicit. Okay. But there is a minimum. Under quotes, there's a minimum of three under an IFB or an RFP it's advertised. So there's no requirement that you receive so many there's just a requirement that you advertise to everyone. Mr. Verna Jones and then I think Ms. Walker. Again, Mr. Delaney, you said that we need to take the lowest bid that meets our minimum criteria. Can we specify different criteria for different sections, different services? If you were making multiple awards I think that would be sensible. Yeah, I would do that. So that's Ms. Walker and then Ms. Pat. My question was very similar because I was wondering about since we have to take the lowest bid we don't have as much control over the criteria of the group that we end up working with. So I just wanted to know is there absolutely no flexibility in that if the people that ended up applying and submitting the lowest bid were people that didn't meet all of the needs or we didn't think would be sufficient or would we be binded? In an IFB, your minimum criteria are probably one of the most important sections of the bid. So you would want to structure it very carefully to avoid that happening. You're not obligated to award if the bids you receive if you don't think they're satisfactory you're not obligated to award. You could go out to bid again. That would be more time but you would not be stuck with someone that you didn't want to award in the end. I think Ms. Ferreira, you had your hand up and then Ms. Pat. No, okay, Ms. Pat. So Ms. Moisten, if you don't mind can you put the document up? I want to point Mr. Delaney on something. Do you mind? Thank you. So scroll at minimum requirement. Page seven. Okay, under minimum, okay. The second one. So I was, we were thinking project A and C for the minimum requirement to be free references of anti-racist work and also also lived experiences of racism and track record of working with communities on racial equity and police reform. For those two, minimum requirements for project A and C. Am I making sense to people? Mr. Delaney? That makes sense. Are you asking for me to... Yeah, so for the project A and C how do you feel about for the minimum requirement to have three references of anti-racist work and also requirement for lived experiences as the two minimum requirements? My only suggestion would be that maybe you would want more clarification about the nature of the anti-racist work if you want it to be anti-racist work in certain fields rather than going that broad. I mean, anti-racist work could include community organizing. Mr. Backelman. I think when minimum requirements, it's a yes, no answer. Did you hit the minimum requirement or not, and you don't do a qualitative assessment of it? You define it well enough where they said, if you say please submit three similar projects, if they submit three similar projects, they check, yes, you've done what you've done. You've done the minimum requirement. You don't get to make an assessment of how well they did that project. Yes, Mr. Delaney, I'm sorry. Yeah, so that's true. I mean, if the minimum requirement that says you want references from similar projects, if the references turned out to be bad, that could be potentially disqualifying. You can evaluate your minimum on that. That's why I get a little nervous about references of anti-racist work where I think you want just a little more detail on the nature of that work. Community organizing, is that clear? Yeah, I might say exactly that in that case. I defer to you, but that's just my answer. What do people think, community organizing experience? Well, if I may, I think getting back to being as specific as possible, I certainly, Ms. Pack, could be one of the things that we include. I think when we're talking about anti-racist work, which is not a focus of the work I do, certainly, but certainly a focus of interest and commitment on my part, but it would be being very specific about what it is we're talking about in terms of anti-racist work as it relates to what we're doing with our work with the police department in our community. So I think the more specific we can be, the better chance we're going to attract someone or some service that's going to have, get some traction for what we need to have happen for us. So yes, in answer to your question, I think community organization could be part of it. There could be some other criteria that we need to examine as a group or as a subcommittee to come up with more specificity. I want to get back to also, as I was saying that, to a comment made by Ms. Carrera earlier, is that the timing of this is very critical. I mean, we, for example, we love for an RFP and we want to get a quick turnaround. We don't want to sort of, you know, not support what we're trying to do by trying to rush through this thing just to get somebody on board really, you know, very quickly. We want to have somebody on board who can do the work. We want to have it done as quickly as possible. We want to have the person or group or agency, whatever that can actually follow through in a way for us. If we go too long with this, it's going to compromise the work or the group. At the same time, and I'm stating the obvious, we don't want to rush through it to just to get somebody on board. Ms. Moisten. Yeah, so I just did a quick Google search of anti-resist work and bids. And so there's a more of a, the bid description that's listed for Vermont is pretty thorough. I don't really, I can send it out tomorrow. So everyone can take a look at it, but I just thought that would be helpful. I don't really know where else Anthony, do you know have any suggestions of where we might find another example of a anti-work, anti-racist work within a bid? I was trying to find some examples of that before the meeting. I wasn't terribly successful for anything beyond. I kept coming up with racial diversity, hiring consultants, which isn't really relevant. So I will continue to look, but at this moment I do not have anything. So I can, I'll send this out too. Or do you guys want me to try and pull it up? I mean, that might be. Mr. Bachmann. So it seems that speed is important because we have a deadline. So it seems that we need to do the, one of the first to the bid process versus the RFP process, just at least for the first part of the project. The first part of the project is to talk about alternative services, public safety services. And maybe it's that the committee spends its time on that first piece of it. Let's look at alternative services and have someone help us with that. And maybe do a simultaneous bid or a side-by-side or a companion bid that does the other piece like the subgroup said, let's do two, because it's two different skill sets and just put it out there and see what we get back. We can pull that off. We just need a little bit more definition on things. I think if you had someone work with Mr. Delaney, we could put that out in relatively short timeframe. I'm guessing Mr. Delaney and have something back in a relatively short timeframe. The other thing we would need is people to send it to who you think you would like to work with as consultants. Yep, and so their bid description is, their description is there on the screen now. So again, I can email it tonight after the meeting. Can you scroll up? People comfortable with community organizing? Well, I mean, I just wanted to kind of chime in. I just think like, since we're not gonna, if we're doing this IFB, we're gonna be taking the lowest bidder and things like that and we don't have as much control at that point. Like what I was hearing from what I've heard about the information so far is that I think we need to kind of really be very specific in terms of our criteria, like our minimum calls and stuff so that then folks know exactly what it is that we're looking for. So yeah, I think we should add what you're saying, Ms. Pat, but we might need to add other things to it too, so that we're very specific in terms of what we need. And then my other question too, kind of looking at what you all have put together is that I know, Ms. Pat, you had said A and B. I mean, A and C and then B and D, but what about E, F, G, H, what about those? Because there's still like a whole bunch of other stuff too. So I guess I'm thinking what E, F, G, H is also part of the A and C and B and D? I will assume that you scroll. I'm scrolling. That it will repeat itself in each project. Yeah. Oh, okay. Sorry, we were not too clear. Yeah, I'm assuming that it will repeat each other itself. I got it, got it. So then those on the bottom will just be on each proposal. Yeah. Exactly, yes. Thanks. The only area that I'm still wrestling with is the mental health that is on D. It seems like it should be a whole project of its own, but it's okay. Like I, you know, we're not sure where to plug that in. It's just the mental health seems like huge to me on D. Which one is that on D? Part of D, part of D, yeah. Number, can you go to D? Thank you, Pastor. Did it pass it? Yeah, the other way. I think you passed it. But anyway, yeah. Let's leave it the way it is right now for the sake of time. I think what I'd like to suggest is, this is an indication of there are a lot of questions. And I want to go back to first thank Mr. Vernon Jones and Ms. Pat. And who else was working on that? Ms. Walker. Ms. Walker, thank you, the three of you for doing this and honing in on some of the language and adding some things. In particular, there were several items in there that were added, I think add a lot of substance to it. It seems like this needs some reworking based on what we're getting from this meeting right now, not the least of which is some more specific language around anti-racism work. Certainly a recommendation as to what to go forward with in a timely manner, whether that's an invitation to bid or an RFP or some combination of the two. And again, we can work through this, continue to work through this here. But at the same time, given the folks who have been working on it, hearing that we'll all come together and reassess where you are or where we need to be relative to the comments and suggestions we get tonight and come up with something else that can go out to the group probably before the next meeting. And I know Ms. Walker, you had your hand up, so. And then Ms. Rivera. So I was wondering, I can't remember who said this, but I think that we should go with the invitation for bid and split it into two. I think if we can decide that as a group, if people are ready to just make that decision today, I think we should make that decision because I think in order if Russ Pat and I were to go back and revise this again, I think it would be helpful for us to know which one we were going to do for sure first. And that way we can come up with a final draft that can be sent out. And my proposal for that would be for us to really seriously look at the qualifications and go back over that section because I do agree with Mrs. Rivera that they should be a lot more specific if we're gonna do the invitation for bid as opposed to the RFP. I'll take it Ms. Rivera and then Mr. Vernon Jones. Yeah, so for me, when I looked at the document, which again was really great that you all worked on putting this together for us to look at, I guess we'd need to, just some of the kind of questions that I had and I know Ms. Pat, you already kind of talked about a little bit was, and I think this couldn't kind of dictate or maybe guide us in terms of where we're going and Mr. Barclayn had talked a little bit about it too was the phase one, phase two right off the bat where we don't have a date because I think last time we talked about possibly doing the first report by March 31st because we needed that extension. So March 31st, 2021, so maybe that's phase one where we have to give like the alternatives. And then phase two, which is by June 30th, which is that second part of our charge that then we do it like that. But that already has a date June 30th, but we need to plug in that first date because that's gonna guide when we need work done by. And then for me, the other quick one, it was just like there was just a question I had on E, right the last one, I think it's just a typo something's left out, so I just didn't understand it. So I just was kind of like just first to kind of look at if you guys are using it, which it just says like prioritizing these of people and communities of color reduce, eliminate the threat that police and then it just kind of ends off, just to kind of add that. And then again in E, I was just bringing up the fact that we're not talking about the first report there, the March 31st that we need to, we're just talking about the June 30th date. So we need to kind of make sure that we're including that we have a March 31st deadline and then the June 30th deadline. And then I wasn't just clear in terms of like the sample work plan. And I know, I guess you all haven't, yeah, we need to look at the dates for that, to kind of make sure, if we're gonna put dates, I guess, do we need to put dates? And if so, if we're gonna put dates, we need to work on that. And then it has kind of like time and location of meetings be coordinated by consultant staff and remember they provide participation stipends, all stipend costs must be included in price proposal. So who's doing those, the stipend costs, is it, why is that included in the proposal? So I guess- So whoever gets the contract, we'll handle that. So they're gonna be paying for the stipends. So I, okay. Yes, whoever gets the contract, yes. Yeah, cause I wasn't clear. And then my other question was number two, working group outline, is this for the first report? I wasn't clear on that. And then like some of the things that we have over here, right? So 3C, it says like presentation shall take place from possible at the same locations as outreach meetings, all travel costs must be included in vendor price proposal, provide refreshments, all costs must be included in price pool. So I think we need to update some of that because some of this is gonna be all virtual. So there's not gonna be travel. That's true, yeah. So we need to kinda, yeah, we need to make sure we're very specific, you know, what we're including. And then, yeah, and then I had another question about who's providing this, cause this is interpretation would be provided at all community meetings as requested, flyers, handouts and final documents shall all be translated into the above languages. So are we asking them to provide that? Yeah, I mean, they will be a part of the contract. Okay. Mr. Vernon Jones, you had your hand up. Oh, sorry, I just had one last one. Not sorry, I just had another one, the interviews, I think we need to clear that up. And also it says, you know, interview day and it says that town hall for Boltwood Avenue again, it's gonna be virtual. So we need to kind of make sure that we're being clear. Okay, Mr. Vernon Jones and then Mr. Delaney. Well, if Mr. Delaney wants to respond to what Deborah said, why don't we have him go first? Mr. Delaney. All right. I only, I'm glad you brought up the interviews. If you were doing an RFP, you would do interviews. I'm not sure that you would do interviews in the case of an IFB. Okay, good to know. So then we need to take that out then. Yeah. Yeah. That was all. Back to Mr. Vernon Jones. If we're gonna split this in two, I would suggest we do one of them first and wait until we've learned a little bit by going through this process once before we do the second one. And my inclination would be to focus the first one on outreach and alternative services, which is sort of A and C, but now it's a little different split perhaps than what we were talking about before. But to do the first one to get help with the first phase of our project and then save the pieces that are more about police policy and contract and oversight and all for the second one. And Mr. Vernon Jones, you are going back to Ms. Walker's comment. That would be through an invitation for bid. Yes. And Ms. Bowman has her hand raised. Ms. Bowman. So how, I think I kind of like Mr. Vernon Jones's how he's thinking, because one of the things that I feel like happens a lot is that we are like, we work on the ideas and we work on them so much that we kind of tap people out on a bunch of ideas. And it sounds like, and obviously correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like you're saying, let's get the aspect of it where we have certain things that we no need to be implemented now and get working on those kind of first, where we're actually like starting the action with things that are clear and obvious and then getting the more fine-tuned policy stuff done later on. I kind of, is that what you were saying, Mr. Vernon Jones? Yes, I think so. Yeah, cause that's actually like, at first when you were talking, and then I was like, wait, wait, but if we're getting it, the problem is, is that these resources aren't there, there's nothing to really tap into. If we automatically, like there's certain services that are already there that we can already tap into. So yeah, let's get that going first. I think I froze. I think I'm frozen. It's for Eric. I think I raised my hand. I guess just for clarity, again, Mr. Vernon Jones and I guess for Ms. Bowman too, is just in terms of like, but are you all talking about, I guess like what I was saying, like phase one of what we need to do and phase two of what we need to do? Yes. So that's what you all are. Yes. Okay, perfect. All right. Thank you. Ms. Pat. So I just want to, I agree with what everybody have said so far. I just want to remind people that in section D, we have the mental health project, I think should be moved to A, to A and C. That's the only thing. And the mental health, I think it should be phase one of the project. I agree. Yeah. I also agree that the mental health stuff should be moved up because it is, it's true. It's like a lot of issues that we come across have something to do with mental health stuff. So if we're getting those resources working faster, that would definitely be better. So what is the timeline? When do you guys want this turn around? Like Monday or? Well, if we're going to go forward, you know, as quickly as possible, you know, I'm not sure what the current subgroup of folks where you all stand in terms of getting back to another iteration of this, but the sooner, the better certainly. And I can't speak for those folks. But we haven't set a next meeting date, but I'm sure, you know, we would need something to look at as a group before our next meeting date with the understanding that we're probably going to go forward with an invitation to bid first and get that moving and then prioritize the essential aspects of what we need to done by the March 31st date. So I have to defer back to the group who's working on it to see where you all stand with that. Ms. Walker. I agree. And I think we should work on any changes right away. And I am available to work, be working on this tomorrow. But I think if it's possible to, I'm not sure how we would have, if we would have to make a motion to do so or vote, but I think we should decide like formally as a group, if we're going to go with invitation to bid before we make any more edits to the document so that we can know exactly how we should be tailoring the document. And if we're going to split it up, I think we also need to know that for sure before we make any more edits. Mr. Vernon Jones. I guess I would suggest that we work on it, the subcommittee and work on it as soon as possible. Maybe Mr. Delaney does some, comes up with some proposals and we come up with some proposals. And then that we actually post in order to conform to the open meeting hall that we actually post a meeting for our subcommittee and Mr. Delaney together to work out the details before our next meeting of the whole working group. That's assuming we can figure out how to schedule that. Yeah, exactly. That sounds reasonable. And I'm not sure if we necessarily have to take a vote on that. I think we're requesting some work to be done by people who already activated. I don't know if that's gonna be a consensus of the group. If we have to vote on it, I'd like to turn it into a motion if someone would like to move that action. Mr. Vernon Jones. I move that we ask the subcommittee and Mr. Delaney to prepare an invitation to bid on the aspects of the existing document that pertain to phase one of our work. It's a motion that someone like to second that motion. I second that motion. That's fair. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Raise your hand and I can see you. Thank you. You're unanimous. Thank you all. Given that, if I may take some liberty to jump ahead if we're talking about that work, and I'm sorry, Mr. Delaney. I just wanted to say I'm at liberty to help the subcommittee. My email address is on the cover page of it, so go ahead and let me know when is convenient for you. I'll be happy to work on your schedule. That's it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Just going back in terms of what you were proposing, Mr. Vernon Jones in terms of posting a meeting of the subcommittee to work with Mr. Delaney. For example, it might serve us well to set the next meeting date right now so that we have that perspective on where we're going with this. I'm going to get my... You mean the subcommittee open meeting? No, our next actual community safety working group meeting. And we've gotten off a little bit from our Wednesdays, but the question would be, could we return back to Wednesday or does that shorten the moment you all have to work with in a subgroup and perhaps it should be Thursday? I'm flexible. I'm kind of looking to that. I don't want to put any undue time. I would prefer that the meeting be Wednesday and that we live with that time pressure. I would prefer Wednesday as well. I'm sorry, two hands at the same time. It's Tushina, I'm sorry. Tushina, I prefer Wednesday. Ms. Walker. Wednesday also works for me, but so I'm wondering if the other members of the subcommittee as well as Mr. Delaney would be available for a meeting on Tuesday and if that's something we could just set up now so that we can have that posted. That was going to be the next question. I think they run parallel those questions because we have some quick postings we'd have to do for both of those meetings. Oh, two days, okay. I was thinking Monday. So is Mr. Delaney still in there? There he is. Hi. Hello. So Ms. Walker had a question. I don't know if you've heard it or not, but as to whether or not there could be a subcommittee meeting, including you that meets before our next Wednesday community safety working group. Yes, I'm happy to make time for my schedule for that. Thank you. So we're talking about... So what time on Tuesday? So we're talking about, so does that Tuesday work for the subcommittee group? I'm not available 5.30 to 7.30, but I could be in the evening, but I could meet before or after that. What about you, Ms. Walker? I could meet before that, but I'm not sure I would be able to meet earlier than four o'clock, so I don't know if that would give us enough time. I could also meet Monday. I don't know if that's enough time for everyone else in the group. I mean, if Ms. Marston is going to post it... Oh, does that give a... ...in two days, right? So it's kind of too late today, right? Okay, so it has to be Tuesday. Oh, if we... Oh, my goodness. Right, yeah. If we posted it right now, we could meet at seven Monday night. Oh, that would be a long day for Ms. Delaney. Come on. Is that okay with you? Is that okay with you? I am at your disposal. Huh? At your disposal. Are you sure? If it's okay at all. You can't post... I feel guilty. Hold on one second. Ms. Moisten, let's... You can't put... We can't... So I have to send it to the town clerk who has to post it, and she's gone for the day, so everything has to be done by 4.30. Okay. So we can't meet till Tuesday in any case? Yes. Okay. So the question is, can you meet at Tuesday at 4 o'clock? And would that give you enough time to... To do what needs to be done? Ms. Walker? While they're contemplating that, let me go to Mr. Backelman. So I think maybe Mr. Delaney can sort of separate this and do some work on it and send it out to the group in advance. So you can all look at it. So the time of 4 o'clock on Tuesday is very efficient. Mr. Vernon Jones. Yeah. Perhaps all of us can do some work on it. That's what I was thinking. Communicate by email tomorrow and Monday. So that by the time we get to Tuesday, we've got a lot of it sorted out. That's what I was thinking. Does that sound better to you or more useful, Ms. Walker? Yeah, that works for me. Okay. Ms. Pat? Yeah. Mr. Delaney. Yes. Who is the subcommittee? Who are all the members? The committee is Mr. Vernon Jones, Ms. Walker, and Ms. Sononi Backel, Ms. Pat. Thank you. Okay. So, and I would also, if any other members of the working group have some input that we also get that to Ms. Moisten to pass on as quickly as possible so that it can be incorporated in the work of the committee on Tuesday. So we will post that meeting tomorrow. Ms. Moisten. Yes. We're talking about four o'clock on Tuesday. Yes. And then we will meet at 530 on Wednesday as a, as an entire group. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Are we good? Mr. Vernon Jones. I would like to thank Mr. Backelman for having Mr. Delaney join us tonight. Good move. Thank you very much. Yeah. I'd like to thank Mr. Delaney for accepting the invitation. Well, Yes, no choice. Is Mr. Delaney's idea because he knows he explains things better than me. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. I'm going to excuse myself as well. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. So that's good work folks. It's a lot of work. But it's, it's very essential work. I think for us going forward. So thanks again to the subcommittee to do that work. And let's, let's try to honor their work by getting them some information. The rest of us as quickly as possible. So that they can use it. Ms. Moisten. Does this little sub, does the subcommittee have a name? Or am I just going to write. Community safety working group subcommittee. Um, Listen, Ms. Pat. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's it. Invitation to be. Yeah. Invitation to bid subcommittee. Is that what you said? No. What do you think? Oh, I think invitation to bid subcommittee works. Alicia, does that work for you? Yeah, I think that's that work. Okay. Great. Perfect. I just want to comment that, um, I'm glad that joined this subcommittee. It just feel very natural. Like I'm doing regular work. Because it's subject that I know I deal with every day in my. Work life. So it's fun for me. That's why I'm going to say that. Well, we're glad you all are working on it. All, all three of you. And thank you. Let's, let's move forward, please. Uh, to, uh, Defund 413 demand letter update. I, um, Did one of us submit that as a miscarer. Maybe you can take the lead on that force, please. So I just, I submitted that just because I know that, um, They sent that to us by an email a couple of weeks ago, or maybe two weeks ago or something. And then there was something else or someone else did something about it. Either at a forum or one of the, um, you know, open comment times. Um, or maybe they sent us another email about, I'm not sure. So anyway, I just wanted to kind of get a sense of, you know, we haven't discussed it yet. It's been, you know, We've been working on it for a long time. And I think the first email was whether we would, you know, We would join in and whether we even knew about it. Cause I don't know if you guys have looked at it. It's saying that they're asking also besides asking for the, you know, um, town manager, um, Uh, Chief Livingstone and, uh, town council members to say that there wasn't anyone from the police or part of the. Capital attack in DC. They're also with the petitions saying that they want to make sure that nothing, like the positions that the police have, uh, I guess have two positions that they want to hire for that. That kind of, um, does not get, get searched until we, we finish our work. So, so anyway, so I mean, for me, it's just kind of out there and we haven't discussed it. So I guess I just was feeling like, okay, what's going on with that. So unfortunately Paul would have probably been able to give you an update on how the chief is going to be responding to the letter in regards to his staff. But I know that that those two positions are not going to be filled until we've made our recommendation. But I also just wanted to make sure that you all received a sense of, uh, A lot, an email with several resources on it. Did everyone receive that today? And so we can put it in the packet for next week. So you guys can have some time to review it, but I think that the information in there will be very helpful to you. Yeah, because you're saying all the, the, the links and all the information of the data that they sent us to. Yeah. I did not have a chance to look at that. Um, okay. So then, so then the chief is going to be responding to it according to what you're saying, Miss moisten. No, I'm saying that Paul could have, uh, I'm not saying that the chief is going to be responding to it, but I'm not saying that the chief is going to be responding to it. I'm not saying that the chief spoke on that piece of it. But he's gone. What I'm saying is that the two positions aren't going to be filled. Okay. Mr. Vernon Jones. I believe that according to this morning's daily Hampshire, Gazette, the town manager announced. Definitively that no member of the police department. Had participated. Uh, in events in the capital on this on the sixth. Um, I don't know what the letter was demanding, but. I think he, he got that information and shared it with the town council. Yeah. And I think that's a good idea to, to, you know, again, we're, we're trying to digest lots of different information. And we do receive input. From. Groups like, uh, you know, who are actively working. You know, on, on issues related to the police. Defund 413. In a, in a somewhat connected, but a slightly different way, you know, there's reparations from hammers. And there are other kinds of movements that have a lot to do with. Racial and so racial justice, racial equity. Racism. And social justice. So at some point. They, they are also offering us information. And then looking for cross support from us as a group. I think what these, these groups do for us. Is that they give us some additional perspective. Because they, they have many of them, many, and I'm not, I'm could be including other groups as well, but they've been working longer than we have. We've only been in place about two months. So they have a lot of information. They're actively willing to share it and welcome it. So having an opportunity to look at resources. At each of our meetings, maybe something we want to do. And see how we want to incorporate it and be informed by it. So I would welcome. That Ms. Moisten to. You know, have that information. And I'll have that move to our Wednesday agenda. We can begin discussing. Other comments. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. Well, I guess. Yeah, I guess for me, it's just kind of almost like this one and H on the agenda, like response to emails since this, you know, CSWG who and how often, I guess those are the things that, that's why I brought this up because I'm kind of like, I didn't know was their response from like the chair or the co-chair just to say, thank you. We received that, you know, I don't know if I'm supposed to do that or any of the members are supposed to do that. You know, so that's why it becomes a question mark, you know, so. So really, yeah. So those are the, the things, you know, kind of like, how do we kind of organize some of that? Or, you know, obviously we can all share in responding to folks. But yeah, just wanted some guidance. Well, I, I just in response to, to you, Mr. I'm in the same, same boat because I see this information and a lot of it gets passed on as it should, you know, from Ms. Moisten who received it through the town. And it's addressed to the CSWG members. So I saw some advice myself from Ms. Moisten, Mr. Bachman said, you know, do I engage with, with this, these individuals or groups? And it seems appropriate and also. Necessary to acknowledge the receipt of these resources. And to respond in kind. So I have done so that they had a conversation with a member of our community. Speaking mostly as a, as a, as a citizen, but certainly encouraging them to go through the, you know, through our town site and Ms. Moisten to get information to us. So yes, Ms. Frear, we should be responding and acknowledging the receipt of these disinformation. And in addition to that, you know, my response was not only acknowledging, but encouraging them. Who send information to participate in these weekly meetings. So that they can see what we're doing and see where their information may fall in line with what we're doing or not. And also note that we are, you know, actively paying attention to it as well. And I think we all are as has been demonstrated by a lot of the things we're doing with webinars and reading articles and those kinds of things. So as this goes forward, perhaps maybe Ms. Moisten, if I'm responding to something that's come to the, if I'm responding on behalf of the community group, should that be also something that is, you know, further is articulated to the community group as well to know that it happened to the, to the safety group. And I think that's up to your members and whether or not you guys feel comfortable with that. I can't say that all the time, but if they come directly to me, I usually tell the recipient, thank you. And I forwarded this to the community safety group. But I think that sometimes they're looking for maybe a little bit more and then that, and I, because I don't want to speak for you, I just say, thank you for sending it to me. But if it goes directly to the community safety working group email, I don't, I don't respond to those. So you guys should figure out, just have one person responding to the emails and they can either CC everybody else or you guys just have that faith. Yep. That's what I was told. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I know when I've written to the, I know when I've written to the town council, I had, I think I've always gotten a response from the. Chair or president of the council. And sometimes I get. Comments to, you know, or some kind of email back from one or two or three of the other counselors. And I, I'd be comfortable with that kind of procedure where we, you know, I'd be comfortable with that. But I would say that there's a lot of, you know, I think there's a lot of, a lot of ways to address it or not. And then we may or may not want to. Add in a thank you or individually, but there's no expectation that we have to. This path. So actually I'm glad we're discussing this because I have assumed when we first met that the chair. You know, we'll be representing. You know, our group. like this. So I have no problem, you know, for the chair to be doing that if it's not too much work for you. No, it's not too much work. And it's a matter of fact, I'm glad we're talking about it too, because I have been responding. And I think the next step is to, you know, make that response available to the group. So I'll be happy to see it. It's just it's not it's an extra couple of finger strokes on the keyboard. But it would be important for everybody to know that it happened. And the content of the response. So this path. So I was I was going to say for for transparencies, some of the emails or comments or letters of people that I know personally, I do respond to them. And I make it clear that I am not speaking for the group, you know, is because of our friendship. So I do extend my appreciation just on myself. Yeah. Just to put it out there. That's appropriate. And that's very appropriate. And, and a good thing to do, because I think that's I think all of us have been talking to two folks, they've been reaching out to us, we've been reaching out to them in some ways, because we do know them. And but we are we're citizens of this community as well. So we should have, we should be able to and have these conversations. So, Ms. Rara. Yeah, and I just wanted to agree with like all of you and what Mr. Vernon Jones said, I think it's appropriate. It's good though that we have like a system now. I mean, I like it that obviously, Mr. Wiley as a chair, you're responding to it. And then but if any of us have any kind of connection or whatever that we could feel free to also respond. Absolutely. Okay, that's good. So I'm not breaking any law. No. I'm trying because I'm used to being a boss. So I am trying. You're doing well. We're just going to follow your lead, Mr. Wiley. I don't know about that. I don't like following anybody's lead. That's my problem. If we don't see you on the screen at the next meeting, we know something happened to you. You broke some law. But this is good though. It makes me feel good though. Mr. Wiley that you have been responding to them because obviously we do want that information. We do want to thank them. This is wonderful. We want them to be partners in this. This is a partnership. Yeah, we want that definitely and we shouldn't encourage it. So it's about seven o'clock when I move forward a little bit here and just this next item, I made it after action review. And that's it in quotes. And I don't know if necessarily we do anything with this. Now, maybe this is more information, but it seems like. And let's just let me just isolate for the community of forums we had. I'd like to suggest to the group that we make some time to look at those forums, for example, as an example of our work. And there's some basic questions around an action after action review. Simply put, it's like, what, what do we want to have happen? What actually happened? And what needs to happen next? And I think it just gives us a pause and it doesn't have to be a lengthy, totally involved thing, but a discussion about those forums in terms of procedure in terms of the flow of it, whatever we want to bring to it, but have that conversation so that in the future, as we're going to various parts of our community without reach, if we find that through some of those, the things we did in the forum, that there might be a few things we want to tweak to do better or that we eliminated or some things we just actually did that we nailed it. We want to keep doing that. That we at least have that discussion as a group. So I want to just put that out there and I put a lot of other things on there, you know, compensation, those kinds of things, but I mean, but that's in the next outreach. But the community forums in particular, as to say, how do we do there? You know, what information did we get this kind of going to go forward? So when they hear your thoughts about just that as a process, to see if it had, you know, has any traction, see if you'd like to do that. I hate to go forward thinking that we miss something in what we did in our community forums or not acknowledge what we did well and be willing to repeat it. So let me stop there and just see if there are any comments on that. And the other stuff after the forward slash is a different thing, but anyway, your thoughts about sort of assessing as we go. Ms. Yeah, I just for me, the both of the forums, I think brought, you know, gave us a lot of great information from the community. So I guess for me, what I'd like to capture is I'm sure each of us kind of took different things from those forums. So maybe like if we each had like, obviously the major things, some of the major bullet points for us, you know, individually, maybe we could kind of start a little spreadsheet of those, right? Because some of them might be end up being repetitive, but maybe some will be different. And that could be some of the things that obviously could inform some of our recommendations are, you know, obviously moving forward. So for me, anyway, that's how I was thinking about it, but obviously, you know, I'm sure there's a lot smarter people than me on this committee. So you all share. Share. Well, I'm not one of them. So any other comments? If I may, what I could do, as you're thinking, too, what I'd like, what I could do is, is put those out to you as through Miss Moisten and say, here are some, here's some prompts to think about in terms of the community forums, ask those particular questions and solicit that information from you. It doesn't have to happen by next meeting, but certainly I think if you have some thoughts about it, I'm going to say, here's where to place these thoughts. We can get it to Miss Moisten. At some point we can turn it into a document and it can be in our packet. We can take a look at it. If that helps. I don't think we have to do it right this second. But I think the, you know, reviewing our work as we go is important. Mr. Vernon Jones. Oh, I like that idea. I wasn't sure as I heard you described it described, but it seemed mostly about process. And what I heard what Deborah said was more about the content and what are some of the things that we learned. And maybe we could combine both of those in. And you're soliciting our feedback. We could. And that's why I said. I was not as smart as her. It happened right in that instant. But the process itself has a structure, but certainly what Miss Rivera said is, is important. That could be easily incorporated Mr. Vernon Jones. I think there's a learning experience for us through that. That. That we can capitalize on. So I'd be, I'd be happy to add that in. And send it forward for people to think about. And I can refer to. Put every, you know, get back to me by such and such a date. And then we'll be fine with it. And I, if that's okay, we can go with that. I would like to add that. I would like to add that. And then we'll be fine with it. And I, if that's okay, we can go with that. I will do that. And the next part of that piece was just next outreach initiatives. And. You know, I think some of this is blending into some other. Conversations that we somewhat had already. But certainly that we, I don't want to lose this whole notion of compensation. For example, for people. Who are participating in the surveys. And I think that. I would like to add that. I think that. Tending form, forms, meetings, what, whatever that entailed. And we did get some questions about UMass PD. And the whole notion. I said about community representatives is. Was alluding mostly to a conversation we had about ambassadors. Working with folks. All of this may blend into something we're thinking about with the. That we just talked about earlier. So I don't want to dive into that necessarily, but. Again, keeping those conversations alive and important. And in front of us is important. I don't know if we need to go further with that. If people want to just add some comments and spare. And then Ms. Pat, I guess for me, the important part, right? Because I heard that from the forum was just in terms of how do we. Outreach and get input from folks that are. You know, you know, kind of being impacted on the day to day. And the folks that did not show up. To the big public community forms. I know we've talked about ambassadors. So I guess I need to kind of know more about that. How are we getting that input? I really want to get folks that are on the margins, the folks that. You know, we wouldn't come out because of obviously. Fear of retaliation. Maybe they want to speak in anonymity. Because obviously language barriers. You know, disability barriers in terms of developmental, possibly barriers, whatever, what have you, all these different barriers. That's the part that I'm interested in. Like while we're doing these forums or whatever else we do, I need us to also be getting this input from folks and for folks to understand. And that's what we heard, right? And the forums. For folks to understand that we want to hear from them. And we want to hear from more young people, for more folks that are on the margins and that are being impacted on the day to day. And we want to hear from folks that are on the margins and that are being impacted on the day to day. That don't live like we live, right? Dealing with the police like we are dealing with the police. I want to, I want to get that information. So we include it. And our recommendations are our work. Oh. This path. So this is just my own opinion. Okay. So my hope, my thinking is, I'm hoping that the first phase of the project that we all are great on. And I'm hoping that we will be able to, I'm hoping that we will be able to, I'm hoping that the groups of people in our community will be able to get the contract. So that they will do the ambassador shape and, you know, going into different groups that we have in this community. That's my hope. I have to caution that we don't over extend ourselves. As much as we want to do the outrage. I don't think given the time we have is. I mean, this is such an important project that we're back on. You know, the town should have the resources, you know, for the consultant to do the work. Not only is what I'm thinking. Yeah. I don't see, I don't envision ourselves actually, you know, going to different groups. We can recommend to whoever lands the contracts. As to who the different groups are. For example, I, you know, I might be able to say, hey, I'm going to go to this African, you know, immigrant. I shouldn't even say African, you know, maybe West African or something like that group. As an example, or disability group as an example. Yeah. And I think there, if I may, there's some, some agreement among us, certainly that we, the reason for us asking for additional resources in the terms of time with an extension that we asked for. And also people personnel in terms of human resources. And I think that's what we're going to do. Within this resource procurement process we're going through. Is that we realized we couldn't do all of that. And we had an initial list of, I can't remember how many groups and individuals are on that initial list. That we wanted to outreach to. And that's a genuine desire to outreach. What are the mechanics of that, how it happens. So. And I guess a lot of this, it comes up in. So, I think that's sort of the aftermath, if you will, of that discussion earlier. That's where I think we're going to get our, our support and that's we're going to make things happen. We just have to be really clear about what it is we want to do. And how we want to outreach to people. One more thing, and I will shut up one more thing please. I don't want us to lose. It's a $25 appreciation gift. And my thinking is that for that amount, although it's not much, but if gift is going to be given out, I will strongly suggest that the money spent to businesses owned by by folk community. It's one of the things I would suggest. If we decide to, if everybody's in agreement for $25. I like that resources to go to folks. By, by, by business owners in this town. I think we did have some conversation about that. I don't know if we came to a decision on certainly where it went. But that's certainly part of the conversation this time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Owen, I think you had your hand up. I was also going to bring up the compensation for people. And another thing I wanted to bring up that was part of the town council meeting was reaching. I didn't think about that before I, and I know that's a great privilege to just think everybody has a laptop, but maybe going forward, we can think of ways to include people who don't have access to get on to zoom. I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think we can necessarily do this. Mr. Vernon Jones. I'm particularly interested in getting some feedback from people who are houseless. With the enamorist. I think we, they interact with the police a lot as I understand it. And I think we really need to know more about how those interactions go and what, what kinds of services and needs would be potentially more beneficial to them. And I think that's a good idea. I think we need to get this invitation for bid well. We will get people. Sort of laying out how they would go about doing outreach. So I would suggest we not try to figure out the details of that. You know, going forward until we get, you know, some. Some bids and suggestions. Absolutely. And I didn't intend for this necessarily for us to just be a decision-making conversation as much as shedding out. And I think we need to be aware of that. And I think we need to be aware of that. On the fact that we have to do these things and keep them. Above water where we see them all the time. And I think that that bid process is going to be exactly what he said. Mr. Vernon Jones, a place where we can, we can lock in and get what we want done. Miss Walker. Yeah, I just wanted to also piggyback on what Mr. Vernon Jones said in response to. Mr. Vernon Jones, I think we need to be aware of the things that we want in the invitation to bid. And so we can just add more language and task those things to whoever we can, whoever we choose to be our consulting group. So we can let them know that we want them. Because the first part that we're doing is the community engagement aspect. That's the one we decided to work on first. So if we task all of these things to the consultant group, then we don't necessarily have to spend that much time on it, but we can still get our hands on that information. Thank you. Thank you. All the comments before we move forward. So this is great. So that item D was actually something I put in place and it, it may be a move point at this juncture because. It was trying to identify what has to be done. By whom. And, and when. Kind of thing. And the whole notion of the chart was just to put some people. To a particular task or to a particular in this case, we put them up community folks. But then the off column could be anything. You know, for example. The procurement process. You know, who's leading that. Who else is working on it. And, you know, what are the next steps basically. So I think being able to articulate what we're doing. Individually and as a group. I think that might be useful for us. I'm not sure if this is the exact tool to use certainly. But especially since we're moving forward with the bid process. But it's going to be incumbent to show some timelines. For us between in the next four to four and a half months. So that we see where we're going. And we know who's taking responsibility for, for what tasks. What reports. What interactions, et cetera. So that was the, the intent of that when I actually had it a while ago. But want to hear some comments about how you feel about setting up timelines for us that we can articulate, not only to ourselves, but our community. And certainly don't let the, that form throw you off. It's more of an. It's more of a conceptualizing of a process rather than an actual. Form itself. Yeah. I mean, I think it was just, I think that this is good. And I mean, obviously it's something that we need to do just to kind of keep ourselves on task. Even though, you know, I did, I do hear Ms. Pat and others in terms of like, obviously, you know, we don't want to take on too, too much in terms of, because of our capacity, right. In terms of we're meeting, you know, for weeks a week. And then we're also meeting. We're also meeting with subcommittees, you know, not subcommittees, but like not meeting, but like doing subcommittee work, right? Through email and through miss Moist and and everything. So we're all kind of, you know, busily working throughout the week and then meeting once a week. So we're doing a lot of work. But I guess my question with this would just be, you know, how do you want to do this? Cause obviously, you know, we, I'm sure could take a couple of these and be the main contacts for them. Because I'm sure we're already connected with some of these kind of organizations. So we could do that. And then what do you want us to do? Like get information from them. I guess, you know, I just a little bit more information in terms of what would we need to do? Like do we want to answer the survey questions? Is that what we're asking for? I guess, you know, for each group to answer the survey questions. I guess that's the guidance that I would need. Yeah. I don't really know. And I think I'm just trying to, you know, for example, when we were, when I was listening to town council. On Monday. And also looking at some of the work that the police department does, if you look in that chart, it talks about, you know, members of different sectors of the town. And I just think in terms of our, you know, if the police department, for example, is interacting. And they have a group of that they're interacting with north sector in some way, but some officer or officers. That'd be important to know, but it also would be important to know from that sector how they're feeling about, you know, what's going on in terms of public safety. It'd be important for them to be able to articulate that. Maybe, maybe some of those sectors don't have. Free and easy access. I think it's important to, to, to laptops and to, you know, online meetings and the like. So that's where that was coming from. And I think it's rare or what. I don't want to sort of undercut the efforts of the, the procurement process because I think this could be embedded in that in some way. Certainly. But I want us to be. Us to be clear. I think it's important to be aware of who's doing what and when. So when we put, we put something out like this evening, for example, we have several members working on, on this process by Tuesday. Well, that could be one of those things. Who's working on it. You know, when are they going to have a report. We'll kind of follow up those kinds of not to make extra work, but just to be really quick. So in terms of that, I just, you know, again, like I said, that's, that's just, you know, follow through. How do we want to do it? How do we want to record it? How do we want to stay ahead of it? So. If you would like. And if it's helpful in answer to your questions for her and, and maybe to help others is for me to go back. I think a little bit more about this in light of our discussion tonight with the procurement process. And see if I could reframe that in some way that, that fits our current discussion tonight because this doesn't actually fit it. You know, in the way we talked about it tonight, but I could, I see some need for, certainly for timelines and the like. So be happy to pass on some more information for thought. So. Yes. Did you ever hear that. No, it was just a thumbs up. Oh, I think it froze. So I couldn't. I was just saying a thumbs up. Thank you. Okay. So let's move on then, and I'll put some notes together for the, for the group on that. The shared and collected experiences and resources. I'm not sure who have the entry point for that one. But I don't know if that's related actually to. What we spoke about earlier. I think it's kind of how. How do we collect the information and then what do we do with it and how do we process it? Yeah, I think that's a question to you, Miss moison. When people suggest resources for us, or they, you know, they write letters or do, do we have something that, and I'm putting this in air quotes, a resource bank. For us as a group. So I am slowly filtering them in onto the web. Okay. Under the resources tab and that's what I. So that's ours to sign that for. But I honestly, I haven't been able to do that recently. Mr. If we're going to put things on the resource tab that people. Suggest to us. I think it would be important to have a statement there that these are not necessarily resources. We are recommending. These are resources that. Have been identified for our use. Absolutely. Or you guys can decide which resources you would like to have put on the bank. I mean, it's really at your disposal anyway that you would like to do it. What you think would be helpful for the community to know. But I do agree with. Not that it matters with Mr. Vernon Jones's statement. Russ. Russ is fine by the way. I'm so used to calling you Russ and now I'm calling everybody by their last name. So I'm going to keep doing it. Let me turn me. That's me. So I, let me just, I, I, I like what you're offering. Russ. I like what you're offering because I think. I don't, for me. I don't want folks to think. That if they send something. That that actually is going to be part of. Our use in making recommendations necessarily. It could be. It will be real could be. But it depends on. Where we're going. With this. The resources for me. I think. I don't, for me, I don't want folks to think. That if they send something. That that actually is going to be part of. Our use in making recommendations necessarily. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. Because. The resources for me are. Not just what, what individuals and groups send in. But we have a lot of internal resources that we've generated. We participated in webinars. And we have information and knowledge game from that. We've gone to workshops. We're reading articles and those kinds of things. So as we're creating our own library of. Of work. Those are, those are resources that we have. That we have. So. I like your comment. And I would continue to have people encourage people to. Send them to us. If they feel it'd be useful knowing what our. Our process is all about and knowing what our, our mission is. If they think it might be useful. Other folks. Miss Bowman has her, her hand up. Okay. I can't see Miss Bowman on the screen. Hi. So the other, the question I had in relation to. The. The resources that we're getting from people. Are we. Checking those resources for validity or we just put, are you, like, are they just being posted? Yeah. So I collect them in like, I have multiple community safety working group folders and email, and my email. Those get filtered there, but I send them to you. So. I. Haven't posted that many. So there's only the few that we already know that are. So I guess the next question would be, what do you guys want me to put as a resource and not. I'm sorry. Everything is subject to the open meeting law, but that doesn't mean we necessarily have to post it. To the public records law. Sorry. They need card information. So. We're paying cash. Tell us to Sheena. Oh, it's four. Well, me and to Sheena. We're sorry. I'm multi-tasking here guys. Sorry. All right. Thank you. I'll see you in a little bit. Yeah. Bye. Okay. So. Everything is subject to the public records law. Right. And, but that doesn't mean we have to post everything that sent to us. So you guys can actually. Tell me if you want this one and not that one. Or I don't put any of them on unless. Directed or. I think, you know, what we're, what we're doing is fine. I really don't think we're getting. Tons and tons of stuff. I think we're going to be able to do that. Certainly. And I think as my own opinion, if we're reading these, these items that come through, we, you know, we look at them, we take a look at them. I'm. I'm not, not sure about going out to validate it. Necessarily, but certainly. Reading it and thanking people for it. And going forward. I think if at some point, we're going to be able to do that, I think we're going to be able to do that. I think we're going to be able to do that. That had data in it, for example, or that was going to be influencing our work. And we certainly have to. We'd have to bet that information to be sure it was. Was important. Ms. Pat. So I hear what Mr. Ross. Comments. And your comment. The way I'm feeling is that. I hope we will not be in a position where policing. I think that. The resources that people are submitting to us. I think that risk. All the resources that we're getting should be posted, but we could identify the ones that. Our group. Maybe it like having like. Two different paths. I don't know if that's possible for you, Ms. But I am not comfortable like saying we don't endorse this. But we can just let it out for people to decide what they want to believe. So we have to be careful not to discourage people, not to send us stuff. It's where I'm coming from. But we can definitely. I hear Mr. Ross, we can definitely say. You know, this came from the community. This is what our group, you know, I agree to work or I don't know, but I think everything should be up there. Yeah. So, you know, for instance, the. The email that was sent from. I'm so sorry. I don't remember who it was. Ms. Bridget. Yes. Yeah. Ms. Heinz like I wouldn't necessarily put that on the, on the, but perhaps the one that came from Defund 413. That has listed all of their different resources or what came from the League of Women Voters, those kinds of items could. I would post. And that would be something we would acknowledge. As we said earlier, thank the person or group for sending it in. And, you know, I would share the, you know, in a CC the response with. We go from there. I just want to say that Tashina had to log off. So I just. Left. Yeah. Wanted to make that announcement. So Mr. Ross, did I understand your comment? Or maybe I misunderstood that. Are you saying not to post it? I'm suggesting we post everything. Oh, good. Put up some statement that says we aren't necessarily endorsing these. Oh, maybe the word endorsing is what I'm trying to. I was thinking, I was thinking a statement. These, these are. The resources that have been identified by the community for our interest. And we make no recommendation or something at this point. I don't know about recommendation. Okay. If you want to send me the direct language, then. Good idea. Yeah, I think we can just say something like this is a list of resources we have compiled from the community. And very simple. And not say anything about how we feel about them. And just. Yeah. There's, there's your language. Thank you. See. The youngest. Who is the youngest? I am wisdom. Thank you. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Let's, let's move on. Another important piece here. Alternative services for the APD. With the. Three bullet points under there to discuss Mr. Well, you know, part of our charge is to decide whether or not to recommend alternative services. Or alternative ways of community meeting. Some of the needs that the police are currently meeting. I've been. Assuming that that certainly is something that I want to recommend and have sort of a sense that we're heading that way. But I didn't. I didn't want us to. Sort of be. Have very different assumptions. And I was like, I'm not looking for a decision at this point, but if a bunch of you are thinking, Oh no, we're not. We're not going to go with alternative services. We're just going to explore them and then recommend everything, stay with the police. Maybe we ought to know that now. But if we have some sort of general sense that, yes, we think we are going to recommend. Alternative community services. I think that would be, that would be good to know and would kind of inform how we go about the work. You put that up again, Miss Moreston. Yeah, I'm sorry. As Miss Moreston is putting this up, I think, you know, what Mr. Vernon Jones is bringing forward is an important process piece too, because sometimes we can check in with each other. You know, certainly not looking forward to a decision. But certainly there could be some information shared to give the group sentiment, certainly around certain topics. And, you know, I would, you know, you know, not recommend this or that we debate the right or wrong of it, but certainly allow people to give their sense of what they're thinking about in terms of that, you know, as we're moving forward, we are going to be making lots of recommendations. And I'm sure all of us because we're human probably have some preliminary recommendations in mind already, you know, based on what we did, but we're not there yet as a working group. So, you know, Mr. Vernon knows by May, you know, just I would welcome folks, you know, responding to the question that Mr. Vernon Jones is posing to hear your take in this particular moment. Regardless of alternative services, Ms. Owen. I did start investigating alternative services and honestly, I think I'm very interested in doing that in terms of the reformer recommendations that we make, but I can only speak to myself. I did start looking into peer led organizations and resources for things like homelessness and rehabilitation, but trying to translate that into this work and I think the biggest thing would be mental health services and maybe some of the areas that the APD might not be entirely trained to give that budget to mental health professionals. Other comments. Thank you, Ms. Miss Owen. Can you all hear me? Yes. I'm having internet issues. It's just like, if I stay on too long, it starts. Getting weird, so. Okay. But anyway, I'm sorry I couldn't see your, your faces like you had your hand up. I apologize. I couldn't see you on screen. So go right ahead. This is said that I'm in agreement that, you know, I've been thinking about as alternative, you know, services. Especially in the area of like, you know, like education youth. Can you all hear me? Yes. Yeah, like, you know, like police in the, in the schools, you know, you, you know, kind of like how they impact youth and obviously mental health, houselessness. So I'm definitely thinking of that. Obviously I'm still learning a lot and looking at all the different research and data out there. So I'm not ready at this point to make any definitive decision, but yeah, I'm on that path. This path. I have a lot on my bucket list that I'm not going to bore you guys tonight. They are having a cultural center programs that will empower youth. That's like Ms. Farada said. Services that will. Encourage workforce development. Let's face it, some people who get into trouble sometimes, you know, could be issue of employment. It could be poverty issue. I like that address. The business community. I was looking at the. Some of the document that we're sent. And I was looking at the businesses that the town. A contract way. I couldn't. Recognize any. Back fork. Business. But I have to look again. And that is distressing to me. So I'm looking at economic development for. BIPOC community. In this town. Any. Ms. Ms. Pat, I'm glad that you brought that up at the council meetings. I want to, I believe it was one of the council members. Suggested us doing outreach through BIPOC owned businesses and Amherst. But I'm not really, I couldn't find online like any website or link up through the town site that really separates. Businesses owned by BIPOC folks. So it was really tough for me. And I guess I'm carry. I would. I mean, Mr. Park woman's not here, but I'm interested to know what the town of Amherst does for black owned businesses. Not much. I looked at the list. I mean, that's my, one of my lens, my perspective when we're doing this work. Really into it's all about, you know, some of it is about economics. You know, I mean, I can help with the list of BIPOC, not, not all, but I can help with that list a little bit. Because I, especially with black owned businesses, I mean, you know, close contact. Convocation with some of the black owned businesses. In town. Thank you. So, Mr. Cage. Miss Walker. Any comments on this? I wanted to make sure everyone has an opportunity to respond to Mr. Mr. Vernon Jones. Mr. Cage. Um, yeah, obviously. Um, I want to say that I'm definitely going the direction of. Um, a different, a different way of policing Amherst. Um, I think that's like, if we didn't try to change how we were doing things in Amherst, I don't think this, this working group would really be like making a, make a difference if we weren't going to change that. And, um, I don't want to. Like make anything sandstone right now, but I'm definitely in the direction of different ways you can handle policing and Amherst. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Walker. Um, I also agree that, um, I think I'm definitely leaning towards thinking about what different recommendations we can make. Um, I haven't specifically started looking at anything yet, but definitely know that I'd be looking in the direction of things for like youth services or youth engagement in the town. Um, and then more preventative measures, because I think we use policing right now as like a response to things and we need to look more at like services for homelessness, prevention and businesses and, and just stuff like that, um, as opposed to just reforming the police, current police services. Mm hmm. Miss Owen. One last thing on my end, I think, um, as we move towards investigating different alternatives, um, we should research into ways that we can support BIPOC families. I think that's a huge issue. I think DCF definitely polices, um, BIPOC families. And there's a lack of support for them in this community. Thank you, Miss Owen. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to note that for me, having alternative service providers is not just the police not being trained or not being specialists. Some of it is their son, no matter how skillful they were and, uh, certainly trained, I still wouldn't want somebody in a uniform and a gun showing up to provide that service for, for a lot of folks. Uh, so it's not just about how the police currently, you know, are, are not trained or do or not, or don't do it well. It's about what's appropriate to have a, uh, an armed officer of the town as opposed to, um, somebody who's more, um, oriented toward, uh, you know, strictly service. Um, Miss Walker, you had your hand up again. Um, no, I just wanted to strongly emphasize what Miss Ellen said. I thought she brought up a really good point. Um, and that families would be a very important place to start. Well, but they just add to what everyone else is saying. Um, when, when I, when I heard the phrase alternative services, it makes me think about, um, what kind of available possibilities might we have to address some of the very serious needs for safety, uh, across the board, uh, starting with the police department in, um, in this community. So, you know, we're looking at other possibilities rather than the current possibilities that we have, um, to, to further extend the work of safety, um, especially around issues with BIPOC families, et cetera, in our community. So yeah, alternative, certainly, um, thinking about it and how we could best impact the, uh, you know, the community in a positive way. I mean, I, yeah, I mean, I look at employment from employment. I don't say too many, you know, BIPOC people, um, with the huge budget we have in our mess, it's not reaching BIPOC community. So that resources needs to be, needs to be distributed evenly. Right now it's not. Miss Morrison, did you have a hand up? I just wanted to chime in and say that I agree, but we also have a new core equity team that I'm, uh, a co-chair of that is dealing with that exact issue with the human resources department, which I'm also part of. Okay. Just to FY it. And as well as different ways to make the town buildings and facilities more inclusive and welcoming. Good. Did you guys post your meetings? Um, no, and we're, we've just really started to begin. And so I, um, I think one of the things that we're working on is, is getting everyone trained for just some simple anti-racist work. Um, starting from the top down. So, okay. So we're working there. Yeah. So this is a town employee subgroup. Is that what it is? It's a town employee group. Gotcha. Okay. Got you. Okay. So I'd like to circle back and maybe, maybe close Mr. Vernon Jones. Are we getting, are you getting the. Kind of sentiment feedback or sort of. Absolutely. That's the kind of straw. It's kind of where I assumed we were, but it seemed good to be. We, something we didn't have to keep dancing around. Um, and it's some point pretty soon. It seemed like we ought to be. Answering those other two questions about. What's the information we need to. Sort of back up the fact that we're making this recommendation. And then what's the information we need to figure out how we would provide. If we're going to take some things away from the police, how we would provide those. And I hope they, because that's all part of phase one. I hope we don't wait too long on sort of identifying some of those. I'm not suggesting we have that discussion tonight, but. There might be some things you'd want us to. Submit in writing over time. Certainly. And I'm. You know, I'm very happy that you brought it up. I think. You know, It's nice not to go too far forward without making, without sort of filling in the gaps of our own thinking along the way. And assuming the wrong thing all the way down the road. But I think this is very useful and very helpful. Thank you for bringing it up. So let's see. His own. And I went to a town council meeting. I was there last night. I guess what I wanted to say about that was. I. Excuse me, Paul. I just noticed the Deborah has her hand up. Oh no, that, that was just a leftover. I can't get it out. I shouldn't be able to click on it. It should be able to take it down. Right. Yeah. That was frozen. A long time ago. I know, right. Sorry. Your arm gets tired. When you hold it up too long. Oh my God. Thanks. Sorry. Yeah, we, we attended and presented at the, the meeting on Monday. And I guess just I wanted to say I was happy to be able to participate with Ms. Oh, and representing the CSW gene and making our presentation. And just, just to say, I'm. Glad we were heard. And. That glad to hear that there was going to be some follow up. By the town council. In terms of what to be. That together. At the, at the town, the town meeting. So just wanted to acknowledge that. And. Glad we had the opportunity to express our views. In a very public way. His own. Comments, please. I agree. I was happy to be there. I think going forward, I'm not sure with it. If it's within the reach of our group, but it opened my eyes to how little diversity there is on the town council. And I hope it's an. For me, it's a huge moment for me to realize like, okay, I need to be more involved. In voting and all of that. So. Part of one of the things. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. So part of one of the things I do as a community participation officer is trying to engage. Groups that we, or people that we don't usually hear from. Right. So that they can be aware of these things. And, you know, a lot of folks don't necessarily vote in the local elections. And so to get them more involved. And so that they are aware that there's not a reflection of. What is outside when you walk around. So I appreciate that comment and. That if anybody has any ideas that would be great for me as a community participation officer to share those with me. No, it was definitely a really eye-opening experience. And I definitely look forward to trying to be more involved. And to stand behind people. More like me and people who don't usually get a seat at the table to have one. I think part of dismantling white supremacy is. For white people in power to take a step back when that representation already exists for them there. But maybe not for others. Ms. Walker. I just wanted to thank you guys. I think, Miss Owen and Mr. Wiley, I think you guys did an amazing job. I did attend the town council meeting and I watched all thing. And I just wanted to thank you guys for representing us very well. And you're welcome. And let me just say, and be very candid about this. Your work and others. Helping us frame our thinking around the letter. And cutting the input from the group. And are clearly hearing the group. Well, Ms. Walker was enabled us to present in the way we did. And I just want to publicly thank you for your input and others who else was working on that. Besides me. But anyway, that. Mr. Cage, you know, I, I, this, this is the kind of work we need to do. So I want to make sure I acknowledge that publicly. And thank you for your work. And helping us make a very important statement. Ms. Pat. So I want to agree with what miss Walker said. I really think both of you and all the people that worked on the project. I attended the. The, the council meeting on Monday and I was very pleased of how both of you presented and handle yourself. And this shows your leadership. And I'm very grateful that I'm in a group that, you know, we're working as a team. And I know this subject wasn't easy for any of us, but we were able to pull it through. And I, you know, I'm really, really pleased. Thank you. Well, strong work on everybody's part. Thanks again. I think that Ms. Ferrara has her hand up. And you can call me Deborah. I don't have an issue with it. So I guess one of the things I was not, I was not the meeting. So I guess I did want to get like a little bit of a, just a quick little brief summary in terms of, because you all said it was well received. What did that mean? Because I know obviously we were sending a very strong message. To a, you know, the town council. And the specific town council member and stuff. So I just wanted to kind of get a little bit of a sense of that. And then for me, I mean, I do have to say, I mean, I saw the message that was read to them, but I had seen a other iteration of it, which was shorter and kind of like more to the point. So I guess I kind of like liked the other one better, which was kind of just focused, you know, kind of, you know, I had included one thing about white supremacy history of this country. But that wasn't in the final cut. So, you know, I just wanted to kind of get a sense of, you know, why did we feel we had to go into more explanation of everything. Well, if I may start first of all, and I, and I did apologize to the group because sometimes when you guys were to do this work for myself, I work parallel with what's going on. So what you saw earlier was actually something I was writing on my own to give some feedback to, you know, Miss Walker and others who were working to lead that and actually sent it out in a way that preempted the person who was leading it. So when I, you know, when I saw this second mess, I said, no, that's what we actually needed, I thought. And I think there was a depth of material in the second letter. Well, the first one was just my own thinking around it. But the second one, which ultimately used, I think it was a very rich context for our experiences, more so than the first one. And I think it had a depth to it that, that was able to resonate with the town council. And I, so that's where we went and I, in terms of what you're asking how it was received and, you know, Miss Allen, you know, you know, please chime in, there was the letter was welcomed and expected by the chair. And we brought it forward. And the response was very quick. And the follow-up is imminent. So I think we, we came, we went into it expecting to be heard. And now they continue to follow up. So I, you know, I think it was just well, well done all the way around in terms of them and us. So Miss Allen, I don't know if you want to add to that. I thought it was well received to a certain extent. I did notice like while we are going through our presentation and everything that there was a guy who had like muted his, who is on the council who had like muted his screen, but answered a phone call. I'm like, well, okay. Well, I'm not the one who had that. I, I'm the one who had that. But honestly, like I'm one of those people who when I'm presenting something or when I'm really passionate about something, and you all probably know this by now, I like start to turn red. And when I looked at the audience and I saw him answering a phone call on mute, like, I was like, wow, okay. I thought that the other people that were there were respectful of it and welcomed it though. And I'm glad that we had a chance to read the letter, but I did notice that person answer their phone, kind of all clicked because she had mentioned the budget approval at a council meeting including somebody putting foot cream on and answering a phone call as well and it just makes this work kind of feel like it's going on the back burner. Well I think things like that unfortunately do happen and you know they do send messages of different types to folks and you know my only encouragement would be to continue to to press through these things and comment on them as you are and continue to press forward. There are going to be a lot of behaviors and a lot of responses that are going to totally flip people at times and others that aren't and I think as long as we feel we're coming from a strong point, valid point, a point that is justified then I think the message ultimately overrides and I think that's what was heard by the chair. I think the chair understood that we had to make this this message so that's where I thought it was strong but I noticed that that too as well and anyway Miss Pat. So are we going to be apologizing to BIPOC communities? Is that correct? You said we would. Okay so was they're doing that correct? Yes I think we should. Yes does someone want to volunteer to start a draft response to the statement on that Miss Walker? Yeah so I just wanted to I mean I would volunteer to start a draft if need be but I just wanted to add that I hope that you guys didn't mind that I added that in there because there wasn't really time to confer with the group. We didn't have another meeting before that this was presented to the town council but I felt like that was our obligation that if we would be asking them to issue an apology that we should also apologize for the things that we that we could have done better. Personally I didn't have any issue with that I think it's the right thing to do. I don't know I can't speak for other people. I don't have any any issue with in fact I think just acknowledging all around that this process and again this is you know when I get back to talking about things about after action reviews like here's you know after this you know what do we learn from this? That may be a learning right there and I think for us to be able to articulate that to our community that we're not just static and running through meetings but that we're a learning community as well that that's working on behalf of the community then I think we're in good shape. I hope something like this energizes us in a way that keeps us on track and moves us forward so that's my thought. Anyone else? Ms. Moisten? I just wanted to say Ms. Ferreira um the the meeting is online on the council's page if you wanted to to to review it you can kind of just fast forward it until it gets to the part of the community safety working group if you would like to thank you or I can send you the link because it sometimes it's a little difficult so thank you all again if you can send me the link that'll be great yeah and they're meeting tonight so after this you can join them see what's up anyway thank you both though for for for going and representing us though appreciate that. Ms. Owen and Ms. Walker you both officially run for election come on run for election you should we need diversity come on that was a resounding a response to your challenge. They're laughing it's true they're laughing oh they're thinking did I put you guys on on the spot they're thinking let's move on please uh so thank you all again for supporting our work thank you Ms. Owen for joining me on that and um it's great to have me share that that long letter I'm glad you said that too you said it to maybe I can read the half of it that was so good thank you. That's good. Anyway um response to email sent to the working group I think we discussed that already yeah so we're good there that's fine and then timing of agenda items. Yep someone submitted that in um just to see if possibly to ensure that the meetings get over a little more timely I know it's kind of hard because we only meet once a week but um some of the other committees have a timed frame around their different agenda items that they keep to so that the meeting um flows properly and stays within the time frame or closer to the time frame okay all right that would be great because we our conversations do extend themselves sometimes and not and because I think they're important so but I think there's a fine balance between going too long and um making sure everybody is heard kind of thing any comments about that I mean we could try to at that you know our next meeting try to you know make sure we stay on that two hour target and if need be I'd be happy to be a little more directive in terms of how to manage the time I also think that would be helpful if I make Mr. Verne Jones I'm sorry to be just if we have some way of uh feeding these agenda items so that we're not inundated with a number of different things that that take us all over the board but if there's a way to organize the agenda items into categories even so that you know anyway Mr. Verne Jones well I was just trying to understand was the suggestion here that we ask the chair to plan a time budget specifying a number of minutes for each item or was that not what was proposed Ms. Walker um I did not propose this item so I just wanted to make that clear but my interpretation or of how this could be useful um because I mean I am happy to stay if we go over I understand this is important work and we don't have a lot of time to meet so I'm happy to make that accommodation um but I do have children who are waiting for me to get off my meeting every night so when we do it would be also helpful for us to end at 7 30 so I could um attend to their routine so if we could have like a general we would hope that this that each agenda point would take this much time and then try to stick to that as best as possible but keeping in mind that fluctuation is necessary um but like say we need you know 20 minutes for this agenda point and if it takes 30 that's okay but if it takes if we're pushing 30 we should acknowledge that we should wrap it up at that point thank you other comments well I'd be you know I'm with you Ms. Walker I I don't have little children waiting for me um at 7 30 um but uh that's typically my dinner time on these meeting nights uh not to personalize it in that way but I I do see that there might be some ways to better manage those meetings and I I think we have we have some items that are informational for example that we're just sharing information we have some items that are for discussion and we you know similar to what Mr. Vernon Jones presented this evening and there's some items that maybe we need a decision so you know that's one way to think about putting them lumping them together and say these are discussion items either informational these are and you know maybe the discussion things last a little bit longer than the informational or some of the things that we know are are we're going to be voting on you would think about that early and you know work toward uh a vote or an approval so that's that's just one way to think about it I don't know if other people have comments miss Pat one suggestion is maybe for us for the chair to think about rearranging the agenda items like um group members report maybe it could be the last one and then we get the new agendas discussed first okay we could try that miss moison yes yeah so typically I think it's you just kind of try to to put a time so you know public comment you have to give so much time to in theory that somebody from the that there's so many people from the public so I know like the human rights commission designates 15 minutes but we rarely ever use that but what it does is so that it just makes you more mindful of like we say hypothetically we'll talk 15 minutes about a you know item a under discussions but by the time that you're done that everything fits within that hour and a half time frame so or that you have some some wiggle room if you extend outside of that hour and a half time frame and one other thing that would help too and I'd be happy to work on this and you know share it with folks but and and I'm one of the biggest culprits let me be straight about that I will think about an agenda item about 37 seconds before miss moison has to post it and then it's you know and I miss them sometimes so uh and again I don't want to be you know the only one putting agenda items in there so we can get those in early enough and they're all sitting there then it's easier to frame some time around these things and understand what's going to take longer and what might take a little shorter bit of time and then we can negotiate our way through a meeting better that way so just a thought and an encouragement by the way so anything else before we go to upcoming events mr vernon jones i don't know is this unexpected items uh upcoming events is there is there a time for unplanned items after that i'm not looking at the agenda okay i'll wait okay mine's very brief any upcoming events if there are any my name my name is question for the town miss moisten yes um i'm assuming the town is planning a black history month is it miss moison yes i am okay um i want i'm wondering if you've done some outreach to the community if there is if there are any other groups planning a black history month that way that could be coordination just my suggestion yeah um so the hrc kind of has designed some of it and so i know we're working with some of the kids from poku so we've coordinated with them and i've been in touch with mr shabazz mr dr shabazz but i haven't necessarily reached out to anybody else because in the past i haven't really known about other groups that were doing a celebration for for black history month um last year i tried to connect with people for the lunar new year but that didn't work out um i do try to connect with the community for kwanzaa it's particularly if i know that the community itself has its own already established group of or people that promote that so like juneteenth there was already a juneteenth committee so i try to work with them there was already a committee that does the reading of frederick deglas's um uh speech so i try to work with them to help promote those so that i'm not taking from anybody necessarily um so i haven't sent out my email because i keep trying to but i haven't sent out the email yet and to to capture for black history month because this year um black history month theme is the black family which is representation identity and diversity so what i would like to do is have um several community members submit photos of their family folks who identify themselves as black households and so turn that into some type of film so that we can promote it at an event um the human rights commission will also be uh i we will also be posting a local and a worldwide black heroine each day through the month of february we won't have a public flag raising this year but i will film when they raise the flag they still will raise the flag on the first and i will film it and we will show it during the black history month event which i think will be on the 13th because i'm told sixth is bob marley's birthday and they are having a separate event for bob marley's oh nice uh at the mill district so i don't again i you know i don't want to step on anybody's toes so i try to be conscious of those things i do i am aware and i'm not speaking for the group but am i aware that the report reparation for amist amist is uh working on something about black history month yeah yep and you know sometimes i i will reach out to them with that being said but also sometimes i'm like the more people that are hosting these events around different cultural uh celebrations the better the more the community listens or the more the community sees it um so you know i will reach out to them again so the the ninth we're still having the lunar new year celebration um so that i'm very excited about that that's the first year that we've had a proclamation for the lunar new year and we'll be hosting an event and this will be the second year for black history month celebration so yeah i just have to add one more thing under the other items and that is have you guys decided what you would like for the ninth person for the committee like if there's a special skill set or or for the ninth member of the we haven't decided that yet yeah no can we send it to you can we email you suggestions yep and then we can talk about them at the next meeting yeah let's do that then thank you um miss moison for that work on black history month thanks for the question thank you and um we already established our next meeting date including uh a subcommittee meeting on tuesday so that's already set for next wednesday and tuesday respectively whole group meeting uh subcommittee meeting other topics mr verner jones very briefly i realized that we've been talking about the first phase as being about alternative community services but the first phase is also the things with budget implications um and if in fact we want our police department to have more anti-racist implicit bias training uh we probably need to make a recommendation about that pri as part of phase one and not wait to phase two because it has budget implications now there's a whole issue in the defund community about not increasing the budget even for training but if we want training it seems like we ought to be talking about that before our first report because of its budget implications um with the with the group welcome putting that that discussion on the next uh next meeting on wednesday the timing of that i i is is extremely important by the way his walker and then mr verner yes i'm okay with adding that to the agenda i think that's very important but i am wondering though if that's going to affect the work that we're doing for the isp is anthony still on i don't know i don't know if he is or not we're talking about oh he is oh he is are we talking about the next budget we're talking about the next budget we're not talking about the current budget right but i um i guess what i mean is that if those were things that we needed to address with our first report and we had decided that we were going to split the invitation to do then that might be something that we would need to address in the first um isp be rather than the second which means russ pat and i would need to be talking about that within the next couple of days before our next meeting yeah miss forever and then miss pat well i guess i'm i'm confused a little bit about that i guess i want to hear more from mr verner jones about it because i mean i i think um us going down the road of recommending alternative services that's all going to be impacting the budget you know in terms of the police and stuff like that so i mean me at this point i'm not sure yet what i want to do in terms of increasing you know in terms of budget for training or whatever i mean that's still all up in the air that's all going to be what when we're talking about alternative services and things that we're going to be doing around the pool that's all that's all going to impact budget their budget miss pat you had your hand up and then i see mr delaney's back somewhere there miss pat and then i'd like to miss moison if you could welcome mr delaney back in after miss pat i mean i i i hear what mr ross is saying that the way i'm looking at alternative services i'm not thinking about you know training for the police it's not you know where i'm looking at what i'm thinking about alternative services so i see that as the second phase um the b the b&d project is the way i look at it okay um mr leigh are you there i see him i see him on the screen there mr mr bernie jones let me go to you real quick um i'd always thought of the training thing as part of the second phase um but if we don't get it into the budget proposals during the first phase it will be another full year before uh any recommendation we have can have any impact i'm not sure that we need consultant help with that i think it's but but maybe our subcommittee can talk about that okay let's let the subcommittee uh flesh it maybe i'm i'm thinking differently i mean personnel training budget it's personnel training budget i would think i don't know maybe the subcommittee here i also agree with miss pat though i i don't i mean my idea was not to look at the budget in terms of police training especially when talking about alternative services but i'm still just saying that in terms of if that's the information we need to find out and quicker because of a deadline for it to be able to inform the budget for next year before we miss that deadline then that should be something we look at for the first isp mr rara i just want to say like i think the subcommittee should just kind of look at that flesh that out a little bit more and then you know get back this because it's eight almost eight twenty yeah i'm sorry my brain is down to five minus five already so basically i guess what i'm coming from is that uh some of the webinar that i you know listen to this week one of the things they're saying is that police training doesn't improve racial disparity not amount of police training they're suggesting not to focus too much on that that it has not shown any improvement the same thing as diversity uh having more of bifolk police officers were not necessarily it's not changing anything it's been tried so that's that's where i'm coming from well let's let's move this to to the uh this the subcommittee and then bring it forward again on wednesday um and have a fuller uh conversation about it um okay okay let me let's i'll just leave it like that i think at this point um any other hands there i can't see any others eight twenty eight twenty and it's time to get a motion to adjourn so move 20 thank you mr run and john second bed okay all in favor everybody kiss those kids miss walker good night everyone good night good night homework done yeah deris go do your homework thank you man take care